And nobly wilt thou brook the chains
That, for the virtuous, Life prepares ;
The fetters which the Matron wears;

The patriot Mother's weight of anxious cares!

V.

"Sweet HIGHLAND Girl! a very shower

Of beauty was thy earthly dower,"
When thou didst flit before mine eyes,
Gay Vision under sullen skies,

While Hope and Love around thee played,
Near the rough falls of Inversneyd!
Have they, who nursed the blossom, seen
No breach of promise in the fruit?
Was joy, in following joy, as keen
As grief can be in grief's pursuit?
When youth had flown, did hope still bless
Thy goings, or the cheerfulness

Of innocence survive to mitigate distress?

VI.

But from our course why turn, to tread
A way with shadows overspread;
Where what we gladliest would believe
Is feared as what may most deceive?
Bright Spirit, not with amaranth crowned,
But heath-bells from thy native ground,
Time cannot thin thy flowing hair,

*See address to a Highland Girl, p. 13.

Nor take one ray of light from thee;
For in my Fancy thou dost share

The gift of immortality;

And there shall bloom, with thee allied,

The Votaress by Lugano's side,

And that intrepid Nymph on Uri's steep descried!

XXIX.

THE COLUMN INTENDED BY BUONAPARTE FOR A TRIUMPHAL EDIFICE IN MILAN, NOW LYING BY THE WAY-SIDE IN THE SIMPLON PASS.

AMBITION,-following down this far-famed slope
Her Pioneer, the snow-dissolving Sun,
While clarions prate of kingdoms to be won,
Perchance, in future ages, here may stop;
Taught to mistrust her flattering horoscope
By admonition from this prostrate Stone!
Memento uninscribed of Pride o'erthrown;
Vanity's hieroglyphic; a choice trope

In Fortune's rhetoric. Daughter of the Rock,
Rest where thy course was stayed by Power Divine!
The Soul transported sees, from hint of thine,
Crimes which the great Avenger's hand provoke,
Hears combats whistling o'er the ensanguined heath:
What groans! what shrieks! what quietness in death!

XXX.

STANZAS,

COMPOSED IN THE SIMPLON PASS.

VALLOMBROSA! I longed in thy shadiest wood
To slumber, reclined on the moss-covered floor,
To listen to ANIO's precipitous flood,

When the stillness of evening hath deepened its roar;
To range through the Temples of PÆSTUM, to muse
In POMPEII preserved by her burial in earth;
On pictures to gaze where they drank in their hues;
And murmur sweet songs on the ground of their
birth!

The beauty of Florence, the grandeur of Rome,
Could I leave them unseen, and not yield to regret?
With a hope (and no more) for a season to come,
Which ne'er may discharge the magnificent debt?
Thou fortunate Region! whose Greatness inurned
Awoke to new life from its ashes and dust;
Twice-glorified fields! if in sadness I turned
From your infinite marvels, the sadness was just.

Now, risen ere the light-footed Chamois retires From dew-sprinkled grass to heights guarded with

snow,

Toward the mists that hang over the land of my

Sires,

From the climate of myrtles contented I go.

My thoughts become bright like yon edging of Pines On the steep's lofty verge: how it blackened the air! But, touched from behind by the Sun, it now shines With threads that seem part of his own silver hair.

Though the toil of the way with dear Friends we divide,

Though by the same zephyr our temples be fanned As we rest in the cool orange-bower side by side, A yearning survives which few hearts shall withstand:

Each step hath its value while homeward we

move;

O joy when the girdle of England appears!
What moment in life is so conscious of love,
Of love in the heart made more happy by tears?

XXXI.

ECHO, UPON THE GEMMI.

WHAT beast of chase hath broken from the cover? Stern GEMMI listens to as full a cry,

As multitudinous a harmony

Of sounds, as rang the heights of Latmos over,, When, from the soft couch of her sleeping Lover Upstarting, Cynthia skimmed the mountain-dew

keen pursuit,

and gave, where'er she flew

Impetuous motion to the Stars above her.

A solitary Wolf-dog, ranging on

Through the bleak concave, wakes this wondrous chime

Of aery voices locked in unison,
Faint,-far-off,-near,-deep,-solemn and sub-

So, from the body of one guilty deed,

A thousand ghostly fears, and haunting thoughts, proceed!

XXXII.

PROCESSIONS.

Suggested on a Sabbath Morning in the Vale of Chamouny.

To appease the Gods; or public thanks to yield; Or to solicit knowledge of events,

Which in her breast Futurity concealed;

And that the Past might have its true intents
Feelingly told by living monuments,
Mankind of yore were prompted to devise
Rites such as yet Persepolis presents
Graven on her cankered walls, solemnities
That moved in long array before admiring eyes.

The Hebrews thus, carrying in joyful state
Thick boughs of palm, and willows from the brook,