Mid stormy vapours ever driving by, Where ospreys, cormorants, and herons cry, Where hardly giv'n the hopeless waste to chear, Deny'd the bread of life the foodful ear, 320 Dwindles the pear on autumn's latest spray, And apple sickens pale in summer's ray, Ev'n here Content has fix'd her smiling reign With Independance child of high Disdain. Exulting mid the winter of the skies, 325 Shy as the jealous chamois, Freedom flies, And often grasps her sword, and often eyes, Her crest a bough of Winter's bleakest pine, Strange "weeds" and alpine plants her helm entwine, And wildly-pausing oft she hangs aghast, 330 While thrills the "Spartan fife" between the blast. 'Tis storm; and hid in mist from hour to hour All day the floods a deeper murmur pour, And mournful sounds, as of a Spirit lost, Pipe wild along the hollow-blustering coast, 335 'Till the Sun walking on his western field Shakes from behind the clouds his flashing shield. Triumphant on the bosom of the storm, Glances the fire-clad eagle's wheeling form; Eastward, in long perspective glittering, shine 340 The wood-crown'd cliffs that o'er the lake recline; Wide o'er the Alps a hundred streams unfold, At once to pillars turn'd that flame with gold; Behind his sail the peasant strives to shun The west that burns like one dilated sun, 345 Where in a mighty crucible expire The mountains, glowing hot, like coals of fire. [O] But lo! the boatman, over-aw'd, before The pictur'd fane of Tell suspends his oar; Confused the Marathonian tale appears, 350 While burn in his full eyes the glorious tears. And who but feels a power of strong controul, Felt only there, oppress his labouring soul, Who walks, where honour'd men of ancient days Have wrought with god-like arm the deeds of praise? 355 Say, who, by thinking on Canadian hills, Or wild Aosta lulled by Alpine rills, On Zutphen's plain; or where with soften'd gaze The old grey stones the plaided chief surveys, Can guess the high resolve, the cherish'd pain 360 Of him whom passion rivets to the plain, Where breath'd the gale that caught Wolfe's happiest sigh, And the last sun-beam fell on Bayard's eye, Where bleeding Sydney from the cup retir'd, And glad Dundee in "faint huzzas" expir'd. 365