LXII.

But these recede. Above me are the Alps,

The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls
Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps,
And throned Eternity in icy halls

Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls
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 pass'd in vain,—
Morat! the proud, the patriot field! where man
May gaze on ghastly trophies of the slain,
Nor blush for those who conquer'd on that plain;
Here Burgundy bequeath'd his tombless host,
A bony heap, through ages to remain,

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
A gray and grief-worn aspect of old days;
"Tis the last remnant of the wreck of years,
And looks as with the wild-bewilder'd 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,

Levell'd (15) Aventicum, hath strew'd 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.

Their tomb was simple, and without a bust,

And held within their urn one mind, one heart, one dust. (16)

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, (17) 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:
There is too much of man here, to look through
With a fit mind the might which I behold;

But soon in me shall Loneliness renew

Thoughts hid, but not less cherish'd than of old,

Ere mingling with the herd had penn'd 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

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.

LXX.

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

Whose bark drives on and on, and anchor'd 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 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,

Than join the crushing crowd, doom'd to inflict or bear?