by Francis Egerton (uncredited)[1].
Originally published in The Keepsake for 1828 (Hurst, Chance, and Co.; Nov 1827).
I.
Farewell, proud cliff! From Cologne's gothic door
Slowly emerging o'er her boundless plain,
Or bounded but by thee, my eyes once more
To catch one parting glimpse of thee I strain:
It may be long ere thou and I again
Shall be acquainted. If there be a spell
In fancy's store; if memory hold her reign,
On thee, in all its power, that charm shall dwell,
Lord of seven subject hills, high Drachenfels, farewell!
II.
Not that a mightier master of the rhyme,
Wrapt by thy beauties, linger'd on his way,
Struck but one chord, and to all future time
Hallow'd those beauties with his passing lay.
It is not that the Rhine's broad waters stray
Beneath thy height to reach the distant sea;
Nor many a wild tale of thy earlier day,
How dear soe'er those olden tales to me;
'Tis not for these I pour my parting strain to thee.
III.
But when my spirit, dull and stagnant now,
Was buoyant as the stream which sweeps thy strand,
In rapture gazing on thy giant brow,
On yon opposing shore I took my stand;
And there, with wavering line, and trembling hand,
First I essay'd fair Nature's forms to trace;
Thy fortress in its undisturb'd command,
The precipice, the mountain's sweeping grace,
The rock, the vine, the copse low feathering to thy base.
IV.
Improvement comes too slow, but change too fast;
My skill is what it was, but not as then
I gaze upon the wrecks of ages past,
The works of nature, or the haunts of men;
The mouldering gateway, or the mountain glen,
Were rapture to me. Such if now I prize,
'Tis that they were so. If I seize the pen,
To consecrate the feeling ere it dies,
'Tis Memory's power alone can bid that feeling rise.
V.
And would that Memory's power could do no more!
Would there were nought to mingle with and spoil
The embalmed sweets of recollection's store!
But suns which vivify the vernal soil,
Bid, too, the adder in his brake uncoil.
Unchanging Nature's charms make us compare
The brow deep furrow'd by the world's long toil
With her unwrinkled front—the hues of care
With her fresh glories—all we are, with all we were.
1. The Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry website provides this attribution.