Once more, once more, the heavenly heights environ,
Here in the land remembering Rousseau,
Thrilling with songs of Shelley and of Byron,
And lovelier songs of lives purer than snow!
Beautiful mother of the brave and free,
Mother of deeds that live eternally,
A beacon, like thy sunlit spires up yonder,
A clarion, like the unfurling of loud thunder
Among thine echoing ravines and rocks,
And turbulent elemental shocks,
Far-rolling banner, blazoned with fierce light,
Shaken in false faces of the hosts of night!
I deem it well awhile to linger here.
My weary heart was weakened with pale fear,
And loss of him who made the world so dear,
Low care, dull disappointment, and vain strife
With strangling sins, and problems of mad life:
My conquered soul lay open to despair,
Whose cold grey waters moaned unchallenged there.
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In the Alps.
