LXXXIV.

What deep wounds ever closed without a scar?

The heart's bleed longest, and but heal to wear
That which disfigures it; and they who war

With their own hopes, and have been vanquish'd, bear
Silence, but not submission: in his lair

Fix'd Passion holds his breath, until the hour
Which shall atone for years; none need despair:

It came, it cometh, and will come,-the power

To punish or forgive-in one we shall be slower.

LXXXV.

Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake,
With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing
Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake
Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring.
This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing

To waft me from distraction; once I loved
Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring

Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved,

That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved.

R

LXXXVI.

It is the hush of night, and all between

Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear,
Mellow'd and mingling, yet distinctly seen,
Save darken'd Jura, whose capt heights appear
Precipitously steep; and drawing near,

There breathes a living fragrance from the shore,
Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear
Drops the light drip of the suspended oar,

Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more;

LXXXVII.

He is an evening reveller, who makes
His life an infancy, and sings his fill;
At intervals, some bird from out the brakes,

Starts into voice a moment, then is still.
There seems a floating whisper on the hill,
But that is fancy, for the starlight dews
All silently their tears of love instil,
Weeping themselves away, till they infuse

Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues.

LXXXVIII.

Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven!

If in your bright leaves we would read the fate
Of men and empires,-'tis to be forgiven,
That in our aspirations to be great,

Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state,
And claim a kindred with you; for ye are
A beauty and a mystery, and create

In us such love and reverence from afar,

That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star.

LXXXIX.

All heaven and earth are still-though not in sleep,

But breathless, as we grow when feeling most;
And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep:-
All heaven and earth are still: From the high host
Of stars, to the lull'd lake and mountain-coast,
All is concenter'd in a life intense,

Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,
But hath a part of being, and a sense

Of that which is of all Creator and defence.

XC.

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt

In solitude, where we are least alone;

A truth, which through our being then doth melt
And purifies from self: it is a tone,

The soul and source of music, which makes known

Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm,

Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone,

Binding all things with beauty;-'twould disarm The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm.

XCI.

Not vainly did the early Persian make

His altar the high places and the peak

Of earth-o'ergazing mountains, (20) and thus take
A fit and unwall'd temple, there to seek

The Spirit, in whose honour shrines are weak, Uprear'd of human hands. Come, and compare Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek, With Nature's realms of worship, earth and air, Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy pray'r!

XCII.

The sky is changed!—and such a change! Oh night,(21)

And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,

Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light

Of a dark eye in woman! Far along,

But

From peak to peak, the rattling crags among Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud, every mountain now hath found a tongue, And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!

XCIII.

And this is in the night:-Most glorious night!

Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be
A sharer in thy fierce and far delight,—

A portion of the tempest and of thee!
How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea,
And the big rain comes dancing to the earth!
And now again 'tis black,—and now, the glee
Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth,

As if they did rejoice q'er a young earthquake's birth.