Chesil's Favourite Poetry

Lord Byron

1788-1824

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

Preface to the First and Second Cantos

The following poem was written, for the most part, amidst the scenes which it attempts to describe. It was begun in Albania; and the parts relative to Spain and Portugal were composed
from the author's observations in those countries. Thus much it may be necessary to state for the correctness of the descriptions. The scenes attempted to be sketched are in Spain, Portugal, Epirus, Acarnania, and Greece. There, for the present, the poem stops; its reception will determine whether the author may venture to conduct his readers to the capital of the East, through Ionia and Phrygia: these two cantos are merely experimental.

A fictitious characer is introduced for the sake of giving some connexion to the piece; which, however, makes no pretension to regularity. It has been suggested to me by friends, on whose opinion I set a high value, that in this fictitious character, 'Childe Harold,' I may incur the suspicion of having intended some real personage; this I beg leave, once for all, to disclaim — Harold is the child of imagination, for the purpose I have stated. In some very trivial particulars, and those merely local, there might be grounds for such a notion; but in the main points, I should hope, none whatever.

It is almost superfluous to mention that the appelation 'Childe,' as 'Childe Waters,' 'Childe Childers,' &c., is used as more consonant with the old structure of versification which I have adopted. The 'Good Night,' in the beginning of the first canto, was suggested by 'Lord Maxwell's Good Night,' in the Border Minstrelsy, edited by Mr. Scott.

With the different poems which have been published on Spanish subjects, there may be found some slight coincidence in the first part, which treats of the Peninsula, but it can only be casual; as, with the exception of a few concluding stanzas, the whole of this poem was written in the Levant.

The stanza of Spenser, according to one of our most successful poets, admits of every variety. Dr. Beattie makes the following observation: -- 'Not long ago, I began a poem in the style and stanza of Spenser, in which I propose to give full scope to my inclination, and be either droll or pathetic, descriptive or sentimental, tender or satirical, as the humour strikes me; for, if I mistake not, the measure which I have adopted admits equally of all these kinds of composition'. — Strengthened in my opinion by such authority, and by the example of some in the highest order of Italian poets, I shall make no apology for attempts at similar variations in the following composition; satisfied that if they are unsuccessful, their failure must be in the execution, rather than in the design, sanctioned by the practice of Ariosto, Thomson, and Beattie.

London, February, 1812.

Addition to the Preface

I have now waited till almost all our periodical journals have distributed their usual portion of criticism. To the justice of the generality of their criticisms I have nothing to object: it would ill become me to quarrel with their very slight degree of censure, when, perhaps, if they had been less kind they had been more candid. Returning, therefore, to all and each my best thanks for their liberality, on one point alone shall I venture an observation. Amongst the many objections justly urged to the very indifferent character of the 'vagrant Childe' (whom, notwithstanding many hints to the contrary, I still maintain to be a fictitious personage), it has been stated, that, besides the anachronism, he is very unknightly, as the times of the Knights were times of Love, Honour, and so forth. Now, it so happens that the good old times, when ' l'amour du bon vieux tems, l'amour antique, ' flourished, were the most profligate of all possible centuries. Those who have any doubts on this subject may consult Sainte-Palaye, passim, and more particularly vol ii. p. 69. The vows of chivalry were no better kept than any other vows, whatsoever; and the songs of the Troubadours were not more decent, and certainly were much less refined, than those of Ovid. The 'Cours d'amour, parlemens d'amour, ou de courtesie et de gentilesse' had much more of love than of courtesy or gentleness. See Rolland on the same subject with Sainte-Palaye. Whatever other objection may be urged to that most unamiable personage Childe Harold, he was so far perfectly knightly in his attributes — 'No waiter, but a knight templar.' By the by, I fear that Sir Tristem and Sir Lancelot were not better than they sould be, although very poetical personages and true knights, 'sans peur,' though not 'sans reproche.' If the story of the institution of the 'Garter' be not a fable, the knights of that order have for several centuries borne the badge of a Countess of Salsbury, of indifferent memory. So much for chivalry. Burke need not have regretted that its days are over, though Marie-Antoinette was quite as chaste as most of those in whose honour lances were shivered, and knights unhorsed.

I now leave 'Childe Harold' to live his day, such as he is; it had been more agreeable, and certainly more easy, to have drawn an amiable character. It had been easy to varnish over his faults, to make him do more and express less, but he never was intended as an example, further than to show, that early perversion of mind and morals leads to satiety of past pleasures and disappointment in new ones, and that even the beauties of nature and the stimulus of travel (except ambition, the most powerful of all excitements) are lost on a soul so constituted, or rather misdirected. Had I proceeded with the poem, this character would have deepened as he drew to the close; for the outline which I once meant to fill up for him was, with some exceptions, the sketch of a modern Timon, perhaps a poetical Zeluco.

London, 1813.

To Ianthe

          Not in those climes where I have late been straying,
          Though Beauty long hath there been matchless deem'd;
          Not in those visions to the heart displaying
          Forms which it sighs but to have only dream'd,
          Hath aught like thee in truth or fancy seem'd:
          Nor, having seen thee, shall I vainly seek
          To paint those charms which varied as they beam'd —
          To such as see thee not my words were weak;
     To those who gaze on thee what language could they speak?

          Ah! may'st thou ever be what now thou art,
          Nor unbeseem the promise of thy spring,
          As fair in form, as warm yet pure in heart,
          Love's image upon earth without his wing,
          And guileless beyond Hope's imagining!
          And surely she who now so fondly rears
          Thy youth, in thee, thus hourly brightening,
          Beholds the rainbow of her future years,
     Before whose heavenly hues all sorrow disappears.

          Young Peri of the West! —; 'tis well for me
          My years already doubly number thine;
          My loveless eye unmoved may gaze on thee,
          And safely view thy ripening beauties shine;
          Happy, I ne'er shall see them in decline;
          Happier, that while all younger hearts shall bleed,
          Mine shall escape the doom thine eyes assign
          To those whose admiration shall succeed,
     But mix'd with pangs to Love's even loveliest hours decreed.

          Oh! let that eye, which, wild as the Gazelle's
          Now brightly bold or beautifully shy,
          Wins as it wanders, dazzles where it dwells,
          Glance o'er this page, nor to my verse deny
          That smile for which my breast might vainly sigh
          Could I to thee be ever more than friend:
          This much, dear maid, accord; nor question why
          To one so young my strain I would commend,
     But bid me with my wreath one matchless lily blend.

          Such is thy name with this my verse entwined;
          And long as kinder eyes a look shall cast
          On Harold's page, Ianthe's here enshrined
          Shall thus be first beheld, forgotten last:
          My days once number'd, should this homage past
          Attract thy fairy fingers near the lyre
          Of him who hail'd thee loveliest, as thou wast,
          Such is the most my memory may desire;
     Though more than Hope can claim, could Friendship less require?

Canto the First

     I

     Oh, thou! in Hellas deem'd of heavenly birth,
     Muse! form'd or fabled at the minstrel's will!
     Since shamed full oft by later lyres on earth,
     Mine dares not call thee from thy sacred hill:
     Yet there I've wander'd by thy vaunted rill:
     Yes! sigh'd o'er Delphi's long deserted shrine,
     Where save that feeble fountain, all is still;
     Nor mote my shell awake the weary Nine
To grace so plain a tale — this lowly lay of mine.

     II

     Whilome in Albion's isle there dwelt a youth,
     Who ne in virtue's ways did take delight;
     But spent his days in riot most uncouth,
     And vex'd with mirth the drowsy ear of Night.
     Ah me! in sooth he was a shameless wight,
     Sore given to revel and ungodly glee;
     Few earthly things found favour in his sight
     Save concubines and carnal companie,
And flaunting wassailers of high and low degree.

     III

     Childe Harold was he hight: - but whence his name
     And lineage long, it suits me not to say;
     Suffice it, that perchance they were of fame,
     And had been glorious in another day:
     But one sad losel soils a name for aye,
     However mighty in the olden time;
     Nor all that heralds rake from coffin'd clay,
     Nor florid prose, nor honeyed lies of rhyme,
Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime.

     IV

     Childe Harold bask'd him in the noontide sun,
     Disporting there like any other fly;
     Nor deem'd before his little day was done
     One blast might chill him into misery.
     But long ere scarce a third of his pass'd by,
     Worse than adversity the Childe befell;
     He felt the fulness of satiety:
     Then loathed he in his native land to dwell,
Which seem'd to him more lone than Eremite's sad cell.

     V

     For he through Sin's long labyrinth had run,
     Nor made atonement when he did amiss,
     Had sigh'd to many though he loved but one,
     And that loved one, alas! could n'er be his.
     Ah, happy she! to 'scape from him whose kiss
     Had been pollution unto aught so chaste;
     Who soon had left her charms for vulgar bliss,
     And spoil'd her goodly lands to gild his waste,
Nor calm domestic peace had ever deign'd to taste.

     VI

     And now Childe Harold was sore sick at heart,
     And from his fellow bacchanals would flee;
     'Tis said, at times the sullen tear would start,
     But Pride congeal'd the drop within his ee:
     Apart he stalk'd in joyless reverie,
     And from his native land resolved to go,
     And visit scorching climes beyond the sea;
     With pleasure drugg'd, he almost long'd for woe,
And e'en for change of scene would seek the shades below.

     VII

     The Childe departed from his father's hall:
     It was a vast and venerable pile;
     So old, it seemèd only not to fall,
     Yet strength was pillar'd in each massy aisle.
     Monastic dome! condemn'd to uses vile!
     Where Superstition once had made her den
     Now Paphian girls were known to sing and smile;
     And monks might deem their time was come agen,
If ancient tales say true, nor wrong these holy men.

     VIII

     Yet oft-times in his maddest mirthful mood
     Strange pangs would flash along Childe Harold's brow
     As if the memory of some deadly feud
     Or disappointed passion lurk'd below:
     But this none knew, nor haply cared to know;
     For his was not that open, artless soul
     That feels relief by bidding sorrow flow,
     Nor sought he friend to counsel or condole,
Whate'er this grief mote be, which he could not control.

     IX

     And none did love him: though to hall and bower
     He gather'd revellers from far and near,
     He knew them flatt'rers of the festal hour;
     The heartless parasites of present cheer.
     Yea! none did love him - not his lemans dear -
     But pomp and power alone are woman's care,
     And where these are light Eros finds a feere;
     Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare,
And Mammon wins his way where Seraphs might despair.

     X

     Childe Harold had a mother - not forgot,
     Though parting from that mother he did shun;
     A sister whom he loved, but saw her not
     Before his weary pilgrimage begun:
     If friends he had, he bade adieu to none.
     Yet deem not thence his breast a breast of steel:
     Ye, who have known what 'tis to dote upon
     A few dear objects, will in sadness feel
Such partings break the heart they fondly hope to heal.

     XI

     His house, his home, his heritage, his lands,
     The laughing dames in whom he did delight,
     Whose large blue eyes, fair locks, and snowy hands,
     Might shake the saintship of an anchorite,
     And long had fed his youthful appetite;
     His goblets brimm'd with every costly wine,
     And all that mote to luxury invite,
     Without a sigh he left, to cross the brine,
And traverse Paynim shores, and pass Earth's central line.

     XII

     The sails were fill'd, and fair the light winds blew,
     As glad to waft him from his native home;
     And fast the white rocks faded from his view,
     And soon were lost in circumambient foam:
     And then, it may be, of his wish to roam
     Repented he, but in his bosom slept
     The silent thought, nor from his lips did come
     One word of wail, whilst other sate and wept,
And to the reckless gales unmanly moaning kept.

     XIII

     But when the sun was sinking in the sea
     He seized his harp, which he at times could string,
     And strike, albeit with untaught melody,
     When deem'd he no strange ear was listening:
     And now his fingers o'er it he did fling,
     And tuned his farewell in the dim twilight.
     While flew the vessel on her snowy wing,
     And fleeting shores receded from his sight,
Thus to the elements he pour'd out his last 'Good Night.'

               1

          Adieu, adieu! my native shore
               Fades o'er the waters blue;
          The night-winds sigh, the breakers roar,
               And shrieks the wild sea-mew.
          Yon sun that sets upon the sea
               We follow in his flight;
          Farewell awhile to him and thee,
               My native Land - Good Night!

               2

          A few short hours and he will rise
               To give the morrow birth;
          And I shall hail the main and skies
               But not my mother earth.
          Deserted is my own good hall,
               Its hearth is desolate;
          Wild weeds are gathering on the wall;
               My dog howls at the gate.

               3

          'Come hither, hither, my little page!
               Why dost thou weep and wail?
          Or dost thou dread the billows' rage,
               Or tremble at the gale?
          But dash the tear-drop from thine eye;
               Our ship is swift and strong:
          Our fleetest falcon scarce can fly
               More merrily along.'

               4

          'Let winds be shrill, let waves roll high,
               I fear not wave nor wind:
          Yet marvel not, Sir Childe, that I
               Am sorrowful in mind;
          For I have from my father gone,
               A mother whom I love,
          And have no friend, save these alone,
               But thee - and one above.

               5

          'My father bless'd me fervently,
               Yet did not much complain;
          But sorely will my mother sigh
               Till I come back again.' -
          'Enough, enough, my little lad!
               Such tears become thine eye;
          If I thy guileless bosom had,
               Mine own would not be dry.

               6

          'Come hither, hither, my staunch yeoman,
               Why dost thou look so pale?
          Or dost thou dread a French foeman?
               Or shiver at the gale?' -
          'Deem'st thou I tremble for my life?
               Sir Childe, I'm not so weak;
          But thinking on an absent wife
               Will blanch a faithful cheek.

               7

          'My spouse and boys dwell near thy hall,
               Along the bordering lake,
          And when they on their father call,
               What answer shall she make?' -
          'Enough, enough, my yeoman good,
               Thy grief let none gainsay;
          But I, who am of lighter mood,
               Will laugh to flee away.'

               8

          For who would trust the seeming sighs
               Of wife or paramour?
          Fresh feeres will dry the bright blue eyes
               We late saw streaming o'er.
          For pleasures past I do not grieve,
               Nor perils gathering near;
          My greatest grief is that I leave
               No thing that claims a tear.

               9

          And now I'm in the world alone,
               Upon the wide, wide sea:
          But why should I for others groan,
               When none will sigh for me?
          Perchance my dog will whine in vain,
               Till fed by stranger hands;
          But long ere I come back again
               He'd tear me where he stands.

               10

          With thee, my bark, I'll swiftly go
               Athwart the foaming brine;
          Nor care what land thou bear'st me to,
               So not again to mine.
          Welcome, welcome, ye dark-blue waves!
               And when you fail my sight,
          Welcome, ye deserts and ye caves!
               My native Land - Good Night!

     XIV

     On, on the vessel flies, the land is gone,
     And winds are rude in Biscay's sleepless bay.
     Four days are sped, but with the fifth, anon,
     New shores descried make every bosom gay;
     And Cintra's mountain greets them on their way.
     And Tagus dashing onward to the deep,
     His fabled golden tribute bent to pay;
     And soon on board the Lusian pilots leap,
And steer 'twixt fertile shores where yet few rustics reap.

     XV

     Oh, Christ! it is a goodly sight to see
     What Heaven hath done for this delicious land:
     What fruits of fragrance blush on every tree!
     What goodly prospects o'er the hills expand!
     But man would mar them with an impious hand:
     And when the Almighty lifts his fiercest scourge
     'Gainst those who most transgress his high command,
     With treble vengeance will his hot shafts urge
Gaul's locust host, and earth from fellest foemen purge.

     XVI

     What beauties doth Lisboa, first unfold!
     Her image floating on that noble tide,
     Which poets vainly pave with sands of gold,
     But now whereon a thousand keels did ride
     Of mighty strength, since Albion was allied,
     And to the Lusians did her aid afford:
     A nation swoln with ignorance and pride,
     Who lick yet loathe the hand that waves the sword
To save them from the wrath of Gaul's unsparing lord.

     XVII

     But whoso entereth within this town,
     That, sheening far, celestial seems to be,
     Disconsolate will wander up and down,
     'Mid many things unsightly to strange ee;
     For hut and palace show like filthily:
     The dingy denizens are rear'd in dirt;
     Ne personage of high or mean degree
     Doth care for cleaness of surtout or shirt;
Though shent with Egypt's plague, unkempt, unwash'd, unhurt.

     XVIII

     Poor, paltry slaves! yet born 'midst noblest scenes -
     Why, Nature, waste thy wonders on such men?
     Lo! Cintra's glorious Eden intervenes
     In variegated maze of mount and glen.
     Ah, me! what hand can pencil guide, or pen,
     To follow half on which the eye dilates
     Through views more dazzling unto mortal ken
     Than those whereof such things the bard relates,
Who to the awe-struck world unlock'd Elysium's gates?

     XIX

     The horrid crags, by toppling convent crown'd,
     The cork-trees hoar that clothe the shaggy steep,
     The mountain-moss by scorching skies imbrown'd,
     The sunken glen, whose sunless shrubs must weep,
     The tender azure of the unruffled deep,
     The orange tints that gild the greenest bough,
     The torrents that from cliff to valley leap,
     The vine on high, the willow branch below,
Mix'd in one mighty scene, with varied beauty glow.

     XX

     Then slowly climb the many-winding way,
     And frequent turn to linger as you go,
     From loftier rocks new loveliness survey,
     And rest ye at 'Our Lady's house of woe;'
     Where frugal monks their little relics show,
     And sundry legends to the stranger tell:
     Here impious men have punish'd been, and lo!
     Deep in yon cave Honorious long did dwell,
In hope to merit Heaven by making earth a Hell.

     XXI

     And here and there, as up the crags you spring,
     Mark many rude-carved crosses near the path;
     Yet deem not these devotion's offering -
     These are memorials frail of murderous wrath:
     For wheresoe'er the shrieking victim hath
     Pour'd forth his blood beneath the assassin's knife,
     Some hand erects a cross of mouldering lath;
     And grove and glen with thousand such are rife
Throughout this purple land, where law secures not life.

     XXII

     On sloping mounds, or in the vale beneath,
     Are domes where whilome kings did make repair;
     But now the wild flowers round them only breathe;
     Yet ruin'd splendour still is lingering there.
     And yonder towers the Prince's palace fair:
     There thou, too, Vathek! England's wealthiest son,
     Once form'd thy Paradise, as not aware
     When wanton Wealth her mightiest deeds hath done,
Meek Peace voluptuous lures was ever wont to shun.

     XXIII

     Here didst thou dwell, here schemes of pleasure plan,
     Beneath yon mountain's ever beautious brow:
     But now, as if a thing unblest by Man,
     Thy fairy dwelling is as lone as thou!
     Her giant weeds a passage scarce allow
     To halls deserted, portals gaping wide:
     Fresh lessons to the thinking bosom, how
     Vain are the pleasaunces on earth supplied;
Swept into wrecks anon by Time's ungentle tide!

     XXIV

     Behold the hall where chiefs were late convened!
     Oh! dome displeasing unto British eye!
     With diadem hight foolscap, lo! a fiend,
     A little fiend that scoffs incessantly,
     There sits in parchment robe array'd, and by
     His side is hung a seal and sable scroll,
     Where blazon'd glare names known to chivalry,
     And sundry signatures adorn the roll,
Whereat the Urchin points and laughs with all his soul.

     XXV

     Convention is the dwarfish demon styled
     That foil'd the knights in Marialva's dome:
     Of brains (if brains they had) he them beguiled,
     And turned a nation's shallow joy to gloom.
     Here Folly dash'd to earth the victor's plume,
     And Policy regain'd what arms had lost:
     For chiefs like ours in vain may laurels bloom!
     Woe to the conqu'ring, not the conquer'd host,
Since baffled Triumph droops on Lusitania's coast.

     XXVI

     And ever since that martial synod met,
     Britannia sickens, Cintra! at thy name;
     And folks in office at the mention fret,
     And fain would blush, if blush they could, for shame.
     How will posterity the deed proclaim!
     Will not our own and fellow nations sneer,
     To view these champions cheated of their fame,
     By foes in fight o'er thrown, yet victors here,
Where Scorn her finger points through many a coming year.

     XXVII

     So deem'd the Childe, as o'er the mountains he
     Did take his way in solitary guise:
     Sweet was the scene, yet soon he thought to flee,
     More restless than the swallow in the skies:
     Though here awhile he learn'd to moralize,
     For Meditation fix'd at times on him;
     And conscious Reason whisper'd to despise
     His early youth, misspent in maddest whim;
But as he gazed on truth his aching eyes grew dim.

     XXVIII

     To horse! to horse! he quits, for ever quits
     A scene of peace, though soothing to his soul:
     Again he rouses from his moping fits,
     But seeks not now the harlot and the bowl.
     Onward he flies, nor fix'd as yet the goal
     Where he shall rest him on his pilgrimage;
     And o'er him many changing scenes must roll
     Ere toil his thirst for travel can assuage,
Or he shall calm his breast, or learn experience sage.

     XXIX

     Yet Mafra shall one moment claim delay,
     Where dwelt of yore the Lusians' luckless queen;
     And church and court did mingle their array,
     And mass and revel were alternate seen;
     Lordlings and freres - ill-sorted fry I ween!
     But here the Babylonian whore hath built
     A dome, where flaunts she in such glorious sheen,
     That men forget the blood which she hath spilt,
And bow the knee to Pomp that loves to varnish guilt.

     XXX

     O'er vales that teem with fruits, romantic hills.
     (Oh, that such hills upheld a free-born race!)
     Whereon to gaze the eye with joyaunce fills,
     Childe Harold wends through many a pleasant place.
     Though sluggards deem it but a foolish chase,
     And marvel men should quit their easy chair,
     The toilsome way, and long, long league to trace,
     Oh! there is sweetness in the mountain air,
And life, that bloated Ease can never hope to share.

     XXXI

     More bleak to view the hills at length recede,
     And, less luxuriant, smoother vales extend;
     Immense horizon-bounded plains succeed!
     Far as the eye discerns, withouten end,
     Spain's realms appear whereon her shepherds tend
     Flocks, whose rich fleece right well the trader knows -
     Now must the pastor's arm his lambs defend:
     For Spain is compass'd by unyielding foes,
And all must shield their all, or share Subjection's woes.

     XXXII

     Where Lusitania and her Sister meet,
     Deem ye what bounds the rival realms divide?
     Or ere the jealous queens of nations greet,
     Doth Tayo interpose his mighty tide?
     Or dark Sierras rise in craggy pride?
     Or fence of art, like China's vasty wall? -
     Ne barrier wall, ne river deep and wide,
     Ne horrid crags, nor mountains dark and tall,
Rise like the rocks that part Hispania's land from Gaul:

     XXXIII

     But these between a silver streamlet glides,
     And scarce a name distinguisheth the brook,
     Though rival kingdoms press its verdant sides.
     Here leans the idle shepherd on his crook,
     And vacant on the rippling waves doth look,
     That peaceful still 'twixt bitterest foemen flow;
     For proud each peasant as the noblest duke:
     Well doth the Spaniard hind the difference know
'Twixt him and Lusian slave, the lowest of the low.

     XXXIV

     But ere the mingling bounds have far been pass'd,
     Dark Guadiana rolls his power along
     In sullen billows, murmuring and vast,
     So noted ancient roundelays among.
     Whilome upon his banks did legions throng
     Of Moor and Knight, in mailèd splendour drest:
     Here ceased the swift their race, here sunk the strong;
     The Paynim turban and the Christian crest
Mix'd on the bleeding stream, by floating hosts oppress'd.

     XXXV

     Oh. lovely Spain! renown'd, romantic land!
     Where is that standard which Pelagio bore,
     When Cava's traitor-sire first call'd the band
     That dyed thy mountain streams with Gothic gore?
     Where are those bloody banners which of yore
     Waved o'er thy son's, victorious to the gale,
     And drove at last the spoilers to their shore?
     Red gleam'd the cross, and waned the crescent pale,
While Afric's echoes thrill'd with Moorish matrons' wail.

     XXXVI

     Teems not each ditty with the glorious tale?
     Ah! such, alas! the hero's amplest fate!
     When granite moulders, and when records fall,
     A peasant's plaint prolongs his dubious date.
     Pride! bend thine eye from heaven to thine estate,
     See how the Mighty shrink into a song!
     Can Volume, Pillar, Pile preserve thee great?
     Or must thou trust Tradition's simple tongue,
When Flattery sleeps with thee, and History does thee wrong?

     XXXVII

     Awake, ye sons of Spain! awake! advance!
     Lo! Chivalry, your ancient goddess, cries,
     But wields not, as of old, her thirsty lance,
     Nor shakes her crimson plumage in the skies:
     Now on the smoke of blazing bolts she flies,
     And speaks in thunder through yon engine's roar:
     In every peal she calls - 'Awake! arise!'
     Say, is her voice more feeble than of yore,
When her war-song was heard on Andalusia's shore?

     XXXVIII

     Hark! heard you not those hoofs of dreadful note?
     Sounds not the clang of conflict on the heath?
     Saw ye not whom the reeking sabre smote,
     Nore saved your brethren ere they sank beneath
     Tyrants and tyrants' slaves? the fires of death,
     The bale-fires flash on high: - from rock to rock
     Each volley tells that thousands cease to breathe;
     Death rides upon the sulphury Siroc,
Red Battle stamps his foot, and nations feel the shock.

     XXXIX

     Lo! where the Giant on the mountain stands,
     His blood-red tresses deep'ning in the sun,
     With death-shot glowing in his fiery hands,
     And eye that scorcheth all it glares upon;
     Restless it rolls, now fix'd, and now anon
     Flashing afar, - and at his iron feet
     Destruction cowers, to mark what deeds are done;
     For on this morn three potent nations meet,
To shed before his shrine the blood he deems most sweet.

     XL

     By heaven! it is a splendid sight to see
     (For one who hath no friend, no brother there)
     Their rival scarfs of mix'd embroidery,
     Their various arms that glitter in the air!
     What gallant war-hounds rouse them from their lair,
     And gnash their fangs, loud yelling for the prey!
     All join the chase, but few the triumph share;
     The Grave shall bear the chiefest prize away,
And Havoc scarce for joy can number their array.

XLI

     Three hosts combine to offer sacrifice;
     Three tongues prefer strange orisons on high;
     Three gaudy standards flout the pale blue skies;
     The shouts are France, Spain, Albion, Victory!
     The foe, the victim, and the fond ally
     That fights for all, but ever fights in vain,
     Are met - as if at home they could not die -
     To feed the crow on Talavera's plain,
And fertilize the field that each pretends to gain.

     XLII

     There shall they rot - Ambition's honour'd fools!
     Yes, Honour decks the turf that wraps their clay!
     Vain Sophistry! in these behold the tools,
     The broken tools, that tyrants cast away
     By myriads, when they dare to pave their way
     With human hearts - to what? - a dream alone.
     Can despots compass aught that hails their sway?
     Or call with truth one span of earth their own,
Save that wherein at last they crumble bone by bone?

     XLIII

     Oh, Albeura! glorious field of grief!
     As o'er thy plain the Pilgrim prick's his steed,
     Who could foresee thee, in a space so brief,
     A scene where mingling foes should boast and bleed!
     Peace to the perish'd! may the warrior's meed
     And tears of triumph their reward prolong!
     Till others fall where other chieftains lead
     Thy name shall circle round the gaping throng,
And shine in worthless lays the theme of transient song.

     XLIV

     Enough of battle's minions! let them play
     Their game of lives, and barter breath for fame:
     Fame that will scarce reanimate their clay,
     Though thousands fall to deck some single name.
     In sooth 'twere sad to thwart their noble aim
     Who strike, blest hirelings! for their country's good,
     And die, that living might have proved her shame;
     Perish'd, perchance, in some domestic feud,
Or in a narrower sphere wild Rapine's path pursued.

     XLV

     Full swiftly Harold wends his lonely way
     Where proud Sevilla triumphs unsubdued:
     Yet is she free - the spoiler's wish'd-for prey!
     Soon, soon shall Conquest's fiery foot intrude,
     Blackening her lovely domes with traces rude.
     Inevitable hour! 'Gainst fate to strive
     Where Desolation plants her famish'd brood
     Is vain, or Ilion, Tyre, might yet survive,
And Virtue vanquish all, and murder cease to thrive.

     XLVI

     But all unconscious of the coming doom,
     The feast, the song, the revel here abounds;
     Strange modes of merriment the hours consume,
     Nor bleed these patriots with their country's wounds;
     Nor here War's clarion, but Love's rebeck sounds;
     Here Folly still his votaries inthralls;
     And young-eyes Lewdness walks her midnight rounds;
     Girt with the silent crimes of Capitals,
Still to the last kind Vice clings to the tott'ring walls.

     XLVII

     Not so the rustic - with his trembling mate
     He lurks, nor casts his heavy eye afar,
     Lest he should view his vineyard desolate,
     Blasted below the dun hot breath of war.
     No more beneath soft Eve's consenting star
     Fandango twirls his jocund castanet:
     Ah, monarchs! could ye taste the mirth ye mar,
     Not in the toils of Glory would ye fret;
The hoarse dull drum would sleep, and Man be happy yet!

     XLVIII

     How carols now the lusty muleteer?
     Of love, romance, devotion is his lay,
     As whilome he was wont the leagues to cheer,
     His quick bells wildly jingling on the way?
     No! as he speeds, he chants 'Vivä el Rey!'
     And checks his song to execrate Godoy,
     The royal wittol Charles, and curse the day
     When first Spain's queen beheld the black-eyed boy,
And gore-faced Treason spring from her adulterate joy.

     XLIX

     On yon long, level plain, at distance crown'd
     With crags, whereon those Moorish turrets rest,
     Wide scatter'd hoof-marks dint the wounded ground;
     And, scathed by fire, the greensward's darken'd vest
     Tells that the foe was Andalusia's guest:
     Here was the camp, the watch-flame, and the host,
     Here the bold peasant storm'd the dragon's nest;
     Still does he mark it with triumphant boast;
And points to yonder cliffs, which oft were won and lost.

     L

     And whomsoe'er along the path you meet
     Bears in his cap the badge of crimson hue,
     Which tells you whom to shun and whom to greet.
     Woe to the man that walks in public view
     Without of loyalty this token true;
     Sharp is the knife, and sudden is the stroke;
     And sorely would the Gallic foeman rue,
     If subtle poniards, wrapt beneath the cloke,
Could blunt the sabre's edge, or clear the cannon's smoke.

     LI

     At every turn Morena's dusky height
     Sustains aloft the battery's iron load;
     And, far as mortal eye can compass sight,
     The mountain-howitzer, the broken road,
     The bristling palisade, the fosse o'erflow'd,
     The station'd bands, the never-vacant watch,
     The magazine in rocky durance stow'd,
     The holster'd steed beneath the shed of thatch,
The ball-piled pyramid, the ever-blazing match,

     LII

     Portend the deeds to come:- but he whose nod
     Has tumbled feebler despots from their sway,
     A moment pauseth ere he lifts the rod;
     A little moment deigneth to delay:
     Soon will his legions sweep through these their way;
     The West must own the Scourger of the world.
     Ah! Spain! how sad will be thy reckoning day,
     When soars Gaul's Vulture, with his wings unfurl'd,
And thou shalt view thy sons in crowds to Hades hurl'd.

     LIII

     And must they fall? the young, the proud, the brave,
     To swell one bloated Chief's unwholesome reign?
     No step between submission and a grave?
     The rise of rapine and the fall of Spain?
     And doth the Power that man adores ordain
     Their doom, nor heed the suppliant's appeal?
     Is all that desperate Valour acts in vain?
     And Counsel sage, and patriotic Zeal,
The Veteran's skill, Youth's fire, and Manhood's heart of steel?

     LIV

     Is it for this the Spanish maid, aroused,
     Hangs on the willow her unstrung guitar,
     And, all unsex'd, the Anlace hath espoused,
     Sung the loud song, and dared the deed of war?
     And she, whom once the semblance of a scar
     Appall'd, an owlet's 'larum chill'd with dread,
     Now views the column-scattering bay'net jar,
     The falchion flash, and o'er the yet warm dead
Stalks with Minerva's step where Mars might quake to tread.

     LV

     Ye who shall marvel when you hear her tale,
     Oh! had you known her in her softer hour,
     Mark'd her black eye that mocks her coal-black veil,
     Heard her light, lively tones in Lady's bower,
     Seen her long locks that foil the painter's power,
     Her fairy form, with more than female grace,
     Scarce would you deem that Saragoza's tower
     Beheld her smile in Danger's Gorgon face,
Thin the closed ranks, and lead in Glory's fearful chase.

     LVI

     Her lover sinks, - she sheds no ill-timed tear;
     Her chief is slain - she fills his fatal post;
     Her fellows flee - she checks their base career;
     The foe retires - she heads the sallying host:
     Who can appease like her a lover's ghost?
     Who can avenge so well a leader's fall?
     What maid retrieve when man's flush'd hope is lost?
     Who hang so fiercely on the flying Gaul,
Foil'd by a woman's hand, before a batter'd wall?

     LVII

     Yet are Spain's maids no race of Amazons,
     But form'd for all the witching arts of love:
     Though thus in arms they emulate her sons,
     And in the horrid phalanx dare to move,
     'Tis but the tender fierceness of the dove,
     Pecking the hand that hovers o'er her mate:
     In softness as in firmness far above
     Remoter females, famed for sickening prate;
Her mind is nobler sure, her charms perchance as great.

     LVIII

     The seal Love's dimpling finger hath impress'd
     Denotes how soft that chin which bears his touch:
     Her lips whose kisses pout to leave their nest,
     Bid man be valiant ere he merit such:
     Her glance how wildly beautiful! how much
     Hath Phoebus woo'd in vain to spoil her cheek,
     Which glows yet smoother from his amorous clutch!
     Who round the North for paler dames would seek?
How poor their forms appear! how languid, wan, and weak!

     LIX

     Match me, ye climes! which poets love to laud;
     Match me, ye harems of the land! where now
     I strike my strain, far distant, to applaud
     Beauties that ev'n a cynic must avow;
     Match me those Houries, whom ye scarce allow
     To taste the gale lest Love should ride the wind,
     With Spain's dark-glancing daughters - deign to know,
     There your wise Prophet's paradise we find,
His black-eyed maids of Heaven, angelically kind.

     LX

     Oh, thou Parnassus! whom I now survey,
     Not in the phrensy of a dreamer's eye,
     Not in the fabled landscape of a lay,
     But soaring snow-clad through thy native sky,
     In the wild pomp of mountain majesty!
     What marvel if I thus essay to sing?
     The humblest of thy pilgrims passing by
     Would gladly woo thine Echoes with his string,
Though from thy heights no more one Muse will wave her wing.

     LXI

     Oft have I dream'd of Thee! whose glorious name
     Who knows not, knows not man's divinest lore:
     And now I view thee, 'tis, alas! with shame
     That I in feeblest accents must adore.
     When I recount thy worshippers of yore
     I tremble, and can only bend the knee;
     Nor raise my voice, nor vainly dare to soar,
     But gaze beneath thy cloudy canopy
In silent joy to think at last I look on Thee!

     LXII

     Happier in this than mightiest bards have been,
     Whose fate to distant homes confined their lot,
     Shall I unmoved behold the hallow'd scene,
     Which others rave of, though they know it not?
     Though here no more Apollo haunts his grot,
     And thou, the Muses' seat, art now their grave,
     Some gentle spirit still pervades the spot,
     Sighs in the gale, keeps silence in the cave,
And glides with glassy foot o'er yon melodious wave.

     LXIII

     Of thee hereafter. - Ev'n amidst my strain
     I turn'd aside to pay my homage here;
     Forgot the land, the sons, the maids of Spain;
     Her fate, to every freeborn bosom dear;
     And hail'd thee, not perchance without a tear.
     Now to my theme - but from thy holy haunt
     Let me some remnant, some memorial bear;
     Yield me one leaf of Daphne's deathless plant,
Nor let thy votary's hope be deem'd an idle vaunt.

     LXIV

     But ne'er didst thou, fair Mount, when Greece was young,
     See round thy giant base a brighter choir,
     Nor e'er did Delphi, when her priestess sung
     The Pythian hymn with more than mortal fire,
     Behold a train more fitting to inspire
     The song of love, than Andalusia's maids,
     Nurst in the glowing lap of soft desire:
     Ah! that to these were given such peaceful shades
As Greece can still bestow, though Glory fly her glades.

     LXV

     Fair is proud Seville; let her country boast
     Her strength, her wealth, her site of ancient days;
     But Cadiz, rising on the distant coast,
     Calls forth a sweeter, though ignoble praise.
     Ah, Vice! how soft are thy voluptuous ways!
     While boyish blood is mantling, who can 'scape
     The fascination of thy magic gaze?
     A Cherub-hydra round us dost thou gape,
And mould to every taste thy dear delusive shape.

     LXVI

     When Paphos fell by Time - accursed Time!
     The Queen who conquers all must yield to thee -
     The Pleasures fled, but sought as warm a clime;
     And Venus, constant to her native sea,
     To nought else constant, hither deign'd to flee,
     And fix'd her shrine within these walls of white;
     Though not to one dome circumscribeth she
     Her worship, but, devoted to her rite,
A thousand altars rise, for ever blazing bright.

     LXVII

     From morn till night, from night till startled Morn
     Peeps blushing on the revel's laughing crew,
     The song is heard, the rosy garland worn;
     Devices quaint, and frolics ever new,
     Tread on each other's kibes. A long adieu
     He bids to sober joy that here sojourns:
     Nought interrupts the riot, though in lieu
     Of true devotion monkish incense burns,
And love and prayer unite, or rule the hour by turns.

     LXVIII

     The Sabbath comes, a day of blessed rest:
     What hallows it upon this Christian shore?
     Lo! it is sacred to a solemn feast;
     Hark! heard you not the forest-monarch's roar?
     Crashing the lance, he snuffs the spouting gore
     Of man and steed, o'er thrown beneath his horn;
     The throng'd arena shakes with shouts for more;
     Yells the mad crowd o'er entrails freshly torn,
Nor shrinks the female eye, nor ev'n affects to mourn.

     LXIX

     The seventh day this; the jubilee of man.
     London! right well thou know'st the day of prayer:
     Then thy spruce citizen, wash'd artisan,
     And smug apprentice gulp their weekly air;
     Thy coach of hackney, whiskey, one-horse chair,
     And humblest gig through sundry suburbs whirl;
     To Hampstead, Brentford, Harrow make repair;
     Till the tired jade the wheel forgets to hurl,
Provoking envious gibe from each pedestrian churl.

     LXX

     Some o'er thy Thamis row the ribbon'd fair,
     Others along the safer turnpike fly;
     Some Richmond-hill ascend, some scud to Ware,
     And many to the steep of Highgate hie.
     Ask ye, Boeotian shades! the reason why?
     'Tis to the worship of the solemn Horn,
     In whose dread name both men and maids are sworn,
And consecrate the oath with draught, and dance till morn.

     LXXI

     All have their fooleries - not alike are thine,
     Fair Cadiz, rising o'er the dark blue sea!
     Soon as the matin bell proclaimeth nine,
     Thy Saint-adorers count the rosary:
     Much is the VIRGIN teased to shrive them free
     (Well do I ween the only virgin there)
     From crimes as numerous as her beadsmen be;
     Then to the crowded circus forth they fare:
Young, old, high, low, at once the same diversion share.

     LXXII

     The lists are oped, the spacious area clear'd,
     Thousands on thousands piled are seated round;
     Long ere the first loud trumpet's note is heard,
     Ne vacant space for lated wight is found:
     Here dons, grandees, but chiefly dames abound,
     Skill'd in the ogle of a roguish eye,
     Yet ever well inclined to heal the wound;
     None through their cold disdain are doom'd to die,
As moon-struck bards complain, by Love's sad archery.

     LXXIII

     Hush'd is the din of tongues - on gallant steeds,
     With milk-white crest, gold spur, and light-poised lance,
     Four cavaliers prepare for venturous deeds,
     And lowly bending to the lists advance;
     Rich are their scarfs, their chargers featly prance:
     If in the dangerous game they shine today,
     The crowd's loud shout and ladies' lovely glance,
     Best prize of better acts, they bear away,
And all that kings or chiefs e'er gain their toils repay.

     LXXIV

     In costly sheen and gaudy cloak array'd,
     But all afoot, the light-limb'd Matadore
     Stands in the centre, eager to invade
     The lord of lowing herds; but not before
     The ground, with cautious tread, is traversed o'er,
     Lest aught unseen should lurk to thwart his speed:
     His arm a dart, he fights aloof, nor more
     Can man achieve without the friendly steed -
Alas! too oft condemn'd for him to bear and bleed.

     LXXV

     Thrice sounds the clarion; lo! the signal falls,
     The den expands, and Expectation mute
     Gapes round the silent circle's peopled walls.
     Bounds with one lashing spring the mighty brute,
     And, wildly staring, spurns, with sounding foot,
     The sand, nor blindly rushes on his foe:
     Here, there, he points his threatening front, to suit
     His first attack, wide waving to and fro
His angry tail; red rolls his eye's dilated glow.

     LXXVI

     Sudden he stops; his eye is fix'd; away,
     Away, thou heedless boy! prepare the spear:
     Now is thy time to perish, or display
     The skill that yet may check his mad career.
     With well-timed croupe the nimble coursers veer;
     On foams the bull, but not unscathed he goes;
     Streams from his flank the crimson torrent clear:
     He flies, he wheels, distracted with his throes;
Dart follow dart; lance, lance; loud bellowings speak his woes.

     LXXVII

     Again he comes; nor dart nor lance avail,
     Nor the wild plunging of the tortured horse;
     Though man and man's avenging arms assail,
     Vain are his weapons, vainer is his force.
     One gallant steed is stretch'd a mangled corse;
     Another, hideous sight! unseam'd appears,
     His gory chest unveils life's panting source;
     Though death-struck, still his feeble frame he rears;
Staggering, but stemming all, his lord unharm'd he bears.

     LXXVIII

     Foil'd, bleeding, breathless, furious to the last,
     Full in the centre stands the bull at bay,
     Mid wounds, and clinging darts, and lances brast,
     And foes disabled in the brutal fray;
     And now the Matadores around him play,
     Shake the red cloak and poise the ready brand:
     Once more through all he bursts his thundering way -
     Vain rage! the mantle quits the conynge hand,
Wraps his fierce eye - 'tis past - he sinks upon the sand!

     LXXIX

     Where his vast neck just mingles with the spine,
     Sheathed in his form the deadly weapon lies.
     He stops - he starts - disdaining to decline:
     Slowly he falls, amidst triumphant cries,
     Without a groan, without a struggle dies.
     The decorated car appears - on high
     The corse is piled - sweet sight for vulgar eyes -
     Four steeds that spurn the rein, as swift as shy,
Hurl the dark bulk along, scarce seen in dashing by.

     LXXX

     Such the ungentle sport that oft invites
The Spanish maid, and cheers the Spanish swain.
     Nurtured in blood betimes, his heart delights
     In vengeance, gloating on another's pain.
     What private feuds the troubled village stain!
     Though now one phalanx'd host should meet the foe,
     Enough, alas! in humble homes remain,
     To meditate 'gainst friends the secret blow,
For some slight cause of wrath whence life's warm stream must flow.

     LXXXI

     But Jealousy has fled: his bars, his bolts,
     His wither'd centinel, Duenna sage!
     And all whereat the generous soul revolts,
     Which the stern dotard deem'd he could encage,
     Have pass'd to darkness with the vanish'd age.
     Who late so free as Spanish girls were seen
     (Ere War uprose in his volcanic rage),
     With braided tresses bounding o'er the green,
While on the gay dance shone Night's lover-loving Queen?

     LXXXII

     Oh! many a time and oft, had Harold loved,
     Or dream'd he loved, since rapture is a dream;
     But now his wayward bosom was unmoved,
     For not yet had he drunk of Lethe's stream;
     And lately had he learn'd with truth to deem
     Love has no gift so grateful as his wings:
     How fair, how young, how soft soe'er he seem,
     Full from the fount of Joy's delicious springs
Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings.

     LXXXIII

     Yet to the beauteous form he was not blind,
     Though now it moved him as it moves the wise:
     Not that Philosophy on such a mind
     E'er deign'd to bend her chastely-awful eyes:
     But Passion raves herself to rest, or flies;
     And Vice, that digs her own voluptuous tomb,
     Had buried long his hopes, no more to rise:
     Pleasure's pall'd victim! life-abhorring gloom
Wrote on his faded brow curst Cain's unresting doom.

     LXXXIV

     Still he beheld, nor mingled with the throng;
     But view'd them not with misanthropic hate:
     Fain would he now have join'd the dance, the song;
     But who may smile that sinks beneath his fate:
     Nought that he saw his sadness could abate:
     Yet once he struggled 'gainst the demon's sway,
     And as in Beauty's bower he pensive sate,
     Pour'd forth his unpremeditated lay,
To charms as fair as those that soothed his happier day.

               To Inez

               1

          Nay, smile not at my sullen bow;
               Alas, I cannot smile again:
          Yet Heaven avert that ever thou
               Shouldst weep, and haply weep in vain.

               2

          And dost thou ask what secret woe
               I bear, corroding joy and youth?
          And wilt thou vainly seek to know
               A pang, ev'n thou must fail to soothe?

               3

          It is not love, it is not hate,
               Nor low Ambition's honours lost,
          That bids me loathe my present state,
               And fly from all I prized the most:

               4

          It is that weariness which springs
               From all I meet, or hear, or see:
          To me no pleasure Beauty brings;
               Thine eyes have scarce a charm for me.

               5

          It is that settled, ceaseless gloom
               The fabled Hebrew wanderer bore;
          That will not look beyond the tomb,
               But cannot hope for rest before.

               6

          What Exile from himself can flee?
               To zones though more and more remote,
          Still, still pursues, where'er I be,
               The blight of life - the demon Thought.

               7

          Yet others rapt in pleasure seem,
               And taste of all that I forsake:
          Oh! may they still of transport dream,
               And ne'er, at least like me, awake!

               8

          Thorough many a clime 'tis mine to go,
               With many a retrospection curst;
          And all my solace is to know,
               Whate'er betides, I've known the worst.

               9

          What is that worst? Nay, do not ask -
               In pity from the search forbear:
          Smile on - nor venture to unmask
               Man's heart, and view the Hell that's there.

     LXXXV

     Adieu, fair Cadiz! yes, a long adieu!
     Who may forget how well thy walls have stood?
     When all were changing, thou alone wert true,
     First to be free, and last to be subdued:
     And if amidst a scene, a shock so rude,
     Some native blood was seen thy streets to dye,
     A traitor only fell beneath the feud:
     Here all were noble, save Nobility!
None hugg'd a conqueror's chain, save fallen Chivalry!

     LXXXVI

     Such be the sons of Spain, and strange her fate!
     They fight for freedom who were never free,
     A Kingless people for a nerveless state;
     Her vassals combat when their chieftains flee,
     True to the veriest slaves of Treachery:
     Fond of a land which gave them nought but life,
     Pride points the path that leads to liberty;
     Back to the struggle, baffled in the strife,
War, war is still the cry, 'War even to the knife!'

     LXXXVII

     Ye, who would more of Spain and Spaniards know,
     Go, read whate'er is writ of bloodiest strife:
     Whate'er keen Vengeance urged on foreign foe
     Can act, is acting there against man's life:
     From flashing scimitar to secret knife,
     War mouldeth there each weapon to his need -
     So may he guard the sister and the wife,
     So may he make each curst oppressor bleed -
So may such foes deserve the most remorseless deed!

     LXXXVIII

     Flows there a tear of pity for the dead?
     Look o'er the ravage of the reeking plain;
     Look on the hands with female slaughter red;
     Then to the dogs resign the unburied slain,
     Then to the vulture let each corse remain,
     Albeit unworthy of the prey-bird's maw;
     Let their bleach'd bones, and blood's unbleaching stain,
     Long mark the battle-field with hideous awe:
Thus only may our sons conceive the scenes we saw!

     LXXXIX

     Nor yet, alas! the dreadful work is done;
     Fresh legions pour adown the Pyrenees:
     It deepens, still, the work is scarce begun,
     Nor mortal eye the distant end foresees,
     Fall'n nations gaze on Spain; if freed, she frees
     More than her fell Pizarros once enchain'd:
     Strange retribution! now Columbia's ease
     Repairs the wrongs that Quito's sons sustained,
While o'er the parent clime prowls Murder unrestrain'd.

     XC

     Not all the blood at Talavera shed,
     Not all the marvels of Barossa's fight,
     Not Albeura lavish of the dead,
     Have won for Spain her well-asserted right.
     When shall her Olive-Branch be free from blight?
     When shall she breathe her from the blushing toil?
     How many a doubtful day shall sink in night,
     Ere the Frank robber turn him from his spoil,
And Freedom's stranger-tree grow native of the soil!

     XCI

     And thou, my friend! - since unavailing woe
     Bursts from my heart, and mingles with the strain -
     Had the sword laid thee with the mighty low,
     Pride might forbid e'en Friendship to complain:
     But thus unlaurel'd to descend in vain,
     By all forgotten, save the lonely breast,
     And mix unbleeding with the boasted slain,
     While Glory crowns so many a meaner crest!
What hadst thou done to sink so peacefully to rest?

     XCII

     Oh, known the earliest, and esteem'd the most!
     Dear to a heart where nought was left so dear!
     Though to my hopeless days for ever lost,
     In dreams deny me not to see thee here!
     And Morn in secret shall renew the tear
     Of Consciousness awaking to her woes,
     And Fancy hover o'er thy bloodless bier,
     Till my frail frame return to whence it rose,
And mourn'd and mourner lie united in repose.

     XCIII

     Here is one fytte of Harold's pilgrimage:
     Ye who of him may further seek to know,
     Shall find some tidings in a future page,
     If he that rhymeth now may scribble moe.
     Is this too much? stern Critic! say not so:
     Patience! and ye shall hear what he beheld
     In other lands, where he was doom'd to go:
     Lands that contain the monuments of Eld,
Ere Greece and Grecian arts by barbarous hands were quell'd.

Canto the Second

     I

     Come, blue-eyed maid of heaven! - but thou, alas!
     Didst never yet one mortal song inspire -
     Goddess of Wisdom! here thy temple was,
     And is, despite of war and wasting fire,
     And years, that bade thy worship to expire:
     But worse than steel, and flame, and ages slow,
     Is the dread sceptre and dominion dire
     Of men who never felt the sacred glow
That thoughts of thee and thine on polish'd breasts bestow.

     II

     Ancient of days! august Athena! where,
     Where are thy men of might? thy grand in soul?
     Gone - glimmering through the dream of things that were:
     First in the race that led to Glory's goal,
     They won, and pass'd away - is this the whole?
     A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour!
     The warrior's weapon and the sophist's stole
     Are sought in vain, and o'er each mouldering tower,
Dim with the most of years, gray flits the shade of power.

     III

     Sun of the morning, rise! approach you here!
     Come - but molest not yon defenceless urn:
     Look on this spot - a nation's sepulchre!
     Adobe of gods, whose shrines no longer burn.
     Even gods must yield - religions take their turn:
     'Twas Jove's - 'tis Mahomet's - and other creeds
     Will rise with other years, till man shall learn
     Vainly his incense soars, his victim bleeds;
Poor child of Doubt and Death; whose hope is built on reeds.

     IV

     Bound to the earth. he lifts his eye to heaven -
     Is't not enough, unhappy thing! to know
     Thou art? Is this a boon so kindly given,
     That being, thou woulds't be again, and go,
     Thou know'st not, reck'st not to what region, so
     On earth no more, but mingled with the skies?
     Still wilt thou dream on future joy and woe?
     Regard and weigh yon dust before it flies:
That little urn saith more than thousand homilies.

     V

     Or burst the vanish'd Hero's lofty mound;
     Far on the solitary shore he sleeps:
     He fell, and falling nation mourn'd around;
     But now not one of saddening thousand weeps,
     Nor warlike-worshipper his vigil keeps
     Where demi-gods appear'd, as records tell.
     Remove yon skull from out the scatter'd heaps:
     Is that a temple where a God may dwell?
Why ev'n the worm at last disdains her shatter'd cell!

     VI

     Look on its broken arch, its ruined wall,
     Its chambers desolate, and portals foul:
     Yes, this was once Ambition's airy hall,
     The dome of Thought, the palace of the Soul:
     Behold through each lack-lustre, eyeless hole,
     The gay recess of Wisdom and of Wit
     And passion's host, that never brook'd control:
     Can all saint, sage or sophist ever writ,
People this lonely tower, this tenement refit?

     VII

     Well didst thou speak, Athena's wisest son!
     'All that we know is, nothing can be known.'
     Why should we shrink from what we cannot shun?
     Each hath his pang, but feeble sufferers groan
     With brain-born dreams of evil all their own.
     Pursue what Chance of Fate proclaimeth best;
     Peace waits us on the shores of Acheron:
     There no forced banquet claims the sated guest,
But Silence spreads the couch of ever welcome rest.

     VIII

     Yet if, the holiest men have deem'd, there be
     A land of souls beyond that sable shore,
     To shame the doctrine of the Sadducee
     And sophists, madly vain of dubious lore;
     How sweet it were no concert to adore
     With those who made our mortal labours light!
     To hear each voice we fear'd to hear no more!
     Behold each mighty shade reveal'd to sight,
The Bactrian, Samian sage, and all who taught the right!

     IX

     There, thou! - whose love and life together fled,
     Have left me here to love and live in vain -
     'Twined with my heart, and can I deem thee dead
     When busy Memory flashes on my brain?
     Well - I will dream that we may meet again,
     And woo the vision to my vacant breast:
     If aught of young Rememberance then remain,
     Be as it may Futurity's behest,
For me 'twere bliss enough to know thy spirit blest.

     X

     Here let me sit upon this massy stone,
     The marble column's yet unshaken base;
     Here, son of Saturn! was thy fav'rite throne:>
     Mightiest of many such! Hence let me trace
     The latent grandeur of thy dwelling-place.
     It may not be: nor ev'n can Fancy's eye
     Restore what Time hath labour'd to deface.
     Yet these proud pillars claim no passing sigh;
Unmoved the Moslem sits, the light Greek carols by.

     XI

     But who of all the plunderers of yon fane
     On high, where Pallas linger'd loth to flee
     The latest relic of her ancient reign;
     The last, the worst, dull spoiler, who was he?
     Blush, Caledonia! such thy son could be!
     England! I joy no child he was of thine:
     Thy free-born men should spare what once was free;
     Yet they could violate each saddening shrine,
And bear these altars o'er the long-reluctant brine.

     XII

     But most the modern Pict's ignoble boast,
     To rive what Goth and Turk, and Time hath spared:
     Cold as the crags upon his native coast,
     His mind as barren and his heart as hard,
     Is he whose head conceived, whose hand prepared,
     Aught to displace Athena's poor remains:
     Her sons too weak the sacred shrine to guard,
     Yet felt some portion of their mother's pains,
And never knew, till then, the weight of Despot's chains.

     XIII

     What! shall it e'er he said by British tongue,
     Albion was happy in Athena's tears?
     Though in thy name the slaves her bosom wrung,
     Tell not the deed to blushing Europe's ears;
     The ocean queen, the free Britannia, bears
     The last poor plunder from a bleeding land:
     Yes, she, whose gen'rous aid her name endears,
     Tore down those remnants with a harpy's hand,
Which envious Eld forbore, and tyrants left to stand.

     XIV

     Where was thine Aegis, Pallas! that appall'd
     Stern Alaric and Havoc on their way?
     Where Peleus' son? whom Hell in vain enthrall'd
     His shade from Hades upon that dread day
     Bursting to light in terrible array!
     What! could not Pluto spare the chief once more,
     To scare a second robber from his prey?
     Idly he wander'd on the Stygian shore,
Nor now preserved the walls he loved to shield before.

     XV

     Cold is the heart, fair Greece! that looks on thee,
     Nor feels as lovers o'er the dust they loved;
     Dull is the eye that will not weep to see
     Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed
     By British hands, which it had best behoved
     To guard those relics ne'er to be restored.
     Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved,
     And once again thy hapless bosom gored,
And snatch'd thy shrinking Gods to northern climes abhorr'd!

     XVI

     But where is Harold! shall I then forget
     To urge the gloomy wanderer o'er the wave?
     Little reck'd he of all that men regret;
     No loved-one now in feign'd lament could rave;
     No friend the parting hand extended gave,
     Ere the cold stranger pass'd to other climes:
     Hard is his heart whom charms may not enslave;
     But Harold felt not as in other times,
And left without a sigh the land of wars and crimes.

     XVII

     He that has sail'd upon the dark blue sea
     Has view'd at times, I ween, a full fair sight;
     When the fresh breeze is fair as breeze may be,
     The white sail set, the gallant frigate tight;
     Masts, spires and strand retiring to the right,
     The glorious main expanding o'er the bow,
     The convoy spread like wild swans in their flight,
     The dullest sailer wearing bravely now,
So gaily curl the waves before each dashing prow.

XVIII

     And oh, the little warlike world within!
     The well-reeved guns, the netted canopy,
     The hoarse command, the busy humming din,
     When, at a word, the tops are mann'd on high:
     Hark, to the Boatswain's call, the cheering cry!
     While through the seaman's hand the tackle glides;
     Or schoolboy Midshipman that, standing by,
     Strains his shrill pipe as good or ill betides,
And well the docile crew that skilful urchin guides.

     XIX

     White is the glassy deck, without a stain,
     Where on the watch the staid Lieutenant walks:
     Look on that part which sacred doth remain
     For the lone chieftain, who majestic stalks,
     Silent and fear'd by all - not oft he talks
     With aught beneath him, if he would preserve
     That strict restraint, which broken, ever balks
     Conquest and Fame: but Britons rarely swerve
From law, however stern, which tends their strength to nerve.

     XX

     Blow! swiftly blow, thou keel-compelling gale!
     Till the broad sun withdraws his lessening ray;
     Then must the pennant-bearer slacken sail,
     That lagging barks may make their lazy way.
     Ah! grievance sore, and listless dull delay,
     To waste on sluggish hulks the sweetest breeze!
     What leagues are lost, before the dawn of day,
     Thus loitering pensive on the willing seas,
The flapping sail haul'd down to halt for logs like these!

     XXI

     The moon is up; by Heaven, a lovely eve!
     Long streams of light o'er dancing waves expand;
     Now lads on shore may sigh and maids believe:
     Such be our fate when we return to land!
     Meantime some rude Arion's restless hand
     Wakes the brisk harmony that sailors love;
     A circle there of merry listeners stand,
     Or to some well-known measure featly move,
Thoughtless, as if on shore they still were free to rove.

     XXII

     Through Calpe's straits survey the steepy shore;
     Europe and Afric on each other gaze!
     Lands of the dark-eyed Maid and dusky Moor
     Alike beheld beneath pale Hecate's blaze:
     How softly on the Spanish shore she plays,
     Disclosing rock, and slope, and forest brown,
     Distinct, though darkening with her waning phase;
     But Mauritania's giant-shadows frown,
From mountain-cliff to coast descending sombre down.

     XXIII

     `Tis night, when Meditation bids us feel
     We once have loved, though love is at an end:
     The heart, lone mourner of its baffled zeal,
     Though friendless now, will dream it had a friend.
     Who with the weight of years would wish to bend,
     When Youth itself survives young Love and Joy?
     Alas! when mingling souls forget to blend,
     Death hath but little left him to destroy?
Ah! happy years! once more who would not be a boy?

     XXIV

     Thus bending o'er the vessel's laving side,
     To gaze on Dian's wave-reflected sphere,
     The soul forgets her schemes of Hope and Pride,
     And flies unconscious o'er each backward year.
     None are so desolate but something dear,
     Dearer than self, possesses or possess'd
     A thought, and claims the homage of a tear;
     A flashing pang! of which the weary breast
Would still, albeit in vain, the heavy heart divest.

     XXV

     To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
     To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
     Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
     And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been;
     To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
     With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
     Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean;
     This is not solitude; 'tis but to hold
Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unroll'd.

     XXVI

     But midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men,
     To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,
     And roam along, the world's tired denizen,
     With none who bless us, none whom we can bless;
     Minions of splendour shrinking from distress!
     None that, with kindred consciousness endued,
     If we were not, would seem to smile the less
     Of all that flatter'd, follow'd, sought, and sued;
This is to be alone; this, this is solitude.

     XXVII

     More blest the life of godly eremite,
     Such as on lonely Athos may be seen,
     Watching at eve upon the giant height,
     Which looks o'er waves so blue, skies so serene,
     That he who there at such and hour hath been
     Will wistful linger on that hallow'd spot;
     Then slowly tear him from the witching scene,
     Sigh forth one wish that such had been his lot,
Then turn to hate a world he had almost forgot.

     XXVIII

     Pass we the long, unvarying course, the track
     Oft trod, that never leaves a trace behind,
     Pass we the calm, the gale, the change, the tack,
     And each well known caprice of wave and wind;
     Pass we the joys and sorrows sailors find,
     Coop'd in their winged sea-girt citadel;
     The foul, the fair, the contrary, the kind,
     As breezes rise and fall and billows swell,
Till on some jocund morn - lo, land! and all is well.

     XXIX

     But not in silence pass Calypso's isles,
     The sister tenants of the middle deep;
     There for the weary still a haven smiles,
     Though the fair goddess long hath ceased to weep,
     And o'er her cliffs a fruitless watch to keep
     For him who dared prefer a mortal bride:
     Here, too, his boy essay'd the dreadful leap
     Stern Mentor urged from high to yonder tide;
While thus of both bereft, the nymph-queen doubly sighed.

     XXX

     Her reign is past, her gentle glories gone:
     But trust not this; too easy youth, beware!
     A mortal sovereign holds her dangerous throne,
     And thou may'st find a new Calypso there.
     Sweet Florence! could another ever share
     This wayward, loveless heart, it would be thine:
     But checked by every tie, I may not dare
     To cast a worthless offering at thy shrine,
Nor ask so dear a breast to feel one pang for mine.

     XXXI

     Thus Harold deem'd, as on the lady's eye
     He look'd, and met its beam without a thought,
     Save Admiration glancing harmless by:
     Love kept aloof, albeit not far remote,
     Who knew his votary often lost and caught,
     But knew him as his worshipper no more,
     And ne'er again the boy his bosom sought:
     Since now he vainly urged him to adore,
Well deem'd the little God his ancient sway was o'er.

     XXXII

     Fair Florence found, in sooth with some amaze,
     One who, 'twas said, still sigh'd to all he saw,
     Withstand, unmoved, the lustre of her gaze,
     Which others hail'd with real or mimic awe,
     Their hope, their doom, their punishment, their law;
     All that gay Beauty from her bondsmen claims:
     And much she marvell'd that a youth so raw
     Nor felt, nor feign'd at least, the oft-told flames,
Which, though sometimes they frown, yet rarely anger dames.

     XXXIII

     Little knew she that seeming marble heart,
     Now mask'd in silence or withheld by pride,
     Was not unskilful in the spoiler's art,
     And spread its snares licentious far and wide;
     Nor from the base pursuit had turn'd aside,
     As long as aught was worthy to pursue:
     But Harold on such arts no more relied;
     And had he doted on those eyes so blue,
Yet never would he join the lover's whining crew.

     XXXIV

     Not much he kens, I ween, of woman's breast,
     Who thinks that wanton thing is won by sighs;
     What careth she for hearts when once possess'd?
     Do proper homage to thine idol's eyes;
     But not too humbly, or she will despise
     Thee and thy suit, though told in moving tropes
     Disguise ev'n tenderness, if thou art wise;
     Brisk Confidence still best with woman copes;
Pique her and soothe in turn, soon Passion crowns thy hopes.

     XXXV

     'Tis an old lesson; Time approves it true,
     And those who know it best, deplore it most;
     When all is won that all desire to woo,
     The paltry prize is hardly worth the cost:
     Youth wasted, minds degraded, honour lost,
     These are thy fruits, successful Passion! these!
     If, kindly, cruel, early Hope is crost,
     Still to the last it rankles, a disease,
Not to be cured when Love itself forgets to please.

     XXXVI

     Away! nor let me loiter in my song,
     For we have many a mountain-path to tread,
     And many a varied shore to sail along,
     By pensive Sadness, not by Fiction, led -
     Climes, fair withal as ever mortal head
     Imagined in its little schemes of thought;
     Or e'er in new Utopias were ared,
     To teach man what he might be, or he ought;
If that corrupted thing could ever such be taught.

     XXXV

     'Tis an old lesson; Time approves it true,
     And those who know it best deplore it most;
     When all is won that all desire to woo,
     The paltry prize is hardly worth the cost:
     Youth wasted, minds degraded, honour lost,
     These are thy fruits, successful Passion!
     If, kindly cruel, early hope is crost,
     Still to the last it rankles, a disease,
Not to be cured when love itself forgets to please.

     XXXVI

     Away! nor let me loiter in my song,
     For we have many a mountain-path to tread,
     And many a varied shore to sail along,
     By pensive Sadness, not by Fiction, led -
     Climes, fair withal as ever mortal head
     Imagined in its little schemes of thought;
     Or e'er in new Utopias were ared,
     To teach man what he might be, or he ought;
If that corrupted thing could ever such be taught.

     XXXVII

     Dear Nature is the kindest mother still,
     Though alway changing, in her aspect mild;
     From her bare bosom let me take my fill,
     Her never-ween'd, though not her favour'd child.
     Oh! she is fairest in her features wild,
     Where nothing polish'd dares pollute her path:
     To me by day or night she ever smiled,
     Though I have mark'd her when none other hath,
And sought her more and more, and loved her best in wrath.

     XXXVIII

     Land of Albania! where Iskander rose,
     Theme of the young, and beacon of the wise,
     And he his namesake, whose oft-baffled foes
     Shrunk from his deeds of chivalrous emprize:
     Land of Albania! let me bend mine eyes
     On thee, thou rugged nurse of savage men!
     The cross descends, thy minarets arise,
     And the pale crescent sparkles in the glen,
Through many a cypress grove within each city's ken.

     XXXIX

     Childe Harold sail'd, and pass'd the barren spot,
     Where sad Penelope o'erlooked the wave;
     And onward view'd the mount, not yet forgot,
     The lover's refuge, and the Lesbian's grave.
     Dark Sappho! could not verse immortal save
     That breast imbued with such immortal fie?
     Could she not live who life eternal gave?
     If life eternal may await the lyre,
That only heaven to which Earth's children may aspire.

     XL

     'Twas on a Grecian autumn's gentle eve
     Childe Harold hail'd Leucadia's cape afar;
     A spot he longed to see, nor cared to leave:
     Oft did he mark the scenes of vanish'd war,
     Actium, Lepanto, fatal Trafalgar;
     Mark them unmoved, for he would not delight
     (Born beneath some remote inglorious star)
     In themes of bloody fray, or gallant fight,
But loathed the bravo's trade, and laughed at martial wight.

     XLI

     But when he saw the evening star above
     Leucadia's far-projecting rock of woe,
     And hail'd the last resort of fruitless love,
     He felt, or deem'd he felt, no common glow:
     And as the stately vessel glided slow
     Beneath the shadow of that ancient mount,
     He watch'd the billows' melancholy flow,
     And, sunk albeit in thought as he was wont,
More placid seem'd his eye, and smooth his pallid front.

     XLII

     Morn dawns; and with it stern Albania's hills,
     Dark Suli's rocks, and Pindus' inland peak,
     Robed half in mist, bedew'd with snowy rills,
     Array'd in many a dun and purple streak,
     Arise; and as the clouds along them break,
     Disclose the dwelling of the mountaineer;
     Here roams the wolf, the eagle whets his beak,
     Birds, beasts or prey, and wilder men appear,
And gathering storms around convulse the closing year.

     XLIII

     Now Harold felt himself at length alone,
     And bade to Christian tongues a long adieu;
     Now he adventured on a shore unknown,
     Which all admire, but many dread to view:
     His breast was arm'd 'gainst fate, his wants were few;
     Peril he sought not, but ne'er shrank to meet:
     The scene was savage, but the scene was new;
     This made the ceaseless toil of travel sweet,
Beat back keen winter's blast, and welcomed summer's heat.

     XLIV

     Here the red cross, for still the cross is here,
     Though sadly scoff'd at by the circumcized,
     Forgets that pride to pamper'd priesthood dear;
     Churchman and votary alike despised.
     Foul Superstition! how soe'er disguised,
     Idol, saint, virgin, prophet, crescent, cross,
     For whatsoever symbol thou art prized,
     Thou sacerdotal gain, but general loss!
Who from true worship's gold can separate thy dross?

     XLV

     Ambracia's gulf behold, where once was lost
     A world for woman, lovely, harmless thing!
     In yonder rippling bay, their naval host
     Did many a Roman chief and Asian king
     To doubtful conflict, certain slaughter bring:
     Look where the second Caesar's trophies rose:
     Now, like the hands that rear'd them, withering:
     Imperial anarchs, doubling human woes!
GOD! was thy globe ordain'd for such to win and lose?

     XLVI

     From the dark barriers of that rugged clime,
     Ev'n to the centre of Illyria's vales,
     Childe Harold pass'd o'er many a mount sublime,
     Though lands scarce noticed in historic tales;
     Yet in famed Attica such lovely dales
     Are rarely seen; nor can fair Temple boast
     A charm they know not; loved Parnassus fails,
     Though classic ground and consecrated most,
To match some spots that lurk within this lowering coast.

     XLVII

     He passed bleak Pindus, Acherusia's lake,
     And left the primal city of the land,
     And onwards did his further journey take
     To great Albania's chief, whose dread command
     Is lawless law: for with a bloody hand
     He sways a nation, turbulent and bold:
     Yet here and there some daring mountain-band
     Disdain his power and from their rocky hold
Hurl their defiance far, nor yield unless to gold.

     XLVIII

     Monastic Zitza! From thy shady brow
     Thou small, but favour'd spot of holy ground!
     Where'er we gaze around, above, below,
     What rainbow tints, what magic charms are found!
     Rock, river, forest, mountain, all abound,
     And bluest skies that harmonize the whole:
     Beneath, the distant torrent's rushing sound
     Tells where the volumed cataract doth roll
Between those hanging rocks, that shock yet please the soul.

     XLIX

     Amidst the grove that crowns yon tufted hill,
     Which, were it not for many a mountain nigh
     Rising in my lofty ranks, and loftier still,
     Might well itself be deem'd of dignity,
     The convent's white walls glisten fair on high:
     Here dwells the caloyer, nor rude is he,
     Nor niggard of his cheer; the passer by
     Is welcome still; nor heedless will he flee
From hence, if he delight kind Nature's sheen to see.

     L

     Here in the sultriest season let him rest,
     Fresh in the green beneath those aged trees;
     Here winds of gentlest wing will fan his breast,
     From heaven itself he may inhale the breeze:
     The plain is far beneath - oh! let him seize
     Pure pleasure while he can; the scorching ray
     Here pierceth not, impregnate with disease:
     Then let his length the loitering pilgrim lay,
And gaze, untired, the morn, the noon, the eve away.

     LI

     Dusky and huge, enlarging on the sight,
     Nature's volcanic amphitheatre,
     Chimæra's alps extend from left to right:
     Beneath, a living valley seems to stir;
     Flocks play, trees wave, streams flow, the mountain-fir
     Nodding above; behold black Acheron!
     Once consecrated to the sepulchre.
     Pluto! If this be hell I look upon,
Close shamed Elysium's gates, my shade shall seek for none.

     LII

     Ne city's towers pollute the lovely view;
     Unseen is Yanina, though not remote,
     Veil'd by the screen of hills: here men are few,
     Scanty the hamlet, rare the lonely cot:
     But peering down each precipice, the goat
     Browseth; and, pensive o'er his scattered flock,
     The little shepherd in his white capote
     Doth lean his boyish form along the rock,
Or in his cave awaits the tempest's short-lived shock.

     LIII

     Oh! where Dodona! is thine aged grove,
     Prophetic fount, and oracle divine?
     What valley echo'd the response of Jove?
     What trace remaineth of the Thunderer's shrine?
     All, all forgotten - and shall man repine
     That his frail bonds to fleeting life are broke?
     Cease, fool! the fate of gods may well be thine:
     Wouldst thou survive the marble or the oak?
When nations, tongues, and worlds must sink beneath the stroke!

     LIV

     Epirus' bounds recede, and mountains fail;
     Tired of up-gazing still, the wearied eye
     Reposes gladly on as smooth a vale
     As ever Spring yclad in grassy die:
     Ev'n on a plain no humble beauties lie,
     Where some bold river breaks the long expanse,
     And woods along the banks are waving high,
     Whose shadows in the glassy waters dance,
Or with the moonbeam sleep in midnight's solemn trance.

     LV

     The sun had sunk behind vast Tomerit,
     And Laos wide and fierce came roaring by,
     The shades of wonted night were gathering yet,
     When, down the steep banks winding warily,
     Childe Harold saw, like meteors in the sky,
     The glittering minarets of Tepalen,
     Whose walls o'erlook the stream; and drawing nigh,
     He heard the busy hum of warrior-men
Swelling the breeze that sigh'd along the lengthening glen.

     LVI

     He pass'd the sacred Haram's silent tower,
     And underneath the wide o'erarching gate
     Survey'd the dwelling of this chief of power,
     Where all around proclaim'd his high estate.
     Amidst no common pomp the despot sate,
     While busy preparation shook the court,
     Slaves, eunuchs, soldiers, guests and santons wait;
     Within, a palace, and without, a fort:
Here men of every clime appear to make resort.

     LVII

     Richly caparison'd, a ready row
     Of armed horse, and many a warlike store,
     Circled the wide extending court below;
     Above, strange groups adorn'd the corridore:
     And oft-times through the area's echoing door,
     Some high-capp'd Tartar spurr'd his steed away:
     The Turk, the Greek, the Albanian, and the Moor,
     Here mingled in their many-hued array,
While the deep war-drum's sound announced the close of day.

     LVIII

     The wild Albanian kirtled to his knee,
     With shawl-girt head and ornamented gun,
     And gold-embroider'd garments, fair to see:
     The crimson-scarfed men of Macedon;
     The Delhi with his cap of terror on,
     And crooked galive; the lively supple Greek;
     And swarthy Nubia's mutilated son;
     The bearded Turk, that rarely deigns to speak,
Master of all around, too potent to be meek,

     LIX

     Are mix'd conspicuous: some recline in groups,
     Scanning the motley scene that varies round;
     There some grave Moslem to devotion stoops,
     And some that smoke, and some that play, are found;
     Here the Albanian proudly treads the ground;
     Half whispering there the Greek is heard to prate;
     Hark! from the mosque the nightly solemn sound,
     The Muezzin's call doth shake the minaret,
'There is no god but God! - to prayer - lo! God is great!'

     LX

     Just at this season Ramazani's fast
     Through the long day its penance did maintain:
     But when the lingering twilight hour was past,
     Revel and feast assumed the rule again:
     Now all was bustle, and the menial train
     Prepared and spread the plenteous board within;
     The vacant gallery now seem'd in vain,
     But from the chambers came the mingling din,
As page and slave anon were passing out and in.

     LXI

     Here woman's voice is never heard: apart,
     And scarce permitted, guarded, veil'd to move,
     She yields to one her person and her heart,
     Tamed to her cage, nor feels a wish to rove:
     For, not unhappy in her master's love,
     And joyful in a mother's gentlest cares,
     Blest cares! all other feelings far above!
     Herself more sweetly rears the babe she bears,
Who never quits the breast, no meaner passion shares.

     LXII

     In marble-paved pavilion, where a spring
     Of living water from the centre rose,
     Whose bubbling did a genial freshness fling,
     And soft voluptuous couches breathed repose,
     ALI reclined, a man of war and woes:
     Yet in his lineaments ye cannot trace,
     While Gentleness her milder radiance throws
     Along that aged venerable face,
The deeds that lurk beneath, and stain him with disgrace.

     LXIII

     It is not that yon hoary lengthening beard
     Ill suits the passions which belong to youth;
     Love conquers age - so Hafiz hath averr'd
     So sings the Teian, and he sings in sooth -
     But crimes that scorn the tender voice of Ruth,
     Beseeming all men ill, but most the man
     In years, have mark'd him with a tiger's tooth;
     Blood follows blood, and through their mortal span,
In bloodier acts conclude those who with blood began.

     LXIV

     'Mid many things most new to ear and eye
     The pilgrim rested here his weary feet,
     And gazed around on Moslem luxury,
     Till quickly wearied with that spacious seat
     Of Wealth and Wantonness, the choice retreat
     Of sated Grandeur from the city's noise:
     And were it humbler it in sooth were sweet;
     But Peace abhorreth artificial joys,
And Pleasure, leagued with Pomp, the zest of both destroys.

     LXV

     Fierce are Albania's children, yet they lack
     Not virtues, were those virtues more mature,
     Where is the foe that ever saw their back?
     Who can so well the toil of war endure?
     Their native fastness not more secure
     Than they in doubtful time of troublous need:
     Their wrath how deadly! but their friendship sure,
     When Gratitude or Valour bids them bleed,
Unshaken rushing on where'er their chief may lead.

     LXVI

     Childe Harold saw them in their chieftain's tower
     Thronging to war in splendour and success;
     And after view'd them, when, within their power,
     Himself awhile the victim of distress;
     That saddening hour when bad men hotlier press:
     But these did shelter him beneath their roof,
     When less barbarians would have cheer'd him less,
     And fellow-countrymen have stood aloof -
In aught that tries the heart how few withstand the proof!

     LXVII

     It chanced that adverse winds once drove his bark
     Full on the coast of Suli's shaggy shore,
     When all around was desolate and dark;
     To land was perilous, to sojourn more;
     Yet for a while the mariners forbore,
     Dubious to trust where treachery might lurk:
     At length they ventured forth, though doubting sore
     That those who loathe alike the Frank and Turk
Might once again renew their ancient butcher-work.

     LXVIII

     Vain fear! the Suliotes stretch'd the welcome hand,
     Led them o'er rocks and past the dangerous swamp,
     Kinder than polish'd slaves though not so bland,
     And piled the hearth, and wrung their garments damp,
     And fill'd the bowl, and trimm'd the cheerful lamp,
     And spread their fare; though homely, all they had:
     Such conduct bears Philanthropy's rare stamp -
     To rest the weary and to soothe the sad,
Doth lesson happier men, and shames at least the bad.

     LXIX

     It came to pass, that when he did address
     Himself to quit at length this mountain-land,
     Combined marauders half-way barr'd egress,
     And wasted far and near with glaive and brand;
     And therefore did he take a trusty band
     To traverse Acarnania's forest wide,
     In war well season'd, and with labours tann'd,
     Till he did greet white Achelous' tide,
And from his further bank Aetolia's wolds espied.

     LXX

     Where Ione Utraikey forms its circling cove,
     And weary waves retire to gleam at rest,
     How brown the foliage of the green hills grove,
     Nodding at midnight o'er the calm bay's breast,
     As winds come lightly whispering from the west,
     Kissing, not ruffling, the blue deep's serene: -
     Here Harold was received a welcome guest;
     Nor did he pass unmoved the gentle scene,
For many a joy could he from Night's soft presence glean.

     LXXI

     On the smooth shore the night-fires brightly blazed,
     The feast was done, the red wine circling fast,
     And he that unawares had there ygazed
     With gaping wonderment had stared aghast;
     For ere night's midmost, stillest hour was past,
     The native revels of the troop began;
     Each Palikar his sabre from him cast,
     And bounding hand in hand, man link'd to man,
Yelling their uncouth dirge, long danced the kirtled clan.

     LXII

     Childe Harold at a long distance stood
     And view'd, but not displeased, the revelrie,
     Nor hated harmless mirth, however rude:
     In sooth it was no vulgar sight to see
     Their barbarous, yet their not indecent, glee;
     And as the flames along their faces gleam'd
     Their gestures nimble, dark eyes flashing free,
     The long wild locks that to their girdles stream'd
While thus in concert they this half sang, half scream'd: -

               1

          Tambourgi! Tambourgi! thy 'larum afar
          Gives hope to the valiant, and promise of war;
          All the sons of the mountains arise at the note,
          Chimariot, Illyrian, and dark Suliote!
               2

          Oh! who is more brave than a dark Suliote,
          In his snowy camise and his shaggy capote?
          To the wolf and the vulture he leaves his wild-flock,
          And descends to the plain like the stream from the rock.

               3

          Shall the sons of Chimari, who never forgive
          The fault of a friend, bid an enemy live?
          Let those guns so unerring such vengeance forego?
          What mark is so fair as the breast of a foe?

               4

          Macedonia sends forth her invincible race;
          For a time they abandon the cave and the chase;
          But those scarfs of blood-red shall be redder, before
          The sabre is sheathed and the battle is o'er.

               5

          Then the pirates of Parga that dwell by the waves
          And teach the pale Franks what it is to be slaves,
          Shall leave on the beach the long galley and oar,
          And track to his covert the captive on shore.

               6

          I ask not the pleasures that riches supply,
          My sabre shall win what the feeble must buy;
          Shall win the young bride with her long flowing hair,
          And many a maid from her mother shall tear.

               7

          I love the fair face of the amid in her youth,
          Her caresses shall lull me, her music shall soother;
          Let her bring from the chamber her many-toned lyre,
          And sing us a song on the fall of her sire.

               8

          Remember the moment when Previsa fell,
          The shrieks of the conquer'd, the conquerors' yell;
          The roofs that we fired, and the plunder we shared,
          The wealthy we slaughter'd, the lovely we spared.

               9

          I talk not of mercy, I talk not of fear;
          He neither must know who would serve the Vizier:
          Since the days of our prophet the Crescent ne'er saw
          A chief ever glorious like Ali Pashaw.

               10

          Dark Muchtar his son to the Danube is sped,
          Let the yellow-hair'd Giaour's view his horse-tail with dread;
          When his Delhis come dashing in blood o'er the banks,
          How few shall escape from the Muskovite ranks!

               11

          Selictar! unsheathe then our chief's scimitar:
          Tambourgi! thy 'larum gives promise of war.
          Ye mountains, that see us descend to the shore,
          Shall view us as victors, or view us no more!

     LXXIII

     Fair Greece! Sad relic of departed worth!
     Immortal though no more; though fallen, great!
     Who now shall lead thy scatter'd children forth,
     And long accustom'd bondage uncreate?
     Not such thy sons who whilesome did await,
     The hopeless warriors of a willing doom,
     In bleak Therompylae's sepulchral strait -
     Oh! Who that gallant spirit shall resume,
Leap from Eurota's banks, and call thee from the tomb?

     LXXIV

     Spirit of Freedom! When on Phyle's brow
     Thous sat'st with Thrasybulus and his train,
     Couldst thou forebode the dismal hour which now
     Dims the green beauties of thine Attic plain?
     Not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain,
     But every carle can lord it o'er thy land;
     Nor rise thy sons, but idly rain in vain,
     Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish hand,
From birth till death enslaved; in word, in deed, unmann'd.

     LXXV

     In all save form alone, how changed! and who
     That marks the fire still sparkling in each eye,
     Who but would deem their bosoms burn'd anew
     With thy unquenched beam, lost Liberty!
     And many dream withal the hour is nigh
     That gives them their father's heritage:
     For foreign arms and aid they fondly sigh,
     Nor solely dare encounter hostile rage,
Or tear their name defiled from Slavery's mournful page.

     LXXVI

     Hereditary bondsmen! Know ye not
     Who would be free themselves must strike the blow?
     By their right arms the conquest must be wrought?
     Will Gaul or Muscovite redress ye? No!
     True, they may lay your proud despoilers low,
     But not for you will Freedom's altars flame.
     Shades of the Helots! triumph o'er thy foe!
     Greece! change thy lords, thy state is still the same;
Thy glorious day is o'er, but not thine years of shame.

     LXXVII

     The city won for Allah from the Giaour,
     The Giaour from Ottoman's race again may wrest;
     And the Serai's impenetrable tower
     Receive the fiery Frank, her former guest;
     Or Wahab's rebel brood who dared divest
     The prophet's tomb of all its pious spoil,
     May wind their path of blood along the West;
     But ne'er will freedom seek this fated soil,
But slave succeed to slave through years of endless toil.

     LXXVIII

     Yet mark their mirth - ere lenten days begin,
     That penance which their holy rites prepare
     To shrive from man his weight of mortal sin,
     By daily abstinence and nightly prayer;
     But ere his sackcloth garb Repentance wear,
     Some days of joyance are decreed to all,
     To take of pleasaunce each his secret share,
     In motley robe to dance at masking ball,
And join the mimic train of merry Carnival.

     LXXIX

     And whose more rife with meriment than thine,
     Oh Stanboul! Once the empress of their reign?
     Though turbans now pollute Sophia's shrine,
     And Greece her very altars eyes in vain:
     (Alas! Her woes will still pervade my strain!)
     Gay were her minstrels once, for free her throng,
     All felt the common joy they now must feign,
     Nor oft I've seen such sight, nor heard such song,
As woo'd the eye, and thrill'd the Bosphorus along.

     LXXX

     Loud was the lightsome tumult on the shore,
     Oft Music changed, but never ceased her tone,
     And timely echo'd back the measur'd oar,
     And rippling waters made a pleasant moan:
     The Queen of tides on high consenting shone,
     And when a transient breeze swept o'er the wave,
     `Twas, as if darting from her heavenly throne,
     A brighter glance her form reflected gave,
Till sparkling billows seem'd to light the banks they lave.

     LXXXI

     Glanced many a light caique along the foam,
     Dance on the shore the daughters of the land,
     Ne thought had man or maid or rest of home,
     While many a languid eye and thrilling hand
     Exchanged the looks few bosoms may withstand,
     Or gently prest, return'd the pressure still:
     Oh Love! Young Love! Bound in thy rosy band,
     Let sage or cynic prattle as he will,
These hours, and only these, redeem Life's years of ill!

     LXXXII

     But midst the throng in merry masquerade,
     Lurk there no hearts that throb with secret pain,
     Even through the closest searment half betray'd?
     To such the gentle murmurs of the main
     Seem to re-echo all they mourn in vain;
     To such the gladness of the gamesome crowd
     In source of wayward thought and stern disdain:
     How do they loathe the laughter idly loud,
And long to change the robe of revel for the shroud!

     LXXXIII

     This must he feel, the true-born son of Greece,
     If Greece one true-born patriot still can boast:
     Not such as prate of war, but skulk in peace,
     The bondsman's peace, who sighs for all he lost,
     Yet with smooth smile his tyrant can accost,
     And wield the slavish sickle, not the sword:
     Ah! Greece! they love thee least who owe thee most;
     Their birth, their blood, and that sublime record
Of hero sires, who shame thy now degenerate horde!

     LXXXIV

     When riseth Lacedemon's hardihood,
     When Thebes Epaminondas rears again,
     When Athens' children are with hearts endued,
     When Grecian mothers shall give birth to men,
     Then may'st thou be restored; but not till then.
     A thousand years scarce serve to form a state;
     An hour may lay it in the dust: and when
     Can man its shatter'd splendour renovate,
Recall its virtues back, and vanquish Time and Fate?

     LXXXV

     And yet how lovely is thine age of woe,
     Land of lost gods and godlike men! Art thou!
     Thy vales of evergreen, thy hills of snow,
     Proclaim thee nature's varied favourite now;
     Thy fanes, thy temples to thy surface bow,
     Commingling slowly with heroic earth,
     Broke by the share of every rustic plough:
     So perish monuments of mortal birth,
So perish all in turn, save well-recorded Worth;

     LXXXVI

     Save where some solitary column mourns
     Above its prostrate breathen of the cave
     Save where Tritonia's airy shrine adorns
     Colonna's cliff, and gleams along the wave;
     Save o'er some warriors' half-forgotten grave,
     Where the gray stones and unmolested grass
     Ages, but not oblivion, feebly brave,
     While strangers only not regardless pass,
Lingering like me, perchance, to gaze, and sigh 'Alas!'

     LXXXVII

     Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild;
     Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields,
     Then olive ripe as when Minerva smiled,
     And still his honied wealth Hymettus yields;
     There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds,
     The freeborn wanderer of thy mountain-air;
     Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds,
     Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare;
Art, glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair.

     LXXXVIII

     Where'er we tread `tis haunted, holy ground;
     No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould,
     But one vast realm of wonder spreads around,
     And all the Muse's tales seem truly told,
     Till the sense aches with gazing to behold
     The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon;
     Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold
     Defies the power which crush'd thy temples gone:
Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon.

     LXXXIX

     The sun, the soil, but not the slave, the same;
     Unchanged in all except its foreign lord -
     Preserves alike its bounds and boundless fame
     The Battle-field, where Persia's victim horde
     First bow'd beneath the brunt of Hellas' sword,
     As on the morn to distant Glory dear
     When Marathon became a magic word;
     Which utter'd, to the hearer's eye appear
The camp, the host, the fight, the conqueror's career,

     XC

     The flying Mede, his shaftless broken bow;
     The fiery Greek, his red pursuing spear;
     Mountains above, Earth's, Ocean's plain below;
     Death in the front, Destruction in the rear!
     Such was the scene - what now remaineth here?
     What sacred trophy marks the hallow'd ground,
     Recording Freedom's smile and Asia's tear?
     The rifled urn, the violated mound,
The dust thy courser's hoof, rude stranger! Spurns around.

     XCI

     Yet to the remnants of thy splendour past
     Shall pilgrims, pensive, but unwearied, throng;
     Long shall the voyager, with th' Ionian blast,
     Hail the bright clime of battle and of song;
     Long shall thine annals and immortal tongue
     Fill with thy fame the youth of many a shore;
     Boast of the aged! lesson of the young!
     Which sages venerate and bards adore,
As Pallas and the Muse unveil their awful lore.

     XCII

     The parted bosom clings to wonted home,
     If aught that's kindred cheer to welcome hearth;
     He that is lonely, hither let him roam,
     And gaze complacent on congenial earth.
     Greece is no lightsome land of social mirth:
     But he whom Sadness sootheth may abide,
     And scarce regret the region of his birth,
     When wandering slow by Delphi's sacred side,
Or gazing o'er the plains where Greek and Persian died.

     XCIII

     Let such approach this consecrated land,
     And pass in peace along the magic waste;
     But spare its relics - let no busy hand
     Deface the scenes, already how defaced!
     Not for such purpose were these altars placed:
     Revere the remnants nations once revered:
     So may our country's name be undisgraced,
     So may'st thou prosper where thy youth was rear'd,
By every honest joy of love and life endear'd!

     XCIV

     For thee, who thus in too protracted song
     Hast soothed thine idlesse with inglorious lays,
     Soon shall thy voice be lost amidst the throng
     Of louder minstrels in these later days:
     To such resign the strife for fading bays -
     Ill may such contest now the spirit move
     Which heeds no keen reproach nor partial praise;
     Since cold each kinder heart that might approve,
And none are left to please when none are left to love.

     XCV

     Thou too art gone, thou loved and lovely one!
     Whom youth and youth's affections bound to me;
     Who did for me what none beside have done,
     Nor shrank from one albeit unworthy thee.
     What is my being? Thou hast ceased to be!
     Nor staid to welcome here thy wanderer home,
     Who mourn'd o'er hours which we no more shall see -
     Would they had never been, or were to come!
Would he had ne'er return'd to find fresh cause to roam!

     XCVI

     Oh! Ever loving, lovely and beloved!
     How selfish Sorrow ponders on the past,
     And clings to thoughts now better far removed!
     But time shall tear thy shadow from me last.
     All thou couldst have of mine, stern Death! Thou hast;
     The parent, friend, and now the more than friend:
     Ne'er yet for one thine arrows flew so fast,
     And grief with grief continuing still to blend,
Hath snatch'd the little joy that life had yet to lend.

     XCVII
     Then mu
st I plunge again into the crowd,
     And follow all that Peace disdains to seek?
     Where Revel calls, and Laughter, vainly loud,
     False to the heart, distorts the hollow cheek,
     To leave the flagging spirit doubly weak;
     Still o'er the features, which perforce they cheer,
     To feign the pleasure or conceal the pique;
     Smiles form the channel of a future tear,
Or raise the writhing lip with ill-dissembled sneer.

     XCVIII

     What is the worst of woes that wait on age?
     What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?
     To view each loved one blotted from life's page,
     And be alone on earth, as I am now.
     Before the Chastener humbly let me bow,
     O'er hearts divided and o'er hopes destroy'd:
     Roll on, vain days! Full reckless may ye flow,
     Since Time hath reft whate'er my soul enjoy'd
And with the ills of Eld mine earlier years alloy'd.

Canto the Third

'Afin que cette application vous forçât à penser à autre chose; il n'y a en vérité de remède que celui-là et le temps.' — Lettre du Roi de Prusse à D'Alembert, Sept. 7, 1776.

     I

     Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child!
     ADA! sole daughter of my house and heart?
     When last I saw thy young blue eyes they smil'd,
     And then we parted — not as now we part,
     But with a hope. —
     Awaking with a start,
     The waters heave around me; and on high
     The winds lift up their voices: I depart,
     Whither I know not; but the hour's gone by,
When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye.

     II

     Once more upon the waters! yet once more!
     And the waves bound beneath me as a steed
     That knows his rider. Welcome to their roar!
     Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead!
     Though the strain'd mast should quiver as a reed,
     And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale,
     Still must I on; for I am as a weed,
     Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam to sail
Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail.

     III

     In my youth's summer I did sing of One,
     The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind;
     Again I seize the theme, then but begun,
     And bear it with me, as the rushing wind
     Bears the cloud onwards: in that Tale I find
     The furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears,
     Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track behind,
     O'er which all heavily the journeying years
Plod the last sands of life — where not a flower appears.

     IV

     Since my young days of passion — joy, or pain —
     Perchance my heart and harp have lost a string,
     And both may jar: it may be, that in vain
     I would essay as I have sung to sing.
     Yet, though a dreary strain, to this I cling;
     So that it wean me from the weary dream
     Of selfish grief or gladness — so it fling
     Forgetfulness around me — it shall seem
To me, though to none else, a not ungrateful theme.

     V

     He, who grown aged in this world of woe,
     In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life,
     So that no wonder waits him; nor below
     Can love or sorrow, fame, ambition, strife,
     Cut to his heart again with the keen knife
     Of silent, sharp endurance: he can tell
     Why thought seeks refuge in lone caves, yet rife
     With airy images, and shapes which dwell
Still unimpair'd, though old, in the soul's haunted cell.

     VI

     'Tis to create, and in creating live
     A being more intense, that we endow
     With form our fancy, gaining as we give
     The life we image, even as I do now.
     What am I? Nothing: but not so art thou,
     Soul of my thought! with whom I traverse earth,
     Invisible but gazing, as I glow
     Mix'd with thy spirit, blended with thy birth,
And feeling still with thee in my crush'd feelings' dearth.

     VII

     Yet must I think less wildly: I have thought
     Too long and darkly, till my brain became,
     In its own eddy boiling and o'er-wrought,
     A whirling gulf of fantasy and flame:
     And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame,
     My springs of life were poison'd. 'Tis too late!
     Yet am I chang'd; though still enough the same
     In strength to bear what time cannot abate,
And feed on bitter fruits without accusing Fate.

     VIII

     Something too much of this — but now 'tis past,
     And the spell closes with its silent seal.
     Long absent HAROLD re-appears at last;
     He of the breast which fain no more would feel,
     Wrung with the wounds which kill not, but ne'er heal,
     Yet Time, who changes all, had alter'd him
     In soul and aspect as in age: years steal
     Fire from the mind as vigour from the limb;
And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.

     IX

     His had been quaff'd too quickly, and he found
     The dregs were wormwood; but he fill'd again,
     And from a purer fount, on holier ground,
     And deem'd its spring perpetual; but in vain!
     Still round him clung invisibly a chain
     Which gall'd for ever, fettering though unseen,
     And heavy though it clank'd not; worn with pain,
     Which pin'd although it spoke not, and grew keen,
Entering with every step he took through many a scene.

     X

     Secure in guarded coldness, he had mix'd
     Again in fancied safety with his kind,
     And deem'd his spirit now so firmly fix'd
     And sheath'd with an invulnerable mind,
     That, if no joy, no sorrow lurk'd behind;
     And he, as one, might 'midst the many stand
     Unheeded, searching through the crowd to find
     Fit speculation; such as in strange land
He found in wonder-works of God and Nature's hand.

     XI

     But who can view the ripen'd rose, nor seek
     To wear it? who can curiously behold
     The smoothness and the sheen of beauty's cheek,
     Nor feel the heart can never all grow old?
     Who can contemplate Fame through clouds unfold
     The star which rises o'er her steep, nor climb?
     Harold, once more within the vortex, roll'd
     On with the giddy circle, chasing Time,
Yet with a nobler aim than in his youth's fond prime.

     XII

     But soon he knew himself the most unfit
     Of men to herd with Man; with whom he held
     Little in common; untaught to submit
     His thoughts to others, though his soul was quell'd
     In youth by his own thoughts; still uncompell'd,
     He would not yield dominion of his mind
     To spirits against whom his own rebell'd;
     Proud though in desolation; which could find
A life within itself, to breathe without mankind.

     XIII

     Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends;
     Where roll'd the ocean, thereon was his home;
     Where a blue sky, and glowing clime, extends,
     He had the passion and the power to roam;
     The desert, forest, cavern, breaker's foam,
     Were unto him companionship; they spake
     A mutual language, clearer than the tome
     Of his land's tongue, which he would oft forsake
For Nature's pages glass'd by sunbeams on the lake.

     XIV

     Like the Chaldean, he could watch the stars,
     Till he had peopled them with beings bright
     As their own beams; and earth, and earthborn jars,
     And human frailties, were forgotten quite:
     Could he have kept his spirit to that flight
     He had been happy; but this clay will sink
     Its spark immortal, envying it the light
     To which it mounts, as if to break the link
That keeps us from yon heaven which woos us to its brink.

     XV

     But in Man's dwellings he became a thing
     Restless and worn, and stern and wearisome,
     Droop'd as a wild-born falcon with clipp'd wing,
     To whom the boundless air alone were home:
     Then came his fit again, which to o'ercome,
     As eagerly the barr'd-up bird will beat
     His breast and beak against his wiry dome
     Till the blood tinge his plumage, so the heat
Of his impeded soul would through his bosom eat.

     XVI

     Self-exil'd Harold wanders forth again,
     With nought of hope left, but with less of gloom;
     The very knowledge that he lived in vain,
     That all was over on this side the tomb,
     Had made Despair a smilingness assume,
     Which, though 'twere wild — as on the plunder'd wreck
     When mariners would madly meet their doom
     With draughts intemperate on the sinking deck — ,
Did yet inspire a cheer, which he forbore to check.

     XVII

     Stop! — for thy tread is on an Empire's dust!
     An Earthquake's spoil is sepulchred below!
     Is the spot mark'd with no colossal bust?
     Nor column trophied for triumphal show?
     None; but the moral's truth tells simpler so:
     As the ground was before, thus let it be;
     How that red rain hath made the harvest grow!
     And is this all the world has gain'd by thee,
Thou first and last of fields! king-making Victory?

     XVIII

     And Harold stands upon this place of skulls,
     The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo!
     How in an hour the power which gave annuls
     Its gifts, transferring fame as fleeting too!
     In "pride of place" here last the Eagle flew,
     Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain,
     Pierc'd by the shaft of banded nations through;
     Ambition's life and labours all were vain;
He wears the shatter'd links of the world's broken chain.

     XIX

     Fit retribution! Gaul may champ the bit
     And foam in fetters — but is Earth more free?
     Did nations combat to make One submit;
     Or league to teach all kings true sovereignty?
     What! shall reviving Thraldom again be
     The patch'd-up idol of enlighten'd days?
     Shall we, who struck the Lion down, shall we
     Pay the Wolf homage? proffering lowly gaze
And servile knees to thrones? No; prove before ye praise!

     XX

     If not, o'er one fallen despot boast no more!
     In vain fair cheeks were furrow'd with hot tears
     For Europe's flowers long rooted up before
     The trampler of her vineyards; in vain years
     Of death, depopulation, bondage, fears,
     Have all been borne, and broken by the accord
     Of rous'd-up millions; all that most endears
     Glory, is when the myrtle wreathes a sword
Such as Harmodius drew on Athens' tyrant lord.

     XXI

     There was a sound of revelry by night,
     And Belgium's capital had gather'd then
     Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright
     The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men;
     A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
     Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
     Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again,
     And all went merry as a marriage bell;
But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!

     XXII

     Did ye not hear it? — No; 'twas but the wind,
     Or the car rattling o'er the stony street;
     On with the dance! let joy be unconfin'd;
     No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
     To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet —
     But hark! — that heavy sound breaks in once more,
     As if the clouds its echo would repeat;
     And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!
Arm! Arm! it is — it is — the cannon's opening roar!

     XXIII

     Within a window'd niche of that high hall
     Sate Brunswick's fated chieftain; he did hear
     That sound the first amidst the festival,
     And caught its tone with Death's prophetic ear;
     And when they smil'd because he deem'd it near,
     His heart more truly knew that peal too well
     Which stretch'd his father on a bloody bier,
     And rous'd the vengeance blood alone could quell:
He rush'd into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell.

     XXIV

     Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,
     And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,
     And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago
     Blush'd at the praise of their own loveliness;
     And there were sudden partings, such as press
     The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs
     Which ne'er might be repeated; who could guess
     If ever more should meet those mutual eyes,
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise!

     XXV

     And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed,
     The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,
     Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,
     And swiftly forming in the ranks of war;
     And the deep thunder peal on peal afar;
     And near, the beat of the alarming drum
     Rous'd up the soldier ere the morning star;
     While throng'd the citizens with terror dumb,
Or whispering, with white lips — "The foe! they come! they come!'

     XXVI

     And wild and high the "Cameron's gathering" rose!
     The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills
     Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes.
     How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills,
     Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills
     Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers
     With the fierce native daring which instils
     The stirring memory of a thousand years,
And Evan's, Donald's fame rings in each clansman's ears!

     XXVII

     And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves,
     Dewy with nature's tear-drops as they pass,
     Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves,
     Over the unreturning brave — alas!
     Ere evening to be trodden like the grass
     Which now beneath them, but above shall grow
     In its next verdure, when this fiery mass
     Of living valour, rolling on the foe
And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low.

     XXVIII

     Last noon beheld them full of lusty life,
     Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay,
     The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife,
     The morn the marshalling in arms, the day
     Battle's magnificently stern array!
     The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent
     The earth is cover'd thick with other clay,
     Which her own clay shall cover, heap'd and pent,
Rider and horse — friend, foe — in one red burial blent!

     XXIX

     Their praise is hymn'd by loftier harps than mine:
     Yet one I would select from that proud throng,
     Partly because they blend me with his line,
     And partly that I did his sire some wrong,
     And partly that bright names will hallow song;
     And his was of the bravest, and when shower'd
     The death-bolts deadliest the thinn'd files along,
     Even where the thickest of war's tempest lower'd,
They reach'd no nobler breast than thine, young gallant Howard!

     XXX

     There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee,
     And mine were nothing had I such to give;
     But when I stood beneath the fresh green tree,
     Which living waves where thou didst cease to live,
     And saw around me the wide field revive
     With fruits and fertile promise, and the Spring
     Came forth her work of gladness to contrive,
     With all her reckless birds upon the wing,
I turn'd from all she brought to those she could not bring.

     XXXI

     I turn'd to thee, to thousands, of whom each
     And one as all a ghastly gap did make
     In his own kind and kindred, whom to teach
     Forgetfulness were mercy for their sake;
     The Archangel's trump, not Glory's, must awake
     Those whom they thirst for; though the sound of Fame
     May for a moment soothe, it cannot slake
     The fever of vain longing, and the name
So honour'd but assumes a stronger, bitterer claim.

     XXXII

     They mourn, but smile at length; and, smiling, mourn;
     The tree will whither long before it fall;
     The hull drives on, though mast and sail be torn;
     The roof-tree sinks, but moulders on the hall
     In massy hoariness; the ruin'd wall
     Stands when its wind-worn battlements are gone;
     The bars survive the captive they enthral;
     The day drags through, though storms keep out the sun;
And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on

     XXXIII

     Even as a broken mirror, which the glass
     In every fragment multiplies; and makes
     A thousand images of one that was,
     The same, and still the more, the more it breaks;
     And thus the heart will do which not forsakes,
     Living in shatter'd guise; and still, and cold,
     And bloodless, with its sleepless sorrow aches,
     Yet withers on till all without is old,
Showing no visible sign, for such things are untold.

     XXXIV

     There is a very life in our despair,
     Vitality of poison, — a quick root
     Which feeds these deadly branches; for it were
     As nothing did we die; but Life will suit
     Itself to Sorrow's most detested fruit,
     Like to the apples on the Dead Sea's shore,
     All ashes to the taste: Did man compute
     Existence by enjoyment, and count o'er
Such hours 'gainst years of life, — say, would he name threescore?

     XXXV

     The Psalmist number'd out the years of man:
     They are enough: and if thy tale be true,
     Thou, who didst grudge him even that fleeting span,
     More than enough, thou fatal Waterloo!
     Millions of tongues record thee, and anew
     Their children's lips shall echo them, and say —
     'Here, where the sword united nations drew,
     Our countrymen were warring on that day!'
And this is much, and all which will not pass away.

     XXXVI

     There sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men,
     Whose spirit, antithetically mixt,
     One moment of the mightiest, and again
     On little objects with like firmness fixt;
     Extreme in all things! hadst thou been betwixt,
     Thy throne had still been thine, or never been;
     For daring made thy rise as fall: thou seek'st
     Even now to re-assume the imperial mien,
And shake again the world, the Thunderer of the scene!

     XXXVII

     Conqueror and captive of the earth art thou!
     She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name
     Was ne'er more bruited in men's minds than now
     That thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame,
     Who woo'd thee once, thy vassal, and became
     The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert
     A god unto thyself; nor less the same
     To the astounded kingdoms all inert,
Who deem'd thee for a time whate'er thou didst assert.

     XXXVIII

     Oh, more or less than man — in high or low,
     Battling with nations, flying from the field;
     Now making monarchs' necks thy footstool, now
     More than thy meanest soldier taught to yield;
     An empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild,
     But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor,
     However deeply in men's spirits skill'd,
     Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of war,
Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest star.

     XXXIX

     Yet well thy soul hath brook'd the turning tide
     With that untaught innate philosophy,
     Which, be it wisdom, coldness, or deep pride,
     Is gall and wormwood to an enemy.
     When the whole host of hatred stood hard by,
     To watch and mock thee shrinking, thou hast smil'd
     With a sedate and all-enduring eye;
     When Fortune fled her spoil'd and favourite child,
He stood unbow'd beneath the ills upon him pil'd.

     XL

     Sager than in thy fortunes; for in them
     Ambition steel'd thee on too far to show
     That just habitual scorn, which could contemn
     Men and their thoughts; 'twas wise to feel, not so
     To wear it ever on thy lip and brow,
     And spurn the instruments thou wert to use
     Till they were turn'd unto thine overthrow;
     'Tis but a worthless world to win or lose;
So hath it prov'd to thee, and all such lot who choose.

     XLI

     If, like a tower upon a headland rock,
     Thou hadst been made to stand or fall alone,
     Such scorn of man had help'd to brave the shock;
     But men's thoughts were the steps which pav'd thy throne,
     Their admiration thy best weapon shone;
     The part of Philip's son was thine, not then
     (Unless aside thy purple had been thrown)
     Like stern Diogenes to mock at men;
For sceptred cynics earth were far too wide a den.

     XLII

     But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell,
     And there hath been thy bane; there is a fire
     And motion of the soul which will not dwell
     In its own narrow being, but aspire
     Beyond the fitting medium of desire;
     And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore,
     Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire
     Of aught but rest; a fever at the core,
Fatal to him who bears, to all who ever bore.

     XLIII

     This makes the madmen who have made men mad
     By their contagion; Conquerors and Kings,
     Founders of sects and systems, to whom add
     Sophists, Bards, Statesmen, all unquiet things
     Which stir too strongly the soul's secret springs,
     And are themselves the fools to those they fool;
     Envied, yet how unenviable! what stings
     Are theirs! One breast laid open were a school
Which would unteach mankind the lust to shine or rule:

     XLIV

     Their breath is agitation, and their life
     A storm whereon they ride, to sink at last,
     And yet so nurs'd and bigoted to strife,
     That should their days, surviving perils past,
     Melt to calm twilight, they feel overcast
     With sorrow and supineness, and so die;
     Even as a flame unfed, which runs to waste
     With its own flickering, or a sword laid by,
Which eats into itself, and rusts ingloriously.

     XLV

     He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find
     The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow;
     He who surpasses or subdues mankind,
     Must look down on the hate of those below.
     Though high above the sun of glory glow,
     And far beneath the earth and ocean spread,
     Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow
     Contending tempests on his naked head,
And thus reward the toils which to those summits led.

     XLVI

     Away with these! true Wisdom's world will be
     Within its own creation, or in thine,
     Maternal Nature! for who teems like thee,
     Thus on the banks of thy majestic Rhine?
     There Harold gazes on a work divine,
     A blending of all beauties; streams and dells,
     Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mountain, vine,
     And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells
From gray but leafy walls, where Ruin greenly dwells.

     XLVII

     And there they stand, as stands a lofty mind,
     Worn, but unstooping to the baser crowd,
     All tenantless, save to the crannying wind,
     Or holding dark communion with the cloud.
     There was a day when they were young and proud;
     Banners on high, and battles pass'd below;
     But they who fought are in a bloody shroud,
     And those which waved are shredless dust ere now,
And the bleak battlements shall bear no future blow.

     XLVIII

     Beneath these battlements, within those walls,
     Power dwelt amidst her passions; in proud state
     Each robber chief upheld his armed halls,
     Doing his evil will, nor less elate
     Than mightier heroes of a longer date.
     What want these outlaws conquerers should have
     But history's purchased page to call them great?
     A wider space, an ornamented grave?
Their hopes were not less warm, their souls were full as brave.

     XLIX

     In their baronial feuds and single fields,
     What deeds of prowess unrecorded died!
     And Love, which lent a blazon to their shields,
     With emblems well devised by amorous pride,
     Through all the mail of iron hearts would glide;
     But still their flame was fierceness, and drew on
     Keen contest and destruction near allied,
     And many a tower for some fair mischief won,
Saw the discolour'd Rhine beneath its ruin run.

     L

     But Thou, exulting and abounding river!
     Making thy waves a blessing as they flow
     Through banks whose beauty would endure forever
     Could man but leave thy bright creation so,
     Nor its fair promise from the surface mow
     With the sharp scythe of conflict, — then to see
     Thy valley of sweet waters, were to know
     Earth paved like Heaven; and to seem such to me,
Even now what wants thy stream? — that it should Lethe be.

     LI

     A thousand battles have assail'd thy banks,
     But these and half their fame have pass'd away,
     And Slaughter, heap'd on high his weltering ranks;
     Their very graves are gone, and what are they?
     Thy tide wash'd down the blood of yesterday,
     And all was stainless, and on thy clear stream
     Glass'd, with its dancing light, the sunny ray;
     But o'er the blacken'd memory's blighting dream
Thy waves would vainly roll, all sweeping as they seem.

     LII

     Thus Harold inly said, and pass'd along,
     Yet not insensible to all which here
     Awoke the jocund birds to early song
     In glens which might have made even exile dear:
     Though on his brow were graven lines austere,
     And tranquil sternness, which had ta'en the place
     Of feelings fierier far but less severe,
     Joy was not always absent from his face,
But o'er it in such scenes would steal with transient trace.

     LIII

     Nor was all love shut from him, though his days
     Of passion had consumed themselves to dust.
     It is vain that we would coldly gaze
     On such as smile upon us; the heart must
     Leap kindly back to kindness, though disgust
     Hath wean'd it from all worldlings: thus he felt,
     For there was soft remembrance, and sweet trust
     In one fond breast, to which his own would melt,
And in its tenderer hour on that his bosom dwelt.

     LIV

     And he had learn'd to love, — I know not why,
     For this in such as him seems strange of mood, —
     The helpless looks of blooming infancy,
     Even in its earliest nurture; what subdued,
     To change like this, a mind so far imbued
     With scorn of man, it little boots to know;
     But thus it was; and though in solitude
     Small power the nipp'd affections have to grow,
In him this glow'd when all beside had ceased to glow.

     LV

     And there was one soft breast, as hath been said,
     Which unto his was bound by stronger ties
     Than the church links withal; and, though unwed,
     That love was pure, and, far above disguise,
     Had stood the test of mortal enmities
     Still undivided, and cemented more
     By peril, dreaded most in female eyes;
     But this was firm, and from a foreign shore
Well to that heart might his these absent greeting pour!

               1

          The castle crag of Drachenfels
          Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine,
          Whose breast of waters broadly swells
          Between the banks that bear the vine,
          And hills all rich with blossom'd trees,
          And fields which promise corn and wine,
          And scatter'd cities crowning these,
          Whose far white walls along them shine,
          Have strew'd a scene, which I should see
          With double joy wert thou with me.

               2

          And peasant girls, with deep blue eyes,
          And hands which offer early flowers,
          Walk smiling o'er this paradise;
          Above, the frequent feudal towers
          Through green leaves lift their walls of gray;
          And many a rock which steeply lowers,
          And noble arch in proud decay,
          Look o'er the vale of vintage-bowers;
          But one thing want these banks of Rhine, —
          Thy gentle hand to clasp in mine!

               3

          I send the lilies given to me;
          Though long before thy hand they touch,
          I know that they must wither'd be,
          But yet reject them not as such;
          For I have cherish'd them as dear,
          Because they yet may meet thine eye,
          And guide thy soul to mine even here,
          When thou behold'st them drooping nigh,
          And know'st them gather'd by the Rhine,
          And offer'd from my heart to thine!

               4

          The river nobly foams and flows,
          The charm of this enchanted ground,
          And all its thousand turns disclose
          Some fresher beauty varying round:
          The haughtiest breast its wish might bound
          Through life to dwell delighted here;
          Nor could on earth a spot be found
          To nature and to me so dear,
          Could thy dear eyes in following mine
          Still sweeten more these banks of Rhine!

     LVI

     By Coblentz, on a rise of gentle ground,
     There is a small and simple pyramid,
     Crowning the summit of the verdant mound;
     Beneath its base are heros' ashes hid,
     Our enemy's — but let not that forbid
     Honour to Marceau! o'er whose early tomb
     Tears, big tears, gush'd from the rough soldier's lid,
     Lamenting and yet envying such a doom,
Falling for France, whose rights he battled to resume.

     LVII

     Brief, brave, and glorious was his young career, —
     His mourners were two hosts, his friends and foes;
     And fitly may the stranger lingering here
     Pray for his gallant spirit's bright repose;
     For he was Freedom's champion, one of those,
     The few in number, who had not o'erstept
     The charter to chastise which she bestows
     On such as wield her weapons; he had kept
The whiteness of his soul, and thus men o'er him wept.

     LVIII

     Here Ehrenbreitstein, with her shatter'd wall
     Black with the miner's blast, upon her height
     Yet shows of what she was, when shell and ball
     Rebounding idly on her strength did light:
     A tower of victory! from whence the flight
     Of baffled foes was watch'd along the plain:
     But Peace destroy'd what War could never blight,
     And laid those proud roofs bare to Summer's rain —
On which the iron shower for years had pour'd in vain.

     LIX

     Adieu to thee, fair Rhine! How long delighted
     The stranger fain would linger on his way!
     Thine is a scene alike where souls united
     Or lonely Contemplation thus might stray;
     And could the ceaseless vultures cease to prey
     On self-condemning bosoms, it were here,
     Where Nature, nor too sombre not too gay,
     Wild but not rude, awful yet not austere,
Is to the mellow Earth as Autumn to the year.

     LX

     Adieu to thee again! a vain adieu!
     There can be no farewell to scene like thine;
     The mind is colour'd by thy every hue;
     And if reluctantly the eyes resign
     Their cherish'd gaze upon thee, lovely Rhine!
     'Tis with the thankful glance of parting praise;
     More mighty spots may rise, more glaring shine,
     But none unite in one attaching maze
The brilliant, fair, and soft, — the glories of old days.

     LXI

     The negligently grand, the fruitful bloom
     Of coming ripeness, the white city's sheen,
     The rolling stream, the precipice's gloom,
     The forest's growth, and Gothic walls between,
     The wild rocks shaped as they had turrets been,
     In mockery of man's art; and there withal
     A race of faces happy as the scene,
     Whose fertile bounties here extend to all,
Still springing o'er they banks, though Empires near them fall.

     LXII

     But these recede. Above me are the Alps,
     The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls
     Have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps,
     And throned Eternity in icy halls
     Of cold sublimity, where forms and falls
     The avalanche — the thunderbolt of snow!
     All that expands the spirit, yet appals,
     Gather around these summits, as to show
How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below.

     LXIII

     But ere these matchless heights I dare to scan,
     There is a spot should not be pass'd in vain, —
     Morat! the proud, the patriot field! where man
     May gaze on ghastly trophies of the slain,
     Nor blush for those who conquer'd on that plain;
     Here Burgundy bequeath'd his tombless host,
     A bony heap, through ages to remain,
     Themselves their monument; — the Stygian coast
Unsepulchred they roam'd, and shriek'd each wandering ghost.

     LXIV

     While Waterloo with Cannæ's carnage vies,
     Morat and Marathon twin names shall stand;
     They were true Glory's stainless victories,
     Won by the unambitious heart and hand
     Of a proud, brotherly, and civic band,
     All unbought champions in no princely cause
     Of vice-entail'd Corruption; they no land
     Doom'd to bewail the blasphemy of laws
Making kings' rights divine, by some Draconic clause.

     LXV

     By a lone wall a lonelier column rears
     A gray and grief-worn aspect of old days;
     'Tis the last remnant of the wreck of years,
     And looks as with the wild-bewilder'd gaze
     Of one to stone converted by amaze,
     Yet still with consciousness; and there it stands
     Making a marvel that it not decays,
     When the coeval pride of human hands,
Levell'd Adventicum, hath strew'd her subject lands.

     LXVI

     And there — oh! sweet and sacred be the name! —
     Julia — the daughter, the devoted — gave
     Her youth to Heaven; her heart, beneath a claim
     Nearest to Heaven's, broke o'er a father's grave.
     Justice is sworn 'gainst tears, and hers would crave
     The life she lived in; but judge was just,
     And then she died on him she could not save.
     Their tomb was simple, and without a bust,
And held within their urn one mind, one heart, one dust.

     LXVII
     But these are deeds which should not pass away,
     And names that must not wither, though the earth
     Forgets her empires with a just decay,
     The enslavers and the enslaved, their death and birth;
     The high, the mountain-majesty of worth
     Should be, and shall, survivor of its woe,
     And from its immortality look forth
     In the sun's face, like yonder Alpine snow,
Imperishably pure beyond all things below.

     LXVIII

     Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face,
     The mirror where the stars and mountains view
     The stillness of their aspect in each trace
     Its clear depth yields of their far height and hue:
     There is too much of man here, to look through
     With a fit mind the might which I behold;
     But soon in me shall loneliness renew
     Thoughts hid, but not less cherish'd than of old,
Ere mingling with the herd had penn'd me in their fold.

     LXIX

     To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind:
     All are not fit with them to stir and toil,
     Nor is it discontent to keep the mind
     Deep in its fountain, lest it over boil
     In the hot throng, where we become the spoil
     Of our infection, till too late and long
     We may deplore and struggle with the coil,
     In wretched interchange of wrong for wrong
Midst a contentious world, striving where none are strong.

     LXX

     There, in a moment we may plunge our years
     In fatal penitence, and in the blight
     Of our own soul turn all our blood to tears,
     And colour things to come with hues of Night;
     The race of life becomes a hopeless flight
     To those that walk in darkness: on the sea
     The boldest steer but where their ports invite;
     But there are wanderers o'er Eternity
Whose bark drives on and on, and anchor'd ne'er shall be.

     LXXI

     Is it not better, then, to be alone,
     And love Earth only for its earthly sake?
     By the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone,
     Or the pure bosom of its nursing lake,
     Which feeds it as a mother who doth make
     A fair but froward infant her own care,
     Kissing its cries away as these awake —
     Is it not better thus our lives to wear,
Than join the crushing crowd, doom'd to inflict or bear?

     LXXII

     I live not in myself, but I become
     Portion of that around me; and to me
     High mountains are a feeling, but the hum
     Of human cities torture: I can see
     Nothing to loathe in nature, save to be
     A link reluctant in a fleshly chain,
     Class'd among creatures, when the soul can flee,
     And with the sky — the peak — the heaving plain
Of ocean, or the stars, mingle — and not in vain.

     LXXIII

     And thus I am absorb'd, and this is life:
     I look upon the peopled desert past,
     As on a place of agony and strife,
     Where, for some sin, to sorrow I was cast,
     To act and suffer, but remount at last
     With a fresh pinion; which I feel to spring,
     Though young, yet waxing vigorous as the blast
     Which it would cope with, on delighted wing,
Spurning the clay-cold bonds which round our being cling.

     LXXIV

     And when, at length, the mind shall be all free
     From what it hates in this degraded form,
     Reft of its carnal life, save what shall be
     Existent happier in the fly and worm,
     When elements to elements conform,
     And dust is as it should be, shall I not
     Feel all I see, less dazzling, but more warm?
     The bodiless thought? the Spirit of each spot?
Of which, even now, I share at times the immortal lot?

     LXXV

     Are not the mountains, waves and skies a part
     Of me and of my soul, as I of them?
     Is not the love of these deep in my heart
     With a pure passion? should I not contemn
     All objects, if compar'd with these? and stem
     A tide of suffering, rather than forego
     Such feelings for the hard and worldly phlegm
     Of those whose eyes are only turn'd below,
Gazing upon the ground, with thoughts which dare not glow?

     LXXVI

     But this is not my theme; and I return
     To that which is immediate, and require
     Those who find contemplation in the urn
     To look on One, whose dust was once all fire,
     A native of the land where I respire
     The clear air for a while — a passing guest,
     Where he became a being — whose desire
     Was to be glorious; 'twas a foolish quest,
The which to gain and keep, he sacrific'd all rest.

     LXXVII

     Here the self-torturing sophist, wild Rousseau,
     The apostle of affliction, he who threw
     Enchantment over passion, and from woe
     Wrung overwhelming eloquence, first drew
     The breath which made him wretched; yet he knew
     How to make madness beautiful, and cast
     O'er erring deeds and thoughts a heavenly hue
     Of words, like sunbeams, dazzling as they past
The eyes, which o'er them shed tears feelingly and fast.

     LXXVIII

     His love was passion's essence — as a tree
     On fire by lightning, with ethereal flame
     Kindled he was, and blasted; for to be
     Thus, and enamour'd, were in him the same.
     But his was not the love of living dame,
     Nor of the dead who rise upon our dreams,
     But of ideal beauty, which became
     In him existence, and o'erflowing teems
Along his burning page, distemper'd though it seems.

     LXXLX

     This breathed itself to life in Julie, this
     Invested her with all that's wild and sweet;
     This hallow'd, too, the memorable kiss
     Which every morn his fever'd lip would greet
     From hers, who but with friendship his would meet;
     But to that gentle touch through brain and breast
     Flash'd the thrill'd spirit's love-devouring heat;
     In that absorbing sigh perchance more blest
Than vulgar minds may be with all they seek possest.

     LXXX

     His life was one long war with self-sought foes,
     Or friends by him self-banish'd; for his mind
     Had grown Suspicion's sanctuary, and chose,
     For its own cruel sacrifice, the kind,
     'Gainst whom he rag'd with fury strange and blind.
     But he was frenzied — wherefore, who may know?
     Since cause might be which skill could never find;
     But he was frenzied by disease or woe,
To that worst pitch of all, which wears a reasoning show.

     LXXXI

     For then he was inspir'd, and from him came,
     As from the Pythian's mystic cave of yore,
     Those oracles which set the world in flame,
     Nor ceas'd to burn till kingdoms were no more:
     Did he not this for France? which lay before
     Bow'd to the inborn tyranny of years?
     Broken and trembling to the yoke she bore,
     Till by the voice of him and his compeers
Rous'd up to too much wrath, which follows o'ergrown fears?

     LXXXII

     They made themselves a fearful monument!
     The wreck of old opinions — things which grew,
     Breath'd from the birth of Time: the veil they rent,
     And what behind it lay, all earth shall view.
     But good with ill they also overthrew,
     Leaving but ruins, wherewith to rebuild
     Upon the same foundation, and renew
     Dungeons and thrones, which the same hour refill'd
As heretofore, because ambition was self-will'd.

     LXXXIII

     But this will not endure, nor be endur'd!
     Mankind have felt their strength and made it felt.
     They might have used it better, but, allur'd
     By their new vigour, sternly have they dealt
     On one another; pity ceas'd to melt
     With her once natural charities. But they,
     Who in oppression's darkness caved had dwelt,
     They were not eagles, nourish'd with the day;
What marvel then, at times, if they mistook their prey?

     LXXXIV

     What deep wounds ever clos'd without a scar?
     The heart's bleed longest, and but heal to wear
     That which disfigures it; and they who war
     With their own hopes, and have been vanquish'd, bear
     Silence, but not submission: in his lair
     Fix'd Passion holds his breath, until the hour
     Which shall atone for years; none need despair:
     It came — it cometh — and will come — the power
To punish or forgive — in one we shall be slower.

     LXXXV

     Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake,
     With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing
      Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake
     Earths troubled waters for a purer spring.
      This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing
      To waft me from distraction; once I loved
      Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring
      Sounds sweet as if a Sister's voice reproved,
That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved.

     LXXXVI

      It is the hush of night, and all between
     Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear,
     Mellow'd and mingling, yet distinctly seen,
      Save darken'd Jura, whose capt heights appear
      Precipitously steep; and drawing near,
      There breathes a living fragrance from the shore,
      Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear
      Drops the light drip of the suspended oar,
Or chirps the grasshopper one good night carol more'

     LXXXVII

     He is an evening reveller, who makes
      His life an infancy, and sings his fill;
      At intervals, some bird from out the brakes
      Starts into voice a moment, then is still.
      There seems a floating whisper on the hill,
      But that is fancy, for the starlight dews
      All silently their tears of love instil
      Weeping themselves away, till they infuse
Deep into nature's breast the spirit of her hues.

     LXXXVIII

     Ye stars! which are the poetry ofheaven!
      If in your bright leaves we would read the fate
      Of men and empires, 'tis to be forgiven,
      That in our aspirations to be great,
      Our destinies o o'erleap their mortal state,
      And claim a kindred with you; for ye are
      A beauty and a mystery, and create
      In us such love and reverence from afar,
That fortune, fame, power, life, have named temselves a star.

     LXXXIX

      All heaven and earth are still though not in sleep,
      But breathless, as we grow when feeling most;
      And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep:
      All heaven and earth are still: From the high host
      Of stars, to the lull'd lake and mountain coast,
      All is concenter'd in a life intense,
      Where not abeam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,
      But hath a part of being, and a sense
Of that which is of all Creator and defence.

     XC

     Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt
      In solitude, where we are least alone;
      A truth, which through our being then doth melt,
      And purifies from self: it is a tone,
      The soul and source of music, which makes known
      Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm
      Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone,
      Binding all things with beauty; 'twould disarm
The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm.

     XCI

     Not vainly did the early Persian make
      His altar the high places, and the peak
      Of earth o'ergazing mountains, and thus take
      A fit and unwall'd temple, there to seek
      The Spirit, in whose honour shrines are weak'
      Uprear'd of human hands. Come, and compare
      Columns and idol dwellings, Goth or Greek,
      With Nature's realms of worship, earth and air,
Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy pray'r!

     XCII

     The sky is changed! and such a change! Oh night,
      And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong,
      Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light
      Of a dark eye in woman! Far along,
      From peak to peak, the rattling crags among
      Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud,
      But every mountain now hath found a tongue,
      And Jura answers, through her misty shroud,
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!

     XCIII

     And this is in the night: Most glorious night!
      Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be
      A sharer in thy fierce and far delight,
      A portion of the tempest and of thee!
     How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea,
      And the big rain comes dancing to the earth!
      And now again 'tis black, and now, the glee
      Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain mirth,
As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth.

     XCIV

     Now, where the swift Rhone cleaves his way between
     Heights which appear as lovers who have parted
      In hate, whose mining depths so intervene,
      That they can meet no more, though broken hearted;
      Though in their souls, which thus each other thwarted,
      Love was the very root of the fond rage
      Which blighted their life's bloom, and then departed:
      Itself expired, but leaving them an age
Of years all winters, war within themselves to wage.

     XCV

     Now, where the quick Rhone thus hath cleft his way,
      The mightiest of the storms hath ta'en his stand:
      For here, not one, but many, make their play,
      And fling their thunder bolts from hand to hand,
      Flashing and cast around; of all the band,
      The brightest through these parted hills hath fork'd
      His lightnings, as if he did understand,
      That in such gaps as desolation work'd,
There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurk'd.

     XCVI

     Sky, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings! ye!
      With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soul
      To make these felt and feeling, well may be
      Things that have made me watchful; the far roll
      Of your departing voices, is the knoll
      Of what in me is sleepless, if I rest.
      But where of ye, O tempests l is the goal?
      Are ye like those within the human breast?
Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest?

     XCVII

     Could I embody and unbosom now
     That which is most within me, could I wreak
      My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw
      Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings, strong or weak,
      All that I would have sought, and all I seek,
      Bear, now, feel, and yet breathe into one word,
      And that one word were Lightning, I would speak;
      But as it is, I live and die unheard,
With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword.

     XCVM

     The morn is up again, the dewy morn,
     With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom,
      the clouds away with playful scorn,
      And living as if earth contain'd no tomb,
      And glowing into day: we may resume
      The march of our existence: and thus I,
      Still on thy shores, fair Lemon! may find room
      And food for meditation, nor pass by
Much, that may give us pause, if ponder'd fittingly.

     XCIX

     Clarens! sweet Clarens, birthplace of deep Love!
     Thine air is the young breath of passionate thought;
      Thy trees take root in Love; the snows above,
     The very Glaciers have his colours caught,
      And sun set into rose hues sees them wrought
      By rays which sleep there lovingly: the rocks,
      The permanent crags, tell here of Love, who sought
      In them a refuge from the worldly shocks,
Which stir and sting the soul with hope that woos, then mocks.

     C

     Clarens! by heavenly feet thy paths are trod,
     Undying Love's, who here ascends a throne
      To which the steps are mountains; where the god
      Is a pervading life and light, so shown
      Not on those summits solely, nor alone
      In the still cave and forest; o'er the flower
      His eye is sparkling, and his breath hath blown,
      His soft and summer breath, whose tender power
Passes the strength of storms in their most desolate hour.

     CI

     All things are here of him; from the black pines,
      Which are his shade on high, and the loud roar
      Of torrents, where he listeneth, to the vines
      Which slope his green path downward to the shore,
      Where the bow'd waters meet him, and adore,
      Kissing his feet with murmurs; and the wood,
      The covert of old trees, with trunks all hoar,
      But light leaves, young as joy, stands where it stood,
Offering to him, and his, a populous solitude.

     CII

     A populous solitude of bees and birds
      And fairy forma and many colour'd things,
      Who worship him with notes more sweet than words,
      And innocently open their glad wings,
      Fearless and full of life: the gush of springs,
      And fall of lofty fountains, and the bend
      Of stirring branches, and the bud which brings
      The swiftest thought of beauty, here extend,
Mingling, and made by Love, unto one mighty end.

     CIII

     He who hath loved not, here would learn that lore,
     And make his heart a spirit; he who knows
      That tender mystery, will love the more;
      For this is Love's recess, where vain men's woes,
      And the world's waste, have driven him far from those,
      For 'tis his nature to advance or die;
      He stands not still, but or decays, or grows
      Into a boundless blessing, which may vie
With the immortal lights, in its eternity!

     CIV

     'Twas not for fiction chose Rousseau this spot,
     Peopling it with affections; but he found
      It was the scene which Passion must allot
      To the Mind's purified beings; 'twas the ground
      Where early Love his Psyche's zone unbound,
      And hallow'd it with loveliness: 'tis lone,
      And wonderful, and deep, and hath a sound,
      And sense, and sight of sweetness; here the Rhone
Hath spread himself a couch, the Alps have rear'd a throne.

     CV

     Lausanne! and Ferney! ye have been the abodes
     Of names which unto you bequeath'd a name;
      Mortals, who sought and found, by dangerous roads,
      A path to perpetuity of fame:
      They were gigantic minds, and their steep aim
      Was, Titan like, on daring doubts to pile
      Thoughts which should call down thunder, and the flame
      Of Heaven again assail'd, if Heaven the while
On man and man's research could deign do more than smile.

     CVI

     The one was fire and fickleness, a child
      Most mutable in wishes, but in mind
      A wit as various, gay, rave, sage, or wild,
      Historian, bard, philosopher, combined;
      He multiplied himself among mankind,
      The Proteus of their talents: But his own
      Breathed most in ridicule, which, as the wind,
      Blew where it listed, laying all things prone,
Now to o'erthrow a fool, and now to shake a throne.

     CVII

     The other, deep and slow, exhausting thought
      And hiving wisdom with each studious year,
      In meditation dwelt, with learning wrought,
      And shaped his weapon with an edge severe,
      Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer;
      The lord of irony, that master spell,
      Which stung his foes to wrath, which grew from fear,
      And doom 'd him to the zealot's ready Hell,
Which answers to all doubts so eloquently well.

     CVIII

     Yet, peace be with their ashes, for by them,
      If merited, the penalty is paid;
      It is not ours to judge, far less condemn;
      The hour must come when such things shall be made
      Known unto all, or hope and dread allay'd
      By slumber, on one pillow, in the dust,
      Which, thus much we are sure, must lie decay'd; ;
      And when it shall revive, as is our trust,
'Twill be to be forgiven, or suffer what is just.

     CIX

     But let me quit man's works, again to read
     His Maker's, spread around me, and suspend
      This page, which from my reveries I feed,
      Until it seems prolonging without end.
      The clouds above me to the white Alps tend,
      And I must pierce them, and survey whate'er
      May be permitted, as my steps I bend
      To their most great and growing region, where
The earth to her embrace compels the powers of air.

     CX

     Italia! too, Italia! looking on thee,
     Full flashes on the soul the light of ages
     Since the fierce Carthaginian almost won thee,
      To the last halo of the chiefs and sages
      Who glorify thy consecrated pages;
      Thou wert the throne and grave of empires; still
      The fount at which the panting mind assuages
      Her thirst of knowledge, quaffing there her fill,
Flows from the eternal source of Rome's imperial hill.

     CXI

     Thus far have I proceeded in a theme
     Renew'd with no kind auspices: to feel
     We are not what we have been, and to deem
      We are not what we should be, and to steel
      The heart against itself; and to conceal,
      With a proud caution, love, or hate, or aught,
      Passion or feeling, purpose, grief or zeal,
      Which is the tyrant spirit of our thought,
Is a stern task of soul:- No matter, - it is taught.

     CXII

     And for these words, thus woven into song,
      It may be that they are a harmless wile,
      The colouring of the scenes which fleet along,
      Which I would seize, in passing, to beguile
      My breast, or that of others, for a while
      Fame is the thirst of youth, but I am not
      So young as to regard men's frown or smile,
      As loss or guerdon of a glorious lot;
I stood and stand alone, remember'd or forgot.

     CXIII

     I have not loved the world, nor the world me;
     I have not flatter'd its rank breath, nor bow'd
      To its idolatries a patient knee,
      Nor coin'd my cheek to smiles, nor cried aloud
      In worship of an echo; in the crowd
      They could not deem me one of such; I stood
      Among them, but not of them; in a shroud
      Of thoughts which were not their thoughts and still could,
Had I not filed my mind, which thus itself subdued.

     CXIV

     I have not loved the world, nor the world me,
      But let us part fair foes; I do believe,
      Though I have found them not, that there may be
      Words which are things, hopes which will not deceive,
      And virtues which are merciful, nor weave
      Snares for the failing; I would also deem
      O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve
      That two, or one, are almost what they seem,
That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream.

     CXV

     My daughter! with thy name this song begun;
      My daughter! with thy name thus much shall end;
      I see thee not, I hear thee not, but none
      Can be so wrapt in thee; thou art the friend
      To whom the shadows of far years extend:
      Albeit my brow thou never shouldst behold,
      My voice shall with thy future visions blend,
      And reach into thy heart, when mine is cold,
A token and a tone, even from thy father's mould.

     CXVI

     To aid thy mind's development, to watch
      Thy dawn of little joys, to sit and see
      Almost thy very growth, to view thee catch
      Knowledge of objects, wonders yet to thee!
      To hold thee lightly on a gentle knee,
      And print on thy soft cheek a parent's kiss,
      This, it should seem, was not reserved for me;
      Yet this was in my nature: as it is,
I know not what is there, yet something like to this.

     CXVII

     Yet, though dull Hate as duty should be taught,
     I know that thou wilt love me; though my name
      Should be shut from thee, as a spell still fraught
      With desolation, and a broken claim:
      Though the grave closed between us,'twere the same,
      I know that thou wilt love me; though to drain
      My blood from out thy being were an aim,
      And an attainment, all would be in vain,
Still thou wouldst love me, still that more than life retain.

     CXVIII

     The child of love, though born in bitterness,
      And nurtured in convulsion. Of thy sire
      These were the elements, and thine no less.
      As yet such are around thee, but thy fire
      Shall be more temper'd, and thy hope far higher.
      Sweet be thy cradled slumbers! O'er the sea
      And from the mountains where I now respire,
      Fain would I waft such blessing upon thee,
As, with a sigh, I deem thou might'st have been to me.

 

Preface to the Fourth Canto

'Visto ho Toscana, Lombardia, Romagna,
 Quel Monte che divide, e quel che serra
 Italia, e un mare e l' altro, ch la bagna.'
               Ariosto, Satira iii.

                          TO
     JOHN HOBHOUSE, ESQ., A.M., F.R.S.,
                      &c. &c. &c.

VENICE, January 2, 1818.

My Dear Hobhouse,

After an interval of eight years between the composition of the first and last cantos of Childe Harold, the conclusion of the poem is about to be submitted to the public. In parting with so old a friend, it is not extraordinary that I should recur to one still older and better, — to one who has beheld the birth and death of the other, and to whom I am far more indebted for the social advantages of an enlightened friendship, than — though not ungrateful — I can, or could be, to Childe Harold, for any public favour reflected through the poem on the poet, — to one, whom I have known long and accompanied far, whom I have found wakeful over my sickness and kind in my sorrow, glad in my prosperity and firm in my adversity, true in counsel and trusty in peril, — to a friend often tried and never found wanting; — to yourself.

In so doing, I recur from fiction to truth; and in dedicating to you in its complete, or at least concluded state, a poetical work which is the longest, the most thoughtful and comprehensive of my compositions, I wish to do honour to myself by the record of many years' intimacy with a man of learning, or talent, of steadiness, and of honour. It is not for minds like ours to give or to receive flattery; yet the praises of sincerity have ever been permitted to the voices of friendship; and it is not for you, nor even for others, but to relieve a heart which has not elsewhere, or lately, been so much accustomed to the encounter of good-will as to withstand the shock firmly, that I thus attempt to commemorate your good qualities, or rather the advantages which I have derived from their exertion. Even the recurrence of the date of this letter, the anniversary of the most unfortunate day of my past existence, but which cannot poison my future while I retain the resource of your friendship, and of my own faculties, will henceforth have a more agreeable recollection for both, inasmuch as it will remind us of this my attempt to thank you for an indefatigable regard, such as few men have experienced, and no one could experience without thinking better of his species and of himself.

It has been our good fortune to traverse together, at various periods, the countries of chivalry, history, and fable — Spain, Greece, Asia Minor, and Italy; And what Athens and Constantinople were a few years ago, Venice and Rome have been more recently. The poem also, or the pilgrim, or both, have accompanied me from first to last; and perhaps it may be pardonable vanity which induces me to reflect with complacency on a composition which in some degree connects me with the spot where it was produced, and the objects it would fain describe; and however unworthy it may be deemed of those magical and memorable abodes, however short it may fall of our distant conceptions and immediate impressions, yet as a mark of respect for what is venerable, and of feeling for what is glorious, it has been to me a source of pleasure in the production, and I part with it with a kind of regret, which I hardly suspected that events could have left me for imaginary objects.

With regard to the conduct of the last canto, there will be found less of the pilgrim than in any of the preceding, and that little slightly, if at all, separated from the author speaking in his own person. The fact is, that I had become weary of drawing a line which every one seemed determined not to perceive: like the Chinese in Goldsmith's 'Citizen of the World,' whom nobody would believe to be Chinese, it was in vain that I asserted, and imagined that I had drawn, a distinction between the author and the pilgrim; and the very anxiety to preserve this difference, and disappointment at finding it unavailing, so far crushed my efforts in the composition, that I determined to abandon it altogether — and have done so. The opinions which have been, or may be, formed on that subject are now a matter of indifference; the work is to depend on itself, and not on the writer; and the author, who has no resources in his own mind beyond the reputation, transient or permanent, which is to arise from his literary efforts, deserves the fate of authors.

In the course of the following canto it was my intention, either in the text or in the notes, to have touched upon the present state of Italian literature, and perhaps of manners. But the text, within the limits I proposed, I soon found hardly sufficient for the labyrinth of external objects, and the consequent reflections; and for the whole of the notes, excepting a few of the shortest, I am indebted to yourself, and these were necessarily limited to the elucidation of the text.

It is also a delicate, and no very grateful task, to dissert upon the literature and manners of a nation so dissimilar; and requires an attention and impartiality which would induce us — though perhaps no inattentive observers, nor ignorant of the language or customs of the people amongst whom we have recently abode — to distrust, or a least defer our judgment, and more narrowly examine our information. The state of literary, as well as political party, appears to run, or to have run, so high, that for a stranger to steer impartially between them is next to impossible. It may be enough, then, at least for my purpose, to quote from their own beautiful language — 'Mi pare che in un paese tutto poetico, che vanta la lingua la più nobile ed insieme la più dolce, tutte tutte le vie diverse si possono tentare, e che sinche la patria di Alfieri e di Monti non ha perduto l' antici, valore, in tutte essa dovrebbe essera la prima.' Italy has great names still — Canova, Monti, Ugo Foscolo, Pindemonte, Visconti, Morelli, Cicognara, Albrizzi, Mezzofanti, Mai, Mustoxidi, Alietti, and Vacca, will secure to the present generation an honourable place in most of the departments of Art, Science, and Belles Lettres; and in some the very highest — Europe — the World — has but one Canova.

It has been somewhere said by Alfieri, that 'La pianta uomo nasce più robusta in Italia che in qualunque altra terra — e che gli stessi atroci delitti che vi si commettono ne sono una prova.' Without subscribing to the latter part of his proposition, a dangerous doctrine, the truth of which may be disputed on better grounds, namely, that the Italians are in no respect more ferocious than their neighbours, that man must be wilfully blind, or ignorantly heedless, who is not struck with the extraordinary capacity of this people, or, if such a word be admissible, their capabilities, the facility of their acquisitions, the rapidity of their conceptions, the fire of their genius, their sense of beauty, and, amidst all the disadvantages of repeated revolutions, the desolation of battles, and the despair of ages, their still unquenched 'longing after immortality,' — the immortality of independence. And when we ourselves, in riding round the walls of Rome, heard the simple lament of the labourers' chorus, 'Roma! Roma! Roma! Roma no è più come era prima!' it was difficult not to contrast the songs of exultation still yelled from the London taverns, over the carnage of Mont St. Jean, and the betrayal of Genoa, of Italy, or France, and of the world, by men whose conduct you yourself have exposed in a work worthy of the better days of our history. For me, —

     'Non movero mai corda      Ove la turba di sue ciance assorda.'

What Italy has gained by the late transfer of nations, it were useless for Englishmen to inquire, till it becomes ascertained that England has acquired something more than a permanent army and a suspended Habeas Corpus; it is enough for them to look at home. For what they have done abroad, and especially in the South, 'Verily they will have their reward,' and at no very distant period.

Wishing you, my dear Hobhouse, a safe and agreeable return to that country whose real welfare can be dearer to none than to yourself, I dedicate to you this poem in its completed state; and repeat once more how truly I am ever

         Your obliged and affectionate friend,
                   BYRON

Canto the Fourth

     I
     I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;
     A palace and a prison on each hand:
     I saw from out the wave her structures rise
     As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand:
     A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
     Around me, and a dying Glory smiles
     O'er the far times, when many a subject land
     Look'd to the winged Lion's marble piles,
Where Venice sate in state, thron'd on her hundred isles!

     II
     She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean,
     Rising with her tiara of proud towers
     At airy distance, with majestic motion,
     A ruler of the waters and their powers:
     And such she was; her daughters had their dowers
     From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East
     Pour'd in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.
     In purple was she rob'd, and of her feast
Monarchs partook, and deem'd their dignity increas'd.

     III
     In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more,
     And silent rows the songless gondolier;
     Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
     And music meets not always now the ear:
     Those days are gone -- but Beauty still is here.
     States fall, arts fade -- but Nature doth not die,
     Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear,
     The pleasant place of all festivity,
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy!

     IV
     But unto us she hath a spell beyond
     Her name in story, and her long array
     Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond
     Above the dogeless city's vanish'd sway;
     Ours is a trophy which will not decay
     With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor,
     And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn away --
     The keystones of the arch! though all were o'er,
For us repeopl'd were the solitary shore.

     V
     The beings of the mind are not of clay;
     Essentially immortal, they create
     And multiply in us a brighter ray
     And more belov'd existence: that which Fate
     Prohibits to dull life, in this our state
     Of mortal bondage, by these spirits supplied,
     First exiles, then replaces what we hate;
     Watering the heart whose early flowers have died,
And with a fresher growth replenishing the void.

     VI
     Such is the refuge of our youth and age,
     The first from Hope, the last from Vacancy;
     And this worn feeling peoples many a page,
     And, maybe, that which grows beneath mine eye:
     Yet there are things whose strong reality
     Outshines our fairy-land; in shape and hues
     More beautiful than our fantastic sky,
     And the strange constellations which the Muse
O'er her wild universe is skilful to diffuse:

     VII
     I saw or dream'd of such -- but let them go;
     They came like truth -- and disappear'd like dreams;
     And whatsoe'er they were -- are now but so:
     I could replace them if I would; still teems
     My mind with many a form which aptly seems
     Such as I sought for, and at moments found;
     Let these too go -- for waking Reason deems
     Such overweening fantasies unsound,
And other voices speak, and other sights surround.

     VIII
     I've taught me other tongues, and in strange eyes
     Have made me not a stranger; to the mind
     Which is itself, no changes bring surprise;
     Nor is it harsh to make, nor hard to find
     A country with -- ay, or without mankind;
     Yet was I born where men are proud to be --
     Not without cause; and should I leave behind
     The inviolate island of the sage and free,
And seek me out a home by a remoter sea,

     IX
     Perhaps I lov'd it well: and should I lay
     My ashes in a soil which is not mine,
     My spirit shall resume it -- if we may
     Unbodied choose a sanctuary. I twine
     My hopes of being remember'd in my line
     With my land's language: if too fond and far
     These aspirations in their scope incline,
     If my fame should be, as my fortunes are,
Of hasty growth and blight, and dull Oblivion bar

     X
     My name from out the temple where the dead
     Are honour'd by the nations -- let it be --
     And light the laurels on a loftier head!
     And be the Spartan's epitaph on me --
     "Sparta hath many a worthier son than he."
     Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need;
     The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree
     I planted: they have torn me, and I bleed:
I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.

     XI
     The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord;
     And annual marriage now no more renew'd,
     The Bucentaur lies rotting unrestored,
     Neglected garment of her widowhood!
     St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stood
     Stand, but in mockery of his wither'd power,
     Over he proud Place where an Emperor sued,
     And monarchs gaz'd and envied in the hour
When Venice was a queen with an unequall'd dower.

     XII
     The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns --
     An Emperor tramples where an Emperor knelt;
     Kingdoms are shrunk to provinces, and chains
     Clank over sceptred cities, nations melt
     From power's high pinnacle, when they have felt
     The sunshine for a while, and downward go
     Like Lauwine loosen'd from the mountain's belt;
     Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo!
Th' octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe!

     XIII
     Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of brass,
     Their gilded collars glittering in the sun;
     But is not Doria's menace come to pass?
     Are they not bridled? -- Venice, lost and won,
     Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done,
     Sinks, like a sea-weed, into whence she rose!
     Better be whelm'd beneath the waves, and shun,
     Even in destruction's depth, her foreign foes,
From whom submission wrings an infamous repose.

     XIV
     In youth she was all glory, a new Tyre,
     Her very by-word sprung from victory,
     The 'Planter of the Lion,' which through fire
     And blood she bore o'er subject earth and sea;
     Though making many slaves, herself still free,
     And Europe's bulwark 'gainst the Ottomite;
     Witness Troy's rival, Candia! Vouch it, ye
     Immortal waves that saw Lepanto's fight!
For ye are names no time nor tyranny can blight.

     XV
     Statues of glass -- all shiver'd -- the long file
     Of her dead Doges are declin'd to dust;
     But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile
     Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust;
     Their sceptre broken, and their sword in rust,
     Have yielded to the stranger: empty halls,
     Thin streets, and foreign aspects, such as must
     Too oft remind her who and what enthralls,
Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice' lovely walls.

     XVI
     When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse,
     And fetter'd thousands bore the yoke of war,
     Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse,
     Her voice their only ransom from afar:
     See! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car
     Of the o'ermaster'd victor stops, the reins
     Fall from his hands -- his idle scimitar
     Starts from its belt -- he rends his captive's chains,
And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his strains.

     XVII
     Thus, Venice! if no stronger claim were thine,
     Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot,
     Thy choral memory of the Bard divine,
     Thy love of Tasso, should have cut the knot
     Which ties thee to thy tyrants; and thy lot
     Is shameful to the nations -- most of all,
     Albion, to thee: the Ocean queen should not
     Abandon Ocean's children; in the fall
Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall.

     XVIII
     I loved her from my boyhood; she to me
     Was as a fairy city of the heart,
     Rising like water-columns from the sea,
     Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart;
     And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakespeare's art,
     Had stamp'd her image in me, and even so,
     Although I found her thus, we did not part;
     Perchance even dearer in her day of woe,
Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show.

     XIX
     I can repeople with the past -- and of
     The present there is still for eye and thought,
     And meditation chasten'd down, enough;
     And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought;
     And of the happiest moments which were wrought
     Within the web of my existence, some
     From thee, fair Venice! have their colours caught:
     There are some feelings Time cannot benumb,
Nor Torture shake, or mine would now be cold and dumb.

     XX
     But from their nature will the Tannen grow
     Loftiest on loftiest and least shelter'd rocks,
     Rooted in barrenness, where nought below
     Of soil supports them 'gainst the Alpine shocks
     Of eddying storms; yet springs the trunk, and mocks
     The howling tempest, till its height and frame
     Are worthy of the mountains from whose blocks
     Of bleak, gray granite into life it came,
And grew a giant tree; -- the mind may grow the same.

     XXI
     Existence may be borne, and the deep root
     Of life and sufferance make its firm abode
     The bare and desolated bosoms: mute
     The camel labours with the heaviest load,
     And the wolf dies in silence, -- not bestow'd
     In vain should such example be; if they,
     Things of ignoble or of savage mood,
     Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay
May temper it to bear, -- it is but for a day.

     XXII
     All suffering doth destroy, or is destroy'd,
     Even by the sufferer; and, in each event,
     Ends: -- Some, with hope replenish'd and rebuoy'd,
     Return to whence they came -- with like intent,
     And weave their web again; some, bow'd and bent,
     Wax gray and ghastly, withering ere their time,
     And perish with the reed on which they leant;
     Some seek devotion, toil, war, good or crime,
According as their souls were form'd to sink or climb.

     XXIII
     But ever and anon of griefs subdued
     There comes a token like a scorpion's sting,
     Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued;
     And slight withal may be the things which bring
     Back on the heart the weight which it would fling
     Aside for ever: it may be a sound --
     A tone of music -- summer's eve -- or spring --
     A flower -- the wind -- the ocean -- which shall wound,
Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound;

     XXIV
     And how and why we know not, nor can trace
     Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind,
     But feel the shock renew'd, nor can efface
     The blight and blackening which it leaves behind,
     Which out of things familiar, undesign'd,
     When least we deem of such, calls up to view
     The spectres whom no exorcism can bind, --
     The cold, the changed, perchance the dead -- anew,
The mourn'd, the loved, the lost -- too many! yet how few!

     XXV
     But my soul wanders: I demand it back
     To meditate amongst decay, and stand
     A ruin amidst ruins; there to track
     Fall'n states and buried greatness, o'er a land
     Which was the mightiest in its old command,
     And is the loveliest, and must ever be
     The master mould of Nature's heavenly hand;
     Wherein were cast the heroic and the free,
The beautiful, the brave, the lords of earth and sea,

     XXVI
     The commonwealth of kings, the men of Rome!
     And even since, and now, fair Italy!
     Thou art the garden of the world, the home
     Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree;
     Even in thy desert, what is like to thee?
     Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste
     More rich than other climes' fertility;
     Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced
With an immaculate charm which cannot be defaced.

     XXVII
     The moon is up, and yet it is not night;
     Sunset divides the sky with her; a sea
     Of glory streams along the Alpine height
     Of blue Friuli's mountains; Heaven is free
     From clouds, but of all colours seems to be, --
     Melted to one vast Iris of the West, --
     Where the Day joins the past Eternity,
     While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest
Floats through the azure air -- an island of the blest!

     XXVIII
     A single star is at her side, and reigns
     With her o'er half the lovely heaven; but still
     Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains
     Roll'd o'er the peak of the far Rhætian hill,
     As Day and Night contending were, until
     Nature reclaim'd her order: -- gently flows
     The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instil
     The odorous purple of a new-born rose,
Which streams upon her stream, and glass'd within it glows,

     XXIX
     Fill'd with the face of heaven, which, from afar,
     Comes down upon the waters; all its hues,
     From the rich sunset to the rising star,
     Their magical variety diffuse:
     And now they change; a paler shadow strews
     Its mantle o'er the mountains; parting day
     Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues
     With a new colour as it gasps away --
The last still loveliest, -- till -- 'tis gone -- and all is gray.

     XXX
     There is a tomb at Arqua; -- rear'd in air,
     Pillar'd in their sarcophagus, repose
     The bones of Laura's lover: here repair
     Many familiar with his well-sung woes,
     The pilgrims of his genius. He arose
     To raise a language, and his land reclaim
     From the dull yoke of her barbaric foes:
     Watering the tree which bears his lady's name
With his melodious tears, he gave himself to fame.

     XXXI
     They keep his dust in Arqua, where he died;
     The mountain-village where his latter days
     Went down the vale of years; and 'tis their pride --
     An honest pride -- and let it be their praise,
     To offer to the passing stranger's gaze
     His mansion and his sepulchre; both plain
     And venerably simple, such as raise
     A feeling more accordant with his train
Than if a pyramid form'd his monumental fane.

     XXXII
     And the soft quiet hamlet where he dwelt
     Is one of that complexion which seems made
     For those who their mortality have felt,
     And sought a refuge from their hopes decay'd
     In the deep umbrage of a green hill's shade,
     Which shows a distant prospect far away
     Of busy cities, now in vain display'd,
     For they can lure no further; and the ray
Of a bright sun can make sufficient holiday,

     XXXIII
     Developing the mountains, leaves, and flowers,
     And shining in the brawling brook, whereby,
     Clear as its current, glide the sauntering hours
     With a calm languor, which, though to the eye
     Idlesse it seem, hath its mortality.
     If from society we learn to live,
     'Tis solitude should teach us how to die;
     It hath no flatters; vanity can give
No hollow aid; alone -- man with his God must strive:

     XXXIV
     Or, it may be, with demons, who impair
     The strength of better thoughts, and seek their prey
     In melancholy bosoms, such as were
     Of moody texture, from their earliest day,
     And loved to dwell in darkness and dismay,
     Deeming themselves predestined to a doom
     Which is not of the pangs that pass away;
     Making the sun like blood, the earth a tomb,
The tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom.

     XXXV
     Ferrara! in thy wide and grass-grown streets,
     Whose symmetry was not for solitude,
     There seems as 'twere a curse upon the seats
     Of former sovereigns, and the antique brood
     Of Este, which for many an age made good
     Its strength within thy walls, ad was of yore
     Patron or tyrant, as the changing mood
     Of petty power impell'd, of those who wore
The wreath which Dante's brow alone had worn before.

     XXXVI
     And Tasso is their glory and their shame.
     Hark to his strain! and then survey his cell!
     And see how dearly earn'd Torquato's fame,
     And where Alfonso bade his poet dwell:
     The miserable despot could not quell
     The insulted mind he sought to quench, and blend
     With the surrounding maniacs, in the hell
     Where he had plunged it. Glory without end
Scatter'd the clouds away; and on that name attend

     XXXVII
     The tears and praises of all time; while thine
     Would rot in its oblivion -- in the sink
     Of worthless dust, which from thy boasted line
     Is shaken into nothing -- but the link
     Thou formest in his fortunes bids us think
     Of thy poor malice, naming thee with scorn:
     Alfonso! how thy ducal pageants shrink
     From thee! if in another station born,
Scarce fit to be the slave of him thou madest to mourn:

     XXXVIII
     Thou! form'd to eat, and be despised, and die,
     Even as the beasts that perish, save that thou
     Hadst a more splendid trough and wider sty:
     He! with a glory round his furrow'd brow,
     Which emanated then, and dazzles now,
     In face of all his foes, the Cruscan quire,
     And Boileau, whose rash envy could allow
     No strain which shamed his country's creaking lyre,
That whetstone of the teeth -- monotony in wire!

     XXXIX
     Peace to Torquato's injured shade! twas his
     In life and death to be the mark where Wrong
     Aim'd with her poison'd arrows, but to miss.
     O, victor unsurpass'd in modern song!
     Each year brings forth its millions; but how long
     The tide of generations shall roll on,
     And not the whole combined and countless throng
     Compose a mind like thine? though all in one
Condensed their scatter'd rays, they would not form a sun.

     XL
     Great as thou art, yet parallel'd by those,
     Thy countrymen, before thee born to shine,
     The Bards of Hell and Chivalry: first rose
     The Tuscan father's Comedy Divine;
     Then, not unequal to the Florentine,
     The southern Scott, the minstrel who call'd forth
     A new creation with his magic line,
     And, like the Ariosto of the North,
Sang ladye-love and war, romance and knightly worth.

     XLI
     The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust
     The iron crown of laurel's mimick'd leaves;
     Nor was the ominous element unjust
     For the true laurel-wreath which Glory weaves
     Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves,
     And the false semblance but disgraced his brow;
     Yet still, if fondly Superstition grieves,
     Know, that the lightning sanctifies below
Whate'er it strikes; -- yon head is doubly sacred now.

     XLII
     Italia! oh Italia! thou who hast
     The fatal gift of beauty, which became
     A funeral dower of present woes and past,
     On thy sweet brow is sorrow plough'd by shame,
     And annals graved in characters of flame.
     Oh, God! that thou wert in thy nakedness
     Less lovely or more powerful, and couldst claim
     Thy right, and awe the robbers back, who press
To shed thy blood, and drink the tears of thy distress;

     XLIII
     Then might'st thou more appal; or, less desired,
     Be homely and be peaceful, undeplored
     For thy destructive charms; then, still untired,
     Would not be seen the armed torrents pour'd
     Down the deep Alps; nor would the hostile horde
     Of many-nation'd spoilers from the Po
     Quaff blood and water; nor the stranger's sword
     Be thy sad weapon of defence, and so,
Victor or vanquish'd, thou the slave of friend or foe.

     XLIV
     Wandering in youth, I traced the path of him,
     The Roman friend of Rome's least-mortal mind,
     The friend of Tully: as my bark did skim
     The bright blue waters with a fanning wind,
     Came Megara before me, and behind
     Ægina lay, Piræus on the right,
     And Corinth on the left; I lay reclined
     Along the prow, and saw all these unite
In ruin, even as he had seen the desolate sight;

     XLV
     For Time hath not rebuilt them, but uprear'd
     Barbaric dwellings on their shatter'd site,
     Which only make more mourn'd and more endear'd
     The few last rays of their far-scatter'd light,
     And the crush'd relics of their vanish'd might.
     The Roman saw these tombs in his own age,
     These sepulchres of cities, which excite
     Sad wonder, and his yet surviving page
The moral lesson bears, drawn from such pilgrimage.

     XLVI
     That page is now before me, and on mine
     His country's ruin added to the mass
     Of perish'd states he mourn'd in their decline,
     And I in desolation: all that was
     Of then destruction is; and now, alas!
     Rome -- Rome imperial, bows her to the storm,
     In the same dust and blackness, and we pass
     The skeleton of her Titanic form,
Wrecks of another world, whose ashes still are warm.

     XLVII
     Yet, Italy! through every other land
     Thy wrongs should ring, and shall, from side to side;
     Mother of Arts! as once of arms; thy hand
     Was then our guardian, and is still our guide;
     Parent of our religion! whom the wide
     Nations have knelt to for the keys of heaven!
     Europe, repentent of her parricide,
     Shall yet redeem thee, and, all backward driven,
Roll the barbarian tide, and sue to be forgiven.

     XLVIII
     But Arno wins us to the fair white walls,
     Where the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps
     A softer feeling for her fairy halls.
     Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps
     Her corn, and wine, and oil, and Plenty leaps
     To laughing life, with her redundant horn.
     Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps
     Was modern Luxury of Commerce born,
And buried Learning rose, redeem'd to new morn.

     XLIX
     There, too, the Goddess loves in stone, and fills
     The air around with beauty; we inhale
     The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils
     Part of its immortality; the veil
     Of heaven is half undrawn; within the pale
     We stand, and in that form and face behold
     What Mind can make, when Nature's self would fail;
     And to the fond idolators of old
Envy the innate flash which such a soul could mould:

     L
     We gaze and turn away, and know not where,
     Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart
     Reels with its fulness; there -- for ever there --
     Chain'd to the chariot of triumphal Art,
     We stand as captives, and would not depart.
     Away! -- there needs no words nor terms precise,
     The paltry jargon of the marble mart,
     Where Pedantry gulls Folly -- we have eyes:
Blood, pulse, and breast confirm the Dardan Shepherd's prize.

     LI
     Appear'dst thou not to Paris in this guise?
     Or to more deeply blest Anchises? or,
     In all thy perfect Goddess-ship, when lies
     Before thee thy own vanquish'd Lord of War?
     And gazing in thy face as toward a star,
     Laid on thy lap, his eyes to thee upturn,
     Feeding on thy sweet cheek! while thy lips are
     With lava kisses melting while they burn,
Shower'd on his eyelids, brow, and mouth, as from an urn?

     LII
     Glowing, and circumfused in speechless love
     Their full divinity inadequate
     That feeling to express, or to improve,
     The gods become as mortals, and man's fate
     Has moments like their brightest; but the weight
     Of earth recoils upon us; -- let it go!
     We can recall such visions, and create,
     From what has been, or might be, things which grow
Into thy statue's form, and look like gods below.

     LIII
     I leave to learned fingers and wise hands,
     The artist and his ape, to teach and tell
     How well his connoisseurship understands
     The graceful bend, and the voluptuous swell:
     Let these describe the undescribable:
     I would not their vile breath should crisp the stream
     Wherein that image shall for ever dwell;
     The unruffled mirror of the loveliest dream
That ever left the sky on the deep soul to beam.

     LIV
     In Santa Croce's holy precincts lie
     Ashes which make it holier, dust which is
     Even in itself an immortality,
     Though there were nothing save the past, and this,
     The particle of those sublimities
     Which have relapsed to chaos: here repose
     Angelo's, Alfieri's bones, and his,
     The starry Galileo, with his woes;
Here Machiavelli's earth return'd to whence it rose.

     LV
     These are four minds, which, like the elements,
     Might furnish forth creation: -- Italy!
     Time, which hath wrong'd thee with ten thousand rents
     Of thine imperal garment, shall deny,
     And hath denied, to every other sky,
     Spirits which soar from ruin: thy decay
     Is still impregnate with divinity,
     Which gilds it with revivifying ray;
Such as the great of yore, Canova is today.

     LVI
     But where repose the all Etruscan three --
     Dante, and Petrarch, and, scarce less thatn they,
     The Bard of Prose, creative spirit! he
     Of the Hundred Tales of love -- where did they lay
     Their bones, distinguish'd from our common clay
     In death as life? Are they resolved to dust,
     And have their country's marbles nought to say?
     Could not her quarries furnish forth one bust?
Did they not to her breast their filial earth entrust?

     LVII
     Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar,
     Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore:
     Thy factions, in their worse than civil war,
     Proscribed the bard whose name forevermore
     Their children's children would in vain adore
     With the remorse of ages; and the crown
     Which Petrarch's laureate brow supremely wore,
     Upon a far and foreign soil had grown,
His life, his fame, his grave, though rifled -- not thine own.

     LVIII
     Boccaccio to his parent earth bequeath'd
     His dust, -- and lies it not her great among,
     With many a sweet and solemn requiem breathed
     O'er him who form'd the Tuscan's siren tongue?
     That music in itself, whose sounds are song,
     The poetry of speech? No; -- even his tomb
     Uptorn, must bear the hyæna bigot's wrong,
     No more amidst the meaner dead find room,
Nor claim a passing sigh, because it told for whom!

     LIX
     And Santa Croce wants their mighty dust;
     Yet for this want more noted, as of yore
     The Cæsar's pageant, shorn of Brutus' bust,
     Did but of Rome's best Son remind her more:
     Happier Ravenna! on thy hoary shore,
     Fortress of falling empire! honour'd sleeps
     The immortal exile; -- Arqua, too her store
     Of tuneful relics proudly claims and keeps,
While Florence vainly begs her banish'd dead and weeps.

     LX
     What is her pyramid of precious stones?
     Of porphyry, jasper, agate, and all hues
     Of gem and marble, to encrust the bones
     Of merchant-dukes? the momentary dews
     Which, sparkling to the twilight stars, infuse
     Freshness in the green turf that wraps the dead,
     Whose names are mausoleums of the Muse,
     Are gently prest with far more reverent tread
Than ever paced the slab which paves the princely head.

     LXI
     There be more things to greet the heart and eyes
     In Arno's dome of Art's most princely shrine,
     Where Sculpture with her rainbow sister vies;
     There be more marvels yet -- but not for mine;
     For I have been accustom'd to entwine
     My thoughts with Nature rather in the fields,
     Than Art in galleries; though a work divine
     Calls for my spirit's homage, yet it yields
Less than it feels, because the weapon which it wields

     LXII
     Is of another temper, and I roam
     By Thrasimene's lake, in the defiles
     Fatal to Roman rashness, more at home;
     For there the Carthaginian's warlike wiles
     Come back before me, as his skill beguiles
     The host between the mountains the the shore,
     Where Courage falls in her despairing files,
     And torrents swoll'n to rivers with their gore,
Reek through the sultry plain, with legions scatter'd o'er,

     LXIII
     Like to a forest fell'd by mountain winds;
     And such the storm of battle on this day,
     And such the frenzy, whose convulsion blinds
     To all save carnage, that, beneath the fray,
     An earthquake reel'd unheededly away!
     None felt stern Nature rocking at his feet,
     And yawning forth a grave for those who lay
     Upon their bucklers for a winding-sheet;
Such is the absorbing hate when warring nations meet!

     LXIV
     The Earth to them was as a rolling bark
     Which bore them to Eternity; they saw
     The Ocean round, but had not time to mark
     The motions of their vessel; Nature's law,
     In them suspended, reck'd not of the awe
     Which reigns when mountains tremble, and the birds
     Plunge in the clouds for refuge, and withdraw
     From their down-toppling nests; and bellowing herds
Stumble o'er heaving plains, and man's dread hath no words.

     LXV
     Far other scene is Thrasimene now;
     Her lake a sheet of silver, and her plain
     Rent by no ravage save the gentle plough;
     Her aged trees rise thick as once the slain
     Lay where their roots are; but a brook hath ta'en --
     A little rill of scanty stream and bed --
     A name of blood from that day's sanguine rain;
     And Sanguinetto tells ye where the dead
Made the earth wet, and turn'd the unwilling waters red.

     LXVI
     But thou, Clitumnus! in thy sweetest wave
     Of the most living crystal that was e'er
     The haunt of river nymph, to gaze and lave
     Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou dost rear
     Thy grassy banks whereon the milk-white steer
     Grazes; the purest god of gentle waters!
     And most serene of aspect, and most clear;
     Surely that stream was unprofaned by slaughters,
A mirror and a bath for Beauty's youngest daughters!

     LXVII
     And on thy happy shore a Temple still,
     Of small and delicate proportion, keeps,
     Upon a mild declivity of hill,
     Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps
     Thy current's calmness; oft from out it leaps
     The finny darter with the glittering scales,
     Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps;
     While, chance, some scatter'd waterlily sails
Down were the shallower wave still tells its bubbling tales.

     LXVIII
     Pass not unblest the Genius of the place!
     If through the air a zephyr more serene
     Win to the brow, 'tis his; and if ye trace
     Along his margin a more eloquent green,
     If on the heart the freshness of the scene
     Sprinkle its coolness, and from the dry dust
     Of weary life a moment lave it clean
     With Nature's baptism, -- 'tis to him ye must
Pay orisons for this suspension of disgust.

     LXIX
     The roar of waters! -- from the headlong height
     Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice;
     The fall of waters! rapid as the light
     The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss;
     The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss,
     And boil in endless torture; while the sweat
     Of their great agony, wrung out from this
     Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet
That guard the gulf around, in pitiless horror set,

     LXX
     And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again
     Returns in an unceasing shower, which round,
     With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain,
     Is an eternal April to the ground,
     Making it all one emerald: -- how profound
     The gulf! and how the giant element
     From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound,
     Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent
With his fierce footsteps, yields in chasms a fearful vent

     LXXI
     To the broad column which rolls on, and shows
     More like the fountain of an infant sea
     Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes
     Of a new world, than only thus to be
     Parent of rivers, which glow gushingly,
     With many windings, through the vale: -- Look back!
     Lo! where it comes like an eternity,
     As if to sweep down all things in its track,
Charming the eye with dread, -- a matchless cataract,

     LXXII
     Horribly beautiful! but on the verge,
     From side to side, beneath the glittering morn,
     An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge,
     Like Hope upon a death-bed, and, unworn
     Its steady dyes, while all around is torn
     By the distracted waters, bears serene
     Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn:
     Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene,
Love watching Madness with unalterable mien.

     LXXIII
     Once more upon the woody Apennine,
     The infant Alps, which -- had I not before
     Gazed on their mightier parents, where the pine
     Sits on more shaggy summits, and where roar
     The thundering Lauwine -- might be worshipp'd more;
     But I have seen the soaring Jungfrau rear
     Her never-trodden snow, and seen the hoar
     Glaciers of bleak Mont Blanc both far and near,
And in Chimari heard the thunder-hills of fear,

     LXXIV
     Th' Acroceraunian mountains of old name;
     And on Parnassus seen the eagles fly
     Like spirits of the spot, as 'twere for fame,
     For still they soared unutterably high:
     I've look'd on Ida with a Trojan's eye;
     Athos, Olympus, Ætna, Atlas, made
     These hills seem things of lesser dignity,
     All, save the lone Soracte's height, display'd
Not now in snow, which asks the lyric Roman's aid

     LXXV
     For our remembrance, and from out the plain
     Heaves like a long-swept wave about to break,
     And on the curl hangs pausing: not in vain
     May he, who will, his recollections rake,
     And quote in classic raptures, and awake
     The hills with Latian echoes; I abhorr'd
     Too much, to conquer for the poet's sake,
     The drill'd dull lesson, forced down word by word
In my repugnant youth, with pleasure to record

     LXXVI
     Aught that recalls the daily drug which turn'd
     My sickening memory; and, though Time hath taught
     My mind to meditate what then it learn'd,
     Yet such the fix'd inveteracy, wrought
     By the impatience of my early thought,
     That with the freshness wearing out before
     My mind could relish what it might have sought,
     If free to choose, I cannot now restore
Its health; but what it then detested, still abhor.

     LXXVII
     Then farewell, Horace; whom I hated so,
     Not for thy faults, but mine; it is a curse
     To understand, not feel thy lyric flow,
     To comprehend, but never love thy verse:
     Although no deeper Moralist rehearse
     Our little life, nor Bard prescribe his art,
     Nor livelier Satirist the conscience pierce,
     Awakening without wounding the touch'd heart,
Yet fare thee well -- upon Soracte's ridge we part.

     LXXVIII
     Oh Rome! my country! city of the soul!
     The orphans of the heart must turn to thee,
     Lone mother of dead empires! and control
     In their shut breasts their petty misery.
     What are our woes and sufferance? Come and see
     The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way
     O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, Ye!
     Whose agonies are evils of day --
A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay.

     LXXIX
     The Niobe of nations! there she stands,
     Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe;
     An empty urn within her wither'd hands,
     Whose holy dust was scatter'd long ago;
     The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now;
     The very sepulchres lie tenantless
     Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow,
     Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness?
Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress.

     LXXX
     The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire,
     Have dealt upon the seven-hill'd city's pride;
     She saw her glories star by star expire,
     And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride,
     Where the car climb'd the Capitol; far and wide
     Temple and tower went down, nor left a site:
     Chaos of ruins! who shall trace the void,
     O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light,
And say, 'here was, or is,' where all is doubly night?

     LXXXI
     The double night of ages, and of her,
     Night's daughter, Ignorance, hath wrapt and wrap
     All round us: we but feel our way to err:
     The ocean hath his chart, and stars their map,
     And Knowledge spreads them on her ample lap;
     But Rome is as the desert, where we steer
     Stumbling o'er recollections; now we clap
     Our hands, and cry 'Eureka!' it is clear --
When but some false mirage or ruin rises near.

     LXXXII
     Alas! the lofty city! and alas!
     The trebly hundred triumphs! and the day
     When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass
     The conqueror's sword in bearing fame away!
     Alas, for Tully's voice, and Virgil's lay,
     And Livy's pictured page! -- but these shall be
     Her resurrection; all beside -- decay.
     Alas for Earth, for never shall we see
That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was free!

     LXXXIII
     O thou, whose chariot roll'd on Fortune's wheel,
     Triumphant Sylla! Thou, who didst subdue
     Thy country's foes ere thou wouldst pause to feel
     The wrath of thy own wrongs, or reap the due
     Of hoarded vengeance till thine eagles flew
     O'er prostrate Asia; -- thou, who with thy frown
     Annihilated senates -- Roman, too.
     With all thy vices, for thou didst lay down
With an atoning smile a more than earthly crown --

     LXXXIV
     The dictatorial wreath -- couldst thou divine
     To what would one day dwindle that which made
     Thee more than mortal? and that so supine
     By aught than Romans Rome should thus be laid?
     She who was named Eternal, and array'd
     Her warriors but to conquer -- she who veil'd
     Earth with her haughty shadow, and display'd,
     Until the o'er-canopied horizon fail'd,
Her rushing wings -- Oh! she who was Almighty hail'd!

     LXXXV
     Sylla was first of victors; but our own,
     The sagest of usurpers, Cromwell! -- he
     Too swept off senates while he hew'd the throne
     Down to a block -- immortal rebel! See
     What crimes it costs to be a moment free,
     And famous through all ages! but beneath
     His fate the moral lurks of destiny;
     His day of double victory and death
Beheld him win two realms, and, happier, yield his breath.

     LXXXVI
     The third of the same moon whose former course
     Had all but crown'd him, on the selfsame day
     Deposed him gently from his throne of force,
     And laid him with the earth's preceding clay.
     And show'd not Fortune thus how fame and sway,
     And all we deem delightful, and consume
     Our souls to compass through each arduous way,
     Are in her eyes less happy than the tomb?
Were they but so in man's how different were his doom!

     LXXXVII
     And thou, dread statue! yet existent in
     The austerest form of naked majesty,
     Thou who beheldest, 'mid the assassins' din,
     At thy bathed base the bloody Cæsar lie,
     Folding his robe in dying dignity,
     An offering to thine altar from the queen
     Of gods and men, great Nemesis! did he die,
     And thou, too, perish, Pompey? have ye been
Victors of countless kings, or puppets of a scene?

     LXXXVIII
     And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome!
     She-wolf! whose brazen-imaged dugs impart
     The milk of conquest yet within the dome
     Where, as a monument of antique art,
     Thou standest: -- Mother of the mighty heart,
     Which the great founder suck'd from thy wild teat,
     Scorch'd by the Roman Jove's ethereal dart,
     And thy limbs black with lightning -- dost thou yet
Guard thine immoral cubs, nor thy fond charge forget?

     LXXXIX
     Thou dost; but all thy foster-babes are dead --
     The men of iron: and the world hath rear'd
     Cities from out their sepulchres: men bled
     In imitation of the things they fear'd,
     And fought and conquer'd, and the same course steer'd,
     At apish distance; but as yet none have,
     Nor could the same supremacy have near'd,
     Save one vain man, who is not in the grave,
But, vanquish'd by himself, to his own slaves a slave --

     XC
     The fool of false dominion -- and a kind
     Of bastard Cæsar, following him of old
     With steps unequal; for the Roman's mind
     Was modell'd in a less terrestrial mould,
     With passions fiercer, yet a judgment cold,
     And an immortal instinct which redeem'd
     The frailties of a heart so soft, yet bold,
     Alcides with the distaff now he seem'd
At Cleopatra's feet, -- and now himself he beam'd,

     XCI
     And came -- and saw -- and conquer'd ! But the man
     Who would have tamed his eagles down to flee,
     Like a train'd falcon, in the Gallic van,
     Which he, in sooth, long led to victory
     With a deaf heart, which never seem'd to be
     A listener to itself, was strangely framed;
     With but one weakest weakness -- vanity,
     Coquettish in ambition, still he aim'd --
At what? can he avouch, or answer what he claim'd?

     XCII
     And would be all or nothing -- nor could wait
     For the sure grave to level him; few years
     Had fix'd him with the Cæsars in his fate,
     On whom we tread; for this the conqueror rears
     The arch of triumph and for this the tears
     And blood of earth flow on as they have flow'd,
     An universal deluge, which appears
     Without an ark for wretched man's abode,
And ebbs but to reflow! Renew thy rainbow, God!

     XCIII
     What from this barren being do we reap?
     Our senses narrow, and our reason frail,
     Life short, and truth a gem which loves the deep,
     And all things weigh'd in custom's falsest scale;
     Opinion an omnipotence, -- whose veil
     Mantles the earth with darkness, until right
     And wrong are accidents, and men grow pale
     Lest their own judgments should become too bright,
And their free thoughts be crimes, and earth have too much light.

     XCIV
     And thus they plod in sluggish misery,
     Rotting from sire to son, and age to age,
     Proud of their trampled nature, and so die,
     Bequeathing their hereditary rage
     To the new race of inborn slaves, who wage
     War for their chains, and rather than be free,
     Bleed gladiator-like, and still engage
     Within the same arena where they see
Their fellows fall before, like leaves of the same tree.

     XCV
     I speak not of men's creeds -- they rest between
     Man and his Maker -- but of things allow'd,
     Averr'd, and known, and daily, hourly seen --
     The yoke that is upon us doubly bow'd,
     And the intent of tyranny avow'd,
     The edict of Earth's rulers, who are grown
     The apes of him who humbled once the proud,
     And shook them from their slumbers on the throne:
Too glorious, were this all his mighty arm had done.

     XCVI
     Can tyrants but by tyrants conquer'd be,
     And Freedom find no champion and no child
     Such as Columbia saw arise when she
     Sprung forth a Pallas, arm'd and undefiled?
     Or must such minds be nourish'd in the wild,
     Deep in the unpruned forest, 'midst the roar
     Of cataracts, where nursing Nature smiled
     On infant Washington? Has Earth no more
Such seeds within her breast, or Europe no such shore?

     XCVII
     But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime,
     And fatal have her Saturnalia been
     To Freedom's cause, in every age an clime;
     Because the deadly days which we have seen,
     And vile Ambition, that built up between
     Man and his hopes an adamantine wall,
     And the base pageant last upon the scene,
     Are grown the pretext for the eternal thrall
Which nips life's tree, and dooms man's worst -- his second fall.

     XCVIII
     Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying,
     Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind;
     Thy trumpet voice, though broken now and dying,
     The loudest still the tempest leaves behind;
     Thy tree hath lost its blossoms, and the rind,
     Chopp'd by the axe, looks rough and little worth,
     But the sap lasts, -- and still the seed we find
     Sown deep, even in the bosom of the North;
So shall a better spring less better fruit bring forth.

     XCIX
     There is a stern round tower of other days,
     Firm as a fortress, with its fence of stone,
     Such as an army's baffled strength delays,
     Standing with half its battlements alone,
     And with two thousand years of ivy grown,
     The garland of eternity, where wave
     The green leaves over all by time o'er thrown; --
     Where was this tower of strength? within its case
What treasure lay, so lock'd, so hid? -- A woman's grave.

     C
     But who was she, the lady of the dead,
     Tomb'd in a palace? Was she chaste and fair?
     Worthy a king's, or more -- a Roman's bed?
     What race of chiefs and heroes did she bear?
     What daughter of her beauties was she heir?
     How lived, how loved, how died she? Was she not
     So honoured -- and conspicuously there,
     Where meaner relics must not dare to rot,
Placed to commemorate a more than mortal lot?

     CI
     Was she as those who love their lords, or they
     Who love the lords of others? such have been
     Even in the olden time, Rome's annals say.
     Was she a matron of Cornelia's mien,
     Or the light air of Egypt's graceful queen,
     Profuse of joy -- or 'gainst it did she war
     Inveterate in virtue? Did she lean
     To the soft side of the heart, or wisely bar
Love from amongst her griefs? -- for such the affections are.

     CII
     Perchance she died in youth: it may be, bow'd
     With woes far heavier than the ponderous tomb
     That weigh'd upon her gentle dust, a cloud
     Might gather o'er her beauty, and a gloom
     In her dark eye, prophetic of the doom
     Heaven gives its favourites -- early death; yet shed
     A sunset charm around her, and illume
     With hectic light, the Hesperus of the dead,
Of her consuming cheek the autumnal leaf-like red.

     CIII
     Perchance she died in age -- surviving all,
     Charms, kindred, children -- with the silver gray
     On her long tresses, which might yet recall,
     It may be, still a something of the day
     When they were braided, and her proud array
     And lovely form were envied, praised, and eyed
     By Rome -- But whither would Conjecture stray?
     Thus much alone we know -- Metella died,
The wealthiest Roman's wife: Behold his love or pride!

     CIV
     I know not why -- but standing thus by thee
     It seems as if I had thine inmate known,
     Thou Tomb! and other days come back on me
     With recollected music, though the tone
     Is changed and solemn, like the cloudy groan
     Of dying thunder on the distant wind;
     Yet could I set me by this ivied stone
     Till I had bodied forth the heated mind,
Forms from the floating wreck which Ruin leaves behind;

     CV
     And from the planks, far shatter'd o'er the rocks,
     Built me a little bark of hope, once more
     To battle with the ocean and the shocks
     Of the loud breakers, and the ceaseless roar
     Which rushes on the solitary shore
     Where all lies founder'd that was ever dear:
     But could I gather from the wave-worn store
     Enough for my rude boat, where should I steer?
There woos no home, nor hope, nor life, save what is here.

     CVI
     Then let the winds howl on! their harmony
     Shall henceforth be my music, and the night
     The sound shall temper with the owlets' cry,
     As I now hear them, in the fading light
     Dim o'er the bird of darkness' native site,
     Answering each other on the Palatine,
     With their large eyes, all glistening gray and bright,
     And sailing pinions. -- Upon such a shrine
What are our petty griefs? -- let me not number mine.

     CVII
     Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower grown,
     Matted and mass'd together, hillocks heap'd
     On what were chambers, arch crush'd, column strown
     In fragments, choked up vaults, and frescos steep'd
     In subterranean damps, where the owl peep'd,
     Deeming it midnight: -- Temples, baths, or halls?
     Pronounce who can; for all that Learning reap'd
     From her research hath been, that these are walls --
Behold thee Imperial Mount! 'tis thus the mighty falls.

     CVIII
     There is the moral of all human tales;
     'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past,
     First Freedom, and then Glory -- when that fails,
     Wealth, vice , corruption, -- barbarism at last.
     And History, with all her volumes vast,
     Hath but one page, -- 'tis better written here
     Where gorgeous Tyranny hath thus amass'd
     All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear,
Heart, soul, could seek, tongue ask -- Away with words! draw near,

     CIX
     Admire, exult, despise, laugh, weep, -- for here
     There is such matter for all feeling: -- Man!
     Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear,
     Ages and realms are crowded in this span,
     This mountain, whose obliterated plan
     The pyramid of empires pinnacled,
     Of Glory's gewgaws shining in the van
     Till the sun's rays with added flame were fill'd!
Where are its golden roofs? where those who dared to build?

     CX
     Tully was not so eloquent as thou,
     Thou nameless column with the buried base!
     What are the laurels of the Cæsar's brow?
     Crown me with ivy from his dwelling-place.
     Whose arch or pillar meets me in the face,
     Titus or Trajan's? No -- 'tis that of Time:
     Triumph, arch, pillar, all he doth displace
     Scoffing; and apostolic statues climb
To crush the imperial urn, whose ashes slept sublime,

     CXI
     Buried in air, the deep blue sky of Rome,
     And looking to the stars; they had contain'd
     A spirit which with thee would find a home,
     The last of those who o'er the whole earth reign'd,
     The Roman globe, for after none sustain'd,
     But yielded back his conquests: -- he was more
     Than a mere Alexander, and unstain'd
     With household blood and wine, serenely wore
His sovereign virtues -- still we Trajan's name adore.

     CXII
     Where is the rock of Triumph, the high place
     Where Rome embraced her heroes? where the steep
     Tarpeian? fittest goal of Treason's race,
     The promontory whence the Traitor's Leap
     Cured all ambition. Did the conquerors heap
     Their spoils here? Yes; and in yon field below,
     A thousand years of silenced faction sleep --
     The Forum, where the immortal accents glow,
And still the eloquent air breathes -- burns with Cicero!

     CXIII
     The field of freedom, faction, fame, and blood:
     Here a proud people's passions were exhaled,
     From the first hour of empire in the bud
     To that when further worlds to conquer fail'd;
     But long before had Freedom's face been veil'd,
     And Anarchy assumed her attributes;
     Till every lawless soldier who assail'd
     Trod on the trembling senate's slavish mutes,
Or raised the venal voice of baser prostitutes.

     CXIV
     Then turn we to her latest tribune's name,
     From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee,
     Redeemer of dark centuries of shame --
     The friend of Petrarch -- hope of Italy --
     Rienzi! last of Romans! While the tree
     Of freedom's wither'd trunk puts forth a leaf
     Even for thy tomb a garland let it be --
     The forum's champion, and the people's chief --
Her new-born Numa thou -- with reign, alas! too brief.

     CXV
     Egeria! sweet creation of some heart
     Which found no mortal resting-place so fair
     As thine ideal breast; whate'er thou art
     Or wert, -- a young Aurora of the air,
     The nympholepsy of some fond despair;
     Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth,
     Who found a more than common votary there
     Too much adoring; whatsoe'er thy birth,
Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth.

     CXVI
     The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled
     With thine Elysian water-drops; the face
     Of thy cave-guarded spring with years unwrinkled,
     Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place,
     Whose green, wild margin now no more erase
     Art's works; nor must the delicate waters sleep,
     Prison'd in marble -- bubbling from the base
     Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap
The rill runs o'er -- and round -- fern, flowers, and ivy creep,

     CXVII
     Fantastically tangled: the green hills
     Are clothed with early blossoms, through the grass
     The quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the bills
     Of summer-birds sing welcome as ye pass;
     Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their class,
     Implore the pausing step, and with their dyes,
     Dance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass;
     The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes,
Kiss'd by the breath of heaven, seems colour'd by its skies.

     CXVIII
     Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanged cover,
     Egeria! thy all heavenly bosom beating
     For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover;
     The purple Midnight veil'd that mystic meeting
     With her most starry canopy, and seating
     Thyself by thine adorer, what befell?
     This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting
     Of an enamour'd Goddess, and the cell
Haunted by holy Love -- the earliest oracle!

     CXIX
     And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying,
     Blend a celestial with a human heart;
     And Love, which dies as it was born, in sighing,
     Share with immortal transports? could thine art
     Make them indeed immortal, and impart
     The purity of heaven to earthly joys,
     Expel the venom and not blunt the dart --
     The dull satiety which all destroys --
And root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys?

     CXX
     Alas! our young affections run to waste,
     Or water but the desert; whence arise
     But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste,
     Rank at the core, though tempting to the eyes,
     Flowers whose wild odours breathe but agonies,
     And trees whose gums are poisons; such the plants
     Which spring beneath her steps as Passion flies
     O'er the world's wilderness, and vainly pants
For some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants.

     CXXI
     Oh, Love! no habitant of earth thou art --
     An unseen seraph, we believe in thee, --
     A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart, --
     But never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see
     The naked eye, thy form, as it should be;
     The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaven,
     Even with its own desiring phantasy,
     And to a thought such shape and image given,
As haunts the unquench'd soul -- parch'd, wearied, wrung, and riven.

     CXXII
     Of its own beauty is the mind diseased,
     And fevers into false creation: -- where,
     Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seiz'd?
     In him alone. Can Nature show so fair?
     Where are the charms and virtues which we dare
     Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men,
     The unreach'd Paradise of our despair,
     Which o'er-informs the pencil and the pen,
And overpowers the page where it would bloom again?

     CXXIII
     Who loves, raves -- 'tis youth's frenzy -- but the cure
     Is bitterer still, as charm by charm unwinds
     Which robed our idols, and we see too sure
     Nor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind's
     Ideal shape of such; yet still it binds
     The fatal spell, and still it draws us on,
     Reaping the whirlwind from the oftsown winds;
     The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun,
Seems ever near the prize -- wealthiest when most undone.

     CXXIV
     We wither from our youth, we gasp away --
     Sick -- sick; unfound the boon, unslaked the thirst,
     Though to the last, in verge of our decay,
     Some phantom lures, such as we sought at first --
     But all too late, -- so are we doubly curst.
     Love, fame, ambition, avarice -- 'tis the same,
     Each idle, and all ill, and none the worst --
     For we all are meteors with a different name,
And Death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame.

     CXXV
     Few -- none -- find what they love or could have loved,
     Though accident, blind contact, and the strong
     Necessity of loving, have removed
     Antipathies -- but to recur, ere long,
     Envenom'd with irrevocable wrong;
     And Circumstance, that unspiritual god
     And miscreator, makes and helps along
     Our coming evils with a crutch-like rod,
Whose touch turns Hope to dust, -- the dust we all have trod.

     CXXVI
     Our life is a false nature: 'tis not in
     The harmony of things, -- this hard decree,
     This uneradicable taint of sin
     This boundless upas, this all-blasting tree,
     Whose root is earth, whose leaves and branches be
     The skies which rain their plagues on men like dew --
     Disease, death, bondage -- all the woes we see,
     And worse, the woes we see not -- which throb through
The immedicable soul, with heart-aches ever new.

     CXXVII
     Yet let us ponder boldly -- 'tis a base
     Abandonment of reason to resign
     Our right of thought -- our last and only place
     Of refuge; this, at least, shall still be mine:
     Though from our birth the faculty divine
     Is chain'd and tortured -- cabin'd, cribb'd, confined,
     And bred in darkness, lest the truth should shine
     Too brightly on the unpreparèd mind,
The beam pours in, for time and skill will couch the blind.

     CXXVIII
     Arches on arches! as it were that Rome,
     Collecting the chief trophies of her line,
     Would build up all her triumphs in one dome,
     Her coliseum stands; the moonbeams shine
     As 'twere its natural torches, for divine
     Should be the light which streams here to illume
     This long-explored but still exhaustless mine
     Of contemplation; and the azure gloom
Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume

     CXXIX
     Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven,
     Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument,
     And shadows forth its glory. There is given
     Unto the things of earth, which Time hath bent
     A spirit's feeling, and where he hath leant
     His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power
     And magic in the ruin'd battlement,
     For which the palace of the present hour
Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower.

     CXXX
     Oh Time! the beautifier of the dead,
     Adorner of the ruin, comforter
     And only healer when the heart hath bled;
     Time! the corrector where our judgments err,
     The test of truth, love, -- sole philosopher,
     For all beside are sophists -- from thy thrift,
     Which never loses though it doth defer --
     Time, the avenger! unto thee I lift
My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift:

     CXXXI
     Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a shrine
     And temple more divinely desolate,
     Among thy mightier offerings here are mine,
     Ruins of years, though few, yet full of fate:
     If thou hast ever seen me too elate,
     Hear me not; but if calmly I have borne
     Good, and reserved my pride against the hate
     Which shall not whelm me, let me not have worn
This iron in my soul in vain -- shall they not mourn?

     CXXXII
     And thou, who never yet of human wrong
     Left the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis!
     Here, where the ancient paid thee homage long --
     Thou who didst call the Furies from the abyss,
     And round Orestes bade them howl and hiss
     For that unnatural retribution -- just,
     Had it but been from hands less near -- in this
     Thy former realm, I call thee from the dust!
Dost thou not hear my heart? -- Awake! thou shalt, and must.

     CXXXIII
     It is not that I may not have incurr'd
     For my ancestral faults or mine the wound
     I bleed withal, and, had it been conferr'd
     With a just weapon, it had flow'd unbound;
     But now my blood shall not sink in the ground;
     To thee I do devote it. -- thou shalt take
     The vengeance, which shall yet be sought and found,
     Which if I have not taken for the sake --
But let that pass -- I sleep, but thou shalt yet awake.

     CXXXIV
     And if my voice break forth, 'tis not that now
     I shrink from what is suffer'd: let him speak
     Who hath beheld decline upon my brow,
     Or seen my mind's convulsion leave it weak;
     But in this page a record will I seek.
     Not in the air shall these my words disperse,
     Though I be ashes; a far hour shall wreak
     The deep prophetic fulness of this verse,
And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse!

     CXXXV
     That curse shall be Forgiveness. -- Have I not --
     Hear me, my mother Earth! behold it, Heaven!
     Have I not had to wrestle with my lot?
     Have I not suffer'd things to be forgiven?
     Have I not had my brain sear'd, my heart riven,
     Hopes sapp'd, name blighted, Life's life lied away?
     And only not to desperation driven,
     Because not altogether of such clay
As rots into the souls of those whom I survey.

     CXXXVI
     From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy
     Have I not seen what human things could do?
     From the loud roar of foaming calumny
     To the small whisper of the as paltry few,
     And subtler venom of the reptile crew,
     The Janus glance of whose significant eye,
     Learning to lie with silence, would seem true,
     And without utterance, save the shrug or sign,
Deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy.

     CXXXVII
     But I have lived, and have not lived in vain:
     My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire,
     And my frame perish even in conquering pain;
     But there is that within me which shall tire
     Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire;
     Something unearthly, which they deem not of,
     Like the remember'd tone of a mute lyre,
     Shall on their soften'd spirits sink, and move
In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love.

     CXXXVIII
     The seal is set. -- Now welcome, thou dread power!
     Nameless, yet thus omnipotent, which here
     Walk'st in the shadow of the midnight hour
     With a deep awe, yet all distinct from fear;
     Thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rear
     Their ivy mantles, and the solemn scene
     Derives from thee a sense so deep and clear
     That we become a part of what has been,
And grow unto the spot, all-seeing but unseen.

     CXXXIX
     And here the buzz of eager nations ran,
     In murmur'd pity, or loud-roar'd applause,
     As man was slaughter'd by his fellow-man.
     And wherefore slaughter'd? wherefore, but because
     Such were the bloody Circus' genial laws,
     And the imperial pleasure. -- Wherefore not?
     What matters where we fall to fill the maws
     Of worms -- on battle-plains or listed spot?
Both are but theatres -- where the chief actors rot.

     CXL
     I see before me the Gladiator lie:
     He leans upon his hand -- his manly brow
     Consents to death, but conquers agony,
     And his droop'd head sinks gradually low --
     And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
     From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
     Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now
     The arena swims around him -- he is gone,
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail'd the wretch who won.

     CXLI
     He heard it, but he heeded not -- his eyes
     Were with his heart, and that was far away;
     He reck'd not of the life he lost nor prize,
     But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
     There where his young barbarians all at play,
     There was their Dacian mother -- he, their sire,
     Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday --
     All this rush'd with his blood -- Shall he expire
And unavenged? Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!

     CXLII
     But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam;
     And here, where buzzing nations choked the ways,
     And roar'd or murmur'd like a mountain stream
     Dashing or winding as its torrent strays;
     Here, where the Roman million's blame or praise
     Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd,
     My voice sounds much -- and fall the stars faint rays
     On the arena void -- seats crush'd -- walls bow'd --
And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud.

     CXLIII
     A ruin -- yet what a ruin! from its mass
     Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been rear'd;
     Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass,
     And marvel where the spoil could have appear'd.
     Hath it indeed been plunder'd, or but clear'd?
     Alas! developed, opens the decay,
     When the colossal fabric's form is near'd:
     It will not bear the brightness of the day,
Which streams too much on all -- years -- man -- have reft away.

     CXLIV
     But when the rising moon begins to climb
     Its topmost arch, and gently pauses there;
     When the stars twinkle through the loops of time,
     And the low night-breeze waves along the air
     The garland-forest, which the gray walls wear,
     Like laurels on the bald first Cæsar's head;
     When the light shines serene but doth not glare,
     Then in this magic circle raise the dead:
Heroes have trod this spot -- 'tis on their dust ye tread.

     CXLV
'While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand;
'When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;
'And when Rome falls -- the World.' From our own land
Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty wall
In Saxon times, which we are wont to call
Ancient; and these three mortal things are still
On their foundations, and unalter'd all;
Rome and her Ruin past Redemption's skill,
The World, the same wide den -- of thieves, or what ye will.

     CXLVI
     Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime --
     Shrine of all saints and temple of all gods,
     From Jove to Jesus -- spared and blest by time;
     Looking tranquillity, while falls or nods
     Arch, empire, each thing round thee, and man plods
     His way through thorns to ashes -- glorious dome!
     Shalt thou not last? Time's scythe and tyrants' rods
     Shiver upon thee -- sanctuary and home
Of art and piety -- Pantheon! -- pride of Rome!

     CXLVII
     Relic of nobler days, and noblest arts!
     Despoil'd yet perfect, with thy circle spreads
     A holiness appealing to all hearts --
     To art a model; and to him who treads
     Rome for the sake of ages, Glory sheds
     Her light through thy sole aperture; to those
     Who worship, here are altars for their beads;
     And they who feel for genius may repose
Their eyes on honour'd forms, whose busts around them close.

     CXLVIII
     There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear light
     What do I gaze on? Nothing: Look again!
     Two forms are slowly shadow'd on my sight --
     Two insulated phantoms of the brain:
     It is not so; I see them full and plain --
     An old man, and a female young and fair,
     Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose vein
     The blood is nectar: -- but what doth she there,
With her unmantled neck, and bosom white and bare?

     CXLIX
     Full swells the deep pure fountain of young life,
     Where on the heart and from the heart we took
     Our first and sweetest nurture, when the wife,
     Blest into mother, in the innocent look,
     Or even the piping cry of lips that brook
     No pain and small suspense, a joy perceives
     Man knows not, when from out its cradled nook
     She sees her little bud put forth its leaves --
What may the fruit be yet? I know not -- Cain was Eve's.

     CL
     But here youth offers to old age the food,
     The milk of his own gift: it is her sire
     To whom she renders back the debt of blood
     Born with her birth. No; he shall not expire
     While in those warm and lovely veins the fire
     Of health and holy feeling can provide
     Great Nature's Nile, whose deep stream rises higher
     Than Egypt's river: from that gentle side
Drink, drink and live, old man! Heaven's realm holds no such tide.

     CLI
     The starry fable of the milky way
     Has not thy story's purity; it is
     A constellation of a sweeter ray,
     And sacred Nature triumphs more in this
     Reverse of her decree, than in the abyss
     Where sparkle distant worlds: -- Oh, holiest nurse!
     No drop of that clear stream its way shall miss
     To thy sire's heart, replenishing its source
With life, as our freed souls rejoin the universe.

     CLII
     Turn to the mole which Hadrian rear'd on high,
     Imperial mimic of old Egypt's piles,
     Colossal copyist of deformity
     Whose travell'd phantasy from the far Nile's
     Enormous model, doom'd the artist's toils
     To build for giants, and for his vain earth,
     His shrunken ashes, raise this dome: How smiles
     The gazer's eyes with philosophic mirth,
To view the huge design which sprung from such a birth!

     CLIII
     But lo! the dome -- the vast and wondrous dome,
     To which Diana's marvel was a cell --
     Christ's mighty shrine above his martyr's tomb!
     I have beheld the Ephesian's miracle; --
     Its columns strew the wilderness, and dwell
     The hyæna and the jackal in their shade;
     I have beheld Sophia's bright roofs swell
     Their glittering mass i' the sun, and have survey'd
Its sanctuary the while the usurping Moslem pray'd;

     CLIV
     But thou, of temples old, or altars new,
     Standest alone, with nothing like to thee --
     Worthiest of God, the holy and the true.
     Since Zion's desolation, when that He
     Forsook his former city, what could be,
     Of earthly structures, in his honour piled,
     Of a sublimer aspect? Majesty,
     Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty all are aisled
In this eternal ark of worship undefiled.

     CLV
     Enter: its grandeur overwhelms thee not;
     And why? It is not lessen'd; but thy mind,
     Expanded by the genius of the spot,
     Has grown colossal, and can only find
     A fit abode wherein appear enshrined
     Thy hopes of immortality; and thou
     Shalt one day, if found worthy, so defined,
     See thy God face to face, as thou dost now
His Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by his brow.

     CLVI
     Thou movest, but increasing with the advance,
     Like climbing some great Alp, which still doth rise,
     Deceived by its gigantic elegance;
     Vastness which grows, but grows to harmonise --
     All musical in its immensities;
     Rich marbles, richer painting -- shrines where flame
     The lamps of gold -- and haughty dome which view
     In air with Earth's chief structures, though their frame
Sits on the firm-set ground, and this the clouds must claim.

     CLVII
     Thou seest not all; but piecemeal thou must break,
     To separate contemplation, the great whole;
     And as the ocean many bays will make
     That ask the eye -- so here condense thy soul
     To more immediate objects, and control
     Thy thoughts until thy mind hath got by heart
     Its eloquent proportions, and unroll
     In mighty graduations, part by part,
The glory which at once upon thee did not dart,

     CLVIII
     Not by its fault -- but thine: Our outward sense
     Is but of gradual grasp -- and as it is
     That what we have of feeling most intense
     Outstrips our faint expression; even so this
     Outshining and o'erwhelming edifice
     Fools our fond gaze,and greatest of the great
     Defies at first our Nature's littleness,
     Till growing with its growth, we thus dilate
Our spirits to the size of that they contemplate.

     CLVIX
     Then pause, and be enlighten'd; there is more
     In such a survey than the sating gaze
     Of wonder pleased, or awe which would adore
     The worship of the place, or the mere praise
     Of art and its great masters, who could raise
     What former time, nor skill, nor thought could plan;
     The fountain of sublimity displays
     Its depth, and thence may draw the mind of man
Its golden sands, and learn what great conceptions can.

     CLX
     Or, turning to the Vatican, go see
     Laocoön's torture dignifying pain --
     A father's love and mortal's agony
     With an immortal's patience blending: -- Vain
     The struggle vain, against the coiling strain
     And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp,
     The old man's clench; the long unvenom'd chain
     Rivets the living links, -- the enormous asp
Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp on gasp.

     CLXI
     Or view the Lord of the unerring bow,
     The God of life, and poesy, and light --
     The Sun in human limbs array'd, and brow
     All radiant from his triumph in the fight;
     The shaft hath just been shot -- the arrow bright
     With an immortal's vengeance; in his eye
     And nostril beautiful disdain, and might
     And majesty, flash their full lightnings by,
Developing in that once glance the Deity.

     CLXII
     But in his delicate form -- a dream of Love,
     Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose breast
     Long'd for a deathless lover from above,
     And madden'd in that vision -- are exprest
     All that ideal beauty ever bless'd
     The mind with in its most unearthly mood,
     When each conception was a heavenly guest --
     A ray of immortality -- and stood
Starlike, around, until they gather'd to a god!

     CLXIII
     And if it be Prometheus stole from Heaven
     The fire which we endure, it was repaid
     By him to whom the energy was given
     Which this poetic marble hath array'd
     With an eternal glory -- which, if made
     By human hands, is not of human thought;
     And Time himself hath hallow'd it, nor laid
     One ringlet in the dust -- nor hath it caught
A tinge of years, but breathes the flame with which 'twas wrought.

     CLXIV
     But where is he, the Pilgrim of my song,
     The being who upheld it through the past?
     Methinks he cometh late and tarries long.
     He is no more -- these breathings are his last;
     His wanderings done, his visions ebbing fast,
     And he himself as nothing: -- if he was
     Aught but a phantasy, and could be class'd
     With forms which live and suffer -- let that pass --
His shadow fades away into Destruction's mass,

     CLXV
     Which gathers shadow, substance, life, and all
     That we inherit in its mortal shroud,
     And spreads the dim and universal pall
     Through which all things grow phantoms; and the cloud
     Between us sinks and all which ever glow'd,
     Till Glory's self is twilight, and displays
     A melancholy halo scarce allow'd
     To hover on the verge of darkness; rays
Sadder than saddest night, for they distract the gaze,

     CLXVI
     And send us prying into the abyss,
     To gather what we shall be when the frame
     Shall be resolved to something less than this
     Its wretched essence; and to dream of fame,
     And wipe the dust from off the idle name
     We never more shall hear, -- but never more
     Oh, happier thought! can we be made the same:
     It is enough in sooth that once we bore
These fardels of the heart -- the heart whose sweat was gore.

     CLXVII
     Hark! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds,
     A long low distant murmur of dread sound,
     Such as arises when a nation bleeds
     With some deep and immedicable wound;
     Through storm and darkness yawns the rending ground,
     The gulf is thick with phantoms, but the chief
     Seems royal still, though with her head discrown'd,
     And pale, but lovely, with maternal grief
She clasps a babe, to whom her breast yields no relief.

     CLXVIII
     Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou?
     Fond hope of many nations, art thou dead?
     Could not the grave forget thee, and lay low
     Some less majestic, less beloved head?
     In the sad midnight, while thy heart still bled,
     The mother of a moment, o'er thy boy,
     Death hush'd that pang for ever: with thee fled
     The present happiness and promised joy
Which fill'd the imperial isles so full it seem'd to cloy.

     CLXIX
     Peasants bring forth in safety. -- Can it be,
     Oh thou that wert so happy, so adored!
     Those who weep not for kings shall weep for thee,
     And Freedom's heart, grown heavy, cease to hoard
     Her many griefs for ONE; for she had pour'd
     Her orisons for thee, and o'er thy head
     Beheld her Iris. -- Thou, too, lonely lord,
     And desolate consort -- vainly wert thou wed!
The husband of a year! the father of the dead!

     CLXX
     Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made;
     Thy bridal's fruit is ashes: in the dust
     The fair-hair'd Daughter of the Isles is laid,
     The love of millions! How we did intrust
     Futurity to her! and, though it must
     Darken above our bones, yet fondly deem'd
     Our children should obey her child, and bless'd
     Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seem'd
Like stars to shepherds' eyes: -- 'twas but a meteor beam'd.

     CLXXI
     Woe unto us, not her; for she sleeps well:
     The fickle reek of popular breath, the tongue
     Of hollow counsel, the false oracle,
     Which from the birth of monarchy hath run
     Its knell in princely ears, till the o'erstung
     Nations have arm'd in madness, the strange fate
     Which tumbles mightiest sovereigns, and hath flung
     Against their blind omnipotence a weight
Within the opposing scale, which crushes soon or late, --

     CLXXII
     These might have been her destiny; but no,
     Our hearts deny it: and so young, so fair,
     Good without effort, great without a foe;
     But now a bride and mother -- and now there!
     How many ties did that stern moment tear!
     From thy Sire's to his humblest subject's breast
     Is link'd the electric chain of that despair,
     Whose shock was as an earthquake's, and opprest
The land which loved thee so that none could love thee best.

     CLXXIII
     Lo, Nemi! navell'd in the woody hills
     So far, that the uprooting wind which tears
     The oak from his foundation, and which spills
     The ocean o'er its boundary, and bears
     Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares
     The oval mirror of thy glassy lake;
     And calm as cherish'd hate, its surface wears
     A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake,
All coil'd into itself and round, as sleeps the snake.

     CLXXIV
     And near, Albano's scarce divided waves
     Shine from a sister valley; -- and afar
     The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves
     The Latian coast where sprung the Epic war,
     'Arms and the Man,' whose re-ascending star
     Rose o'er an empire: -- but beneath thy right
     Tully reposed from Rome; -- and where yon bar
     Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight
The Sabine farm was till'd, the weary bard's delight.

     CLXXV
     But I forget. -- My Pilgrim's shrine is won,
     And he and I must part, -- so let it be, --
     His task and mine alike are nearly done;
     Yet once more let us look upon the sea;
     The midland ocean breaks on him and me,
     And from the Alban Mount we now behold
     Our friend of youth, that Ocean, which when we
     Beheld it last by Calpe's rock unfold
Those waves, we follow'd on till the dark Euxine roll'd

     CLXXVI
     Upon the blue Symplegades: long years --
     Long, though not very many -- since have done
     Their work on both; some suffering and some tears
     Have left us nearly where we had begun:
     Yet not in vain our mortal race hath run;
     We have had our reward, and it is here, --
     That we can yet feel gladden'd by the sun,
     And reap from earth, sea, joy almost as dear
As if there were no man to trouble what is clear.

     CLXXVII
     Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling-place,
     With one fair Spirit for my minister,
     That I might all forget the human race,
     And, hating no one, love but only her!
     Ye elements! -- in whose enobling stir
     I feel myself exalted -- Can ye not
     Accord me such a being? Do I err
     In deeming such inhabit many a spot?
Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot.

     CLXXVIII
     There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
     There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
     There is society, where none intrudes,
     By the deep Sea, and music in its roar;
     I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
     From these our interviews, in which I steal
     From all I may be, or have been before,
     To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

     CLXXIX
     Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean -- roll!
     Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
     Man marks the earth with ruin -- his control
     Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain
     The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
     A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
     When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,
     He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.

     CLXXX
     His steps are not upon thy paths, -- thy fields
     Are not a spoil for him -- thou dost arise
     And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
     For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,
     Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
     And send'st him shivering in thy playful spray
     And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies
     His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth: -- there let him lay.

     CLXXXI
     The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
     Of rock-built cities. bidding nations quake,
     And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
     The oak leviathons, whose huge ribs make
     Their clay creator the vain title take
     Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war --
     These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
     They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride or spoils of Trafalgar.

     CLXXXII
     Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee --
     Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?
     Thy waters wash'd them power while they were free,
     And many a tyrant since; their shores obey
     The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
     Has dried up realms to deserts: -- not so thou; --
     Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves' play,
     Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow:
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

     CLXXXIII
     Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
     Glasses itself in tempests; in all time, --
     Calm or convulsed, in breeze, or gale, or storm,
     Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
     Dark-heaving -- boundless, endless, and sublime,
     The image of eternity, the throne
     Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime
     The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

     CLXXXIV
     And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
     Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
     Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
     I wanton'd with thy breakers -- they to me
     Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
     Made them a terror -- 'twas a pleasing fear,
     For I was as it were a child of thee,
     And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane -- as I do here.

     CLXXXV
     My task is done, my song hath ceased, my theme
     Has died into an echo; it is fit
     The spell should break of this protracted dream.
     The torch shall be extinguish'd which hath lit
     My midnight lamp -- and what is writ, is writ;
     Would it were worthier! but I am not now
     That which I have been -- and my visions flit
     Less palpably before me -- and the glow
Which, in my spirit dwelt is fluttering, faint, and low.

     CLXXXVI
     Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been --
     A sound which makes us linger; -- yet -- farewell!
     Ye! who have traced the Pilgrim to the scene
     Which is his last, if in your memories dwell
     A thought which once was his, if on ye swell
     A single recollection, not in vain
     He wore his sandal-shoon and scallop-shell;
     Farewell! with him alone may rest the pain
If such there were -- with you, the moral of his strain.

Notes to Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

Canto I

Stanza 1, line 6

Yes! sigh'd o'er Delphi's long deserted shrine

The little village of Castri stands partly on the site of Delphi. Along the path of the mountain, from Chrysso, are the remains of sepulchres hewn in and from the rock: - 'One,' said the guide, 'of a king who broke his neck hunting.' His majesty had certainly chosen the fittest spot for such an achievement. A little above Castri is a cave, supposed the Pythian, of immense depth; the upper part of it is paved, and now a cowhouse. On the other side of Castri stands a Greek monastery; some way above which is the cleft in the rock, with a range of caverns difficult of ascent, and apparantly leading to the interior of the mountain; probably to the Corcycian Cavern mentioned by Pausanias. From this part descend the fountain and the 'Dews of Catalie.'

Stanza 20, line 4

And rest ye at "Our Lady's house of woe."

The convent of 'Our Lady of Punishment,' Nossa Señora de Pena, on the summit of the rock. Below at some distance, is the Cork Convent, where St. Honorius dug his den, over which is his epitaph. From the hills, the sea adds to the beauty of the view. — Note to 1st Edition. Since the publication of this poem, I have been informed [by Walter Scott] of the misapprehension of the term Nossa Señora de Pena. It was owing to the want of the tilde or mark over the ñ, which alters the signification of the word: with it, Peña signifies a rock; without it, Pena has the sense I adopted. I do not think it necessary to alter the passage; as though the common acceptation affixed to it is 'Our Lady of the Rock,' I may well assume the other sense from the severities practised there. - Note to the 2nd Edition.

Stanza 21, line 9

Throughout this purple land, where law secures not life.

It is a well-known fact, that in the year 1809, the assassinations in the streets of Lisbon and its vicinity were not confined by the Portuguese to their countrymen; but that Englishmen were daily butchered: and so far from redress being obtained, we were requested not to interfere if we perceived any compatriot defending himself against his allies. I was once stopped in the way to the theatre at eight o'clock in the evening, when the streets were not more empty that they generally are at that hour, opposite to an open shop, and in a carriage with a friend: had we not fortunately been armed, I have not the least doubt that we should have 'adorned a tale' instead of telling one.

Stanza 24, line 1

Behold the hall where chiefs were late convened!

     The Convention of Cintra was signed in the palace of the Marchese Marialva.

Stanza 29, line 6

But here the Babylonian whore hath built

The extent of Mafra is prodigious; it contains a palace, convent, and most superb church. The six organs are the most beautiful I ever beheld, in point of decoration; we did not hear them, but were told that their tones were correspondent to their splendour. Mafra is termed the Escurial of Portugal.

Stanza 33, line 9

'Twixt him and Lusian slave, the lowest of the low.

     As I found the Portuguese, so I have characterized them. That they are since improved, at least to courage, is evident. The late exploits of Lord Wellington have effaced the follies of Cintra. He has, indeed, done wonders; he has, perhaps changed the character of a nation, reconciled rival superstitions and baffled an enemy who never retreated before his
predecessors. - 1812.

Stanza 35, line 4

That dyed thy mountain streams with Gothic gore?

Count Julian's daughter, the Helen of Spain. Pelagius preserved his independence in the fastnesses of the Asturias, and the descendants of his followers, after some centuries,
completed their struggle by the conquest of Granada.

Stanza 48, line 5

No! as he speeds, he chants "Viva el Rey!"

'Viva el Ray Fernando!' Long live King Ferdinand is the chorus of most of the Spanish patriotic songs. They are chiefly in dispraise of old King Charles, the Queen, and the Prince of Peace. I have heard many of them; some of the airs are beautiful. Godoy, the Principe de a Paz, of an ancient but decayed family, was born at Badajoz, on the frontiers of Portugal, and was originally in the ranks of the Spanish guards; till his person attracted the queen's eyes, and raised him to the dukedom of Alcudia, &c., &c. It is to this man that the Spaniards universally impute the ruin of their country.

Stanza 50, line 3

Which tells you whom to shun and whom to greet.

The red cockade, with "Fernando Septimo" in the centre.

Stanza 51, line 9

The ball-piled pyramid, the ever-blazing match.

All who have seen a battery will recollect the pyramidal form in which shot and shells are piled. The Sierra Morena was fortified in every defile through which I passed in my way to
Seville.

Stanza 56, line 9

Foil'd by a woman's hand, before a batter'd wall?

Such were the exploits of the Maid of Saragoza, who by her valour elevated herself to the highest rank of heroines. When the author was at Seville, she walked daily on the Prado, decorated with medals and orders, by the command of the Junta.

Stanza 58, line 2

Denotes how soft that chin which bears his touch.

'Sigilla in mento impressa Amoris digitulo
Vestigio demonstrant mollitudinem. -
                   AUL. GEL.
 

Stanza 59, line 2

Match me, ye harems of the land! where now

This stanza was written in Turkey.

Stanza 60, line 1

Oh, thou Parnassus! whom I now survey.

These stanzas were written in Castri (Delphos), at the foot of Parnassus, now called Liakura, Dec. 1809.

Stanza 65, line 2

Her strength, her wealth, her site of ancient days

Seville was the Hispalis of the Romans.

Stanza 70, line 5

Ask ye, Boeotian shades! the reason why?

This was written at Thebes, and consequently in the best situation for asking and answering such a question; not as the birthplace of Pindar, but as the capital of Boeotia, where the
first riddle was propounded and solved.

Stanza 82, line 8

Full from the fount of Joy's delicious springs

                'Medio de fonte leporum
Surgit amari aliquid quot in insis floribus angat.'
                                                     LUC.
 

Stanza 85, line 7

A traitor only fell beneath the feud.

Alluding to the conduct and death of Solano, the governor of Cadiz, in May, 1809.

Stanza 86, line 9

War, war is still the cry, "War even to the knife!"

'War to the knife.' Palafox's answer to the French general at the siege of Saragoza.

Stanza 91.1

And thou, my friend! - since unavailing woe

The Honourable John Wingfield of the Guards, who died of fever at Coimbra (May 14, 1811). I had known him ten years, the better half of his life, and the happiest part of mine. In the short space of one month I have lost her who gave me being, and most of those who had made that being tolerable. To me the lines of Young are no fiction:

'Insatiate archer! could not once suffice?
 Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain,
 And thrice ere thrice yon moon had fill'd her horn.'

I should have ventured a verse to the memory of the late Charles Skinner Matthews, Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge, were he not too much above all praise of mine. His powers of mind, shown in the attainment of great honours, against the ablest candidates, than those of any graduate on record at Cambridge, have sufficiently established his fame on the spot where it was acquired; while his softer qualities live in the recollection of friends, who loved him too well to envy his superiority.

 

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