XLIX.

   In their baronial feuds and single fields,
   What deeds of prowess unrecorded died! 
   And Love, which lent a blazon to their shields,
   With emblems well devised by amorous pride,
   Through all the mail of iron hearts would glide;
   But still their flame was fierceness, and drew on
   Keen contest and destruction near allied,
   And many a tower for some fair mischief won,
Saw the discoloured Rhine beneath its ruin run.

L.

   But thou, exulting and abounding river! 
   Making thy waves a blessing as they flow
   Through banks whose beauty would endure for ever,
   Could man but leave thy bright creation so,
   Nor its fair promise from the surface mow
   With the sharp scythe of conflict,—­then to see
   Thy valley of sweet waters, were to know
   Earth paved like Heaven; and to seem such to me
Even now what wants thy stream?—­that it should Lethe be.

LI.

   A thousand battles have assailed thy banks,
   But these and half their fame have passed away,
   And Slaughter heaped on high his weltering ranks: 
   Their very graves are gone, and what are they? 
   Thy tide washed down the blood of yesterday,
   And all was stainless, and on thy clear stream
   Glassed with its dancing light the sunny ray;
   But o’er the blackened memory’s blighting dream
Thy waves would vainly roll, all sweeping as they seem.

LII.

   Thus Harold inly said, and passed along,
   Yet not insensible to all which here
   Awoke the jocund birds to early song
   In glens which might have made e’en exile dear: 
   Though on his brow were graven lines austere,
   And tranquil sternness which had ta’en the place
   Of feelings fierier far but less severe,
   Joy was not always absent from his face,
But o’er it in such scenes would steal with transient trace.

LIII.

   Nor was all love shut from him, though his days
   Of passion had consumed themselves to dust. 
   It is in vain that we would coldly gaze
   On such as smile upon us; the heart must
   Leap kindly back to kindness, though disgust
   Hath weaned it from all worldlings:  thus he felt,
   For there was soft remembrance, and sweet trust
   In one fond breast, to which his own would melt,
And in its tenderer hour on that his bosom dwelt.

LIV.