Beneath these battlements, within those walls, Power dwelt amidst her passions; in proud state Each robber chief upheld his armed halls, Doing his evil will, nor less elate
Than mightier heroes of a longer date.
What want these outlaws 10 conquerors should have, But history's purchased page to call them great? A wider space, an ornamented grave?
Their hopes were not less warm, their souls were full as brave.
In their baronial feuds and single fields, What deeds of prowess unrecorded died! And love, which lent a blazon to their shields, With emblems well devised by amorous pride, Through all the mail of iron hearts would glide; But still their flame was fierceness, and drew on Keen contest and destruction near allied,
And many a tower for some fair mischief won, Saw the discolour'd Rhine beneath its ruin run.
But thou, exulting and abounding river! Making thy waves a blessing as they flow Through banks whose beauty would endure for ever, Could man but leave thy bright creation so, Nor its fair promise from the surface mow With the sharp scythe of conflict,-then to see Thy valley of sweet waters, were to know Earth paved like heaven; and to seem such to me Even now what wants thy stream? - that it should Lethe be.
A thousand battles have assail'd thy banks, But these and half their fame have pass'd away, And slaughter heap'd on high his weltering ranksTheir very graves are gone, and what are they? Thy tide wash'd down the blood of yesterday, And all was stainless, and on thy clear stream Glass'd with its dancing light the sunny ray, But o'er the blacken'd memory's blighting dream Thy waves would vainly roll, all sweeping as they seem.
Thus Harold inly said, and pass'd along, Yet not insensibly to all which here Awoke the jocund birds to early song
In glens which might have made even exile dear : Though on his brow were graven lines austere, And tranquil sternness which had ta'en the place Of feelings fierier far but less severe, Joy was not always absent from his face,
But o'er it in such scenes would steal with transient trace.
Nor was all love shut from him, though his days Of passion had consumed themselves to dust. It is in vain that we would coldly gaze On such as smile upon us; the heart must Leap kindly back to kindness, though disgust Hath wean'd it from all worldlings: thus he felt, For there was soft remembrance, and sweet trust In one fond breast, to which his own would melt, And in its tenderer hour on that his bosom dwelt.
I send the lilies given to me;
Though, long before thy hand they touch, I know that they must wither'd be, But yet reject them not as such: For I have cherish'd them as dear, Because they yet may meet thine eye, And guide thy soul to mine even here,
When thou behold'st them drooping nigh, And know'st them gather'd by the Rhine, And offer'd from my heart to thine! 4.
The river.nobly foams and flows,
The charm of this enchanted ground, And all its thousand turns disclose
Some fresher beauty varying round; The haughtiest breast its wish might bound Through life to dwell delighted here; Nor could on earth a spot be found
To nature and to me so dear, Could thy dear eyes in following mine Still sweeten more these banks of Rhine!
By Coblentz, on a rise of gentle ground, There is a small and simple pyramid, Crowning the summit of the verdant mound; Beneath its base are heroes' ashes hid, Our enemy's, but let not that forbid Honour to Marceau! o'er whose early tomb Tears, big tears, gush'd from the rough soldier's lid, Lamenting and yet envying such a doom, Falling for France, whose rights he battled to resume.
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.12
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 rain— On which the iron shower for years had pour'd in vain.
Adieu to thee, fair Rhine! How long delighted The stranger fain would linger on his way! Thine is a scene alike where souls united Or lonely contemplation thus might stray: And could the ceaseless vultures cease to prey On self-condemning bosoms, it were here, Where nature, nor too sombre nor too gay, Wild but not rude, awful yet not austere, Is to the mellow earth as autumn to the year.
Adieu to thee again! a vain adieu! There can be no farewell to scene like thine; The mind is colour'd by thy every hue; And if reluctantly the eyes resign Their cherish'd gaze upon thee, lovely Rhine! T is with the thankful glance of parting praise; More mighty spots may rise-more glaring shine, But none unite in one attaching maze
The brilliant, fair, and soft,—the glories of old days.
The negligently grand, the fruitful bloom Of coming ripeness, the white city's sheen, The rolling stream, the precipice's gloom, The forest's growth, and Gothic walls between, The wild rocks shaped as they had turrets been In mockery of man's art; and these withal A race of faces happy as the scene, Whose fertile bounties here extend to all,
And there-oh! sweet and sacred be the name! Julia-the daughter, the devoted-gave Her youth to Heaven; her heart, beneath a claim Nearest to Heaven's, broke o'er a father's grave. Justice is sworn 'gainst tears, and hers would crave The life she lived in; but the judge was just, And then she died on him she could not save. Their tomb was simple, and without a bust, And held within their urn one mind, one heart, one dust. 16
But these are deeds which should not pass away, And names that must not wither, though the earth Forgets her empires with a just decay,
The enslavers and the enslaved, their death and birth; The high, the mountain-majesty of worth Should be, and shall, survivor of its woe, And from its immortality look forth In the sun's face, like yonder Alpine snow,17
Still springing o'er thy banks, though empires near Imperishably pure beyond all things below.
Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part Of me and of my soul, as I of them?
Is not the love of these deep in my heart With a pure passion? should I not contemn All objects, if compared with these? and stem
A tide of suffering, rather than forego Such feelings for the hard and worldly phlegm Of those whose eyes are only turn'd below,
'Midst a contentious world, striving where none are Gazing upon the ground, with thoughts which dare not
There, in a moment, we may plunge our years In fatal penitence, and in the blight
Of our own soul, turn all our blood to tears, And colour things to come with hues of night; The race of life becomes a hopeless flight To those that walk in darkness: on the sea, The boldest steer but where their ports invite, But there are wanderers o'er eternity,
But this is not my theme; and I return To that which is immediate, and require Those who find contemplation in the urn, To look on One, whose dust was once all fire, A native of the land where I respire The clear air for a while-a passing guest, Where he became a being,-whose desire Was to be glorious; 't was a foolish quest,
Whose bark drives on and on, and anchor'd ne'er shall be. The which to gain and keep, he sacrificed all rest.
Is it not better, then, to be alone,
And love earth only for its earthly sake? By the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone, 18 Or the pure bosom of its nursing lake, Which feeds it as a mother who doth make A fair but froward infant her own care, Kissing its cries away as these awake;- Is it not better thus our lives to wear,
Here the self-torturing sophist, wild Rousseau, The apostle of affliction, he who threw Enchantment over passion, and from woe Wrung overwhelming eloquence, first drew
The breath which made him wretched: yet he knew How to make madness beautiful, and cast
O'er erring deeds and thoughts a heavenly hue Of words, like sunbeams, dazzling as they past
Than join the crushing crowd, doom'd to inflict or bear? The eyes, which o'er them shed tears feelingly and fast.
His life was one long war with self-sought foes, Or friends by him self-banish'd; for his mind Had grown suspicion's sanctuary, and chose For its own cruel sacrifice, the kind,
Gainst whom he raged with fury strange and blind. But he was phrenzied,-wherefore, who may know? Since cause might be which skill could never find; But he was phrenzied by disease or woe,
It is the hush of night, and all between Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, Mellow'd and mingling, yet distinctly seen, Save darken'd Jura, whose capt heights appear Precipitously steep; and, drawing near, There breathes a living fragrance from the shore, Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear Drops the light drip of the suspended oar,
To that worst pitch of all which wears a reasoning show. Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more;
Not vainly did the early Persian make
His altar the high places and the peak Of earth-o'ergazing mountains,20 and thus take
Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake, With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring. A fit and unwall'd temple, there to seek This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing The spirit, in whose honour shrines are weak, To waft me from distraction: once I loved Uprear'd of human hands. Come, and compare Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek, Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved, With nature's realms of worship, earth and air, That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved. Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy prayer!
The sky is changed!—and such a change! Oh night,1| And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light Of a dark eye in woman! Far along, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud, But every mountain now hath found a tongue, And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!
And this is in the night :- t-most glorious night! Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be A sharer in thy fierce and far delight,— A portion of the tempest and of thee! How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea, And the big rain comes dancing to the earth! And now again 't is black,-and now, the glee Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth, As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth.
Now, where the swift Rhone cleaves his way between Heights which appear as lovers who have parted In hate, whose mining depths so intervene, That they can meet no more, though broken-hearted; Though in their souls, which thus each other thwarted, Love was the very root of the fond rage
Which blighted their life's bloom, and then departed; Itself expired, but leaving them an age Of years all winters,-war within themselves to wage.
Now, where the quick Rhone thus has cleft his way, The mightiest of the storms hath ta'en his stand: For here, not one, but many, make their play, And fling their thunder-bolts from hand to hand, Flashing and cast around: of all the band,
The brightest through these parted hills hath fork'd His lightnings,-as if he did understand, That in such gaps as desolation work'd,
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 Leinan! may find room And food for meditation, nor pass by
Much that may give us pause, if ponder'd fittingly.
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 a 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.
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.
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,
There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurk'd. Offering to him, and his, a populous solitude.
Sky, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings! ye! With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soul To make these felt and feeling, well may be Things that have made me watchful; the far roll Of your departing voices is the knoll
Of what in me is sleepless,—if I rest.
But where of ye, oh tempests! is the goal? Are ye like those within the human breast?
Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest?
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 unheard,
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 't is his nature to advance or die;
He stands not still, but or decays, or grows Into a boundless blessing, which may vie
With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword. With the immortal lights, in its eternity!
« ForrigeFortsett » |