University of Virginia Library

O lake most beautiful, thou art become
Now as a home to me! Time has united
The sight of thee with many a feeling fond,
And many a bright idea past; and thou
The mellow mirror art that throws them back
Fairer than when they first within me sprung!
But not to me alone;—to all the world
These years have of tremendous import been.
How many a noble heart, which once I knew,
Sleeps in the dust, since first upon mine eyes
The grandeur of thy glassy waters broke.
It is not wonderful that thou wert chosen,
Nearly two thousand years ago, the seat
Of those Burgundian Kings, who made their inroad
On Rome tyrannic. Ever since in story
Thy name has shone, and thy rich tale is full
Of mighty incidents, beyond my strength,
Or few remaining years, with clearness due
To narrate. I would rather tell how grand
Thy mountains, clad in snow, upon thee hang:
But I have nothing of the Sage's lore,
In natural science learned. My delight
Has been to trace the movements of the mind
And heart of man: and much of this shall I
Ere half my task is finish'd, have to say
On this deep-searching topic; for with thee,
Yes, on the tumbling issue of thy torrent,
Was born Rousseau, of man's immingled being
One of the magic wonders;—of the soul
And moral conscience the enigma strange!
But not to him alone shall be my song
Confin'd: a beadroll of full many a name
Of worthies, that will dignify the verse,
Shall be recall'd to memory, and with due
And clear appropriate praise be fondly sung.
For I have travel'd in the tale of Man,
And from my very earliest boyhood sought
Th'events, the feelings, and the tracts of brain,
That mark'd all those who in the roll of fame
Have been well register'd: and in that roll
A few of lustre high have on thy banks,
O Lake most lovely, most sublime, been nurs'd,
Or spent their lives of virtuous mental labour.
From Jura's heights, just as the setting sun
Upon Mont-Blanc his rosy beams reflected,
I first beheld thee, O most beautiful
Expanse of waters! My worn heart was then
Bursting, and the confusion of my head
As if its light was in the gloomy grave
About to close: for I had many a year
In mingled tempests been conflicting wild
With public duties, and with private wrongs;
And disappointment, insult, most audacious
Fraud, was th' heart—breaking consequence of all.
But when the most sublime of Nature's views
Burst all at once upon my wearied soul,
A being new shone in me, and I wish'd
Again to live, and to enjoy this breath
Of mortal tenement I would put off.
Dark was the night ere we could reach the walls
Of thy fair City—and the gates were clos'd,
To ope no more till morn. Then, Secheron,
Thy over-crowded mansion, after long
Intreaties, under its protecting roof
Received us, and the feversish night, of heat
Intense, counting the hours, we linger'd through.
The streets of London seem'd as they had poured
Their wellknown habitants upon the spot!
But not so far had travel'd I to see
The common faces of my last sad years!
Peace, solitude, and mild forgetfulness
I sought, or if oblivion were not mine,
Then the materials of my loaded brain
To turn upon the future, and by new
Associations a new form to give!
Now close upon thy banks I chose my haunt,
Dear Leman, and from the turmoil of Man's
Society, sick at heart, shut myself out.
But then the past would deep intrude again;
And deep I meditated; yet more deep
Upon the future; and I call'd in fiction
To while the hours away; and every morn
I scribbled the inventions, that the calm
Of night had work'd upon my busy mind;
And thus an hundred fables in my tablets'
Recorded stand; and sometimes to their length
I drew them out; and strove to move the hearts
Of sympathetic readers with the images
That haunted my own fancy. My weak frame
Could scarce sustain the conflict in the cauldron,
Where all the elements of head and heart
In tumult work'd together. My mov'd blood
Diseases nurs'd, that on the springs of life
Prey'd, and extinction nearly had effected.
Then rose those complex causes of the ill,
Which never since has left my afflicted body.
And not thy salutary Baths, St.-Gervais,
Could purge away the poison! It was fix'd
Deep in the purple veins of my earth's being—
And will away no more! But in that haunt
Of loneliness, where every morn I saw
The sun rise o'er the Lake, and distant barge
Offer its white sails to the misty gleam,
Of wisdom much I learn'd, as much I thought;
With bent intense upon the wealth of nations
I ponder'd day and night; and something drew
From this unbroke abstraction of pure mind,
Which will not soon forgotten be, although
Noticed by few; and still but little known.
But long, long, years, after the seed had fallen
Dead in the soil, as I conceiv'd, surpris'd,
And with delight my wondring eyes have found
That it had taken root, and had expanded
Into an healthful produce, and was spreading
From day to day. Then came the sweet reward;
And the heart soften'd and grew calm and good;
And self-complacence, in which mood are nurs'd
Our kindliest virtues, smiling sat within.
We cannot feel benevolence, while none,
We think, are kind to us. I well remember
How unabated was the toil I gave,
And how in cold and dark December's depths,
Three hours before the light I rose, and by
The cheering flame of wood my studies plied,
And drove the current of my worn-out plume.
Then I had done a good day's work, ere others
Had left their beds; and to my morning walk
Betook me with a conscience pleas'd, and sought
The city for its books and for its news.
Of living beings I convers'd with few;
For few were my acquaintance; and with eye
Askance the busy worldlings look'd on me.
I had no manners for the world; reserv'd
And cold was my address; and freezing thoughts
Seem'd to come slowly from my'embarrass'd lips.
But there was fire within; tho frost without:—
By that which was without the world had judg'd,
And ever will judge so. And thus it was,
That while by irritability extreme,
And the incessant boilings of my head,
The chiefest evils of my life had come,
My seeming coldness bred vindictive hate.
But many a year have I a citizen
Of the wide world been since, and many a clime
And nation have I seen; and many a change
Of life and manners, and full many a scene
Of nature's beauties; and my head and hand
Have oped themselves to many a head and hand
Of other countries; and in my old age
A cheer is come at last, which has unbent
My gloomy brow, and breath'd on my chill voice
A lively tone, and op'd my frozen lips,
As the sun melts the icy bonds that chain
The winter waters; and at last my tongue
Babbles as rapid as those torrents run
Beneath the blaze of the sun's burning rays!
Perchance it is a flow of wild and wearying,
Rude, unconsider'd matter—caught from lights
That for the moment dart, then fly away,
And never more upon those objects rest;—
Perchance it is the colouring of passion,
Unjust and hurtful there where good should be
Intended and bestow'd, and with sharp dart
Pierces, or with a barbed arrow wounds.
Slow, and considerate, and weighing deep
All consequences, and all chance of ill,
The cautious talker tells us what is naught.
It is a selfish baseness, that conceals
Opinion. Give it not the name of Candour!
It is a habit, that grows, and still grows,
Till the poor barren mind becomes a blank,
And sand, and sand, is put upon it, till
It has no surface but white worthless atoms.
If ebullition of quick thoughts produce
Injustice, then restraint becomes a duty:
But the reserve, which has its origin
In calculation of self-injury,
Is a most odious baseness, which would damp
The energies of the most noble heart.
The free communion of enlighten'd mind,
Sagacious, penetrating thought, confession
Of unsophisticated moves of heart,
Conviction, the result of complex powers
Of all the faculties when most abundant,
Most strain'd together,—of that inspiration
Which only genius knows;—which is not borrow'd,
And therefore may not elsewhere be obtain'd;
The bright thought suddenly by strong collision
Struck at an accidental dart; the fire
Communicative, from another caught;—
These form the charm intense of social life.
Solitude has its charms, and its great uses;
But so has social life, when well selected:
It quickens our best intellectual powers;
And mends our hearts, and teaches matter rich,
And of discernment nice, which not from books
Or solitary musing can be learn'd.
There are full curious inexhaustible
Stores of instructive knowlege floating ever
Upon men's lips, which not the pen or type
Has ever register'd, or ever can!
Loose and inaccurate full oft the babble
Of ignorance or vanity; but judgment
Selects, arranges, sifts; or gets a clue
By which the workings of his proper mind
Arrive at truth. Thus men who have convers'd
Much with the world, are ready, sharp, exact,
And by comparison with thoughts of others,
Are less expos'd to strange hallucinations,
Which find no test or compass in themselves.
There is a partial blindness,—some weak spot,—
I' th' individual sight of half mankind:
But then there is a range in solitude
For the mind's grandest visions, and the view
O' th' human countenance in its arch smile;
Its love of the ridiculous; its actual
Encumberment of matter; and the call
Of prompt attention to all visible things,
Reins in imagination, and weighs down
By earthly particles the mounting scale.
Thus solitary genius is the most
Sublime,—and social most acute and witty,
Sagacious, and exact, and in the daily
Conduct of life, the surest guide to wisdom.
It is the intermingled course, which leads
To the mind's highest efforts, and best fruits.

But I have wander'd from my subject far;
And must to thee, O Lake belov'd, return!
When the spring came, along the little garden
I pac'd, that by thy fickle waves was wash'd,
And view'd the budding flower, and felt the beam
Of renovating suns, and still beheld
With wistful eye the beamy sail descend
From where Lausanne's bright turrets in the rays
Of golden Phœbus glitter'd; on the bank
Oppos'd, by Jura's frowning Mountains back'd,
Smil'd many a beautiful and varied villa,
Hanging their green shrubs o'er the azure waves.
There the light boat is dancing on the Lake,
And dashes many an oar, and throws the spray
Panting, and many a petty sail is spread
To court the expiring breeze; and here and there
The tones of music, and the gentle voice
Sound sweetly on the bosom of the wave.

Then came the midday dream; and Poesy
Awak'd in all her exquisite emotions;
And then the Tragic Tale went on,—and tears
Profusely on the blotted paper flow'd;
And the swell'd heart with virtues most refined,
Most melancholy and most tender sighs,
Work'd itself into temperaments unearthly.
Oft to thy waters sparkling in the sun,
Then dark again with clouds,—now smooth as plains,
Then suddenly to mountain heights uprear'd,
In frailest boats, with weak hands to the oar
Quite inexperienced, did I entrust
My worn-out frame, by mingled fever torn,
Yet calm'd by courses new of meditation.
Then oft across the burning heat uprose
A sudden piercing blast, that in the mountain
Gorges in secret bred, came like a thief
I' th' night, and with its petrifaction chill'd
The boiling blood. And now twelve years have pass'd,
And yet the dire disorder reigns within,
Now agitating, and now palsying
This frame of eight and sixty years of pain.
Oft on the waves beneath the blazing rays
Upon my oars I rested: then the sun
Shot vertical, and my dry brain was parch'd
Beneath its fire. Disorder took its seat
Within my veins, and I was sound no more.

Now came the clime of Italy to soothe,
But yet perchance my fever'd circulation
With momentary calmness to deceive;
For I once more was to the bed of sickness
For three long months confin'd; and then again
I labour'd hard in intellect, and search'd
Thro regions dull and dry, yet intermix'd
With bright imagination's moral range.
Here the full blazon of the Arts to me
Open'd in rapture, and delirium pass'd
From my eyes to my melted heart, at view
Of Painting and of Sculpture's magic powers.
O Florence—nurse of Genius—birth-place lov'd
Of modern poesy! Where Dante first
Saw Heaven's sublimity upon his cradle
Reflected; and where Milton, and where Gray
Lighted the flames, that, sown in northern climes,
Wanted the heat of more congenial suns!—
With thee I linger'd many a month, tho' death
Over me with his threatening arrow hung.
But I escap'd then, as full thrice at least
Since; and to thee, dear Leman, safe return'd
Ere twenty months completely had elaps'd.
Now broad upon thy blue expanse again
I look'd; and right against the glittering villa
Mounted on Cologny's vine-cover'd hills,
Beneath the Alpine heights and proud Mont-Blanc,
By Deodati's fond Miltonic name
Hallow'd, and yet again on modern rolls
With beams more brilliant blazing, by the memory
Of mighty Byron's sojourn long, where all
The Muse's charms were oped to his embrace.

Thence on this Lake he frolick'd; thence in storms
His rous'd soul, most delighted with thy waves
To battle, and to hear the thunder roll,
And his rent sails all shivering, and his mast
Dire cracking in the roars and blasts of wind;
Then cross the conflict of thy billows he
To Coppet pass'd; and there a strife far other
It was his lot to battle sharply with;
—The conflicts of the mind; the strong collision
Of mental wit, and readiness, and point,
And art, and flow of words, and confidence,
And vanity, and self-conceit inbred
From childhood, and supremacy of thought
Intense, historic, and political.

But in that contest the unrival'd Bard,
Whom every Muse enrich'd, yet paled his star,
And moody at the consciousness of light
Eclips'd, threw forth his fever'd frame aboard
Into the boat, and as the breezes blew
Growing into a storm, and the dark came,
And billows dash'd, he plied his beaten oars
Half in delight, and rose upon the wave,
Then sunk again into the water's depths,
In alternation, that half in delight,
Half in defiance, sometimes with a gloom
Of black despair, and sometimes with a laugh
Of scorn at fate, that buffeted his body
Thus, as his tempest-beaten heart,—arriv'd
Safe at his haunt once more, where Milton's spirit
Receiv'd him at the entrance; then fatigued,
Lap'd in deep slumbers long he lay, the Muse
Upon his bosom sitting, and with fondness
Pouring her balm on his tempestuous heart.

O sacred be those haunts, O beautiful
Be every tint that on them soft and coolly
Hovers! and be the air forever blest,
And gardens, walks, and banks beheld with awe
Mingled with love and fancy, and the swell
Of bosom, that assures to higher being!

For six long months daily as I awoke,
And over the blue rippling waters saw
The white walls glittering on the morning sun,
My fond eyes with a sort of idol gaze
Dwelt on them, and my' uncalm imagination
Peopled them with a crew that ne'er on earth
In truth were habitants:—but so it is;
And in these wild delusions we are doom'd
To live: and well it is, that we so live;
For life without it would be barren, dull,
And of a grossness unendurable.

It was not yet the time of ill,—foreboding
An early destiny to Byron's race:
He yet was in the most abundant bloom
Of his gigantic course, and pour'd along
The torrent of his strains with endless strength;
But four times had the sun his annual round
Perform'd, since he had left that fam'd abode;
And underneath Italian suns brought forth
New splendors, the amaz'd and awe-struck world
To dazzle, and half rapture, half dismay.

O vile Venetian luxury! O poison
Of cups Circæan! O the fall of mind,
That in the body's selfish pleasures fades!
But yet, O effluence indepressible
Of pure and spiritual imagination!
While wallowing in earthly vice, thy brain
Was the seat of all noble sentiment,
And visionary beauty and sublimity!
And thy heart with ideal love was touch'd,
Pure, and intense, and heavenly; and the while
Could mingle pictures of a sensual world
Plung'd in dark earthly sins, and seem to gloat
With glee satanic on them, and to laugh
With scorn triumphant on a fallen race!
Nor, less initiated in the practice,
Wast thou familiar with the foul ambition
In vicious luxury to be a leader!
Asham'd not, thy companions boon amid,
To be the first of worldlings! Ill it sorted
Thy most exalted genius to be thus
Rival of coarse and brutal ignorance;
Hardness of heart; of manners base; of birth
Ignoble, only by corrupt, depraving
Foul-got, and e'en perchance blood-colour'd wealth,
Gilded! But we may reason as we will,
Such was the union! The degrading vice
None can deny, and there existed also
The mind of heavenly breathing! To combine them
May be a swerve from nature's rules; but there
They were together found! How oft in that
Seat of departed commerce, where the tides
That all the streets transpierc'd, once wafted gold
In countless heaps, and arts and arms and glory
Together flourish'd, all by human toil,
And human ingenuity,—didst thou
Look back on Jura and the Alpine heights
Of rosy-tinted proud Mont-Blanc; and sigh
At nature's wonders, and the trembling Lake,
And its night-closing tempests; and the ride
Upon the tips of the white-foaming waves,
And Coppet's lights, and Coppet's blaze of mind!

Can thy waves once again, O Leman lov'd;
Strength to my body give—for I am weak,—
And my eyes fail me, and the opiate weight
Comes over me of deep forgetfulness,
And the rich page, which ought my mind to fill
With keenest interest, falls from my hand.

Thus in the day! but in the shades of night
Still by the lamp I watch, and ply my task
Week after week unwearied, and e'en month
Succeeding month. Then Midnight's silence calm
Befits the meditations of my brain;
For much the turmoil of society,
And much the talk of man, distracts my spirits:
And much it agitates my morbid breast.

There is a sharpness in thine air, that sometimes
Pierces, and sometimes curdles up the blood,
And stops the pores; and great the maladies
Such interruptions cause; for on the free
And even transit thro the tranquil veins
Of the blest stream of life depends all health.
Therefore the race that on thy banks has dwelt,
Has ever somewhat irritable been,
And somewhat moody; and was that not ill
Suited to the capricious humours of
The chief of all thy mental luminaries?
But yet he stood alone; nor ever yet
Did country more unlike its other habitants
Produce a human Being!—O Rousseau!
Thou wast the strangest, most intense, most beautiful,
Most eloquent, most passionate, acute,
Most fond, most selfish, most capricious, vain,
Most wilful, most vindictive, and most cross'd
With sudden unresisting yield to foul
Base wickedness, as thou thyself confessest,
That e'er combin'd in man's mysterious mould.
E'en at the very crise, when Satan sat
Triumphant on thy heart, the beams of Heaven
Were shining in it:—clouds, and sun, and thunder,
And lightning; and the intermingled rays
Of love, of beauty, raptures, and the charms
Of most celestial philanthropy!—

It was not art which aided thee; thou wast
The child of nature; not in Learning's tracks,
By method, toil, instruction, didst thou gain
Thy strength, or clearness, or concision, or
Order of words, or springs of nascent thought!
All was the gift of some inspiring Spirit,
Which visited thine infant eyes, and breath'd
Fire, strength, and tenderness, and th' fairest forms
Of most unearthly beauty, to thy heart!
E'en ere thy tottering steps could reach the banks
Of the deep-purpled waves, thou must have had
This wild delirium in thy wandring sight,
And fluttering, dancing, boiling on thy breast.
If thy weak fingers could have used the pen,
And language had been thine, to paint and fix,
Then in what brightness inconceivable
Thy visions had been set! The forms around thee,
—Material forms—had not in truth the colours—
Nor essences thou wouldst have cloath'd them with;—
But ne'ertheless they would not have been fram'd
By fiction false; but did in truth exist
To thy creative eye and flowing heart.

The sun shone o'er the waves with brighter beams
Than on the mingled mass of land: and more
Of freshness as they beat and spray'd and sparkled,
And worked themselves to purity by collision,
Won on the senses, and evok'd the tribes
Of Fairy habitants within the cells
Of brain and bosom. O who had sagacity
In this thy childhood, looking on thy face
And delicate features, and thy slender frame,
To presage ought above the common gifts
Of vulgar children? On the rocky stone,
The fickle billows dash'd, thy limbs were laid:
And then with ear intent thou didst drink in
The sounds, that on the wave came whispering down,
Or sometimes shrieking. Airy spirits danc'd,
Or slid along the surface of the blue,
And green and white all mingled, of the waves;
Or rose amid the glittering spray, and laugh'd
And mock'd, and breath'd out magic syllables,
And half display'd their limbs of exquisite
And most etherial beauty, when thy boyhood,
O'erdazzled, veil'd thine eyes, and in thyself
Absorb'd and lost, sunk utterly regardless
Of all without. Sometimes in search of thee,
They, from whose care thine errant feet escap'd,
Found thee still sleeping as th' advancing flood
Gain'd on thy stony bed; and thou wouldst cry
And fret and storm to be thus rudely wak'd
Midst of thy golden slumbers! And thy nurse
Would rate thee as a moody, cross-grain'd child,
Of whom no good would come! and in disdain
Thy little eye would fire, and thou wouldst stamp,
And deal about thy puny blows, and rave
With thy impetuous and half-stifled voice!
And even then thou felt'dst the day would come
When thou, the infant treated with despite
And scorn for thy defaults, wouldst craze the world
With beams of splendor, that the sober sense
Of all, deem'd happier-gifted, would in vain
Strive to repell or to endure!—'Tis thus
That Genius ever feels: and thus it swells
Against the vain and blind oppressor: thus
It knows how folly, dulness, ignorance,
Ever miscalculate; and dim presumption
Thinks in the infant of stale common-place
A prize to be well-hugg'd, and prais'd and flatter'd.

How much hadst thou, Enchanter, in thy days
Of boyhood, to oppress, disturb, and cross
The opening of thy mind, to interrupt
The laying-in of wisdom, and to mix
Foulness and poison in the issuing streams
Of tender, pure, and magic-mellow'd sentiment!
But there was in its essence a bright spell,
That threw off all th'impurities with scorn
And might, and indignation, and untouch'd
Stood in surrounding pools of dirt and vapour!

A seer perchance might clearly have discern'd
The rays that play'd around thee; but the veil
Hung thick before the vulgar earthly sight:
A trade mechanic could not dark the lamp
That blaz'd within thee, and thy hands consign'd
To labour for thy head; and fear of want,
And despot brutal orders of a despot
Master, unjust, capricious, ignorant,
And unillum'd by casual gleams of mind.

When the tir'd body has its organs press'd
By the deranged current of the blood,
How ill the mental faculties can work,
Unless some blest supremacy of power
O'ercomes the direful load! But the all-mounting
Fire of true genius will pierce through, and rise,
Spite of clouds, storms, and vapours, up to Heaven!
It was not in society that thou
Caught'dst the refinement of thy bosom's motions;
For much of coarse was there: nor in the ranks
Where wealth and education smoothe the manners,
And elevate the thoughts, and purify
The views, wert thou accustomed to have
Thine infant ear delighted, or thy bosom
Touch'd with the sweetness of habitual rule
Of intellectual dominion!
The eye of female beauty, elevated
By birth, and in the school of Riches, form'd
By wisdom's lessons, and the softening stores
Of delicate and high imagination,
Ne'er beam'd on thee the melting magic of
Its irresistible irradiation:
But all the glory, and the golden tints,
Sky-borrow'd, came from thee, and on the object
Of its deep idol-worship threw the blaze,
Kneeling to deities of its own creation.
But such is ever bright Imagination's
Delusion dangerous! Shall we attribute
Aught to thy clime, thy mountains, the expanse
Of this thine azure mirror, by whose loveliness
The splendor, and the beauty, and the rays
Of beamy lustre, breaking but by fits
Thro mountainous vapours, and sometimes a chill
Of snow-clad summits, bosom'd in thick clouds
Of Heaven, may have been on that breast of sun
And tempests, then again in massy darkness
Impress'd! O no! 'tis not to earthly causes
That we must look: but 'tis the gift of heaven,—
This high creative splendor, that within
Works, and its forms and colours outward throws:
But yet, though lakes and mountains and the sway
Of nature's scenery in its most sublime
And awe-engendering shapes and tints, cannot
Originate th'internal faculty,
Still it may nurse and fan and bring it forth;
For in the heavy vapour of dull skies,
And flat and fen-like countries, much I doubt,
If genius ever can mount high, or duly
Expand her wings.

Along th'oerhanging skies
Comes sweeping o'er the Lake the loud career
Of tempests, bred the gorges deep among
Of those enormous Alpine masses, clad
In snow eternal, down whose craggy sides
The roaring torrents fall, and intermix
Their spray, that into ice-bound atoms turn'd,
Add arrows to the loud careering stream,
And sweep the gather'd pestilences bred
I' th'air, and thro those clouds which o'er thy walls,
Geneva, as o'er all th'abodes of man
In congregated heaps, brood harmfully
Passing—an healthful, airy, free, and sharp
Atmosphere give it! O, how in the roar
Of winter nights 'tis terrible;—but grand;—
And braces up the spirits to delight.

O then the' inhabitants of the vex'd sky
In battle seem; and what a shrill loud shriek
Does ever and anon the blast bring on
To the astonish'd ear! Not three fleet months
Have pass'd away, since thro the long black night
I listen'd to this music of the spheres!
For right against the torrent was th'abode
Where on my bed of sickness I, awake,
Told the long hours, and watching by the blaze
Of cheerful lamp, my magic leaves unfolded,
And wove my tales, and urg'd my weary pen!

How oft I gan imagine that I could
The language of the Winds interpret well:
And tell the gusts of Anger from the shrieks
Of sorrow;—and the murmur soft, between,
Of Peace and Love with comment true intend!
Then sometimes for a moment I believ'd
The spirit of Rousseau himself was there,
Or Milton, or of Gray: but morning light
Drove them away: and down my bosom sank,
And much of philosophic fortitude
It call'd, to reconcile me to the flat
Realities, that press'd upon my senses!

But ere due manhood thou hadst reach'd, thy fate
Led thee away from these thy native airs,
O eloquent but dangerous Moralist;
And little didst thou ever hear again
The voices of the tempests, as they drove
Their gathering torrents of soul-moving sounds
Over old Leman's billows! the lov'd Muse,
Whom I from babyhood have worship'd, frowns
Upon my prayers, when I intreat his voice,
The strange tale of thy wandring life to paint.
She will not touch me with the hallow'd sweetness
That duly can relate it; nor impart
The piercing eye that to the mysteries
Of thy yet undevelop'd breast can look!
And she the movements magical and strange
Has not the force to construe! I would tell
The story of thy chequer'd days in order
Successive, but my head, and pen, and voice
Are all too weak!—And I must catch by fits
Such lights and shadows, as irregular
Will dart upon me! O thou fabulist
Inspir'd of the new passionate Heloise!
La Meillerai and Clarens from thy pencil
Become th' abodes of dangerous magicians.
But I must leave thee now, and I again
Will at a future hour return to thee!

How wert thou, Leman, in the days of old?
The greatest of the Cæsars had thee once:
Julius made thee sometimes his seat of rest,
As northward he advanc'd to victory.
The Church and civil viceroys of the Emperors
Possess'd thee long, and with divided sway
Govern'd thy harass'd people.—
Counts of the Genevois, and despot Bishops,
With iron rod in rivalry conflicting,
Their subjects each tormented for the purpose
Of paining each the other. Then the wretched
Was punish'd twice—firstly for not obeying,
And then again because he had obey'd!

How deep into the night of Time these Counts,
Imperial Viceroys, drew their origin,
To poring antiquary is not yet
Precisely known!—They were among the chief
Nobles and Peers of Carlovingian days!
And many a grand alliance with the Princes
Of France, Helvetia, Italy, they made;
And with puissant grandeur liv'd, and spread
Widely their fame! nor were they wanting in
Mildness of character and arts of peace,
If sometimes to fierce actions thirst of rule,
And irritation of the crosier's sway,
Impell'd them! while a neighbouring encroacher,
Savoy's ambitious Count, was ever pressing
Upon their limits, sometimes by the sword,
Sometimes by plot, sometimes by vile intrigue!
And much more dreaded were they by the people,
Than those they would displace; but after ages,
At length their inextinguishable ambition
Succeeded; and above a nobler House,
More ancient, more benignant, they uprose;
And o'er the shoulders of a tribe oppress'd
Put their tyrannic paws, and bore them down!

Then too the Church's feudal sceptre yielded
To the same thirst of power and politic
Adroitness, and proud Savoy's children grasp'd
The mitre with the sword, and thus united
Sat for three ages on the necks of those
The habitants of thy magnific banks,
O Lake, of which the Alpine side they yet
Tyrannise over! But its chiefest line
At length expires, e'en scarce a few brief weeks
Before the feeble pen these lines records!

But, Carignan, in a more liberal school
We trust that thou wast cradled, and if power
Superior does not crush the seeds of liberty,
An happier policy may yet be thine!
Harsh the dominion here of the long race
Of thy historic grandsires! Many a deed
Of savage, wanton, power disgrac'd their reigns
Here, and in Chablais! Byron's Muse has told
The horror-striking tale of Chillon's walls;
And sufferings of heroic Bonnivard!
Of the mix'd tissue of whose character,
Curious the records Grenus has preserv'd.
O false professors of an holy Faith!
O ye in purple clad, with crosiers arm'd,
Deeming religion but a cloak for power,
And luxury and vice, how quick at last
You push'd the downfall of your own dominion;
And play'd the part of Luther and Melancthon,
And all the fierce Reformers! Ye were blind,
And in the sad delirium of your sensual
Enjoyments to plain reason utterly
Lost! and O thou the last of falling Rome's
Deluded Bishops, who o'er these free walls
Stretchedst thy rod, where were thine eyes and ears,
And common judgment, when in sight of foes
Advancing with so fierce and keen an onset
Thou play'dst thy pranks, and with impunity
Thoughtedst, (thy pleasures and thy wickedness
Minging with insults unindurable,)
By force to gratify. The daughter fair
Of Lullin's ancient House thou dar'dst to seize,
And kept'dst in tears and prayers and pale affright,
At mercy of thy rude licentious love,
Spite of the swords of heroes, and the cries
Of parents, and the threats and bold assaults
Of madden'd lovers! But not long the day,
Ere came the ruin, so by crime enormous
Provok'd! Then enter'd in the gaunt assailants,
And fire and sword began to purify
The haunts of idol crime and foul debauch,
And blasphemous hypocrisy, and thirst
Of the deluded wretch's wealth, and passion
For worldly power by guile and falsehood won!

But all was not unmingled good; abuse
Of pious rites had gone its utmost length;
And licence new, and open wickedness,
Under the broad eye of the garish day,
Revel'd in all the streets, and on thy banks,
Breeze-breathing Leman! Not the searching air,
That on thy rolling, whitening, waters came,
Could waft it off! Thy sounds were in the breeze,
That, speaking nature's voice, would sometimes awe
The tender spirit. Beauty in the skiff,
That danc'd upon thy glassy surface, borne,
Felt all the mountain winds to brace her frame,
And purify the veins that luxury
In delicate mansions poisons:—but in vain!
The eye licentious gaz'd; and she th'infection
Caught!—And a quarter of an age was thus
Approaching to its end, when Calvin came,
Fierce, bigoted, uncandid, unrelenting,
Demanding liberty of conscience, and
Freedom of thought from Rome's usurp'd dominion
Over the mind of Man, yet granting naught
To others in return; for alledged errors
In speculative doctrines blood demanding,
And binding to the stake and burning flame!
O horrid inconsistency! with goodness
Impossible, as seems, to be combin'd!

But still his name is venerated here;
And much the good, 'tis urg'd, that he perform'd
By harsh correction of corrupted manners,
Which ne'er had yielded to a gentle rod!
Yet why this persecution for opinions—
For matters of mere faith? The moral rule
Admits, perchance, no difference of thought,
Of argument, or of authority:—
Not so the nice perplexing points of faith!—
Virtue and vice are still the same. But thou,
O gloomy, fretful, gall-o'erloaded heart,
Not so didst judge, or feel! Thou hadst no mercy
For any course the subtle spirits took
Of the mysterious brain, except for that
To which thy mental travels led thyself:
The whip, the prison, e'en the torture, were
Too little for the punishment of him
Who differ'd from thee! Surely it is strange,
Beyond the comprehension of a mind
Candid and consciencious, that the heart
Nurs'd virtue in it which could thus decide!

But empire o'er the intellect of man,
Wide-spread, hast thou, O Calvin, since enjoy'd!
There was a tribe puissant, of thy doctrines
Sprung, that all Europe's politics have since
Infected, shaking civil institutions,
And making monarchs tremble on their thrones;
Vexing old England in a glorious reign
Most, and a firm heroic, able Princess,
Trying, entangling, damping, and o'erclouding.
Incessant were the complots of the cold
And subtle poison that they spread, and deep
And copious were the seeds of future war
Internal, and dissension, spreading hate
Thro social ties. The name of Puritan
To all is known; yet only to a few
The purposes, and means, and tricks, and weapon,
And guile, and concert in each seeming act
Of pure simplicity! O daring Knox,
O Whittingham and Coverdale, who, here
Finding asylum from the sanguine sceptre
Of bigot Mary, were this master's pupils,
Drinking the essences of mind and heart
From Calvin as your God, and bore in triumph
Those fruits to Albion's and to Scotia's shores.

Then through the Court that Tudor's Princess rul'd,
Faction among the nobles spread, and Discord
Threw out her snakes, that hiss'd and scatter'd venom!
Now through the Church th'insinuating drug
Bred a false zeal, and war polemic wak'd,
That wheresoe'er its head was bruis'd, but rose
Twofold, in places new!—Then government
Became a dangerous and a weary thing;
And Burleigh's brain and heart grew sick, and bent
Beneath the feebleness of age, and sunk
In sorrow to the grave; and Egerton
The Seals of Equity and Conscience held,
In vigorous manhood, by the aid of talents
Strong, clear, and active, but with difficulty.

And now the march of years, and sorrow's draught,
Heavily on the bosom hanging, brought
The gallant Princess to the grave, and James
Ascended in triumphant vanity,—
All hope without a cloud—and confident
In the full prowess of his learned head,
To put down Faction's voice, and spell the pen
From the charm'd hand of controversialist!
But, ah! how little did he know his force!
He was the very instrument for those
He was so rife to battle with; and well
Were they prepar'd to daunt him to the fight,
To draw him to the snare, as does the spider
The fly on which she darts! for cobwebs thick,
And strong, they spun in every corner, and
On every tree! the Monarch struggling seen,—
Sport for his courtiers—for the subtler spinners
Triumph conceal'd and inexpressible!—

Thus pass'd his days, that soon began with clouds
And plots to darken that deep loaded sky,
Which he had at his entrance fondly thought,
Could only sunshine be beneath his wisdom!
O Monarch all of petitess supreme,
Great in small things, and then whenever greatness
Was call'd for, truly least of all the little,
Thou didst by each day's folly thick prepare
The storms and bloodshed for thy fated son,
Who on the scaffold clos'd his wretched days!

Now, Puritans, the practical effect
Of all the theoretic looms of blood
Ye had been working into action, came,
And now it was a war of words no longer:
Out leap'd the sword; and armies met; and brother
Oppos'd himself to brother's instrument
Of death! and fields with civil blood were cover'd,
And fortunes fell, and gallant heroes died;
And law was overturn'd, and blessed Arts
Cover'd their heads and hands, and clos'd their voices.

And thou, divinest Poesy, e'en thou
Fledst the domains, where Heaven had begun
To breathe her accents from the lyre, and He,
The Bard of Paradise, in Ludlow's Castle,
Or Harefield's Halls, had just begun to open
Strains of a tone ne'er yet in Albion sounded.
Then the all-virtuous, and all-eloquent,
All-learned Falkland fell at Newbury,
Already sunk in sorrow for the times,
And daring death in midst of hostile swords!
Then thou from whom the stream of blood I draw,
That circuits thro my veins, O beautiful
And gallant Mainwaring, didst nobly die
On Chester walls, and to an ancient name
Didst leave no scion male! and still I hold
The Garter, signal of thy loyalty,
Cut from the monarch's shoulder, and in need
Giv'n to thy widow as a future pledge!

But many a battle still was to be fought,—
And still, when Newbury's disastrous doom
Could not be chang'd, rested the conflict's issue
Between a gallant monarch and a people,
Who, when awaken'd to the war, would never
Leave liberty's broad banner in the dust!

Then thou, Newcastle, in thy youth uprear'd
To all that wealth, and rank, and courts, and arts,
And all that peace, by its most splendid rays
Of chivalrous adornment, and the glories
Of all the Muses, could create,—didst buckle
Thy armour on for rude spear-cover'd camps,
And fields of desperate onset; and didst bear
The labour and the peril with the roughest!

Last came the fated fight of Marston Moor,
Where thy bold troops thou to the battle ledst,
And gallantly and desperately struggledst!
But all was vain; and when the day beheld
All lost, and thou wert with most base neglect,
Or ignorance, or envy foul, betray'd,—
In foreign realms an exile many a year
Of pressing dark adversity and straits
Of want, and perils, and heart-breaking crosses,
Didst thou in patience and with cheerfulness
Endure, and saw'dst at last thy Prince restor'd;
And still had many a year of peace to come
Within thy native land, and midst of rank,
Wealth, honours, arts, tranquillity of mind,
Beheldst thy sun go down, and sink at last
A mild octogenarian to the grave!

But, O my flighty Muse, how far hast thou
Wander'd from thy elected theme! Resume
Thy purpose; backward dart thy wings again;
For Muses ever have ubiquity;
Perch for a moment on proud Dover's heights,
Then from the white cliffs take thine airy way
Across old Ocean's mighty billows, dashing
Their thundring noises thro the straits, that separate
Albion from its defying rival Gaul!
Leagues after leagues, (the grand metropolis
Of France, the boast of near two thousand years,
Escaping on thy right,) to Jura's summits,—
Cities and towns and hamlets left unnotic'd,
Beyond the counter's skill to numerate,
Thou reachest,—and then down again once more
Alightest on thy purple Lake, all spangling
With young Aurora's beams! and thus once more
Within Geneva's beauteous circuit restest!