Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Switzerland and Austria: Vol. XVI. 1876–79.

Switzerland: Alps, The

Evening among the Alps

By Felicia Hemans (1793–1835)

SOFT skies of Italy! how richly drest,

Smile these wild scenes in your purpureal glow;

What glorious hues, reflected from the west,

Float o’er the dwellings of eternal snow!

Yon torrent, foaming down the granite steep,

Sparkles all brilliance in the setting beam;

Dark glens beneath in shadowy beauty sleep,

Where pipes the goatherd by his mountain-stream.

Now from you peak departs the vivid ray,

That still at eve its lofty temple knows;

From rock and torrent fade the tints away,

And all is wrapt in twilight’s deep repose:

While through the pine-wood gleams the vesper-star,

And roves the Alpine gale o’er solitudes afar.