SUNSET is streaming o'er the snow-clad crown
Of the high Alps, while darkness settles down
Through all their countless valleys and defiles,
Mixing with shade, where sunlight never smiles:
Ere from the topmost peak, its latest ray
Has, with its wing of glory, sped away,
The mountain shepherd's horn has sounded there,
Like the Muezzin's evening call to prayer;
"Praise God the Lord!" and hark! from all around
A thousand voices answer to the sound:
From every clift, and crag, and ledge, and linn,
The notes of worship and of praise begin.
"Praise God the Lord!" the echoes catch the strain,
And far and near repeat the sound again;
They wake it in the wild and in the wood,
Through all the shades of that far solitude:
Bearing it on, o'er valley and ravine,
Where, till this hour, such sound has never been;
Then, in the distance, fainter grown the lay,
The lingering notes at length dissolve away.
When all is silent, on the mountain sod
The humble shepherds bend the knee to God;
They kneel in darkness and in peace, to share
The sweet and social intercourse of prayer:
With gleams of manly thought, their prayers arise,
Like incense from the altar, to the skies.
Their temple is the mountain and the mist,
And theirs the shrine where minister the blest;
They kneel before the Spirit of the world,
He who this universe of mountains hurled
Together with a word, and chaos spread
Mid majesty and grandeur, dark and dread.
Prostrate in presence of the Great First Cause,
They own his power, while they obey his laws:
Their thoughts are deeper than th' abyss beneath,
Yet while their humble orisons they breathe,
Their souls are soaring far beyond each height
On which the stars are clustering, with the night;
And while they view, with soul-admiring glance,
The world of fancy, nature, and romance,
That circles round their native rocks, they deem
The glories of the earth an empty dream.
But hark! that horn again resounds aloud,
Like sudden music bursting from a cloud:
"Good night!" "Good night!" along the mountain breaks,
"Good night!" "Good night!" again each echo wakes;
And all the scene, below, around, above,
Teems with "Good night!" the evening pledge of love.
The eagle, soaring, waits upon the wing,
Charmed with the notes the syren echoes sing;
The startled chamois bounds along the hill,
Yet, half-enraptured, turns to listen still;
From mount to valley, and from wold to wild,
The sounds are borne along, till, faint and mild,
"Good night," shall linger in the echoes' song,
When all to silence and to sleep belong.