Then our next point is "What are we to '_do_'?"
My pipe I pocket, and with head up-tossed
My listening followers I thus accost:--
"Mont Blanc, we know, is stupid, stale, and slow,
A tiresome tramp o'er lumps of lifeless snow.
The Col du Géant is a trifle worse;
The Jardin's fit for babies with their nurse:
The Aiguille Verte is more the sort of thing,
But time has robbed it of its former sting;
Alone the Dent du Géant and the Dru [1]
Remain 'undone,' and therefore fit to '_do_.'
Remember how I love, my comrades tried,
To linger on some rocky mountain's side,
"Where I can hear the crash of falling stones,
Threatening destruction to the tourist's bones!
No cadence falls so sweetly on my ear
As stones discharged from precipices sheer:
No sight is half so soothing to my nerves
As boulders bounding in eccentric curves.
If falling stones sufficient be not found,
Lead me where avalanches most abound.
Ye shake your heads; ye talk of home and wife,
Of babes dependent on the Father's life.
What! still reluctant? let me then make clear
The duties of the guide and mountaineer;
Mine is to order, yours is to obey--
For you are hirelings, and 'tis I who pay.
I've heard, indeed, that some old-fashioned Herren,
Who've walked with Almer, Melchior, and Perren,
Maintain that mountaineering is a pleasure,