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Suggested on a Sabbath Morning in the Vale of Chamouny
TO appease the gods, or public thanks to yield, | |
| Or to solicit knowledge of events | |
| Which in her breast Futurity concealed, | |
| And that the Past might have its true intents | |
| Feelingly told by living monuments,— | 5 |
| Mankind of yore were prompted to devise | |
| Rites such as yet Persepolis presents | |
| Graven on her cankered walls, solemnities | |
| That moved in long array before admiring eyes. | |
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| The Hebrews thus, carrying in joyful state | 10 |
| Thick boughs of palm, and willows from the brook, | |
| Marched round the altar, to commemorate | |
| How, when their course they through the desert took, | |
| Guided by signs which ne’er the sky forsook, | |
| They lodged in leafy tents and cabins low; | 15 |
| Green boughs were borne, while, for the blast that shook | |
| Down to the earth the walls of Jericho, | |
| Shouts rise, and storms of sound from lifted trumpets blow! | |
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| And thus, in order, mid the sacred grove | |
| Fed in the Libyan waste by gushing wells, | 20 |
| The priests and damsels of Ammonian Jove | |
| Provoked responses with shrill canticles; | |
| While, in a ship begirt with silver bells, | |
| They round his altar bore the hornéd God, | |
| Old Cham, the solar Deity, who dwells | 25 |
| Aloft, yet in a tilting vessel rode, | |
| When universal sea the mountains overflowed. | |
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| Why speak of Roman pomps? the haughty claims | |
| Of chiefs triumphant after ruthless wars; | |
| The feast of Neptune,—and the Cereal Games, | 30 |
| With images, and crowns, and empty cars; | |
| The dancing Salii,—on the shields of Mars | |
| Smiting with fury; and a deeper dread | |
| Scattered on all sides by the hideous jars | |
| Of Corybantian cymbals, while the head | 35 |
| Of Cybelé was seen, sublimely turreted! | |
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| At length a spirit more subdued and soft | |
| Appeared to govern Christian pageantries: | |
| The cross, in calm procession borne aloft, | |
| Moved to the chant of sober litanies. | 40 |
| Even such, this day, came wafted on the breeze | |
| From a long train,—in hooded vestments fair | |
| Enwrapt,—and winding, between Alpine trees | |
| Spiry and dark, around their house of prayer, | |
| Below the icy bed of bright Argentiere. | 45 |
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| Still in the vivid freshness of a dream, | |
| The pageant haunts me as it met our eyes! | |
| Still, with those white-robed shapes,—a living stream,— | |
| The glacier pillars join in solemn guise | |
| For the same service, by mysterious ties; | 50 |
| Numbers exceeding credible account | |
| Of number, pure and silent votaries | |
| Issuing or issued from a wintry fount; | |
| The impenetrable heart of that exalted mount! | |
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| They, too, who send so far a holy gleam | 55 |
| While they the church engird with motion slow, | |
| A product of that awful mountain seem, | |
| Poured from his vaults of everlasting snow; | |
| Not virgin lilies marshalled in bright row, | |
| Not swans descending with the stealthy tide, | 60 |
| A livelier sisterly resemblance show, | |
| Than the fair forms, that in long order glide, | |
| Bear to the glacier band,—those shapes aloft descried. | |
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| Trembling, I look upon the secret springs | |
| Of that licentious craving in the mind | 65 |
| To act the God among external things, | |
| To bind, on apt suggestion, or unbind; | |
| And marvel not that antique Faith inclined | |
| To crowd the world with metamorphosis, | |
| Vouchsafed in pity or in wrath assigned; | 70 |
| Such insolent temptations wouldst thou miss, | |
| Avoid these sights, nor brood o’er fable’s dark abyss! | |
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