And by the pastoral margins mournfully78
Wanders from dawn to eve the earnest knight;
And ever to the ring he turns his eye,
And ever does the ring perplex the sight;
The fairy hand that knew no rest before,
Rests now as fix'd as if its task were o'er.
Towards the far head of the calm water turn'd79
The unmoving finger; yet, when gain'd the place,
No path for human foot the knight discern'd—
Abrupt and huge, the rocks enclosed the space.
His scath'd front veil'd in everlasting snows,
High above eagles Alpine Atlas rose.
No cleft! save that a giant torrent clove,80
For its fierce hurry to the lake it fed;
Check'd for a while in chasms conceal'd above,
Thence all its pomp the dazzling horror spread,
And from the beetling ridges, smooth and sheer,
Flash'd in one mass, down-roaring to the mere.
Still to that spot the fairy hand inclined,81
And daily there with wistful searching eyes
Wander'd the knight; each day no path to find.
What step can scale that ladder to the skies?
What portals yawn in those relentless walls?—
Still the hand points where still the cataract falls.
One noon, as thus he gazed in stern despair82
On rock and torrent;—from the tortured spray,
And through the mists, into cerulean air,
A dove descending rush'd its arrowy way;
Swift as a falling star, which, falling, brings
Woe on the helmet-crown of Dorian kings![11]
Straight to the wanderer's hand bore down the bird,83
With plumage crisp'd with fear, and piercing plaint;
Oft had he heedful, in his wanderings, heard
Of the great Wrong-Redresser, whom a saint
In the dove's guise directed—"Hail," he cried,
"I greet the token—I accept the guide!"
And sudden as he spoke, arose the wing,84
(Warily veering towards the dexter flank
Of the huge chasm, through which leapt thundering
From Nature's heart her savage); on the bank
Of that fell stream, in root, and jag, and stone,
It traced the ladder to the glacier's throne.
Slow sail'd the dove, and paused, and look'd behind,85
As labouring after, crag on crag, the knight
(Close on the deafening roar, and whirling wind
Lash'd from the surges), through the vaporous night
Of the grey mists, loom'd up the howling wild;
Strong in the charm the fairy gave the child.
With bleeding hands, that leave a moment's red86
On stone and stem wash'd by the mighty spray,
He gains at length the inter-alpine bed,
Whose lock'd Charybdis checks the torrent's way,
And forms a basin o'er abysmal caves,
For the grim respite of the headlong waves.
Torrents below—the torrents still above!87
Above less awful—as precipitous peak
And splinter'd ledge, and many a curve and cove
In the compress'd, indented margins, break
That crushing sense of power, in which we see
What, without Nature's God, would Nature be!