The author began this poem in rhyme. The following is the first draught
of it as far as he proceeded, in a stanza which he found it convenient
to abandon:
A midnight black with clouds is on the sky;
A shadow like the first original night
Folds in, and seems to press me as I lie;
No image meets the vainly wandering sight,
And shot through rolling mists no starlight gleam
Glances on glassy pool or rippling stream.
No ruddy blaze, from dwellings bright within,
Tinges the flowering summits of the grass;
No sound of life is heard, no village din,
Wings rustling overhead or steps that pass,
While, on the breast of Earth at random thrown,
I listen to her mighty voice alone.
A voice of many tones: deep murmurs sent
From waters that in darkness glide away,
From woods unseen by sweeping breezes bent,
From rocky chasms where darkness dwells all day,
And hollows of the invisible hills around,
Blent in one ceaseless, melancholy sound.
O Earth! dost thou, too, sorrow for the past?
Mourn'st thou thy childhood's unreturning hours,
Thy springs, that briefly bloomed and faded fast,
The gentle generations of thy flowers,
Thy forests of the elder time, decayed
And gone with all the tribes that loved their shade?
Mourn'st thou that first fair time so early lost,
The golden age that lives in poets' strains,
Ere hail or lightning, whirlwind, flood, or frost
Scathed thy green breast, or earthquakes whelmed thy plains,
Ere blood upon the shuddering ground was spilt,
Or night was haunted by disease and guilt?
Or haply dost thou grieve for those who die?
For living things that trod a while thy face,
The love of thee and heaven, and now they lie
Mixed with the shapeless dust the wild winds chase?
I, too, must grieve, for never on thy sphere
Shall those bright forms and faces reappear.
Ha! with a deeper and more thrilling tone,
Rises that voice around me: 'tis the cry
Of Earth for guilt and wrong, the eternal moan
Sent to the listening and long-suffering sky,
I hear and tremble, and my heart grows faint,
As midst the night goes up that great complaint.
Page 174.
_Where Isar's clay-white rivulets run_
_Through the dark woods like frighted deer._
Close to the city of Munich, in Bavaria, lies the spacious and beautiful
pleasure-ground, called the English Garden, in which these lines were
written, originally projected and laid out by our countryman, Count
Rumford, under the auspices of one of the sovereigns of the country.
Winding walks, of great extent, pass through close thickets and groves
interspersed with lawns; and streams, diverted from the river Isar,
traverse the grounds swiftly in various directions, the water of which,
stained with the clay of the soil it has corroded in its descent from
the upper country, is frequently of a turbid-white color.
Page 178.