The Complete Writings Of Alfred De Musset - Vol. I

TO THE READER My earliest verse was by a child The next betrays a youth as mild The last can scarce in realms of song Be deemed a mans work, nobly strong. TO JUNGFRAU JUNGFRAU, the traveler who ascends thy peak And stands in triumph on the stainless ... Read more

TO THE READER My earliest verse was by a child The next betrays a youth as mild The last can scarce in realms of song Be deemed a mans work, nobly strong. TO JUNGFRAU JUNGFRAU, the traveler who ascends thy peak And stands in triumph on the stainless snows, Feels fierce esultance in his soul, that beats Its wings of victory where the sunrise glows, And like the eagle longs to ever soar Above the peaks where avalanches roar. Jungfrau, I know a heart as proud as thine, And clothed like thee, in robe without a stain, More nigh to God than thou art to the sky That, like thee, sings to Heaven her glad refrain. Be in no wise amazed, 0 towering height, If on the day when first I saw thy crest, I had believed the goal was too sublime, To conquer thee too perilous behest. 1829. IN Venice the red, Never a boat thats sped, No fisher on the mere, No lantern near. Seated alone on shore, The Lion grand lifts oer Horizon without flaw, His bronzed paw. Around him, ranged in groups, Great vessels and shallops, Like herons all adoze In silent rows, On smoking waves reclined And oer the mist entwined, Their standards, hovering In airy ring., The moon that groweth pale, Her fading brow doth veil, A cloud ell starry lined Half hiddn behind. The lady abbess, so, Of Sainte Croix folds low, no eye hath measured the abyss Of the deep ocean whose majestic waves, Foaming, reflecting with an angry hiss Where dazzling sunlight the vast billow laves. Likewise, no eye hath visited the deeps Of thy unbounded soul. Ulric, I swear Thou bearest in thy breast a soul that leaps From heaven to hell, from hope to grim despair. But suffer me to gaze compassionate, As bends a child above the river deep, On one so deeply wounded, or relate Thy ravishment by womans kisses sweet. JULY, 1839. Less