The sky is changed!–and such a change; Oh, night!
And storm and darkness, ye are wond’rous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light
Of a dark eye in woman! Far along
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among,
Leaps the lire thunder! Not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now hath found a tongue,
And Jura answers thro’ her misty shroud,
Back to the joyous Alps who call to her aloud!
And this is in the night:–Most glorious night!
Thou wer’t not sent for slumber! let me be
A sharer in thy far and fierce delight,–
A portion of the tempest and of me!
How the lit lake shines a phosphoric sea,
And the big rain comet dancing to the earth!
And now again ’tis black,–and now the glee
Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain mirth,
As if they did rejoice o’er a young; earthquake’s birth,
Now where the swift Rhine cleaves his way between
Heights which appear, as lovers who have parted
In haste, whose mining depths so intervene,
That they can meet no more, tho’ broken hearted;
Tho’ in their souls which thus each other thwarted,
Love was the very root of the fond rage
Which blighted their life’s bloom, and then departed–
Itself expired, but leaving; them an age
Of years all winter–war within themselves to wage.
