Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. IV. The Nineteenth Century: Wordsworth to Rossetti
Sydney Dobell (18241874)Chamouni
I
Thou hast known anywhere amid a storm
Of thunder, when the Heavens and Earth were moved,
A gleam of quiet sunshine that hath saved
Thine heart; or where the earthquake hath made wreck,
Knowest a stream, that wandereth fair and sweet
As brooks go singing thro’ the fields of home;
Or on a sudden when the sea, distent
With windy pride, upriseth thro’ the clouds
To set his great head equal with the stars,
Hast sunk Hell-deep, thy noble ship a straw
Betwixt two billows; or in any wild
Barbaric, hast, with half-drawn breath, passed by
The sleeping savage, dreadful still in sleep,
Scarred by a thousand combats, by his side
His rugged spouse—in aught but sex a chief—
Their babe between; or where the stark roof-tree
Of a burnt home blackened and sear lies dark,
Betwixt the gaunt-ribbed ruin, hast thou seen
The rose of peace; or in some donjon deep,
Rent by a giant in the blasted rock
And proof against his peers,—hast thou beheld
Prone in the gloom, naked and shining sad
In her own light of loveliness, a fair
Daughter of Eve: Then as thou seest God
In some material likeness, less and more,
Thou hast seen Chamouni, ’mid sternest Alps
The gentlest valley; bright meandering track
Of summer when she winds among the snows
From Land to Land.