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For daring made thy rise as fall: thou seek'st
Even 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 name
Was ne'er more bruited in men's minds than now
That thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame,
Who woo'd thee once, thy vassal, and became
The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert
A god unto thyself; nor less the same

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,
Battling with nations, flying from the field;
Now making monarchs' necks thy footstool, now
More than thy meanest soldier taught to yield:
An empire thou couldst crush, command, re-
build,

But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor,
However deeply in men's spirits skill'd,

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 brook'd the turning tide
With 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
smiled

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
Ambition steel'd thee on too far to show
That just habitual scorn, which could contemn
Men and their thoughts; 'twas wise to feel, not so

To wear it ever on thy lip and brow,
And spurn the instruments thou wert to use
Till they were turn'd 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 help'd 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 fire
And motion of the soul, which will not dwell
In its own narrow being, but aspire
Beyond the fitting medium of desire;
And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore,
Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire
Of 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 mad

By their contagion! Conquerors and Kings,
Founders of sects and systems, to whom add
Sophists, Bards, Statesinen, all unquiet things
Which stir too strongly the soul's secret springs,
And are themselves the fools to those they fool;
Envied, yet how unenviable! what stings
Are theirs! One breast laid open were a school
Which would unteach mankind the lust to shine or
rule:

XLIV.

Their breath is agitation, and their life
A 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 overcast
With sorrow and supineness, and so die;
Even as a flame unfed, which runs to waste
With its own flickering, or a sword laid by,
Which eats into itself, and rusts ingloriously.

XLV.

He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find
The 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 blow
Contending tempests on his naked head,
And thus reward the toils which to those summits
led.

XLVI.

Away with these! true Wisdom's world will be
Within 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,

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,
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 pass'd 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 state
Each robber chief upheld his armed halls,
Doing his evil will, nor less elate

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!
Making thy waves a blessing as they flow
Through banks whose beauty would endure for

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,
But these and half their fame have pass'd away,
And Slaughter heap'd on high his weltering

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
Awoke the jocund birds to early song

In glens which might have made even exile dear:
Though on his brow were graven lines austere,
And tranquil sternness which had ta'en the place
Of 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 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,
Which unto his was bound by stronger ties
Than the church links withal; and, though unwed,
That love was pure, and, far above disguise,
Had stood the test of mortal enmities
Still undivided, and cemented more
By peril, dreaded most in female eyes;
But this was firm, and from a foreign shore
Well to that heart might his these absent greetings
pour!

The castled crag of Drachenfels
Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine,
Whose breast of waters broadly swells
Between the banks which bear the vine,
And hills all rich with blossom'd trees,
And fields which promise corn and wine,

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,
Whose far white walls along them shine,
Have strew'd a scene, which I should sea
With 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 towers
Through 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 wither'd be,
But yet reject them not as such;
For I have cherish'd them as dear,
Because they yet may meet thine eye,
And guide thy soul to mine even here,
When thou behold'st them drooping nigh,
And know'st them gather'd by the Rhine,
And offer'd from my heart to thine!
The river nobly foams and flows,
Tne charm of this enchanted ground,
And all its thousand turns disclose
Some fresher beauty varying round;

The haughtiest breast its wish might bound
Through life to dwell delighted here;
Nor could on earth a spot be found
To nature and to me so dear,
Could thy dear eyes in following mine
Still sweeten more these banks of Rhine!

L.VI.

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 forbid
Honour to Marceau! o'er whose carly tomb
Tears, big tears, gush'd from the rough soldier's
lid,

Lamenting and yet envying such a doom,

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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
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.

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
Of 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 been
In mockery of man's art; and these withal
A 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 walls
Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps,
And throned Eternity in icy halls

Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls
The avalanche-the thunderbolt of snow!
All that expands the spirit, yet appals,
Gather around these summits, as to show

How 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 pass'd in vain,-
Morat the proud, the patriot field! where man
May gaze on ghastly trophies of the slain,
Nor blush for those who conquered on that plain;
Here Burgundy bequeath'd his tombless host,
A bony heap, through ages to remain,

Themselves their monument ;-the Stygian coast Unsepulchred they roam'd, and shriek'd each wandering ghost.*

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 king's rights divine, by some Draconic clause.

LXV.

By a lone wall a lonelier column rears
A grey and grief-worn aspect of old days,
'Tis the last remnant of the wreck of years,
And looks as with the wild bewilder'd gaze
Of 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,
Levell'd Aventicum, hath strew d her subject lands."

LXVI.

And there-oh! sweet and sacred be the name !-
Julia-the daughter, the devoted-gave

Her youth to Heaven; her heart, beneath a claim
Nearest to Heaven's, broke o er a father's grave.
Justice is sworn 'gainst tears, and hers would crave
The 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 inind, one heart, one
dust.t

LXVII.

But these are deeds which should not pass away,
And names that must not wither, though the earth
Forgets 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 forth
In 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 view
The stillness of their aspect in each trace
Its clear depth yields of their far height and huc:
There is too much of man here, to look through
With a fit mind the might which I behold;
But soon in me shall Loneliness renew
Thoughts hid, but not less cherish'd than of old.
Ere mingling with the herd had penn'd 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 mind
Deep in its fountain, lest it overboil

* 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
In fatal penitence, and in the blight

Of 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 flight
To those that walk in darkness: on the sea,
The boldest steer but where their ports invite,
But there are wanderers o'er Eternity
Whose bark drives on and on, and anchor'd 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 make
A 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, doom'd to inflict or
bear?

LXXII.

I live not in myself, but I become
Portion of that around me; and to me,
High mountains are a feeling, but the hum
Of human cities torture: I can see
Nothing to loathe in nature, save to be
A link reluctant in a fleshly chain,
Class'd among creatures, when the soul can flee,
And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain
Of ocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain.

LXXIII.

And thus I am absorb'd, 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 last
With a fresh pinion; which I felt to spring,
Though young, yet waxing vigorous as the blast
Which 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 free
From what it hates in this degraded form,
Reft of its carnal life, save what shall be
Existent happier in the fly and worm,-
When elements to elements conform,
And dust is as it should be, shall I not
Feel 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 part
Of me and of my soul, as I of them?
Is not the love of these deep in my heart
With a pure passion? should I not contemn
All objects, if compared with these? and stem
A tide of suffering, rather than forego
Such feelings for the hard and worldly phlegm
Of 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 return
To that which is immediate, and require
Those who find contemplation in the urn,
To look on One whose dust was once all fire,
A native of the land where I respire
The clear air for awhile-a passing guest,
Where he became a being,-whose desire
Was 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 threw
Enchantment over passion, and from woe
Wrung overwhelming eloquence, first drew

The breath which made him wretched; yet he
knew

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
On fire by lightning; with ethereal flame
Kindled he was, and blasted; for to be
Thus, and enamour'd, 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 became

In him existence, and o'erflowing teems
Along his burning page, distemper'd though it seems.

LXXIX.

This breathed itself to life in Julie, this
Invested her with all that's wild and sweet;
This hallow'd, too, the memorable kiss*
Which every morn his fever'd lip would greet,

* 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.

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