"Saturday, 22nd July. Cologne.--For some miles, the traveller goes through the magnificent plain, which from its great width appears almost circular. Though _unseen_ the river Rhine, we never can forget that it is there! When the vale becomes narrower, one of the most interesting and beautiful of prospects opens on the view from a gentle rising in the road. On an island stands a large grey convent, sadly pensive among its garden walls and embowering wood. The musket and cannon have spared that sanctuary, and we were told that, though the establishment is dissolved, a few of the nuns still remain there, attached to the spot; or probably having neither friends or other home to repair to. On the right bank of the river, opposite to us, is a bold precipice, bearing on its summit a ruined fortress which looks down upon the convent; and the warlike and religious Edifices are connected together by a chivalrous story of slighted or luckless love, which caused the withdrawing of a fair Damsel to the Island, where she founded the monastery. Another bold ruin stands upon an eminence adjoining, and all these monuments of former times combine with villages and churches, and dells (between the steeps) green or corn-clad, and with the majestic River (here spread out like a lake) to compose a most affectingly beautiful scene, whether viewed in prospect or in retrospect. Still we rolled along (ah! far too swiftly! and often did I wish that I were a youthful traveller on foot), still we rolled along, meeting the flowing River, smooth as glass, yet so rapid that the stream of motion is always perceptible, even from a great distance. The riches of this region are not easily fancied,--the pretty paths, the gardens among plots of vineyard and corn, cottages peeping from the shade, villages and spires, in never-ending variety." (From Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, vol. i.)--ED. VARIANTS: [Footnote 487: 1837. ... Yet why repine? Pedestrian liberty shall yet be mine To muse, to creep, to halt at will, to gaze: Freedom which youth with copious hand supplied, May in fit measure bless my later days. 1822. ] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote HF: Thespis was the reputed inventor of tragedy, and he is said to have carried his rude stage and apparatus from village to village on waggons. Horace, _Ars Poetica_, 275. Ignotum tragicae genus invenisse Camenae Dicitur et plaustris vexisse poëmata Thespis Quae canerent agerentque peruncti faecibus ora. Thespis began the drama: rumour says In travelling carts he carried round his plays, When actors, smeared with lees, before the throng, Performed their parts with gesture and with song! (CONINGTON.) These celebrations became identified with the nine Dionysiac festivals. See Virgil, _Georgics_ ii. 380. There is a reference to the dignity of tragedy throughout the sonnet, and yet to the fact that it is a passing show.--ED.] IX HYMN,