John Ruskin

Mont Blanc Revisited

O MOUNT beloved! mine eyes again
Behold the twilight sanguine stain
  Along thy peaks expire;
O mount beloved! thy frontier waste
I seek with a religious haste
  And reverent desire.

They meet me midst thy shadows cold,—
Such thoughts as holy men of old
  Amidst the desert found;
Such gladness as in Him they felt,
Who with them through the darkness dwelt,
  And compassed all around.

O, happy if His will were so,
To give me manna here for snow,
  And, by the torrent side,
To lead me as he leads his flocks
Of wild deer, through the lonely rocks,
  In peace unterrified;

Since, from the things that trustful rest,—
The partridge on her purple nest,
  The marmot in his den,—
God wins a worship more resigned,
A purer praise than He can find
  Upon the lips of men.

Alas for man! who hath no sense
Of gratefulness nor confidence,
  But still rejects and raves;
That all God’s love can hardly win
One soul from taking pride in sin,
  And pleasure over graves.

Yet let me not, like him who trod
In wrath of old the Mount of God,
  Forget the thousands left;
Lest haply, when I seek his face,
The whirlwind of the cave replace
  The glory of the cleft.

But teach me, God, a milder thought,
Lest I, of all Thy blood has bought,
  Least honorable be;
And this, that moves me to condemn,
Be rather want of love for them
  Than jealousy for Thee.