Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
France: Vols. IX–X. 1876–79.
Mont Blanc Revisited
By John Ruskin (18191900)O
Behold the twilight sanguine stain
Along thy peaks expire;
O mount beloved! thy frontier waste
I seek with a religious haste
And reverent desire.
Such thoughts as holy men of old
Amidst the desert found;
Such gladness as in Him they felt,
Who with them through the darkness dwelt,
And compassed all around.
To give me manna here for snow,
And, by the torrent side,
To lead me as he leads his flocks
Of wild deer, through the lonely rocks,
In peace unterrified;
The partridge on her purple nest,
The marmot in his den,—
God wins a worship more resigned,
A purer praise than He can find
Upon the lips of men.
Of gratefulness nor confidence,
But still rejects and raves;
That all God’s love can hardly win
One soul from taking pride in sin,
And pleasure over graves.
In wrath of old the Mount of God,
Forget the thousands left;
Lest haply, when I seek his face,
The whirlwind of the cave replace
The glory of the cleft.
Lest I, of all Thy blood has bought,
Least honorable be;
And this, that moves me to condemn,
Be rather want of love for them
Than jealousy for Thee.