'Those desert places uncheered by the rays of the sun, those frozen
abysses deprived of all verdure, hide beneath their sterile sands
invaluable treasures, which defy the rigour of the seasons and all
the injuries of time! 'Tis in dark and marshy recesses, upon the damp
grottos, that crystal rocks are formed. Thus splendour is diffused
through their melancholy vaults, and their shadowy depths gutter with
the colours of the rainbow. O Nature, how various are thy operations,
how infinite thy fertility!'

We cannot agree with Frey[1] that 'these few strophes may serve as
sufficient proof that Haller's poetry is still, even among the mass
of Alpine poetry, unsurpassed for intense power of direct vision, and
easily makes one forget its partial lack of flexibility of diction.'

The truth is, flexibility is entirely lacking; but the lines do
express the taste for open-air life among the great sublimities and
with simple people. The poem is not romantic but idyllic, with a
touch of the elegiac. It is the same with the poem _On the Origin of
Evil_ (Book I.):

On those still heights whence constant springs flow down,
I paused within a copse, lured by the evening breeze;
Wide country lay spread out beneath my feet,
Bounded by its own size alone....
Green woods covered the hills, through which the pale tints of the fields
Shone pleasantly.
Abundance and repose held sway far as the eye could reach....
And yonder wood, what left it to desire
With the red tints upon the half-bare beeches
And the rich pine's green shade o'er whitened moss?