Author’s Voyage Down the Rhine

The confidence of Youth our only Art,
And Hope gay Pilot of the bold design,
We saw the living Landscapes of the Rhine,
Reach after reach, salute us and depart;
Slow sink the Spires,--and up again they start!
But who shall count the Towers as they recline
O’er the dark steeps, or in the horizon line
Striding, with shattered crests, the eye athwart?
More touching still, more perfect was the pleasure,
When hurrying forward till the slack’ning stream
Spread like a spacious Mere, we there could measure
A smooth free course along the watery gleam,
Think calmly on the past, and mark at leisure
Features which else had vanished like a dream.