ABSTRACT
Mary S. states (‘Note on Poems of 1816’, 1839 iii 35) that ‘Mont Blanc was inspired by a view of that mountain and its surrounding peaks and valleys, as [S.] lingered on the Bridge of Arve on his way through the Valley of Chamouni’. The poem was almost certainly begun on 22 July 1816, although it is dated ‘June 23, 1816’ in 1817, 1824, and 1839. S., Mary and Claire made their visit to Chamonix, Mont Blanc and environs from Sunday 21 July to Saturday 27 July 1816 (Mary Jnl i 112–21; L i 494–502). S.’s journal-letter to Peacock of 22 July–2 August 1816 includes for 22 July the following description which (as John Buxton, Byron and Shelley (1968) 33, notes) anticipates the poem in a number of ideas and phrases:
From Servox, three leagues remain to Chamounix. Mont Blanc was before us. The Alps with their innumerable glacie[r]s on high, all round; closing in the complicated windings of the single vale: — forests inexpressibly beautiful — but majestic in their beauty — interwoven beech & pine & oak overshadowed our road or receded whilst lawn of such verdure as I had never seen before, occupied these opening[s], & extending gradually becoming darker into their recesses. — Mont Blanc was before us but was covered with cloud, & its base furrowed with dreadful gaps was seen alone. Pinnacles of snow, intolerably bright, part of the chain connected with Mont Blanc shone thro the clouds at intervals on high. I never knew I never imagined what mountains were before. The immensity of these aerial summits excited, when they suddenly burst upon the sight, a sentiment of extatic wonder, not unallied to madness — And remember this was all one scene. It all pressed home to our regard & to our imagination. — Though it embraced a great number of miles the snowy pyramids which shot into the bright blue sky seemed to overhang our path — the ravine, clothed with gigantic pines and black with its depth below. — so deep that the very roaring of the untameable Arve, which rolled through it could not be heard above — was close to our very footsteps. All was as much our own as if we had been the creators of such impressions in the minds of others, as now occupied our own. — Nature was the poet whose harmony held our spirits more breathless than that of the divinest.
(L i 496–7) S.’s draft, in Nbk 1 ff. 3–13, is headed (after some cancellation; see notes) ‘The scene of Pellisier, at the extremity of the vale of Servoz’. It begins as much-cancelled pencil over-written in ink, and suggests that S. may actually have begun Mont Blanc in situ at Pont Pellisier on the second day of his journey (the original pencil draft peters out at line 48). S.’s letter to Byron from his hotel in Chamonix, dated 22 July, indicates that he was already himself thinking of a poetic response: ‘I shall not attempt to describe to you the scenes through which we have passed. I hope soon to see in poetry the feelings with which they will inspire you’ (L i 494). Mary’s journal records the arrival of the party at Pont Pellisier en route from St Martin to Chamonix on 22 July:From Cervaux [for Servoz] we continued on a mountainous & rocky path & passed apine [Mary Jnl (Jones) 52 reads ‘an Alpine’] bridge over the Arve — this is one of the loveliest scenes in the world — the white & foamy river broke proudly through the rocks that opposed its progress — Immense pines covered the bases of the Mountains that closed around it & a rock covered with woods & seemingly detached from the rest stood at the End & closed the ravine —
(i 114–15) S. names this bridge in his account of the return journey to Geneva on Friday 25 July: ‘We repassed Pont Pellisier a wooden bridge over the Arve & the ravine of the Arve.’ (L i 501). Pont Pellisier is not actually in the Vale of Chamonix, which extends some twelve miles south-east to north-west from Col-de-Balme to les Houches, but about two miles north-north-west of les Houches, towards Servoz; it seems likely that S.’s topographically exact title in Nbk 1 was replaced in 1817 by the subtitle ‘Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni’ in order to point up the poem’s implicit address to Coleridge’s ‘Hymn: Before Sun-rise, in the Vale of Chamouny’ (see below). S. probably worked on Mont Blanc during the wet afternoon and evening of Wednesday 24 July, having spent Tuesday in sight-seeing (Mary Jnl i 118), but the poem includes descriptive writing evidently indebted to S.’s experiences of glaciers, including the Mer de Glace, which were not visited until Thursday 25 July (see Mary Jnl i 119), and there is evidence to suggest that S. was still working on the poem after his return to Geneva on Sunday 28 July. Box 1 f. 72 is a leaf torn from Nbk 1 with part of Lines to Leigh Hunt on the recto (see headnote to that poem in Longman i 516–7, no. 118), and on the verso three separate items. At the top, there are almost indecipherable lines probably addressed to Mary by S. for the second anniversary of their elopement on 28 July 1814 (these lines are quoted in the headnote to Lines to Leigh Hunt). At the bottom is a description of a thunderstorm dated ‘July 28’ (really 29 July; see Mary Jnl i 121). Between these items, and presumably datable to the same weekend, is a draft of five unused lines for ‘Mont Blanc’, which reads: There is a voice not understood by all Sent from these [icy canc.] desart caves [this solitude canc.] [Of ? pines that to the lightest call canc.] [Of ? ? ? canc.] It is the roar Of the rent ice cliff which the sunbeams call Plunges into the vale — it is the [blast canc. wind canc.] Descending on the pines — [the torrents pour canc. it is a rock canc.] By 29 August, S. had transcribed a fair copy of Mont Blanc into the notebook which, for whatever reason, he left with Byron in Geneva when he returned to England (SDMS; see no. 7 headnote); this version of the poem remained unknown until the discovery of the notebook in 1976. It was first published (together with nos. 120, 121, and 123 A in Longman i 518–520, 525–8) in RES xxix (1978) 36–49.