Hymn Before Sun-Rise, in the Vale of Chamouni

Hast thou a charm to stay the morning-starIn his steep course? So long he seems to pauseOn thy bald awful head, O sovran BLANC!The Arve and Arveiron at thy baseRave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form!Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,How silently! Around thee and aboveDeep is the air and dark, substantial, black,An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it,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,Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayerI 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,Yea, with my Life and Life's own secret joy:Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfused,Into the mighty vision passing--thereAs in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven!

Awake, my soul! not only passive praiseThou 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 sovereign of the Vale!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 rosy star, and of the dawnCo-herald: wake, O wake, and utter praise!Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in Earth?Who fill'd thy countenance with rosy light?Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?

And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad!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,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, and have rest?

Ye Ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's browAdown 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 HeavenBeneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sunClothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowersOf loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?--GOD! let the torrents, like a shout of nations,Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, GOD!GOD! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome 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!

Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost!Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest!Ye eagles, play-mates of the mountain-storm!Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!Ye signs and wonders of the element!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 sereneInto the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast--Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thouThat as I raise my head, awhile bowed lowIn adoration, upward from thy baseSlow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears,Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud,To rise before me--Rise, O ever rise,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,Earth, with her thousand voices, praises GOD.