STORM ON ST. BERNARD

Oh, Heaven, it is a fearful thing Beneath the tempest's beating wing To struggle, like a stricken hare When swoops the monarch bird of air; To breast the loud winds' fitful spasms, To brave the cloud and shun the chasms, Tossed like a fretted shallop-sail Between the ocean and the gale. Along the valley, loud and fleet, The rising tempest leapt and roared, And scaled the Alp, till from his seat The throned Eternity of Snow His frequent avalanches poured In thunder to the storm below. And now, to crown their fears, a roar Like ocean battling with the shore, Or like that sound which night and day Breaks through Niagara's veil of spray, From some great height within the cloud, To some unmeasured valley driven, Swept down, and with a voice so loud It seemed as it would shatter heaven! The bravest quailed; it swept so near, It made the ruddiest cheek to blanch, While look replied to look in fear, "The avalanche! The avalanche!" It forced the foremost to recoil, Before its sideward billows thrown,— Who cried, "O God! Here ends our toil! The path is overswept and gone!" The night came down. The ghostly dark, Made ghostlier by its sheet of snow, Wailed round them its tempestuous wo, Like Death's announcing courier! "Hark There, heard you not the alp-hound's bark? And there again! and there! Ah, no, 'Tis but the blast that mocks us so!" Then through the thick and blackening mist Death glared on them, and breathed so near, Some felt his breath grow almost warm, The while he whispered in their ear Of sleep that should out-dream the storm. Then lower drooped their lids,—when, "List! Now, heard you not the storm-bell ring? And there again, and twice and thrice! Ah, no, 'tis but the thundering Of tempests on a crag of ice!" Death smiled on them, and it seemed good On such a mellow bed to lie The storm was like a lullaby, And drowsy pleasure soothed their blood. But still the sturdy, practised guide His unremitting labour plied; Now this one shook until he woke, And closer wrapt the other's cloak,— Still shouting with his utmost breath, To startle back the hand of Death, Brave words of cheer! "But, hark again,— Between the blasts the sound is plain; The storm, inhaling, lulls,—and hark! It is—it is! the alp-dog's bark And on the tempest's passing swell— The voice of cheer so long debarred— There swings the Convent's guiding-bell, The sacred bell of Saint Bernard!"