"The world has lost its dewy prime;

Alas! the Golden age is dead,

And we are of the Iron time!

faint

And waver like a willow wand Before the vision I would paint,— I would have seized the ready brush,

And, with the limner's clearer art, Poured out the softer hues that flush

And flow within the painter's heart; Have shown you where she passed or stood,

Between the Alpine light and shade; Her stately form, her air subdued, Her dark eye mellowing to the mood

That round her inmost spirit played. I would have wrought the daylight through

To give what yet before me beams,
And ceased at eve but to renew
The impassioned labor in
my dreams.

But this is past: life takes and gives, And o'er the dust of hopes long

gone

The vision brightens as it lives, And mocks the hand that would have drawn

Along those windings high and vast, Through frequent sun and shade she stole,

And all the Alpine splendor passed
Into the chambers of her soul;
For she was of that better clay
Which treads not oft this earthly
stage;

Such charmed spirits lose their way
But once or twice into an age.
Her voice was one that thrills and
clings

Forever in the hearer's bosom,As when a bee with flashing wings Cleaves to the centre of a blos

SONG ON ST. BERNARD. OH, it is a pleasure rare

Ever to be climbing so, Winding upward through the air,

Till the cloud is left below!

Upward and forever round

On the stairway of the stream, With the motion and the sound

Of processions in a dream; While the world below all this

Lies a fathomless abyss.

Freedom singeth ever here,
Where her sandals print the snow,
And to her the pines are dear,
Freely rocking to and fro;
Swinging oft like stately ships,
Where the billowy tempests sport;
Or, as when the anchor slips

Down the dreamy wave in port,
Standing silent as they list
Where the zephyrs furl the mist.
Here the well-springs drop their
pearls,

All to Freedom's music strung; And the brooks, like mountain girls, Sing the songs of Freedom's tongue.

And the great hills, stern and stanch, Guard her valleys and her lakes, And the rolling avalanche

Blocks the path the invader makes, While her eagle, like a flag, Floats in triumph o'er the crag!

I HAVE LOOKED ON A FACE.

I HAVE looked on a face that has looked in my heart,

As deep as the moon ever fathoms a wave;

As uncomprehended it came to depart,

While a sense of its glory was all that it gave.

Where she passed the Alp blossoms grew pallid and shrank,

As a taper in sunlight sinks faint and aghast;

And now o'er her path swims a terrible blank,

A gulf in the air where her beauty hath passed.

But her light in my heart, which no time can eclipse,

Seems to brighten and smile in the joy it confers;

In sooth, methinks, there never yawned

A passage to the world beyond
Of shorter access than now lies
Around that climber in the skies."

Then spake the guide:

"Unless I err, There is but one adventurer From Basle unto Geneva's lake, From Neufchatel to Splügen pass, Of all who freely scale the brow Of ice that crowns the Mer-de-glace, Or climbs the slippery Rosenlau, Who dares that dreadful path to take.

Not him who sprang from ridge to ridge,

And passed us on the Devil's Bridge,
And told you all that perilous tale
Which made your rosy cheeks grow
pale.

Nor him who in the Grimsel sang
Among his fellows of the chase,
Until the laughing rafters rang

And scared all slumber from the
place;

Or, if the weary traveller slept, Through all his dream the chamois swept.

There never yet was hunter born

So fierce of soul, so lithe of limb,
So fearless on the mountain's rim,

lips

Breathes a music I know which can only be hers!

THE CHAMOIS-HUNTER. "THERE!-see you not upon the face Of yonder far and dizzy height A something with slow-moving pace, Now faintly seen, now lost to sight?

And now again, with downward spring,

As if supported by a wing,

It drops, then scarcely seems to crawl
Along the smooth and shining wall.
Is it a bird? or beast whose lair
Is hid within some cavern there?
Or some adventurer who hath striven
To scale that Babel wall to heaven?

He robbed the Jungfrau of her fame, And put the chamois' flight to shame; He takes the wild crag by the brow, As boatman might his shallop-prow. The avalanche he loves to dare,

To shout amid the wild uproar

Until the thundering vale is full,

Then stands upon the ruins there, Like some brave Spanish matador

With foot upon the fallen bull!

"If all goes well as it should go,

Two toiling hours of steady pace Must bring us to the ribs of snow

That lie around the broken base Of that far height, and one hour more Should find us at the convent door; And there perchance will Herman be,

His shoulder laden with chamois, His heart a mountain well of glee,

His voice an alpine gust of joy."

Two hours they toiled with steady pace,
And they had gained that rocky base.
But when the winding line had earned
A jutting crag and partly turned,
A sharp and sudden rifle-crack

Broke through the thin and icy air, Jarring the frozen silence there, And rattled down the steep hill-side; But ere the snow-cliff's gave it back, A wounded chamois in their track

Rolled bleeding, and there died! The startled rider checked his rein; And the pedestrian stayed his pace: With looks of wonder or of pain

Each stared into the other's face. And when the maid's first shock of fear In gentle tremblings passed away, Her dark eye glistening with a tear, She gazed where the dead creature lay.

Who bring with lasso and with lance
The tiger to their saddle's prow :-
But I would climb the snowy track
Alone, as I have ever been,
And with a chamois on my back,
Descend to merry Meyringen.

Oh, they may sing of eyes of jet, That melt in passion's dreamy glance,

Of forms that to the castanet Sway through the languor of the dance:

But let me clasp some blue-eyed girl, Whose arms impulsive clasp again; And through a storm of music whirl The dizzy waltz at Meyringen.

And they may sing, as oft they will, Of joy beneath the southern vine, And in luxurious banquets fill

Their goblets with the orient wine:

But when the Alpland winter rolls His tempests over hill and glen, Let me sit 'mid the steaming bowls

That cheer the nights at Meyringen.

Brave men are there with hands adroit At every game our land deems good,

To wrestle, or to swing the quoit,

Or drain the bowl of brotherhood:And when the last wild chase is through,

We'll sit together, gray-haired men, And, with the gay Lisette to brew, Once more be young in Meyringen.

THE WARNING.

THE song was done; they raised their

eyes,

And saw between them and the skies A figure standing dark and mute

That on a gleaming rifle leant, And all his form from bead to foot Was painted on the firmament. So still he stood, the quickest eye In its first gazing toward the sky Glanced twice, before discerning if The dusky shape were man or cliff. At length, a voice-so high and loud It seemed descending from the cloud