STILL by the LEMAN Lake, for many a mile,
Among those venerable trees I went,

Where damsels sit and weave their fishing-nets,
Singing some national song by the way-side.

But now the fly was gone, the gnat was come;
Now glimmering lights from cottage-windows broke.
'Twas dusk; and, journeying upward by the RHONE,
That there came down, a torrent from the Alps,
I entered where a key unlocks a kingdom;
The road and river, as they wind along,

Filling the mountain-pass. There, till a ray
Glanced through my lattice, and the household-stir
Warned me to rise, to rise and to depart,

A stir unusual, and accompanied

With many a tuning of rude instruments,

And many a laugh that argued coming pleasure,
Mine host's fair daughter for the nuptial rite
And nuptial feast attiring-there I slept,

And in my dreams wandered once more, well pleased.
But now a charm was on the rocks and woods
And waters; for, methought, I was with those

I had at morn and even wished for there.

NIGHT was again descending, when my mule,
That all day long had climbed among the clouds,
Higher and higher still, as by a stair

Let down from heaven itself, transporting me,
Stopped, to the joy of both, at that low door,
That door which ever, as self-opened, moves
To them that knock, and nightly sends abroad
Ministering Spirits. Lying on the watch,
Two dogs of grave demeanour welcomed me,

All meekness, gentleness, though large of limb;
And a lay-brother of the Hospital,

Who, as we toiled below, had heard by fits
The distant echoes gaining on his ear,

Came and held fast my stirrup in his hand

While I alighted. Long could I have stood,
With a religious awe contemplating

That House, the highest in the Ancient World,
And destined to perform from age to age
The noblest service, welcoming as guests
All of all nations and of every faith;

A temple, sacred to Humanity! *

It was a pile of simplest masonry,

With narrow windows and vast buttresses,
Built to endure the shocks of time and chance;

Yet showing many a rent, as well it might,
Warred on for ever by the elements,

And in an evil day, nor long ago,

By violent men—when on the mountain-top

The French and Austrian banners met in conflict.

On the same rock beside it stood the church,

Reft of its cross, not of its sanctity;

* In the course of the year they entertain from thirty to thirty-five thousand travellers.-Le Père BISELX, Prieur,

The vesper-bell, for 'twas the vesper-hour,
Duly proclaiming through the wilderness,

6 All ye who hear, whatever be your work,
Stop for an instant-move your lips in prayer!'
And, just beneath it, in that dreary dale,
If dale it might be called, so near to heaven,
A little lake, where never fish leaped up,
Lay like a spot of ink amid the snow;

A star, the only one in that small sky,
On its dead surface glimmering. 'Twas a place
Resembling nothing I had left behind,

As if all worldly ties were now dissolved ;-
And, to incline the mind still more to thought,
To thought and sadness, on the eastern shore
Under a beetling cliff stood half in gloom
A lonely chapel destined for the dead,

For such as, having wandered from their way,
Had perished miserably. Side by side,

Within they lie, a mournful company,

All in their shrouds, no earth to cover them;
Their features full of life yet motionless

In the broad day, nor soon to suffer change,
Though the barred windows, barred against the wolf,

Are always open!-But the North blew cold;