Classic Poem

The scene was bathed in beauty rare,
For Alpine grandeur toppled there,
With emerald spots between,
A summer-evening's blush of rose
All faintly warmed the crested snows,
And tinged the valleys green;

Night gloom'd apace, and dark on high
The thousand banners of the sky
Their awful width unfurl'd,
Veiling Mont Blanc's majestic brow,
That seem'd among its cloud-wrapt snow,
The ghost of some dead world:

When Pierre the hunter cheerly went
To scale the Catton's battlement
Before the peep of day;
He took his rifle, pole, and rope,
His heart and eyes alight with hope,
He hasted on his way.

He crossed the vale, he hurried on,
He forded the cold Averon,
The first rough terrace gain'd,
Threaded the fir-wood's gloomy belt,
And trod the snows that never melt,
And to the summit strained.

Over the top, as he knew well,
Beyond the glacier in the dell,
A herd of chamois slept,
So down the other dreary side,
With cautious tread or careless slide,
He bounded, or he crept.

And now he nears the chasmed ice;
He stoops to leap—and in a trice,
His foot hath slipped—O, Heaven!
He hath leaped in, and down he falls
Between those blue tremendous walls,
Standing asunder riven.

But quick his clutching nervous grasp
Contrives a jutting crag to clasp,
And thus he hangs in air;—
O moment of exulting bliss!
Yet hope so nearly hopeless is
Twin-brother to despair.

He look'd beneath—a horrible doom!
Some thousand yards of deepening gloom,
Where he must drop to die!
He look'd above, and many a rood
Upright the frozen ramparts stood
Around a speck of sky.

Fifteen long dreadful hours he hung,
And often by strong breezes swung,
His fainting body twists.
Scarce can be cling one moment more,
His half-dead hands are ice, and sore
His burning, bursting wrists;

His head grows dizzy—he must drop;
He half resolves—but stop, O stop!
Hold on to the last spasm.
Never in life give up your hope—
Behold, behold a friendly rope
Is dropping down the chasm!

They call thee, Pierre—see, see them here,
Thy gathered neighbours far and near;
Be cool, man, hold on fast:
And so from out that terrible place,
With death's pale paint upon his face,
They drew him up at last.

And he came home an altered man,
For many harrowing terrors ran
Through his poor heart that day;
He thought how all thro' life, though young,
Upon a thread, a hair, he hung,
Over a gulf midway:

He thought what fear it were to fall
Into the pit that swallows all,
Unwing'd with hope and love;
And when the succour came at last,
O, then he learnt how firm and fast
Was his best Friend above.