Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE ALPS; SEEN FROM MARENGO, by JOHN RUSKIN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE ALPS; SEEN FROM MARENGO, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The glory of a cloud -- without its wane
Last Line: Untainted by his life—untrusted with his grave?
Subject(s): Alps; Mountains; Hills; Downs (great Britain)


THE glory of a cloud—without its wane;
The stillness of the earth—but not its gloom;
The loveliness of life—without its pain;
The peace—but not the hunger of the tomb!
Ye Pyramids of God! around whose bases
The sea foams noteless in his narrow cup;
And the unseen movements of the earth send up
A murmur which your lulling snow effaces
Like the deer's footsteps. Thrones imperishable!
About whose adamantine steps the breath
Of dying generations vanisheth,
Less cognizable than clouds; and dynasties,
Less glorious and more feeble than the array
Of your frail glaciers, unregarded rise,
Totter and vanish. In the uncounted day,
When earth shall tremble as the trump unwraps
Their sheets of slumber from the crumbling dead,
And the quick, thirsty fire of judgment laps
The loud sea from the hollow of his bed—
Shall not your God spare you, to whom He gave
No share nor shadow of man's crime, or fate;
Nothing to render, nor to expiate;
Untainted by his life—untrusted with his grave?





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