“But climb the crags when the storm has rule
And the spirit that rides the blast,
And hark to his howl as he sweeps the pool
Where the Roman groaned his last;
And to thee shall the tongue of the tempest tell
A record too sad for the poet’s shell.”
LUCERNE AND MOUNT PILATUS.
Whatever may have been the bareness of its sides in consequence of necromancer’s spells it is now filled with beautiful plant life—hundreds of varieties. If I had been as much of a botanist as I am a collector for my mental picture-gallery I might fill a page with the names and descriptions of the Alpine flowers, which I noticed as merely blue or pink or yellow and cared little for distinguishing them apart. Once during one of my trips I did see the edelweiss growing, but it is not very pretty; but the fields of gentians and the forget-me-nots—those acres of blue sky fallen to earth and growing up again—those would or might inspire and extract a poem from the most prosaic.
We went together also to the top of the Rigi, which is easily attainable by railway.