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THE SWISS BOY'S FAREWELL.

SWEET River Rhone! sweet River Rhone!
Thou playmate of my earliest day!
I've wandered many a weary mile,

And yet along thy banks I stray.
Mount Furca* now is far behind, -

That cradle which we both have known;

And this, they say, is France; but still
I'm with a friend, sweet River Rhone!

I'm with a friend whose every wave
Leaps gayly by my father's door,
And many a pleasing thought I've had
To see thee there fret, foam, and roar.
I've wondered, in my childish dreams,
If in thy tide some sky was thrown,
To make thy waters all so blue,

So like to heaven, sweet River Rhone!

The glaciers at old Furca's top

Did seem thy cold, blue, nursing mother,

And thou an infant chill and lone,

Toddling from one rough stone to t'other.

*The source of the Rhone is at the foot of one of the Alps, called Mount Furca.

But soon thou learned'st to leap and run,
And then at last thou went'st alone;
Yet brighter ever didst thou flow,

When I was there, sweet River Rhone!

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And now we've come together here,
By many a turn, through many a dell, -
O'er rock, and crag, and beetling wall, -
To part at last-to say fare well.
We part, for thou must seek the sea,
And go thy way to me unknown;
And I must on to Paris hie,

As lost to thee, sweet River Rhone!

Farewell! nor deem them idle tears,

That down my cheek unbidden flow; For now thou seem'st my dearest friend, Thou'rt linked with home and parents so. Farewell! but rest and ease shall be

To these young limbs unsought, unknown, Till, blest with wealth, the Swiss return

To home and thee, sweet River Rhone!

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