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GLION?—Ah, twenty years, it cuts | |
| All meaning from a name! | |
| White houses prank where once were huts; | |
| Glion, but not the same! | |
| |
| And yet I know not. All unchanged | 5 |
| The turf, the pines, the sky! | |
| The hills in their old order ranged! | |
| The lake, with Chillon by! | |
| |
| And ’neath those chestnut-trees, where stiff | |
| And stony mounts the way, | 10 |
| Their crackling husk-heaps burn, as if | |
| I left them yesterday. | |
| |
| Across the valley, on that slope, | |
| The huts of Avant shine; | |
| Its pines under their branches ope | 15 |
| Ways for the tinkling kine. | |
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| Full-foaming milk-pails, Alpine fare, | |
| Sweet heaps of fresh-cut grass, | |
| Invite to rest the traveller there, | |
| Before he climb the pass,— | 20 |
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| The gentian-flowered pass, its crown | |
| With yellow spires aflame, | |
| Whence drops the path to Allière down, | |
| And walls where Byron came, | |
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| By their green river who doth change | 25 |
| His birth-name just below; | |
| Orchard and croft and full-stored grange | |
| Nursed by his pastoral flow. | |
| |
| But stop!—To fetch back thoughts that stray | |
| Beyond this gracious bound, | 30 |
| The cone of Jaman, pale and gray, | |
| See in the blue profound! | |
| |
| Ah, Jaman! delicately tall | |
| Above his sun-warmed firs,— | |
| What thoughts to me his rocks recall! | 35 |
| What memories he stirs! | |
| |
| And who but thou must be, in truth, | |
| Obermann! with me here? | |
| Thou master of my wandering youth, | |
| But left this many a year! | 40 |
| |
| Yes, I forget the world’s work wrought, | |
| Its warfare waged with pain! | |
| An eremite with thee, in thought | |
| Once more I slip my chain, | |
| |
| And to thy mountain-châlet come, | 45 |
| And lie beside its door, | |
| And hear the wild bee’s Alpine hum, | |
| And thy sad, tranquil lore. | |
| |
| Again I feel its words inspire | |
| Their mournful calm,—serene, | 50 |
| Yet tinged with infinite desire | |
| For all that might have been, | |
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| The harmony from which man swerved | |
| Made his life’s rule once more! | |
| The universal order served! | 55 |
| Earth happier than before! * * * * * | |
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