Apart within a forest shed,
Pale, ragged, with bare feet and head;
Mute as the snow upon the hill,
And, as the saint he prays to, still.
Ah, what avails heroic deed?
What liberty? if no defence

Be won for feeble Innocence—

Father of All! though wilful manhood read
His punishment in soul-distress,

Grant to the morn of life its natural blessedness.

XXIV.

THE LAST SUPPER, BY LEONARDO DA VINCI, IN THE REFECTORY OF
THE CONVENT OF MARIA DELLA GRAZIA — MILAN.

THO' searching damps and many an envious flaw
Have marred this Work*, the calm ethereal grace,
The love deep-seated in the Saviour's face,
The mercy, goodness, have not failed to awe
The Elements; as they do melt and thaw
The heart of the Beholder - and erase
(At least for one rapt moment) every trace
Of disobedience to the primal law.

The annunciation of the dreadful truth

Made to the Twelve, survives: lip, forehead, cheek,

And hand reposing on the board in ruth

Of what it utterst, while the unguilty seek
Unquestionable meanings- still bespcak
A labour worthy of eternal youth!

XXV.

THE ECLIPSE OF THE SUN, 1820.

HIGH on her speculative Tower
Stood Science waiting for the Hour
When Sol was destined to endure
That darkening of his radiant face
Which Superstition strove to chase,
Erewhile, with rites impure.

Afloat beneath Italian skies,
Througn regions fair as Paradise

We gaily passed,- till Nature wrought
A silent and unlooked-for change,
That checked the desultory range
Of joy and sprightly thought.

This picture of the Last Supper has not only been grievously injured by time, but parts are said to have been painted over again. These niceties may be left to connoisseurs, I speak of it as I felt. The copy exhibited in London some years ago, and the engraving by Morghen, are both admirable; but in the original is a power which neither of those works has attained, or even approached.

The Statues ranged round the Spire and along the roof ct the Cathedral of Milan, have been found fault with by Persons whose exclusive taste is unfortunate for themselves. It is true that the same expense and labour, judiciously directed to pur poses more strictly architectural, might have much heightened the general effect of the building; for, seen from the ground, the Statues appear diminutive. But the coup d'œil, from the best point of view, which is half way up the Spire, must strike an unprejudiced Person with admiration; and, surely, the selection and arrangement of the Figures is exquisitely fitted to support the religion of the Country in the imaginations and feelings of the Spectator. It was with great pleasure that I saw, during the two ascents which we made, several Children, of different ages, tripping up and down the slender spire, and pausing to look around them, with feelings much more animated than could have been derived from these, or the finest works of art. if placed within easy reach. Remember also that you have the Alps on one side, and on the other the Apennines, with the Plain of Lombardy between'

Sees long-drawn files, concentric rings
Each narrowing above each; — the wings,
The uplifted palms, the silent marble lips,
The starry zone of sovereign height*,
All steeped in this portentous light!
All suffering dim eclipse!

Thus after Man had fallen (if aught
These perishable spheres have wrought
May with that issue be compared)
Throngs of celestial visages,
Darkening like water in the breeze,
A holy sadness shared.

Lo! while I speak, the labouring Sun
His glad deliverance has begun:
The Cypress waves her sombre plume
More cheerily; and Town and Tower,
The Vineyard and the Olive bower,
Their lustre re-assume!

O ye, who guard and grace my Home
While in far-distant Lands we roam,

What countenance hath this day put on for you?

Do clouds surcharged with irksome rain,
Blackening the Eclipse, take hill and plain
From your benighted view?

Or was it given you to behold

Like vision, pensive though not cold,
Of gay Winandermere?

Saw ye the soft yet awful veil
Spread over Grasmere's lovely dale,
Helvellyn's brow severe?

I ask in vain-and know far less
If sickness, sorrow, or distress,
Have spared my Dwelling to this hour:
Sad blindness! but ordained to prove
Our Faith in Heaven's unfailing love
And all-controlling Power.

2.

Such, (but O lavish Nature! why
That dark unfathomable eye,
Where lurks a Spirit that replies
To stillest mood of softest skies,
Yet hints at peace to be o'erthrown,
Another's first, and then her own?)
Such, haply, yon ITALIAN Maid,
Our Lady's laggard Votaress,
Ha'ting beneath the chestnut shade
To accomplish there her loveliness:
Nice aid maternal fingers lend

A Sister serves with slacker hand;

Then, glittering like a star, she joins the festal band 3.

How blest (if truth may entertain

Coy fancy with a bolder strain)

The HELVETIAN Girl-who daily braves,

In her light skiff, the tossing waves,

And quits the bosom of the deep

Only to climb the rugged steep!

Though the burthen of toil with dear friends we divide, Though by the same zephyr our temples are fanned

And there shall bloom, with Thee allied,

The Votaress by Lugano's side;

XXVII.

THE COLUMN.

INTENDED BY BUONAPARTE FOR A TRIUMPHAL EDIFICE IN MILAN,
NOW LYING BY THE WAY-SIDE IN THE SIMPLON PASS.

AMBITION, following down this far-famed slope
Her Pioneer, the snow-dissolving Sun,
While clarions prate of Kingdoms to be won,
Perchance, in future ages, here may stop;
Taught to mistrust her flattering horoscope
By admonition from this prostrate Stone;
Memento uninscribed of Pride o'erthrown,
Vanity's hieroglyphic; a choice trope

In Fortune's rhetoric. Daughter of the Rock,
Rest where thy course was stayed by Power divine!
The Soul transported sees, from hint of thine,
Crimes which the great Avenger's hand provoke,
Hears combats whistling o'er the ensanguined heath:
What groans! what shrieks! what quietness in death!

XXIX.

ECHO, UPON THE GEMMI.

WHAT Beast of Chase hath broken from the cover? Stern GEMMI listens to as full a cry,

As multitudinous a harmony,

As e'er did ring the heights of Latmos over,
When, from the soft couch of her sleeping Lover,
Up-starting, Cynthia skimmed the mountain dew
In keen pursuit - and gave, where'er she flew,
Impetuous motion to the Stars above her.

A solitary Wolf-dog, ranging on

Through the bleak concave, wakes this wonderous chime

Of aery voices locked in unison,-
Faint-far-off-

near-deep-solemn and sublime!

So, from the body of one guilty deed,

A thousand ghostly fears, and haunting thoughts pro

ceed!

XXVIII. STANZAS,

COMPOSED IN THE SIMPLON PASS.

VALLOMBROSA! I longed in thy shadiest wood
To slumber, reclined on the moss-covered floor,
To listen to ANIO's precipitous flood,

When the stillness of evening hath deepened its roar;
To range through the Temples of PESTUM, to muse
In POMPEII preserved by her burial in earth;
On pictures to gaze where they drank in their hues ;
And murmur sweet Songs on the ground of their birth!

The beauty of Florence, the grandeur of Rome,
Could I leave them unseen, and not yield to regret?
With a hope (and no more) for a season to come,
Which ne'er may discharge the magnificent debt?
Thou fortunate Region! whose Greatness inurned
Awoke to new life from its ashes and dust;
Twice-glorified fields! if in sadness I turned
From your infinite marvels, the sadness was just.

Now, risen ere the light-footed Chamois retires
From dew-sprinkled grass to heights guarded with snow,
Tow'rd the mists that hang over the land of my Sires,
From the climate of myrtles contented I go.

How black was its hue in the region of air!

But, touched from behind by the Sun, it now shines With threads that seem part of its own silver hair.

Down to the earth the walls of Jericho,

These shout hosannas- those the startling trumpets

blow!

And thus. in order, 'mid the sacred Grove
Fed in the Libyan waste by gushing wells,
The Priests and Damsels of Ammonian Jove
Provoked responses with shrill canticles;
While, in a Ship begirt with silver bells,
They round his Altar bore the horned God,
Old Cham, the solar Deity, who dwells
Aloft, yet in a tilting Vessel rode,

When universal sea the mountains overflowed.

Why speak of Roman Pomps? the haughty claims
Of Chiefs triumphant after ruthless wars;
The feast of Neptune- and the Cereal Games,
With images, and crowns, and empty cars;
The dancing Salii-on the shields of Mars
Smiting with fury; and the deeper dread
Scattered on all sides by the hideous jars
Of Corybantian cymbals, while the head
Of Cybele was seen, sublimely turreted!

At length a Spirit more subdued and soft
Appeared, to govern Christian pageantries:
The Cross, in calm procession, borne aloft,
Moved to the chant of sober litanies.
Even such, this day, came wafted on the breeze
From a long train-in hooded vestments fair
Enwrapt and winding, between Alpine trees,
Spiry and dark, around their House of Prayer
Below the icy bed of bright Argentiere.

a living Stream,

Still, in the vivid freshness of a dream,
The pageant haunts me as it met our eyes!
Still, with those white-robed Shapes -
The glacier Pillars join in solemn guise*
For the same service, by mysterious ties;
Numbers exceeding credible account
Of number, pure and silent Votaries
Issuing or issued from a wintry fount;
The impenetrable heart of that exalted Mount!

They, too, who send so far a holy gleam
While they the Church engird with motion slow,
A product of that awful Mountain seem,
Poured from his vaults of everlasting snow;
Not virgin-lilies marshalled in bright row,
Not swans descending with the stealthy tide,
A livelier sisterly resemblance show

Than the fair Forms, that in long order glide,
Bear to the glacier band - those shapes aloft descried.

*This Procession is a part of the sacramental service performed once a month. In the Valley of Engelberg we had the good fortune to be present at the Grand Festival of the Virgin but the Procession on that day, though consisting of upwards of 1000 Persons, assembled from all the branches of the sequestered Valley, was much less striking (notwithstanding the sublimity of the surrounding scenery): it wanted both the simplicity of the other and the accompaniment of the Glacier-columns vhose sisterly resemblance to the moving Figures gave it a most beautiful and solemn peculiarity

Trembling, I look upon the secret springs
Of that licentious craving in the mind
To act the God among external things,
To bind, on apt suggestion, or unbind;
And marvel not that antique Faith inclined
To crowd the world with metamorphosis,
Vouchsafed in pity or in wrath assigned:
Such insolent temptations wouldst thou miss,
Avoid these sights; nor brood o'er Fable's dark abyss!

XXXI.

ELEGIAC STANZAS.

The lamented Youth whose untimely death gave occasion to these elegiac verses, was Frederic William Goddard, from Bos ton in North America. He was in his twentieth year, and had resided for some time with a clergyman in the neighbourhood of Geneva for the completion of his education. Accompanied by a fellow-pupil, a native of Scotland, he had just set out on a Swiss tour when it was his misfortune to fall in with a friend of mine who was hastening to join our party. The travellers. after spending a day together on the road from Berne and at Soleure, took leave of each other at night, the young men having intended to proceed directly to Zurich. But early in the morning my friend found his new acquaintances, who were informed of the object of his journey, and the friends he was in pursuit of equipped to accompany him. We met at Lucerne the succeed. ing evening, and Mr. G. and his fellow-student became in con. sequence our travelling companions for a couple of days. We ascended the Righi together; and, after contemplating the sun rise from that noble mountain, we separated at an hour and on a spot well suited to the parting of those who were to meet no more. Our party descended through the valley of our Lady of the Snow, and our late companions, to Art. We had hoped to meet in a few weeks at Geneva; but on the third succeeding day (on the 21st of August) Mr. Goddard perished, being overset in a boat while crossing the lake of Zurich. His companion saved himself by swimming, and was hospitably received in the mansion of a Swiss gentleman (M. Keller) situated on the east. ern coast of the Lake. The corpse of poor G. was cast ashore on the estate of the same gentleman, who generously performed all the rites of hospitality which could be rendered to the dead as well as to the living. He caused a handsome mural monument to be erected in the church of Küsnacht, which records the premature fate of the young American, and on the shores too of the lake, the traveller may read an inscription pointing out the spot where the body was deposited by the waves.

LULLED by the sound of pastoral bells,
Rude Nature's Pilgrims did we go,
From the dread summit of the Queent
Of Mountains, through a deep ravine,
Where, in her holy Chapel, dwells
"Our Lady of the Snow."

The sky was blue, the air was mild;
Free were the streams and green the bowers;
As if, to rough assaults unknown,

The genial spot had ever shown

A countenance that sweetly smiled,
The face of summer-hours,

+ Mount Righi - Regina Montium.