[The next book put forth by Shelley after Alastor and other Poems was the little volume containing, among other things, the following poem, and whereof the title runs thus: "History of a Six Weeks' Tour through a Part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland: with Letters descriptive of a Sail Round the Lake of Geneva, and of the Glaciers of Chamouni. London, Published by T. Hookham, Jun. Old Bond Street; and C. and J. Ollier, Welbeck Street. 1817." The History and two of the letters are by Mrs. Shelley,-the rest of the letters, two in number, by Shelley to Peacock. This poem, as well as the Alastor, was included in the volume of Posthumous Poems (1824). In Shelley's preface to the Six Weeks' Tour, it is stated that Mont Blanc "was composed under the immediate impression of the deep and powerful feelings excited by the objects which it attempts to describe; and as an undisciplined overflowing of the soul, rests its claim to approbation on an attempt to imitate the untameable wildness and inaccessible solemnity from which those feelings sprang." Mrs. Shelley says the poem was inspired by the view, as Shelley "lingered on the Bridge of Arve on his way through the Vale of Chamouni."—H. B. F.] MONT BLANC. LINES WRITTEN IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI. I. THE everlasting universe of things Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves, In the wild woods, among the mountains lone, Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river II. Thus thou, Ravine of Arve-dark, deep Ravine- 1 In the Posthumous Poems (1824) Mrs. Shelley added a comma at cloud, thus changing the sense: in 1839 she added an 8, thus, Fast clouds, shadows, 10 15 &c. I take it Shelley meant cloudshadows, but omitted the hyphen, as he often does in such cases, e. g. in the next line but one, ice gulphs. Thy1 giant brood of pines around thee clinging, The chainless winds still come and ever came Robes some unsculptured image; the strange sleep With the clear universe of things around; One legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings In the still cave of the witch Poesy, III. Some say that gleams of a remoter world Visit the soul in sleep,-that death is slumber, 1 The in Mrs. Shelley's editions of 1839. 50 And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber The veil of life and death? or do I lie In dream, and does the mightier world of sleep Its circles? For the very spirit fails, Driven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep 55 60 Mont Blanc appears,-still, snowy, and serene- Pile around it, ice and rock; broad vales between Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread A desart peopled by the storms alone, Save when the eagle brings some hunter's bone, 3 Its shapes are heaped around! rude, bare, and high, Of fire, envelope once this silent snow? 65 70 None can reply-all seems eternal now. The wilderness has a mysterious tongue Which teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild, 75 1 So solemn, so serene, that man may be Speed in Mrs. Shelley's editions of 1839. So in Shelley's and all authoritative editions; but I suspect a printer's error for round. 3 Tracts in Shelley's edition. Mr. 80 Garnett tells me that in an extant MS., a draft mainly in pencil, this passage stands and the wolf watches her. 4 In the draft mentioned as having been inspected by Mr. Garnett this passage stands In such a faith. Large codes of fraud and woe; not understood IV. The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams, The works and ways of man, their death and birth, All things that move and breathe with toil and sound Are born and die; revolve, subside and swell. Remote, serene, and inaccessible: 85 90 95 And this, the naked countenance of earth, On which I gaze, even these primæval mountains Teach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep 100 Like snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains, Slow1 rolling on; there, many a precipice, Frost and the Sun in scorn of mortal power Have piled: dome, pyramid, and pinnacle, A city of death, distinct with many a tower Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin Is there, that from the boundaries of the sky 2 1 Mrs. Shelley improves the grammar at the expense of the rhythm, by substituting slowly for slow, in her editions of 1839. 2 Mr. Rossetti substitutes boundary 105 of the skies for boundaries of the sky, and secures a bad rhyme between ice and skies, but, as it seems to me, without advantage. |