Serene he towers, in deepest purple dy'd ; 700 Thy reddening orchards, and thy fields of gold; 705 That thou, the * slave of slaves, art doom'd to pine, To teach the skirt of thy dark cloud to shine; 710 715 And orange gale that o'er Lugano blows; Still have my pilgrim feet unfailing found, 720 As despot courts their blaze of gems display, While Freedom's farthest hamlets blessings share, 725 The casement shade more luscious woodbine binds, And to the door a neater pathway winds, Of weedless herbs a healthier prospect sees, 730 And wilder graces sport around their brow; 735 By clearer taper lit a cleanlier board Receives at supper hour her tempting hoard; The chamber hearth with fresher boughs is spread, And whiter is the hospitable bed. It is scarce necessary to observe that these lines were written before the emancipation of Savoy. A vast extent of marsh so called near the lake of Neuf-chatel. -And thou! fair favoured region! which my soul Sole sound, the † sourd renews his mournful cry: -Yet, hast thou found that Freedom spreads her pow'r Fell, where the blue flood rippled into white, 740 745 750 755 760 This, as may be supposed, was written before France became the seat of war. An insect so called, which emits a short, melancholy cry, heard, at the close of the summer evenings, on the banks of the Loire. The river Loiret, which has the honour of giving name to a department, rises out of the earth at a place, called La Source, a league and a half southeast of Orleans, and taking at once the character of a considerable stream, winds under a most delicious bank on its left, with a flat country of meadows, woods, and vineyards on its right, till it falls into the Loire about three or four leagues below Orleans. The hand of false taste has committed on its banks those outrages which the Abbé de Lille so pathetically deprecates in those charming verses descriptive of the Seine, visiting in secret the retreat of his friend Watelet. Much as the Loiret, in its short course, suffers from injudicious ornament, yet are there spots to be found upon its banks as soothing as meditation could wish for the curious traveller may meet with some of them where it loses itself among the mills in the neighbourhood of the villa called La Fontaine. The walks of La Source, where it takes its rise, may, in the eyes of some people, derive an additional interest from the recollection that they were the retreat of Bolingbroke during his exile, and that here it was that his philosophical works were chiefly composed. The inscriptions, of which he speaks in one of his letters to Swift descriptive of this spot, are not, I believe, now extant. The gardens have been modelled within these twenty years according to a plan evidently not dictated by the taste of the friend of Pope. Crowed with ear-piercing power 'till then unheard ; The measured echo of the distant flail * And glowed the sun-gilt groves in richer gold : 765 770 Red on his hills his beacon's comet blaze; 775 Swing on th' astounded ear it's dull undying roar : 780 785 790 Oh give, great God, to Freedom's waves to ride To break, the vales where Death with Famine scow'rs, And dark Oppression builds her thick-ribb'd tow'rs; 795 800 Look up for sign of havoc, Fire, and Sword; † *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. And, at his heels, Leash'd in like hounds, should Famine, Sword, and Fire, Crouch for employment. -Give them, beneath their breast while Gladness springs, And grant that every sceptred child of clay, Who cries, presumptuous, "here their tides shall stay," To-night, my friend, within this humble cot II 805 810 The following is Wordsworth's Itinerary of the Tour, taken by him and his friend Jones, which gave rise to Descriptive The pedestrians bought a boat at Basle, and in it floated down the Rhine as far as Cologne, intending to proceed in the same way to Ostend; but they returned to England from Cologne by Calais. In the course of this tour, Wordsworth wrote a letter to his sister, dated "Sept. 6, 1790, Keswill, a small village on the Lake of Constance," which will be found amongst his letters in a subsequent volume.-Ed. III The following two variants in Descriptive Sketches are from MS. notes written in the late Lord Coleridge's copy of the edition of 1836-7. 1. 247. 1. 249. Yet the world's business hither finds its way Yet tender thoughts dwell there. No Solitude IV Anecdote for Fathers See Eusebius' Praeparatio Evangelica, vi. 5.— kλeîe Biŋv κάρτος τε λόγων ψευδηγόρα λέξω—which was Apollo's answer to certain persons who tried to force his oracle to reply.—ED. |