Page:Bijou 1829.pdf/8



Heaven knows our travellers have sufficiently alloyed the beautiful, and profaned the sublime, by associating these with themselves, the common-place, and the ridiculous; but out upon them, thus to tread on the grey hairs of centuries,—on the untrodden snows of Mont Blanc.

monarch of the upper air, Thou mighty temple given For morning's earliest of light, And evening's last of heaven. The vapour from the marsh, the smoke From crowded cities sent, Are purified before they reach Thy loftier element. Thy hues are not of earth but heaven; Only the sunset rose Hath leave to fling a crimson dye Upon thy stainless snows.

Now out on those adventurers Who scaled thy breathless height, And made thy pinnacle, Mont Blanc, A thing for common sight.