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resting on what he had made his constant scat. I found a servant there who had lived with him; she, however, gave me but little information. She pointed out his bed-chamber upon the same level as the saloon and dining-room, and informed me that he retired to rest at three, got up at two, and employed himself a long time over his toilette; that he never went to sleep without a pair of pistols and a dagger by his side, and that he never eat animal food. He apparently spent some part of every day upon the lake in an English boat. There is a balcony from the saloon which looks upon the lake and the mountain Jura; and I imagine, that it must have been hence, he contemplated the storm BO magnificently described in the Third Canto; for you have from here a most extensive view of all the points he has therein depicted. I can fancy him like the scathed pine, whilst all around was sunk to repose, still waking to observe, what gave but a weak image of the storms which had desolated his own breast.
The sky is changed!--and such a change; Oh, night! And storm and darkness, ye are wond'rous strong, Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light Of a dark eye in woman! Far along >From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, Leaps the lire thunder! Not from one lone cloud, But every mountain now hath found a tongue, And Jura answers thro' her misty shroud, Back to the joyous Alps who call to her aloud!
And this is in the night:--Most glorious night! Thou wer't not sent for slumber! let me be A sharer in thy far and fierce delight,-- A portion of the tempest and of me! How the lit lake shines a phosphoric sea, And the big rain comet dancing to the earth! And now again 'tis black,--and now the glee Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain mirth, As if they did rejoice o'er a young; earthquake's birth,
Now where the swift Rhine cleaves his way between Heights which appear, as lovers who have parted In haste, whose mining depths so intervene, That they can meet no more, tho' broken hearted; Tho' in their soul