Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Switzerland and Austria: Vol. XVI. 1876–79.

Switzerland: Lausanne

Gibbon

By William Lisle Bowles (1762–1850)

(From The Sorrows of Switzerland)

THOU too, whilst pondering History’s vast plan,

Didst sit by the clear waters of Lausanne,

(What time Imperial Rome rose to thy view,

And thy bold hand her mighty image drew);

Thou too, methinks, as the sad wrecks extend,

Dost seem in sorrow o’er the scene to bend.

With steady eye and penetrating mind

Thou hast surveyed the toil of human kind;

Hast marked Ambition’s march and fiery car,

And thousands shouting in the fields of war.

But direr woes might ne’er a sigh demand,

Than those of hapless, injured Switzerland!