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

Switzerland: Alps, The

The Alps

By Oliver Goldsmith (1730–1774)

(From The Traveller)

E’EN now, where Alpine solitudes ascend,

I sit me down a pensive hour to spend;

And placed on high above the storm’s career,

Look downward where an hundred realms appear;

Lakes, forests, cities, plains extending wide,

The pomp of kings, the shepherd’s humbler pride.

When thus Creation’s charms around combine,

Amidst the store should thankless pride repine?

Say, should the philosophic mind disdain

That good which makes each humbler bosom vain?

Let school-taught pride dissemble all it can,

These little things are great to little man;

And wiser he, whose sympathetic mind

Exults in all the good of all mankind.

Ye glittering towns, with wealth and splendor crowned;

Ye fields, where summer spreads profusion round;

Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the busy gale;

Ye bending swains, that dress the flowery vale;

For me your tributary stores combine:

Creation’s heir, the world, the world is mine!