Far down the bird may sing of love;
The honey-bearing blossom blow:
But hail, ye hills that rise above
The limit of perpetual snow!
O Alpine City, with thy walls
Of rock eterne and spires of ice,
Where torrent still to torrent calls,
And precipice to precipice;—
How like that holier City thou,
The heavenly Salem's earthly porch,
Which rears among the stars her brow,
And plants firm feet on earth — the Church!
“Decaying, ne'er to be decayed,”
Her woods, like thine, renew their youth:
Her streams, in rocky arms embayed,
Are clear as virtue, strong as truth.
At times the lake may burst its dam;
Black pine and rock the valley strew;
But o'er the ruin soon the lamb
Its flowery pasture crops anew.
She, too, in regions near the sky
Up-piles her cloistered snows, and thence
Diffuses gales of purity
O'er fields of consecrated sense.
On those still heights a love-light glows
The plains from them alone receive;—
Not all the Lily! There thy Rose,
O Mary, triumphs, morn and eve!