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From “Childe Harold,” Canto III.
CLEAR, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake, | |
| With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing | |
| Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake | |
| Earth’s troubled waters for a purer spring. | |
| This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing | 5 |
| To waft me from distraction; once I loved | |
| Torn ocean’s roar, but thy soft murmuring | |
| Sounds sweet as if a sister’s voice reproved, | |
| That I with stern delights should e’er have been so moved. | |
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| It is the hush of night, and all between | 10 |
| Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, | |
| Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen, | |
| Save darkened Jura, whose capt heights appear | |
| Precipitously steep; and drawing near, | |
| There breathes a living fragrance from the shore, | 15 |
| Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear | |
| Drops the light drip of the suspended oar, | |
| Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more: | |
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| He is an evening reveller, who makes | |
| His life an infancy, and sings his fill; | 20 |
| At intervals, some bird from out the brakes | |
| Starts into voice a moment, then is still. | |
| There seems a floating whisper on the hill, | |
| But that is fancy; for the starlight dews | |
| All silently their tears of love instil, | 25 |
| Weeping themselves away, till they infuse | |
| Deep into Nature’s breast the spirit of her hues. | |
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