--Is there who mid these awful wilds has seen The native Genii walk the mountain green? Or heard, while other worlds their charms reveal, 420 Soft music from th' aëreal summit steal? While o'er the desert, answering every close, Rich steam of sweetest perfume comes and goes. --And sure there is a secret Power that reigns Here, where no trace of man the spot profanes, 425 Nought but the herds that pasturing upward creep, Hung dim-discover'd from the dangerous steep, [T] Or summer hamlet, flat and bare, on high Suspended, mid the quiet of the sky. How still! no irreligious sound or sight 430 Rouzes the soul from her severe delight. An idle voice the sabbath region fills Of Deep that calls to Deep across the hills, Broke only by the melancholy sound Of drowsy bells for ever tinkling round; 435 Faint wail of eagle melting into blue Beneath the cliffs, and pine-woods steady sugh; [U] The solitary heifer's deepen'd low; Or rumbling heard remote of falling snow. Save that, the stranger seen below, the boy 440 Shouts from the echoing hills with savage joy. When warm from myrtle bays and tranquil seas, Comes on, to whisper hope, the [V] vernal breeze, When hums the mountain bee in May's glad ear, And emerald isles to spot the heights appear, 445 When shouts and lowing herds the valley fill, And louder torrents stun the noon-tide hill, When fragrant scents beneath th' enchanted tread Spring up, his little all around him spread, The pastoral Swiss begins the cliffs to scale 450 To silence leaving the deserted vale, Up the green mountain tracking Summer's feet, Each twilight earlier call'd the Sun to meet, With earlier smile the ray of morn to view Fall on his shifting hut that gleams mid smoking dew; 455 Bless'd with his herds, as in the patriarch's age, The summer long to feed from stage to stage; O'er azure pikes serene and still, they go, And hear the rattling thunder far below; Or lost at eve in sudden mist the day 460 Attend, or dare with minute-steps their way; Hang from the rocks that tremble o'er the steep, And tempt the icy valley yawning deep, O'er-walk the chasmy torrent's foam-lit bed, Rock'd on the dizzy larch's narrow tread, 465 Whence Danger leans, and pointing ghastly, joys To mock the mind with "desperation's toys"; Or steal beneath loose mountains, half deterr'd, That sigh and shudder to the lowing herd. --I see him, up the midway cliff he creeps 470 To where a scanty knot of verdure peeps, Thence down the steep a pile of grass he throws The fodder of his herds in winter snows. Far different life to what tradition hoar Transmits of days more bless'd in times of yore. [W] 475