THE GREAT ST. BERNARD.

(The roof, the floor, the walls of native fir,)
A lamp hung flickering, such as loves to fling
Its partial light on Apostolic heads,

And sheds a grace on all. Theirs Time as yet
Had changed not. Some were almost in the prime ;
Nor was a brow o'ercast. Seen as they sate,
Ranged round their ample hearth-stone in an hour
Of rest, they were as gay, as free from guile,
As children; answering, and at once, to all
The gentler impulses, to pleasure, mirth;
Mingling, at intervals, with rational talk

Music; and gathering news from them that came,
As of some other world. But when the storm
Rose, and the snow rolled on in ocean-waves,
When on his face the experienced traveller fell,
Sheltering his lips and nostrils with his hands,
Then all was changed; and, sallying with their pack
Into that blank of nature, they became

Unearthly beings. "Anselm, higher up,

Just where it drifts, a dog howls loud and long,
And now, as guided by a voice from Heaven,
Digs with his feet. That noble vehemence
Whose can it be, but his who never erred?
A man lies underneath! Let us to work !—
But who descends MONT VELAN? 'Tis La Croix.
Away, away! if not, alas! too late.

Homeward he drags an old man and a boy,
Faltering and falling, and but half awaked,
Asking to sleep again." Such their discourse.

Oft has a venerable roof received me;

ST. BRUNO'S once1-where, when the winds were hushed,

1 The Grande Chartreuse.

Nor from the cataract the voice came up,

You might have heard the mole work underground,
So great the stillness there; none seen throughout,
Save when from rock to rock a hermit crossed

By some rude bridge-or one at midnight tolled

To matins, and white habits, issuing forth,
Glided along those aisles interminable,

All, all observant of the sacred law

Of silence. Nor is that sequestered spot,

Once called "Sweet Waters," now "The Shady Vale,"1

THE GREAT ST. BERNARD.

To me unknown; that house so rich of old,
So courteous, and, by two that passed that way,
Amply requited with immortal verse,

The Poet's payment. But, among them all,
None can with this compare, the dangerous seat

Of generous, active Virtue. What though Frost
Reign everlastingly, and ice and snow

That not, but gather-there is that within,

Which, where it comes, makes Summer; and, in thought,
Oft am I sitting on the bench beneath
Their garden-plot, where all that vegetates
Is but some scanty lettuce, to observe
Those from the South ascending, every step
As though it were their last,—and instantly
Restored, renewed, advancing as with songs,
Soon as they see, turning a lofty crag,
That plain, that modest structure, promising
Bread to the hungry, to the weary rest.

II.

My mule refreshed-and, let the truth be told,

He was nor dull nor contradictory,

But patient, diligent, and sure of foot,

Shunning the loose stone on the precipice,

Snorting suspicion while with sight, smell, touch,
Trying, detecting, where the surface smiled;
And with deliberate courage sliding down,
Where in his sledge the Laplander had turned
With looks aghast-my mule refreshed, his bells
Jingled once more, the signal to depart,

And we set out in the grey light of dawn,
Descending rapidly-by waterfalls

Fast-frozen, and among huge blocks of ice
That in their long career had stopped mid-way.
At length, unchecked, unbidden, he stood still;
And all his bells were muffled. Then my guide,
Lowering his voice, addressed me: "Through this gap
On and say nothing lest a word, a breath
Bring down a winter's snow-enough to whelm
The armed files that, night and day, were seen
Winding from cliff to cliff in loose array
To conquer at MARENGO. Though long since,
Well I remember how I met them here,
As the sun set far down, purpling the west;
And how NAPOLEON, he himself no less,
Wrapt in his cloak-I could not be deceived-
Reined in his horse, and asked me, as I passed,
How far 'twas to St. Remi. Where the rock
Juts forward, and the road, crumbling away,
Narrows almost to nothing at the base,
'Twas there; and down along the brink he led
To Victory! DESAIX, who turned the scale,
Leaving his life-blood in that famous field,
(When the clouds break, we may discern the spot
In the blue haze) sleeps, as you saw at dawn,
Just where we entered, in the Hospital-church.
So saying, for a while he held his peace,
Awe-struck beneath that dreadful canopy;

But soon, the danger passed, launched forth again.

T

HE poetry of earth is never dead:

When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,

And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run

From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the grasshopper's-he takes the lead
In summer luxury-he has never done
With his delights, for when tired out with fun,

He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never :

On a lone winter evening, when the frost

Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills The cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,

And seems to one in drowsiness half lost

The grasshopper's among some grassy hills.