[Wherein I] spoke of most disastrous chances: Of moving accidents by flood and field; Of hairbreadth ’scapes i’ th’ imminent deadly breach; Of being taken by the insolent foe And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence, And portance in my traveler’s history; Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle, Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads Touch heaven, It was my hint to speak—such was my process— And of the cannibals that each other eat, The Anthropophagi, and men whose

Sure never yet were pets so sleek, So full of sportive play; With them the gentle Marian Will while the hours away. Ah! childhood has a happiness To other years unknown, A joy it finds in slightest things, A word, a look, a tone! To it of brighter worlds above Dim glimpses oft are given— Alas! that age, which wisdom gains, Should draw us down from Heaven.

Not in those climes where I have late been straying, Though Beauty long hath there been matchless deemed, Not in those visions to the heart displaying Forms which it sighs but to have only dreamed, Hath aught like thee in truth or fancy seemed: Nor, having seen thee, shall I vainly seek To paint those charms which varied as they beamed— To such as see thee not my words were weak; To those who gaze on thee what language could they speak?

My hills with all their soaring steeps, With all their glaciers bright, Where in his joy the chamois leaps, Mocking the hunter’s might. Oh! but to climb the uplands free, And, where the pure streams foam, By the blue shining lake, to see, Once more, my hamlet-home! Here, no familiar look I trace; I touch no friendly hand; No child laughs kindly in my face— As in dear Switzerland!

stanza 186, part of stanza 187 They were alone, yet not alone as they Who shut in chambers think it loneliness; The silent ocean, and the starlight bay, The twilight glow, which momently grew less, The voiceless sands, and dropping caves, that lay Around them, made them to each other press, As if there were no life beneath the sky Save theirs, and that their life could never die. A long, long kiss, a kiss of youth and love, And beauty, all concentrating like rays Into one foc