The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 474, Supplementary Number

Some living thing to love—but none like thee.

VIII

Here are the Alpine landscapes which create
A fund for contemplation.—to admire
Is a brief feeling of a trivial date;
But something worthier do such scenes inspire:
Here to be lonely is not desolate.
For much I view which I could most desire,
And, above all, a lake I can behold
Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old.

IX

Oh that thou wert but with me!—but I grow
The fool of my own wishes, and forget
The solitude which I have vaunted so
Has lost its praise in this but one regret;
There may be others which I less may show;—
I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet
I feel an ebb in my philosophy
And the tide rising in my alter'd eye.

X

I did remind thee of our own dear lake,
By the old hall which may be mine no more,
Leman's is fair; but think not I forsake
The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore:
Sad havoc Time must with my memory make
Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before;
Though, like all things which I have loved, they are
Resign'd for ever, or divided far.

XI

The world is all before me; I but ask
Of nature that with which she will comply—
It is but in her summer sun to bask,
To mingle with the quiet of her sky,
To see her gentle fare without a mask,
And never gaze on it with apathy.
She was my early friend, and now shall be
My sister—till I look again on thee.

XII

I can reduce all feelings but this one:
And that I would not;—for at length I see
Such scenes as those wherein my life begun.
The earliest—even the only paths for me—
Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun,
I had been better than I now can be:
The passions which have torn me would have slept:
I had not suffered, and thou hadst not wept.

XIII

With false ambition what had I to do?
Little with love, and least of all with fame;
And yet they came unsought, and with me grew,
And made me all which they can make—a name.
Yet this was not the end I did pursue;
Surely I once beheld a nobler aim.
But all is over—I am one the more
To baffled millions which have gone before.

XIV

And for the future, this world's future may
From me demand but little of my care;
I have outlived myself by many a day;
Having survived so many things that were;
My years have been no slumber, but the prey
Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share
Of life that might have filled a century,
Before its fourth in time had passed me by.

XV

And for the remnant which may be to come
I am content; and for the past I feel
Not thankless—for within the crowded sum
Of struggles, happiness at times would steal,
And for the present I would not benumb
My feelings farther.—Nor shall I conceal,
That with all this I still can look around,
And worship Nature with a thought profound.

XVI

For thee my own sweet sister, in thy heart
I know myself secure, as thou in mine;
We were and are—I am even as thou art—
Beings who ne'er each other can resign;
It is the same, together or apart,
From life's commencement to its slow decline
We are entwined—let death come slow or fast,
The tie which bound the first endures the last!