STORM ON ST. BERNARD
Oh, Heaven, it is a fearful thing
Beneath the tempest's beating wing
To struggle, like a stricken hare
When swoops the monarch bird of air;
To breast the loud winds' fitful spasms,
To brave the cloud and shun the chasms,
Tossed like a fretted shallop-sail
Between the ocean and the gale.
Along the valley, loud and fleet,
The rising tempest leapt and roared,
And scaled the Alp, till from his seat
The throned Eternity of Snow
His frequent avalanches poured
In thunder to the storm below.
And now, to crown their fears, a roar
Like ocean battling with the shore,
Or like that sound which night and day
Breaks through Niagara's veil of spray,
From some great height within the cloud,
To some unmeasured valley driven,
Swept down, and with a voice so loud
It seemed as it would shatter heaven!
The bravest quailed; it swept so near,
It made the ruddiest cheek to blanch,
While look replied to look in fear,
"The avalanche! The avalanche!"
It forced the foremost to recoil,
Before its sideward billows thrown,—
Who cried, "O God! Here ends our toil!
The path is overswept and gone!"
The night came down. The ghostly dark,
Made ghostlier by its sheet of snow,
Wailed round them its tempestuous wo,
Like Death's announcing courier! "Hark
There, heard you not the alp-hound's bark?
And there again! and there! Ah, no,
'Tis but the blast that mocks us so!"
Then through the thick and blackening mist
Death glared on them, and breathed so near,
Some felt his breath grow almost warm,
The while he whispered in their ear
Of sleep that should out-dream the storm.
Then lower drooped their lids,—when, "List!
Now, heard you not the storm-bell ring?
And there again, and twice and thrice!
Ah, no, 'tis but the thundering
Of tempests on a crag of ice!"
Death smiled on them, and it seemed good
On such a mellow bed to lie
The storm was like a lullaby,
And drowsy pleasure soothed their blood.
But still the sturdy, practised guide
His unremitting labour plied;
Now this one shook until he woke,
And closer wrapt the other's cloak,—
Still shouting with his utmost breath,
To startle back the hand of Death,
Brave words of cheer! "But, hark again,—
Between the blasts the sound is plain;
The storm, inhaling, lulls,—and hark!
It is—it is! the alp-dog's bark
And on the tempest's passing swell—
The voice of cheer so long debarred—
There swings the Convent's guiding-bell,
The sacred bell of Saint Bernard!"