1.

The castled crag of Drachenfels1
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 blossom'd trees,
And fields which promise corn and wine,
And scatter'd cities crowning these,
Whose far white walls along them shine,
Have strew'd 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 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!

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,

It is

1 The castle of Drachenfels stands on the highest summit of "the Seven Mountains," over the Rhine banks; it is in ruins, and connected with some singular traditions: it is the first in view on the road from Bonn, but on the opposite side of the river; on this bank, nearly facing it, are the remains of another, called the Jew's Castle, and a large cross commemorative of the murder of a chief by his brother. The number of castles and cities along the course of the Rhine on both sides is very great, and their situations remarkably beautiful. [These verses were written on the banks of the Rhine, in May. The original pencilling is before us. needless to observe that they were addressed to his Sister.] 2 The monument of the young and lamented General Marceau (killed by a rifle-ball at Alterkirchen, on the last day of the fourth year of the French republic) still remains as described. The inscriptions on his monument are rather too long, and not required: his name was enough; France adored, and her enemies admired; both wept over him. His funeral was attended by the generals and detachments from both armies. In the same grave General Hoche is interred, a gallant man also in every sense of the word; but though he distinguished himself greatly in battle, he had not the good fortune to die there : his death was attended by suspicions of

Our enemy's,-but let not that forbid
Honor 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,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'erstepp'd 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.2

LVIII.

Here Ehrenbreitstein, 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 rainOn 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! 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.

LX.

Adieu to thee again! a vain adieu!

There can be no farewell to scene like thine; The mind is color'd by thy every hue; And if reluctantly the eyes resign Their cherish'd gaze upon thee, lovely Rhine! "Tis 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,

poison. A separate monument (not over his body, which is buried by Marceau's) is raised for him near Andernach, opposite to which one of his most memorable exploits was performed, in throwing a bridge to an island on the Rhine. The shape and style are different from that of Marceau's, and the inscription more simple and pleasing :-"The Army of the Sambre and Meuse to its Commander-in-Chief Hoche." This is all, and as it should be. Hoche was esteemed among the first of France's earlier generals, before Bonaparte monopolized her triumphs. He was the destined commander of the invading army of Ireland.

3 Ehrenbreitstein, i. e. "the broad stone of honor," one of the strongest fortresses in Europe, was dismantled and blown up by the French at the truce of Leoben. It had been, and could only be, reduced by famine or treachery. It yielded to the former, aided by surprise. After having seen the fortifications of Gibraltar and Malta, it did not much strike by comparison; but the situation is commanding. General Marceau besieged it in vain for some time, and I slept in a room where I was shown a window at which he is said to have been standing observing the progress of the siege by moonlight, when a ball struck immediately below it.

[On taking Hockheim, the Austrians, in one part of the

LXI.

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,

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,
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 [below.
How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man

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.1

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.

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.3

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, [birth;

The enslavers and the enslaved, their death and The high, the mountain-majesty of worth Should be, and shall, survivor of its wo, And from its immortality look forth In the sun's face, like yonder Alpine snow,* 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.

engagement, got to the brow of the hill, whence they had their first view of the Rhine. They instantly halted-not agen was fired-not a voice heard: but they stood gazing on the river with those feelings which the events of the last ifeen years at once called up. Prince Schwartzenberg mde up to know the cause of this sudden stop; then they pave three cheers, rushed after the enemy, and drove them into the water.]

1 The chapel is destroyed, and the pyramid of bones diminished to a small number by the Burgundian legion in the service of France; who anxiously effaced this record of their ancestors' less successful invasions. A few still remain, notwithstanding the pains taken by the Burgundians for ages, all who passed that way removing a bone to their own country,) and the less justifiable larcenies of the Swiss postitions, who carried them off to sell for knife-handles, a purpise for which the whiteness imbibed by the bleaching of years had rendered them in great request. Of these relies I veatured to bring away as much as may have made a quarter of a hero, for which the sole excuse is, that if I had not, the next passer-by might have perverted them to worse uses than the careful preservation which I intend for them.

Aventicum, near Morat, was the Roman capital of Helretia, where Avenches now stands.

Julia Alpinula, a young Aventian priestess, died soon after a vain endeavor to save her father, condemned to death as a traitor by Aulus Cæcina. Her epitaph was discovered many years ago;-it is thus :-" Julia Alpinula: Hic jaceo.

Infelicis patris infelix proles. De Aventiæ Sacerdos. Exorare patris necem non potui: Male mori in fatis ille erat. Vixi annos XXIII."-I know of no human composition so affecting as this, nor a history of deeper interest. These are the names and actions which ought not to perish, and to which we turn with a true and healthy tenderness, from the wretched and glittering detail of a confused mass of conquests and battles, with which the mind is roused for a time to a false and feverish sympathy, from whence it recurs at length with all the nausea consequent on such intoxication.

4 This is written in the eye of Mont Blanc, (June 3d, 1816,) which even at this distance dazzles mine.-(July 20th.) I this day observed for some time the distinct reflection of Mont Blanc and Mont Argentière in the calm of the lake, which I was crossing in my boat; the distance of these mountains from their mirror is sixty miles.

5 In the exquisite lines which the poet, at this time, addressed to his sister, there is the following touching

stanza :

"I did remind thee of our own dear lake,

By the old hall which may be mine no more.
Leman's is fair; but think not I forsake
The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore:
Sad havoc Time must with my memory make
Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before;
Though, like all things which I have loved, they are
Resign'd forever, or divided far."

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 color 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

[be. Whose bark drives on and on, and anchor'd ne'er shall

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,'
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?

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 Of human cities torture: I can see Nothing to loathe in nature, save to be A link reluctant in a fleshly chain, Class'd among creatures, when the soul can flee, And with the sky, the peak, the heaving plain Of ocean, or the stars, mingle, and not in vain.

LXXIII.

And thus I am absorb'd, 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

1 The color of the Rhone at Geneva is blue, to a depth of tint which I have never seen equalled in water, salt or fresh, except in the Mediterranean and Archipelago.-[See Don Juan, c. XIV. st. 87, for a beautiful comparison:"There was no great disparity of years,

Though much in temper; but they never clash'd:
They moved like stars united in their spheres.
Or like the Rhone by Leman's waters wash'd,
Where mingled and yet separate appears
The river from the lake, all bluely dash'd
Through the serene and placid glassy deep,
Which fain would lull its river child to sleep."]

["Mr. Hobhouse and myself are just returned from a journey of lakes and mountains. We have been to the Grindelwald, and the Jungfrau, and stood on the summit of the Wengen Alp; and seen torrents of 900 feet in fall, and glaciers of all dimensions; we have heard shepherds' pipes, and avalanches, and looked on the clouds foaming up from the valleys below us like the spray of the ocean of hell. Chamouni, and that which it inherits, we saw a month ago; but, though Mont Blanc is higher, it is not equal in wildness to the Jungfrau, the Eighers, the Shreckhorn, and the Rose Glaciers."-B. Letters, Sept. 1816.]

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.

LXXIV.

And when, at length, the mind shall be all free
From what it hates in this degraded form,
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?

Of which, even now, I share at times the immortal lot?

LXXV.

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, Gazing upon the ground, with thoughts which dare not glow?

LXXVI.

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; 'twas a foolish quest,

The which to gain and keep, he sacrificed all rest.

LXXVII.

Here the self-torturing sophist, wild Rousseau,3
The apostle of affliction, he who threw
Enchantment over passion, and from wo
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 pass'd
The eyes, which o'er them shed tears feelingly and
fast.

["I have traversed all Rousseau's ground with the 'Héloïse' before me, and am struck to a degree that I cannot express with the force and accuracy of his descriptions, and the beauty of their reality. Meillerie, Clarens, and Vevay, and the Château de Chillon, are places of which I shall say little: because all I could say must fall short of the impressions they stamp."-B. Letters.]

4 ["It is evident that the impassioned parts of Rousseau's romance had made a deep impression upon the feelings of the noble poet. The enthusiasm expressed by Lord Byron is no small tribute to the power possessed by Jean Jacques over the passions: and, to say truth, we needed some such evidence; for, though almost ashamed to avow the truth,-still, like the barber of Midas, we must speak or die,--we have never been able to feel the interest or discover the merit of this far-famed performance. That there is much eloquence in the letters we readily admit: there lay Rousseau's strength. But his lovers, the celebrated St. Preux and Julie, have, from the earliest moment we have heard the tale, (which we well remember,) down to the present hour, totally failed to interest us. There might be some constitutional hardness of heart; but like Lance's pebble-hearted cur, Crab, we remained dry eyed while ail wept around us. And still, on resuming the

In him existence, and o'erflowing teems

Along his burning page, distemper'd though it seems.

LXXIX.

This breathed itself to life in Julie, this Invested her with all that's wild and sweet; This hallow'd, too, the memorable kiss1 Which every morn his fever'd lip would greet, From hers, who but with friendship his would meet; But to that gentle touch, through brain and breast Flash'd the thrill'd spirit's love-devouring heat; In that absorbing sigh perchance more bless'd Than vulgar minds may be with all they seek possess'd.2

LXXX.

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 phrensied,-wherefore, who may know?
Since cause might be which skill could never find;
But he was phrensied by disease or wo

To that worst pitch of all, which wears a reasoning

show.

LXXXI.

For then he was inspired, and from him came, As from the Pythian's mystic cave of yore, Those oracles which set the world in flame, Nor ceased to burn till kingdoms were no more: Did he not this for France? which lay before Bow'd to the inborn tyranny of years? 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.

They made themselves a fearful monument!
The wreck of old opinions-things which grew,
Breathed from the birth of time: the veil they rent,
And what behind it lay, all earth shall view.
But good with ill they also overthrew,
Leaving but ruins, wherewith to rebuild
Upon the same foundation, and renew

Dungeons and thrones, which the same hour refill'd, As heretofore, because ambition was self-will'd.

volume, even now, we can see little in the loves of these 135 tiresome pedants to interest our feelings for either of them. To state our opinion in language (see Burke's ReBertions) much better than our own, we are unfortunate enough to regard this far-famed history of philosophical Fallantry as an unfashioned, indelicate, sour, gloomy, lerocions medley of pedantry and lewdness; of metaphynical speculations, blended with the coarsest sensuality."" -SIR WALTER SCOTT.)

This refers to the account in his "Confessions" of his passion for the Comtesse d'Houdetot, (the mistress of St. Lambert, and his long walk every morning, for the sake of The single kiss which was the common salutation of French acquaintance. Rousseau's description of his feelings on this occasion may be considered as the most passionate. at unpure, description and expression of love that ever Kindled into words; which, after all, must be felt, from

their very force, to be inadequate to the delineation: a painting can give no sufficient idea of the ocean.

["Lord Byron's character of Rousseau is drawn with great force, great power of discrimination, and great eloquence. I know not that he says any thing which has not been said before ;-but what he says issues, apparently, from the recesses of his own mind. It is a little labored, which, possibly, may be caused by the form of the stanza into which it was necessary to throw it; but it cannot be doubted that the poet felt a sympathy for the enthusiastic tenderness of Rousseau's genius, which he could not have recognised with such extreme fervor, except from a consciousness of having at least occasionally experienced similar emotions."-SIR E. BRYDGES.]

[During Lord Byron's stay in Switzerland, he took up his residence at the Campagne-Diodati, in the village of Coligny. It stands at the top of a rapidly descending vine

LXXXVIII.

Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven!
If in your bright leaves we would read the fate
Of men and empires,-'tis to be forgiven,
That in our aspirations to be great,
Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state,
And claim a kindred with you; for ye are
A beauty and a mystery, and create

In us such love and reverence from afar, That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star.

LXXXIX.

All heaven and earth are still-though not in sleep,
But breathless, as we grow when feeling most;
And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep:-
All heaven and earth are still: From the high host
Of stars, to the lull'd lake and mountain-coast,
All is concentred in a life intense,

Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,
But hath a part of being, and a sense
Of that which is of all Creator and defence.

XC.

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt

In solitude, where we are least alone;

A truth, which through our being then doth melt, And purifies from self: it is a tone,

The soul and source of music, which makes known Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm, Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone, Binding all things with beauty;-'twould disarm The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm.

XCI.

Not vainly did the early Persian make His altar the high places and the peak Of earth-o'ergazing mountains,' and thus take A fit and unwall'd temple, there to seek The Spirit, in whose honor shrines are weak, Uprear'd of human hands. Come, and compare Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek, With Nature's realms of worship, earth and air, Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy pray'r!

XCII.

The sky is changed!—and such a change! Oh night,
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,

yard; the windows commanding, one way, a noble view of the lake and of Geneva; the other, up the lake. Every evening, the poet embarked on the lake; and to the feelings created by these excursions we owe these delightful stanzas. Of his mode of passing a day, the following, from his Journal, is a pleasant specimen :

"September 18. Called. Got up at five. Stopped at Vevay two hours. View from the churchyard superb; within it Ludlow (the regicide's) monument-black marble -long inscription, Latin, but simple. Near him Broughton (who read King Charles's sentence to Charles Stuart) is buried, with a queer and rather canting inscription. Ludlow's house shown. Walked down to the lake side; servants, carriages, saddle-horses,-all set off, and left us plantes là, by some mistake. Hobhouse ran on before, and overtook them. Arrived at Clarens. Went to Chillon through scenery worthy of I know not whom; went over the castle again. Met an English party in a carriage; a lady in it fast asleep-fast asleep in the most anti-narcotic spot in the world, excellent! After a slight and short dinner, visited the Chateau de Clarens. Saw all worth seeing, and then descended to the Bosquet de Julie,' &c., &c.: our guide full of Rousseau, whom he is eternally confounding with St. Preux, and mixing the man and the book. Went

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!

XCIII.

And this is in the night:-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 'tis 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.3

XCIV.

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 [parted :-
Which blighted their life's bloom, and then de-
Itself expired, but leaving them an age

Of years all winters,-war within themselves to wage.

XCV.

Now, where the quick Rhone thus hath 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 thunderbolts 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,

There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurk'd.

XCVI.

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?

again as far as Chillon, to revisit the little torrent from the hill behind it. The corporal who showed the wonders of Chillon was as drunk as Blucher, and (to my mind) as great a man he was deaf also; and, thinking every one else so, roared out the legends of the castle so fearfully, that Hobhouse got out of humor. However, we saw things, from the gallows to the dungeons. Sunset reflected in the lake. Nine o'clock-going to bed. Have to get up at five tomorrow."]

1 See Appendix, Note [F.]

The thunder-storm to which these lines refer occurred on the 13th of June, 1816, at midnight. I have seen, among the Acroceraunian mountains of Chimari, several more terrible, but none more beautiful.

3 [This is one of the most beautiful passages of the poem. The fierce and far delight' of a thunder-storm is here described in verse almost as vivid as its lightnings. The live thunder leaping among the rattling crags-the voice of mountains, as if shouting to each other--the plashing of the big rain-the gleaming of the wide lake, lighted like a phosphoric sea-present a picture of sublime terror, yet of enjoyment, often attempted, but never so well, certainly never better, brought out in poetry."-SIR WALTER SCOTT.]

4 [The Journal of his Swiss tour, which Lord Byron kept