LVI.

By Coblentz, on a rise of gentle ground,
There is a small and simple pyramid,
Crowning the summit of the verdant mound;
Beneath its base are heroes' ashes hid,
Our enemy's, but let not that forbid
Honour to Marceau! o'er whose early tomb
Tears, big tears, gush'd from the rough soldier's lid,
Lamenting and yet envying such a doom,
Falling for France, whose rights he battled to resume.

LVII.

Brief, brave, and glorious was his young career,—
His mourners were two hosts, his friends and foes;
And fitly may the stranger lingering here
Pray for his gallant spirit's bright repose;

For he was Freedom's champion,-one of those,
The few in number, who had not o'erstept
The charter to chastise which she bestows
On such as wield her weapons: he had kept
The whiteness of his soul, and thus men o'er him wept.12

LVIII.

Here Ehrenbreitstein,13 with her shatter'd wall,
Black with the miner's blast, upon her height
Yet shows of what she was, when shell and ball
Rebounding idly on her strength did light;
A tower of victory! from whence the flight
Of baffled foes was watch'd along the plain:
But peace destroy'd what war could never blight,
And laid those proud roofs bare to summer's rain—
On which the iron shower for years had pour'd in vain.

LIX.

Adieu to thee, fair Rhine! How long delighted
The stranger fain would linger on his way!
Thine is a scene alike where souls united
Or lonely contemplation thus might stray:
And could the ceaseless vultures cease to prey
On self-condemning bosoms, it were here,
Where nature, nor too sombre nor too gay,
Wild but not rude, awful yet not austere,
Is to the mellow earth as autumn to the year.

LX.

Adieu to thee again! a vain adieu!
There can be no farewell to scene like thine;
The mind is colour'd by thy every hue;
And if reluctantly the eyes resign
Their cherish'd gaze upon thee, lovely Rhine!
T is with the thankful glance of parting praise;
More mighty spots may rise-more glaring shine,
But none unite in one attaching maze

The brilliant, fair, and soft,—the glories of old days.

LXI.

The negligently grand, the fruitful bloom
Of coming ripeness, the white city's sheen,
The rolling stream, the precipice's gloom,
The forest's growth, and Gothic walls between,
The wild rocks shaped as they had turrets been
In mockery of man's art; and these withal
A race of faces happy as the scene,
Whose fertile bounties here extend to all,

And there-oh! sweet and sacred be the name!
Julia-the daughter, the devoted-gave
Her youth to Heaven; her heart, beneath a claim
Nearest to Heaven's, broke o'er a father's grave.
Justice is sworn 'gainst tears, and hers would crave
The life she lived in; but the judge was just,
And then she died on him she could not save.
Their tomb was simple, and without a bust,
And held within their urn one mind, one heart, one
dust. 16

LXVII.

But these are deeds which should not pass away,
And names that must not wither, though the earth
Forgets her empires with a just decay,

The enslavers and the enslaved, their death and birth;
The high, the mountain-majesty of worth
Should be, and shall, survivor of its woe,
And from its immortality look forth
In the sun's face, like yonder Alpine snow,17

Still springing o'er thy banks, though empires near Imperishably pure beyond all things below.

them fall.

'Midst a contentious world, striving where none are Gazing upon the ground, with thoughts which dare not

Whose bark drives on and on, and anchor'd ne'er shall be. The which to gain and keep, he sacrificed all rest.

Than join the crushing crowd, doom'd to inflict or bear? The eyes, which o'er them shed tears feelingly and fast.

LXXX.

His life was one long war with self-sought foes,
Or friends by him self-banish'd; for his mind
Had grown suspicion's sanctuary, and chose
For its own cruel sacrifice, the kind,

Gainst whom he raged with fury strange and blind.
But he was phrenzied,-wherefore, who may know?
Since cause might be which skill could never find;
But he was phrenzied by disease or woe,

LXXXVI.

It is the hush of night, and all between
Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear,
Mellow'd and mingling, yet distinctly seen,
Save darken'd Jura, whose capt heights appear
Precipitously steep; and, drawing near,
There breathes a living fragrance from the shore,
Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear
Drops the light drip of the suspended oar,

To that worst pitch of all which wears a reasoning show. Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more;

Not vainly did the early Persian make

His altar the high places and the peak
Of earth-o'ergazing mountains,20 and thus take

Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake,
With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing
Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake
Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring.
A fit and unwall'd temple, there to seek
This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing
The spirit, in whose honour shrines are weak,
To waft me from distraction: once I loved
Uprear'd of human hands. Come, and compare
Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring
Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek,
Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved,
With nature's realms of worship, earth and air,
That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved. Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy prayer!

XCII.

The sky is changed!—and such a change! Oh night,1|
And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,
Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light
Of a dark eye in woman! Far along,
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among
Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now hath found a tongue,
And Jura answers, through her misty shroud,
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!

XCIII.

And this is in the night :-
t-most glorious night!
Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be
A sharer in thy fierce and far delight,—
A portion of the tempest and of thee!
How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea,
And the big rain comes dancing to the earth!
And now again 't is black,-and now, the glee
Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth,
As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth.

XCIV.

Now, where the swift Rhone cleaves his way between
Heights which appear as lovers who have parted
In hate, whose mining depths so intervene,
That they can meet no more, though broken-hearted;
Though in their souls, which thus each other thwarted,
Love was the very root of the fond rage

Which blighted their life's bloom, and then departed;
Itself expired, but leaving them an age
Of years all winters,-war within themselves to wage.

XCV.

Now, where the quick Rhone thus has cleft his way,
The mightiest of the storms hath ta'en his stand:
For here, not one, but many, make their play,
And fling their thunder-bolts from hand to hand,
Flashing and cast around: of all the band,

The brightest through these parted hills hath fork'd
His lightnings,-as if he did understand,
That in such gaps as desolation work'd,

XCVIII.

The morn is up again, the dewy morn,
With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom,
Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn,
And living as if earth contain'd no tomb,-
And glowing into day: we may resume
The march of our existence and thus I,
Still on thy shores, fair Leinan! may find room
And food for meditation, nor pass by

Much that may give us pause, if ponder'd fittingly.

XCIX.

Clarens! sweet Clarens, birth-place of deep love!
Thine air is the young breath of passionate thought;
Thy trees take root in love; the snows above
The very glaciers have his colours caught,
And sun-set into rose-hues sees them wrought a
By rays which sleep there lovingly: the rocks,

The permanent crags, tell here of love, who sought
In them a refuge from the worldly shocks,
Which stir and sting the soul with hope that woos, then
mocks.

C.

Clarens! by heavenly feet thy paths are trod,—
Undying love's, who here ascends a throne
To which the steps are mountains; where the god
Is a pervading life and light,- -so shown
Not on those summits solely, nor alone
In the still cave and forest; o'er the flower
His eye is sparkling, and his breath hath blown,
His soft and summer breath, whose tender power
Passes the strength of storms in their most desolate hour.

CI.

All things are here of him; from the black pines,
Which are his shade on high, and the loud roar
Of torrents, where he listeneth, to the vines
Which slope his green path downward to the shore,
Where the bow'd waters meet him and adore,
Kissing his feet with murmurs; and the wood,
The covert of old trees, with trunks all hoar,
But light leaves, young as joy, stands where it stood,

There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurk'd. Offering to him, and his, a populous solitude.

XCVI.

Sky, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings! ye!
With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soul
To make these felt and feeling, well may be
Things that have made me watchful; the far roll
Of your departing voices is the knoll

Of what in me is sleepless,—if I rest.

But where of ye, oh tempests! is the goal?
Are ye like those within the human breast?

Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest?

XCVII.

Could I embody and unbosom now
That which is most within me,-could I wreak
My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw
Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings, strong or weak,
All that I would have sought, and all I seek,
Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe—into one word,
And that one word were Lightning, I would speak;
But as it is, I live and die unheard,

He who hath loved not, here would learn that lore,
And make his heart a spirit; he who knows
That tender mystery, will love the more,
For this is love's recess, where vain men's woes,
And the world's waste, have driven him far from those,
For 't is his nature to advance or die;

He stands not still, but or decays, or grows
Into a boundless blessing, which may vie

With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword. With the immortal lights, in its eternity!