WRITTEN AT MEILLERIE, SEPTEMBER 30, 1814. THESE These glimmering glades and open chesnut-groves, That echo to the heifer's wandering bell, Or wood-man's axe, or steers-man's song beneath, As on he urges his fir-laden bark, Or shout of goatherd-boy above them all, Who loves not? And who blesses not the light, As now thy Chartreuse and thy bowers, Ripaille ; ; * Or Chillon's dungeon-floors beneath the wave, Yet there is, Within an eagle's flight, a nobler scene, * The retreat of Amadeus, the first Duke of Savoy. Voltaire thus addresses it from his windows. Ripaille, Je te vois. O bizarre Amédée, &c. The residence of Necker, and + Ludlow. afterwards of his daughter, Madame De Staël. That Sacred Lake* shut in among the mountains, Mountains that flank its waves as with a wall Built by the Giant-race before the flood; Where not a cross or chapel but inspires Holy delight, lifting our thoughts to God From God-like men, men in a barbarous age That dared assert their birth-right, and displayed That in the desert sowed the seeds of life, Framing a band of small Republics there, Which still exist, the envy of the World! Who would not land in each, and tread the ground; Such as he read of in his boyish days; Such as Miltiades at Marathon Led, when he chased the Persians to their ships. *The Lake of the Four Cantons. There, while the well-known boat is heaving in, Piled with rude merchandize, or launching forth, Thronged with wild cattle for Italian fairs, There in the sun-shine, mid their native snows, Forming alliances, enacting laws; No cliff or head-land or green promontory First from his lips to learn the glorious truth! And who that whets his scythe in Runnemede, Tho' but for them a slave, recalls to mind The barons in array with their great charter? There to burn on as in a Sanctuary, Bright and unsullied lives the' ethereal flame. 'Twas Freedom kindled it; Religion guards it. And mid those scenes unchanged, unchangeable, Why should it ever die? |