A something that informs him 'tis a moment

Whence he may date henceforward and for ever?

To me they seemed the barriers of a World,

Saying, Thus far, no farther! and as o'er

The level plain I travelled silently,

Nearing them more and more, day after day,

My wandering thoughts my only company,

And they before me still, oft as I looked,

A strange delight, mingled with fear, came o'er me,

A wonder as at things I had not heard of!

Oft as I looked, I felt as though it were

For the first time!

Great was the tumult there,

Deafening the din, when in barbaric pomp

D

The Carthaginian on his march to ROME

Entered their fastnesses. Trampling the snows,

The war-horse reared; and the towered elephant Upturned his trunk into the murky sky,

Then tumbled headlong, swallowed up and lost,

He and his rider.

Now the scene is changed;

And o'er Mont Cenis, o'er the Simplon winds

A path of pleasure. Like a silver zone

Flung about carelessly, it shines afar,
Catching the eye in many a broken link,
In many a turn and traverse as it glides;
And oft above and oft below appears,
Seen o'er the wall by him who journies up,
As though it were another, not the same,

Leading along he knows not whence or whither.

Yet thro' its fairy-course, go where it will,

The torrent stops it not, the rugged rock

Opens and lets it in; and on it runs,

Winning its easy way from clime to clime

Through glens locked up before.

Not such my path!

Mine but for those, who, like Jean Jaques, delight

In dizziness, gazing and shuddering on

Till fascination comes and the brain turns!

Mine, though I judge but from my ague-fits

Over the DRANCE, just where the Abbot fell,

The same as HANNIBAL'S.

But now 'tis past,

That turbulent Chaos; and the promised land

Lies at my feet in all its loveliness!

To him who starts up from a terrible dream,

And lo, the sun is shining, and the lark

Singing aloud for joy, to him is not

Such sudden ravishment as now I feel

At the first glimpses of fair ITALY.

VII.

I LOVE to sail along the LARIAN Lake

Under the shore-though not to visit PLINY,

To catch him musing in his plane-tree walk,

Or fishing, as he might be, from his window:

And, to deal plainly, (may his Shade forgive me!)

Could I recall the ages past, and play

The fool with Time, I should perhaps reserve

My leisure for CATULLUS on his Lake,

Though to fare worse, or VIRGIL at his farm