I turned to thee, to thousands, of whom eachAnd one as all a ghastly gap did makeIn his own kind and kindred, whom to teachForgetfulness were mercy for their sake;The Archangel's trump, not Glory's, must awakeThose whom they thirst for; though the sound of FameMay for a moment soothe, it cannot slakeThe fever of vain longing, and the nameSo honoured, but assumes a stronger, bitterer claim.
XXXII.
They mourn, but smile at length; and, smiling, mourn:The tree will wither long before it fall:The hull drives on, though mast and sail be torn;The roof-tree sinks, but moulders on the hallIn massy hoariness; the ruined wallStands when its wind-worn battlements are gone;The bars survive the captive they enthral;The day drags through though storms keep out the sun;And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on:
XXXIII.
E'en as a broken mirror, which the glassIn every fragment multiplies; and makesA thousand images of one that was,The same, and still the more, the more it breaks;And thus the heart will do which not forsakes,Living in shattered guise, and still, and cold,And bloodless, with its sleepless sorrow aches,Yet withers on till all without is old,Showing no visible sign, for such things are untold.
XXXIV.
There is a very life in our despair,Vitality of poison,—a quick rootWhich feeds these deadly branches; for it wereAs nothing did we die; but life will suitItself to Sorrow's most detested fruit,Like to the apples on the Dead Sea shore,All ashes to the taste: Did man computeExistence by enjoyment, and count o'erSuch hours 'gainst years of life,—say, would he name threescore?
XXXV.
The Psalmist numbered out the years of man:They are enough: and if thy tale be TRUE,Thou, who didst grudge him e'en that fleeting span,More than enough, thou fatal Waterloo!Millions of tongues record thee, and anewTheir children's lips shall echo them, and say,'Here, where the sword united nations drew,Our countrymen were warring on that day!'And this is much, and all which will not pass away.
XXXVI.
There sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men,Whose spirit anithetically mixedOne moment of the mightiest, and againOn little objects with like firmness fixed;Extreme in all things! hadst thou been betwixt,Thy throne had still been thine, or never been;For daring made thy rise as fall: thou seek'stEven now to reassume the imperial mien,And shake again the world, the Thunderer of the scene!
XXXVII.
Conqueror and captive of the earth art thou!She trembles at thee still, and thy wild nameWas ne'er more bruited in men's minds than nowThat thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame,Who wooed thee once, thy vassal, and becameThe flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wertA god unto thyself; nor less the sameTo the astounded kingdoms all inert,Who deemed thee for a time whate'er thou didst assert.
XXXVIII.
Oh, more or less than man—in high or low,Battling with nations, flying from the field;Now making monarchs' necks thy footstool, nowMore than thy meanest soldier taught to yield:An empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild,But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor,However deeply in men's spirits skilled,Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of war,Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest star.
XXXIX.
Yet well thy soul hath brooked the turning tideWith that untaught innate philosophy,Which, be it wisdom, coldness, or deep pride,Is gall and wormwood to an enemy.When the whole host of hatred stood hard by,To watch and mock thee shrinking, thou hast smiledWith a sedate and all-enduring eye;When Fortune fled her spoiled and favourite child,He stood unbowed beneath the ills upon him piled.
XL.
Sager than in thy fortunes; for in themAmbition steeled thee on to far too showThat just habitual scorn, which could contemnMen and their thoughts; 'twas wise to feel, not soTo wear it ever on thy lip and brow,And spurn the instruments thou wert to useTill they were turned unto thine overthrow:'Tis but a worthless world to win or lose;So hath it proved to thee, and all such lot who choose.
XLI.
If, like a tower upon a headland rock,Thou hadst been made to stand or fall alone,Such scorn of man had helped to brave the shock;But men's thoughts were the steps which paved thy throne,THEIR admiration thy best weapon shone;The part of Philip's son was thine, not then(Unless aside thy purple had been thrown)Like stern Diogenes to mock at men;For sceptred cynics earth were far too wide a den.
XLII.
But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell,And THERE hath been thy bane; there is a fireAnd motion of the soul, which will not dwellIn its own narrow being, but aspireBeyond the fitting medium of desire;And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore,Preys upon high adventure, nor can tireOf aught but rest; a fever at the core,Fatal to him who bears, to all who ever bore.
XLIII.
This makes the madmen who have made men madBy their contagion! Conquerors and Kings,Founders of sects and systems, to whom addSophists, Bards, Statesmen, all unquiet thingsWhich stir too strongly the soul's secret springs,And are themselves the fools to those they fool;Envied, yet how unenviable! what stingsAre theirs! One breast laid open were a schoolWhich would unteach mankind the lust to shine or rule:
XLIV.
Their breath is agitation, and their lifeA storm whereon they ride, to sink at last,And yet so nursed and bigoted to strife,That should their days, surviving perils past,Melt to calm twilight, they feel overcastWith sorrow and supineness, and so die;Even as a flame unfed, which runs to wasteWith its own flickering, or a sword laid by,Which eats into itself, and rusts ingloriously.
XLV.
He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall findThe loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow;He who surpasses or subdues mankind,Must look down on the hate of those below.Though high ABOVE the sun of glory glow,And far BENEATH the earth and ocean spread,ROUND him are icy rocks, and loudly blowContending tempests on his naked head,And thus reward the toils which to those summits led.
XLVI.
Away with these; true Wisdom's world will beWithin its own creation, or in thine,Maternal Nature! for who teems like thee,Thus on the banks of thy majestic Rhine?There Harold gazes on a work divine,A blending of all beauties; streams and dells,Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, corn-field, mountain, vine,And chiefless castles breathing stern farewellsFrom grey but leafy walls, where Ruin greenly dwells.
XLVII.
And there they stand, as stands a lofty mind,Worn, but unstooping to the baser crowd,All tenantless, save to the crannying wind,Or holding dark communion with the cloud.There was a day when they were young and proud,Banners on high, and battles passed below;But they who fought are in a bloody shroud,And those which waved are shredless dust ere now,And the bleak battlements shall bear no future blow.
XLVIII.
Beneath these battlements, within those walls,Power dwelt amidst her passions; in proud stateEach robber chief upheld his armed halls,Doing his evil will, nor less elateThan mightier heroes of a longer date.What want these outlaws conquerors should haveBut History's purchased page to call them great?A wider space, an ornamented grave?Their hopes were not less warm, their souls were full as brave.
XLIX.
In their baronial feuds and single fields,What deeds of prowess unrecorded died!And Love, which lent a blazon to their shields,With emblems well devised by amorous pride,Through all the mail of iron hearts would glide;But still their flame was fierceness, and drew onKeen contest and destruction near allied,And many a tower for some fair mischief won,Saw the discoloured Rhine beneath its ruin run.
L.
But thou, exulting and abounding river!Making thy waves a blessing as they flowThrough banks whose beauty would endure for ever,Could man but leave thy bright creation so,Nor its fair promise from the surface mowWith the sharp scythe of conflict,—then to seeThy valley of sweet waters, were to knowEarth paved like Heaven; and to seem such to meEven now what wants thy stream?—that it should Lethe be.
LI.
A thousand battles have assailed thy banks,But these and half their fame have passed away,And Slaughter heaped on high his weltering ranks:Their very graves are gone, and what are they?Thy tide washed down the blood of yesterday,And all was stainless, and on thy clear streamGlassed with its dancing light the sunny ray;But o'er the blackened memory's blighting dreamThy waves would vainly roll, all sweeping as they seem.
LII.
Thus Harold inly said, and passed along,Yet not insensible to all which hereAwoke the jocund birds to early songIn glens which might have made e'en exile dear:Though on his brow were graven lines austere,And tranquil sternness which had ta'en the placeOf feelings fierier far but less severe,Joy was not always absent from his face,But o'er it in such scenes would steal with transient trace.
LIII.
Nor was all love shut from him, though his daysOf passion had consumed themselves to dust.It is in vain that we would coldly gazeOn such as smile upon us; the heart mustLeap kindly back to kindness, though disgustHath weaned it from all worldlings: thus he felt,For there was soft remembrance, and sweet trustIn one fond breast, to which his own would melt,And in its tenderer hour on that his bosom dwelt.
LIV.
And he had learned to love,—I know not why,For this in such as him seems strange of mood,—The helpless looks of blooming infancy,Even in its earliest nurture; what subdued,To change like this, a mind so far imbuedWith scorn of man, it little boots to know;But thus it was; and though in solitudeSmall power the nipped affections have to grow,In him this glowed when all beside had ceased to glow.
LV.
And there was one soft breast, as hath been said,Which unto his was bound by stronger tiesThan the church links withal; and, though unwed,THAT love was pure, and, far above disguise,Had stood the test of mortal enmitiesStill undivided, and cemented moreBy peril, dreaded most in female eyes;But this was firm, and from a foreign shoreWell to that heart might his these absent greetings pour!The castled crag of DrachenfelsFrowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine.Whose breast of waters broadly swellsBetween the banks which bear the vine,And hills all rich with blossomed trees,And fields which promise corn and wine,And scattered cities crowning these,Whose far white walls along them shine,Have strewed a scene, which I should seeWith double joy wert THOU with me!And peasant girls, with deep blue eyes,And hands which offer early flowers,Walk smiling o'er this paradise;Above, the frequent feudal towersThrough green leaves lift their walls of grey,And many a rock which steeply lours,And noble arch in proud decay,Look o'er this vale of vintage bowers:But one thing want these banks of Rhine,—Thy gentle hand to clasp in mine!I send the lilies given to me;Though long before thy hand they touch,I know that they must withered be,But yet reject them not as such;For I have cherished them as dear,Because they yet may meet thine eye,And guide thy soul to mine e'en here,When thou behold'st them drooping nigh,And know'st them gathered by the Rhine,And offered from my heart to thine!The river nobly foams and flows,The charm of this enchanted ground,And all its thousand turns discloseSome fresher beauty varying round;The haughtiest breast its wish might boundThrough life to dwell delighted here;Nor could on earth a spot be foundTo Nature and to me so dear,Could thy dear eyes in following mineStill sweeten more these banks of Rhine!
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 forbidHonour to Marceau! o'er whose early tombTears, big tears, gushed from the rough soldier's lid,Lamenting and yet envying such a doom,Falling for France, whose rights he battled to resume.
LVI.
Brief, brave, and glorious was his young career,—His mourners were two hosts, his friends and foes;And fitly may the stranger lingering herePray for his gallant spirit's bright repose;For he was Freedom's champion, one of those,The few in number, who had not o'ersteptThe charter to chastise which she bestowsOn such as wield her weapons; he had keptThe whiteness of his soul, and thus men o'er him wept.
LVIII.
Here Ehrenbreitstein, with her shattered wallBlack with the miner's blast, upon her heightYet shows of what she was, when shell and ballRebounding idly on her strength did light;A tower of victory! from whence the flightOf baffled foes was watched along the plain;But Peace destroyed what War could never blight,And laid those proud roofs bare to Summer's rain—On which the iron shower for years had poured 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 unitedOr lonely Contemplation thus might stray;And could the ceaseless vultures cease to preyOn self-condemning bosoms, it were here,Where Nature, not 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 coloured by thy every hue;And if reluctantly the eyes resignTheir cherished gaze upon thee, lovely Rhine!'Tis with the thankful glance of parting praise;More mighty spots may rise—more glaring shine,But none unite in one attaching mazeThe brilliant, fair, and soft;—the glories of old days.
LXI.
The negligently grand, the fruitful bloomOf 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 beenIn mockery of man's art; and these withalA race of faces happy as the scene,Whose fertile bounties here extend to all,Still springing o'er thy banks, though empires near them fall.
LXII.
But these recede. Above me are the Alps,The palaces of Nature, whose vast wallsHave pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps,And throned Eternity in icy hallsOf cold sublimity, where forms and fallsThe avalanche—the thunderbolt of snow!All that expands the spirit, yet appals,Gathers around these summits, as to showHow Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below.
LXIII.
But ere these matchless heights I dare to scan,There is a spot should not be passed in vain,—Morat! the proud, the patriot field! where manMay gaze on ghastly trophies of the slain,Nor blush for those who conquered on that plain;Here Burgundy bequeathed his tombless host,A bony heap, through ages to remain,Themselves their monument;—the Stygian coastUnsepulchred they roamed, and shrieked each wandering ghost.
LXIV.
While Waterloo with Cannae's carnage vies,Morat and Marathon twin names shall stand;They were true Glory's stainless victories,Won by the unambitious heart and handOf a proud, brotherly, and civic band,All unbought champions in no princely causeOf vice-entailed Corruption; they no landDoomed to bewail the blasphemy of lawsMaking king's rights divine, by some Draconic clause.
LXV.
By a lone wall a lonelier column rearsA grey and grief-worn aspect of old days'Tis the last remnant of the wreck of years,And looks as with the wild bewildered gazeOf 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 hands,Levelled Aventicum, hath strewed her subject lands.
LXVI.
And there—oh! sweet and sacred be the name!—Julia—the daughter, the devoted—gaveHer youth to Heaven; her heart, beneath a claimNearest to Heaven's, broke o'er a father's grave.Justice is sworn 'gainst tears, and hers would craveThe 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.
LXVII.
But these are deeds which should not pass away,And names that must not wither, though the earthForgets 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 forthIn the sun's face, like yonder Alpine snow,Imperishably pure beyond all things below.
LXVIII.
Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face,The mirror where the stars and mountains viewThe stillness of their aspect in each traceIts clear depth yields of their far height and hue:There is too much of man here, to look throughWith a fit mind the might which I behold;But soon in me shall Loneliness renewThoughts hid, but not less cherished than of old,Ere mingling with the herd had penned me in their fold.
LXIX.
To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind;All are not fit with them to stir and toil,Nor is it discontent to keep the mindDeep in its fountain, lest it overboilIn one hot throng, where we become the spoilOf our infection, till too late and longWe may deplore and struggle with the coil,In wretched interchange of wrong for wrongMidst a contentious world, striving where none are strong.
LXX.
There, in a moment, we may plunge our yearsIn fatal penitence, and in the blightOf our own soul, turn all our blood to tears,And colour things to come with hues of Night;The race of life becomes a hopeless flightTo those that walk in darkness: on the sea,The boldest steer but where their ports invite,But there are wanderers o'er EternityWhose bark drives on and on, and anchored ne'er shall be.
LXXI.
Is it not better, then, to be alone,And love Earth only for its earthly sake?By the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone,Or the pure bosom of its nursing lake,Which feeds it as a mother who doth makeA fair but froward infant her own care,Kissing its cries away as these awake;—Is it not better thus our lives to wear,Than join the crushing crowd, doomed to inflict or bear?
LXXII.
I live not in myself, but I becomePortion of that around me; and to me,High mountains are a feeling, but the humOf human cities torture: I can seeNothing to loathe in Nature, save to beA link reluctant in a fleshly chain,Classed among creatures, when the soul can flee,And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plainOf ocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain.
LXXIII.
And thus I am absorbed, and this is life:I look upon the peopled desert Past,As on a place of agony and strife,Where, for some sin, to Sorrow I was cast,To act and suffer, but remount at lastWith a fresh pinion; which I felt to spring,Though young, yet waxing vigorous as the blastWhich it would cope with, on delighted wing,Spurning the clay-cold bonds which round our being cling.
LXXIV.
And when, at length, the mind shall be all freeFrom what it hates in this degraded form,Reft of its carnal life, save what shall beExistent happier in the fly and worm,—When elements to elements conform,And dust is as it should be, shall I notFeel all I see, less dazzling, but more warm?The bodiless thought? the Spirit of each spot?Of which, even now, I share at times the immortal lot?
LXXV.
Are not the mountains, waves, and skies a partOf me and of my soul, as I of them?Is not the love of these deep in my heartWith a pure passion? should I not contemnAll objects, if compared with these? and stemA tide of suffering, rather than foregoSuch feelings for the hard and worldly phlegmOf those whose eyes are only turned below,Gazing upon the ground, with thoughts which dare not glow?
LXXVI.
But this is not my theme; and I returnTo that which is immediate, and requireThose who find contemplation in the urn,To look on One whose dust was once all fire,A native of the land where I respireThe clear air for awhile—a passing guest,Where he became a being,—whose desireWas to be glorious; 'twas a foolish quest,The which to gain and keep he sacrificed all rest.
LXXVII.
Here the self-torturing sophist, wild Rousseau,The apostle of affliction, he who threwEnchantment over passion, and from woeWrung overwhelming eloquence, first drewThe breath which made him wretched; yet he knewHow to make madness beautiful, and castO'er erring deeds and thoughts a heavenly hueOf words, like sunbeams, dazzling as they pastThe eyes, which o'er them shed tears feelingly and fast.
LXXVIII.
His love was passion's essence—as a treeOn fire by lightning; with ethereal flameKindled he was, and blasted; for to beThus, and enamoured, 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 becameIn him existence, and o'erflowing teemsAlong his burning page, distempered though it seems.
LXXIX.
THIS breathed itself to life in Julie, THISInvested her with all that's wild and sweet;This hallowed, too, the memorable kissWhich every morn his fevered lip would greet,From hers, who but with friendship his would meet:But to that gentle touch, through brain and breastFlashed the thrilled spirit's love-devouring heat;In that absorbing sigh perchance more blest,Than vulgar minds may be with all they seek possest.
LXXX.
His life was one long war with self-sought foes,Or friends by him self-banished; for his mindHad grown Suspicion's sanctuary, and choseFor its own cruel sacrifice, the kind,'Gainst whom he raged with fury strange and blind.But he was frenzied,—wherefore, who may know?Since cause might be which skill could never find;But he was frenzied by disease or woeTo that worst pitch of all, which wears a reasoning show.
LXXXI.
For then he was inspired, and from him came,As from the Pythian's mystic cave of yore,Those oracles which set the world in flame,Nor ceased to burn till kingdoms were no more:Did he not this for France, which lay beforeBowed to the inborn tyranny of years?Broken and trembling to the yoke she bore,Till by the voice of him and his compeersRoused up to too much wrath, which follows o'ergrown fears?
LXXXII.
They made themselves a fearful monument!The wreck of old opinions—things which grew,Breathed from the birth of time: the veil they rent,And what behind it lay, all earth shall view.But good with ill they also overthrew,Leaving but ruins, wherewith to rebuildUpon the same foundation, and renewDungeons and thrones, which the same hour refilled,As heretofore, because ambition was self-willed.
LXXXIII.
But this will not endure, nor be endured!Mankind have felt their strength, and made it felt.They might have used it better, but, alluredBy their new vigour, sternly have they dealtOn one another; Pity ceased to meltWith her once natural charities. But they,Who in Oppression's darkness caved had dwelt,They were not eagles, nourished with the day;What marvel then, at times, if they mistook their prey?
LXXXIV.
What deep wounds ever closed without a scar?The heart's bleed longest, and but heal to wearThat which disfigures it; and they who warWith their own hopes, and have been vanquished, bearSilence, but not submission: in his lairFixed Passion holds his breath, until the hourWhich shall atone for years; none need despair:It came, it cometh, and will come,—the powerTo punish or forgive—in ONE we shall be slower.
LXXXV.
Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake,With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thingWhich warns me, with its stillness, to forsakeEarth's troubled waters for a purer spring.This quiet sail is as a noiseless wingTo waft me from distraction; once I lovedTorn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuringSounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved,That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved.
LXXXVI.
It is the hush of night, and all betweenThy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear,Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen.Save darkened Jura, whose capt heights appearPrecipitously steep; and drawing near,There breathes a living fragrance from the shore,Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the earDrops the light drip of the suspended oar,Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more;
LXXXVII.
He is an evening reveller, who makesHis life an infancy, and sings his fill;At intervals, some bird from out the brakesStarts into voice a moment, then is still.There seems a floating whisper on the hill,But that is fancy, for the starlight dewsAll silently their tears of love instil,Weeping themselves away, till they infuseDeep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues.
LXXXVIII.
Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven,If in your bright leaves we would read the fateOf men and empires,—'tis to be forgiven,That in our aspirations to be great,Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state,And claim a kindred with you; for ye areA beauty and a mystery, and createIn us such love and reverence from afar,That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star.
LXXXIX.
All heaven and earth are still—though not in sleep,But breathless, as we grow when feeling most;And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep: —All heaven and earth are still: from the high hostOf stars, to the lulled lake and mountain-coast,All is concentered in a life intense,Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,But hath a part of being, and a senseOf that which is of all Creator and defence.
XC.
Then stirs the feeling infinite, so feltIn 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 knownEternal harmony, and sheds a charm,Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone,Binding all things with beauty;—'twould disarmThe spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm.
XCI.
Nor vainly did the early Persian makeHis altar the high places and the peakOf earth-o'ergazing mountains, and thus takeA fit and unwalled temple, there to seekThe Spirit, in whose honour shrines are weak,Upreared of human hands. Come, and compareColumns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek,With Nature's realms of worship, earth and air,Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy prayer!
XCII.
The sky is changed!—and such a change! O night,And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,Yet lovely in your strength, as is the lightOf 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:—Most glorious night!Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me beA 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 'tis black,—and now, the gleeOf 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 betweenHeights which appear as lovers who have partedIn 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 rageWhich blighted their life's bloom, and then departed:Itself expired, but leaving them an ageOf years all winters—war within themselves to wage.
XCV.
Now, where the quick Rhone thus hath 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 thunderbolts from hand to hand,Flashing and cast around: of all the band,The brightest through these parted hills hath forkedHis lightnings, as if he did understandThat in such gaps as desolation worked,There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurked.
XCVI.
Sky, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings! ye,With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soulTo make these felt and feeling, well may beThings that have made me watchful; the far rollOf your departing voices, is the knollOf what in me is sleepless,—if I rest.But where of ye, O 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 nowThat which is most within me,—could I wreakMy thoughts upon expression, and thus throwSoul, 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.
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 contained no tomb,—And glowing into day: we may resumeThe march of our existence: and thus I,Still on thy shores, fair Leman! may find roomAnd food for meditation, nor pass byMuch, that may give us pause, if pondered fittingly.
XCIX.
Clarens! sweet Clarens! birthplace of deep Love!Thine air is the young breath of passionate thought;Thy trees take root in love; the snows aboveThe very glaciers have his colours caught,And sunset into rose-hues sees them wroughtBy rays which sleep there lovingly: the rocks,The permanent crags, tell here of Love, who soughtIn 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 throneTo which the steps are mountains; where the godIs a pervading life and light,—so shownNot on those summits solely, nor aloneIn the still cave and forest; o'er the flowerHis eye is sparkling, and his breath hath blown,His soft and summer breath, whose tender powerPasses 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 roarOf torrents, where he listeneth, to the vinesWhich slope his green path downward to the shore,Where the bowed 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,Offering to him, and his, a populous solitude.
CII.
A populous solitude of bees and birds,And fairy-formed and many coloured things,Who 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 bendOf stirring branches, and the bud which bringsThe swiftest thought of beauty, here extend,Mingling, and made by Love, unto one mighty end.
CIII.
He who hath loved not, here would learn that lore,And make his heart a spirit: he who knowsThat 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 'tis his nature to advance or die;He stands not still, but or decays, or growsInto a boundless blessing, which may vieWith the immortal lights, in its eternity!
CIV.
'Twas not for fiction chose Rousseau this spot,Peopling it with affections; but he foundIt was the scene which passion must allotTo the mind's purified beings; 'twas the groundWhere early Love his Psyche's zone unbound,And hallowed it with loveliness: 'tis lone,And wonderful, and deep, and hath a sound,And sense, and sight of sweetness; here the RhoneHath spread himself a couch, the Alps have reared a throne.
CV.
Lausanne! and Ferney! ye have been the abodesOf names which unto you bequeathed a name;Mortals, who sought and found, by dangerous roads,A path to perpetuity of fame:They were gigantic minds, and their steep aimWas, Titan-like, on daring doubts to pileThoughts which should call down thunder, and the flameOf Heaven, again assailed, if Heaven the whileOn man and man's research could deign do more than smile.
CVI.
The one was fire and fickleness, a childMost mutable in wishes, but in mindA wit as various,—gay, grave, sage, or wild,—Historian, bard, philosopher combined:He multiplied himself among mankind,The Proteus of their talents: But his ownBreathed most in ridicule,—which, as the wind,Blew where it listed, laying all things prone,—Now to o'erthrow a fool, and now to shake a throne.
CVII.
The other, deep and slow, exhausting thought,And hiving wisdom with each studious year,In meditation dwelt, with learning wrought,And shaped his weapon with an edge severe,Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer;The lord of irony,—that master spell,Which stung his foes to wrath, which grew from fear,And doomed him to the zealot's ready hell,Which answers to all doubts so eloquently well.
CVIII.
Yet, peace be with their ashes,—for by them,If merited, the penalty is paid;It is not ours to judge, far less condemn;The hour must come when such things shall be madeKnown unto all,—or hope and dread allayedBy slumber on one pillow, in the dust,Which, thus much we are sure, must lie decayed;And when it shall revive, as is our trust,'Twill be to be forgiven, or suffer what is just.
CIX.
But let me quit man's works, again to readHis Maker's spread around me, and suspendThis page, which from my reveries I feed,Until it seems prolonging without end.The clouds above me to the white Alps tend,And I must pierce them, and survey whate'erMay be permitted, as my steps I bendTo their most great and growing region, whereThe earth to her embrace compels the powers of air.
CX.
Italia! too, Italia! looking on theeFull flashes on the soul the light of ages,Since the fierce Carthaginian almost won thee,To the last halo of the chiefs and sagesWho glorify thy consecrated pages;Thou wert the throne and grave of empires; still,The fount at which the panting mind assuagesHer thirst of knowledge, quaffing there her fill,Flows from the eternal source of Rome's imperial hill.
CXI.