Sonnet To Lake Leman.
By George Gordon Byron
Rousseau - Voltaire - our Gibbon - and De Stal -
Leman![75] these names are worthy of thy shore,
Thy shore of names like these! wert thou no more,
Their memory thy remembrance would recall:
To them thy banks were lovely as to all,
But they have made them lovelier, for the lore
Of mighty minds doth hallow in the core
Of human hearts the ruin of a wall
Where dwelt the wise and wondrous; but by thee
How much more, Lake of Beauty! do we feel,
In sweetly gliding o'er thy crystal sea,[76]
The wild glow of that not ungentle zeal,
Which of the Heirs of Immortality
Is proud, and makes the breath of Glory real!
Diodati, July, 1816.
[First published, Prisoner of Chillon, etc., 1816.]