LXXXIII.

But this will not endure, nor be endured! Mankind have felt their strength, and made it felt. They might have used it better, but, allured By their new vigour, sternly have they dealt On one another; pity ceased to melt With her once natural charities. But they, Who in oppression's darkness caved had dwelt, They were not eagles, nourish'd with the day; What marvel then, at times, if they mistook their prey?

LXXXIV.

What deep wounds ever closed without a scar?
The heart's bleed longest, and but heal to wear
That which disfigures it; and they who war

With their own hopes, and have been vanquish’d, bear

Silence, but not submission: in his lair

Fix'd Passion holds his breath, until the hour
Which shall atone for years; none need despair :"
It came, it cometh, and will come,
the power
To punish or forgive-in one we shall be slower.

LXXXV.

Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake,
With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing
Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake
Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring.
This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing
To waft me from distraction; once I loved
Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring
Sounds sweet as if a Sister's voice reproved,

That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved.

LXXXVI.

It is the hush of night, and all between

Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear,
Mellow'd and mingling, yet distinctly seen,
Save darken'd Jura, whose capt heights appear
Precipitously steep; and drawing near,

There breathes a living fragrance from the shore, Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear Drops the light drip of the suspended oar, Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more:

LXXXVII.

He is an evening reveller, who makes
His life an infancy, and sings his fill;
At intervals, some bird from out the brakes
Starts into voice a moment, then is still.
There seems a floating whisper on the hill,
But that is fancy, for the starlight dews
All silently their tears of love instil,
Weeping themselves away, till they infuse
Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues. 1

1 [During Lord Byron's stay in Switzerland, he took up his residence at the Campagne-Diodati, in the village of Coligny. It stands at the top of a rapidly descending vineyard; the windows commanding, one way, a noble view of the lake and of Geneva; the other, up the lake. Every evening, the poet embarked on the lake; and to the feelings created by these excursions we owe these delightful stanzas. Of his mode of passing a day, the following, from his Journal, is a pleasant specimen:

"September 18. Called. Got up at five. Stopped at Vevay two hours. View from the church yard superb; within it Ludlow (the regicide's) monument-black marble- long inscription; Latin, but simple. Near him Broughton (who read King Charles's sentence to Charles Stuart) is buried, with a queer and rather canting inscription. Ludlow's house shown. Walked down to the lake side; servants, carriages, saddlehorses, all set off, and left us plantés là, by some mistake. Hobhouse ran on before, and overtook them. Arrived at Clarens. Went to Chillon through scenery worthy of I know not whom ;

LXXXVIII.

Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven!
If in your bright leaves we would read the fate
Of men and empires, 'tis to be forgiven,

That in our aspirations to be great,

Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state,
And claim a kindred with you; for ye are
A beauty and a mystery, and create

In us such love and reverence from afar,

That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves

a star.

LXXXIX.

All heaven and earth are still — though not in sleep,
But breathless, as we grow when feeling most;
And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep :
All heaven and earth are still: From the high host
Of stars, to the lull'd lake and mountain-coast,

All is concenter'd in a life intense,

Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,
But hath a part of being, and a sense

Of that which is of all Creator and defence.

went over the castle again. Met an English party in a carriage; a lady in it fast asleep fast asleep in the most anti-narcotic spot in the world, -excellent! After a slight and short dinner, visited the Château de Clarens. Saw all worth seeing, and then descended to the Bosquet de Julie,' &c. &c.: our guide full of Rousseau, whom he is eternally confounding with St. Preux, and mixing the man and the book. Went again as far as Chillon, to revisit the little torrent from the hill behind it. The corporal who showed the wonders of Chillon was as drunk as Blucher, and (to my mind) as great a man: he was deaf also; and, thinking every one else so, roared out the legends of the castle so fearfully, that Hobhouse got out of humour. However, we saw things from the gallows to the dungeons. Sunset reflected in the lake. Nine o'clock going to bed. Have to get up at five to-morrow."]

XC.

Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt
In solitude, where we are least alone;

A truth, which through our being then doth melt,
And purifies from self: it is a tone,

The soul and source of music, which makes known Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm

Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone,

Binding all things with beauty;—'t would disarm The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm.

XCI.

Not vainly did the early Persian make
His altar the high places and the peak
Of earth-o'ergazing mountains 1, and thus take
A fit and unwall'd temple, there to seek

The Spirit, in whose honour shrines are weak,
Uprear'd of human hands.
Come, and compare
Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek,
With Nature's realms of worship, earth and air,
Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy pray'r!

XCII.

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!

1 See Appendix, note [F].

XCIII.

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 't is 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. 2

XCIV.

Now, where the swift Rhone cleaves his way be

tween

Heights which appear as lovers who have parted
In hate, whose mining depths so intervene,

That they can meet no more, though broken

hearted;

[thwarted, Though in their souls, which thus each other Love was the very root of the fond rage

Which blighted their life's bloom, and then departed:

Itself expired, but leaving them an age

Of years all winters,-war within themselves to wage.

1 The thunder-storm to which these lines refer occurred on the 13th of June, 1816, at midnight. I have seen, among the Acroceraunian mountains of Chimari, several more terrible, but none more beautiful.

2 This is one of the most beautiful passages of the poem. The "fierce and far delight" of a thunder-storm is here described in verse almost as vivid as its lightnings. The live thunder "leaping among the rattling crags -the voice of mountains, as

if shouting to each other-the plashing of the big rain - the gleaming of the wide lake, lighted like a phosphoric sea-present a picture of sublime terror, yet of enjoyment, often attempted, but never so well, certainly never better, brought out in poetry.SIR WALTER SCOTT.]