The Virgin Mountain,[229] wearing like a Queen A brilliant crown of everlasting snow, Sheds ruin from her sides; and men below Wonder that aught of aspect so serene Can link with desolation. Smooth and green, And seeming, at a little distance, slow, The waters of the Rhine; but on they go Fretting and whitening, keener and more keen; Till madness seizes on the whole wide Flood, Turned to a fearful Thing whose nostrils breathe 10 Blasts of tempestuous smoke--wherewith he tries To hide himself, but only magnifies; And doth in more conspicuous torment writhe, Deafening the region in his ireful mood.[230] FOOTNOTES: [229] The Jung-frau.--W. W. 1822. [230] This Sonnet was included among the "Memorials of a Tour on the Continent" (1822), and the following note was added:--"This Sonnet belongs to another publication, but from its fitness for this place is inserted here also, '_Voilà un énfer d'eau_,' cried out a German Friend of Ramond, falling on his knees on the scaffold in front of this Waterfall. See Ramond's Translation of Coxe."--W. W. The following extracts from Mrs. Wordsworth's Journal of the Continental Tour in 1820 illustrate it. "Aug. 9.--I am seated before _Jung-frau_, in the green vale of Interlaken, 'green to the very door,' with rich shade of walnut trees, the river behind the house.... Mountains and that majestic _Virgin_ closing up all.... By looking across into a nook at the entrance of the Vale of Lauterbrunnen, Jung-frau presses forward and seems to preside over and give a character to the whole of the vale that belongs only to this one spot," ... "Aug. 10th.-- ... Reached Grindelwald, by the pass close to Jung-frau (at least separated from it by a deep cleft only), which sent forth its avalanches,--one grand beyond all description. It was an awful and a solemn sound." ... "Aug. 1st.-- ... Nothing could exceed my delight when, through an opening between buildings at the skirts of the town, we _unexpectedly_ hailed our old and side-by-side companion, the Rhine, now roaring like a lion, along his rocky channel. Never beheld so soft, so lovely a green, as is here given to the waters of this lordly river; and then, how they glittered and heaved to meet the sunshine."--ED. XLIV TROUBLES OF CHARLES THE FIRST