LVI. By Coblentz, on a rise of gentle ground, Crowning the summit of the verdant mound; Beneath its base are heroes' ashes hid, 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. LVII. Brief, brave, and glorious was his young career,- On such as wield her weapons; he had kept The whiteness of his soul, and thus men o'er him wept. VOL. II, D (12) LVIII. 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, LIX. Adieu to thee, fair Rhine! How long delighted The stranger fain would linger on his way! LX. Adieu to thee again! a vain adieu! There can be no farewell to scene like thine; Their cherish'd gaze upon thee, lovely Rhine! More mighty spots may rise-more glaring shine, The brilliant, fair, and soft,-the glories of old days, LXI. The negligently grand, the fruitful bloom Whose fertile bounties here extend to all, Still springing o'er thy banks, though Empires near them fall. LXII. But these recede. Above me are the Alps, Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below, LXIII. But ere these matchless heights I dare to scan, Themselves their monument;-the Stygian coast Unsepulchred they roam'd, and shriek'd each wandering ghost. (14) LXIV. While Waterloo with Canna's carnage vies, Morat and Marathon twin names shall stand; They were true Glory's stainless victories, Won by the unambitious heart and hand Of a proud, brotherly, and civic band, All unbought champions in no princely cause Of vice-entail'd Corruption; they no land Doom'd to bewail the blasphemy of laws Making kings' rights divine, by some Draconic clause. LXV. By a lone wall a lonelier column rears Of one to stone converted by amaze, years, gaze Yet still with consciousness; and there it stands Making a marvel that it not decays, When the coeval pride of human hands, Levell❜d (15) Aventicum, hath strew'd her subject lands. |