Or marks, 'mid opening cliffs, fair dark-eyed maids
Tend the small harvest of their garden glades,
Or stops the solemn mountain-shades to view
Stretch, o'er the pictured mirror, broad and blue,
Tracking the yellow sun from steep to steep,
As up the opposing hills with tortoise foot they creep.
Here, half a village shines, in gold arrayed,
Bright as the moon; half hides itself in shade:
While, from amid the darken'd roofs, the spire,
Restlessly flashing, seems to mount like fire:
There, all unshaded, blazing forests throw
Rich golden verdure on the waves below.
Slow glides the sail along the illumined shore,
And steals into the shade the lazy oar;
Soft bosoms breathe around contagious sighs,
And amorous music on the water dies.
How bless'd, delicious scene! the eye
Thy open beauties, or thy lone retreats;
The unwearied sweep of wood thy cliffs that scales; The never-ending waters of thy vales;
The cots, those dim religious groves embower,
Or, under rocks that from the water tower,
Insinuated, sprinkling all the shore;
Each with his household boat beside the door,
Whose flaccid sails in forms fantastic droop,
Brightening the gloom where thick the forests stoop;
-Thy torrents shooting from the clear-blue sky,
Thy towns, that cleave like swallows' nests, on high;
That glimmer hoar in eve's last light, descried
Dim from the twilight water's shaggy side,
Whence lutes and voices down the enchanted woods
Steal, and compose the oar-forgotten floods;
-Thy lake, 'mid smoking woods, that blue and grey
Gleams, streak'd or dappled, hid from morning's ray
Slow travelling down the western hills, to fold
Its green-tinged margin in a blaze of gold;
From thickly-glittering spires, the matin bell
Calling the woodman from his desert cell,
A summons to the sound of oars, that pass,
Spotting the steaming deeps, to early mass;
Slow swells the service, o'er the water borne,
While fill each pause the ringing woods of morn.
Farewell those forms that in thy noon-tide shade,
Rest, near their little plots of wheaten glade;
Those charms that bind the soul in powerless trance,
Lip-dewing song, and ringlet-tossing dance.
Where sparkling eyes and breaking smiles illume
The sylvan cabin's lute-enliven'd gloom.
Alas! the very murmur of the streams
Breathes o'er the failing soul voluptuous dreams,
While Slavery, forcing the sunk mind to dwell
On joys that might disgrace the captive's cell,
Her shameless timbrel shakes on Como's marge,
And winds, from bay to bay, the vocal barge.
Yet arts are thine that soothe the unquiet heart,
And smiles to Solitude and Want impart.
I loved by silent cottage-doors to roam,
The far-off peasant's day-deserted home;
And once I pierced the mazes of a wood,
Where, far from public haunt, a cabin stood;
There by the door a hoary-headed Sire
Touch'd with his wither'd hand an ancient lyre;
Beneath an old grey oak, as violets lie,
Stretch'd at his feet with stedfast, upward eye,
His children's children join'd the holy sound;
A Hermit with his family around!
But let us hence, for fair Locarno smiles
Embower'd in walnut slopes and citron isles;
Or seek at eve the banks of Tusa's stream,
While, 'mid dim towers and woods, her * waters gleam;
From the bright wave, in solemn gloom, retire
The dull-red steeps, and, darkening still, aspire,
To where afar rich orange lustres glow
Round undistinguish'd clouds, and rocks, and snow;
Or, led where Viamala's chasms confine
The indignant waters of the infant Rhine,
Hang o'er th' abyss: the else impervious gloom
His burning eyes with fearful light illume.
The Grison gipsy here her tent hath placed, Sole human tenant of the piny waste;
Her tawny skin, dark eyes, and glossy locks,
Bend o'er the smoke that curls beneath the rocks.
The mind condemn'd, without reprieve, to go
O'er life's long deserts with its charge of woe,
* The river along whose banks you descend in crossing the Alps by the Simplon Pass.
With sad congratulation joins the train,
Where beasts and men together o'er the plain
Move on a mighty caravan of pain;
Hope, strength, and courage, social suffering brings,
Freshening the waste of sand with shades and springs.
She, solitary, through the desert drear
Spontaneous wanders, hand in hand with Fear.
A giant moan along the forest swells Protracted, and the twilight storm foretels, And, ruining from the cliffs, their deafening load Tumbles, the wildering Thunder slips abroad; On the high summits Darkness comes and goes, Hiding their fiery clouds, their rocks, and snows; The torrent, traversed by the lustre broad, Starts like a horse beside the flashing road; In the roof'd * bridge, at that terrific hour, She seeks a shelter from the battering show'r. - Fierce comes the river down; the crashing wood Gives way, and half its pines torment the flood;
* Most of the bridges among the Alps are of wood and covered these bridges have a heavy appearance, and rather injure the effect of the scenery in some places.
|