Kind Nature's charities his steps attend;
In every babbling brook he finds a friend;
While 1 chastening thoughts of sweetest use, bestowed
By wisdom, moralise his pensive road.
Host of his welcome inn, the noon-tide bower,
To his spare meal he calls the passing poor;
He views the sun uplift his golden fire,
Or sink, with heart alive like Memnon's lyre;
Blesses the moon that comes with kindly ray,
To light him shaken by his rugged way.2
Back from his sight no bashful children steal;
He sits a brother at the cottage-meal; 3
His humble looks no shy restraint impart ;
Around him plays at will the virgin heart.
While unsuspended wheels the village dance,
The maidens eye him with enquiring glance,
Much wondering by what fit of crazing care,
Or desperate love, bewildered, he came there.4
A hope, that prudence could not then approve,
That clung to Nature with a truant's love,
O'er Gallia's wastes of corn my footsteps led;
Her files of road-elms, high above my head
Much wondering what sad stroke of crazing Care,
Or desperate Love could lead a wanderer there.
Much wondering in what fit of crazing care,
Or desperate love, a wanderer came there.
*The lyre of Memnon is reported to have emitted melancholy or chearful tones, as it was touched by the sun's evening or morning rays.-W. W.
In long-drawn vista, rustling in the breeze;
Or where her pathways straggle as they please
By lonely farms and secret villages.
But lo! the Alps ascending white in air,1
Toy with the sun and glitter from afar.
And now, emerging from the forest's gloom,
I greet thee, Chartreuse, while I mourn thy doom.
Whither is fled that Power whose frown severe
Awed sober Reason till she crouched in fear? 2
That Silence, once in deathlike fetters bound,
Chains that were loosened only by the sound
Of holy rites chanted in measured round ? 3
Me, lured by hope her sorrows to remove,
A heart that could not much itself approve,
O'er Gallia's wastes of corn dejected led,
Her road elms rustling high above my head,
Or through her truant pathways' native charms,
By secret villages and lonely farms,
To where the Alps
could not much herself approve, lured by hope its sorrows to remove,
The lines 46, 47, were expanded in the edition of 1836 from one line in the editions of 1820-1832.
I sigh at hoary Chartreuse' doom.
Where now is fled that Power whose frown severe
Tamed "sober Reason" till she crouched in fear?
That breathed a death-like peace these woods around;
The cloister startles
Even now, emerging from the forest's gloom,
I heave a sigh at hoary Chartreuse' doom.
Where now is fled that Power whose frown severe
Tamed ""
'sober Reason" till she crouched in fear? 1820.
That breathed a death-like silence wide around,
Broke only by the unvaried torrent's sound,
Or prayer-bell by the dull cicada drown'd.
The editions of 1827 and 1832 omit these lines.
-The voice of blasphemy the fane alarms,
The cloister startles at the gleam of arms.1
The 2 thundering tube the aged angler hears,*
Bent o'er the groaning flood that sweeps away his tears.3
Cloud-piercing pine-trees nod their troubled heads,+
Spires, rocks, and lawns a browner night o'erspreads ;
Strong terror checks the female peasant's sighs,
And start the astonished shades at female eyes.
From Bruno's forest screams the affrighted jay,
And slow the insulted eagle wheels away.
A viewless flight of laughing Demons mock
The Cross, by angels planted † on the aërial rock.5
The "parting Genius"‡ sighs with hollow breath
Along the mystic streams of Life and Death.§
Swelling the outcry dull, that long resounds
Portentous through her old woods' trackless bounds,
The cloister startles at the gleam of arms,
And Blasphemy the shuddering fane alarms;
The edition of 1836 returns to the text of 1793.
And swells the groaning torrent with his tears.
In the editions 1815-1832 lines 61, 62 followed line 66.
Nod the cloud-piercing pines their troubled heads, 1815.
* Compare Pope's Windsor Forest, ll. 129, 130;
He lifts the tube, and levels with his eye:
Straight a short thunder breaks the frozen sky :-ED.
Alluding to crosses seen on the tops of the spiry rocks of the Chartreuse, which have every appearance of being inaccessible.-W. W. 1793.
Compare Milton's Ode on the Nativity, stanza xx.-ED.
§ Names of rivers at the Chartreuse.-W. W. 1793.
Vallombre,* 'mid her falling fanes deplores
For ever broke, the sabbath of her bowers.
* More pleased, my foot the hidden margin roves
Of Como, bosomed deep in chestnut groves.
No meadows thrown between, the giddy steeps
Tower, bare or sylvan, from the narrow deeps.
—To towns, whose shades of no rude noise1 complain,
From ringing team apart 2 and grating wain—
To flat-roofed towns, that touch the water's bound,
Or lurk in woody sunless glens profound,
Or, from the bending rocks, obtrusive cling,
And o'er the whitened wave their shadows fling-
The pathway leads, as round the steeps it twines ; 3
And Silence loves its purple roof of vines.
The loitering traveller 4 hence, at evening, sees
From rock-hewn steps the sail between the trees ;
Or marks, 'mid opening cliffs, fair dark-eyed maids
Tend the small harvest of their garden glades;
Or stops the solemn mountain-shades to view
Stretch o'er the pictured mirror broad and blue,
And track the yellow lights from steep to steep,
As up the opposing hills they slowly creep.5
As up the opposing hills, with tortoise foot, they creep.
* Name of one of the valleys of the Chartreuse.-W. W. 1793.
Aloft, here, half a village shines, arrayed
In golden light;1 half hides itself in shade:
While, from amid the darkened roofs, the spire,
Restlessly flashing, seems to mount like fire : 2
There, all unshaded, blazing forests throw
Rich golden verdure on the lake 3 below.
Slow glides the sail along the illumined shore,
And steals into the shade the lazy oar;
Soft bosoms breathe around contagious sighs,
And amorous music on the water dies.
How blest, delicious scene! the eye that greets
Thy open beauties, or thy lone retreats;
Beholds the unwearied sweep of wood that scales
Thy cliffs; the endless waters of thy vales ; 4
Thy lowly cots that sprinkle all the shore,5
Each with its 6 household boat beside the door ;
7 Thy torrents shooting from the clear-blue sky;
Here half a village shines, in gold arrayed,
Bright as the moon ;
From the dark sylvan roofs the restless spire
Inconstant glancing, mounts like springing fire.
Th' unwearied sweep of wood thy cliffs that scales;
The never-ending waters of thy vales;
5 1836. Line III was previously three lines, thus-
The cots, those dim religious groves embower,
Or, under rocks that from the water tower
Insinuated, sprinkling all the shore,
Whose flaccid sails in forms fantastic droop,
Bright'ning the gloom where thick the forests stoop;
Only in the editions 1815 to 1832.
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