And hail the chapel! hail the platform wild!
Where Tell directed the avenging dart,
With well strung arm, that first preserved his child,
Then wing'd the arrow to the tyrant's heart.

Across the lake, and deep embower'd in wood,
Behold another hallow'd chapel stand,
Where three Swiss heroes lawless force withstood,
And stamp'd the freedom of their native land.

Their liberty required no rites uncouth,

No blood demanded, and no slaves enchain'd; Her rule was gentle, and her voice was truth, By social order form'd, by laws restrain❜d.

We quit the lake-and cultivation's toil

With Nature's charms combined adorns the way; And well earn'd wealth improves the ready soil, And simple manners still maintain their sway. Farewell, Helvetia! from whose lofty breast

Proud Alps arise, and copious rivers flow; Where, source of streams, eternal glaciers rest, And peaceful science gilds the plains below.

Oft on thy rocks the wondering eye shall gaze,
Thy valleys oft the raptured bosom seek;
There, Nature's hand her boldest work displays,
Here, bliss domestic beams on every cheek.

Hope of my life! dear children of my heart!
That anxious heart, to each fond feeling true,
To you still pants each pleasure to impart,
And more, oh transport! reach its home and you.
DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE.

MOUNT ETNA.

WRITTEN AFTER HAVING READ MR. BRYDONE'S
TOUR THROUGH SICILY.

IMAGINATION, while thy kindling eyes

Flame o'er the climes these faithful pages trace, Oh, mayst thou paint them, as sublime they rise, In novel beauty and horrific grace!

Swell the rich treasures of poetic fanes

With all the pomps that mighty Etna boasts, As glaring o'er the affrighted deep she reigns The pride and terror of Ausonian coasts!

With thy keen glance the veils of distance pierce, With thy firm step conduct my venturous way, And on the texture of my proudest verse

The changeful glories of those heights display!

Now the proud steep climbing with toilsome tread, We mark the wonders of its triple zone *; Round the broad base see sultry Summer lead The stores luxuriant of his glowing throne.

While on the rising edges of his clime

Emergent Spring her leafy mantle spreads, Woods, waving wide, in hues of vernal prime, Blue trickling rills, and flower-embroider'd meads;

* Mr. Brydone tells us, that the three distinct seasons, summer, spring, and winter, in inverted order, form the torrid, the temperate, and the frigid zone, round the ascending heights of Mount Etna.

Till Winter, o'er each blooming plain and grove,
Draws the chill circle of his pallid line;
Dim fields of ice, and gelid rocks above,

And sleety gales, and dreary lakes combine.

Then while, amazed, we lift exploring eyes
To the vast cone, high in the lucid air,

We mark, in one eternal union, rise

4

The elements that wage eternal war.

Deep in the snows it has no power to melt, View the dread gulf, in all its boiling ire, Where sleet and ice and wintry waves have felt How weak their force to quench its raging fire.

Terrific pinnacle! Thy sides inclose

The' unfathom'd gulf coeval with the world; And by thy flames, that burst mid circling snows, Up sightless heights the blazing rocks are hurl'd.

Their dire explosion rends the frozen mound,
Shakes the firm earth, and thunders o'er the deep;
While issuing deathful, from the fierce profound,
Rolls the red lava down the icy steep!

But we, in hours less terrible, prepare,
Adventurous, to pursue our faithless way,
And, though the drifted snows our steps ensnare,
Reach the extremest point ere dawns the day,

Now long pale gleams shoot through the sky, and

warn

Retreating darkness of the solar glance;

And hills, rocks, plains, and seas, and night, and

morn

Blend, undivided, through the vast expanse.

But morning, by degrees, exerts her power; The stars are quench'd!-the shadows melt away!

Forests, that late seem'd like black gulfs to lour, Rise, in faint green, beneath the glimmering ray. Wide spread the skirts of strengthening light around;

And from the orient waves that stretch serene, And with their silver line the horizon bound, While states and nations dimly intervene,

On plains, rocks, mountains, rivers, seas, and isles Bursts the gay sun! his plastic beams are hurl'd; And to our strain'd and startled senses smiles, New to our gaze, a whole illumined world! While high exalted in the trackless air,

Alarm'd, and doubting if on earth we stand, Scarce knows our sight to separate and compare The countless objects of its vast command.

As on a map o'er Sicily we look,

Trace all her rivers through their mazy sweep, From their first source, a little gurgling brook, Till breadthening soon,they mingle with the deep; But rising at his spring a current wide,

Devoted Acis hurries through the plain *, Speeds from the giant's voice with frighted tide, And throws his icy waters in the main.

* Mr. Brydone mentions the peculiar coldness of this river, hence often called in Sicily, il fiume Freddo, also that it rises out of the earth at once a large stream. It is the river celebrated by the poets, into which the nymph Galatea transformed the shepherd Acis, her lover. Mr. Brydone ingeniously observes, that the extreme velocity of the current seems, from our recollection of the fable, to be inspired by terror.

Here vine-clad Lipari, with her lucid streams, Gay Alicudi, and Panari there,

While Strombola, a lesser Etna, gleams,

And wreaths with spiral smoke the fields of air.

These, as by magic, in the visual rays,

Close drawn around the mountain skirts are shown,

Seeming as lifted up to meet our gaze,

Like medals in a watery bason thrown*.

Then o'er the space immense weak vision strains,
And feels its aching powers confused and lost,
Else that might view hot Barca's sandy plains,
And verdant Thessaly's remoter coast.

Now turn we, sighing, from the boundless scene,
Mocking the feeble sight's eluded ray,
While wonder mellows into thought serene,
As sinks, in evening shades, the garish day.

Here, while we rove beneath thy wayward skies,
Green Albion, zoned by ocean's azure wave,
To Nature let our heart's thanksgivings rise
For all she banish'd, as for all she gave;

That not on our cold mountain heights reside,
On Snowdon or Helvellyn's peak sublime,
The Etnean graces;—in their ardent pride,

And baleful charms, exiled this happier clime.

*This is Mr. Brydone's own simile, and beyond any other which could have been chosen, brings to the mind's eye these peculiar effects of vision. Poets and orators often find themselves obliged to accommodate great things to our perception by comparing them to small ones. These comparisons are often happy, and sometimes sublime.