Of this, but each Philistian" city round,
60 Met from all parts to solemnize this feast.
Samson, with these immixed," inevitably
Pulled down the same destruction on himself;
The vulgar only 'scaped who stood without.

From Samson Agonistes. Milton.

HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE IN THE VALE OF
CHAMOUNI.1

HAST thou a charm to stay the morning-star
In his steep course? so long he seems to pause
On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc !

*

The Arvé and Arveiron2 at thy base

*

5 Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful form,
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,
How silently! Around thee and above
Deep is the air, and dark, substantial, black,
An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it,
10 As with a wedge! but when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity!

O dread and silent mount! I gazed upon thee,
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,

15 Didst vanish from my thought: entranced" in prayer I worshipped the invisible alone.

Yet, like some sweet beguiling" melody,

So sweet, we know not we are listening to it,

Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought, 20 Yea, with my life, and life's own secret joy:

*

Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused,*

Into the mighty vision passing-there,

As in her natural form, swelled vast to heaven! Awake, my soul! not only passive praise 25 Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears, Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake! Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart! Awake Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn. Thou first and chief, sole sovran of the vale!

30

O struggling with the darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars,

Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink;
Companion of the morning-star at dawn,
Thyself earth's rosy3 star, and of the dawn
35 Co-herald"! wake, O wake, and utter praise
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth?
Who filled thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual* streams ?

And you, ye five wild torrents, fiercely glad!
40 Who called you forth from night and utter death,
From dark and icy caverns called you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,
For ever shattered and the same for ever?
Who gave you your invulnerable life,

45 Your strength, your speed, your fury and your joy, Unceasing thunder and eternal foam ?

And who commanded—and the silence came"Here let the billows stiffen,5 and have rest ?"

Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow

50 Adown* enormous ravines slope amain
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!

Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven,
55 Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun
Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet ?—
God!let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Answer; and let the ice-plains echo, God!

.60 God! sing, ye meadow-streams, with glad some voice!
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!
And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder-GOD!

65

70

Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost!
Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest!
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm!
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!
Ye signs and wonders of the elements !

Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!
Thou too, hoar mount! with thy sky-pointing
peaks,

Oft from whose feet, the avalanche, unheard, Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene Into the depth of clouds that veil thy breastThou too again, stupendous mountain! thou 75 That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low In adoration, upward from thy base Slow-travelling, with dim eyes suffused with tears, Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud,

To rise before me-rise, O ever rise,

80 Rise, like a cloud of incense, from the earth! Thou kingly spirit, throned among the hills,

*

Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven,
Great hierarch"! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,

85 Earth, with her thousand voices, worships God!

!

Seer. LOCHIEL1! Lochiel! beware of the day When the Lowlands shall meet thee in battle array For a field of the dead rushes red on my sight, And the clans of Culloden2 are scattered in fight; 5 They rally, they bleed, for their kingdom and crown; Wo, wo to the riders that trample them down! Proud Cumberland3 prances, insulting the slain, And their hoof-beaten bosoms are trod to the plain. But hark! through the fast-flashing lightning of

war,

10 What steed to the desert flies frantic and far? 'Tis thine, O Glenullin1! whose bride shall await, Like a love-lighted watchfire, all night at the gate. A steed comes at morning; no rider is there; But its bridle is red with the sign of despair.

15

5

Weep, Albyn, to death and captivity led !

O weep, but thy tears cannot number the dead;

For a merciless sword on Culloden shall wave, Culloden that reeks with the blood of the brave. Lochiel. Go preach to the coward, thou deathtelling seer!

20 Or, if gory Culloden so dreadful appear,

*

Draw, dotard, around thy old wavering sight

This mantle, to cover the phantoms of fright.

Seer. Ha! laugh'st thou, Lochiel, my vision to scorn ?

Proud bird of the mountain, thy plume shall be torn! 25 Say, rushed the bold eagle exultingly forth

From his home, in the dark-rolling clouds of the north?

Lo! the death-shot of foemen outspeeding, he rode Companionless, bearing destruction abroad!

But down let him stoop from his havoc on high! 30 Ah! home let him speed, for the spoiler is nigh. Why flames the far summit? Why shoot to the blast Those embers, like stars from the firmament cast? 'Tis the fire shower of ruin, all dreadfully driven From his eyrie that beacons* the darkness of heaven. 35 Oh, crested Lochiel! the peerless" in might,

*

Whose banners arise on the battlements' height, Heaven's fire is around thee, to blast and to burn: Return to thy dwelling! all lonely return! For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood, 40 And a wild mother scream o'er her famishing brood.

dot-ard

1 hav'-oc

ey'-rie