CLARENS. (CHILDE HAROLD, Canto iii. Stanzas 99-104.) CLARENS! Sweet Clarens, birthplace of deep Love! The permanent crags, tell here of Love, who sought Which stir and sting the soul with hope that woos, then mocks. Clarens! by heavenly feet thy paths are trod,— To which the steps are mountains; where the god Not on those summits solely, nor alone In the still cave and forest; o'er the flower His eye is sparkling, and his breath hath blown, His soft and summer breath, whose tender power Passes the strength of storms in their most desolate hour. All things are here of him; from the black pines, Which slope his green path downward to the shore, H Where the bow'd waters meet him, and adore, A populous solitude of bees and birds, Who worship him with notes more sweet than words, Fearless and full of life: the gush of springs, Of stirring branches, and the bud which brings He who hath loved not, here would learn that lore, For this is Love's recess, where vain men's woes, And the world's waste, have driven him far from those, For 'tis his nature to advance or die; He stands not still, but or decays, or grows Into a boundless blessing, which may vie With the immortal lights, in its eternity. 'Twas not for fiction chose Rousseau this spot, And wonderful, and deep, and hath a sound, And sense, and sight of sweetness; here the Rhone Hath spread himself a couch, the Alps have rear'd a throne. ITALY. (CHILDE HAROLD, Canto iv. Stanzas 42-47.) ITALIA! oh Italia! thou who hast The fatal gift of beauty, which became Oh, God! that thou wert in thy nakedness Then might'st thou more appal; or, less desired, Be homely and be peaceful, undeplored For thy destructive charms; then, still untired, Would not be seen the armed torrents pour'd Down the deep Alps; nor would the hostile horde Of many-nation'd spoilers from the Po Quaff blood and water; nor the stranger's sword Be thy sad weapon of defence, and so, Victor or vanquish'd, thou the slave of friend or foe Wandering in youth, I traced the path of him,1 1 Servius Sulpicius. See Middleton's Cicero, vol. ii. p. 371. Came Megara before me, and behind For Time hath not rebuilt them, but uprear'd The moral lesson bears, drawn from such pilgrimage. That page is now before me, and on mine Of perish'd states he mourn'd in their decline, Of then destruction is; and now, alas! Rome Rome imperial, bows her to the storm, Wrecks of another world, whose ashes still are warm. Yet, Italy! through every other land Thy wrongs should ring, and shall, from side to side; Shall yet redeem thee, and, all backward driven, VENICE. (CHILDE HAROLD, Canto iv. Stanzas 1-4.) I STOOD in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; I saw from out the wave her structures rise O'er the far times, when many a subject land Look'd to the winged Lion's marble piles, Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles! She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, A ruler of the waters and their powers: And such she was ;-her daughters had their dowers From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East Pour'd in her lap all gems in sparkling showers. In purple was she robed, and of her feast Monarchs partook, and deem'd their dignity increased. |