XCVII.

Could I embody and unbosom now

That which is most within me,-could I wreak My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings, strong or weak,

All that I would have sought, and all I seek, Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe-into one word, And that one word were Lightning, I would speak;

But as it is, I live and die undheard,

With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword.

XCVIII.

The morn is up again, the dewy morn,

With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom,
Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn,
And living as if earth contain❜d no tomb,—
And glowing into day : we may resume
The march of our existence : and thus I,

Still on thy shores, fair Leman! may find room
And food for meditation, nor pass by

Much, that may give us pause, if ponder'd fittingly.

XCIX.

Clarens! sweet Clarens, birth-place of deep

Love!

Thine air is the young breath of passionate thought;

Thy trees take root in Love; the snows above
The very Glaciers have his colours caught,
And sun set into rose-hues sees them wrought
(22)

By rays which sleep there lovingly: the rocks,
The permanent crags, tell here of Love, who
sought

In them a refuge from the worldly shocks, Which stir and sting the soul with hope that woos, then mocks.

C.

Clarens! by heavenly feet thy paths are trod,-
Undying Love's, who here ascends a throne
To which the steps are mountains; where the god
Is a pervading life and light,-so shown
Not on those summits solely, nor alone

In the still cave and forest; o'er the flower
His eye is sparkling, and his breath hath blown,}
His soft and summer breath, whose tender power
Passes the strength of storms in their most desolate
hour.

CI.

All things are here of him; from the black pines, Which are his shade on high, and the loud roar Of torrents, where he listeneth, to the vines Which slope his green path downward to the shore,

Where the bow'd waters meet him, and adore, Kissing his feet with murmurs; and the wood, The covert of old trees, with trunks all hoar, But light leaves, young as joy, stands where it stood,

Offering to him, and his, a populous solitude.

CII.

A populous solitude of bees and birds,
And fairy-form'd and many-colour'd things,

Who worship him with notes more sweet than

And innocently open their glad wings,

Fearless and full of life: the gush of springs,

And fall of lofty fountains, and the bend

Of stirring branches and the bud which brings The swiftest thought of beauty, here extend, Mingling, and made by Love, unto one mighty end.

CIII.

He who hath loved not, here would learn that lore,

And make his heart a spirit; he who knows

That tender mystery, will love the more,

For this is Love's recess, where vain men's woes, And the world's waste, have driven him far from those,

For 'tis his nature to advance or die;

He stands not still, but or decays, or grows Into a boundless blessing, which may vie 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 must allot
To the mind'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 abodes (23)

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 snd 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.

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 air

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 I have 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