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(From Liberty)
THE MOUNTAIN then, clad with eternal snow, | |
| Confessed my power. Deep as the rampant rocks, | |
| By Nature thrown insuperable round, | |
| I planted there a league of friendly states, | |
| And bade plain freedom there ambition be. | 5 |
| There in the vale, where rural Plenty fills, | |
| From lakes, and meads, and furrowed fields, her horn, | |
| Chief where the Leman pure emits the Rhone, | |
| Rare to be seen! unguilty cities rise, | |
| Cities of brothers formed; while equal life, | 10 |
| Accorded gracious with revolving power, | |
| Maintains them free, and in their happy streets, | |
| Nor cruel deed, nor misery, is known. | |
| For valor, faith, and innocence of life | |
| Renowned, a rough, laborious people there | 15 |
| Not only give the dreadful Alps to smile, | |
| And press their culture on retiring snows; | |
| But, to firm order trained and patient war, | |
| They likewise know, beyond the nerve remiss | |
| Of mercenary force, how to defend | 20 |
| The tasteful little their hard toil has earned, | |
| And the proud arm of Bourbon to defy. | |
| E’en, cheered by me, their shaggy mountains charm | |
| More than or Gallic or Italian plains; | |
| And sickening Fancy oft, when absent long, | 25 |
| Pines to behold their Alpine views again: | |
| The hollow-winding stream; the vale, fair spread | |
| Amid an amphitheatre of hills, | |
| Whence, vapor-winged, the sudden tempest springs; | |
| From steep to sleep ascending, the gay train | 30 |
| Of fogs, thick-rolled into romantic shapes; | |
| The flitting cloud, against the summit dashed, | |
| And, by the sun illumined, pouring bright | |
| A gemmy shower; hung o’er amazing rocks, | |
| The mountain ash, and solemn-sounding pine; | 35 |
| The snow-fed torrent, in white mazes tost, | |
| Down to the clear ethereal lake below; | |
| And, high o’ertopping all the broken scene, | |
| The mountain fading into sky; where shines | |
| On winter, winter shivering, and whose top | 40 |
| Licks from their cloudy magazine the snows. | |
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