although it descends within a few minutes' walk of the road, wishing to
survey it at least when unfatigued. We saw this glacier which comes
close to the fertile plain, as we passed, its surface was broken into a
thousand unaccountable figures: conical and pyramidical
crystallizations, more than fifty feet in height, rise from its surface,
and precipices of ice, of dazzling splendour, overhang the woods and
meadows of the vale. This glacier winds upwards from the valley, until
it joins the masses of frost from which it was produced above, winding
through its own ravine like a bright belt flung over the black region of
pines. There is more in all these scenes than mere magnitude of
proportion: there is a majesty of outline; there is an awful grace in
the very colours which invest these wonderful shapes—a charm which is
peculiar to them, quite distinct even from the reality of their
unutterable greatness.
July 24.
Yesterday morning we went to the source of the Arveiron. It is about a
league from this village; the river rolls forth impetuously from an arch
of ice, and spreads itself in many streams over a vast space of the
valley, ravaged and laid bare by its inundations. The glacier by which
its waters are nourished, overhangs this cavern and the plain, and the
forests of pine which surround it, with terrible precipices of solid
ice. On the other side rises the immense glacier of Montanvert, fifty
miles in extent, occupying a chasm among mountains of inconceivable
height, and of forms so pointed and abrupt, that they seem to pierce the
sky. From this glacier we saw as we sat on a rock, close to one of the
streams of the Arveiron, masses of ice detach themselves from on high,
and rush with a loud dull noise into the vale. The violence of their
fall turned them into powder, which flowed over the rocks in imitation
of waterfalls, whose ravines they usurped and filled.
In the evening I went with Ducrée, my guide, the only tolerable person I
have seen in this country, to visit the glacier of Boisson. This
glacier, like that of Montanvert, comes close to the vale, overhanging
the green meadows and the dark woods with the dazzling whiteness of its
precipices and pinnacles, which are like spires of radiant crystal,
covered with a net-work of frosted silver. These glaciers flow
perpetually into the valley, ravaging in their slow but irresistible
progress the pastures and the forests which surround them, performing a
work of desolation in ages, which a river of lava might accomplish in an
hour, but far more irretrievably; for where the ice has once descended,
the hardiest plant refuses to grow; if even, as in some extraordinary
instances, it should recede after its progress has once commenced. The
glaciers perpetually move onward, at the rate of a foot each day, with a
motion that commences at the spot where, on the boundaries of perpetual
congelation, they are produced by the freezing of the waters which arise
from the partial melting of the eternal snows. They drag with them from
the regions whence they derive their origin, all the ruins of the
mountain, enormous rocks, and immense accumulations of sand and stones.
These are driven onwards by the irresistible stream of solid ice; and
when they arrive at a declivity of the mountain, sufficiently rapid,
roll down, scattering ruin. I saw one of these rocks which had descended
in the spring, (winter here is the season of silence and safety) which
measured forty feet in every direction.
The verge of a glacier, like that of Boisson, presents the most vivid
image of desolation that it is possible to conceive. No one dares to
approach it; for the enormous pinnacles of ice which perpetually fall,
are perpetually reproduced. The pines of the forest, which bound it at
one extremity, are overthrown and shattered to a wide extent at its
base. There is something inexpressibly dreadful in the aspect of the few
branchless trunks, which, nearest to the ice rifts, still stand in the
uprooted soil. The meadows perish, overwhelmed with sand and stones.
Within this last year, these glaciers have advanced three hundred feet
into the valley. Saussure, the naturalist, says, that they have their
periods of increase and decay: the people of the country hold an opinion
entirely different; but as I judge, more probable. It is agreed by all,
that the snow on the summit of Mont Blanc and the neighbouring mountains
perpetually augments, and that ice, in the form of glaciers, subsists
without melting in the valley of Chamouni during its transient and
variable summer. If the snow which produces this glacier must augment,
and the heat of the valley is no obstacle to the perpetual existence of
such masses of ice as have already descended into it, the consequence is
obvious; the glaciers must augment and will subsist, at least until they
have overflowed this vale.
I will not pursue Buffon's sublime but gloomy theory—that this globe
which we inhabit will at some future period be changed into a mass of
frost by the encroachments of the polar ice, and of that produced on the
most elevated points of the earth. Do you, who assert the supremacy of
Ahriman, imagine him throned among these desolating snows, among these
palaces of death and frost, so sculptured in this their terrible
magnificence by the adamantine hand of necessity, and that he casts
around him, as the first essays of his final usurpation, avalanches,
torrents, rocks, and thunders, and above all these deadly glaciers, at
once the proof and symbols of his reign;—add to this, the degradation of
the human species—who in these regions are half deformed or idiotic, and
most of whom are deprived of any thing that can excite interest or
admiration. This is a part of the subject more mournful and less
sublime; but such as neither the poet nor the philosopher should disdain
to regard.
This morning we departed, on the promise of a fine day, to visit the
glacier of Montanvert. In that part where it fills a slanting valley, it
is called the Sea of Ice. This valley is 950 toises, or 7600 feet above
the level of the sea. We had not proceeded far before the rain began to
fall, but we persisted until we had accomplished more than half of our
journey, when we returned, wet through.
Chamouni, July 25th.
We have returned from visiting the glacier of Montanvert, or as it is
called, the Sea of Ice, a scene in truth of dizzying wonder. The path
that winds to it along the side of a mountain, now clothed with pines,
now intersected with snowy hollows, is wide and steep. The cabin of
Montanvert is three leagues from Chamouni, half of which distance is
performed on mules, not so sure footed, but that on the first day the
one which I rode fell in what the guides call a _mauvais pas_, so that I
narrowly escaped being precipitated down the mountain. We passed over a
hollow covered with snow, down which vast stones are accustomed to roll.
One had fallen the preceding day, a little time after we had returned:
our guides desired us to pass quickly, for it is said that sometimes the
least sound will accelerate their descent. We arrived at Montanvert,
however, safe.
On all sides precipitous mountains, the abodes of unrelenting frost,
surround this vale: their sides are banked up with ice and snow, broken,
heaped high, and exhibiting terrific chasms. The summits are sharp and
naked pinnacles, whose overhanging steepness will not even permit snow
to rest upon them. Lines of dazzling ice occupy here and there their
perpendicular rifts, and shine through the driving vapours with
inexpressible brilliance: they pierce the clouds like things not
belonging to this earth. The vale itself is filled with a mass of
undulating ice, and has an ascent sufficiently gradual even to the
remotest abysses of these horrible desarts. It is only half a league
(about two miles) in breadth, and seems much less. It exhibits an
appearance as if frost had suddenly bound up the waves and whirlpools of
a mighty torrent. We walked some distance upon its surface. The waves
are elevated about 12 or 15 feet from the surface of the mass, which is
intersected by long gaps of unfathomable depth, the ice of whose sides
is more beautifully azure than the sky. In these regions every thing
changes, and is in motion. This vast mass of ice has one general
progress, which ceases neither day nor night; it breaks and bursts for
ever: some undulations sink while others rise; it is never the same. The
echo of rocks, or of the ice and snow which fall from their overhanging
precipices, or roll from their aerial summits, scarcely ceases for one
moment. One would think that Mont Blanc, like the god of the Stoics, was
a vast animal, and that the frozen blood for ever circulated through his
stony veins.
We dined (M***, C***, and I) on the grass, in the open air, surrounded
by this scene. The air is piercing and clear. We returned down the
mountain, sometimes encompassed by the driving vapours, sometimes
cheered by the sunbeams, and arrived at our inn by seven o'clock.
Montalegre, July 28th.
The next morning we returned through the rain to St. Martin. The scenery
had lost something of its immensity, thick clouds hanging over the
highest mountains; but visitings of sunset intervened between the
showers, and the blue sky shone between the accumulated clouds of snowy
whiteness which brought them; the dazzling mountains sometimes glittered
through a chasm of the clouds above our heads, and all the charm of its
grandeur remained. We repassed _Pont Pellisier_, a wooden bridge over
the Arve, and the ravine of the Arve. We repassed the pine forests which
overhang the defile, the chateau of St. Michel, a haunted ruin, built on
the edge of a precipice, and shadowed over by the eternal forest. We
repassed the vale of Servoz, a vale more beautiful, because more
luxuriant, than that of Chamouni. Mont Blanc forms one of the sides of
this vale also, and the other is inclosed by an irregular amphitheatre
of enormous mountains, one of which is in ruins, and fell fifty years
ago into the higher part of the valley: the smoke of its fall was seen
in Piedmont, and people went from Turin to investigate whether a volcano
had not burst forth among the Alps. It continued falling many days,
spreading, with the shock and thunder of its ruin, consternation into
the neighbouring vales. In the evening we arrived at St. Martin. The
next day we wound through the valley, which I have described before, and
arrived in the evening at our home.
We have bought some specimens of minerals and plants, and two or three
crystal seals, at Mont Blanc, to preserve the remembrance of having
approached it. There is a cabinet of _Histoire Naturelle_ at Chamouni,
just as at Keswick, Matlock, and Clifton; the proprietor of which is the
very vilest specimen of that vile species of quack that, together with
the whole army of aubergistes and guides, and indeed the entire mass of
the population, subsist on the weakness and credulity of travellers as
leaches subsist on the sick. The most interesting of my purchases is a
large collection of all the seeds of rare alpine plants, with their
names written upon the outside of the papers that contain them. These I
mean to colonize in my garden in England, and to permit you to make what
choice you please from them. They are companions which the Celandine—the
classic Celandine, need not despise; they are as wild and more daring
than he, and will tell him tales of things even as touching and sublime
as the gaze of a vernal poet.
Did I tell you that there are troops of wolves among these mountains? In
the winter they descend into the vallies, which the snow occupies six
months of the year, and devour every thing that they can find out of
doors. A wolf is more powerful than the fiercest and strongest dog.
There are no bears in these regions. We heard, when we were at Lucerne,
that they were occasionally found in the forests which surround that
lake. Adieu.
S.
LINES
WRITTEN IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI.
MONT BLANC.
LINES WRITTEN IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI.
I.
The everlasting universe of things
Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
Now dark—now glittering—now reflecting gloom—
Now lending splendour, where from secret springs
The source of human thought its tribute brings
Of waters,—with a sound but half its own,
Such as a feeble brook will oft assume
In the wild woods, among the mountains lone,
Where waterfalls around it leap for ever,
Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river
Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.
II.
Thus thou, Ravine of Arve—dark, deep Ravine—
Thou many-coloured, many-voiced vale,
Over whose pines, and crags, and caverns sail
Fast cloud shadows and sunbeams: awful scene,
Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes down
From the ice gulphs that gird his secret throne,
Bursting through these dark mountains like the flame
Of lightning thro' the tempest;—thou dost lie,
Thy giant brood of pines around thee clinging,
Children of elder time, in whose devotion
The chainless winds still come and ever came
To drink their odours, and their mighty swinging
To hear—an old and solemn harmony;
Thine earthly rainbows stretched across the sweep
Of the ethereal waterfall, whose veil
Robes some unsculptured image; the strange sleep
Which when the voices of the desart fail
Wraps all in its own deep eternity;—
Thy caverns echoing to the Arve's commotion,
A loud, lone sound no other sound can tame;
Thou art pervaded with that ceaseless motion,
Thou art the path of that unresting sound—
Dizzy Ravine! and when I gaze on thee
I seem as in a trance sublime and strange
To muse on my own separate phantasy,
My own, my human mind, which passively
Now renders and receives fast influencings,
Holding an unremitting interchange
With the clear universe of things around;
One legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings
Now float above thy darkness, and now rest
Where that or thou art no unbidden guest,
In the still cave of the witch Poesy,
Seeking among the shadows that pass by
Ghosts of all things that are, some shade of thee,
Some phantom, some faint image; till the breast
From which they fled recalls them, thou art there!
III.
Some say that gleams of a remoter world
Visit the soul in sleep,—that death is slumber,
And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber
Of those who wake and live.—I look on high;
Has some unknown omnipotence unfurled
The veil of life and death? or do I lie
In dream, and does the mightier world of sleep
Spread far around and inaccessibly
Its circles? For the very spirit fails,
Driven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep
That vanishes among the viewless gales!
Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky,
Mont Blanc appears,—still, snowy, and serene—
Its subject mountains their unearthly forms
Pile around it, ice and rock; broad vales between
Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps,
Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread
And wind among the accumulated steeps;
A desart peopled by the storms alone,
Save when the eagle brings some hunter's bone,
And the wolf tracts her there—how hideously
Its shapes are heaped around! rude, bare, and high,
Ghastly, and scarred, and riven.—Is this the scene
Where the old Earthquake-dæmon taught her young
Ruin? Were these their toys? or did a sea
Of fire, envelope once this silent snow?
None can reply—all seems eternal now.
The wilderness has a mysterious tongue
Which teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild,
So solemn, so serene, that man may be
But for such faith with nature reconciled;
Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal
Large codes of fraud and woe; not understood
By all, but which the wise, and great, and good
Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel.
IV.
The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams,
Ocean, and all the living things that dwell
Within the dædal earth; lightning, and rain,
Earthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane,
The torpor of the year when feeble dreams
Visit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep
Holds every future leaf and flower;—the bound
With which from that detested trance they leap;
The works and ways of man, their death and birth,
And that of him and all that his may be;
All things that move and breathe with toil and sound
Are born and die; revolve, subside and swell.
Power dwells apart in its tranquillity
Remote, serene, and inaccessible:
And _this_, the naked countenance of earth,
On which I gaze, even these primæval mountains
Teach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep
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
And wall impregnable of beaming ice.
Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin
Is there, that from the boundaries of the sky
Rolls its perpetual stream; vast pines are strewing
Its destined path, or in the mangled soil
Branchless and shattered stand; the rocks, drawn down
From yon remotest waste, have overthrown
The limits of the dead and living world,
Never to be reclaimed. The dwelling-place
Of insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil;
Their food and their retreat for ever gone,
So much of life and joy is lost. The race
Of man, flies far in dread; his work and dwelling
Vanish, like smoke before the tempest's stream,
And their place is not known. Below, vast caves
Shine in the rushing torrent's restless gleam,
Which from those secret chasms in tumult welling
Meet in the vale, and one majestic River,
The breath and blood of distant lands, for ever
Rolls its loud waters to the ocean waves.
Breathes its swift vapours to the circling air.
V.
Mont Blanc yet gleams on high:—the power is there,
The still and solemn power of many sights,
And many sounds, and much of life and death.
In the calm darkness of the moonless nights,
In the lone glare of day, the snows descend
Upon that Mountain; none beholds them there,
Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun,
Or the star-beams dart through them:—Winds contend
Silently there, and heap the snow with breath
Rapid and strong, but silently! Its home
The voiceless lightning in these solitudes
Keeps innocently, and like vapour broods
Over the snow. The secret strength of things
Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome
Of heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!
And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,
If to the human mind's imaginings
Silence and solitude were vacancy?
June 23, 1816.
Reynell, Printer, 45, Broad-street,
Golden-square.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
1. Silently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical
errors.
2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.