I have endeavored several times to give some idea of the sublimity of the Alps, but words seem almost powerless to measure these mighty mountains.  No effort of the imagination could possibly equal their real grandeur.  I wish also to describe the feelings inspired by being among them,—­feelings which can best be expressed through the warmer medium of poetry.

    SONG OF THE ALP. 
    I.

    I sit aloft on my thunder throne,
    And my voice of dread the nations own
       As I speak in storm below! 
    The valleys quake with a breathless fear,
    When I hurl in wrath my icy spear
       And shake my locks of snow! 
    When the avalanche forth like a tiger leaps,
      How the vassal-mountains quiver! 
    And the storm that sweeps through the airy deeps
      Makes the hoary pine-wood shiver! 
    Above them all, in a brighter air,
    I lift my forehead proud and bare,
    And the lengthened sweep of my forest-robe
    Trails down to the low and captured globe,
    Till its borders touch the dark green wave
    In whose soundless depths my feet I lave. 
    The winds, unprisoned, around me blow,
    And terrible tempests whirl the snow;
    Rocks from their caverned beds are torn,
    And the blasted forest to heaven is borne;
    High through the din of the stormy band,
    Like misty giants the mountains stand,
    And their thunder-revel o’er-sounds the woe,
    That cries from the desolate vales below! 
    I part the clouds with my lifted crown,
    Till the sun-ray slants on the glaciers down,
    And trembling men, in the valleys pale,
    Rejoice at the gleam of my icy mail!

    II.

    I wear a crown of the sunbeam’s gold,
    With glacier-gems en my forehead old—­
       A monarch crowned by God! 
    What son of the servile earth may dare
    Such signs of a regal power to wear,
       While chained to her darkened sod? 
    I know of a nobler and grander lore
      Than Time records on his crumbling pages,
    And the soul of my solitude teaches more
      Than the gathered deeds of perished ages! 
    For I have ruled since Time began
    And wear no fetter made by man. 
    I scorn the coward and craven race
    Who dwell around my mighty base,
    For they leave the lessons I grandly gave
    And bend to the yoke of the crouching slave. 
    I shout aloud to the chainless skies;
    The stream through its falling foam replies,
    And my voice, like the sound of the surging sea,
    To the nations thunders:  “I am free!”
    I spoke to Tell when a tyrant’s hand
    Lay heavy and hard on his native land,
    And the spirit whose glory from mine he won
    Blessed the Alpine dwellers with Freedom’s sun! 
    The student-boy on the Gmunden-plain
    Heard my solemn voice, but