BETWEEN NAMUR AND LIEGE.
WHAT lovelier home could gentle Fancy choose?
Is this the stream whose cities, heights, and plains,
War's favorite playground, are with crimson stains
Familiar, as the Morn with pearly dews?
The Morn, that now, along the silver MEUSE,
Spreading her peaceful ensigns, calls the swains
To tend their silent boats and ringing wains,
Or strip the bough whose mellow fruit bestrews
The ripening corn beneath it. As mine eyes
Turn from the fortified and threatening hill,
How sweet the prospect of yon watery glade,
With its gray rocks clustering in pensive shade,
That, shaped like old monastic turrets, rise
From the smooth meadow-ground, serene and still!
WAS it to disenchant, and to undo,
That we approached the Seat of Charlemaine?
To sweep from many an old romantic strain
That faith which no devotion may renew!
Why does this puny Church present to view
Her feeble columns? and that scanty chair!
This sword that one of our weak times might wear!
Objects of false pretence, or meanly true!
If from a traveller's fortune I might claim
A palpable memorial of that day,
Then would I seek the Pyrenean Breach
That ROLAND clove with huge two-handed sway,
And to the enormous labor left his name,
Where unremitting frosts the rocky crescent bleach.
IN THE CATHEDRAL AT COLOGNE.
O FOR the help of Angels to complete
This Temple, Angels governed by a plan
Thus far pursued (how gloriously!) by Man,
Studious that He might not disdain the seat
Who dwells in heaven! But that aspiring heat
Hath failed; and now, ye Powers! whose gor-
geous wings
And splendid aspect yon emblazonings
But faintly picture, 't were an office meet
For
you, on these unfinished shafts to try
The midnight virtues of your harmony: -
This vast design might tempt you to repeat
Strains that call forth upon empyreal ground
Immortal Fabrics, rising to the sound
Of penetrating harps and voices sweet!
IN A CARRIAGE, UPON THE BANKS OF THE RHINE.
AMID this dance of objects sadness steals
O'er the defrauded heart, - while sweeping by,
As in a fit of Thespian jollity,
Beneath her vine-leaf crown the green Earth reels:
Backward, in rapid evanescence, wheels
The venerable pageantry of Time,
Each beetling rampart, and each tower sublime,
And what the Dell unwillingly reveals
Of lurking cloistral arch, through trees espied Near the bright River's edge. Yet why repine? To muse, to creep, to halt at will, to gaze,
Such sweet wayfaring, of life's spring the pride, Her summer's faithful joy,- that still is mine, And in fit measure cheers autumnal days.
FOR THE BOATMEN, AS THEY APPROACH THE RAPIDS UNDER THE CASTLE OF HEIDELBERG.
JESU! bless our slender Boat,
By the current swept along;
Loud its threatenings, let them not
Drown the music of a song
Breathed thy mercy to implore,
Where these troubled waters roar!
Saviour, for our warning, seen
Bleeding on that precious Rood!
If, while through the meadows green
Gently wound the peaceful flood,
We forgot Thee, do not Thou
Disregard thy Suppliants now!
Hither, like yon ancient Tower
Watching o'er the River's bed,
Fling the shadow of thy power,
Else we sleep among the dead;
Thou who trod'st the billowy sea,
Shield us in our jeopardy!
Guide our Bark among the waves;
Through the rocks our passage smooth
Where the whirlpool frets and raves,
Let thy love its anger soothe:
All our hope is placed in Thee;
Miserere Domine ! *
THE SOURCE OF THE DANUBE.
NOT, like his great Compeers, indignantly
Doth DANUBE spring to life! The wandering
Stream
(Who loves the Cross, yet to the Crescent's gleam Unfolds a willing breast) with infant glee
Slips from his prison walls: and Fancy, free
To follow in his track of silver light,
Mounts on rapt wing, and with a moment's flight
Hath reached the encincture of that gloomy sea
Whose waves the Orphean lyre forbade to meet
In conflict, whose rough winds forgot their jars
To waft the heroic progeny of Greece,
When the first Ship sailed for the Golden Fleece,ARGO,exalted for that daring feat
To fix in heaven her shape distinct with stars.
ON APPROACHING THE STAUB-BACH, LAUTERBRUNNFN.
UTTERED by whom, or how inspired, designed For what strange service, does this concert reach Our ears, and near the dwellings of mankind, Mid fields familiarized to human speech?
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