COMPOSED UPON THE THAMES, NEAR And plods through some far realm o'er vale

O'er Gallia's wastes of corn dejected led,
Her road elms rustling high above my head,
Or through her truant pathways' native
charms,

By secret villages and lonely farms,

To where the Alps ascending white in air,
Toy with the sun, and glitter from afar.

And now, emerging from the forest's
gloom,

severe

I heave a sigh at hoary Chartreuse' doom.
Where now is fled that power whose frown
[fear?
Tamed sober reason till she crouched in
The cloister startles at the gleam of arms,
And blasphemy the shuddering fane alarms;
Nod the cloud-piercing pines their troubled
heads;
[o'erspreads;
Spires, rocks, and lawns, a browner night
Strong terror checks the female peasant's
sighs,
[eyes.
And start the astonished shades at female
That thundering tube the aged angler hears, |
And swells the groaning torrent with his
[jay,
From Bruno's forest screams the affrighted
And slow the insulted eagle wheels away.
The cross, with hideous laughter, demons
mock,

tears;

By angels planted on the aërial rock.*
The

'parting genius" sighs with hollow
breath
[Death.f
Along the mystic streams of Life and
Swelling the outcry dull, that long resounds
Portentous through her old woods' track-
less bounds,

Vallombre, t'mid her falling fanes, deplores,
For ever broke, the sabbath of her bowers.

From rock-hewn steps the sail between
Or marks, 'mid opening cliffs, fair dark-
eyed maids
[glades,
Tend the small harvest of their garden
Or stops the solemn mountain-shades to
[and blue,
Stretch o'er the pictured mirror broad
Tracking the yellow sun from steep to
steep,

view

As up the opposing hills with tortoise foot
they creep.

Here, half a village shines, in gold arrayed,
Bright as the moon; half hides itself in
shade:
[spire,
While, from amid the darkened roofs the
Restlessly flashing, seems to mount like
fire:

There, all unshaded, blazing forests throw
Rich golden verdure on the waves below.
Slow glides the sail along the illumined
shore,

And steals into the shade the lazy oar;
Soft bosoms breathe around contagious
sighs,

And amorous music on the water dies.

How blest, delicious scene! the eye that greets

Thy open beauties, or thy lone retreats : The unwearied sweep of wood thy cliffs that scales;

More pleased, my foot the hidden mar-The never-ending waters of thy vales;
gin roves
The cots, those dim religious groves em-
bower,

Of Como, bosomed deep in chestnut groves,
No meadows thrown between, the giddy
steeps
[deeps.
Tower, bare or sylvan, from the narrow
-To towns, whose shades of no rude sound
complain,
[wain,
To ringing team unknown and grating
To flat-roofed towns, that touch the water's

bound,

Or lurk in woody sunless glens profound,

*Alluding to crosses seen on the tops of the spiry rocks of Chartreuse, which have every appearance of being inaccessible.

Names of rivers at the Chartreuse.
Name of one of the valleys of the Char-

treuse.

Or, under rocks that from the water tower,
Each with its household boat beside the
Insinuated, sprinkling all the shore;
door,
[droop,
Whose flaccid sails in forms fantastic
Brightening the gloom where thick the
forests stoop;
[sky,
Thy torrents shooting from the clear-blue
Thy towns, that cleave, like swallows' nests,
on high;
[descried
That glimmer hoar in eves last light
Dim from the twilight water's shaggy side,
Whence lutes and voices down the en-

chanted woods

floods; Steal, and compose the oar forgotten

-Thy lake, 'mid smoking woods, that blue | From the bright wave, in solemn gloom, and gray [morning's ray Gleams, streaked or dappled, hid from Slow travelling down the western hills, to fold [gold; Its green-tinged margin in a blaze of From thickly-glittering spires, the matin bell

Where'er below amid the savage scene
Peeps out a little speck of smiling green,
A garden-plot the desert air perfumes,
'Mid the dark pines a little orchard blooms;
A zig-zag path from the domestic skiff,
Threading the painful crag, surmounts the
cliff.
[know
-Before those hermit doors, that never!
The face of traveller passing to and fro,
No peasant leans upon his pole, to tell
For whom at morning tolled the funeral
bell;
[foregoes,
Their watch-dog ne'er his angry bark
Touched by the beggar's moan of human
[shade
The grassy seat beneath their casement
The pilgrim's wistful eye hath never stayed.
-There, did the iron genius not disdain
The gentle power that haunts this myrtle
plain,
[chide
There might the love-sick maiden sit, and
The insuperable rocks and severing tide;
There watch at eve her lover's sun-gilt sail
Approaching, and upbraid the tardy gale;
There list at midnight till is heard no more,
Below, the echo of his parting oar.

woes;

rear

'Mid stormy vapours ever driving by, Where ospreys, cormorants, and herons cry, Hovering o'er rugged wastes too bleak to [ear; That common growth of earth, the foodful Where the green apple shrivels on the spray, And pines the unripened pear in summer's kindliest ray;

Even here Content has fixed her smiling
reign

With Independence, child of high Disdain.
Exulting, 'mid the winter of the skies,
Shy as the jealous chamois, Freedom flies,
And often grasps her sword, and often
eyes;
Her crest a bough of winter's bleakest pine,
Strange weeds and Alpine plants her helm

entwine,

And, wildly-pausing, oft she hangs aghast,
While thrills the " "Spartan fife," between

the blast.

"Tis storm; and hid in mist from hour to
hour,
[pour;
All day the floods a deepening murmur
The sky is veiled, and every cheerful sight:
Dark is the region as with coming night;
But what a sudden burst of overpowering
light!

Triumphant on the bosom of the storm
Glances the fire-clad eagle's wheeling form;

But lo! the boatman, overawed, before The pictured fane of Tell suspends his oar; Confused the Marathonian tale appears, While burn in his full eyes the glorious [days

tears.

And who that walks where men of ancient
Have wrought with godlike arm the deeds
of praise,

Feels not the spirit of the place control,
Exalt, and agitate his labouring soul?
Say, who, by thinking on Canadian hills,
Or wild Aosta lulled by Alpine rills,
On Zutphen's plain; or where, with softened
gaze,
[veys;

The old gray stones the plaided chief sur-
Can guess the high resolve, the cherished
pain,

of him whom passion rivets to the plain,
Where breathed the gale that caught
Wolfe's happiest sigh,

And the last sunbeam fell on Bayard's eye;
Where bleeding Sidney from the cup retired,
And glad Dundee in "faint huzzas" expired!

But now with other mind I stand alone
Upon the summit of this naked cone,
And watch, from peak to peak amid the sky
Small as a bird the chamois chaser fly,*
Through vacant worlds where nature never
gave

A brook to murmur or a bough to wave,
Which unsubstantial phantoms sacred
keep;
[and motion sleep;
Through worlds where life, and sound,
Where silence still her death-like reign
extends,
[rends:
Save when the startling cliff unfrequent
In the deep snow the mighty ruin drowned,
Mocks the dull ear of time with deaf
abortive sound.
[to height,
'Tis his while wandering on, from height

For most of the images in the next sixteen verses I am indebted to M. Raymond's interesting observations annexed to his translation of Coxe's Tour in Switzerland.