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(From Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage)
LAUSANNE! and Ferney! ye have been the abodes | |
| Of names which unto you bequeathed a name; | |
| Mortals, who sought and found, by dangerous roads, | |
| A path to perpetuity of fame: | |
| They were gigantic minds, and their steep aim | 5 |
| Was, Titan-like, on daring doubts to pile | |
| Thoughts which should call down thunder and the flame | |
| Of heaven, again assailed, if heaven the while | |
| On man and man’s research could deign do more than smile. | |
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| The one was fire and fickleness, a child, | 10 |
| Most mutable in wishes, but in mind | |
| A wit as various,—gay, grave, sage, or wild,— | |
| Historian, bard, philosopher combined; | |
| He multiplied himself among mankind, | |
| The Proteus of their talents: but his own | 15 |
| Breathed most in ridicule,—which, as the wind, | |
| Blew where it listed, laying all things prone,— | |
| Now to o’erthrow a fool, and now to shake a throne. | |
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| The other, deep and slow, exhausting thought, | |
| And hiving wisdom with each studious year, | 20 |
| In meditation dwelt, with learning wrought, | |
| And shaped his weapon with an edge severe, | |
| Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer: | |
| The lord of irony,—that master-spell, | |
| Which stung his foes to wrath, which grew from fear, | 25 |
| And doomed him to the zealot’s ready hell, | |
| Which answers to all doubts so eloquently well. | |
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| Yet, peace be with their ashes,—for by them, | |
| If merited, the penalty is paid; | |
| It is not ours to judge,—far less condemn; | 30 |
| The hour must come when such things shall be made | |
| Known unto all,—or hope and dread allayed | |
| By slumber, on one pillow,—in the dust, | |
| Which, thus much we are sure, must lie decayed; | |
| And when it shall revive, as is our trust, | 35 |
| ’T will be to be forgiven, or suffer what is just. | |
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