Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Switzerland and Austria: Vol. XVI. 1876–79.
My Alpenstock
By Henry Glassford Bell (18031874)B
On my trusty alpenstock,
All the proper things, d’ ye see,
Every mountain, every rock:
Friends may know that I have been
Quite as high as Albert Smith,
Or balloon of Mr. Green.
Some say that ’s an easy hill,
Yet I own the place accurst
Found me at the bottom still.
Truth itself can’t take offence,
All that height I came along,
Rattling in the diligence.
Very few have ventured on her;
That I did not I am vext,
For I meant it, on my honor!
Or the Col de Balme they pace;
I said only “au revoir,”
When I saw the kind of place:
Paint in letters bold and broad;
’T is a pleasant proverb, ain’t it,
That a wink ’s as good ’s a nod.
Scheideck where I played the fool,
Sore and saddle-sick I went
Up and down upon a mule.
He who has ascended it
Need not talk of breathlessness,
Is for any mountain fit:
With a fear I don’t conceal,
But the scheme went all aside,
For a nail ran up my heel.
Though it made me gasp and quake,
With a kind of mortal pang,
Just to view it from the lake.
Back to London with delight,
For my alpenstock will show
What becomes a man of might.
Jones himself will cease to sneer;
Brown will own, the spiteful cub,
That my legs are no small beer.