" In the course of
time he reached Chamonix and went on a Sunday to the Montanvert to see
the Mer de Glace. There he wrote the following verses for the visitors'
book, which he considered, so he says, "suitable to the day and scene":--
Lord, while these wonders of thy hand I see,
My soul in holy reverence bends to thee.
These awful solitudes, this dread repose,
Yon pyramid sublime of spotless snows,
These spiry pinnacles, those smiling plains,
This sea where one eternal winter reigns,
These are thy works, and while on them I gaze
I hear a silent tongue that speaks thy praise.
Some poets always begin to get groggy about the knees after running for
seven or eight lines. Mr Pontifex's last couplet gave him a lot of
trouble, and nearly every word has been erased and rewritten once at
least. In the visitors' book at the Montanvert, however, he must have
been obliged to commit himself definitely to one reading or another.
Taking the verses all round, I should say that Mr Pontifex was right in
considering them suitable to the day; I don't like being too hard even on
the Mer de Glace, so will give no opinion as to whether they are suitable
to the scene also.
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