THE HOSPICE OF ST. BERNARD. 39 



All now are fled, upon the desert hill 

 The trump is silent, and the echo stiJl. 

 And where is he — the tyrant and the strong, 

 The pride of chivalry the boast of song ? 

 ^aw ye Britannia's stainless flag unfurled ? 

 Saw ye the champion of an injured world ? 

 Enough — the plains of Waterloo may tell 

 How justice triumphed and oppression fell. 

 () wake no song, nor tune the breathing lyre, 

 To praise ambition's desolating fire ! 

 Her deeds are chronicled — the mourner's tear, 

 The widow weeping o'er the warrior's bier, 

 The mother's heart-wrung wail, the orphan's sigh. 

 The fall of empires, and a nation's cry. 

 Are her memorials — Yet when time has cast 

 Her halo o'er the unforgotten past ; 

 When, like the blushes of departed day, 

 All save its mellower tints have died away, 

 Still shall the minstrel's legendary lore 

 Around each haunt its storied wonders pour ; 

 Mourn o'er each sacred dwelling of the dead, 

 And weep in silence where the mighty bled. 



And still the wanderer, as his footsteps rove 

 Thro' the dark shadows of some distant grove. 

 Or on the bosom of the blue Geneve 

 His white sail courts the balmy gales of eve; 

 As fades the outline of the hills away 

 Beneath the touch of twilight's sombre ray : 

 Still as so fair and frail those cliffs appear. 

 He may not think that aught of earth is there. 

 But trembles lest that fret-work of the skies 

 Should melt and vanish from his raptured eyes; 

 Still shall he deem some energy divine 

 Guards the lone altar of that mountain shrine, 

 Exalted as those cloud-clapt heights, and pure 

 As the blanched snows, which on their crests endure. 



