Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 2.djvu/305

CANTO III.] LXXXV.

Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake,

With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing

Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake

Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring.

This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing

To waft me from distraction; once I loved

Torn Ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring

Sounds sweet as if a Sister's voice reproved,

That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved.

LXXXVI.

It is the hush of night, and all between

Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear,

Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen,

Save darkened Jura, whose capt heights appear

Precipitously steep; and drawing near,

There breathes a living fragrance from the shore,

Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear

Drops the light drip of the suspended oar,

Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more.