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Whom labour, never urged to toil,

Hath cherished on a healthful soil;

Who knows not pomp, who heeds not pelf;
Whose heaviest sin it is to look

Askance upon her pretty self

Reflected in some crystal brook;

Whom grief hath spared, who sheds no tear
But in sweet pity; and can hear
Another's praise from envy clear.

Such (but O lavish Nature! why
That dark unfathomable eye,
Where lurks a spirit that replies
To stillest mood of softest skies,
Yet hints at peace to be o'erthrown,
Another's first, and then her own?)
Such, haply, yon ITALIAN maid,
Our Lady's laggard votaress,
Halting beneath the chestnut shade
To accomplish there her loveliness:
Nice aid maternal fingers lend;
A Sister serves with slacker hand;

Then, glittering like a star, she joins the festal band.

How blest (if truth may entertain
Coy fancy with a bolder strain)

The HELVETIAN girl, who daily braves,

In her light skiff, the tossing waves,
And quits the bosom of the deep
Only to climb the rugged steep!
Say whence that modulated shout!
From wood-nymph of Diana's throng?
Or does the greeting to a rout
Of giddy Bacchanals belong?
Jubilant outcry! rock and glade
Resounded, but the voice obeyed
The breath of an Helvetian maid.

Her beauty dazzles the thick wood;
Her courage animates the flood;

Her steps the elastic green-sward meets
Returning unreluctant sweets;
The mountains (as ye heard) rejoice
Aloud, saluted by her voice!
Blithe paragon of Alpine grace,
Be as thou art, for through thy veins
The blood of heroes runs its race!
And nobly wilt thou brook the chains
That, for the virtuous, life prepares ;
The fetters which the matron wears;
The patriot mother's weight of anxious cares!

"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 flowing 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!

1 See address to a Highland Girl," p. 218.

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!

STANZAS

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 roar;
To range through the temples of PAESTUM, to muse
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!

The beauty of Florence, the grandeur of Rome, Could I leave them unseen, and not yield to regret? With a hope (and no more) for a season to come, Which ne'er may discharge the magnificent debt?

Thou fortunate region! whose greatness inurned
Awoke to new life from its ashes and dust;
Twice-glorified fields ! if in sadness I turned
From your infinite marvels, the sadness was just.

Now, risen ere the light-footed chamois retires

From dew-sprinkled grass to heights guarded with

snow,

Towards the mists that hang over the land of my sires,

From the climate of myrtles contented I go.

My thoughts become bright like yon edging of pines On the steep's lofty verge: how it blackened the air! But, touched from behind by the sun, it now shines With threads that seem part of his own silver hair.

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 withstand:
Each step hath its value while homeward we move ;
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?

ECHO, UPON THE GEMMI

WHAT beast of chase hath broken from the cover?
Stern GEMMI listens to as full a cry,

As multitudinous a harmony

Of sounds as rang the heights of Latmos over,
When, from the soft couch of her sleeping lover
Up-starting, Cynthia skimmed the mountain-dew
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 wondrous chime Of aery voices locked in unison,

Faint-far-off-near-deep-solemn and sublime!— So, from the body of one guilty deed,

A thousand ghostly fears, and haunting thoughts, proceed!

PROCESSIONS

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:

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 boughs 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 lifted 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;

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