GROTTO OF EGERIA.

(CHILDE HAROLD, Canto iv. Stanzas 115-124.)

EGERIA! Sweet creation of some heart
Which found no mortal resting-place so fair
As thine ideal breast; whate'er thou art
Or wert,-
—a young Aurora of the air,
The nympholepsy of some fond despair;
Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth,

Who found a more than common votary there

Too much adoring; whatsoe'er thy birth,

Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth.

The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled
With thine Elysian water-drops; the face

Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years unwrinkled,
Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place,

Whose green,

wild margin now no more erase Art's works, nor must the delicate waters sleep, Prison'd in marble; bubbling from the base

Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap

The rill runs o'er, and round, fern, flowers, and ivy, creep

Fantastically tangled; the green hills

Are clothed with early blossoms, through the grass
The quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the bills
Of summer-birds sing welcome as ye pass;

Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their class,
Implore the pausing step, and with their dyes
Dance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass;

The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes,
Kiss'd by the breath of heaven, seems coloured by its skies.

Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover,
Egeria! thy all heavenly bosom beating
For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover;
The purple Midnight veiled that mystic meeting
With her most starry canopy, and seating
Thyself by thine adorer, what befell?

This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting
Of an enamoured Goddess, and the cell
Haunted by holy Love-the earliest oracle!

And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying,
Blend a celestial with a human heart;

And Love, which dies as it was born, in sighing,
Share with immortal transports? could thine art
Make them indeed immortal, and impart

The purity of heaven to earthly joys,
Expel the venom and not blunt the dart-

The dull satiety which all destroys—

And root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys?

Alas! our young affections run to waste, Or water but the desert; whence arise But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste, Rank at the core, though tempting to the eyes, Flowers whose wild odours breathe but agonies, And trees whose gums are poison; such the plants Which spring beneath her steps as Passion flies O'er the world's wilderness, and vainly pants For some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants.

Oh Love! no habitant of earth thou art-
An unseen seraph, we believe in thee,
A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart,
But never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see
The naked eye, thy form, as it should be;
The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaven,
Even with its own desiring phantasy,

And to a thought such shape and image given, As haunts the unquench'd soul-parch'd-wearied— wrung-and riven.

Of its own beauty is the mind diseased,
And fevers into false creation ;-where,

Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seized?
In him alone. Can Nature show so fair?
Where are the charms and virtues which we dare
Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men,

The unreach'd Paradise of our despair,

Which o'er-informs the pencil and the pen, And overpowers the page where it would bloom again?

Who loves, raves-'
-'tis youth's frenzy-but the cure
Is bitterer still: as charm by charm unwinds
Which robed our idols, and we see too sure
Nor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind's
Ideal shape of such; yet still it binds
The fatal spell, and still it draws us on,

Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds;
The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun,

Seems ever near the prize-wealthiest when most undone.

We wither from our youth, we gasp away—
Sick-sick; unfound the boon-unslaked the thirst,
Though to the last, in verge of our decay,

Some phantom lures, such as we sought at first

But all too late,—so are we doubly curst. Love, fame, ambition, avarice—'tis the same, Each idle—and all ill—and none the worst— For all are meteors with a different name, And Death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame.

SONNET ON CHILLON.

ETERNAL Spirit of the chainless Mind!
Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art,
For there thy habitation is the heart—
The heart which love of thee alone can bind ;
And when thy sons to fetters are consign'd—

To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, Their country conquers with their martyrdom, And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind. Chillon thy prison is a holy place,

And thy sad floor an altar-for 'twas trod, Until his very steps have left a trace

Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod, By Bonnivard!-May none those marks efface! For they appeal from tyranny to God.

BONNIVARD AND HIS BROTHERS.

(Prisoner of CHILLON, Stanzas 6-8.)

LAKE Leman lies by Chillon's walls :
A thousand feet in depth below
Its massy waters meet and flow;
Thus much the fathom-line was sent
From Chillon's snow-white battlement,

Which round about the wave inthrals:
A double dungeon wall and wave
Have made and like a living grave.
Below the surface of the lake

The dark vault lies wherein we lay,
We heard it ripple night and day;

Sounding o'er our heads it knock'd;
And I have felt the winter's spray

Wash through the bars when winds were high
And wanton in the happy sky;

And then the very rock hath rock'd,
And I have felt it shake, unshock'd,

Because I could have smiled to see
The death that would have set me free.

I said my nearer brother pined,

I said his mighty heart declined,
He loathed and put away his food;
It was not that 'twas coarse and rude,
For we were used to hunter's fare,
And for the like had little care :