The Development Of The Feeling For Nature In The Middle Ages And Modern Times Part 46

Oh Christ! it is a goodly sight to see What Heaven hath done for this delicious land.

What fruits of fragrance blush on every tree!

What goodly prospects o'er the hills expand!...

The horrid crags, by toppling convent crown'd, The cork trees h.o.a.r that clothe the s.h.a.ggy steep, The mountain moss, by scorching skies imbrown'd, The sunken glen, whose sunless shrubs must weep.

The tender azure of the unruffled deep, The orange tints that gild the greenest bough, The torrents that from cliff to valley leap, The vine on high, the willow branch below, Mix'd in one mighty scene, with varied beauty glow.

Yet his spirit drives him away, 'more restless than the swallow in the skies.'

The charm of the idyllic is in the lines:

But these between, a silver streamlet glides....

Here leans the idle shepherd on his crook, And vacant on the rippling waves doth look, That peaceful still 'twixt bitterest foemen flow.

The beauty of the sea and night in this:

The moon is up; by Heaven a lovely eve!

Long streams of light o'er dancing waves expand....

How softly on the Spanish sh.o.r.e she plays, Disclosing rock, and slope, and forest brown Distinct....

Bending o'er the vessel's laving side To gaze on Dian's wave-reflected sphere.

He reflects that:

To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, To slowly trace the forest's shady scene....

To climb the trackless mountain all unseen With the wild flock that never needs a fold, Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean,-- This is not solitude; 'tis but to hold Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unroll'd.

But 'midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, And roam along, the world's tired denizen, With none who bless us, none whom we can bless ...

This is to be alone--this, this is solitude.

His preference for wild scenery shews here:

Dear Nature is the kindest mother still, Though always changing, in her aspect mild; From her bare bosom let me take my fill, Her never-wean'd, though not her favour'd child.

O she is fairest in her features wild, Where nothing polish'd dares pollute her path; To me by day or night she ever smiled, Though I have mark'd her when none other hath, And sought her more and more, and loved her best in wrath.

He observes everything--now 'the billows' melancholy flow' under the bows of the s.h.i.+p, now the whole scene at Zitza:

Where'er we gaze, around, above, below, What rainbow tints, what magic charms are found!

Rock, river, forest, mountain, all abound, And bluest skies that harmonize the whole; Beneath, the distant torrent's rus.h.i.+ng sound Tells where the volumed cataract doth roll Between those hanging rocks, that shock yet please the soul.

This is full of poetic vision:

Where lone Utraikey forms its circling cove, And weary waves retire to gleam at rest, How brown the foliage of the green hill's grove, Nodding at midnight o'er the calm bay's breast, As winds come lightly whispering from the west, Kissing, not ruffling, the blue deep's serene;-- Here Harold was received a welcome guest; Nor did he pa.s.s unmoved the gentle scene, For many a job could he from Night's soft presence glean.

Feeling himself 'the most unfit of men to herd with man,' he is happy only with Nature:

Once more upon the waters! yet once more!

And the waves bound beneath me as a steed That knows his rider. Welcome to the roar!

Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead.

Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends; Where rolled the ocean, thereon was his home; Where a blue sky and glowing clime extends, He had the pa.s.sion and the power to roam; The desert, forest, cavern, breaker's foam, Were unto him companions.h.i.+p; they spake A mutual language, clearer than the tome Of his land's tongue, which he would oft forsake For Nature's pages gla.s.s'd by sunbeams on the lake.

Again:

I live not in myself, but I become Portion of that around me, and to me High mountains are a feeling, but the hum Of human cities torture; I can see Nothing to loathe in Nature save to be A link reluctant in a fleshly chain, Cla.s.s'd among creatures, when the soul can flee, And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain Of ocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain.

Are not the mountains, waves, and skies a part Of me and of my soul, as I of them?

Is not the love of these deep in my heart With a pure pa.s.sion? Should I not contemn All objects, if compared with these?

Love of Nature was a pa.s.sion with him, and when he looked

Upon the peopled desert past As on a place of agony and strife,

mountains gave him a sense of freedom.

He praised the Rhine:

Where Nature, nor too sombre nor too gay, Wild but not rude, awful yet not austere, Is to the mellow earth as autumn to the year.

and far more the Alps:

Above me are the Alps, The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps, And throned eternity in icy halls Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls The avalanche, the thunderbolt of snow!

All that expands the spirit, yet appals, Gather around these summits, as to shew How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below.

On the Lake of Geneva:

Ye stars which are the poetry of heaven...

All heaven and earth are still--though not in sleep, But breathless, as we grow when feeling most; And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep.

All heaven and earth are still: from the high host Of stars, to the lull'd lake and mountain coast, All is concenter'd in a life intense, Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, But hath a part of being, and a sense Of that which is of all Creator and defence.

And this is in the night. Most glorious night, Thou wert not sent for slumber; let me be A sharer in thy fierce and far delight, A portion of the tempest and of thee!

How the lit lake s.h.i.+nes, a phosphoric sea, And the big rain comes dancing to the earth!

And now again 'tis black--and now, the glee Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain mirth, As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth.

But where of ye, oh tempests, is the goal?

Are ye like those within the human breast?

Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest?

The morn is up again, the dewy morn With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom, Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn, And living as if earth contained no tomb.

In Clarens:

Clarens! sweet Clarens, birthplace of deep Love, Thine air is the young breath of pa.s.sionate thought, Thy trees take root in Love; the snows above The very glaciers have his colours caught, And sunset into rose-hues sees them wrought By rays which sleep there lovingly; the rocks, The permanent crags, tell here of Love.

Yet

Ever and anon of griefs subdued There comes a token like a scorpion's sting, Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued; And slight withal may be the things which bring Back on the heart the weight which it would fling Aside for ever; it may be a sound, A tone of music, summer's eve or spring, A flower, the wind, the ocean, which shall wound, Striking the electric chain with which we are darkly bound.

The unrest and torment of his own heart he finds reflected in Nature:

The roar of waters! from the headlong height Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice; The fall of waters! rapid as the light The flas.h.i.+ng ma.s.s foams, shaking the abyss; The h.e.l.l of waters! where they howl and hiss, And boil in endless torture; while the sweat Of their great agony, wrung out from this Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet That gird the gulf around, in pitiless horror set, And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again Returns in an unceasing shower, which round With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain Is an eternal April to the ground, Making it all one emerald; how profound The gulf, and how the giant element From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound, Crus.h.i.+ng the cliffs, which downward, worn and rent With his fierce footsteps, yields in chasms a fearful rent....

Horribly beautiful! but, on the verge From side to side, beneath the glittering morn, An Iris sits amidst the infernal surge, Like Hope upon a deathbed.