Of the free Alps, and beautifully bright,
And proud, and tameless, laughing fear to scorn!
It well might be!—Young Erni’s step had worn[232]
The mantling snows on their most regal steeps,
And track’d the lynx above the clouds of morn,
And follow’d where the flying chamois leaps
Across the dark blue rifts, th’ unfathom’d glacier deeps.
XXI.
He was a creature of the Alpine sky,
A being whose bright spirit had been fed