University of Virginia Library

THE FAREWELL TO FRANCE.

Bright France, adieu!—Adieu! thy laughing plains,
Where Peace now lives and gentle gladness reigns,
Farewell fair Vineyard-covered France, farewell!
Long shall my memory on your sweet scenes dwell,
Long and for ever—many a glowing morn
Upon thy rosy hills have I seen born,
Many a brilliant eve have watched sink down,
As if to rest on thy rich woods, whose crown
Was then the blazing burning setting Sun,
The noblest and the most imperial One!
Nought in the unknown Future may avail
To crush these memories with o'ercloudings pale.
I will believe and hope, for thoughts like these
With high and lofty beauty, calmly please
And elevate the mind in which they're nursed—
In which they're brightly glowingly rehearsed,
For Nature and the love of Nature brings
A hallowed charm to light all lesser things.
Farewell! with all thy vineyards, all thy flowers,
Fair golden France—the land of Sunny bowers
And teeming fields, from thee I soon must part,
But, Oh! to seek the Country of my Heart!—
Yet here my Heart awhile a Country found,
Since here in thy bless'd chains have I been bound,
Thou ever-glorious Nature—more than fair,
And wheresoe'er we yield thee worship—there
We feel as natives—children of the soil—
So closely do those chains around us coil.
Not 'mongst the City's crowds have I delayed,
But by these Vineyard-bordered stream banks strayed,
Not converse held with proud and polished throngs,
But with thine aëry and mysterious tongues,
Pure Nature ever holy, ever dear,
Those tongues that breathe sphere-music in mine ear,
That talk the language of the Heavens on Earth,
And make an affluence where were else but dearth,
For 'tis not Nature! only, what thou art,
(From all associative links apart!—)
'Tis what thou 'mind'st us of yet more, far more,
That consecrates thy love in our Hearts' core,
And makes us turn to thee, with such deep trust,
And name thee glorious, holy, fair, august.
No! 'tis not what thou art that makes us turn
Even thus to thee, with such quick zeal to burn
In admiration boundless and supreme,
Which girds our spirits with a passionate dream,
'Tis what thou but reflectest as a glass,
The glory that can never wane nor pass
The invisible perfection, and the unknown,
Which then our minds mysteriously must own,
Even when to thee we bend with homage deep,
And feel thy power our inmost Soul o'ersweep,
Thou'rt but a glass, of all that is above
Our hope, our comprehension, and our love—
And still our thought will struggle to those heights
Where shine Truth's glorious and immortal lights—
Where blaze these Splendours infinite, which none
May gaze unblasted and unscathed upon!—
And still the yearning and the restless mind
Will strive the mirror of their pomp to find,
Nature—all exquisite and fair in thee,
And in thy bright and sovreign Majesty,
'Tis this that lends thee such o'erpowering might,
That makes thee seem so blessed in our sight,
When we indeed bend humbly at thy shrine,
And see in thee a mystic stamp divine.
Nature! thou art my Country! evermore
Still let me find a home from shore to shore,
Where'er thy chainless winds in freedom blow,
Where'er thy glitt'ring streams rejoicing flow,
Where'er thy mountains soar, thy groves expand,
There smiles my Home—and there my Native Land,
Where'er thy glorious Stars resplendent shine,
And make the purple Heavens indeed divine—
Or thy more lovely flowers their brilliant dyes
Display with all their rich varieties,
Where'er thy clouds in shadowy beauty roll,
And catch the thoughts of the uplifted Soul,
And bear them on with them on their wild race,
Through wastes of æther and through worlds of space,
Beyond the horizon's aëry line afar,
Where faintest lights and tenderest shadows are,
There is my Soul's own place, and there my home,
And there must I a denizen become,
Bound by dear ties of Feeling and of Thought,
With tenderness and truth and transport fraught.
Where'er afar with wandering foot we range,
It is the strangers make the land seem strange,
The mighty hills, the fields, the paths, the woods,
The glades of beauty, and the sounding floods,
These are not strangers—if we shun the croud,
The weak, the vain, the restless, and the loud,
And but with these beloved associates keep—
For us a Home shall smile o'er mount and deep,
Our Country, Nature, shall be where thou art,
Our resting place for ever on thy heart.
And yet a dearer charm must doubtless dwell
Round that one Land, where first from flood and fell
We learned to draw a deep and true delight,
And recognized thy glory and thy might!
That, may perchance be dearer than the rest,
But all shall be as Homes of love confessed
By hearts that prize thee as thou should'st be prized,
Great Nature—but by mindless fools despised,
For the high thoughted and the wise of Earth
Have ever owned thy deep exceeding worth,
And ever thy prevailing power avowed,
And at thy shrine with reverent homage bowed,
For thou'rt the Daughter of the Highest—thou
Alone to His Perfection deign'st to bow,
Man's thoughts do shape themselves even at thy side,
(With a permitted pardonable pride)
To actual Forms, his floating dreams become
Realities—for in his mortal doom,
His high immortal Nature still aspires,
And feels the impulse of diviner fires—
Struggling within his Spirit—quickening there—
To find a clearer, purer, finer air!
And to thy great Perfection still they yield,
Though thou for ever art the same revealed,
And they, yet day by day—age after age,
Mankind's profoundest care and thoughts engage,
For ever open to improvement thus
Transmitted down through myriad minds to us,
Full often yet thy works mock brightly still
Those works of human toil and human skill—
Let me be still a Worshipper of thine—
And ever to thy wild sweet haunts incline—
Then, wheresoe'er it be my fate to roam,
There shall I find a Sanctuary and Home,
From the glad hills, the gracious Heavens above,
Thy countenance o'ershadoweth me with love,
The language of my thoughts must ever be
Even thy large universal language free!
The torrents and the Stars they shine and roll,
And speak to every feeling of my Soul—
The whispering leaves sweet secrets can impart
Unto my listening and enraptured heart—
One instrument with Nature that is made—
And by one touch they're wakened and they're played!
The Forest-lyre's resounding strings sublime,
And thy more subtile strings keep tune and time.
Oh! mine accordant Heart!—since thy reply
So instant is—thy frame one harmony—
The Ocean's Organ-anthem calls at once
From my rapt Spirit's depths its full response!—
Itself one mighty melody becomes,
Such as the Seraphs wake in their Starred homes,
One strain of perfect Love—one glorious strain
Beyond all music of the hymning Main,
All minstrelsy of the echoing Forest's heart,
The harping Forest whence blest sounds depart
Unceasingly, or if the storm or breeze
Awake the sleeping spirit in the trees!—
Nature! thou art my Country!—where thou art
I find the Home—the Heaven of my Heart!
I kiss my Parent-soil for ever there,
And breathe mine own familiar kindred air,
All is congenial to my Soul and Thought,
Where all with thine exalted charms is fraught,
Thy Child—thy Citizen—still let me be,
My Native Land—Oh! Nature!—it is thee!