Some say that gleams of a remoter world 
Visit the soul in sleep, that death is slumber, 
And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber 
Of those who wake and live. — I look on high; 
Has some unknown omnipotence unfurl'd 
The veil of life and death? or do I lie 
In dream, and does the mightier world of sleep 
Spread far around and inaccessibly 
Its circles? For the very spirit fails, 
Driven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep 
That vanishes among the viewless gales! 
Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky, 
Mont Blanc appears — still, snowy, and serene; 
Its subject mountains their unearthly forms 
Pile around it, ice and rock; broad vales between 
Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps, 
Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread 
And wind among the accumulated steeps; 
A desert peopled by the storms alone, 
Save when the eagle brings some hunter's bone, 
And the wolf tracks her there—how hideously 
Its shapes are heap'd around! rude, bare, and high, 
Ghastly, and scarr'd, and riven.—Is this the scene 
Where the old Earthquake-daemon taught her young 
Ruin? Were these their toys? or did a sea 
Of fire envelop once this silent snow? 
None can reply — all seems eternal now. 
The wilderness has a mysterious tongue 
Which teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild, 
So solemn, so serene, that man may be, 
But for such faith, with Nature reconcil'd; 
Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal 
Large codes of fraud and woe; not understood 
By all, but which the wise, and great, and good 
Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel.