sound [90]
  Of drowsy bells, for ever tinkling round;
  Faint wail of eagle melting into blue
  Beneath the cliffs, and pine-woods’ steady sugh; [W]
  The solitary heifer’s deepened low; 360
  Or rumbling, heard remote, of falling snow. 
  All motions, sounds, and voices, far and nigh,
  Blend in a music of tranquillity; [91]
  Save when, a stranger seen below [92] the boy
  Shouts from the echoing hills with savage joy. 365

    When, from the sunny breast of open seas,
  And bays with myrtle fringed, the southern breeze
  Comes on to gladden April with the sight
  Of green isles widening on each snow-clad height; [93]
  When shouts and lowing herds the valley fill, 370
  And louder torrents stun the noon-tide hill,
  [94] The pastoral Swiss begin the cliffs to scale,
  Leaving to silence the deserted vale; [95]
  And like the Patriarchs in their simple age
  Move, as the verdure leads, from stage to stage; [96] 375
  High and more high in summer’s heat they go, [97]
  And hear the rattling thunder far below;
  Or steal beneath the mountains, half-deterred,
  Where huge rocks tremble to the bellowing herd. [98]

    One I behold who, ’cross the foaming flood, 380
  Leaps with a bound of graceful hardihood;
  Another high on that green ledge;—­he gained
  The tempting spot with every sinew strained; [99]
  And downward thence a knot of grass he throws,
  Food for his beasts in time of winter snows. [100] 385
 —­Far different life from what Tradition hoar
  Transmits of happier lot in times of yore! [101]
  Then Summer lingered long; and honey flowed
  From out the rocks, the wild bees’ safe abode:  [102]
  Continual waters [103] welling cheered the waste, 390
  And plants were wholesome, now of deadly taste: 
  Nor Winter yet his frozen stores had piled,
  Usurping where the fairest herbage smiled: 
  Nor Hunger driven the herds from pastures bare,
  To climb the treacherous cliffs for scanty fare. [104] 395
  Then the milk-thistle flourished through the land,
  And forced the full-swoln udder to demand,
  Thrice every day, the pail and welcome hand. [105]
  Thus does the father to his children tell
  Of banished bliss, by fancy loved too well. [106] 400
  Alas! that human guilt provoked the rod [107]
  Of angry Nature to avenge her God. 
  Still, Nature, ever just, to him imparts
  Joys only given to uncorrupted hearts.

    ’Tis morn:  with gold the verdant mountain glows; 405
  More high, the snowy peaks with hues of rose. 
  Far-stretched beneath the many-tinted hills,
  A mighty waste of mist the valley fills,
  A solemn sea! whose billows wide around [108]
  Stand motionless, to awful silence bound: