Where between granite terraces
The blue Seine rolls her wave,
The Capital of Pleasure sees
Thy hardly-heard-of grave,—
Farewell! Under the sky we part,
In this stern Alpine dell.
O unstrung will! O broken heart!
A last, a last farewell!
OBERMANN ONCE MORE.
(COMPOSED MANY YEARS AFTER THE PRECEDING.)
Savez-vous quelque bien qui console du regret d’un monde?
Obermann.
Glion? Ah! twenty years, it cuts[28]
All meaning from a name!
White houses prank where once were huts;
Glion, but not the same!
And yet I know not! All unchanged
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,
The 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
Ways for the pasturing kine.