CV.

1

Lausanne! and Ferney! ye have been the abodes
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

Thoughts which should call down thunder, and the flame

Of Heaven, again assail'd, if Heaven the while On man and man's research could deign do more than smile.

CVI.

The one was fire and fickleness, a child,
Most mutable in wishes, but in mind,

A wit as various,-gay, grave, sage, or wild,—
Historian, bard, philosopher, combined;
He multiplied himself among mankind,
The Proteus of their talents: But his own
Breathed most in ridicule,— which, as the wind,
Blew where it listed, laying all things prone,-
Now to o'erthrow a fool, and now to shake a throne.

CVII.

The other, deep and slow, exhausting thought,
And hiving wisdom with each studious year,
In meditation dwelt, with learning wrought,
And shaped his weapon with an edge severe,
Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer;
The lord of irony, that master-spell,

Which stung his foes to wrath, which grew from fear, And doom'd him to the zealot's ready Hell,

Which answers to all doubts so eloquently well.

1 Voltaire and Gibbon.

CVIII.

Yet, peace be with their ashes, for by them,
If merited, the penalty is paid;

It is not ours to judge, far less condemn;

The hour must come when such things shall be made Known unto all,- -or hope and dread allay'd

By slumber, on one pillow, in the dust,

Which, thus much we are sure, must lie decay'd; And when it shall revive, as is our trust, 'Twill be to be forgiven, or suffer what is just.

CIX.

But let me quit man's works, again to read
His Maker's, spread around me, and suspend
This page, which from my reveries I feed,
Until it seems prolonging without end.
The clouds above me to the white Alps tend,
And I must pierce them, and survey whate'er
May be permitted, as my steps I bend

To their most great and growing region, where
The earth to her embrace compels the powers of ai

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; still,
The fount at which the panting mind assuages
Her thirst of knowledge, quaffing there her fill
Flows from the eternal source of Rome's imperial hill.

CXI.

Thus far have I proceeded in a theme

Renew'd with no kind auspices:

:- to feel We are not what we have been, and to deem We are not what we should be,

and to steel

The heart against itself; and to conceal,
With a proud caution, love, or hate, or aught, -
Passion or feeling, purpose, grief, or zeal,-

Which is the tyrant spirit of our thought,
Is a stern task of soul: - No matter,—it is taught.

CXII.

And for these words, thus woven into song,
It may be that they are a harmless wile,
The colouring of the scenes which fleet along,
Which I would seize, in passing, to beguile
My breast, or that of others, for a while.
Fame is the thirst of youth, -but I am not
So young as to regard men's frown or smile,
As loss or guerdon of a glorious lot;

I stood and stand alone, remember'd or forgot.

CXIII.

I have not loved the world, nor the world me;
I have not flatter'd its rank breath, nor bow'd
To its idolatries a patient knee, -

Nor coin'd my cheek to smiles, -nor cried aloud
In worship of an echo; in the crowd

They could not deem me one of such; I stood

Among them, but not of them; in a shroud [could, Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still Had I not filed my mind, which thus itself subdued.

1

"If it be thus,

For Banquo's issue have I filed my mind."-- MACBETH.

CXIV.

I have not loved the world, nor the world me,-
But let us part fair foes; I do believe,

Though I have found them not, that there may be Words which are things, hopes which will not deceive,

And virtues which are merciful, nor weave

Snares for the failing: I would also deem O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve;1 That two, or one, are almost what they seem, — That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream. 2

1 It is said by Rochefoucault, that "there is always something in the misfortunes of men's best friends not displeasing to them."

2["It is not the temper and talents of the poet, but the use to which he puts them, on which his happiness or misery is grounded. A powerful and unbridled imagination is the author and architect of its own disappointments. Its fascinations, its exaggerated pictures of good and evil, and the mental distress to which they give rise, are the natural and necessary evils attending on that quick susceptibility of feeling and fancy incident to the poetical temperament. But the Giver of all talents, while he has qualified them each with its separate and peculiar alloy, has endowed the owner with the power of purifying and refining them. But, as if to moderate the arrogance of genius, it is justly and wisely made requisite, that he must regulate and tame the fire of his fancy, and descend from the heights to which she exalts him, in order to obtain ease of mind and tranquillity. The materials of happiness, that is, of such degree of happiness as is consistent with our present state, lie around us in profusion. But the man of talents must stoop to gather them, otherwise they would be beyond the reach of the mass of society, for whose benefit, as well as for his, Providence has created them. There is no royal and no poetical path to contentment and heart's ease: that by which they are attained is open to all classes of mankind, and lies within the most limited range of intellect. To narrow our wishes and desires within the scope of our powers of attainment; to consider our misfortunes, however peculiar in their character, as our inevitable share in the patrimony of Adam; to bridle those irritable feelings, which ungoverned are sure to become governors; to shun that intensity of galling and self-wounding reflection which our poet has so forcibly described in his own burning language:

CXV.

My daughter! with thy name this song begun — My daughter! with thy name thus much shall end- but none I see thee not-I hear thee not,Can be so wrapt in thee; thou art the friend To whom the shadows of far years extend: Albeit my brow thou never should'st behold, My voice shall with thy future visions blend, And reach into thy heart, when mine is cold, A token and a tone, even from thy father's mould.

CXVI.

To aid thy mind's developement,

-to view thee catch

Thy dawn of little joys, - to sit and see
Almost thy very growth,-
Knowledge of objects, wonders yet to thee!
To hold thee lightly on a gentle knee,

And print on thy soft cheek a parent's kiss,
This, it should seem, was not reserved for me;
Yet this was in my nature: -as it is,

I know not what is there, yet something like to this.

'I have thought

Too long and darkly, till my brain became,
In its own eddy, boiling and o'erwrought,
A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame'.

-to stoop, in short, to the realities of life; repent if we have offended, and pardon if we have been trespassed against; to look on the world less as our foe than as a doubtful and capricious friend, whose applause we ought as far as possible to deserve, but neither to court nor contemn-such seem the most obvious and certain means of keeping or regaining mental tranquillity.

'Semita certe

Tranquillæ per virtutem patet unica vitæ.'"-SIR W. SCOTT.]