His garden's simple produce stor'd, Prepared for him by hands ador'd Is all the little luxury he knows: And by the same dear hands are softly spread, The Chamois' velvet spoil that forms the bed, Where in her arms he finds repose.
But absent from the calm abode Dark thunder gathers round his road, Wild raves the wind, the arrowy light'nings flash, Returning quick the murmuring rocks among, His faint heart trembling as he winds along; Alarm'd he listens to the crash.
Of rifted ice!--Oh, man of woe! O'er his dear cot--a mass of snow, By the storm sever'd from the cliff above, Has fall'n--and buried in its marble breast, All that for him--lost wretch--the world possest, His home, his happiness, his love!
Aghast the heartstruck mourner stands! Glaz'd are his eyes--convuls'd his hands, O'erwhelming anguish checks his labouring breath; Crush'd by Despair's intolerable weight, Frantic he seeks the mountain's giddiest height, And headlong seeks relief in death.
A fate too similar is mine, But I--in ling'ring pain repine, And still my last felicity deplore; Cold, cold to me is that dear breast become, Where this poor heart had fondly fix'd its home, And love and happiness are mine no more.
_N. Y. Mag., or Lit. Repos._, III-443, July 1792, N. Y.
_Lady's Mag. and Repos._, I-97, Jan. 1793, Phila.
[Also in _N. Y. Mag. or Lit. Repos._, II-235, Apr. 1791, N. Y.]
A GENERAL VIEW OF SWITZERLAND AND THE ALPS, WITH AN AFFECTING ANECDOTE.
But to return to our Alps. Here, savage rocks of an inaccessible height; there, torrents bursting, as it were, from the clouds, and rolling down the rugged precipices:
The gay train, Of fog, thick roll'd into romantic shape,
may, perhaps, excite your wonder, but not exceed the compass of your imagination. But how shall I convey to you an idea of the ever-varying and accidental beauties of this majestic scenery! Sometimes the vapour-winged tempest, flitting along some lonely vale, embrowns it with a solemn shade, whilst every thing around glitters in the fullness of meridian splendour. On a sudden, all is dark and gloomy; the thunder rolls from rock to rock, till echo seems tired with the dreadful repetition: add to this, the gradual approach of the evening, the last gleam of sunshine fading on the mountain-brow, the lingering twilight still warding off the veil of night, till the rising moon just continues, in vision, a glimmering of its faded glories: