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...
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;...
By antique Fancy trimmed, though lowly, bred To dignity in thee, O Schwytz! are seen The genuine features of the golden mean; Equality by Prudence governed, Or jealous Nature ruling in her stead;...
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;...
How blest the Maid whose heart, yet free From Love's uneasy sovereignty Beats with a fancy running high, Her simple cares to magnify; Whom Labour, never urged to toil,...
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....
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,...
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."...
Lo! in the burning west, the craggy nape Of a proud Ararat! and, thereupon, The Ark, her melancholy voyage done! Yon rampant cloud mimics a lion's shape; There, combats a huge crocodile agape...
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...
Why cast ye back upon the Gallic shore, Ye furious waves! a patriotic Son Of England, who in hope her coast had won, His project crowned, his pleasant travel o'er?...
Where be the noisy followers of the game Which faction breeds; the turmoil where? that passed Through Europe, echoing from the newsman's blast, And filled our hearts with grief for England's shame....
From the Pier's head, musing, and with increase Of wonder, I have watched this sea-side Town, Under the white cliff's battlemented crown, Hushed to a depth of more than Sabbath peace:...
Is then the final page before me spread, Nor further outlet left to mind or heart? Presumptuous Book! too forward to be read, How can I give thee licence to depart? One tribute more: unbidden feelings start...
Squire nagged and bullied till I went to fight (Under Lord Derby's scheme). I died in hell - (They called it Passchendaele); my wound was slight, And I was hobbling back, and then a shell...
Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece, Long since, saw Byron's struggle cease. But one such death remain'd to come; The last poetic voice is dumb We stand to-day by Wordsworth's tomb. ...
A life more bright than the sun's face, bowed Through stress of season and coil of cloud, Sets: and the sorrow that casts out fear Scarce deems him dead in his chill still shroud,...
O spirit of the mountain that speaks to us to-night, Your voice is sad, yet still recalls past visions of delight, When 'mid the grand old Laurentides, old when the earth was new,...