A SECOND VIEW OF THE SEVEN MOUNTAINS by ANN RADCLIFFE

Mountains! when next I saw ye it was Noon,
And Summer o'er your distant steeps had flung
Her veil of misty light: your rock-woods hung
Just green and budding, though in pride of June,

And pale your many-spiring tops appeared,
While, here and there, soft tints of silver grey
Marked where some jutting cliff received the ray;
Or long-lived precipice its brow upreared.

Beyond your tapering pinnacles, a show
Of other giant-forms more dimly frowned,
Hinting the wonders of that unknown ground,
And of deep wizard-vales, unseen below.

Thus, o'er the long and level plains ye rose
Abrupt and awful, when my raptured eye
Beheld ye. Mute I gazed! 'Twas then a sigh
Alone could speak the soul's most full repose;

For of a grander world ye seemed the dawn,
Rising beyond where Time's tired wing can go,
As, bending o'er the green Rhine's liquid lawn,
Ye watched the ages of the world below.

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