Ye ice-falls! ye, that from the mountain's brow, Adown enormous ravines slope amain,-- Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge! Motionless torrents! silent cataracts! Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet? "God!" let the torrents, like a shout of nations, Answer: and let the ice-plains echo, "God!" "God!" sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice! Ye pine groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! And they, too, have a voice, yon piles of snow, And, in their perilous fall, shall thunder, "God!" Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost! Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest! Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm! Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds! Ye signs and wonders of the elements! Utter forth "God!" and fill the hills with praise! Once more, hoar mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks, Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene Into the depths of clouds, that veil thy breast-- Thou too, again, stupendous mountain! thou That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low In adoration, upward from thy base Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears,-- Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud, To rise before me--Rise, O, ever rise! Rise, like a cloud of incense, from the earth! Thou kingly spirit, throned among the hills! Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven, Great Hierarch, tell thou the silent sky, And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun, "Earth, with her thousand voices, praises god." S. T. Coleridge. CXCVIIII. "HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT T0 AIX." I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he; I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three; "Good speed!" cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew; "Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through; Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest, And into the midnight we galloped abreast.