4. The river nobly foams and flows, The charm of this enchanted ground, The haughtiest breast its wish might bound Nor could on earth a spot be found Could thy dear eyes in following mine LVI. By Coblentz, on a rise of gentle ground, Our enemy's, but let not that forbid 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." 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 baffled 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 LX. Adieu to thee again! a vain adieu! There can be no farewell to scene like thine; Their cherish'd gaze upon thee, lovely Rhine! The brilliant, fair, and soft,--the glories of old days, LXI. The negligently grand, the fruitful bloom 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, Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls How earth may pierce to heaven, yet leave vain man below. 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, Doom'd to bewail the blasphemy of laws Making kings' rights divine, by some Draconic clause. LXV. By a lone wall a lonelier column rears Yet still with consciousness; and there it stands When the coeval pride of human hands, Levell'd 5 Aventicum, hath strew'd her subject lands. LXVI. And there-oh! sweet and sacred be the name!- Her youth to Heaven; her heart, beneath a claim Their tomb was simple, and without a bust, And held within their urn one mind, one heart, one dust, 16 LXVII. But these are deeds which should not pass away, The enslavers and the enslaved, their death and birth; In the sun's face, like yonder Alpine snow,'7 LXVIII. Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face, Its clear depth yields of their far height and hue : Thoughts hid, but not less cherish'd than of old, 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 In the hot throng, where we become the spoil We may deplore and struggle with the coil, In wretched interchange of wrong for wrong Midst a contentious world, striving where none are strong. VOL. I. 12 |