Thy tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind, Chopped by the axe, looks rough and little worth, But the sap lasts, and still the seed Sown deep, even in the bosom of the So shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth. THE FOUNTAIN OF EGERIA. [Childe Harold, Canto iv.] EGERIA! sweet creation of some heart Which found no mortal resting-place so fair As thine ideal breast; whate'er thou art Or wert, a young Aurora of the air, The nympholepsy of some fond despair; Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth, Who found a more than common votary there Too much adoring; whatsoe'er thy birth, Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth. The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled With thine Elysian water-drops; the face Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years unwrinkled, Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place, Whose green, wild margin now no more erase Art's works; nor must the delicate waters sleep, Prisoned in marble, bubbling from the base Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap The rill runs o'er, and round fern, flowers, and ivy creep, Fantastically tangled: the green hills Are clothed with early blossoms, *hrough the grass His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to earth: there let him lay. The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, And monarchs tremble in their capitals, The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Their clay creator the vain title take Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war; These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride or spoils of Trafalgar. Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee — Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters washed them power while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thou; Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Glasses itself in tempest; in all time, Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark-heaving; boundless, endless, and sublime The image of Eternity- the throne Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime |