_Chamois Hunter_. Even so This way the Chamois leapt: her nimble feet Have baffled me; my gains to-day will scarce Repay my break-neck travail.--What is here? Who seems not of my trade, and yet hath reached 60 A height which none even of our mountaineers, Save our best hunters, may attain: his garb Is goodly, his mien manly, and his air Proud as a free-born peasant's, at this distance: I will approach him nearer. _Man_. (_not perceiving the other_). To be thus-- Grey-haired with anguish, like these blasted pines, Wrecks of a single winter, barkless, branchless,[123] A blighted trunk upon a curséd root, Which but supplies a feeling to Decay-- And to be thus, eternally but thus, 70 Having been otherwise! Now furrowed o'er With wrinkles, ploughed by moments, not by years And hours, all tortured into ages--hours Which I outlive!--Ye toppling crags of ice! Ye Avalanches, whom a breath draws down In mountainous o'erwhelming, come and crush me! I hear ye momently above, beneath, Crash with a frequent conflict;[124] but ye pass, And only fall on things that still would live; On the young flourishing forest, or the hut 80 And hamlet of the harmless villager. _C. Hun_. The mists begin to rise from up the valley; I'll warn him to descend, or he may chance To lose at once his way and life together. _Man_. The mists boil up around the glaciers; clouds Rise curling fast beneath me, white and sulphury, Like foam from the roused ocean of deep Hell,[aw] Whose every wave breaks on a living shore, Heaped with the damned like pebbles.--I am giddy.[125] _C. Hun_. I must approach him cautiously; if near, 90 A sudden step will startle him, and he Seems tottering already. _Man_. Mountains have fallen, Leaving a gap in the clouds, and with the shock Rocking their Alpine brethren; filling up The ripe green valleys with Destruction's splinters; Damming the rivers with a sudden dash, Which crushed the waters into mist, and made Their fountains find another channel--thus, Thus, in its old age, did Mount Rosenberg--[126] Why stood I not beneath it? _C. Hun_. Friend! have a care, 100 Your next step may be fatal!--for the love Of Him who made you, stand not on that brink! _Man_. (_not hearing him_). Such would have been for me a fitting tomb; My bones had then been quiet in their depth; They had not then been strewn upon the rocks For the wind's pastime--as thus--thus they shall be-- In this one plunge.--Farewell, ye opening Heavens! Look not upon me thus reproachfully-- You were not meant for me--Earth! take these atoms!