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AH! little thought she, when, with wild delight,
By many a torrent's shining track she flew,
When mountain-glens and caverns full of night
O'er her young mind divine enchantment threw,

That in her veins a secret horror slept,

That her light footsteps should be heard no more,
That she should die-nor watched, alas, nor wept
By thee, unconscious of the pangs she bore.

Yet round her couch indulgent Fancy drew

The kindred forms her closing eye required.

There didst thou stand-there, with the smile she knew. She moved her lips to bless thee, and expired.

* On the death of her sister.

And now to thee she comes; still, still the same As in the hours gone unregarded by!

To thee, how changed, comes as she ever came; Health on her cheek, and pleasure in her eye!

Nor less, less oft, as on that day, appears,
When lingering, as prophetic of the truth,
By the way-side she shed her parting tears—
For ever lovely in the light of Youth!

WRITTEN IN A SICK CHAMBER.

THERE, in that bed so closely curtained round,
Worn to a shade, and wan with slow, decay,
A father sleeps! Oh hushed be every sound!
Soft may we breathe the midnight hours away!

He stirs yet still he sleeps. May heavenly dreams Long o'er his smooth and settled pillow rise;

Till thro' the shuttered pane the morning streams,
And on the hearth the glimmering rush-light dies.

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WRITTEN AT MEILLERIE,

SEPTEMBER 30, 1814.

THESE

HESE grey majestic cliffs that tower to Heaven,

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,
When thro' some loop-hole he surveys the lake
Blue as a sapphire-stone, and richly set
With chateaux, villages, and village-spires,
Orchards and vineyards, alps and alpine snows?
Here would I dwell; nor visit but in thought
Ferney far south, silent and empty now

As now thy Chartreuse and thy bowers, Ripaille;
Vevay, so long an exiled Patriot's home;

Or Chillon's dungeon-floors beneath the wave,

Channelled and worn by pacing to and fro;
Lausanne, where Gibbon in his favourite walk
Nightly called up the Shade of antient Rome;
Or Coppet, and that dark untrodden grove
Sacred to Virtue, and a daughter's tears!
Here would I dwell, forgetting and forgot;
And oft methinks (of such strange potency
The spells that Genius scatters where he will)
Oft should I wander forth like one in search,
And say, half-dreaming, "Here St. Preux has been!"'
Then turn and gaze on Clarens.

Yet there is,

Within an eagle's flight, a nobler scene,

Thy lake, Lucerne, 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

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