XXXVI.

XLII.
There sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men, But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell,
Whose spirit antithetically mixt

And there hath been thy bane; there is a fire One moment of the mightiest, and again

And motion of the soul which will not dwell On little objects with like firmness fixt,

In its own narrow being, but aspire
Extreme in all things! hadst thou been betwixt, Beyond the fitting medium of desire;
Thy throne had still been thine, or never been; And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore
For daring made thy rise as fall: thou seek'st Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire
Even now to reassume the imperial mien,

Of aught but rest; a fever at the core,
And shake again the world, the Thunderer of the Fatal to him who bears, to all who ever bore.
scene!
XXXVII.

XLIII.

This makes the madmen who have made men msd Conqueror and captive of the earth art thou ! She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name

By their contagion ; Conquerors and Kings, Was ne'er more bruited in men's minds than now

Founders of sects and systems, to whoin add That thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame,

Sophists, Bards, Statesmen, all unquiet things Who woo'd thee once, thy vassal, and became

Which stir too strongly the soul's secret springe The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert

And are themselves the fools to those they fool; A god unto thyself; nor less the same

Envied, yet how unenviable! what stings To the astounded kingdoms all inert,

Are theirs! One breast laid open were a school Who deem'd thee for a time whate'er thou didst Which would unteach mankind the lust to spine o

rule;
assert.

XLIV.
XXXVIII.

Their breath is agitation, and their life
Oh, more or less than man-in high or low,
Battling with nations, flying from the field;

A storm whereon they ride, to sink at last,

And yet so nursed and bigoted to strife, Now making monarchs' necks thy footstool, now

That should their days, surviving perils past, More than thy meanest soldier taught to yield;

Melt to calm twilight, they feel overcast An empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild,

With sorrow aud supineness, and so die; But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor,

Even as a flame unfed, which runs to waste However deeply in men's spirits skill'd, Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of war,

With its own flickering, or a sword laid by, Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest Which eats into itself, and rusts ingloriously. star.

XLV.
XXXIX.

He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find Yet well thy soul hath brook'd the turning tide,

The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow With that untaught innate philosophy,

He who surpasses or subdues mankind, Which, be it wisdom, coldness, or deep pride,

Must look down on the hate of those below. Is gall and wormwood :o an enemy.

Though high above the sun of glory glow, When the whole host of hatred stood hard by,

And far beneath the earth and ocean spread, To watch and mock thee shrinking, thou hast

Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow With a sedate and all-enduring eye; (smiled When Fortune fled her spoil'd and favorite child, and thus reward the toils which to those summar

Contending tempests on his naked head, He stood unbow'd beneath the ills upon him piled.

led.

XLVI.
XL.

Away with these! true Wisdom's world will be Sager than in thy fortunes; for in them

Within its own creation, or in thine, Ambition steel'd thee on too far to show

Maternal Nature! for who teems like thee, That just habitual scorn which could contemn Thus on the banks of thy majestic Rhine? Men and their thoughts; 'twas wise to feel, not so There Haroid yazes on a work divine, To wear it ever on thy lip and brow,

A blending of all beauties; streams and delle, And spurn the instruments thou wert to use, Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mountail Till they were turn'd unto thine overthrow:

vine, "Tis but a worthless world to win or lose;

And chiefless castles breathing stern farea ells So hath it proved to thee, and all such lot who From gray but leafy walls, where Ruin green choose.

dwells. XLI.

XLVII. If, like a tower upon a headlong rock,

And there they stand, as stands a lofty mind. Thou hadst been made to stand or fall alone, Worn, but unstooping to the baser crowd, Such scorn of man had help'd to brave the shock; All tenantless, save to the crannying wind. But men's thoughts were the steps which pared thy Or holding dark communion with the cloud Their admiration thy best weapon shone; (throne. There was a day when they were young

and

prou The part of Philip's son was thine, not then Banners on high, and battles pass'd below; (Unless aside thy purple had been thrown) But they who fought are in a blocdy shroud, Like stern Diogenes to mock at men;

And those which waved are shredless dust ere not For sceptied cynics earth were far too wide a den !' And the bleak battlements shall boar no future bloy

XLVIII.

LIV. deneath these battlements, within those walls, And he had learned to love,-I know not why, Power dwelt amidst her passions; in proud state For this in such as him seems strange of mood.Each robber chief upheld his armed halls,

The helpless looks of blooming infaecy, Doing his evil will, nor less elate

Even in its earliest nurture; what subdued, Thun mightier heroes of a longer date. [have? To change like this, a mind so far imbued What want these outlaws 10 conquerors should With scorn of man, it little boots to know; But History's purchased page to call them great? But thus it was; and though in solitude A mider space, an ornamented grave?

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 as brave.

glow.

LV.
XLIX,

And there was one soft breast, as hath been said, In their baronial feuds and single fields,

Which unto his was bound by stronger ties What deeds of prowess unrecorded died !

Than the church links withal; and, though upwed And love, which lent a blazon to their shields,

That love was pure, and, far above disguse, With emblems well devised by amorous pride,

Had stood the test of mortal enmities Chrough all the mail of iron hearts would glide;

Stili undivided, and cemented more But still their fame was fierceness, and drew on

By peril, dreaded most in female eyes; Reca contest and destruction near allied,

But this was firm, and from a foreign shore And many a tower for some fair mischief won,

Well to that heart might his these absent greeting Maw the discolor'd Rhine beneath its ruin run.

pour.

1. L.

The castled crag of Drachenfels 11 Bus Thou, exulting and unbounding 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 conflict,—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 pared like Heaven; and to seem such to me,

Have strew'd a scene which I should see
Even now what wants thy stream ?--that it should

With double joy wert thou with me.
Lethe be.

2.
LI.

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

And hands which offer early flowers, But these and half their fame have pass d away,

Walk smiling o'er this paradise; And Slaughter heap'd on high his weltering ranks;

Above, the frequent feudal towers Their very grures are gone, and what are they Through green leaves lift their walls of gray, Thy tide wasn'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, Glasu'd with its dancing light the sunny ray;

Look o'er this vale of vintage-bowers; Bat o'er the blackend memory's blighting dream But one thing want these banks of Rhine,-. l'hy waves would rainly roll, all sweeping as they

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 tours 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 have made even exile dear; For I have cherish'd them as dear,
Thougb on his brow were graven lines austere, Because they yet may meet thine eye,
And tranquil sternness 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 nigh, Joy was not always absent from his face,

And know'st them gather'd by the Rhine, Bar c'er it in such scenes would steal with transient And offer'd from my heart to thine! trace.

4.
LIII.

The river nobly foams and flows,
Nor nas all love shut from Sim, 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 rain that we would coldly gaze

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

The haughtiest breast its wish might bound
Lesp kindly back to kindness, though disgust Through life to dwell delighted here;
Hath wenn'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 dwelt. Still sweeten more these banks of Rhine!

Seem.

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 Na:ure, whose vast walls Crowning the summit of the verdant mound; Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalpa, Benrath 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 Honor 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 summits, as to show Falling for France, whose rights he battled to resume. How earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vwa

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 patriot 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 limUnsepulchred they roam'd, and shriek'd eack wept.12

wandering ghost.14
LVIII.

LXIV.
Here Ehrenbreitstein, 13 with her shatter'd wall
Black with the miner’s blast, upon her height

While Waterloo with Canna's carnage vies,
Yet shows of what she was, when shell and ball Morat and Marathon twin names shall stand;
Rebounding idly on her strength did light: They were true Glory's stainless victories,
A tower of victory! from whence the flight Won by the unambitious heart and hand
Of baffled foes was watch'd along the plain ; Of a proud, brotherly, and civic band,
But Peace destroy'd what war could never blight, All unbought champions in no princely cause
And laid those proud roofs bare to Summer's rain,

Of vice-entail'd Corruption ; they no land On which the iron shower for years had pour'd in

Doom'd to bewail the blasphemy of laws vain.

Making kings' rights divine, by some Draconie LIX.

clause.

LXV.
Adieu to thee, fair Rhine! How long delighted
The stranger fain would linger on his way!

By a lone wall a lonelier column reare
Thine is a scene alike where souls united

A gray and grief-worn aspect of old days ; Or lonely Contemplation thus might stray;

'Tis the last remnant of the wreck of years, And could the ceaseless vultures cease to prey

And looks as with the wild-bewilder'd gaze On self-condemning bosoms, it were here,

Of one to stone converted by amaze, Where Nature, nor too sombre nor too gay,

Yet still with consciousness; and there it stands Wild but not rude, awful yet not austere,

Making a marvel that it not decays, Is to the mellow Earth as Autumn to the year.

When the coeval pride of human hands,

Levellid 16 Aventicum, hath strew'd her subject LX.

lands.

LXVI.
Adieu to thee again ! a vain adieu !
There can be no farewell to scene like thine;

And there-oh! sweet and sacred be the name!The mind is color'd by thy every hue;

Julia—the daughter, the devoted-gave And if reluctantly the eyes resign

Her youth to Heaven; her heart, beneath a claim Their cherish'd gaze upon thee, lovely Rhine!

Nearest to Heaven's, broke o'er a father's grare, 'Tis with the thankful glance of parting praise ;

Justice is sworn 'gainst tears, and hers would crave More mighty spots may rise-more glaring shine,

The life she lived in, but the judge was just, But none unite in one attaching maze

And then she died on him she could not save, l'h, brilliant, fair, and soft,—the glories of old days. Their tomb was simple, and without a bust,

And held within their urn one mind, one heart, one LXI.

dust.18

LXVII. The negligently grand, the fruitful bloom Of coming ripeness, the white city's sheen, But these are deeds which should not pass away, The rolling stream, the precipice's gloom,

And names that must not wither, though the earth The forest's growth, and Gothic walls between, Forgets her empires with a just decay, [birth The wild rocks shaped as they had turrets been, The enslavers and the enslaved, their death and In mockery of man's art; and these withal The high, the mountain-majesty of worth A race of faces happy as the scene,

Should be, and shall, survivor of its wo. Whose fertile bounties here extend to all,

And from its immortality look forth Still springing o'er thy banks, though Empires near In the sun's face, like yonder Alpine snow," Sem fall.

Imperishably pure beyond all things below.

LXVIII.

LXXIV.
Lake Loman woos me with its crystal face, And when, at length, the mind arall be all free
Ibe 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
Its elear depth yields of their fair 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 nos
But soon in me shall Loneliness renew

Feel all I see, less dazzling, but more warm? Thoughts hic, but not less cherish'd than of old, The bodiless thought ? the Spirit of each spot! Ere iningling with the herd had penn'd me in their of which, even now, I share at time, the immorta fold

lot; LXIX.

LXXV. To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind : Are not the mountains, waves, and skics, 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 contenın 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 In wretched interchange of wrong for wrong Of those whose eyes are only turn'd below, Midst a coutentious world, striving where none are Gazing upon the ground, with thoughts which dasa strong.

not 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 color things to come with hues of Wight; To look on One, whose dust was once all fire.
The race of life becomas 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; 'twas a foolish quest,
Whose bark drives on and on, and anchor'd ne'er The which to gain and keep, he samificed all rest.
shall be.
LXXI.

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

Here the self-torturing sophist, wiid Rousseau. And love Earth only for its earthly sake?

The apostle of affliction, he who threw By the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone,s Enchantment over passion, and from wo 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 pası Thuo join the crushing crowd, doom'd to inflict or The eyes, which o'er them shed tears feelingly and bear?

fast. LXXII.

LXXVIII. I live not in myself, but I become

His love was passior.'s essence

as a tree Portion of that around mu: and to me

On fire by lightning; with ethereal flame
High mountains are a feeling, but the huin Kindled he was, and blasted; for to be
Of human cities torture : I can see

Thus, and enamor'd, were in him the same
Sathing to loathe in nature, save to be

But his was not the love of living dame, A link reluctant in a fleshy chain,

Nor of the dead who rise upon our dreams, Caxs'd among creatures, when the soul can flee, But of ideal beauty, which became And with the sky, the peak, the hearing plain In him existence, and o'erflowing teems X scean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain. Along his burning page, distemper'd thoug! 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 sweet 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 gree. To act and suffer, but reinount at last

From hers, who but with friendship his would metu. 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 thrill'd spirit's love-devouring heat; Wich it would cope with, on delighted wing, In that absorbing sigh perrhance more blest, patsir g the clay-cold bonds which round our being Than vulgar minds may be with all they seed eling

pornest. 19

LXXX.

LXXXVI. His life was one long war with self-sought foes, It is the bush of night, and all betweer. Or friends by him self-banished; for his mind Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet cies Had grown Suspicion's sanctuary, and chose Mellow'd and mingling, yet distinctly seen, Por its own 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 frensied, -wherefore, who may know? There breathes a living fragrance from the shora Since cause might be which skill could never find; of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear But he was frensied by disease or wo,

Drops the light drip of the suspended oar, so that worst pitch of all, which wears a reasoning Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol moon show. LXXXI.

LXXXVII. For then he was inspired, and from him came,

He is an evening reveller, who makes As from the Pythian'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 a voice a moment, then is still. Did he not this for France ? which lay before

There seems a floating whisper on the hill, Bow'd to the inborn tyranny of years ?

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 infuse Roused up to too much wrath, which follows Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues o'ergrown fears?

LXXXVIII.
LXXXII.
Chey 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

Of men and empires,-'tis to be forgiven, And what behind it lay all earth shall view. (rent,

That in our aspirations to be great, But good with ill they also overthrow,

Our destinies o'erieap their mortal state,

And claim a kindred with you; for ye are
Leaving but ruins, wherewith to rebuild
Upon the same foundation, and renew (fill’d,

A bauty and a mystery, and create
Dungeons and thrones, which the same hour re-

In is such love and reverence from afar, As heretofore, because ambition was self-will’d.

That fortune, fame, power, life, hath named them

selves a star. LXXXIII.

LXXXIX. But this will nor endure, nor be endured! (felt.

All heaven and earth are still-though not in sleep Mankind have felt their strength, and made it

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 vigor, sternly have they dealt

All heaven and earth are still : From the high he ? On one another : pity ceased to melt

Of stars, to the lull’d lake and mountain-coast. With her once 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;
What marvel then, at times, if they mistook their of that which is of all Creator and defence

But hath a part of being, and a sense
prey ?
LXXXIV.

XC.
What Jeep wounds ever closed without a scar?
The heart's bleed longest, and but heal to wear

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt
That which distigures it; and they who war (bear

In solitude, where we are least alone; With their own hopes, and have been vanquish'd,

A truth, which through our being then doth mely Silence, but not submission : in his lair

And purifies froin self: it is a tone Fix'd passion holds his breath, until the hour

The soul and source of music, which makes knowo Which shall atone for years; none need despair :

Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm, It came, it cometh, and will come,—the power

Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone, To punish or forgive-in one we shall be slower Binding all things with beauty ;-'twould disarm

The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm
LXXXV.

XCI.
Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake,
With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing

Not vainly did the early Persian make
Which warns me, with its stillness to forsake His altar the high places and the peak
Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring.

Of earth-o'ergazing mountains, 20 and thus tak. This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing

A fit, and unwallid temple, there to seek To waft me from distraction ; once I loved

The Spirič, in whose honor shrines are weak, Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring Uprear'd of human hands. Come, and compare

Sounds sweet as if a sister's roice reproved, Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek, That I with stern delights should e'er have been so With Nature's realms of worship, earth and air mcved

Nor fix on food chodes to circumscribe thy prag's