OH, we are on the mountain‐top! The clouds float by in fleecy flock, Heavy, and dank. Around, below, A wilderness of turf and snow,— Scanty rock‐turf, or marble bare,
Without a living thing; for there Not a bird clove the thin, cold air With labouring wing: the very goat To such a height ascendeth not; And if the cloudʼs thick drapery
Clove for a moment, you would see The long, white snow‐fields on each side Clasping the mountain‐breast, or heaped In high, wreathed hills, whence torrents leaped, And gathering force, as down they well
To aid the swift Rhineʼs headlong swell. And here and there a mouldering cross Of dark pine, matted oʼer with moss, Hung on the precipice,
a
to tell Where some benighted traveller fell;
Or where the avalancheʼs leap Hurled down, with its wild thunder‐sweep, Him unexpecting; and to pray The passing traveller to stay, And, looking from the precipice