image of the Patron Saint were untouched. The Mount, upon the summit of which the Church is built, stands amid the intricacies of the Lake of Lugano; and is, from a hundred points of view, its principal ornament, rising to the height of 2000 feet, and, on one side, nearly perpendicular. The ascent is toilsome; but the traveller who performs it will be amply rewarded. Splendid fertility, rich woods and dazzling waters, seclusion and confinement of view contrasted with sealike extent of plain fading into the sky; and this again, in an opposite quarter, with an horizon of the loftiest and boldest Alps-unite in composing a prospect more diversified by magnificence, beauty, and sublimity, than perhaps any other point in Europe, of so inconsiderable an elevation, commands.
THOU Sacred Pile! whose turrets rise
From yon steep mountain's loftiest stage,
Guarded by lone San Salvador;
Sink (if thou must) as heretofore.
To sulphurous bolts a sacrifice.
But ne'er to human rage!
On Horeb's top, on Sinai, deigned
To rest the universal Lord:
Why leap the fountains from their cells
Where everlasting Bounty dwells?-
That, while the Creature is sustained,
His God may be adored.
Cliffs, fountains, rivers, seasons, times-
Let all remind the soul of heaven;
Our slack devotion needs them all;
And Faith-so oft of sense the thrall,
While she, by aid of Nature, climbs-
May hope to be forgiven.
Glory, and patriotic Love,
And all the Pomps of this frail":
Which men call Earth," have yearned to
Associate with the simply meek,
Religion in the sainted grove,
And in the hallowed grot.
Thither, in time of adverse shocks,
Of fainting hopes and backward wills,
Did mighty Tell repair of old-
A Hero cast in Nature's mould,
Deliverer of the stedfast rocks
And of the ancient hills!
He, too, of battle martyrs chief!
Who, to recal his daunted peers,
For victory shaped an open space,
By gathering with a wide embrace,
Into his single breast, a sheaf
Of fatal Austrian spears.*
THE ITALIAN ITINERANT, AND THE SWISS
Now that the farewell tear is dried, Heaven prosper thee, be hope thy guide! *Arnold Winkelried, at the battle of Sempach, broke an Austrian phalanx in this
Hope be thy guide, adventurous Boy;
The wages of thy travel, joy!
Whether for London bound-to trill
Thy mountain notes with simple skill:
Or on thy head to poise a show
Of Images in seemly row;
The graceful form of milk-white Steed,
Or Bird that soared with Ganymede :
Or through our hamlets thou wilt bear
The sightless Milton, with his hair
Around his placid temples curled;
And Shakspeare at his side-a freight,
If clay could think and mind were weight
For him who bore the world!
Hope be thy guide, adventurous Boy;
The wages of thy travel, joy!
But thou, perhaps, (alert as free
Though serving sage philosophy)
Wilt ramble over hill and dale,
A Vender of the well-wrought Scale,
Whose sentient tube instructs to time
A purpose to a fickle clime:
Whether thou choose this useful part,
Or minister to finer art,
Though robbed of many a cherished dream,
And crossed by many a shattered scheme,
What stirring wonders wilt thou see
In the proud Isle of liberty!
Yet will the Wanderer sometimes pine
With thoughts which no delights can chase,
Recal a Sister's last embrace,
His Mother's neck entwine;
Nor shall forget the Maiden coy
That would have loved the bright-haired Boy!
My Song, encouraged by the grace
That beams from his ingenuous face,
For this Adventurer scruples not
To prophesy a golden lot;
Due recompence, and safe return
TO COMO's steeps-his happy bourne!
Where he, aloft in garden glade,
Shall tend, with his own dark-eyed Maid,
The towering maize, and prop
the twig
That ill supports the luscious fig;
Or feed his eye in paths sun-proof
With purple of the trellis-roof,
That through the jealous leaves escapes
From Cadenabbia's pendent grapes.
-Oh might he tempt that Goatherd-child
To share his wanderings! him whose look
Even yet my heart can scarcely brook,
So touchingly he smiled-
As with a rapture caught from heaven-
For unasked alms in pity given.
WITH nodding plumes, and lightly drest
Like foresters in leaf-green vest,
The Helvetian Mountaineers, on ground
For Tell's dread archery renowned,
Before the target stood-to claim
The guerdon of the steadiest aim.
Loud was the rifle-gun's report-
A startling thunder quick and short!
But, flying through the heights around
Echo prolonged a tell-tale sound
Of hearts and hands alike "prepared The treasures they enjoy to guard!" And, if there be a favoured hour When Heroes are allowed to quit The tomb, and on the clouds to sit With tutelary power,
On their Descendants shedding graceThis was the hour, and that the place.
But Truth inspired the Bards of old
When of an iron age they told,
Which to unequal laws gave birth,
And drove Astræa from the earth.
-A gentle Boy (perchance with blood
As noble as the best endued,
But seemingly a Thing despised;
Even by the sun and air unprized;
For not a tinge or flowery streak
Appeared upon his tender cheek)
Heart-deaf to those rebounding notes,
Apart, beside his silent goats,
Sate watching in a forest shed,
Pale, ragged, with bare feet and head;
Mute as the snow upon the hill,
And, as the saint he prays to, still.
Ah, what avails heroic deed?
What liberty? if no defence
Be won for feeble Innocence.
Father of all! though wilful Manhood read His punishment in soul-distress,
Grant to the morn of life its natural blessed
THE LAST SUPER, BY LEONARDO DA VINCI, IN THE REFECTORY OF THE CONVENT OF MARIA
DELLA GRAZIA-MILAN.
THO' searching damps and many an envious flaw
Have marred this Work; the calm ethereal grace,
The love deep-seated in the Saviour's face,
The mercy, goodness, have not failed to awe
The Elements; as they do melt and thaw
The heart of the Beholder-and erase
(At least for one rapt moment) every trace
Of disobedience to the primal law.
The annunciation of the dreadful truth
Made to the Twelve survives: lip, forehead,
And hand reposing on the board in ruth Of what it utters, while the unguilty seek Unquestionable meanings-still bespeak A labour worthy of eternal youth!
THE ECLIPSE OF THE SUN, 1820. HIGH on her speculative tower Stood science waiting for the hour When Sol was destined to endure That darkening of his radiant face Which Superstition strove to chase, Erewhile, with rites impure. Afloat beneath Italian skies, Through regions fair as Paradise We gaily passed,- till Nature wrought A silent and unlooked-for change, That checked the desultory range Of joy and sprightly thought.
Where'er was dipped the toiling oar
The waves danced round us as before,
As lightly, though of altered hue,
Mid recent coolness, such as falls
At noontide from umbrageous walls
That screen the morning dew.
No vapour stretched its wings; no cloud
Cast far or near a murky shroud:
The sky an azure field displayed;
'Twas sunlight sheathed and gently char ed
Of all its sparl.ling rays disarmed,
And as in slumber laid,-
Or something night and day between,
Like moonshine-but the hue was green;
Still moonshine, without shadow, spread
On jutting rock, and curvèd shore,
Where gazed the peasant from his door
And on the mountain 's head
It tinged the Julian steeps-it lay.
Lugano! on thy ample bay;
The solemnizing veil was drawn
O'er villas, terraces, and towers;
To Albogasio's olive bowers,
Porlezza's verdant lawn.
But Fancy with the speed of fire
Hath past to Milan's loftiest spire,
And there alights 'mid that aërial host
Of Figures human and divine,
White as the snows of Appenine
Indúrated by frost.
Awe-stricken she beholds the array
That guards the Temple night and day; Angels she sees-that might from heaven have flown,
And Virgin-saints, who not in vain
Have striven by purity to gain
The beatific crown-
Sees long-drawn files, concentric rings
Each narrowing above each ;-the wings,
The uplifted palms, the silent marble lips,
The starry zone of sovereign height-
All steeped in this portentous light!
All suffering dim eclipse!
Thus after Man had fallen (if aught
These perishable spheres have wrought
May with that issue be compared)
Throngs of celestial visages,
Darkening like water in the breeze,
A holy sadness shared.
Lo! while I speak, the labouring Sun
His glad deliverance has begun:
The cypress waves her sombre plume
More cheerily; and town and tower,
The vineyard and the olive-bower,
Their lustre re-assume!
O Ye, who guard and grace my home
While in far-distant lands we roam,
What countenance hath this Day put on for
While we looked round with favoured eyes,
Did sullen mists hide lake and skies
And mountains from your view?
Or was it given you to behold
Like vision, pensive though not cold,
From the smooth breast of gay Win
Saw ye the soft yet awful veil
*"Sweet HIGHLAND Girl! a very shower
Of beauty was thy earthly dower,'
When thou didst flit before mine eyes,
Gay Vision under sullen skies,
While Hope and Love around thee played,
Near the rough falls of Inversneyd!
Have they, who nursed the blossom, seen
No breach of promise in the fruit?
Was joy, in following joy, as keen
As grief can be in grief's pursuit?
When youth had flown did hope still bless
Thy goings-or the cheerfulness
Of innocence survive to mitigate distress?
But from our course why turn-to tread
A way with shadows overspread;
Where what we gladliest would believe
Is feared as what may most deceive?
Bright Spirit, not with amaranth crowned
But heath-bells from thy native ground.
Time cannot thin thy Rowing hair,
Nor take one ray of light from Thee;
For in my Fancy thou dost share
The gift of immortality;
And there shall bloom, with Thee allied,
The Votaress by Lugano's side:
And that intrepid Nymph on Uri's steep descried!
THE COLUMN INTENDED BY BUONAPARTE FOR
A TRIUMPHAL EDIFICE IN MILAN, NOW LYING
BY THE WAY-SIDE IN THE SIMPLON PASS.
AMBITION-following down this far-famed slope
Her Pioneer, the snow-dissolving Sun,
While clarions prate of kingdoms to be won-
Perchance, in future ages, here may stop;
Taught to mistrust her flattering horoscope
By admonition from this prostrate Stone!
Memento uninscribed of Pride o'erthrown;
Vanity's hieroglyphic; a choice trope
In Fortune's rhetoric. Daughter of the Rock,
Rest where thy course was stayed by Power
divine !
The Soul transported sees, from hint of thine, Crimes which the great Avenger's hand provoke,
Hears combats whistling o'er the ensanguined heath:
What groans! what shrieks! what quietness in death!
COMPOSED IN THE SIMPLON PASS. VALLOMBROSA! I longed in thy shadiest wood To slumber, reclined on the moss-covered floor, To listen to ANIO's precipitous flood,
When the stillness of evening hath deepened its
To range through the Temples of PAESTUM, to
In POMPEII preserved by her burial in earth; On pictures to gaze where they drank in their hues;
And murmur sweet songs on the ground of their birth!
* See address to a Highland Girl, p. 174.
Though the toil of the way with dear Friends
we divide,
Though by the same zephyr our temples be
fanned
As we rest in the cool orange-bower side by side,
A yearning survives which few hearts shall
Each step hath its value while homeward we
O joy when the girdle of England appears!
What moment in life is so conscious of love,
Of love in the heart made more happy by tears?
And that the past might have its true intents
Feelingly told by living monuments--
Mankind of yore were prompted to devise
Rites such as yet Persepolis presents
Graven on her cankered walls, solemnities
That moved in long array before admiring eyes.
The Hebrews thus, carrying in joyful state
Thick bows of palm, and willows from the brook,
Marched round the altar--to commemorate
How, when their course they through the desert
took,
Guided by signs which ne'er the sky forsook,
They lodged in leafy tents and cabins low:
Green boughs were borne, while, for the blast
that shook
Down to the earth the walls of Jericho,
Shouts rise, and storms of sound from lifter
trumpets blow!
And thus, in order, 'mid the sacred grove
Fed in the Libyan waste by gushing wells,
The priests and damsels of Ammonian Jove
Provoked responses with shrill canticles;
While, in a ship begirt with silver bells,
They round his altar bore the horned God,
Old Cham, the solar Deity, who dwells
Aloft, yet in a tilting vessel rode,
When universal sea the mountains overflowed.
Why speak of Roman Pomps; the haughty
Of Chiefs triumphant after ruthless wars;
The feast of Neptune-and the Cereal Games,
With images, and crowns, and empty cars;
The dancing Salii-on the shields of Mars
Smiting with fury; and a deeper dread
Scattered on all sides by the hideous jars
Of Corybantian cymbals, while the head
Of Cybele was seen, sublimely turreted!
At length a Spirit more subdued and soft
Appeared-to govern Christian pageantries:
The Cross, in calm procession, borne aloft
WHAT beast of chase hath broken from the Moved to the chant of sober litanies.
Stern GEMMI listens to as full a cry,
As multitudinous a harmony
Even such, this day, came wafted on the breeze
From a long train-in hooded vestments fair
Enwrapt-and winding, between Alpine trees
Of sounds as rang the heights of Latmos over, Spiry and dark, around their House of prayer,
When, from the soft couch of her sleeping
Lover
In keen pursuit-and gave, where'er she flew,
Impetuous motion to the Stars above her.
A solitary Wolf-dog, ranging on
Through the bleak concave, wakes this won-
drous chime
Of aëry voices locked in unison,
Below the icy bed of bright ARGENTIERE.
Still in the vivid freshness of a dream,
The pageant haunts me as it met our eyes!
Still, with those white-robed Shapes-a living
Stream,
The glacier Pillars join in solemn guise
For the same service, by mysterious ties:
Numbers exceeding credible account
Of number, pure and silent Votaries
Issuing or issued from a wintry fount;
Faint-far-off-near-deep-solemn and sub- The impenetrable heart of that exalted Mount!
So, from the body of one guilty deed,
A thousand ghostly fears, and haunting thoughts,
proceed!
SUGGESTED ON A SABBATH MORNING IN THE
VALE OF CHAMOUNY.
To appease the Gods; or public thanks to yield;
Or to solicit knowledge of events,
Which in her breast Futurity concealed;
To act the God among external things,
To bind, on apt suggestion, or unbind;
And marvel not that antique Faith inclined
To crowd the world with metamorphosis,
Vouchsafed in pity, or in wrath assigned;
Such insolent temptations wouldst thou miss,
Avoid these sights; nor brood o'er Fable's
dark abyss!
ELEGIAC STANZAS.
The lamented Youth whose untimely death gave occasion to these elegiac verses was Frederick William Goddard, from Boston in North America. He was in his twentieth year, and had resided for some time with a clergyman in the neighbourhood of Geneva for the completion of his education. Accompanied by a fel low-pupil, a native of Scotland, he had just set out on a Swiss tour when it was his misfortune to fall in with a friend of mine who was hastening to join our party. The travellers, after spending a day together on the road from Berne and at Soleure, took leave of each other at night, the young men having intended to proceed directly to Zurich. But early in the morning my friend found his new acquaintances, who were informed of the object of his journey, and the friends he was in pursuit of, equipped to accompany him. We met at Lucerne the succeeding evening, and Mr G. and his fellowstudent became in consequence our travelling companions for a couple of days. We ascended the Righi together; and, after contemplating the sunrise from that noble mountain, we separated at an hour and on a spot well suited to the parting of those who were to meet no more. Our party descended through the valley of our Lady of the Snow, and our late companions, to Art. We had hoped to meet in a few weeks at Geneva; but on the third succeeding day (on the 21st of August) Mr Goddard perished, being overset in a boat while crossing the lake of Zurich. His companion saved himself by swimmung, and was hospitably received in the mansion of a Swiss gentleman (M. Keller) situated on the eastern coast of the lake. The corpse of poor Goddard was cast ashore on the estate of the same gentleman, who generously performed all the rites of hospitality which could be rendered to the dead as well as to the living. He caused a handsome mural monument to be erected in the church of Küsnacht, which records the premature fate of the young American, and on the shores too of the lake the traveller may read an inscription pointing out the spot where the body was deposited by the waves. LULLED by the sound of pastoral bells, Rude Nature's Pilgrims did we go, From the dread summit of the Queen* Of mountains, through a deep ravine, Where, in her holy chapel, dwells "Our Lady of the Snow."
The sky was blue, the air was mild;
Free were the streams and green the bowers;
As if, to rough assaults unknown,
The genial spot had ever shown
• Mount Righi-Regina Montium.
A countenance that as sweetly smiledThe face of summer hours.
And we were gay, our hearts at ease;
With pleasure dancing through the frame
We journeyed; all we knew of care-
Our path that straggled here and there;
Of trouble-but the fluttering breeze;
Of Winter-but a name.
If foresight could have rent the veil
Of three short days-but hush-no more!
Calm is the grave, and calmer none
Than that to which thy cares are gone,
Thou victim of the stormy gale;
Asleep on ZURICH'S shore!
Oh GODDARD! what art thou?-a name-
A sunbeam followed by a shade!
Nor more, for aught that time supplies.
The great, the experienced, and the wise;
Too much from this frall earth we claim,
And therefore are betrayed.
We met, while festive mirth ran wild,
Where, from a deep lake's mighty urn,
Forth slips, like an enfranchised slave,
A sea-green river, proud to lave,
With current swift and undefiled,
The towers of old LUCERNE.
We parted upon solemn ground
Far-lifted towards the unfading sky:
But all our thoughts were then of Earth,
That gives to common pleasures birth;
And nothing in our hearts we found
That prompted even a sigh.
Fetch, sympathising Powers of air,
Fetch, ye that post o'er seas and lands,
Herbs moistened by Virginian dew,
A most untimely grave to strew,
Whose turf may never know the care
Of kindred human hands!
Beloved by every gentle Muse
He left his Transatlantic home:
Europe, a realised romance,
Had opened on his eager glance;
What present bliss!-what golden views!
What stores for years to come!
Though lodged within no vigorous frame
His soul her daily tasks renewed,
Blithe as the lark on sun-gilt wings
High poised-or as the wren that sings
In shady places, to proclaim
Her modest gratitude.
Not vain is sadly-uttered praise;
The words of truth's memorial vow
Are sweet as morning fragrance shed
From flowers mid GOLDAU's ruins bred;
As evening's fondly-lingering rays,
On RIGHI's silent brow.
Lamented Youth! to thy cold clay
Fit obsequies the Stranger paid;
And piety shall guard the Stone
Which hath not left the spot unknown
Where the wild waves resigned their prey
And that which marks thy bed.
And, when thy Mother weeps for Thee,
Lost Youth! a solitary Mother;
This tribute from a casual Friend
A not unwelcome aid may lend.
To feed the tender luxury,
The rising pang to smother.
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