Hymn Written Among The Alps

CREATION'S GOD ! with thought elate, Thy hand divine I see Impressed on scenes, where all is great, Where all is full of thee! Where stern the Alpine mountains raise Their heads of massive snow; When on the rolling storm I gaze, That hangs-how far below! Where on some bold, stupendous height, The Eagle sits alone; Or soaring wings his sullen flight To haunts still more his own: Where the sharp rock the Chamois treads, Or, slippery summit scales; Or where the whitening Snow-bird spreads Her plumes to icy gales: Where the rude cliff's steep column glows With morning's tint of blue; Or evening on the glacier throws The rose's blushing hue: Or where by twilight's softer light, The mountain's shadow bends; And sudden casts a partial night, As black its form descends: Where the full ray of noon alone Down the deep valley falls: Or where the sunbeam never shone Between its rifted walls: Where cloudless regions calm the soul, Bid mortal cares be still, Can passion's wayward wish controul, And rectify the will: Where midst some vast expanse the mind, Which swelling virtue fires, Forgets that earth it leaves behind, And to it's heaven aspires: Where far along the desart air Is heard no creature's call: And undisturbing mortal ear The avalanches fall: Where rushing from their snowy source, The daring torrents urge Their loud-toned waters headlong course, And lift their feathered surge: Where swift the lines of light and shade Flit o'er the lucid lake: Or the shrill winds its breast invade, And its green billows wake: Where on the slope, with speckled dye The pigmy herds I scan; Or soothed, the scattered Chalets spy, The last abode of man: Or where the flocks refuse to pass, And the lone peasant mows, Fixed on his knees, the pendent grass, Which down the steep he throws: Where high the dangerous pathway leads Above the gulph profound, From whence the shrinking eye recedes, Nor finds repose around: Where red the mountain-ash reclines Along the clifted rock; Where firm the dark unbending pines The howling tempests mock: Where, level with the ice-ribb'd bound The yellow harvests glow; Or vales with purple vines are crown'd Beneath impending snow: Where the rich min'rals catch the ray, With varying lustre bright, And glittering fragments strew the way With sparks of liquid light: Or where the moss forbears to creep Where loftier summits rear Their untrod snow, and frozen sleep Locks all the uncolour'd year: In every scene, where every hour Sheds some terrific grace, In Nature's vast o'erwhelming power, THEE , THEE , my GOD , I trace!