Henry Alford

Inscription For A Block Of Granite On The Surface Of The Mer De Glace.

See me, by elemental warfare torn From yonder peak's aerial crest, Now on the rifted breast Of this ice--ocean borne By ministering ages without fail Down to my rest Among the shattered heaps in yonder deep--set vale. Gray am I, for my conflict with the powers Of air doth never cease; around My lifted head doth sound The voice of all the hours Struck forth in tempest from my fretted side The snows rebound: The avalanche's spray--balls in my rifts abide. Glory and ruin doth my course behold, After each wild and dreadful night The day--birth heavenly bright Floods all this vale with gold; And when the day sinks down, on every peak Last shafts of light The downward fading sky with lines of ruby streak. All summer long the moan of many woods Comes to me, and from far conveyed The tumbling of the low cascade, And rush of valley floods. The lavish rock--rose clothes with crimson hue Each upward glade, And the Alp--violet strews its stars of brightest blue. Thus slowly down long ages shall I pass, Unnoticed, save by practised eye Of them who use thus high The traveller's steps to lead; Then when the years by God apportionèd Shall have past by, Leap from the lofty brink, and fill the vale with dread.