Page:Translations (1834).djvu/103

Fleet as the wave! and fetterless as light!
Tell to my body’s heart, “mine is the dungeon’s night!”
My beauteous native land to me
Is lost—as to the blinded sight;
But despot may not grapple thee,
Thou mock’st the falchion’s gleamy might,
And laugh’st, amid the citadels of morn,
The shield of pathless rock and frenzied flood to scorn!
Wind of the North! no craft may chain,
No brand may scorch thy goblin wing;
Thou scatterest with thy giant mane
The leafy palaces of Spring;
And as the naked woodlands sink and soar,
Liftest thy anthem ’mid a thousand forests’ roar!
Phantom of terror and delight!
Thousands have heard thy airy feet,
When with wild boyhood’s playful sleight
Thou fling’st the breakers’ tiny sleet;
Or o’er the storm—the oak’s dismantled height,
Seekest thy couch of waves unsearchable as night!

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