Meadows green, and maidens mowing in the pleasant twilight shade:
The crimson crown of sun-set on Mont Blanc's majestic head,
And each lesser peak beneath him pale and ghastly as the dead:
Eagle-nest-like mountain chalets, where the tourist for some sous
Can imbibe milk by the bucket, and on Nature's grandeur muse:
Mont Anvert, the "Pas" called "mauvais," which I thought
was "pas mauvais,"
Where, in spite of all my boasting, I encountered some delay;
For, much to my amazement, at the steepest part I met
A matron who weighed twenty stones, and I think must be there yet:
The stupendous Col du Géant, with its chaos of seracs;
The procession into Cormayeur, with lantern, rope, and axe:
The sweet girl with golden ringlets--her dear name was Mary Ann--
Whom I helped to climb the Jardin, and who cut me at Lausanne:
On these, the charms of Chamonix, sweeter far than words can tell,
At the witching hour of twilight doth my memory love to dwell.
Ye, who ne'er have known the rapture, the unutterable bliss
Of Savoy's sequestered valleys, and the mountains of La Suisse;
The mosquitos of Martigny; the confusion of Sierre;
The dirt of Visp or Minister, and the odours everywhere:
Ye, who ne'er from Monte Rosa have surveyed Italia's plain,
Till you wonder if you ever will get safely down again;
Ye, who ne'er have stood on tip-toe on a 'knife-like snow-arête,'
Nor have started avalanches by the pressure of your weight;
Ye, who ne'er have _packed_ your weary limbs in sleeping bags at night,
Some few inches from a berg-schrund, 'neath
the pale moon's freezing light:
Who have ne'er stood on the snow-fields, when the sun in glory rose,
Nor returned again at sun-set with parched lips and skinless nose;
Ye, who love not masked crevasses, falling stones, and blistered feet,