When long familiar joys are all resigned,
  Why does their sad remembrance haunt the mind? [139]
  Lo! where through flat Batavia’s willowy groves, 520
  Or by the lazy Seine, the exile roves;
  O’er the curled waters Alpine measures swell,
  And search the affections to their inmost cell;
  Sweet poison spreads along the listener’s veins,
  Turning past pleasures into mortal pains; [140] 525
  Poison, which not a frame of steel can brave,
  Bows his young head with sorrow to the grave. [Aa]

    Gay lark of hope, thy silent song resume! 
  Ye flattering eastern lights, once more the hills illume! [141]
  Fresh [142] gales and dews of life’s delicious morn, 530
  And thou, lost fragrance of the heart, return! 
  Alas! the little joy to man allowed,
  Fades like the lustre of an evening cloud; [143]
  Or like the beauty in a flower installed,
  Whose season was, and cannot be recalled. 535
  Yet, when opprest by sickness, grief, or care,
  And taught that pain is pleasure’s natural heir,
  We still confide in more than we can know;
  Death would be else the favourite friend of woe. [144]

    ’Mid savage rocks, and seas of snow that shine, 540
  Between interminable tracts of pine,
  Within a temple stands an awful shrine, [145]
  By an uncertain light revealed, that falls
  On the mute Image and the troubled walls. 
  Oh! give not me that eye of hard disdain 545
  That views, undimmed, Ensiedlen’s [Bb] wretched fane. 
  While ghastly faces through the gloom appear, [146]
  Abortive joy, and hope that works in fear; [147]
  While prayer contends with silenced agony, [148]
  Surely in other thoughts contempt may die. 550
  If the sad grave of human ignorance bear
  One flower of hope—­oh, pass and leave it there! [Cc]

    The tall sun, pausing [149] on an Alpine spire,
  Flings o’er the wilderness a stream of fire: 
  Now meet we other pilgrims ere the day [150] 555
  Close on the remnant of their weary way;
  While they are drawing toward the sacred floor
  Where, so they fondly think, the worm shall gnaw no more. [151]
  How gaily murmur and how sweetly taste
  The fountains [Dd] reared for them [152] amid the waste! 560
  Their thirst they slake:—­they wash their toil-worn feet,
  And some with tears of joy each other greet. [153]
  Yes, I must [154] see you when ye first behold
  Those holy turrets tipped with evening gold,
  In that glad moment will for you a sigh 565
  Be heaved, of charitable sympathy; [155]
  In that glad moment when your [156] hands are prest
  In mute devotion on the thankful breast!