BONNET AND HALLER 411 



and Joch Passes. The return to his native mountains after five 

 years' absence awoke his muse, and he composed the poem on The 

 Alps, which, published in 1732, was to give the youth a European 

 reputation. It is somewhat difficult now to appreciate the quali- 

 ties that caught the public ear. A prose translation can do little 

 justice to poetry. But the following paraphrase may serve to 

 give some idea of Haller's descriptive method (stanzas 34-5) : 



' A medley of mountains, lakes, and rocks presents itself clearly 

 to view, clad in colours which fade gradually as the distance grows. 

 On the horizon shines a crown of gleaming summits ; the nearer heights 

 are covered with dark forests. A neighbouring hill stretches out 

 gentle terraces on which feed flocks whose lo wings wake the dales. 

 Here a lake spreads its beautiful mirror in the depths of a valley and 

 gives back the quivering light which the sun throws on its ripples. 

 There valleys, carpeted with verdure, open before the eyes and form 

 folds which grow closer as they recede. Elsewhere a bare mountain 

 displays its steep and smooth flanks, while it lifts to the skies the 

 eternal ice, which, like crystal, throws back the sun's rays and dares 

 the attack of the dog-days. Near it a vast and fertile alp supplies 

 abundant pasturages ; its gentler slopes glow with the sheen of ripen- 

 ing crops and its hillocks are covered with herds. Climates so opposite 

 are separated only by a narrow vale, where the shade is always fresh.' 



I add a passage from one of his prose works in which, after 

 enumerating the hardships that the botanist has to encounter in 

 the mountains, he exclaims : 



' But he has his recompense, the aspect of this majestic nature, 

 these eternal ice-fields, these rocky pyramids, always white with snow, 

 these dark valleys where the impetuous torrents precipitate themselves 

 in a hundred cascades, these silvery lakes, these deserts where no 

 song of birds breaks the silence and solitude ; all these in combination 

 produce a landscape at once moving, magnificent, and sublime, which 

 one recalls with a secret delight and a ceaseless longing to return to it.' 



Haller's verse, despite its vigour, may not reach the higher levels 

 of poetry, but there can be no question as to the poetical feeling 

 shown in his prose. The secret of the immense popularity of his 

 poem is obvious. The author struck and gave forcible expression 

 to a new vein of sentiment which was in the air. The age was 

 getting tired of formality and affectation ; the Swiss doctor's 

 verses might be prolix, his descriptions of scenery obvious, but 



