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XCIX

Clarens! sweet Clarens, birthplace 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
By rays which sleep there lovingly the rocks,

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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.

C

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. 940

CI

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, Offering to him, and his, a populous solitude.

CII

A populous solitude of bees and birds,

And fairy-form'd and many-colour'd things,

Who worship him with notes more sweet than words, And innocently open their glad wings,

Fearless and full of life: the gush of springs,

And fall of lofty fountains, and the bend

Of stirring branches, and the bud which brings
The swiftest thought of beauty, here extend,

Mingling, and made by Love, unto one mighty end.

CIII

He who hath loved not, here would learn that lore,

And make his heart a spirit; he who knows

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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 'tis his nature to advance or die ;

He stands not still, but or decays, or grows

Into a boundless blessing, which may vie

With the immortal lights, in its eternity!

PARNASSUS

CIV

'Twas not for fiction chose Rousseau this spot,
Peopling it with affections; but he found
It was the scene which Passion must allot

To the mind's purified beings; 'twas the ground
Where early Love his Psyche's zone unbound,
And hallow'd it with loveliness: 'tis lone,

And wonderful, and deep, and hath a sound,

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And sense, and sight of sweetness; here the Rhone Hath spread himself a couch, the Alps have rear'd a throne.

CV

Lausanne! and Ferney! ye have been the abodes
Of names which unto you bequeath'd a name;

Mortals, who sought and found, by dangerous roads,
A path to perpetuity of fame :

They were gigantic minds, and their steep aim
Was, Titan-like, on daring doubts to pile

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Thoughts which should call down thunder, and the flame Of Heaven again assail'd, if Heaven the while

On man and man's research could deign do more than smile.

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The one was fire and fickleness, a child

Most mutable in wishes, but in mind

A wit as various, gay, grave, sage, or wild,—
Historian, bard, philosopher, combined;

He multiplied himself among mankind,
The Proteus of their talents: But his own

Breathed most in ridicule,-which, as the wind,
Blew where it listed, laying all things prone,
Now to o'erthrow a fool, and now to shake a throne.

CVII

The other, deep and slow, exhausting thought,
And hiving wisdom with each studious year,
In meditation dwelt, with learning wrought,
And shaped his weapon with an edge severe,
Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer;
The lord of irony,-that master-spell,

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Which stung his foes to wrath, which grew from fear, And doom'd him to the zealot's ready Hell,

Which answers to all doubts so eloquently well.

CVIII

Yet, peace be with their ashes,-for by them,

If merited, the penalty is paid;

It is not ours to judge,-far less condemn;

The hour must come when such things shall be made Known unto all, or hope and dread allay'd

By slumber, on one pillow, in the dust,

Which, thus much we are sure, must lie decay'd; 1010 And when it shall revive, as is our trust,

Twill be to be forgiven, or suffer what is just.

CIX

But let me quit man's works, again to read
His Maker's, spread around me, and suspend
This page, which from my reveries I feed,
Until it seems prolonging without end.
The clouds above me to the white Alps tend,
And I must pierce them, and survey whate'er
May be permitted, as my steps I bend

To their most great and growing region, where

The earth to her embrace compels the powers of air.

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Italia! too, Italia! looking on thee,

Full flashes on the soul the light of ages,

Since the fierce Carthaginian almost won thee,

To the last halo of the chiefs and sages

Who glorify thy consecrated pages;

Thou wert the throne and grave of empires; still,
The fount at which the panting mind assuages

Her thirst of knowledge, quaffing there her fill,

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Flows from the eternal source of Rome's imperial hill. 1030

CXI

Thus far have I proceeded in a theme
Renew'd with no kind auspices :-to feel

We are not what we have been, and to deem
We are not what we should be, and to steel

The heart against itself; and to conceal,

With a proud caution, love, or hate, or aught,—
Passion or feeling, purpose, grief or zeal,-
Which is the tyrant spirit of our thought,

Is a stern task of soul:-No matter,-it is taught.

CXII

And for these words, thus woven into song,
It may be that they are a harmless wile,-
The colouring of the scenes which fleet along,
Which I would seize, in passing, to beguile
My breast, or that of others, for a while.
Fame is the thirst of youth, but I am not
So young as to regard men's frown or smile,
As loss or guerdon of a glorious lot;

I stood and stand alone,-remember'd or forgot.

CXIII

I have not loved the world, nor the world me;
I have not flatter'd its rank breath, nor bow'd
To its idolatries a patient knee,-

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Nor coin'd my cheek to smiles,-nor cried aloud
In worship of an echo; in the crowd

They could not deem me one of such; I stood
Among them, but not of them; in a shroud

Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still could, Had I not filed my mind, which thus itself subdued.

CXIV

I have not loved the world, nor the world loved me.— But let us part fair foes; I do believe,

Though I have found them not, that there may be 1060 Words which are things, hopes which will not deceive, And virtues which are merciful, nor weave Snares for the failing; I would also deem O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve; That two, or one, are almost what they seem, That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream.

CXV

My daughter! with thy name this song begun;
My daughter! with thy name thus much shall end;
I see thee not, I hear thee not, but none
Can be so wrapt in thee; thou art the friend
To whom the shadows of far years extend:
Albeit my brow thou never shouldst behold,
My voice shall with thy future visions blend,
And reach into thy heart, when mine is cold,
A token and a tone, even from thy father's mould.

CXVI

To aid thy mind's development, to watch
Thy dawn of little joys, to sit and see
Almost thy very growth, to view thee catch
Knowledge of objects,-wonders yet to thee!
To hold thee lightly on a gentle knee,
And print on thy soft cheek a parent's kiss,-
This, it should seem, was not reserved for me;
Yet this was in my nature : as it is,

I know not what is there, yet something like to this.

CXVII

Yet, though dull Hate as duty should be taught,
I know that thou wilt love me; though my name
Should be shut from thee, as a spell still fraught
With desolation, and a broken claim:

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Though the grave closed between us,-'twere the same,
I know that thou wilt love me; though to drain
My blood from out thy being were an aim,

And an attainment,-all would be in vain,—

Still thou wouldst love me, still that more than life retain.

CXVIII

The child of love, though born in bitterness,

And nurtured in convulsion. Of thy sire
These were the elements, and thine no less.
As yet such are around thee, but thy fire
Shall be more temper'd, and thy hope far higher.
Sweet be thy cradled slumbers! O'er the sea
And from the mountains where I now respire,
Fain would I waft such blessing upon thee,

As, with a sigh, I deem thou might'st have been to me.

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CANTO THE FOURTH

'Visto ho Toscana, Lombardia, Romagna,
Quel Monte che divide, e quel che serra
Italia, e un mare e l'altro, che la bagna.'

I

Ariosto, Satira iii.

I STOOD in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;
A palace and a prison on each hand:

I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand:
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying Glory smiles

O'er the far times, when many a subject land
Look'd to the winged Lion's marble piles,

Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles !

II

She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean,
Rising with her tiara of proud towers
At airy distance, with majestic motion,

A ruler of the waters and their powers:

And such she was; her daughters had their dowers
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East
Pour'd in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.
In purple was she robed, and of her feast

Monarchs partook, and deem'd their dignity increased.

III

In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless gondolier;
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
And music meets not always now the ear:
Those days are gone but Beauty still is here.
States fall, arts fade-but Nature doth not die,
Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear,
The pleasant place of all festivity,

The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy!

IV

But unto us she hath a spell beyond

Her name in story, and her long array
Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond
Above the dogeless city's vanish'd sway;
Ours is a trophy which will not decay

With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor,
And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn away-

The keystones of the arch! though all were o'er,
For us repeopled were the solitary shore.

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