Lausanne! and Ferney! ye have been the abodes Of names which unto you bequeathed a name; Mortals, who sought and found, by dangerous roads, A path to perpetuity of fame: They were gigantic minds, and their steep aim Was, Titan-like, on daring doubts to pile Thoughts which should call down thunder, and the flame Of Heaven, again assailed, if Heaven the while On man and man's research could deign do more than smile. CVI. The one was fire and fickleness, a child Most mutable in wishes, but in mind A wit as various,--gay, grave, sage, or wild,-- Historian, bard, philosopher combined: He multiplied himself among mankind, The Proteus of their talents: But his own Breathed most in ridicule,--which, as the wind, Blew where it listed, laying all things prone,-- Now to o'erthrow a fool, and now to shake a throne. CVII. The other, deep and slow, exhausting thought, And hiving wisdom with each studious year, In meditation dwelt, with learning wrought, And shaped his weapon with an edge severe, Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer; The lord of irony,--that master spell, Which stung his foes to wrath, which grew from fear, And doomed him to the zealot's ready hell, Which answers to all doubts so eloquently well. CVIII. Yet, peace be with their ashes,--for by them, If merited, the penalty is paid; It is not ours to judge, far less condemn; The hour must come when such things shall be made Known unto all,--or hope and dread allayed By slumber on one pillow, in the dust, Which, thus much we are sure, must lie decayed; And when it shall revive, as is our trust, 'Twill be to be forgiven, or suffer what is just. CIX. But let me quit man's works, again to read His Maker's spread around me, and suspend This page, which from my reveries I feed, Until it seems prolonging without end. The clouds above me to the white Alps tend, And I must pierce them, and survey whate'er May be permitted, as my steps I bend To their most great and growing region, where The earth to her embrace compels the powers of air. CX. Italia! too, Italia! looking on thee Full flashes on the soul the light of ages, Since the fierce Carthaginian almost won thee, To the last halo of the chiefs and sages Who glorify thy consecrated pages; Thou wert the throne and grave of empires; still, The fount at which the panting mind assuages Her thirst of knowledge, quaffing there her fill, Flows from the eternal source of Rome's imperial hill. CXI.