Not so precisely eloquent De Stael!
Tho sometimes in Corinne the Muse's hand
And voice, and imagery, and emotion,
Were hers! But round her cradle forms of life,
And voices, and o'er-labour'd trains of thought,
Too artificial, and the false results
Of a luxurious capital, were ever
Bending her quick and plastic intellect
To wit, miscall'd the proof of force supreme
Of the brain's operations, too much stirr'd
By the collision of base rivalry;-
Where the strife is for conquest,-not for wisdom;
And where acuteness more than grandeur marks
The struggle and the fruit. On Coppet's banks
The Priestess liv'd impatient: her keen eyes
Look'd on the tumbling waters, and the giant
Heights that across them tower'd into the clouds,
Clad with eternal snow; but yet whose tops
Morning and evening shone with rosy beams
O'th' blessed sun! She look'd; but sigh'd for mirrors
Of artificial splendor, and the forms
That social fashion ever dresses up
In whimsical costume, and not the whispers
Or louder noises of the wave-stirr'd breeze;
But the pain'd murmurs of the soft coquette,
Or studied mimickries of tone pretended
Of beau, or statesman, or cramp'd orator,
Where knowledge of an accidental state
Of manners, and of feelings, and ambition,
Was sillily mistaken for sagacity
And wisdom. Nature with her grandest voices
And most inagnificent shapes, and mightiest airs
Of frame-invigorating elements,
Was not to Coppet's Baroness so moving,
As a saloon of Paris fill'd with wits,
Beauties, coquettes, and nobles, and budge authors,
Whose passion in the journals of the day
To figure, prompted to a restless life,
Full of ennui, and labour charlatanic,
And feebleness of body, and regrets
Of conscience for mis-spent abilities!
O strangely various is the human fate,
And human occupation! How wast thou
Employ'd, O learned Beza, on the banks
Of this lov'd lake for a long glorious life
Of intellectual energies, of taste,
Thought, poetry, and forceful sentiment,
And warm, heart-mellowing, and chaste Religion!
Far different from thy master, Calvin's, was
Thine heart: not dry, and hard, and in scholastic
And controversial divinity
Pent up, but with the captivating graces
Of ornamental letters deep imbued,
And joying to the last in the sweet studies
Of thy gay days of youthful efflorescence.-
Poet, and moralist, as elegant
As erudite! when more than eighty years
Had shook thy trembling hand, till scarce a stroke Distinctly it could make, thou didst again
Freshen with dews these flowers, that in the garden
Of thy young fancy were rear'd up to bloom,
And flourish, and put forth their shining hues,
Spotted with all rich colours, and with scents
Vernal delighting. There they stand in pale
And venerable spells, in those fond haunts,
Where all thy worthies by the painter's skill,
Geneva, live-and all the labour'd fruits
Of their enlighten'd minds survive to teach
Posterity: and my enthusiast eyes
Have dwelt upon them, and my feeble skill
Has striven to decypher them, and mark,
Compare, and contrast the slow-changing hues
From over-flowing youth to waning age!
As thou wert champion of the Church Reform'd-
So keen were Rome's foul myrmidons against thee;
Then with incessant scandal did they stain
Thy venerable age, and all the levities
Brought of thy boyhood to reproach's aid.--
But thou in conscious rectitude revivedst
Those early blossoms; and they stand recorded
In the best types of thy most learned printers;
And now the misty dawn of light begins
To break upon me! But not yet the hour
Of three has sounded from St. Peter's tower:
Yet short the space that after midnight's calm
Mantle had veil'd the skies, when all but I
Were wrapt in slumbrous rest, the Muse awoke me,
And I to my accustom'd toil applied,
My promis'd task to execute; and now
While I these lines am writing, quick the rays
Of sweet Aurora pierce the vapoury gray
That hastens off, as if affrighted, swifter
Than birds, that in the heavens dart
From their strong-plum'd destroyers!
O how intense the brilliance and the beauty Of morning's golden dawn, that over Alpine Summits I daily see arise, since thirteen
Months have near pass'd, and not e'en once have I Fail'd from my bed to gaze upon the picture! But thus our faculties their vigour gain,
And I my daily, nightly, efforts ply
T'approach to spirit! Thought, and words, and images
Thus multiply, and more distinctly come!
And on the verge of that extent of life,
Which is man's common lot, and after sickness
Of more than four much-troubled years, my brain,
If I do not delude myself, has grown
To strength and copiousness, before it knew not.
But 'tis perchance the cheer!-The cheer has come
At last, whose want I languish'd for, and now
Its motions are all energy and hope!
For nature made me timid: and timidity
Sits like a vampire over the mind's efforts.
COPPET, when the Genevan Banker, risen
From counting his dry figures, to the state
Of Minister of mighty France, in times
Which all a politician's wisest powers
And most consummate arts call'd into play,—
Possess'd thee,-little were thy master's habits,
And trains of mind congenial to the fierce
And chivalrous ambitions, that in days
Of feudal splendor did for many ages
Rule thee, as thy proud lords! O gallant Grandson,
Burgundian chief, whose name is yet familiar
Throughout old Jura's heights, and echoes yet
Along Helvetian mountains, whose mail'd warrior
Amid the Gothic wonders of Lausanne's
Rich shrines in proud recumbent figure lies
Sculptur'd in stone, full many a tale have I
To tell of you; but the capricious Muse
Must wait her time.-Wide and remote the current
Of thy impetuous blood impelled thee on
To distant regions, and among the Barons
Of haughty England was thy stock establish'd;
And from thy veins the proud ambitious Beauforts
Sprung, and the saintly Margaret, the mother
Of the seventh Harry, monarch of the Isles
Whose swords, wealth, gallanties, and genius strong,
Have ever held their sway puissant over
The destinies of Europe :-monarch, sage and wily,
And prudent, and to whom, albeit stern
And avaricious, England much of vigour,
And much advance in commerce and the arts
Owes,-of the Tudor dynasty the chief-
A dynasty whose reign was short, but mighty,
And glorious-e'en though thou capricious king,—
A tyrant in tyrannic times; a lover
Of numerous wives, whom soon as sated with,
Of blood regardless, thou didst to the scaffold
With hatred merciless and savage humour
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