Adieu to thee, fair Rhine! How long delighted The stranger fain would linger on his way! Thine is a scene alike where souls united Or lonely Contemplation thus might stray; And could the ceaseless vultures cease to prey On self-condemning bosoms, it were here, Where Nature, nor too sombre nor too gay, Wild but not rude, awful yet not austere, Is to the mellow Earth as Autumn to the year. Adieu to thee again! a vain adieu! There can be no farewell to scene like thine; The mind is colour'd by thy every hue; And if reluctantly the eyes resign Their cherish'd gaze upon thee, lovely Rhine! 'Tis with the thankful heart of parting praise; More mighty spots may rise, more glaring shine, But none unite in one attaching maze The brilliant, fair, and soft,--the glories of old days. The negligently grand, the fruitful bloom Of coming ripeness, the white city's sheen, The rolling stream, the precipice's gloom, The forest's growth, and Gothic walls between, The wild rocks shaped as they had turrets been, In mockery of man's art: and there withal A race of faces happy as the scene, Whose fertile bounties here extend to all, Still springing o'er thy banks, though Empires near them fall.