The author
says, "Dans son enfance le Rhin joue entre les fleurs des Alpes de
la Suisse, il se berce dans le lac de Constance, il en sort avec des
forces nouvelles, il devient un adolescent bouillant, fait une chute
a Schaffhouse, s'avance vers l'age mur, se plait a remplir sa coupe
de vin, court chercher les dangers et les affronte contre les ecueils
et les rochers: puis parvenu a un age plus avancee il abandonne les
illusions, les sites romanesques, et cherche l'utile. Dans sa caducite
il desserit et disparait enfin on ne sait trop comment!"
L'ENVOY.
Cologne! Cologne! Thy walls are won,
Farewell my bark--be hush'd my song;
My voyage is o'er--my task is done--
Too pleasant both to last me long.
Adieu, thou noble Rhine, adieu,
Thy scenes for ever rich and new,
Thy cheerful towns, thy Gothic piles,
Thy rude ravines, thy verdant isles;
Thy golden hills with garlands bound,
Thy giant crags with castles crown'd!
I have seen thee by morning's early light,
I have seen thee by evening gray;
With the crimson blush of sun-set bright,
And lit by the moon's pale ray;
Shrouded in mist and darken'd by storm,
With the countless tints of autumn warm:
In ev'ry hue that can o'er thee fall;
And lovely, lovely thou art in all.
The Rhine!--That little word will be
For aye a spell of power to me,
And conjure up, in care's despite,
A thousand visions of delight.
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