Much wondering by what fit of crazing care, Or desperate love, bewildered, he came there. [10] A hope, that prudence could not then approve, That clung to Nature with a truant's love, O'er Gallia's wastes of corn my footsteps led; 45 Her files of road-elms, high above my head In long-drawn vista, rustling in the breeze; Or where her pathways straggle as they please By lonely farms and secret villages. But lo! the Alps ascending white in air, [11] 50 Toy with the sun and glitter from afar. And now, emerging from the forest's gloom, I greet thee, Chartreuse, while I mourn thy doom. Whither is fled that Power whose frown severe Awed sober Reason till she crouched in fear? [12] 55 _That_ Silence, once in deathlike fetters bound, Chains that were loosened only by the sound Of holy rites chanted in measured round? [13] --The voice of blasphemy the fane alarms, The cloister startles at the gleam of arms. [14] 60 The [15] thundering tube the aged angler hears, [G] Bent o'er the groaning flood that sweeps away his tears. [16] Cloud-piercing pine-trees nod their troubled heads, [17] Spires, rocks, and lawns a browner night o'erspreads; Strong terror checks the female peasant's sighs, 65 And start the astonished shades at female eyes. From Bruno's forest screams the affrighted jay, And slow the insulted eagle wheels away. A viewless flight of laughing Demons mock The Cross, by angels planted [H] on the aërial rock. [18] 70 The "parting Genius" [J] sighs with hollow breath Along the mystic streams of Life and Death.[K] Swelling the outcry dull, that long resounds Portentous through her old woods' trackless bounds, Vallombre, [L] 'mid her falling fanes deplores 75 For ever broke, the sabbath of her bowers.