And oh, fair France! though in the rural shade Where at his will, so late, the grey-clad peasant strayed, Now, clothed in war's discordant garb, he sees The three-striped banner fluctuate on the breeze; Though martial songs have banished songs of love, And nightingales desert the village grove, Scared by the fife and rumbling drum's alarms, And the short thunder, and the flash of arms; That cease not till night falls, when far and nigh, Sole sound, the Sourd * prolongs his mournful cry! -Yet, hast thou found that Freedom spreads her Beyond the cottage-hearth, the cottage-door: All nature smiles, and owns beneath her eyes Her fields peculiar, and peculiar skies. Yes, as I roamed where Loiret's waters glide Through rustling aspens heard from side to side, When from October clouds a milder light
Fell, where the blue flood rippled into white,
Methought from every cot the watchful bird
Crowed with ear-piercing power till then unheard;
Each clacking mill, that broke the murmuring streams,
Rocked the charmed thought in more delightful dreams;
Chasing those pleasant dreams, the falling leaf
Awoke a fainter pang of moral grief;
The measured echo of the distant flail
Wound in more welcome cadence down the vale ;
* An insect so called, which emits a short, melancholy cry, heard at the
close of the summer evenings, on the banks of the Loire.
With more majestic course * the water rolled,
And ripening foliage shone with richer gold.
-But foes are gathering-Liberty must raise
Red on the hills her beacon's far-seen blaze;
Must bid the tocsin ring from tower to tower!—
Nearer and nearer comes the trying hour!
Rejoice, brave Land, though pride's perverted ire
Rouse hell's own aid, and wrap thy fields in fire
Lo, from the flames a great and glorious birth;
As if a new-made heaven were hailing a new earth! -All cannot be the promise is too fair
For creatures doomed to breathe terrestrial air:
Yet not for this will sober reason frown
Upon that promise, nor the hope disown;
She knows that only from high aims ensue
Rich guerdons, and to them alone are due.
Great God! by whom the strifes of men are weighed In an impartial balance, give thine aid
To the just cause; and, oh! do thou preside
Over the mighty stream now spreading wide :
So shall its waters, from the heavens supplied
In copious showers, from earth by wholesome springs,
Brood o'er the long-parched lands with Nile-like wings!
And grant that every sceptred child of clay
Who cries presumptuous, "Here the flood shall stay,"
The duties upon many parts of the French rivers were so exorbitant, that the poorer people, deprived of the benefit of water carriage, were obliged to transport their goods by land.
May in its progress see thy guiding hand,
And cease the acknowledged purpose to withstand;
Or, swept in
anger from the insulted shore,
Sink with his servile bands, to rise no more!
To night, my Friend, within this humble cot
Be fear and joyful hope alike forgot
In timely sleep; and when, at break of day,
On the tall peaks the glistening sunbeams play,
With a light heart our course we may renew,
The first whose footsteps print the mountain dew.
My Father was a good and pious man,
An honest man by honest parents bred;
And I believe that, soon as I began
To lisp, he made me kneel beside my bed,
And in his hearing there my prayers I said:
And afterwards, by my good father taught,
I read, and loved the books in which I read ;
For books in every neighbouring house I sought,
And nothing to my mind a sweeter pleasure brought.
Can I forget our croft and plot of corn;
Our garden, stored with peas, and mint, and thyme ;
And rose, and lily-for the sabbath morn?
The sabbath bells, and their delightful chime;
The gambols and wild freaks at shearing-time;
My hen's rich nest through long grass scarce espied;
The cowslip-gathering in June's dewy prime;
The swans, that with white chests upheaved in pride,
Rushing and racing came to meet me at the waterside.
The staff I yet remember which upbore
The bending body of my active Sire;
His seat beneath the honied sycamore
Where the bees hummed, and chair by winter fire;
When market-morning came, the neat attire
With which, though bent on haste, myself I decked;
Our watchful house-dog, that would tease and tire
The stranger, till its barking-fit I checked;
The red-breast, known for years, which at my casement pecked.
The suns of twenty summers danced along,—
Ah! little marked how fast they rolled away:
But, through severe mischance, and cruel wrong,
My father's substance fell into decay:
We toiled, and struggled, hoping for a day
When Fortune should put on a kinder look ;
But vain were wishes, efforts vain as they;
He from his old hereditary nook
Must part; the summons came, our final leave we took.
It was indeed a miserable hour
When, from the last hill-top, my sire surveyed,
Peering above the trees, the steeple tower
That on his marriage-day sweet music made!
Till then, he hoped his bones might there be laid,
Close by my mother in their native bowers:
Bidding me trust in God, he stood and prayed,-
I could not pray-through tears that fell in showers,
Glimmered our dear-loved home, alas! no longer ours!
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