'Where am I?' astonish'd, aroused from my trance, I exclaim-and behold, with a rapturous glance, With exulting delight, upon Avon's fair side Thy birthplace, great Shakspeare! Britannia's pride,

Pride of Nature! her first and her favourite son, Whose Muse, in no age, in no country outdone, Or smiling or weeping enchants us, and draws From virtue, from genius their heartfelt applause.

REV. F. HODGSON.

ALPINE SCENERY.

ADDRESSED TO THE REV. T. S. WHALLEY, DURING
HIS RESIDENCE ON THE CONTINENT.

GLAD as the lone night-wanderer on his way
Hails the mild dayspring reddening on the shore,
We meet description's light-diffusing ray,
Shining on climes not given us to explore.

Powers that through distant scenes, or soft or dread,

Lead the charm'd spirit with supreme control, Where icy hills or torrid plains are spread, Where winds might waft us or where seas might roll.

Rich in those powers energic, warm, and bland, The leaves where Wraxall, More, and Coxe

explain

How clime prevails, thrones rise, or laws expand, To ravage or to bless each mark'd domain.

And gayer Sterne, whose page to latest time
Britons shall love; since its pervading art,
As manners vary with the varied clime,

Winds through the labyrinths of the human heart.
Does one mild virtue spread its lunar ray
Deep in the pensive bosom's coy recess,
Untraced by him along its latent way

To love, to pity, charity, and peace?

Or lurks one selfish passion sly and grave,
But at his touch its genuine form shall wear?
To whose free pen presiding Genius gave
The force resistless of Ithuriel's spear.
And shalt not thou, O daring Cook! obtain
The lasting homage of the' inquiring soul,
Who, 'mid the dangers of the frozen main,

Lifts the pale curtains of the southern pole! But now what meed shall my thrill'd fancy pay The talents which, to public honours cold, Yet warm to amity, those scenes display

That did to their delighted sense unfold,

When up the Savoy mountains * Whalley rose, Where Alpine eagles have their aeries built; Saw rocks as bold as savage Rosa shows,

And dales as soft as sunny Claude has gilt; His loved Chatillon's home +, whose youthful mind Congenial wit and kindred worth adorn; By genius nerved, by classic taste refined,

A summer ripeness in a vernal morn.

* This poem is intended as a poetical mirror to the striking pictures of Alpine scenery which Mr. Whalley's letters from the continent presented to the author.

+ Baron de Chatillon, a young Savoyard nobleman, whoin Mr. Whalley met at Dijon, and on whose account he and

What marvel, Whalley, that a heart like thine Should brave the surging storms that ceaseless

howl,

When winter yells around that craggy shrine
With icy breath and petrifying scowl;

What marvel?-drawn by the magnetic power,
That soul to soul so instantly endears,

Investing friendship's young and blossoming hour With all the fruits that crown her mellowest years.

I bless that power, illumed by fancy's ray,
It gives to thy free pen supreme command,
That bears me with resistless force away,

And on the rocks of Savoy bids me stand;

Shows me the Alps, huge in embattled pride,
A clustering phalanx, meet the wintry gales;
Or where, dispersed, they seem with giant stride
To chase each other to the gloomy vales;

Now, in vast curtains of encircling clouds,

Wrap their stupendous heads from mortal eyes; And then, awakening, pierce the misty shrouds, Roll the dark volumes back, and brave the skies.

I see, as winter blots the lurid air,

The savage Graces o'er the mountains stalk, Shake the frore horrors from their shaggy hair,

While howling wolves attend their desert walk;

Mrs. Whalley passed the winter at Chambéry, the capital of Savoy, situated amidst some of the highest Alps. It is the winter residence of the Chatillon family.

VOL. 11.

K

Then, as with livid hand and gorgon frown,

Sternly they wave the pale petrific wand O'er the loud floods, down, down the vast steeps thrown ;

In silent ice the shrinking cataracts stand. Now charm'd I mark the genial breath of spring To life and beauty wake the dreary scene, When o'er the melting vales she hastes to fling Her silver blossoms and her tender green; And on the lawns, between the mountains spread, To bid the floret's lavish perfume flow, Against their basis rest its blushing head, Whose summits whiten in eternal snow.

I mark the clouds, that gorgeous summer shows, Enfold the mountain cliffs with mantles bright, Or gather'd on their vast imperial brows,

In glorious diadems of colour'd light;

Or sail from rock to rock, and change their form,
As setting suns their last effulgence shed,
That now with gold and now with crimson warm,
Tinges their floating skirts, magnificently spread.
Charm'd I behold purpureal Autumn lead

Her grapes of deep or of transparent stain Round the tall steeps and o'er the yellow mead, Varied and spotted with the sable grain *. View that cold mass, shining as though it drew New radiant whiteness from the orb that fills With cordial strength, and gives the Tyrian hue

To the rich vines that deck the opposing hills;

* The black grain which, sowed in patches amidst the cornfields of Savoy, produces a landscape singularly shaded, and new to an English eye.

Hear melted cataracts thunder down the steeps,
Startling the gloomy valley's deep repose,
Whose current, as from rock to rock it leaps,
Retains the whiteness of its parent snows,
Ample and still, that on the mountain's brow,
Heedless of tepid or of stormy gales,
Sit,-in calm contrast to the roar below

Of filial torrents tumbling to the vales.

They, through the wide stretch'd forest black with pines,

Run silvering onward with divided streams; While in the vale the lone Montmelian* shines, Gilded by sunny evening's saffron gleams.

Once on that insulated summit rose

The towers most hostile to Ambition's sway, That e'er for Savoy's weal had dared oppose The Gallic victor on his ruthless way. Resisting long, they found resistance vain, And to the polish'd despot slowly yield ;Why did not wanton Montespan detain Voluptuous Lewis from the deathful field? Tender repentant Valiere!-not thy tears For honour lost so deeply pitied flow As those sad sighs and agonizing fears That rose, in all the bitterness of woe, When the pale Genius of that lovely land

Lean'd from his rock, defiled with gory stains, And saw fierce War stretch forth his red right hand, Drenching with blood those fair and fertile plains.

The fortress on the rock, Montmelian, was the last that yielded to Lewis XIV. when he conquered Savoy. This rock stands single in the centre of the vale, wholly unconnected with the surrounding Alps.