Oft, in the saddle rudely rock'd to sleep,
While his mule browses on the dizzy steep,
With Memory's aid, he sits at home, and sees
His children sport beneath their native trees,
And bends to hear their cherub voices call,
O'er the loud fury of the torrent's fall.

But can her smile with gloomy madness dwell?
Say, can she chase the horrors of his cell?
Each fiery flight on frenzy's wing restrain,
And mould the coinage of the fever'd brain?

Pass but that grate, which scarce a gleam sup-
plies,

There in the dust the wreck of genius lies!
He, whose arresting hand divinely wrought
Each bold conception in the sphere of thought;
And round, in colours of the rainbow, threw
Forms ever fair, creations ever new!
But, as he fondly snatch'd the wreath of fame,
The spectre poverty unnerved his frame.
Cold was her grasp, a withering scowl she wore
And hope's soft energies were felt no more.
Yet still how sweet the soothings of his art!
From the rude wall what bright ideas start!
E'en now he claims the amaranthine wreath,
With scenes that glow, with images that breathe!
And whence these scenes, these images, declare :
Whence but from her who triumphs o'er despair?
Awake, arise with grateful fervour fraught,
Go, spring the mine of elevating thought.
He, who, through nature's various walk, surveys
The good and fair her faultless line portrays;
Whose mind, profaned by no unhallow'd guest,
Culls from the crowd the purest and the best ;
May range, at will, bright fancy's golden clime,
Or, musing, mount where science sits sublime,
Or wake the spirit of departed time.
Who acts thus wisely, mark the moral muse,
A blooming Eden in his life reviews!
So rich the culture, though so small the space,
Its scanty limits he forgets to trace.
But the fond fool, when evening shades the sky,
Turns but to start, and gazes but to sigh!
The weary waste, that lengthen'd as he ran,
Fades to a blank, and dwindles to a span!

Ah! who can tell the triumphs of the mind,
By truth illumined, and by taste refined?

Go, with old Thames, view Chelsea's glorious
pile;

And ask the shatter'd hero, whence his smile?
Go, view the splendid domes of Greenwich-go,
And own what raptures from reflection flow.

Hail, noblest structures imaged in the wave!
A nation's grateful tribute to the brave!
Hail, blest retreats from war and shipwreck, hail!
That oft arrest the wondering stranger's sail.
Long have ye heard the narratives of age,
The battle's havoc, and the tempest's rage;
Long have ye known reflection's genial ray
Gild the calm close of valour's various day.
Time's sombrous touches soon correct the piece,
Mellow each tint, and bid each discord cease:
A softer tone of light pervades the whole,
And steals a pensive languor o'er the soul.
Hast thou through Eden's wild-wood vales pur-
sued

Each mountain scene, majestically rude;
To note the sweet simplicity of life,
Far from the din of folly's idle strife;
Nor there a while, with lifted eye, revered
That modest stone which pious Pembroke rear'd ;
Which still records, beyond the pencil's power,
The silent sorrows of a parting hour;
Still to the musing pilgrim points the place,
Her sainted spirit most delights to trace?

Thus, with the manly glow of honest pride,
O'er his dead son the gallant Ormond sigh'd.
Thus, through the gloom of Shenstone's fairy grove,
Maria's urn still breathes the voice of love.

As the stern grandeur of a Gothic tower
Awes us less deeply in its morning hour,
Than when the shades of time serenely fall
On every broken arch and ivied wall;
The tender images we love to trace,
Steal from each year a melancholy grace!
And as the sparks of social love expand,
As the heart opens in a foreign land;
And, with a brother's warmth, a brother's smile,
The stranger greets each native of his isle;
So scenes of life, when present and confest,
Stamp but their bolder features on the breast;
Yet not an image, when remotely view'd,
However trivial, and however rude,

When age has quench'd the eye, and closed the But wins the heart, and wakes the social sigh,

ear,

Still nerved for action in her native sphere,
Oft will she rise-with searching glance pursue
Some long-loved image vanish'd from her view;
Dart through the deep recesses of the past,
O'er dusky forms in chains of slumber cast;
With giant grasp fling back the folds of night,
And snatch the faithless fugitive to light.
So through the grove th' impatient mother flies,
Each sunless glade, each secret pathway tries;
Till the thin leaves the truant boy disclose,
Long on the woodmoss stretch'd in sweet repose.
Nor yet to pleasing objects are confined
The silent feasts of the reflecting mind;
Danger and death a dread delight inspire,
And the bald veteran glows with wonted fire,
When richly bronzed by many a summer sun,
He counts his scars, and tells what deeds were
done.

With every claim of close affinity!

But these pure joys the world can never know;
In gentler climes their silver currents flow.
Oft at the silent, shadowy close of day,
When the hush'd grove has sung his parting lay;
When pensive twilight, in her dusky car,
Comes slowly on to meet the evening star;
Above, below, aërial murmurs swell,

From hanging wood, brown heath, and bushy dell.
A thousand nameless rills, that shun the light,
Stealing soft music on the ear of night.
So oft the finer movements of the soul,
That shun the sphere of pleasure's gay control,
In the still shades of calm seclusion rise,
And breathe their sweet, seraphic harmonies!
Once, and domestic annals tell the time
(Preserved in Cumbria's rude, romantic clime)
When nature smiled, and o'er the landscepe threw
Her richest fragrance, and her brightest hue,

Her sense nad fled!-Exhausted by the storm,
A fatal trance hung o'er her pallid form ;
Her closing eye a trembling lustre fired;
'Twas life's last spark-it flutter'd and expired!
The father strew'd his white hairs in the wind,
Call'd on his child-nor linger'd long behind:
And Florio lived to see the willow wave,
With many an evening whisper, o'er their grave.
Yes, Florio lived-and, still of each possess❜d,
The father cherish'd and the maid caress'd!
For ever would the fond enthusiast rove
With Julia's spirit through the shadowy grove;
Gaze with delight on every scene she plann'd,
Kiss every floweret planted by her hand.
Ah! still he traced her steps along the glade,
When hazy hues and glimmering lights betray'd
Half viewless forms; still listen'd as the breeze
Heaved its deep sobs among the aged trees;
And at each pause her melting accents caught,
In sweet delirium of romantic thought!
Dear was the grot that shunn'd the blaze of day;
She gave its spars to shoot a trembling ray.
The spring, that bubbled from its inmost cell,
Murmur'd of Julia's virtues as it fell;
And o'er the dripping moss, the fretted stone,
In Florio's ear breathed language not its own,
Her charm around th' enchantress Memory threw,
A charm that soothes the mind, and sweetens too!
But is her magic only felt below?

If thy blest nature now unites above
An angel's pity with a brother's love,
Still o'er my life preserve thy mild control,
Correct my views, and elevate my soul;
Grant me thy peace and purity of mind,
Devout, yet cheerful, active, yet resign'd;
Grant me,
like thee, whose heart knew no disguise,
Whose blameless wishes never aim'd to rise,
To meet the changes time and chance present,
With modest dignity and calm content.
When thy last breath, ere nature sunk to rest,
Thy meek submission to thy God express'd;
When thy last look, ere thought and feeling fled,
A mingled gleam of hope and triumph shed;
What to thy soul its glad assurance gave,
Its hope in death, its triumph o'er the grave?
The sweet remembrance of unblemish'd youth,
The still inspiring voice of innocence and truth!

Hail, Memory, hail! in thy exhaustless mine
From age to age unnumber'd treasures shine!
Thought and her shadowy brood thy call obey,
And place and time are subject to thy sway!
Thy pleasures most we feel when most alone;
The only pleasures we can call our own.
Lighter than air, hope's summer visions die,
If but a fleeting cloud obscure the sky;
If but a beam of sober reason play,
Lo, fancy's fairy frost-work melts away!
But can the wiles of art, the grasp of power,

Say, through what brighter realms she bids it flow: Snatch the rich relics of a well spent hour?

To what pure beings, in a nobler sphere,
She yields delight but faintly imaged here:
All that till now their rapt researches knew;
Not call'd in slow succession to review,
But, as a landscape meets the eye of day,
At once presented to their glad survey!

Each scene of bliss reveal'd, since chaos fled,
And dawning light its dazzling glories spread;
Each chain of wonders that sublimely glow'd,
Since first creation's choral anthem flow'd;
Each ready flight, at mercy's call divine,
To distant worlds that undiscover'd shine;
Full on her tablet flings its living rays,
And all, combined, with blest effulgence blaze.
There thy bright train, immortal friendship, soar;
No more to part, to mingle tears no more!
And, as the softening hand of time endears
The joys and sorrows of our infant years,
So there the soul, released from human strife,
Smiles at the little cares and ills of life;

Its lights and shades, its sunshine and its showers;
As at a dream that charm'd her vacant hours!
Oft may the spirits of the dead descend
To watch the silent slumbers of a friend;
To hover round his evening walk unseen,
And hold sweet converse on the dusky green;
To hail the spot where first their friendship grew,
And heaven and nature open'd to their view!
Oft, when he trims his cheerful hearth, and sees
A smiling circle emulous to please;
There may these gentle guests delight to dwell,
And bless the scene they loved in life so well!
O thou! with whom my heart was wont to share
From reason's dawn each pleasure and each care;
With whom, alas! I fondly hoped to know
The humble walks of happiness below;

These, when the trembling spirit wings her flight
Pour round her path a stream of living light;
And gild those pure and perfect realms of rest,
Where virtue triumphs, and her sons are blest!

ITALY

PART L

I.

THE LAKE OF GENEVA

DAY glimmer'd in the east, and the white moon
Hung like a vapour in the cloudless sky,
Yet visible, when on my way I went,
Glad to be gone-a pilgrim from the north,
Now more and more attracted as I drew
Nearer and nearer. Ere the artisan,
Drowsy, half-clad, had from his window leant,
With folded arms and listless look, to snuff
The morning air, or the caged sky-lark sung,
From his green sod up springing—but in vain,
His tuneful bill o'erflowing with a song
Old in the days of Homer, and his wings
With transport quivering, on my way I went,
Thy gates, Geneva, swinging heavily,
Thy gates so slow to open, swift to shut;
As on that Sabbath eve when he arrived,*
Whose name is now thy glory, now by thee
Inscribed to consecrate (such virtue dwells
In those small syllables) the narrow street,
His birth-place-when, but one short step too late,

*Rousseau.

He sate him down and wept-wept till the morning;
Then rose to go-a wanderer through the world.
"Tis not a tale that every hour brings with it.
Yet at a city gate, from time to time,
Much might be learnt; and most of all at thine,
London-thy hive the busiest, greatest, still
Gathering, enlarging still. Let us stand by,
And note who passes. Here comes one, a youth,
Glowing with pride, the pride of conscious power,
A Chatterton-in thought admired, caress'd,
And crown'd like Petrarch in the capitol;
Ere long to die-to fall by his own hand,
And fester with the vilest. Here come two,
Less feverish, less exalted-soon to part,
A Garrick and a Johnson; wealth and fame
Awaiting one-e'en at the gate, neglect
And want the other. But what multitudes,
Пrged by the love of change, and, like myself,
Adventurous, careless of to-morrow's fare,
Press on though but a rill entering the sea,
Entering and lost! Our task would never end.
Day glimmer'd and I went, a gentle breeze
Ruffling the Leman lake. Wave after wave,
If such they might be call'd, dash'd as in sport,
Not anger, with the pebbles on the beach,
Making wild music, and far westward caught
The sunbeam-where, alone and as entranced,
Counting the hours, the fisher in his skiff
Lay with his circular and dotted line,
Fishing in silence. When the heart is light
With hope, all pleases, nothing comes amiss;
And soon a passage boat swept gayly by,
Laden with peasant girls, and fruits and flowers,
And many a chanticleer and partlet caged
For Vevay's market-place-a motley group
Seen through the silvery haze. But soon 'twas gone.
The shifting sail flapp'd idly for an instant,
Then bore them off.

I am not one of those
So dead to all things in this visible world,
So wondrously profound-as to move on
In the sweet light of heaven, like him of old,
(His name is justly in the calendar,)
Who through the day pursued this pleasant path
That winds beside the mirror of all beauty,
And, when at eve his fellow pilgrims sate,
Discoursing of the lake, ask'd where it was.
They marvell'd, as they might; and so must all,
Seeing what now I saw; for now 'twas day,
And the bright sun was in the firmament,
A thousand shadows of a thousand hues
Checkering the clear expanse. A while his orb
Hung o'er thy trackless fields of snow, Mont Blanc,
Thy seas of ice and ice-built promontories,
That change their shapes for ever as in sport;
Then travell'd onward, and went down behind
The pine-clad heights of Jura, lighting up
The woodman's casement, and perchance his axe
Borne homeward through the forest in his hand;
And, in some deep and melancholy glen,
That dungeon fortress never to be named,
Where, like a lion taken in the toils,
Toussaint breathed out his brave and generous spirit.
Ah, little did he think, who sent him there,
That he himself, then greatest among men,
Should in like manner be so soon convey'd

Across the ocean-to a rock so small
Amid the countless multitude of waves,
That ships have gone and sought it, and return'd,
Saying it was not!

Still along the shore,
Among the trees, I went for many a mile,
Where damsels sit and weave their fishing-nets,
Singing some national song by the way-side.
But now 'twas dusk, and journeying by the Rhone,
That there came down, a torrent from the Alps,
I enter'd where a key unlocks a kingdom,*
The mountains closing, and the road, the river,
Filling the narrow pass. There, till a ray
Glanced through my lattice, and the household stir
Warn'd me to rise, to rise and to depart,
A stir unusual and accompanied

With many a tuning of rude instruments,
And many a laugh that argued coming pleasure,
Mine host's fair daughter for the nuptial rite,
And nuptial feast attiring-there I slept,
And in my dreams wander'd once more, well pleased.
But now a charm was on the rocks, and woods,
And waters; for, methought, I was with those
I had at morn, at even, wish'd for there.

II.

THE GREAT ST. BERNARD.

NIGHT was again descending, when my mule,
That all day long had climb'd among the clouds,
Higher and higher still, as by a stair
Let down from heaven itself, transporting me,
Stopp'd, to the joy of both, at that low door
So near the summit of the great St. Bernard;
That door which ever on its hinges moved
To them that knock'd, and nightly sends abroad
Ministering spirits. Lying on the watch,
Two dogs of grave demeanour welcomed me,
All meekness, gentleness, though large of limb;
And a lay brother of the hospital,
Who, as we toil'd below, had heard by fits
The distant echoes gaining on his ear,
Came and held fast my stirrup in his hand,
While I alighted.

Long could I have stood,
With a religious awe contemplating
That house, the highest in the ancient world,
And placed there for the noblest purposes.
"Twas a rude pile of simplest masonry,
With narrow windows and vast buttresses,
Built to endure the shocks of time and chance;
Yet showing many a rent, as well it might,
Warr'd on for ever by the elements,
And in an evil day, nor long ago,
By violent men-when on the mountain top
The French and Austrian banners met in conflict.
On the same rock beside it stood the church,
Reft of its cross, not of its sanctity;
The vesper bell, for 'twas the vesper hour,
Duly proclaiming through the wilderness,
"All ye who hear, whatever be your work,
Stop for an instant-move your lips in prayer!"
And, just beneath it, in that dreary dale,
If dale it might be call'd, so near to heaven,
A little lake, where never fish leap'd up,

St. Maurice.

Lay like a spot of ink amid the snow;
A star, the only one in that small sky,

On its dead surface glimmering. "Twas a scene
Resembling nothing I had left behind,

As though all worldly ties were now dissolved;-
And to incline the mind still more to thought,
To thought and sadness, on the eastern shore,
Under a beetling cliff stood, half in shadow,
A lonely chapel destined for the dead,
For such as, having wander'd from the way,
Had perish'd miserably. Side by side,
Within they lie, a mournful company,

All in their shrouds, no earth to cover them;
Their features full of life, yet motionless
In the broad day, nor soon to suffer change,
Though the barr'd windows, barr'd against the wolf,
Are always open!

But the Bise blew cold;

And, bidden to a spare but cheerful meal,
I sate among the holy brotherhood

At their long board. The fare, indeed, was such
As is prescribed on days of abstinence,

But might have pleased a nicer taste than mine;
And through the floor came up, an ancient matron
Serving unseen below; while from the roof
(The roof, the floor, the walls of native fir)
A lamp hung flickering, such as loves to fling
Its partial light on apostolic heads,

And sheds a grace on all. Theirs time as yet
Had changed not. Some were almost in the prime;
Nor was a brow o'ercast. Seen as I saw them,
Ranged round their ample hearth-stone in an hour
Of rest, they were as gay, as free from guile,
As children; answering, and at once, to all
The gentler impulses, to pleasure, mirth;
Mingling, at intervals, with rational talk,
Music; and gathering news from them that came,
As of some other world. But when the storm
Rose, and the snow roll'd on in ocean billows,
When on his face th' experienced traveller fell,
Sheltering his lips and nostrils with his hands,
Then all was changed; and, sallying with their pack
Into that blank of nature, they became
Unearthly beings. "Anselm, higher up,
Just where it drifts, a dog howls loud and long,
And now, as guided by a voice from heaven,
Digs with his feet. That noble vehemence,
Whose can it be, but his who never err'd?
Let us to work! there is no time to lose!
But who descends Mont Velan? 'Tis La Croix.
Away, away! if not, alas, too late.
Homeward he drags an old man and a boy,
Faltering and falling, and but half awaken'd,
Asking to sleep again." Such their discourse.
Oft has a venerable roof received me;

My mule refresh'd-and, let the truth be told,
He was not of that vile, that scurvy race,
From sire to son lovers of controversy,
But patient, diligent, and sure of foot,
Shunning the loose stone on the precipice,
Snorting suspicion while with sight, smell, touch,
Examining the wet and spongy moss,
And on his haunches sitting to slide down
The steep, the smooth-my mule refresh'd, his bells
Jingled once more, the signal to depart,
And we set out in the gray light of dawn,
Descending rapidly-by waterfalls
Fast frozen, and among huge blocks of ice
That in their long career had stopt midway,
At length, uncheck'd, unbidden, he stood still;
And all his bells were muffled. Then my guide,
Lowering his voice, address'd me: "Through this

chasm

On and say nothing-for a word, a breath,
Stirring the air, may loosen and bring down
A winter's snow-enough to overwhelm
The horse and foot that, night and day, defiled
Along this path to conquer at Marengo.
Well I remember how I met them here,
As the light died away, and how Napoleon,
Wrapt in his cloak-I could not be deceived-
Rein'd in his horse, and ask'd me, as I pass'd,
How far 'twas to St. Remi. Where the rock

St. Bruno's once-where, when the winds were Juts forward, and the road, crumbling away,
hush'd,

Nor from the cataract the voice came up,
You might have heard the mole work underground,
So great the stillness of that place; none seen,
Save when from rock to rock a hermit cross'd
By some rude bridge-or one at midnight toll'd
To matins, and white habits, issuing forth,
Glided along those aisles interminable,

*The Grande Chartreuse.

Narrows almost to nothing at its base.
'Twas there; and down along the brink he led
To victory!-Dessaix, who turn'd the scale,
Leaving his life-blood in that famous field,
(When the clouds break, we may discern the spot
In the blue haze,) sleeps, as you saw at dawn,
Just as you enter'd, in the hospital church."

Vallombrosa, formerly called Acqua Bella.

† Ariosto and Milton.