The last infirmity of evil. Ay, Thou winged and cloud-cleaving minister, [An eagle passes. Whose happy flight is highest into heaven, How beautiful is all this visible world! How glorious in its action and itself; But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we, To sink or soar, with our mix'd essence make A conflict of its elements, and breathe The breath of degradation and of pride, Contending with low wants and lofty will Till our mortality predominates, And men are what they name not to themselves, And trust not to each other. Hark! the note, [The Shepherd's pipe in the distance is heard. The natural music of the mountain reed For here the patriarchal days are not A pastoral fable-pipes in the liberal air, Mix'd with the sweet bells of the sauntering herd; My soul would drink those echoes.-Oh, that I were The viewless spirit of a lovely sound, A living voice, a breathing harmony, Enter from below a CHAMOIS HUNTER. CHAMOIS HUNTER. Even so This way the chamois leapt her nimble feet Have baffled me; my gains to-day will scarce Proud as a free-born peasant's, at this distance.- MAN. (not perceiving the other.) To be thusGrey-hair'd with anguish, like these blasted pines, Wrecks of a single winter, barkless, branchless, A blighted trunk upon a cursed root, Which but supplies a feeling to decay— And to be thus, eternally but thus, Having been otherwise! Now furrow'd o'er With wrinkles, plough'd by moments, not by years; And hours-all tortured into ages-hours Which I outlive!-Ye toppling crags of ice! Crash with a frequent conflict; but ye pass, And only fall on things which still would live C. HUN. The mists begin to rise from up the valley; I'll warn him to descend, or he may chance To lose at once his way and life together. MAN. The mists boil up around the glaciers ; clouds Rise curling fast beneath me, white and sulphury, Like foam from the roused ocean of deep Hell, Whose every wave breaks on a living shore, Heaped with the damn'd like pebbles.-I am giddy. C. HUN. I must approach him cautiously; if near, A sudden step will startle him, and he Seems tottering already. ΜΑΝ. Mountains have fallen, Leaving a gap in the clouds, and with the shock The ripe green valleys with destruction's splinters; Their fountains find another channel-thus, C. HUN. Friend! have a care, Your next step may be fatal !-for the love Of him who made you, stand not on that brink! MAN. (not hearing him.) Such would have been for me a fitting tomb; |