shield. 
  Triumphant on the bosom of the storm,
  Glances the fire-clad eagle’s wheeling form;
  Eastward, in long perspective glittering, shine 340
  The wood-crown’d cliffs that o’er the lake recline;
  Wide o’er the Alps a hundred streams unfold,
  At once to pillars turn’d that flame with gold;
  Behind his sail the peasant strives to shun
  The west that burns like one dilated sun, 345
  Where in a mighty crucible expire
  The mountains, glowing hot, like coals of fire. [O]

  But lo! the boatman, over-aw’d, before
  The pictur’d fane of Tell suspends his oar;
  Confused the Marathonian tale appears, 350
  While burn in his full eyes the glorious tears. 
  And who but feels a power of strong controul,
  Felt only there, oppress his labouring soul,
  Who walks, where honour’d men of ancient days
  Have wrought with god-like arm the deeds of praise? 355
  Say, who, by thinking on Canadian hills,
  Or wild Aosta lulled by Alpine rills,
  On Zutphen’s plain; or where with soften’d gaze
  The old grey stones the plaided chief surveys,
  Can guess the high resolve, the cherish’d pain 360
  Of him whom passion rivets to the plain,
  Where breath’d the gale that caught Wolfe’s happiest sigh,
  And the last sun-beam fell on Bayard’s eye,
  Where bleeding Sydney from the cup retir’d,
  And glad Dundee in “faint huzzas” expir’d. 365

But now with other soul I stand alone Sublime upon this far-surveying cone, And watch from [P] pike to pike amid the sky Small as a bird the chamois-chaser fly.  ’Tis his with fearless step at large to roam 370 Thro’ wastes, of Spirits wing’d the solemn home, [Q] Thro’ vacant worlds where Nature never gave A brook to murmur or a bough to wave, Which unsubstantial Phantoms sacred keep; Thro’ worlds where Life and Sound, and Motion sleep, 375 Where Silence still her death-like reign extends, Save when the startling cliff unfrequent rends:  In the deep snow the mighty ruin drown’d, Mocks the dull ear of Time with deaf abortive sound; —­To mark a planet’s pomp and steady light 380 In the least star of scarce-appearing night, And neighbouring moon, that coasts the vast profound, Wheel pale and silent her diminish’d round, While far and wide the icy summits blaze Rejoicing in the glory of her rays; 385 The star of noon that glitters small and bright, Shorn of his beams, insufferably white, And flying fleet behind his orb to view Th’ interminable sea of sable blue.  —­Of cloudless suns no more ye frost-built spires 390 Refract in rainbow hues the restless fires!  Ye dewy mists the arid rocks o’er-spread Whose slippery face derides his deathful tread!

 —­To wet the peak’s impracticable