Mont
Blanc
I
The everlasting universe of things
Flows
through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
Now dark—now
glittering—now reflecting gloom—
Now lending
splendour, where from secret springs
The source of human
thought its tribute brings
Of waters—with a sound but
half its own,
Such as a feeble brook will oft assume,
In the wild woods, among the mountains lone,
Where
waterfalls around it leap for ever,
Where woods and winds
contend, and a vast river
Over its rocks ceaselessly
bursts and raves.
II
Thus thou,
Ravine of Arve—dark, deep Ravine—
Thou many-colour'd,
many-voiced vale,
Over whose pines, and crags, and
caverns sail
Fast cloud-shadows and sunbeams: awful
scene,
Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes down
From the ice-gulfs that gird his secret throne,
Bursting through these dark mountains like the flame
Of
lightning through the tempest;—thou dost lie,
Thy giant
brood of pines around thee clinging,
Children of elder
time, in whose devotion
The chainless winds still come
and ever came
To drink their odours, and their mighty
swinging
To hear—an old and solemn harmony;
Thine
earthly rainbows stretch'd across the sweep
Of the
aethereal waterfall, whose veil
Robes some unsculptur'd
image; the strange sleep
Which when the voices of the
desert fail
Wraps all in its own deep eternity;
Thy
caverns echoing to the Arve's commotion,
A loud, lone
sound no other sound can tame;
Thou art pervaded with
that ceaseless motion,
Thou art the path of that
unresting sound—
Dizzy Ravine! and when I gaze on thee
I seem as in a trance sublime and strange
To
muse on my own separate fantasy,
My own, my human mind,
which passively
Now renders and receives fast
influencings,
Holding an unremitting interchange
With
the clear universe of things around;
One legion of wild
thoughts, whose wandering wings
Now float above thy
darkness, and now rest
Where that or thou art no unbidden
guest,
In the still cave of the witch Poesy,
Seeking
among the shadows that pass by
Ghosts of all things that
are, some shade of thee,
Some phantom, some faint image;
till the breast
From which they fled recalls them, thou
art there!
III
Some say that
gleams of a remoter world
Visit the soul in sleep, that
death is slumber,
And that its shapes the busy thoughts
outnumber
Of those who wake and live.—I look on high;
Has some unknown omnipotence unfurl'd
The
veil of life and death? or do I lie
In dream, and does
the mightier world of sleep
Spread far around and
inaccessibly
Its circles? For the very spirit fails,
Driven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep
That
vanishes among the viewless gales!
Far, far above,
piercing the infinite sky,
Mont Blanc appears—still,
snowy, and serene;
Its subject mountains their unearthly
forms
Pile around it, ice and rock; broad vales between
Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps,
Blue as
the overhanging heaven, that spread
And wind among the
accumulated steeps;
A desert peopled by the storms alone,
Save when the eagle brings some hunter's bone,
And
the wolf tracks her there—how hideously
Its shapes are
heap'd around! rude, bare, and high,
Ghastly, and
scarr'd, and riven.—Is this the scene
Where the old
Earthquake-daemon taught her young
Ruin? Were these their
toys? or did a sea
Of fire envelop once this silent snow?
None can reply—all seems eternal now.
The
wilderness has a mysterious tongue
Which teaches awful
doubt, or faith so mild,
So solemn, so serene, that man
may be,
But for such faith, with Nature reconcil'd;
Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal
Large
codes of fraud and woe; not understood
By all, but which
the wise, and great, and good
Interpret, or make felt, or
deeply feel.
IV
The fields, the
lakes, the forests, and the streams,
Ocean, and all the
living things that dwell
Within the daedal earth;
lightning, and rain,
Earthquake, and fiery flood, and
hurricane,
The torpor of the year when feeble dreams
Visit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep
Holds
every future leaf and flower; the bound
With which from
that detested trance they leap;
The works and ways of
man, their death and birth,
And that of him and all that
his may be;
All things that move and breathe with toil
and sound
Are born and die; revolve, subside, and swell.
Power dwells apart in its tranquillity,
Remote,
serene, and inaccessible:
And this, the naked countenance
of earth,
On which I gaze, even these primeval mountains
Teach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep
Like
snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains,
Slow
rolling on; there, many a precipice
Frost and the Sun in
scorn of mortal power
Have pil'd: dome, pyramid, and
pinnacle,
A city of death, distinct with many a tower
And wall impregnable of beaming ice.
Yet not
a city, but a flood of ruin
Is there, that from the
boundaries of the sky
Rolls its perpetual stream; vast
pines are strewing
Its destin'd path, or in the mangled
soil
Branchless and shatter'd stand; the rocks, drawn
down
From yon remotest waste, have overthrown
The
limits of the dead and living world,
Never to be
reclaim'd. The dwelling-place
Of insects, beasts, and
birds, becomes its spoil;
Their food and their retreat
for ever gone,
So much of life and joy is lost. The race
Of man flies far in dread; his work and dwelling
Vanish, like smoke before the tempest's stream,
And
their place is not known. Below, vast caves
Shine in the
rushing torrents' restless gleam,
Which from those secret
chasms in tumult welling
Meet in the vale, and one
majestic River,
The breath and blood of distant lands,
for ever
Rolls its loud waters to the ocean-waves,
Breathes its swift vapours to the circling air.
V
Mont Blanc yet gleams on high:—the power is there,
The still and solemn power of many sights,
And
many sounds, and much of life and death.
In the calm
darkness of the moonless nights,
In the lone glare of
day, the snows descend
Upon that Mountain; none beholds
them there,
Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun,
Or the star-beams dart through them. Winds contend
Silently there, and heap the snow with breath
Rapid
and strong, but silently! Its home
The voiceless
lightning in these solitudes
Keeps innocently, and like
vapour broods
Over the snow. The secret Strength of
things
Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome
Of Heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!
And
what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,
If to the
human mind's imaginings
Silence and solitude were
vacancy?
Percy
Bysshe Shelley
This
is Shelley in full force. He is
so awed by Mont Blanc’s presence that an avalanche of thoughts
tumbles through his mind. As I read this
poem I feel as if I could be standing beside him, observing how he is
thunderstruck
by the immensity of what he sees, and what he knows is there but
cannot see – and
hear him ask
out loud, “What are you?”, “What are you saying to me?”,
“What does all this mean?”
He
knows that the mountain communicates something. “...this,
the naked countenance of earth,/ On which I gaze, even these primeval
mountains/ Teach the adverting mind.”
Somehow, he feels that the truth - an
answer, is within the mountain. “The secret Strength of things/
Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome/ Of Heaven is as a
law, inhabits thee!”
I know that awe, that overpowering sense of the immensity
of time and the universe hits forcibly when I stand
before a mountain. I am flooded with unspoken questions and emotions. What a task Shelley set himself to,
to put his thoughts into words!
"Thou
hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal/Large codes of fraud and woe;
not understood/By all, but which the wise, and great, and good/
Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel."
