| |
| AH! ’t is dying out in me, | |
| The old fire of poesy, | |
| Else my heart, though dark as night, | |
| Would be filled with new delight | |
| Thus to float, as in a dream, | 5 |
| Down this old heroic stream, | |
| By whose banks Ausonius sung | |
| In the dead Virgilian tongue, | |
| Down from where the noiseless waves | |
| Lap the solemn walls of Treves, | 10 |
| Down by hamlet, tower, and shrine, | |
| Till at length the stately Rhine, | |
| Like a bridegroom watching well, | |
| Weds and bears thee off, Moselle! | |
| |
| Ah! ’t is dying out in me, | 15 |
| Else I feel that there would be | |
| Kindled in my eager eye | |
| A diviner ecstasy | |
| By those hills o’er which heaven’s sign | |
| Shone in fire to Constantine,— | 20 |
| Hills that swell to fairest shape, | |
| Sun-touched peak, and wooded cape, | |
| Jutting crag with crown of green, | |
| Quietest valley spread between, | |
| Where, if sense of awe be less, | 25 |
| Deeper grows the tenderness, | |
| Deeper the delight to dwell | |
| Where thou art, beloved Moselle! | |
| |
| Up and down the mightier Rhine | |
| Castles rise and cities shine; | 30 |
| Thou, like some sweet rustic maid, | |
| Half of thy own charms afraid, | |
| Half unconscious of the grace | |
| Heaven has showered upon thy face, | |
| Wanderest at thy own pure will | 35 |
| Where the landscape lieth still, | |
| Far from passion and from sin, | |
| Hearing not the loud world’s din, | |
| Knowing not that yonder Rhine | |
| Soon shall mix his life with thine, | 40 |
| Soon like bridegroom watching well, | |
| Wed and bear thee off, Moselle! | |
| |
