o drive sleep from their eyelids, with clambering tired.

O thou, who with banner of strangest device
Hast never yet stood on a summit of ice,
Where "lifeless but beautiful" nature doth show
An unvaried expanse of rock, rain, ice, and snow.

Perchance thou may'st ask what avails all their toil?
What avails it on mountain-tops water to boil?
What avails it to leave their snug beds in the dark?
Do they go for a view? do they go for a lark?

Know, presumptuous wretch, 'tis not science they prize,
The lark, and the view ('tis all mist) they despise;
Like the wise king of France with his ten thousand men,
They go up their mountain--to come down again.

[1] Cf. Peaks, Passes, and Glaciers, 1st Series, p. 296.

THE MODERN CLIMBER.

Year after year, as Summer suns come round,
Upon the Calais packet am I found:
Thence to Geneva hurried by express,
I halt for breakfast, bathe, and change my dress.
My well-worn knapsack to my back I strap;
My Alpine rope I neatly round me wrap;
Then, axe in hand, the diligence disdaining,
I walk to Chamonix, by way of training.
Arrived at Coutlet's Inn by eventide,
I interview my porter and my guide:
My guide, that Mentor who has dragg'd full oft
These aching, shaking, quaking limbs aloft;
Braved falling stones, cut steps on ice-slopes steep,
That _I_ the glory of _his_ deeds might reap.
My porter, who with uncomplaining back
O'er passes, peaks, and glaciers bears my pack:
Tho' now the good man looks a trifle sadder,
When I suggest the ill-omened name of "ladder."
O'er many a pipe our heads we put together;
Our first enquiry is of course "the weather."
With buoyant hearts the star-lit heaven we view;
Then our next point is "What are we to '_do_'?"
My pipe I pocket, and with head up-tossed
My listening followers I thus accost:--
"Mont Blanc, we know, is stupid, stale, and slow,
A tiresome tramp o'er lumps of lifeless snow.
The Col du Geant is a trifle worse;
The Jardin's fit for babies with their nurse:
The Aiguille Verte is more the sort of thing,
But time has robbed it of its former sting;
Alone the Dent du Geant and the Dru [1]
Remain 'undone,' and therefore fit to '_do_.'
Remember how I love, my comrades tried,
To linger on some rocky mountain's side,
"Where I can hear the crash of falling stones,
Threatening destruction to the tourist's bones!
No cadence falls so swee