XLVIII.

LIV. Beneath these battlements, within those walls,

And he had learn'd to love,- know not why, Power dwelt amidst her passions; in proud state

For this in such as bim seems strange of mood, Each robber chief upheld his armed halls,

The helpless looks of blooming in fancy, Doing his evil will, por less elate

Even in its earliest nurture; what subdued, Than mightier heroes of a longer date.

To change like this, a mind so far imbued What want these outlaws to conquerors should have,

With scoru of man, it little boots to kuow; But history's purchased page to call them great ?

But thus it was; and though in solitude A wider space, an ornamented crave?

Small power the nipp'd affections have to grow, Their hopes were not less warm, their souls were full in him this glow'd when all beside had ceased to glow. as brave. XLIX.

LV. In their baronial feuds and single fields,

And there was one soft breast, as hath been said, What deeds of prowess unrecorded died !

Which unto his was bound by stronger ties And love, which lent a blazon to their shields,

Than the church links withal; and, though unwed, With emblems well devised by amorous pride,

That love was pure, and, far above disguise, Through all the mail of iron hearts would glide;

Had stood the test of mortal en milies But still their flame was fierceness, and drew on

Still undivided, and cemented more Keen contest and destruction near allied,

By peril, dreaded most in female eyes; And many a tower for some fair mischief won,

But this was firm, and from a foreign shore Saw the discolour'd Rhine beneath its ruin run.

Well to that heart might his these absent greetings pour:

2. L.

The castled crag of Drachenfels " But thou, exulting and abounding river!

Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine Making thy waves a blessing as they flow

Whose breast of waters broadly swells Through banks whose beauty would endure for ever, Between the banks which bear the vine, Could man but leave thy bright creation so,

And hills all rich with blossom'd trees,
Nor its fair promise from the surface mow

And fields which promise corn and wine,
With the sharp scythe of contlici,- then to see And scatter'd cities crowning these,
Thy valley of sweet waters, were to know

Whose far white walls along them shine,
Earth paved like heaven; and to seem such to me Have strewd a scene, which I should see
Even now what wants thy stream ? — that it should With double joy wert thou with me!
Lethe be,
LI.

And peasant girls, with deep blue eyes,
A thousand battles have assail'd thy banks,

And hands which offer early flowers,
But these and half their fame have pass'd away, Walk smiling o'er this paradisc;
And slaughter heap'd on high his weltering ranks- Above, the frequent feudal towers
Their very graves are gone, and what are they?

Through green leaves lift their walls of

grey, Thy lide wash'd down the blood of yesterday,

And many a rock which steeply lowers, And all was stainless, and on thy clear stream

And noble arch, in proud decay, Glass'd with its dancing light the sunny ray,

Look o'er this vale of vintage bowers; But o'er the blackend meinory's blighting dream

But one thing want these banks of Rhine, Thy waves would vainly roll, all sweeping as they seem. Thy gentle hand to clasp in mine!

3. LII.

I send the lilies given to me ; Thus Harold inly said, and pass'd along,

Though, long before thy hand they touch, Yet not insensibly to all which here

I know that they must wither'd be, Awoke the jocund birds to early song

But yet reject them not as such: In glens which might bave made even exile dear : For I have cherish'd them as dear, Though on bis brow were graven lines austere,

Because they yet may meet thine eye, Apd tranquil sternuess which had ta'en the place And guide thy soul to mine even here, Of feelings fierier far but less severe,

When thou behold'st them drooping nigli, Joy was not always absent from his face,

And know'st them gather'd by the Rhine, But o'erit in such scenes would steal with transient trace. And offer'd from my heart to thine!

4.
LUI.

The river nobly foams and flows,
Nor was all love shut from him, though his days The charm of this enchanted ground,
Of passion had consumed themselves to dust.

And all its thousand turns disclose
It is in vain that we would coldly gaze

Some fresher beauty varying round ; On such as smile upon us; the heart must

The laughtiest breast its wish might bound
Leap kindly back to kindness, thoughi disgust

Through life to dwell delighted here;
Hath wean'd it from all worldlings: thus he felt, Nor could on earth a spot be found
For there was soft remembrance, and sweet trust

To nature and to me so dear,
In one fond breast, to which his own would melt, Could thy dear eyes in following mine
And in its tenderer hour on that his bosom dweli. Still sweeten more these banks of Rhine!

2.

LVI.

LXII. By Coblentz, on a rise of gentle ground,

But these recede. Above me are the Alps, There is a small and simple pyramid,

The palaces of nature, whose vast walls Crowning the summit of the verdant mound; Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps, Beneath its base are heroes' ashes hid,

And throned eternity in icy halls Our enemy's, - but let not that forbid

Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls Honour to Marceau! o'er whose early tomb

The avalanche-the thunderbolt of snow! Tears, big tears, gush'd from the rough soldier's lid, All that expands the spirit, yet appals, Lamenting and yet envying such a doom,

Gather around these sumınits, as to show Falling for France, whose rights he battled to resume. llow earth may pierce to heaven, yet leave vain man

below. LVII.

LXIII. Brief, brave, and glorious was his young career,

But ere these matchless heights I dare to scan, His mourners were two hosts, his friends and foes; There is a spot should not be pass'd in vain, And fitly may the stranger lingering here

Morat! the proud, the patriol field! where man Pray for his gallant spirit's bright repose;

May gaze on ghastly trophies of the slain, For he was Freedom's champion,-one of those,

Nor blush for those who conquer'd on that plain ; The few in number, who had not o'erstept

Here Burgundy bequeath'd his tombless host, The charter to chastise which she bestows

A bony heap, through ages to remain, On such as wield her weapons: he had kept

Themselves their monument;-the Stygian coast
The whiteness of his soul, and thus men o'er him wept. Unsepulchred they roam'd, and shriek'd each wandering
LVIII.

LXIV.
Here Ehrenbreitstein,13 with her shatter'd wall, While Waterloo with Canna's carnage vies,
Black with the miner's blast, upon her height

Morat and Marathon twin names shall stand;
Yet shows of what she was, when shell and ball They were true glory's stainless victories,
Rebounding idly on her strength did light;

Won by the unambitious heart and hand A tower of victory! from whence the flight

Of a proud, brotherly, and civic band, Of baffled foes was watchid along the plain:

All unbought champions in no princely cause
But peace destroy'd what war could never blight, Of vice-entail'd corruption; they no land

And laid those proud roofs bare to summer's rain- Doom'd to bewail the blasphemy of laws
On which the iron shower for years had pour'd in vain. Making kings' rights divine, by some Draconic clause.

ghost.14

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
Ou self-condemning bosoms, it were here,
Where nature, por too sombre nor too gay,

Wild but not rude, awful yet not austere,
Is to the mellow earth as autumn to the year.

LXV.
By a lone wall a lonelier column rears
А

gray and grief-worn aspect of old days;
'T is the last remnant of the wreck of years,
And looks as with the wild bewilder'd gaze
Of one to stone converted by amaze,
Yet still with consciousness; and there it stands,
Making a marvel that it not decays,

When the coeval pride of human bands,
Levell d Aventicum,15 hath strew'd her subject lands.

LX

LXVI. Adiea to thee again! a vain adieu !

And there-oh! sweet and sacred be the name!There can be no farewell to scene like thine ; Julia—the daughter, the devoted-gave The mind is colourd by thy every hue ;

Her youth to Heaven; her heart, beneath a claim And if reluctantly the eyes resign

Nearest to Heaven's, broke o'er a father's grave. Their cherish'd gaze upon thee, lovely Rhine!

Justice is sworn 'gainst tears, and hers would crave T is with the thankful glance of parting praise;

The life she lived in ; but the judge was just, More mighty spots may rise - more glaring shinc, And then she died on him she could not save. But none unite in one attaching maze

Their tomb was simple, and without a bust, The brilliant, fair, and soft,—the glories of old days. And held within their urn one mind, one heart, one

dust.16 LXI.

LXVII. The negligently grand, the fruitful bloom

But these are deeds which should not pass away, Of coming ripeness, the white city's sheen,

And names that must not wither, though the earth The rolling stream, the precipice's gloom,

Forgets her empires with a just decay, The forest's growth, and Gothic walls between, The enslavers and the enslaved, their death and birth; The wild rocks shaped as they had turrets been The high, the mountain-majesty of worth la mockery of man's art; and these withal

Should be, and shall, survivor of its woe, A race of faces happy as the scene,

And from its immortality look forth Whose fertile bounties here extend to all,

In the sun's face, like yonder Alpine snow,"7 Still springing o'er thy banks, though empires near Imperishably pure beyond all things below.

them fall.

LXVIII.

LXXIV.
Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face,

And when, at length, the mind shall be all free
The mirror where the stars and mountains view From what it hates in this degraded form,
The stillness of their aspect, in each trace

Reft of its carnal life, save what shall be
Ils clear depth yields of their far height and hue : Existent happier in the fly and worm,-
There is too much of man here, to look through When elements to elements conform,
With a fit mind the might which I behold;

And dust is as it should be, shall I not But soon in me shall loneliness renew

Feel all I see, less dazzling, but more warm? Thoughts hid, but not less cherish'd than of old, The bodiless thought? the spirit of each spot, Ere mingling with the herd had penn'd me in their fold. Of which, even now, I share at times the immortal lot?

LXIX.

LXXV. To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind ;

Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part All are not fit with them to stir and toil,

Of me and of my soul, as I of them? Nor is it discontent to keep the mind

Is not the love of these deep in my heart Deep in its fountain, lest it overboil

With a pure passion ? should I not contemn In the hot throng, where we become the spoil

All objects, if compared with these ? and stem Of our infection, till too late and long

A tide of suffering, rather than forego We may deplore and struggle with the coil,

Such feelings for the hard and worldly phlegm la wretched interchange of wrong for wrong,

Of those whose eyes are only turn'd below, 'Midst a cootentious world, striving where none are Gazing upon the ground, with thoughts which dare not strong.

glow?
LXX.

LXXVI.
There, in a moment, we may plunge our years But this is not my theme; and I return
In fatal penitence, and in the blight

To that which is immediate, and require
Of our own soul, turn all our blood to tears,

Those who find contemplation in the urn, And colour things to come with hues of night; To look on One, whose dust was once all fire, The race of life becomes a hopeless flight

A native of the land where I respire To those that walk in darkness : on the sea,

The clear air for a while—a passing guest, The boldest steer but where their ports invite, Where he became a being,— whose desire But there are wanderers o'er eternity,

Was to be glorious ; 't was a foolish quest, Whose bark drives on and on, and anchor'd ne'er shall be. The which to gain and keep, he sacrificed all rest.

LXXI.

LXXVII. Is it not better, then, to be alone,

Here the self-torturing sophist, wild Rousseau, And love earth only for its earthly sake?

The apostle of affliction, he who threw By the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone, 18

Enchantment over passion, and from woe Or the pure bosom of its nursing lake,

Wrung overwhelming eloquence, first drew Which feeds it as a mother who doth make

The breath which made him wretched: yet he knew A fair but froward infant her own care,

How to make madness beautiful, and cast Kissing its cries away as these awake;

O'er erring deeds and thoughts a heavenly hue Is it not better thus our lives to wear,

Of words, like sunbeams, dazzling as they past Than join the crushing crowd, doom'd to inflict or bear? The eyes, which o'er them shed tears feelingly and fast.

LXXII.
I live not in myself, but I become
Portion of that around me; and to me,
High mountains are a feeling, but the hum
Of human cities tortures: I can sce
Nothing to loathe in nature, save to be
A link reluctant in a fleshly chain,
Class'd among creatures, when the soul can fee,

And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain
Of ocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain.

LXXVIII.
His love was passion's essence--as a tree
On fire by lightning ; with ethereal flame
Kindled he was, and blasted; for to be
Thus, and enamour'd, were in him the same.
But his was not the love of living dame,
Nor of the dead who rise upon our dreams,
But of ideal beauty, which became

In him existence, and o'ertlowing teems
Along his burning page, distemper'd though it seems.

LXXIII.

LXXIX. And thus I am absorb'd, and this is life:

This breathed itself to life in Julie, this I look upon the peopled desert past

Invested her with all that 's wild and swect; As on a place of agony and strife,

This hallow'd, too, the memorable kiss Where, for some sin, to sorrow I was cast,

Which every morn his fever'd lip would greet, To act and suffer, but remount at last

From hers, who but with friendship his would meet; With a fresh pinion ; which I feel to spring,

But to that gentle touch, through brain and breast Though young, yet waxing vigorous as the blast Flash'd the thrilled spirit's love-devouring heat;

Which it would cope with, on delighted wing, In that absorbing sigh perchance more blest, Spurning the clay-cold bonds which round our being Than vulgar minds may be with all they seek possest.'9

cling

LXXX

LXXXVI.
His life was one long war with self-sought foes, It is the hush of night, and all between
Or friends by him self-banisn'd; for his mind

Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, Had grown suspicion's sanctuary, and chose

Mellow'd and mingling, yet distinctly seen, For its owa cruel sacrifice, the kind,

Save darken'd Jura, whose capt heights appear "Gainst whom he raged with fury strange and blind. Precipitously sleep; and, drawing near, But he was phrenzied, - wherefore, who may know? There breathes a living fragrance from the shore, Since cause might be which skill could never find; Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear But he was phrenzied by disease or woe,

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;
LXXXI.

LXXXVII.
For then he was inspired, and from him came, He is an evening reveller, who makes
As from tise Pythiau's mystic cave of yore,

His life an infancy, and sings his fill;
Those oracles which set the world in flame,

At intervals, some bird from out the brakes
Nor ceased to burn till kingdoms were no more : Starts into voice a moment, then is still.
Did he not this for France? which lay before

There seems a floating whisper on the hill;
Bowd to the inborn tyranny of yrars?

But that is fancy, for the starlight dews Broken and trembling, to the yoke she bore,

All silently their tears of love instil,
Till by the voice of him and his compeers,

Weeping themselves away, till they ipfuse
Roused up to too much wrath which follows o'ergrown Deep into nature's breast the spirit of her hues.
fears?
LXXXII.

LXXXVIII.
They made themselves a fearful monument! Ye stars! which are the poetry of Heaven!
The wreck of old opinions—things which grew If in your bright leaves we would read the fate
Breathed from the birth of time: the veil they rent, Of men and empires, - 't is to be forgiven,
Aud what behiod it lay, all earth shall view.

That in our aspirations to be great, Lut good with ill they also overthrew,

Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state, Leaving but ruins, wherewith to rebuild

And claim a kindred with you; for ye aré ['pon the same foundation, and renew

A beauty and a mystery, and create Duogeous and thrones, which the same hour re-fill'd, In us such love and reverence from afar, As heretofore, because ambition was self-willid. That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves

a star.

LXXXIII.

LXXXIX. Bat this will not endure, nor be endured!

All heaven and earth are still-though not in slecp, Mankind have felt their strength, and made it felt. But breathless, as we grow when feeling most; They might have used it better, but, allured

And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep By their new vigour, slernly have they dealt

All heaven and earth are still: from the high host On one another; pity ceased to melt

Of stars, to the Jull'd lake and mountain-coast, With ber opce natural charities. But they,

All is concenter'd in a life intense,
Who in oppression's darkness caved had dwelt, Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost;

They were not eagles, nourish'd with the day; But hath a part of being, and a sense
What marvel then, at times, if they mistook their prey? Of that which is of all Creator and defence.

LXXXIV.
What deep wounds ever closed without a scar?
The heari's bleed longest, and but heal to wear
That which disfigures it; and they who war
With their own hopes, and have been vanquish'd, bear
Silence, but pot submission : in bis lair
Fir'd passion holds his breath, until the hour
Which shall atone for years; none need despair :

It came, it cometh, and will come,—the power
To puoish or forgive-in one we shall be slower.

XC.
Then stirs the feeling infioite, so felt
In solitude, where we are least alone;
A truth, which through our being then doth melt,
And purifies from self: it is a tone,
The soul and source of music, which makes known
Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm,
Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone,

Binding all things with beauty ;-'t would disarm
The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm.

LXXXV.

XCT. Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake,

Not vainly did the early Persian make With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing

His altar the higla places and the peak Which waros me, with its stillness, to forsake Of earth-o'ergazing mountains,and thus take Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring.

A fit and unwalld 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

Upreard of human hands. Come, and comparc 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 stere delights should e'er have been so moved. Nor fix on fond abodes to cireumscribe thry prayer!

XCII.
The sky is changed!-and such a change! Oh night,
Aud 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 ratiling 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 !

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.

XCIII.
And this is in the night :-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.

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 rosehues sees them wrought ?
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.

XCIV.
Now, where the swift Rhone cleaves his way between
lleights 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 the warted,
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.

CI.
Now, where the quick Rhone thus has cleft his way, All things are here of him; froin the black pines,
The mightiest of the storms hath ta'en his stand: Which are his shade ou brigh, and the loud roar
For here, not one,

but
mapy,

make their play, Of torrents, where he listeneth, to the vines And fling their thunder-bolts from hand to hand, Which slope his green path dowoward to the shore, Flashing and cast around : of all the band,

Where the bow'd waters meet himn and adore, The brightest through these parted hills hath fork'd Kissing his feet with murmurs; and the wood, His lightnings, -as if he did understand,

The covert of old trees, with trunks all hoar, That in such gaps as desolation worka,

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.

inay be

XCVI.
Sky, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings! ye!
With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soul
To make these felt and feeling, well
Things that have made me watchful; the far roll
Of your ileparting 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 ?

CII.
A populous solitude of bees and birds,
And fairy-form'd and many-colour'd things,
Wbo worship him with notes more sweet than words,
And innocently open their glad wings,
Fearless and full of life: the gush of springs,
And fall of lofty fountains, and the bend
Of stirring branches, and the bud which brings

The swiftest thought of beauty, bere extend,
Mingling, and made by love, unto one mighly end.

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,
With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword.

CIII.
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 drived 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, wbich may vie
With the immortal lights, in its eternity!