Rousseau -- Voltaire -- our Gibbon -- De Staël -- <br />Leman! these names are worthy of thy shore, <br />Thy shore of names like these! wert thou no more, <br />Their memory thy remembrance would recall: <br />To them thy banks were lovely as to all, <br />But they have made them lovelier, for the lore <br />Of mighty minds doth hallow in the core <br />Of human hearts the ruin of a wall <br />Where dwelt the wise and wondrous; but by thee <br />How much more, Lake of Beauty! do we feel, <br />In sweetly gliding o'er thy crystal sea, <br />The wild glow of that not ungentle zeal, <br />Which of the heirs of immortality <br />Is proud, and makes the breath of glory real!<br /><br />George Gordon Byron<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sonnet-to-lake-leman/
