THUNDER-STORM AMIDST THE ALPS.

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,
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!

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.

CHILDE HAROLD.-Canto III.

CLARENS-VOLTAIRE-GIBBON.

'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

* The scene of Rousseau's Nouvelle Héloïse is laid among the rocks of Meillerie, and the groves of Clarens.

CLARENS-VOLTAIRE-GIBBON.

23

Where early Love his Psyche's zone unbound,
And hallow'd it with loveliness: 'tis lone,

And wonderful, and deep, and hath a sound,

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

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

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.

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.

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,

Voltaire and Gibbon. Voltaire resided at Ferney during the last twenty years of his life, and Gibbon at Lausanne from 1783 till within a twelvemonth of his death in 1794. It was there that he wrote the second half of his immortal history.

Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer;

The lord of irony,—that master-spell,

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.

CHILDE HAROLD.-Canto III.

THE WORLD AND THE POET.

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,

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.

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

Though I have found them not, that there may be
Words which are things, hopes which will not deceive,

* The infidelity of Gibbon may have provoked pity and indignation, but far from his irony exciting fear, it was only an additional proof how impregnable were the evidences of Christianity when its ablest opponents were compelled to substitute sarcasm for argument. Truth is no less than falsehood open to sneers, which can never therefore become the test of either.

"Filed" is the old mode of writing defiled. The expression is from Macbeth.

ADDRESS TO HIS DAUGHTER.

25

25

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.

CHILDE HAROLD.-Canto III.

ADDRESS TO HIS DAUGHTER.

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 should'st 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.

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.

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 :

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 would'st love me, still that more than life retain.

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!

CHILDE HAROLD.-Canto III.

VENICE.

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:

* The Bridge of Sighs, which connects the Ducal palace with the prison on the other side of the canal, is a covered gallery, divided by a wall throughout its length into two parts. From the state-dungeons, which were formed beneath the palace itself, a criminal condemned to death was led down one compartment of the bridge to the opposite prison, and from the prison to the second compartment, where he was strangled. It was the melancholy purpose to which the bridge was formerly devoted that procured it the pathetic name it bears.