1. The castled crag of Drachenfels (11) Whose far white walls along them shine, 2. And peasant girls, with deep blue eyes, Through green leaves lift their walls of gray, Look o'er this vale of vintage-bowers; But one thing want these banks of Rhine,Thy gentle hand to clasp in mine! 3. I send the lilies given to me; But yet reject them not as such; For I have cherish'd them as dear, 4. The river nobly foams and flows, Could thy dear eyes in following mine LVI. By Coblentz, on a rise of gentle ground, Honour to Marceau! o'er whose early tomb Tears, big tears, gush'd from the rough soldier's lid, Lamenting and yet envying such a doom, Falling for France, whose rights he battled to resume. LVII. Brief, brave, and glorious was his young career,— His mourners were two hosts, his friends and foes; And fitly may the stranger lingering here Pray for his gallant spirit's bright repose; For he was Freedom's champion, one of those, The few in number, who had not o'erstept The charter to chastise which she bestows On such as wield her weapons; he had kept The whiteness of his soul, and thus men o'er him wept. (12) LVIII. Here Ehrenbreitstein, (13) with her shatter'd wall Black with the miner's blast, upon her height Yet shows of what she was, when shell and ball Rebounding idly on her strength did light: A tower of victory! from whence the flight Of baffled foes was watch'd along the plain: But Peace destroy'd what War could never blight, And laid those proud roofs bare to Summer's rainOn which the iron shower for years had pour'd in vain. LIX. Adieu to thee, fair Rhine! How long delighted LX. Adieu to thee again! a vain adieu! There can be no farewell to scene like thine; Their cherish'd gaze upon thee, lovely Rhine! The brilliant, fair, and soft, the glories of old days, LXI. The negligently grand, the fruitful bloom Whose fertile bounties here extend to all, [fall. Still springing o'er thy banks, though Empires near them LXII. But these recede. Above me are the Alps, How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below. LXIII. But ere these matchless heights I dare to scan, Themselves their monument;-the Stygian coast Unsepulchred they roam'd, and shriek'd each wandering ghost. (14) LXIV. While Waterloo with Canna's carnage vies, Morat and Marathon twin names shall stand; They were true Glory's stainless victories, Won by the unambitious heart and hand Of a proud, brotherly, and civic band, All unbought champions in no princely cause Of vice-entail'd Corruption; they no land Doom'd to bewail the blasphemy of laws Making kings' rights divine, by some Draconic clause. LXV. By a lone wall a lonelier column rears Yet still with consciousness; and there it stands When the coeval pride of human hands, Levell❜d (15) Aventicum, hath strew'd her subject lands. |