Pictures of the Rhine

THE spirit of Romance dies not to thoseWho hold a kindred spirit in their souls:Even as the odorous life within the roseLives in the scattered leaflets and controlsMysterious adoration, so there glowsAbove dead things a thing that cannot die;Faint as the glimmer of a tearful eye,Ere the orb fills and all the sorrow flows.Beauty renews itself in many ways;The flower is fading while the new bud blows;And this dear land as true a symbol shows,While o’er it like a mellow sunset straysThe legendary splendour of old days,In visible, inviolate repose.

About a mile behind the viny banks,How sweet it was, upon a sloping green,Sunspread, and shaded with a branching screen,To lie in peace half-murmuring words of thanks!To see the mountains on each other climb,With spaces for rich meadows flowery bright;The winding river freshening the sightAt intervals, the trees in leafy prime;The distant village-roofs of blue and white,With intersections of quaint-fashioned beamsAll slanting crosswise, and the feudal gleamsOf ruined turrets, barren in the light;—To watch the changing clouds, like clime in clime;Oh sweet to lie and bless the luxury of time.

Fresh blows the early breeze, our sail is full;A merry morning and a mighty tide.Cheerily O! and past St. Goar we glide,Half hid in misty dawn and mountain cool.The river is our own! and now the sunIn saffron clothes the warming atmosphere;The sky lifts up her white veil like a nun,And looks upon the landscape blue and clear;—The lark is up; the hills, the vines in sight;The river broadens with his waking blissAnd throws up islands to behold the light;Voices begin to rise, all hues to kiss;—Was ever such a happy morn as this!Birds sing, we shout, flowers breathe, trees shine with one delight!

Between the two white breasts of her we love,A dewy blushing rose will sometimes spring;Thus Nonnenwerth like an enchanted thingRises mid-stream the crystal depths above.On either side the waters heave and swell,But all is calm within the little Isle;Content it is to give its holy smile,And bless with peace the lives that in it dwell.Most dear on the dark grass beneath its bowerOf kindred trees embracing branch and bough,To dream of fairy foot and sudden flower;Or haply with a twilight on the brow,To muse upon the legendary hour,And Roland’s lonely love and Hildegard’s sad vow.

Hark! how the bitter winter breezes blowRound the sharp rocks and o’er the half-lifted wave,While all the rocky woodland branches raveShrill with the piercing cold, and every cave,Along the icy water-margin low,Rings bubbling with the whirling overflow;And sharp the echoes answer distant criesOf dawning daylight and the dim sunrise,And the gloom-coloured clouds that stain the skiesWith pictures of a warmth, and frozen glowSpread over endless fields of sheeted snow;And white untrodden mountains shining cold,And muffled footpaths winding thro’ the wold,O’er which those wintry gusts cease not to howl and blow.

Rare is the loveliness of slow decay!With youth and beauty all must be desired,But ’tis the charm of things long past away,They leave, alone, the light they have inspired:The calmness of a picture; Memory nowIs the sole life among the ruins grey,And like a phantom in fantastic playShe wanders with rank weeds stuck on her brow,Over grass-hidden caves and turret-tops,Herself almost as tottering as they;While, to the steps of Time, her latest propsFall stone by stone, and in the Sun’s hot rayAll that remains stands up in rugged pride,And bridal vines drink in his juices on each side.