Page:Hyperion, a romance.djvu/17

Rh O, the pride of the German heart in this noble river! And right it is; for, of all the rivers of this beautiful earth, there is none so beautiful as this. There is hardly a league of its whole course, from its cradle in the snowy Alps to its grave in the sands of Holland, which boasts not its peculiar charms. By heavens! If I were a German, I would be proud of it too; and of the clustering grapes that hang about its temples, as it reels onward through vineyards in a triumphal march, like Bacchus crowned and drunken.

But I will not attempt to describe the Rhine; it would make this chapter much too long. And to do it well, one should write like a god; and his language flow onward royally with breaks and dashes, like the waters of that royal river, and antique, quaint, and Gothic times be reflected in it. Alas! this evening mine flows not at all. Flow, then, into this smoke-colored goblet, thou blood of the Rhine! out of thy prison-house,—out of thy long-necked, tapering flask, in shape not unlike a church-spire among thy native hills; and from the crystal belfry loud ring the merry tinkling bells, while I drink a health to my hero, in whose heart is