CHAPTER XXX. — PASSAGE OF THE ST. GOTHARD AND DESCENT INTO ITALY.
Leaving Amstegg, I passed the whole day among snowy, sky-piercing Alps, torrents, chasms and clouds! The clouds appeared to be breaking up as we set out, and the white top of the Reassberg was now and then visible in the sky. Just above the village are the remains of Zwing Uri, the castle begun by the tyrant Gessler, for the complete subjugation of the canton. Following the Reuss up through a narrow valley, we passed the Bristenstock, which lifts its jagged crags nine thousand feet in the air, while on the other side stand the snowy summits which lean towards the Rhone Glacier and St. Gothard. From the deep glen where the Reuss foamed down towards the Lake of the Forest Cantons, the mountains rose with a majestic sweep so far into the sky that the brain grew almost dizzy in following their outlines. Woods, chalets and slopes of herbage covered their bases, where the mountain cattle and goats were browsing, while the herd-boys sang their native melodies or woke the ringing echoes with the loud, sweet sounds of their wooden horns; higher up, the sides were broken into crags and covered with stunted pines; then succeeded a belt of bare rock with a little snow lying in the crevices, and the summits of dazzling white looked out from the clouds nearly three-fourths the height of the zenith. Sometimes when the vale was filled with clouds, it was startling to see them parting around a solitary summit, apparently isolated in the air at an immense height, for the mountain to which it belonged was hidden to the very base!
The road passed from one side of the valley to the other, crossing the Reuss on bridges sometimes ninety feet high. After three or four hours walking, we reached a frightful pass called the Schollenen. So narrow is the defile that before reaching it, the road seemed to enter directly into the mountain. Precipices a thousand feet high tower above, and the stream roars and boils in the black depth below. The road is a wonder of art; it winds around the edge of horrible chasms or is carried on lofty arches across, with sometimes a hold apparently so frail that one involuntarily shudders. At a place called the Devil's Bridge, the Reuss leaps about seventy feet in three or four cascades, sending up continually a cloud of spray, while a wind created by the fall, blows and whirls around, with a force that nearly lifts one from his feet. Wordsworth has described the scene in the following lines:
"Plunge with the Reuss embrowned by terror's breath,
Where danger roofs the narrow walks of Death;
By floods that, thundering from their dizzy height,
Swell more gigantic on the steadfast sight,
Black, drizzling crags, that, beaten by the din,
Vibrate, us if a voice complained within,
Loose hanging rocks, the Day's blessed eye that hide,
And crosses reared to Death on every side!"
Beyond the Devil's Bridge, the mountains which nearly touched before, interlock into each other, and a tunnel three hundred and seventy-five feet long leads through the rock into the vale of Urseren, surrounded by the Upper Alps. The little town of Andermatt lies in the middle of this valley, which with the peaks around is covered with short, yellowish-brown grass. We met near Amstegg a little Italian boy walking home, from Germany, quite alone and without money, for we saw him give his last kreutzer to a blind beggar along the road. We therefore took him with us, as he was afraid to cross the St. Gothard alone.
After refreshing ourselves at Andermatt, we started, five in number, including a German student, for the St. Gothard. Behind the village of Hospiz, which stands at the bottom of the valley leading to Realp and the Furca pass, the way commences, winding backwards and forwards, higher and higher, through a valley covered with rocks, with the mighty summits of the Alps around, untenanted save by the chamois and mountain eagle. Not a tree was to be seen. The sides of the mountains were covered with loose rocks waiting for the next torrent to wash them down, and the tops were robed in eternal snow. A thick cloud rolled down over us as we went on, following the diminishing brooks to their snowy source in the peak of St. Gothard. We cut off the bends of the road by footpaths up the rocks, which we ascended in single file, one of the Americans going ahead and little Pietro with his staff and bundle bringing up the rear. The rarefied air we breathed, seven thousand feet above the sea, was like exhilarating gas. We felt no fatigue, but ran and shouted and threw snowballs, in the middle of August!
After three hours' walk we reached the two clear and silent lakes which send their waters to the Adriatic and the North Sea. Here, as we looked down the Italian side, the sky became clear; we saw the top of St. Gothard many thousand feet above, and stretching to the south, the summits of the mountains which guard the vales of the Ticino and the Adda. The former monastery has been turned into an inn; there is, however, a kind of church attached, attended by a single monk. It was so cold that although late, we determined to descend to the first village. The Italian side is very steep, and the road, called the Via Trimola, is like a thread dropped down and constantly doubling back upon itself. The deep chasms were filled with snow, although exposed to the full force of the sun, and for a long distance there was scarcely a sign of vegetation.
We thought as we went down, that every step was bringing us nearer to a sunnier land—that the glories of Italy, which had so long lain in the airy background of the future, would soon spread themselves before us in their real or imagined beauty. Reaching at dusk the last height above the vale of the Ticino, we saw the little village of Airolo with its musical name, lying in a hollow of the mountains. A few minutes of leaping, sliding and rolling, took us down the grassy declivity, and we found we had descended from the top in an hour and a half, although the distance by the road is nine miles! I need not say how glad we were to relieve our trembling knees and exhausted limbs.
I have endeavored several times to give some idea of the sublimity of the Alps, but words seem almost powerless to measure these mighty mountains. No effort of the imagination could possibly equal their real grandeur. I wish also to describe the feelings inspired by being among them,—feelings which can best be expressed through the warmer medium of poetry.
SONG OF THE ALP.
I. — I sit aloft on my thunder throne,
And my voice of dread the nations own
As I speak in storm below!
The valleys quake with a breathless fear,
When I hurl in wrath my icy spear
And shake my locks of snow!
When the avalanche forth like a tiger leaps,
How the vassal-mountains quiver!
And the storm that sweeps through the airy deeps
Makes the hoary pine-wood shiver!
Above them all, in a brighter air,
I lift my forehead proud and bare,
And the lengthened sweep of my forest-robe
Trails down to the low and captured globe,
Till its borders touch the dark green wave
In whose soundless depths my feet I lave.
The winds, unprisoned, around me blow,
And terrible tempests whirl the snow;
Rocks from their caverned beds are torn,
And the blasted forest to heaven is borne;
High through the din of the stormy band,
Like misty giants the mountains stand,
And their thunder-revel o'er-sounds the woe,
That cries from the desolate vales below!
I part the clouds with my lifted crown,
Till the sun-ray slants on the glaciers down,
And trembling men, in the valleys pale,
Rejoice at the gleam of my icy mail!
II. — I wear a crown of the sunbeam's gold,
With glacier-gems en my forehead old—
A monarch crowned by God!
What son of the servile earth may dare
Such signs of a regal power to wear,
While chained to her darkened sod?
I know of a nobler and grander lore
Than Time records on his crumbling pages,
And the soul of my solitude teaches more
Than the gathered deeds of perished ages!
For I have ruled since Time began
And wear no fetter made by man.
I scorn the coward and craven race
Who dwell around my mighty base,
For they leave the lessons I grandly gave
And bend to the yoke of the crouching slave.
I shout aloud to the chainless skies;
The stream through its falling foam replies,
And my voice, like the sound of the surging sea,
To the nations thunders: "I am free!"
I spoke to Tell when a tyrant's hand
Lay heavy and hard on his native land,
And the spirit whose glory from mine he won
Blessed the Alpine dwellers with Freedom's sun!
The student-boy on the Gmunden-plain
Heard my solemn voice, but he fought in vain;
I called from the crags of the Passeir-glen,
When the despot stood in my realm again,
And Hofer sprang at the proud command
And roused the men of the Tyrol land!
III. — I struggle up to the dim blue heaven,
From the world, far down in whose breast are driven
The props of my pillared throne;
And the rosy fires of morning glow
Like a glorious thought, on my brow of snow,
While the vales are dark and lone!
Ere twilight summons the first faint star,
I seem to the nations who dwell afar
Like a shadowy cloud, whose every fold
The sunset dyes with its purest gold,
And the soul mounts up through that gateway fair
To try its wings in a loftier air!
The finger of God on my brow is pressed—
His spirit beats in my giant breast,
And I breathe, as the endless ages roll,
His silent words to the eager soul!
I prompt the thoughts of the mighty mind,
Who leaves his century far behind
And speaks from the Future's sun-lit snow
To the Present, that sleeps in its gloom below!
I stand, unchanged, in creation's youth—
A glorious type of Eternal Truth,
That, free and pure, from its native skies
Shines through Oppression's veil of lies,
And lights the world's long-fettered sod
With thoughts of Freedom and of God!