EPOCH OF GREAT GLACIATION 
A wreck it lies. Meanwhile the brother force 
To far more bracing scenes has bent its course. 
Striking north-east it joins a kindred band, 255 
That down has wandered from the Oberland. 
For miles and miles the junctioned hosts extend, 
And on to north a mighty ice-sheet send. 
Meanwhile from lofty Gotthard's snowy zone, 
That forth had sent the glacier of the Rhone 260 
Another glacier, fraught with fate, has gone. 
Away to east, upon a counter line, 
Has moved this ice, this glacier of the Rhine. 
Down easy miles it draws its stately train ; 
But further on is forced to bear the strain 265 
Of northward bend. Grand is its volume growing 
With tribute streams, from neighbouring valleys flowing. 
Now in more open country, left and right 
It spreads and onward glides : rolled out of sight 
Are breadths of land and lake ; till on its west 270 
It joins a confluent throng that here has pressed 
The band that in their mighty mass comprise 
Rhone's beaten right, and since won close allies. 
Creeps now the west front of the mingled force 
To join Black Forest glaciers ; whilst across 275 
The land of Swabia moves its eastern host, 
To find itself in Danube's highways lost. 
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