For daring made thy rise as fall: thou seek'st XXXVII. Conqueror and captive of the earth art thou! To the astounded kingdoms all inert, Who deem'd thee for a time whate'er thou didst assert. XXXVIII. Oh, more or less than man-in high or low, But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor, Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of war, star. XXXIX. Yet well thy soul hath brook'd the turning tide When the whole host of hatred stood hard by, With a sedate and all-enduring eye; When Fortune fled her spoil'd and favourite child, He stood unbow'd beneath the ills upon him piled. XL. Sager than in thy fortunes; for in them To wear it ever on thy lip and brow, So hath it proved to thee, and all such lot who XLI. If, like a tower upon a headland rock, Thou hadst been made to stand or fall alone, Their admiration thy best weapon shone; XLII But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell, XLIII. This makes the madmen who have made men mad By their contagion! Conquerors and Kings, XLIV. Their breath is agitation, and their life XLV. He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find XLVI. Away with these! true Wisdom's world will be A blending of all beauties; streams and dells, Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, corn-field, mountain, vine, kind of his want of all community of feeling for or with them; perhaps more offensive to human vanity than the active cruelty of more trembling and suspi cious tyranny. Such were his speeches to public assemblies as well as individuals; and the single expression which he is said to have used on returning to Paris after the Russian winter had destroyed his army, rubbing his hands over a fire, This is pleasanter than Moscow,' would probably alienate The great error of Napoleon, if we have writ more favour from his cause than the destruction and our annals true,' was a continued obtrusion on man-reverses which led to the remark. And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells From grey but leafy walls, where Ruin greenly dwells. XLVII. And there they stand, as stands a lofty mind, Banners on high, and battles pass'd below; XLVIII. Beneath these battlements, within those walls, Than mightier heroes of a longer date. What want these outlaws conquerors should have* But 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 on Keen contest and destruction near allied, And many a tower for some fair mischief won, Saw the discolour'd Rhine beneath its ruin run. L. But Thou, exulting and abounding river! ever, Could man but leave thy bright creation so, Nor its fair promise from the surface mow With the sharp scythe of conflict,-then to see Thy valley of sweet waters, were to know Earth paved like Heaven; and to seem such to me Even now what wants thy stream?-that it should Lethe be. LI. A thousand battles have assail'd thy banks, ranks: Their very graves are gone, and what are they? Thy tide wash'd down the blood of yesterday, And all was stainless, and on thy clear stream Glass'd with its dancing light the sunny ray; • What wants that knave that a king should have?' was King James's question on meeting Johnny Armstrong and his followers in full accoutrements.-See the Ballard. But o'er the blacken'd memory's blighting dream Thy waves would vainly roll, all sweeping as they seem. LII. Thus Harold inly said, and pass'd along, Yet not insensible to all which here In glens which might have made even exile dear: 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 days Of passion had consumed themselves to dust. It is in vain that we would coldly gaze On such as smile upon us; the heart must Leap kindly back to kindness, though disgust Hath wean'd it from all worldlings: thus he felt, For there was soft remembrance, and sweet trust In one fond breast, to which his own would melt, And in its tenderer hour on that his bosom dwelt. LIV. And he had learn'd 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 imbued With scorn of man, it little boots to know; But thus it was; and though in solitude Small power the nipp'd affections have to grow. In him this glow'd when all beside had ceased to glow. LV. And there was one soft breast, as hath been said, The castled crag of Drachenfels The castle of Drachenfels stands on the highest summit of The Seven Mountains, over the Rhine banks; it is in ruins, and connected with some singular traditions. It is the first in view on the road from Bonn, but on the opposite side of the river. On this bank, nearly facing it, are the remains of another, called the Jew's Castle, and a large cross commemo. rative of the murder of a chief by his brother. The number of castles and cities along the course of the Rhine on both sides is very great, and their situations remarkably beautiful. And scatter'd cities crowning these, And peasant girls, with deep-blue eyes, I send the lilies given to me; The haughtiest breast its wish might bound L.VI. By Coblentz, on a rise of gentle ground, Lamenting and yet envying such a doom, Republic) still remains as described. The inscriptions on his monument are rather too long, and not required-his name was enough, France adored, and her enemies admired; both wept over him. His funeral was attended by the generals and detachments from both armies. In the same grave General Hoche is interred, a gallant man also in every sense of the word; but though he distinguished himself greatly in battle, he had not the good fortune to die there his death was attended by suspicions of poison. A separate monument (not over his body, which is buried by Marceau's) is raised for him near Ander Falling for France, whose rights he battled to nach, opposite to which one of his most memorable resume. LVII. exploits was performed, in throwing a bridge to an island on the Rhine. The shape and style are different from that of Marceau's, and the inscription Brief, brave, and glorious was his young career,-more simple and pleasing: The Army of the Sambre His mourners were two hosts, his friends foes; and Meuse to its Commander-in-Chief, Hoche. This and is all, and as it should be. Hoche was esteemed among the first of France's earlier generals, before Bonaparte monopolized her triumphs. He was the destined commander of the invading army of Ireland. And fitly may the stranger lingering here Ehrenbreitstein, i.e. the broad stone of honour," one of the strongest fortresses in Europe, was dis mantled and blown up by the French at the truce of Leoben. It had been, and could only be, reduced by famine or treachery. It yielded to the former. aided by surprise. After having seen the fortfications of Gibraltar and Malta, it did not much strike by comparison; but the situation is commanding. General Marceau besieged it in vain for some time; and I slept in a room where I was shown a window at The monument of the young and lamented which he is said to have been standing, observing the General Marceau (killed by a rifle-ball at Alterkirchen progress of the siege by moonlight, when a ball on the last day of the fourth year of the French struck immediately below it. LXI. The negligently grand, the fruitful bloom LXII. But these recede. Above me are the Alps, Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain 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.* LXIV. While Waterloo with Canna's carnage vies, All unbought champions in no princely cause LXV. By a lone wall a lonelier column rears Yet still with consciousness; and there it stands, LXVI. And there-oh! sweet and sacred be the name !- Her youth to Heaven; her heart, beneath a claim LXVII. But these are deeds which should not pass away, The enslavers and the enslaved, their death and The high, the mountain-majesty of worth, LXVIII. Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face, LXIX. To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind; * Aventicum, near Morat, was the Roman capital of Helvetia, where Avenches now stands. Julia Alpinula, a young Aventian priestess, died soon after a vain endeavour to save her father, condemned to death as a traitor by Aulus Cæcina. Her epitaph was discovered many years ago. It is thus: Julia Alpinula: Hic jaceo. Infelicis patris infelix proles. De Aventice Sacerdos. Exorare patris necem non potui: Male mori in fatis ille erat. Vixi annos The chapel is destroyed, and the pyramid of XXIII. I know of no human composition so affecting bones diminished to a small number by the Burgun- as this, nor a history of deeper interest. These are dian legion in the service of France, who anxiously the names and actions which ought not to perish, and effaced this record of their ancestors' less successful to which we turn with a true and healthy tenderness, invasions. A few still remain, notwithstanding the from the wretched and glittering detail of a confused pains taken by the Burgundians for ages (all who mass of conquests and battles, with which the mind is passed that way removing a bone to their own country), roused for a time to a false and feverish sympathy, and the less justifiable larcenies of the Swiss postilions, from whence it recurs at length with all the nausea who carried them off to sell for knife-handles,-a pur- consequent on such intoxication. pose for which the whiteness imbibed by the bleach- This is written in the eye of Mont Blanc (June 3d, ing of years had rendered them in great request. 1816), which even at this distance dazzles mine. (July Of these relics I ventured to bring away as much as 20th.)-I this day observed for some time the distinct may have made a quarter of a hero, for which the reflection of Mont Blanc and Mont Argentière in the sole excuse is, that if I had not, the next passer-by calm of the lake, which I was crossing in my boat. might have perverted them to worse uses than the The distance of these mountains from their mirror is careful preservation which I intend for them. sixty miles, In one hot throng, where we become the spoil Of our infection, till too late and long We may deplore and struggle with the coil, In wretched interchange of wrong for wrong 'Midst a contentious world, striving where none are strong. LXX. There, in a moment, we may plunge our years Of our own soul, turn all our blood to tears, LXXI. Is it not better, then, to be alone, And love Earth only for its earthly sake? Than join the crushing crowd, doom'd to inflict or LXXII. I live not in myself, but I become LXXIII. And thus I am absorb'd, and this is life: LXXIV. And when, at length, the mind shall be all free 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 part LXXVI. But this is not my theme; and I return LXXVII. Here the self-torturing sophist, wild Rousseau, The breath which made him wretched; yet he How to make madness beautiful, and cast O'er erring deeds and thoughts, a heavenly hue. Of words, like sunbeams, dazzling as they past The eyes, which o'er them shed tears feelingly and fast. LXXVIII. His love was passion's essence-as a tree In him existence, and o'erflowing teems LXXIX. This breathed itself to life in Julie, this * This refers to the account in his Confessions of his passion for the Comtesse d'Houdetot (the mistress of St. Lambert), and his long walk every morning, for the sake of the single kiss which was the common salutation of French acquaintance. Rousseau's description of his feelings on this occasion may be considered as the most passionate, yet not impure, description The colour of the Rhone at Geneva is blue, to a and expression of love that ever kindled into words; depth of tint which I have never seen equalled in which, after all, must be felt, from their very force, tu water, salt or fresh, except in the Mediterranean and be inadequate to the delineation. A painting can Archipelago, give no sufficient idea of the ocean. |