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 Mont Blanc appears,-still, snowy, and serene— Pile around it, ice and rock; broad vales between Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread Save when the eagle brings some hunter's bone, Of fire, envelope once this silent snow? None can reply-all seems eternal now. The wilderness has a mysterious tongue 75 Which teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild, 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 Remote, serene, and inaccessible: And this, the naked countenance of earth, On which I gaze, even these primæval mountains 85 90 95 Teach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep 100 Like snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains, Slow 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 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. Its destined path, or in the mangled soil Branchless and shattered stand; the rocks, drawn down The limits of the dead and living world, Of insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil; So much of life and joy is lost. The race Of man, flies far in dread; his work and dwelling The breath and blood of distant lands, for ever V. Mont Blanc yet gleams on high-the power is there, The still and solemn power of many sights, 110 115 120 125 130 And many sounds, and much of life and death. 1 Mr. Rossetti substitutes torrents'. Of course the grammar of this reading is right; but it is questionable whe 135 ther Shelley would ever have made such a change. Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea, Silence and solitude were vacancy? June 23, 1816. 140 CANCELLED PASSAGE OF MONT BLANC. There is a voice, not understood by all, Plunging into the vale-it is the blast Descending on the pines-the torrents pour. . . . (GARNETT'S Relics of Shelley, p. 75.) Mont Blanc being the concluding piece in the Six Weeks' Tour, the imprint of the volume comes here: it is as follows : "Reynell, Printer, 45, Broad-street, Golden-square." |