LVI. 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 Honor 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 battled 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 The stranger fain would linger on his way! Thine is a scene alike where souls united Or lonely Contemplation thus might stray; And could the ceaseless vultures cease to prey On self-condemning bosoms, it were here, Where Nature, nor too sombre nor too gay, Wild but not rude, awful yet not austere, Is to the mellow Earth as Autumn to the year. LX. Adieu to thee again! a vain adieu ! There can be no farewell to scene like thine; The mind is color'd by thy every hue; And if reluctantly the eyes resign Their cherish'd gaze upon thee, lovely Rhine! "Tis with the thankful glance of parting praise; More mighty spots may rise-more glaring shine, But none unite in one attaching maze The brilliant, fair, and soft,-the glories of old days. 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 hem fall. LXII. But these recede. Above me are the Alps, Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls 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 conquer'd 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.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 Draconie clause. 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!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 mind, one heart, one dust.18 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, [birth. The enslavers and the enslaved, their death and The high, the mountain-majesty of worth Should be, and shall, survivor of its wo. And from its immortality look forth In the sun's face, like yonder Alpine snow, 3 Imperishably pure beyond all things below. Is it not better, then, to be alone, And love Earth only for its earthly sake? Kissing its cries away as these awake;— LXXIV. And when, at length, the mind anall 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 time, the immorta 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 turn'd below, Gazing upon the ground, with thoughts which dara 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 a while-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, wird Rousseau. Than join the crushing crowd, doom'd to inflict or The eyes, which o'er them shed tears feelingly and LXXX. His life was one long war with self-sought foes, Or friends by him self-banished; for his mind Had grown Suspicion's sanctuary, and chose For its own cruel sacrifice, the kind 'Gainst whom he raged with fury strange and blind. But he was frensied,-wherefore, who may know? Since cause might be which skill could never find; But he was frensied by disease or wo, LXXXVI. It is the hush of night, and all betweer. To that worst pitch of all, which wears a reasoning Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol mo show. XCII. he sky is changed!-and such a change! Oh And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, XCIII. And this is in the night :-Most glorious night! Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain mirth, XCVIII. The morn is up again, the dewy morn, Much, that may give us pause, if ponder'd fittingly XCIX. Clarens! sweet Clarens, birth-place of deep Love, In them a refuge from the worldly shocks, As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's Which stir and sting the soul with hope that woos. birth. XCIV. Now, where the swift Rhone cleaves his way Heights which appear as lovers who have parted Tho' in their souls, which thus each other thwarted XCV. Now, where the quick Rhone thus hath cleft his way then mocks. C. Clarens! by heavenly feet thy paths are trod, CI. All things are here of him; from the black pines, There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein Offering to him, and his, a populous solitude. lurk'd. XCVI. Sky, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings! ye! Of what in me is sleepless,-if I rest. But where of ye, oh tempests! is the goal? CII. A populous solitude of bees and birds, And fairy-form'd and many-color'd things, [words, Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high Mingling, and made by Love, unto one mighty end. nest? XCVII. Could I embody and unbosom now, That which is most within me,-could I wreak A that I would have sought, and all I seek, [sword. CIII. He who hath loved not, here would learn that lore. With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a With the immortal lights, in its eternity' CIV. "Twas not for fiction chose Rousseau this spot, Peopling it with affections; but he found It was the scene which passion raust allot To the miud's purified beings; 'twas the ground Where early Love his Psyche's zone unbound, And hallow'd it with loveliness: 'tis lone, And wonderful, and deep, and hath a sound, And sense, and sight of sweetness: here the Rhone] Hath spread himself a couch, the Alps have rear'd a throne. CV. Lausanne! and Ferney! ye have been the abodes23 Of names which unto you bequeath'd a name; Mortals, who sought and found, by dangerous [roads, A path to perpetuity of fame; They were gigantic minds, and their steep aim Was, Titan-like, on daring doubts to pile [flame] Thoughts which should call down thunder, and the Of heaven, again assail'd, if heaven the while CX. Italia! too, Italia! looking on thee, Full flashes on the soul the light of ages, Since the fierce Carthaginian almost won thee. To the last halo of the chiefs and sages, Who glorify thy consecrated pages: Thou wert the throne and grave of empires; stil The fount at which the panting mind assuages Her thirst of knowledge, quaffing there her fill, Flows from the eternal source of Rome's imperi hill. CXI. Thus far have I proceeded in a theme Dn man and man's research could deign do more Is a stern task of soul:-No matter,-it is taught |
