THE GREEK BOY. Thine ears have drunk the woodland strains Heard by old poets, and thy veins Swell with the blood of demigods, That slumber in thy country's sods. Now is thy nation free-though late— Broke, ere thy spirit felt its weight, And Greece, decayed, dethroned, doth see The nations silent in its shade. 175 "UPON THE MOUNTAIN'S DISTANT HEAD." UPON the mountain's distant head, With trackless snows forever white, But far below those icy rocks, The vales, in summer bloom arrayed, Are dim with mist and dark with shade. 'Tis thus, from warm and kindly hearts But lingers with the cold and stern. SONNET-WILLIAM TELL. CHAINS may subdue the feeble spirit, but thee, That creed is written on the untrampled snow, Thundered by torrents which no power can hold, Save that of God, when he sends forth his cold, And breathed by winds that through the free heaven blow. Thou, while thy prison walls were dark around Didst meditate the lesson Nature taught, And to thy brief captivity was brought A vision of thy Switzerland unbound. The bitter cup they mingled, strengthened thee TO THE RIVER ARVE. SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN AT A HAMLET NEAR THE FOOT OF MONT BLANC. NOT from the sands or cloven rocks, Thy dark unfathomed wells below. Born where the thunder and the blast, With heaven's own beam and image shine. Yet stay! for here are flowers and trees; Here linger till thy waves are clear. TO THE RIVER ARVE. Thou heedest not-thou hastest on; From steep to steep thy torrent falls, Till, mingling with the mighty Rhone, It rests beneath Geneva's walls. Rush on -but were there one with me That loved me, I would light my hearth Here, where with God's own majesty Are touched the features of the earth. Among the blossoms at their feet. 179 |