But Quiet to quick bosoms is a Hell,
 And there hath been thy bane; there is a fire
 And motion of the Soul which will not dwell
 In its own narrow being, but aspire
 Beyond the fitting medium of desire;
 And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore,
 Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire[ia]
 Of aught but rest; a fever at the core,
 Fatal to him who bears, to all who ever bore.

XLIII.

This makes the madmen who have made men mad
 By their contagion; Conquerors and Kings,
 Founders of sects and systems, to whom add
 Sophists, Bards, Statesmen, all unquiet things
 Which stir too strongly the soul's secret springs,[ib]
 And are themselves the fools to those they fool;
 Envied, yet how unenviable! what stings
 Are theirs! One breast laid open were a school
 Which would unteach Mankind the lust to shine or rule:

XLIV.

Their breath is agitation, and their life
 A storm whereon they ride, to sink at last,
 And yet so nursed and bigoted to strife,
 That should their days, surviving perils past,
 Melt to calm twilight, they feel overcast[ic]
 With sorrow and supineness, and so die;
 Even as a flame unfed, which runs to waste
 With its own flickering, or a sword laid by,
 Which eats into itself, and rusts ingloriously.

XLV.

He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find
 The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow;
 He who surpasses or subdues mankind,
 Must look down on the hate of those below.[id]
 Though high above the Sun of Glory glow,
 And far beneath the Earth and Ocean spread,
 Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow
 Contending tempests on his naked head,[ie]
 And thus reward the toils which to those summits led.

XLVI.

Away with these! true Wisdom's world will be[if]
 Within its own creation, or in thine,
 Maternal Nature! for who teems like thee,[ig]
 Thus on the banks of thy majestic Rhine?
 There Harold gazes on a work divine,
 A blending of all beauties; streams and dells,
 Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mountain, vine,
 And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells
 From gray but leafy walls, where Ruin greenly dwells.[ih]

XLVII.

And there they stand, as stands a lofty mind,
 Worn, but unstooping to the baser crowd,
 All tenantless, save to the crannying Wind,
 Or holding dark communion with the Cloud
 There was a day when they were young and proud;
 Banners on high, and battles[300] passed below;
 But they who fought are in a bloody shroud,
 And those which waved are shredless dust ere now,[ii]
 And the bleak battlements shall bear no future blow.

XLVIII.

Beneath these battlements, within those walls,
 Power dwelt amidst her passions; in proud state
 Each robber chief upheld his arméd halls,
 Doing his evil will, nor less elate
 Than mightier heroes of a longer date.
 What want these outlaws conquerors should have[ij] [9.B.]
 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.[ik]

XLIX.

In their baronial feuds and single fields,
 What deeds of prowess unrecorded died!
 And Love, which lent a blazon to their shields,[301]
 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 discoloured Rhine beneath its ruin run.

L.

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[il]
 With the sharp scythe of conflict, then to see
 Thy valley of sweet waters, were to know[302]
 Earth paved like Heaven—and to seem such to me,[im]
 Even now what wants thy stream?—that it should Lethe be.

LI.

A thousand battles have assailed thy banks,
 But these and half their fame have passed away,
 And Slaughter heaped on high his weltering ranks:
 Their very graves are gone, and what are they?[303]
 Thy tide washed down the blood of yesterday,
 And all was stainless, and on thy clear stream
 Glassed, with its dancing light, the sunny ray;[in]
 But o'er the blacken'd memory's blighting dream
 Thy waves would vainly roll, all sweeping as they seem.

LII.

Thus Harold inly said, and passed along,
 Yet not insensible 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.

LIII.

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[io]
 Hath weaned 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.[304]

LIV.

And he had learned to love,—I know not why,
 For this in such as him seems strange of mood,
 The helpless looks of blooming Infancy,
 Even in its earliest nurture; what subdued,
 To change like this, a mind so far imbued
 With scorn of man, it little boots to know;
 But thus it was; and though in solitude
 Small power the nipped affections have to grow,
 In him this glowed when all beside had ceased to glow.

LV.

And there was one soft breast, as hath been said,[ip]
 Which unto his was bound by stronger ties
 Than the church links withal; and—though unwed,
 That love was pure—and, far above disguise,[iq]
 Had stood the test of mortal enmities
 Still undivided, and cemented more
 By peril, dreaded most in female eyes;[305]
 But this was firm, and from a foreign shore
 Well to that heart might his these absent greetings pour![ir]

1.

The castled Crag of Drachenfels[306] [10.B.]
 Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine,
 Whose breast of waters broadly swells
 Between the banks which bear the vine,
 And hills all rich with blossomed trees,
 And fields which promise corn and wine,
 And scattered cities crowning these,
 Whose far white walls along them shine,
 Have strewed a scene, which I should see
 With double joy wert thou with me.

2.

And peasant girls, with deep blue eyes,
 And hands which offer early flowers,
 Walk smiling o'er this Paradise;
 Above, the frequent feudal towers
 Through green leaves lift their walls of gray;
 And many a rock which steeply lowers,
 And noble arch in proud decay,
 Look o'er this vale of vintage-bowers;
 But one thing want these banks of Rhine,—
 Thy gentle hand to clasp in mine!

3.

I send the lilies given to me—
 Though long before thy hand they touch,
 I know that they must withered be,
 But yet reject them not as such;
 For I have cherished 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 gathered by the Rhine,
 And offered 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!

LVI.

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[is]
 Tears, big tears, gushed 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,—
 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[307]
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. [11.B.]

LVIII.

Here Ehrenbreitstein, [12.B.] with her shattered 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 watched along the plain:
 But Peace destroyed what War could never blight,
 And laid those proud roofs bare to Summer's rain—
 On which the iron shower for years had poured in vain.[308]

LIX.

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[it]
 On self-condemning bosoms, it were here,
 Where Nature, nor too sombre nor too gay,
 Wild but not rude, awful yet not austere,[iu]
 Is to the mellow Earth as Autumn to the year.[309]

LX.

Adieu to thee again! a vain adieu!
 There can be no farewell to scene like thine;
 The mind is coloured by thy every hue;
 And if reluctantly the eyes resign
 Their cherished gaze upon thee, lovely Rhine!
 'Tis with the thankful glance of parting praise;
 More mighty spots may rise—more glaring shine,[iv]
 But none unite in one attaching maze
 The brilliant, fair, and soft,—the glories of old days,

LXI.

The negligently grand, the fruitful bloom[310]
 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,
 Still springing o'er thy banks, though Empires near them fall.

LXII.

But these recede. Above me are the Alps,
 The Palaces of Nature, whose vast walls
 Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps,[iw]
 And throned Eternity in icy halls
 Of cold Sublimity, where forms and falls[311]
 The Avalanche—the thunderbolt of snow!
 All that expands the spirit, yet appals,
 Gather around these summits, as to show
 How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below.

LXIII.

But ere these matchless heights I dare to scan,
 There is a spot should not be passed in vain,—
 Morat! the proud, the patriot field! where man
 May gaze on ghastly trophies of the slain,
 Nor blush for those who conquered on that plain;
 Here Burgundy bequeathed his tombless host,
 A bony heap, through ages to remain,
 Themselves their monument;[312]—the Stygian coast
 Unsepulchred they roamed, and shrieked each wandering ghost. [ix] [313] [13.B.]

LXIV.

While Waterloo with Cannæ's carnage vies,[314]
 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-entailed Corruption; they no land[iy]
 Doomed to bewail the blasphemy of laws
 Making Kings' rights divine, by some Draconic clause.

LXV.

By a lone wall a lonelier column rears
 A gray and grief-worn aspect of old days;
 'Tis the last remnant of the wreck of years,
 And looks as with the wild-bewildered gaze
 Of one to stone converted by amaze,
 Yet still with consciousness; and there it stands
 Making a marvel that it not decays,
 When the coeval pride of human hands,
 Levelled Aventicum, [14.B.] hath strewed her subject lands.

LXVI.

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.[iz]
 Their tomb was simple, and without a bust,[ja]
 And held within their urn one mind—one heart—one dust. [15.B.]

LXVII.

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, [16.B.]
Imperishably pure beyond all things below.

LXVIII.

Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face,
 The mirror where the stars and mountains view
 The stillness of their aspect in each trace
 Its clear depth yields of their far height and hue:[jb]
 There is too much of Man here,[315] to look through
 With a fit mind the might which I behold;
 But soon in me shall Loneliness renew
 Thoughts hid, but not less cherished than of old,
 Ere mingling with the herd had penned me in their fold.

LXIX.

To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind:
 All are not fit with them to stir and toil,
 Nor is it discontent to keep the mind
 Deep in its fountain, lest it overboil[jc][316]
 In the hot throng, where we become the spoil
 Of our infection, till too late and long
 We may deplore and struggle with the coil,
 In wretched interchange of wrong for wrong
 Midst a contentious world, striving where none are strong.[jd]

LXX.

There, in a moment, we may plunge our years[317]
 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[je][318]
 Whose bark drives on and on, and anchored ne'er shall be.

LXXI.

Is it not better, then, to be alone,
 And love Earth only for its earthly sake?
 By the blue rushing of the arrowy[319] Rhone, [17.B.]
 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;—[jf]
 Is it not better thus our lives to wear,
 Than join the crushing crowd, doomed to inflict or bear?

LXXII.

I live not in myself, but I become
 Portion of that around me; and to me
 High mountains are a feeling, but the hum[320]
 Of human cities torture: I can see[jg]
 Nothing to loathe in Nature, save to be[jh]
 A link reluctant in a fleshly chain,
 Classed among creatures, when the soul can flee,
 And with the sky—the peak—the heaving plain[ji]
 Of Ocean, or the stars, mingle—and not in vain.

LXXIII.

And thus I am absorbed, and this is life:—
 I look upon the peopled desert past,
 As on a place of agony and strife,
 Where, for some sin, to Sorrow I was cast,
 To act and suffer, but remount at last[jj]
 With a fresh pinion; which I feel to spring,
 Though young, yet waxing vigorous as the Blast
 Which it would cope with, on delighted wing,
 Spurning the clay-cold bonds which round our being cling.[jk][321]

LXXIV.

And when, at length, the mind shall be all free
 From what it hates in this degraded form,[jl]
 Reft of its carnal life, save what shall be
 Existent happier in the fly and worm,—
 When Elements to Elements conform,
 And dust is as it should be, shall I not
 Feel all I see less dazzling but more warm?
 The bodiless thought? the Spirit of each spot?[jm]
 Of which, even now, I share at times the immortal lot?[322]

LXXV.

Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part[jn]
 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 turned below,
 Gazing upon the ground, with thoughts which dare not glow?[jo][323]

LXXVI.

But this is not my theme; and I return[jp]
 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; 'twas a foolish quest,
 The which to gain and keep, he sacrificed all rest.

LXXVII.

Here the self-torturing sophist, wild Rousseau,[jq]
 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[jr]
 Of words, like sunbeams, dazzling as they past
 The eyes, which o'er them shed tears feelingly and fast.

LXXVIII.

His love was Passion's essence—as a tree
 On fire by lightning; with ethereal flame
 Kindled he was, and blasted; for to be
 Thus, and enamoured, were in him the same.[js]
 But his was not the love of living dame,
 Nor of the dead who rise upon our dreams,
 But of ideal Beauty, which became
 In him existence, and o'erflowing teems
 Along his burning page, distempered though it seems.

LXXIX.

This breathed itself to life in Julie, this
 Invested her with all that's wild and sweet;
 This hallowed, too, the memorable kiss [18.B.]
Which every morn his fevered lip would greet,
 From hers, who but with friendship his would meet;
 But to that gentle touch, through brain and breast
 Flashed the thrilled Spirit's love-devouring heat;[jt]
 In that absorbing sigh perchance more blest
 Than vulgar minds may be with all they seek possest.

LXXX.

His life was one long war with self-sought foes,
 Or friends by him self-banished;[324] for his mind
 Had grown Suspicion's sanctuary, and chose,
 For its own cruel sacrifice, the kind,[ju]
 'Gainst whom he raged with fury strange and blind.
 But he was phrensied, wherefore, who may know?
 Since cause might be which Skill could never find;[jv]
 But he was phrensied by disease or woe,
 To that worst pitch of all, which wears a reasoning show.

LXXXI.

For then he was inspired,[325] and from him came,
 As from the Pythian's mystic cave of yore,
 Those oracles which set the world in flame,[326]
 Nor ceased to burn till kingdoms were no more:
 Did he not this for France? which lay before
 Bowed to the inborn tyranny of years?[327]
 Broken and trembling to the yoke she bore,
 Till by the voice of him and his compeers,
 Roused up to too much wrath which follows o'ergrown fears?

LXXXII.