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"Thou art the garden of the world, the home Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree; E'en 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. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–1818) by Byron

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Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–1818) is a lengthy narrative poem written by the British poet Lord Byron when at Kinsham. It was published between 1812 and 1818. The poem describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary and jaded young man who, disillusioned with a life of pleasure and revelry, looks for distraction in foreign lands; in a wider sense, it is an expression of the melancholy and disillusionment felt by a generation weary of the wars of the post-Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. The title comes from the term childe, a medieval title for a young man who was a candidate for knighthood.

The poem is quite autobiographical, and the earlier portion of the work is based upon his travels through the Mediterranean and Aegean Sea between 1809 and 1811. Despite the fact that Byron did not think the poem was all that good, feeling it revealed too much of himself, it was an instant sensation when published by John Murray, and made Byron famous in England practically overnight. Women, especially, swooned over the poem, fascinated by the character of Childe Harold, his foreboding, and his nameless vices. Lord Byron quickly became the darling of the influential female aristocrats of the day; they recognized bits of Childe Harold in him, and he felt compelled to live up to this reputation.

The work introduced the concept of the Byronic hero, which is still somewhat popular today and shows up in novels, films and plays on a regular basis. The Byronic hero is usually described as an outsider, and with a contradictory nature; sometimes cruel, sometimes kind, devoted but unfaithful, and never contented, but eternally seeking out new sensations.

It has four cantos written in Spenserian stanzas, which consists of eight iambic pentameter lines followed by one alexandrine (a twelve syllable iambic line), and rhyme pattern ABABBCBCC.

Childe Harold became a vehicle for Byron's own beliefs and ideas; indeed in the preface to book three Byron acknowledges the fact that his hero is just an extension of himself. By masking himself behind a literary artifice, Byron was able to achieve what critic Jerome McGann depicts as "man's greatest tragedy is that he can conceive of a perfection which he cannot attain".

Though the original poem contained a number of risqué passages, such as mentions of Albanian pederasty, these were mostly suppressed, either by his own hand or at the time of publication.

Full text[1]

CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE

By Lord Byron

List of Contents

  To Ianthe
  Canto the First
  Canto the Second
  Canto the Third
  Canto the Fourth

TO IANTHE. {1}

  Not in those climes where I have late been straying,
  Though Beauty long hath there been matchless deemed,
  Not in those visions to the heart displaying
  Forms which it sighs but to have only dreamed,
  Hath aught like thee in truth or fancy seemed:
  Nor, having seen thee, shall I vainly seek
  To paint those charms which varied as they beamed--
  To such as see thee not my words were weak;

To those who gaze on thee, what language could they speak?

  Ah! mayst 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 mixed 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 numbered, should this homage past
  Attract thy fairy fingers near the lyre
  Of him who hailed 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 deemed of heavenly birth,
  Muse, formed 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 wandered by thy vaunted rill;
  Yes! sighed 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 vexed 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 coffined clay,
  Nor florid prose, nor honeyed lines of rhyme,

Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime.

IV.

  Childe Harold basked him in the noontide sun,
  Disporting there like any other fly,
  Nor deemed before his little day was done
  One blast might chill him into misery.
  But long ere scarce a third of his passed by,
  Worse than adversity the Childe befell;
  He felt the fulness of satiety:
  Then loathed he in his native land to dwell,

Which seemed 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 sighed to many, though he loved but one,
  And that loved one, alas, could ne'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 spoiled her goodly lands to gild his waste,

Nor calm domestic peace had ever deigned 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 congealed the drop within his e'e:
  Apart he stalked in joyless reverie,
  And from his native land resolved to go,
  And visit scorching climes beyond the sea;
  With pleasure drugged, he almost longed 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 seemed only not to fall,
  Yet strength was pillared in each massy aisle.
  Monastic dome! condemned 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 ofttimes 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 lurked 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 gathered revellers from far and near,
  He knew them flatterers 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 brimmed 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 filled, 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 others 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 deemed 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 poured his last 'Good Night.'

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!

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.

'Come hither, hither, my little page:

  Why dost thou weep and wail?

Or dost thou dread the billow's 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.'

'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.

'My father blessed 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.

'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.

'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.'

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.

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.

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 swoll'n 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 e'e;
  For hut and palace show like filthily;
  The dingy denizens are reared in dirt;
  No personage of high or mean degree
  Doth care for cleanness of surtout or shirt,

Though shent with Egypt's plague, unkempt, unwashed, 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 unlocked Elysium's gates?

XIX.

  The horrid crags, by toppling convent crowned,
  The cork-trees hoar that clothe the shaggy steep,
  The mountain moss by scorching skies imbrowned,
  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,

Mixed 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 punished been; and lo,
  Deep in yon cave Honorius 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
  Poured 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 whilom kings did make repair;
  But now the wild flowers round them only breathe:
  Yet ruined splendour still is lingering there.
  And yonder towers the prince's palace fair:
  There thou, too, Vathek! England's wealthiest son,
  Once formed 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 beauteous brow;
  But now, as if a thing unblest by man,
  Thy fairy dwelling is as lone as thou!
  Here 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 arrayed, and by
  His side is hung a seal and sable scroll,
  Where blazoned 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 foiled 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 dashed to earth the victor's plume,
  And Policy regained what Arms had lost:
  For chiefs like ours in vain may laurels bloom!
  Woe to the conquering, not the conquered 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'erthrown, yet victors here,

Where Scorn her finger points through many a coming year?

XXVII.

  So deemed 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 learned to moralise,
  For Meditation fixed at times on him,
  And conscious Reason whispered 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 fixed 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 had 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 garnish 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 compassed 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 e'er 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 Spanish hind the difference know

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

XXXIV.

  But ere the mingling bounds have far been passed,
  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 mailed splendour drest;
  Here ceased the swift their race, here sunk the strong;
  The Paynim turban and the Christian crest

Mixed on the bleeding stream, by floating hosts oppressed.

XXXV.

  Oh, lovely Spain! renowned, romantic land!
  Where is that standard which Pelagio bore,
  When Cava's traitor-sire first called the band
  That dyed thy mountain-streams with Gothic gore?
  Where are those bloody banners which of yore
  Waved o'er thy sons, victorious to the gale,
  And drove at last the spoilers to their shore?
  Red gleamed the cross, and waned the crescent pale,

While Afric's echoes thrilled 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 fail,
  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;
  Nor 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 deepening in the sun,
  With death-shot glowing in his fiery hands,
  And eye that scorcheth all it glares upon;
  Restless it rolls, now fixed, 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 mixed 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 cumber 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 fertilise the field that each pretends to gain.

XLII.

  There shall they rot--Ambition's honoured 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.

  O Albuera, glorious field of grief!
  As o'er thy plain the Pilgrim pricked his steed,
  Who could foresee thee, in a space so brief,
  A scene where mingling foes should boast and bleed.
  Peace to the perished! 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;
  Perished, 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 wished-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 famished 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 enthralls,
  And young-eyed Lewdness walks her midnight rounds:
  Girt with the silent crimes of capitals,

Still to the last kind Vice clings to the tottering 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 'Viva 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 sprung from her adulterate joy.

XLIX.

  On yon long level plain, at distance crowned
  With crags, whereon those Moorish turrets rest,
  Wide scattered hoof-marks dint the wounded ground;
  And, scathed by fire, the greensward's darkened vest
  Tells that the foe was Andalusia's guest:
  Here was the camp, the watch-flame, and the host,
  Here the brave peasant stormed 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 foemen rue,
  If subtle poniards, wrapt beneath the cloak,

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'erflowed,
  The stationed bands, the never-vacant watch,
  The magazine in rocky durance stowed,
  The holstered 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 the 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 unfurled,

And thou shalt view thy sons in crowds to Hades hurled.

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 unsexed, the anlace hath espoused,
  Sung the loud song, and dared the deed of war?
  And she, whom once the semblance of a scar
  Appalled, an owlet's larum chilled with dread,
  Now views the column-scattering bayonet 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,
  Marked 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 flushed hope is lost?
  Who hang so fiercely on the flying Gaul,

Foiled by a woman's hand, before a battered wall?

LVII.

  Yet are Spain's maids no race of Amazons,
  But formed 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 impressed
  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 wooed 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 even a cynic must avow!
  Match me those houris, 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.

  O thou, Parnassus! whom I now survey,
  Not in the frenzy 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 dreamed 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 hallowed 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.--Even amidst my strain
  I turned aside to pay my homage here;
  Forgot the land, the sons, the maids of Spain;
  Her fate, to every free-born bosom dear;
  And hailed 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 deemed 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 deigned to flee,
  And fixed 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'erthrown beneath his horn:
  The thronged arena shakes with shouts for more;
  Yells the mad crowd o'er entrails freshly torn,

Nor shrinks the female eye, nor e'en 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, washed artizan,
  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 ribboned 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,
  Grasped in the holy hand of Mystery,
  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 cleared,
  Thousands on thousands piled are seated round;
  Long ere the first loud trumpet's note is heard,
  No vacant space for lated wight is found:
  Here dons, grandees, but chiefly dames abound,
  Skilled in the ogle of a roguish eye,
  Yet ever well inclined to heal the wound;
  None through their cold disdain are doomed to die,

As moon-struck bards complain, by Love's sad archery.

LXXIII.

  Hushed 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 to-day,
  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 arrayed,
  But all afoot, the light-limbed 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 arms a dart, he fights aloof, nor more
  Can man achieve without the friendly steed--

Alas! too oft condemned 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 fixed:  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 follows 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 stretched a mangled corse;
  Another, hideous sight! unseamed appears,
  His gory chest unveils life's panting source;
  Though death-struck, still his feeble frame he rears;

Staggering, but stemming all, his lord unharmed he bears.

LXXVIII.

  Foiled, 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 bull 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 phalanxed 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 withered sentinel, duenna sage!
  And all whereat the generous soul revolts,
  Which the stern dotard deemed he could encage,
  Have passed to darkness with the vanished 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 dreamed 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 learned 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 deigned to bend her chastely-awful eyes:
  But Passion raves itself to rest, or flies;
  And Vice, that digs her own voluptuous tomb,
  Had buried long his hopes, no more to rise:
  Pleasure's palled victim! life-abhorring gloom

Wrote on his faded brow curst Cain's unresting doom.

LXXXIV.

  Still he beheld, nor mingled with the throng;
  But viewed them not with misanthropic hate;
  Fain would he now have joined 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,
  Poured forth this unpremeditated lay,

To charms as fair as those that soothed his happier day.

TO INEZ.

Nay, smile not at my sullen brow,

  Alas! I cannot smile again:

Yet Heaven avert that ever thou

  Shouldst weep, and haply weep in vain.

And dost thou ask what secret woe

  I bear, corroding joy and youth?

And wilt thou vainly seek to know

  A pang even thou must fail to soothe?

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:

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.

It is that settled, ceaseless gloom

  The fabled Hebrew wanderer bore,

That will not look beyond the tomb,

  But cannot hope for rest before.

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.

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!

Through 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.

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! yea, 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 hugged 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 bleached 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 enchained.
  Strange retribution! now Columbia's ease
  Repairs the wrongs that Quito's sons sustained,

While o'er the parent clime prowls Murder unrestrained.

XC.

  Not all the blood at Talavera shed,
  Not all the marvels of Barossa's fight,
  Not Albuera 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 unlaurelled 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 esteemed 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 mourned 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 doomed to go:
  Lands that contain the monuments of eld,

Ere Greece and Grecian arts by barbarous hands were quelled.

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 drear sceptre and dominion dire
  Of men who never felt the sacred glow

That thoughts of thee and thine on polished 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 passed 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 mist of years, grey flits the shade of power.

III.

  Son of the morning, rise! approach you here!
  Come--but molest not yon defenceless urn!
  Look on this spot--a nation's sepulchre!
  Abode of gods, whose shrines no longer burn.
  E'en 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 eyes to heaven--
  Is't not enough, unhappy thing, to know
  Thou art?  Is this a boon so kindly given,
  That being, thou wouldst 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 vanished hero's lofty mound;
  Far on the solitary shore he sleeps;
  He fell, and falling nations mourned around;
  But now not one of saddening thousands weeps,
  Nor warlike worshipper his vigil keeps
  Where demi-gods appeared, as records tell.
  Remove yon skull from out the scattered heaps:
  Is that a temple where a God may dwell?

Why, e'en the worm at last disdains her shattered 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 brooked 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 its pang, but feeble sufferers groan
  With brain-born dreams of evil all their own.
  Pursue what chance or 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, as holiest men have deemed, 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 in concert to adore
  With those who made our mortal labours light!
  To hear each voice we feared to hear no more!
  Behold each mighty shade revealed 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 Remembrance 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 mossy stone,
  The marble column's yet unshaken base!
  Here, son of Saturn, was thy favourite throne!
  Mightiest of many such!  Hence let me trace
  The latent grandeur of thy dwelling-place.
  It may not be:  nor even can Fancy's eye
  Restore what time hath laboured 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 lingered, 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 be 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 generous 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 appalled
  Stern Alaric and Havoc on their way?
  Where Peleus' son? whom Hell in vain enthralled,
  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 wandered 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 snatched thy shrinking gods to northern climes abhorred!

XVI.

  But where is Harold? shall I then forget
  To urge the gloomy wanderer o'er the wave?
  Little recked he of all that men regret;
  No loved one now in feigned lament could rave;
  No friend the parting hand extended gave,
  Ere the cold stranger passed 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 war and crimes.

XVII.

  He that has sailed upon the dark blue sea,
  Has viewed at times, I ween, a full fair sight;
  When the fresh breeze is fair as breeze may be,
  The white sails 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 manned 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 feared by all:  not oft he talks
  With aught beneath him, if he would preserve
  That strict restraint, which broken, ever baulks
  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 sails hauled 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 possessed
  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 unrolled.

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 flattered, followed, 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 an hour hath been,
  Will wistful linger on that hallowed 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,
  Cooped 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 has 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 essayed 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 mayst 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 deemed, as on that lady's eye
  He looked, 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 deemed the little god his ancient sway was o'er.

XXXII.

  Fair Florence found, in sooth with some amaze,
  One who, 'twas said, still sighed to all he saw,
  Withstand, unmoved, the lustre of her gaze,
  Which others hailed with real or mimic awe,
  Their hope, their doom, their punishment, their law:
  All that gay Beauty from her bondsmen claims:
  And much she marvelled that a youth so raw
  Nor felt, nor feigned at least, the oft-told flames,

Which, though sometimes they frown, yet rarely anger dames.

XXXIII.

  Little knew she that seeming marble heart,
  Now masked by 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 turned 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 possessed?
  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 e'en 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 crossed,
  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 read:
  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 always changing, in her aspect mild:
  From her bare bosom let me take my fill,
  Her never-weaned, though not her favoured child.
  Oh! she is fairest in her features wild,
  Where nothing polished dares pollute her path:
  To me by day or night she ever smiled,
  Though I have marked 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 emprise:
  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 sailed, and passed the barren spot
  Where sad Penelope o'erlooked the wave;
  And onward viewed 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 fire?
  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 hailed Leucadia's cape afar;
  A spot he longed to see, nor cared to leave:
  Oft did he mark the scenes of vanished 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 hailed the last resort of fruitless love,
  He felt, or deemed he felt, no common glow:
  And as the stately vessel glided slow
  Beneath the shadow of that ancient mount,
  He watched the billows' melancholy flow,
  And, sunk albeit in thought as he was wont,

More placid seemed 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, bedewed with snowy rills,
  Arrayed 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 of 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 armed '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 scoffed at by the circumcised,
  Forgets that pride to pampered priesthood dear;
  Churchman and votary alike despised.
  Foul Superstition! howsoe'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 reared them, withering;
  Imperial anarchs, doubling human woes!

God! was thy globe ordained for such to win and lose?

XLVI.

  From the dark barriers of that rugged clime,
  E'en to the centre of Illyria's vales,
  Childe Harold passed o'er many a mount sublime,
  Through lands scarce noticed in historic tales:
  Yet in famed Attica such lovely dales
  Are rarely seen; nor can fair Tempe 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 greet 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 favoured 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 harmonise 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 lofty ranks, and loftier still,
  Might well itself be deemed 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 is 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,
  Chimera'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.

  No city's towers pollute the lovely view;
  Unseen is Yanina, though not remote,
  Veiled 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 echoed 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 dye:
  E'en 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,
  The Laos wide and fierce came roaring by;
  The shades of wonted night were gathering yet,
  When, down the steep banks winding wearily
  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 sighed along the lengthening glen.

LVI.

  He passed the sacred harem's silent tower,
  And underneath the wide o'erarching gate
  Surveyed the dwelling of this chief of power
  Where all around proclaimed 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 caparisoned, a ready row
  Of armed horse, and many a warlike store,
  Circled the wide-extending court below;
  Above, strange groups adorned the corridor;
  And ofttimes through the area's echoing door,
  Some high-capped Tartar spurred 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-embroidered garments, fair to see:
  The crimson-scarfed men of Macedon;
  The Delhi with his cap of terror on,
  And crooked glaive; 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 mixed 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 seemed made 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, veiled, 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 averred,
  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 marked 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 fastnesses 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 viewed 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 cheered 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 awhile 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 stretched the welcome hand,
  Led them o'er rocks and past the dangerous swamp,
  Kinder than polished slaves, though not so bland,
  And piled the hearth, and wrung their garments damp,
  And filled the bowl, and trimmed 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 barred egress,
  And wasted far and near with glaive and brand;
  And therefore did he take a trusty band
  To traverse Acarnania forest wide,
  In war well-seasoned, and with labours tanned,
  Till he did greet white Achelous' tide,

And from his farther bank AEtolia's wolds espied.

LXX.

  Where lone Utraikey forms its circling cove,
  And weary waves retire to gleam at rest,
  How brown the foliage of the green hill's grove,
  Nodding at midnight o'er the calm bay's breast,
  As winds come whispering lightly 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 linked to man,

Yelling their uncouth dirge, long danced the kirtled clan.

LXXII.

  Childe Harold at a little distance stood,
  And viewed, 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 gleamed,
  Their gestures nimble, dark eyes flashing free,
  The long wild locks that to their girdles streamed,

While thus in concert they this lay half sang, half screamed:

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!

Oh! who is more brave than a dark Suliote, To his snowy camese 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.

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?

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

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.

I ask not the pleasure 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.

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

Remember the moment when Previsa fell, The shrieks of the conquered, the conqueror's yell; The roofs that we fired, and the plunder we shared, The wealthy we slaughtered, the lovely we spared.

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 Pasha.

Dark Muchtar his son to the Danube is sped, Let the yellow-haired Giaours view his horsetail with dread; When his Delhis come dashing in blood o'er the banks, How few shall escape from the Muscovite ranks!

Selictar! unsheath 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 scattered children forth,
  And long accustomed bondage uncreate?
  Not such thy sons who whilome did await,
  The hopeless warriors of a willing doom,
  In bleak Thermopylae's sepulchral strait--
  Oh, who that gallant spirit shall resume,

Leap from Eurotas' banks, and call thee from the tomb?

LXXIV.

  Spirit of Freedom! when on Phyle's brow
  Thou sat'st with Thrasybulus and his train,
  Couldst thou forbode 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 rail in vain,
  Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish hand,

From birth till death enslaved; in word, in deed, unmanned.

LXXV.

  In all save form alone, how changed! and who
  That marks the fire still sparkling in each eye,
  Who would but deem their bosom burned anew
  With thy unquenched beam, lost Liberty!
  And many dream withal the hour is nigh
  That gives them back their fathers' 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 your foe:
  Greece! change thy lords, thy state is still the same;

Thy glorious day is o'er, but not thy years of shame.

LXXVII.

  The city won for Allah from the Giaour,
  The Giaour from Othman'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 joyaunce 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 merriment than thine,
  O Stamboul! 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 wooed the eye, and thrilled the Bosphorus along.

LXXX.

  Loud was the lightsome tumult on the shore;
  Oft Music changed, but never ceased her tone,
  And timely echoed back the measured 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 seemed to light the banks they lave.

LXXXI.

  Glanced many a light caique along the foam,
  Danced on the shore the daughters of the land,
  No thought had man or maid of rest or home,
  While many a languid eye and thrilling hand
  Exchanged the look few bosoms may withstand,
  Or gently pressed, returned 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, redeemed Life's years of ill!

LXXXII.

  But, midst the throng in merry masquerade,
  Lurk there no hearts that throb with secret pain,
  E'en through the closest searment half-betrayed?
  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
  Is 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 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 Lacedaemon's hardihood,
  When Thebes Epaminondas rears again,
  When Athens' children are with hearts endued,
  When Grecian mothers shall give birth to men,
  Then mayst 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 shattered splendour renovate,

Recall its virtues back, and vanquish Time and Fate?

LXXXV.

  And yet how lovely in 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 the 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 brethren of the cave;
  Save where Tritonia's airy shrine adorns
  Colonna's cliff, and gleams along the wave;
  Save o'er some warrior's half-forgotten grave,
  Where the grey 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,
  Thine olives ripe as when Minerva smiled,
  And still his honeyed 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 crushed 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 bowed beneath the brunt of Hellas' sword,
  As on the morn to distant Glory dear,
  When Marathon became a magic word;
  Which uttered, 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 hallowed 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 the 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 mayst thou prosper where thy youth was reared,

By every honest joy of love and life endeared!

XCIV.

  For thee, who thus in too protracted song
  Hath soothed thine idlesse with inglorious lays,
  Soon shall thy voice be lost amid 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 nor keen reproach nor partial praise,
  Since cold each kinder heart that might approve,

And none are left to please where 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 stayed to welcome here thy wanderer home,
  Who mourns o'er hours which we no more shall see--
  Would they had never been, or were to come!

Would he had ne'er returned 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 snatched the little joy that life had yet to lend.

XCVII.

  Then must 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 destroyed:
  Roll on, vain days! full reckless may ye flow,
  Since Time hath reft whate'er my soul enjoyed,

And with the ills of eld mine earlier years alloyed.

CANTO THE THIRD.

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 smiled,
  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 strained 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 unimpaired, 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
  Mixed with thy spirit, blended with thy birth,

And feeling still with thee in my crushed 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'erwrought,
  A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame:
  And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame,
  My springs of life were poisoned.  'Tis too late!
  Yet am I changed; 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 reappears 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 altered 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 quaffed too quickly, and he found
  The dregs were wormwood; but he filled again,
  And from a purer fount, on holier ground,
  And deemed its spring perpetual; but in vain!
  Still round him clung invisibly a chain
  Which galled for ever, fettering though unseen,
  And heavy though it clanked not; worn with pain,
  Which pined although it spoke not, and grew keen,

Entering with every step he took through many a scene.

X.

  Secure in guarded coldness, he had mixed
  Again in fancied safety with his kind,
  And deemed his spirit now so firmly fixed
  And sheathed with an invulnerable mind,
  That, if no joy, no sorrow lurked 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 ripened 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 rolled
  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 quelled,
  In youth by his own thoughts; still uncompelled,
  He would not yield dominion of his mind
  To spirits against whom his own rebelled;
  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 rolled 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 glassed 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 earth-born 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,
  Drooped as a wild-born falcon with clipt wing,
  To whom the boundless air alone were home:
  Then came his fit again, which to o'ercome,
  As eagerly the barred-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-exiled Harold wanders forth again,
  With naught 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 plundered 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 marked 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 gained 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,
  Pierced by the shaft of banded nations through:
  Ambition's life and labours all were vain;

He wears the shattered 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 patched-up idol of enlightened 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 fall'n despot boast no more!
  In vain fair cheeks were furrowed 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 roused-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 gathered 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 looked 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 unconfined;
  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 windowed 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 smiled because he deemed it near,
  His heart more truly knew that peal too well
  Which stretched his father on a bloody bier,
  And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell:

He rushed 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
  Blushed 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 would 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
  Roused up the soldier ere the morning star;
  While thronged 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 unreturniug 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 covered thick with other clay,
  Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent,

Rider and horse,--friend, foe,--in one red burial blent!

XXIX.

  Their praise is hymned 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 showered
  The death-bolts deadliest the thinned files along,
  Even where the thickest of war's tempest lowered,

They reached 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 wild field revive
  With fruits and fertile promise, and the Spring
  Come forth her work of gladness to contrive,
  With all her reckless birds upon the wing,

I turned from all she brought to those she could not bring.

XXXI.

  I turned 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 honoured, but assumes a stronger, bitterer claim.

XXXII.

  They mourn, but smile at length; and, smiling, mourn:
  The tree will wither 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 ruined 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.

  E'en 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 shattered 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 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 numbered out the years of man:
  They are enough:  and if thy tale be TRUE,
  Thou, who didst grudge him e'en 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 anithetically mixed
  One moment of the mightiest, and again
  On little objects with like firmness fixed;
  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 reassume 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 wooed 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 deemed 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 skilled,
  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 brooked 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 smiled
  With a sedate and all-enduring eye;
  When Fortune fled her spoiled and favourite child,

He stood unbowed beneath the ills upon him piled.

XL.

  Sager than in thy fortunes; for in them
  Ambition steeled thee on to far too 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 turned unto thine overthrow:
  'Tis but a worthless world to win or lose;

So hath it proved 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 helped to brave the shock;
  But men's thoughts were the steps which paved 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 nursed 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, corn-field, mountain, vine,
  And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells

From grey 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 passed 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 conquerors 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 discoloured 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 for ever,
  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 assailed thy banks,
  But these and half their fame have passed away,
  And Slaughter heaped on high his weltering ranks:
  Their very graves are gone, and what are they?
  Thy tide washed down the blood of yesterday,
  And all was stainless, and on thy clear stream
  Glassed with its dancing light the sunny ray;
  But o'er the blackened memory's blighting dream

Thy waves would vainly roll, all sweeping as they seem.

LII.

  Thus Harold inly said, and passed along,
  Yet not insensible to all which here
  Awoke the jocund birds to early song
  In glens which might have made e'en 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 in vain that we would coldly gaze
  On such as smile upon us; the heart must
  Leap kindly back to kindness, though disgust
  Hath weaned 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 learned 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 nipped affections have to grow,

In him this glowed 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 greetings pour!

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

  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 grey,
  And many a rock which steeply lours,
  And noble arch in proud decay,
  Look o'er this vale of vintage bowers:
  But one thing want these banks of Rhine,--
  Thy gentle hand to clasp in mine!

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

  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 heroes' ashes hid,
  Our enemy's,--but let not that forbid
  Honour to Marceau! o'er whose early tomb
  Tears, big tears, gushed from the rough soldier's lid,
  Lamenting and yet envying such a doom,

Falling for France, whose rights he battled to resume.

LVI.

  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 shattered 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 watched along the plain;
  But Peace destroyed what War could never blight,
  And laid those proud roofs bare to Summer's rain--

On which the iron shower for years had poured 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, not too sombre nor 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 coloured by thy every hue;
  And if reluctantly the eyes resign
  Their cherished 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 these withal
  A race of faces happy as the scene,
  Whose fertile bounties here extend to all,

Still springing o'er thy 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,
  Gathers 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 passed in vain,--
  Morat! the proud, the patriot field! where man
  May gaze on ghastly trophies of the slain,
  Nor blush for those who conquered on that plain;
  Here Burgundy bequeathed his tombless host,
  A bony heap, through ages to remain,
  Themselves their monument;--the Stygian coast

Unsepulchred they roamed, and shrieked each wandering ghost.

LXIV.

  While Waterloo with Cannae'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-entailed Corruption; they no land
  Doomed to bewail the blasphemy of laws

Making king's rights divine, by some Draconic clause.

LXV.

  By a lone wall a lonelier column rears
  A grey and grief-worn aspect of old days
  'Tis the last remnant of the wreck of years,
  And looks as with the wild bewildered 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,

Levelled Aventicum, hath strewed 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 the 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 cherished than of old,

Ere mingling with the herd had penned 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 overboil
  In one 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 anchored 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, doomed 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,
  Classed 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 absorbed, 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 felt 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 compared 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 turned 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 awhile--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 sacrificed 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 enamoured, 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, distempered though it seems.

LXXIX.

  THIS breathed itself to life in Julie, THIS
  Invested her with all that's wild and sweet;
  This hallowed, too, the memorable kiss
  Which every morn his fevered lip would greet,
  From hers, who but with friendship his would meet:
  But to that gentle touch, through brain and breast
  Flashed the thrilled 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-banished; for his mind
  Had grown Suspicion's sanctuary, and chose
  For its own cruel sacrifice, the kind,
  'Gainst whom he raged 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 inspired, and from him came,
  As from the Pythian's mystic cave of yore,
  Those oracles which set the world in flame,
  Nor ceased to burn till kingdoms were no more:
  Did he not this for France, which lay before
  Bowed to the inborn tyranny of years?
  Broken and trembling to the yoke she bore,
  Till by the voice of him and his compeers

Roused 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,
  Breathed 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 refilled,

As heretofore, because ambition was self-willed.

LXXXIII.

  But this will not endure, nor be endured!
  Mankind have felt their strength, and made it felt.
  They might have used it better, but, allured
  By their new vigour, sternly have they dealt
  On one another; Pity ceased to melt
  With her once natural charities.  But they,
  Who in Oppression's darkness caved had dwelt,
  They were not eagles, nourished with the day;

What marvel then, at times, if they mistook their prey?

LXXXIV.

  What deep wounds ever closed 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 vanquished, bear
  Silence, but not submission:  in his lair
  Fixed 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
  Earth's 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,
  Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen.
  Save darkened 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 of heaven,
  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'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 themselves 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 lulled lake and mountain-coast,
  All is concentered in a life intense,
  Where not a beam, 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.

  Nor 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 unwalled temple, there to seek
  The Spirit, in whose honour shrines are weak,
  Upreared 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 prayer!

XCII.

  The sky is changed!--and such a change!  O 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 thunderbolts from hand to hand,
  Flashing and cast around:  of all the band,
  The brightest through these parted hills hath forked
  His lightnings, as if he did understand
  That in such gaps as desolation worked,

There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurked.

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! 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, know, 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.

XCVIII.

  The morn is up again, the dewy morn,
  With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom,
  Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn,
  And living as if earth contained no tomb,--
  And glowing into day:  we may resume
  The march of our existence:  and thus I,
  Still on thy shores, fair Leman! may find room
  And food for meditation, nor pass by

Much, that may give us pause, if pondered 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 sunset 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 bowed 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-formed and many coloured 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 hallowed 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 reared a throne.

CV.

  Lausanne! and Ferney! ye have been the abodes
  Of names which unto you bequeathed 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 assailed, 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, grave, 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 doomed 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 allayed
  By slumber on one pillow, in the dust,
  Which, thus much we are sure, must lie decayed;
  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
  Renewed 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,--remembered or forgot.

CXIII.

  I have not loved the world, nor the world me;
  I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bowed
  To its idolatries a patient knee,--
  Nor coined 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 falling:  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 this 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 tempered, 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 mightst have been to me!

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
  Looked to the winged Lion's marble piles,

Where Venice sate in state, throned 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
  Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.
  In purple was she robed, and of her feast

Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased.

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 vanished 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 repeopled 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 beloved 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, may be, 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 dreamed of such,--but let them go--
  They came like truth, and disappeared 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 phantasies 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 loved 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 remembered 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 honoured 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 reaped 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 renewed,
  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 withered power,
  Over the proud place where an Emperor sued,
  And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour

When Venice was a queen with an unequalled 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 loosened from the mountain's belt:
  Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo!

The 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 seaweed, into whence she rose!
  Better be whelmed 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 byword 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 shivered--the long file
  Of her dead doges are declined 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 enthrals,

Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice' lovely walls.

XVI.

  When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse,
  And fettered 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'ermastered 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, Shakspeare's art,
  Had stamped her image in me, and e'en so,
  Although I found her thus, we did not part,
  Perchance e'en 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 chastened 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 sheltered 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, grey 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
  In bare and desolate bosoms:  mute
  The camel labours with the heaviest load,
  And the wolf dies in silence.  Not bestowed
  In vain should such examples 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 destroyed,
  Even by the sufferer; and, in each event,
  Ends:--Some, with hope replenished and rebuoyed,
  Return to whence they came--with like intent,
  And weave their web again; some, bowed and bent,
  Wax grey 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 formed 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 renewed, nor can efface
  The blight and blackening which it leaves behind,
  Which out of things familiar, undesigned,
  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 mourned, 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
  Rolled o'er the peak of the far Rhaetian hill,
  As Day and Night contending were, until
  Nature reclaimed 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 glassed within it glows,

XXIX.

  Filled 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 grey.

XXX.

  There is a tomb in Arqua;--reared in air,
  Pillared 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 strain,

Than if a pyramid formed 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 decayed
  In the deep umbrage of a green hill's shade,
  Which shows a distant prospect far away
  Of busy cities, now in vain displayed,
  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, where-by,
  Clear as its current, glide the sauntering hours
  With a calm languor, which, though to the eye
  Idlesse it seem, hath its morality,
  If from society we learn to live,
  'Tis solitude should teach us how to die;
  It hath no flatterers; 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 seat's
  Of former sovereigns, and the antique brood
  Of Este, which for many an age made good
  Its strength within thy walls, and was of yore
  Patron or tyrant, as the changing mood
  Of petty power impelled, 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 earned 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

Scattered 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 mad'st to mourn:

XXXVIII.

  THOU! formed 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 furrowed 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
  Aimed with their poisoned arrows--but to miss.
  Oh, victor unsurpassed 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 scattered rays, they would not form a sun.

XL.

  Great as thou art, yet paralleled 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 called 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 mimicked 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!  O 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 ploughed 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 mightst 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 poured
  Down the deep Alps; nor would the hostile horde
  Of many-nationed spoilers from the Po
  Quaff blood and water; nor the stranger's sword
  Be thy sad weapon of defence, and so,

Victor or vanquished, 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
  AEgina lay, Piraeus 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 upreared
  Barbaric dwellings on their shattered site,
  Which only make more mourned and more endeared
  The few last rays of their far-scattered light,
  And the crushed relics of their vanished 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 perished states he mourned 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, repentant 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, redeemed to a 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 idolaters 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--
  Chained to the chariot of triumphal Art,
  We stand as captives, and would not depart.
  Away!--there need 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.

  Appearedst 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 vanquished 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,

Showered 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
  E'en 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 returned to whence it rose.

LV.

  These are four minds, which, like the elements,
  Might furnish forth creation:--Italy!
  Time, which hath wronged thee with ten thousand rents
  Of thine imperial 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 to-day.

LVI.

  But where repose the all Etruscan three--
  Dante, and Petrarch, and, scarce less than they,
  The Bard of Prose, creative spirit! he
  Of the Hundred Tales of love--where did they lay
  Their bones, distinguished 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 for evermore
  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 bequeathed
  His dust,--and lies it not her great among,
  With many a sweet and solemn requiem breathed
  O'er him who formed 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 hyaena bigots' 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 Caesar'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! honoured sleeps
  The immortal exile;--Arqua, too, her store
  Of tuneful relics proudly claims and keeps,

While Florence vainly begs her banished 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 accustomed 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 and 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 scattered o'er,

LXIII.

  Like to a forest felled 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 reeled 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 no time to mark
  The motions of their vessel:  Nature's law,
  In them suspended, recked 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 turned 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 scattered water-lily sails

Down where 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 gird 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, yield 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 flow 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 deathbed, 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 worshipped 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.

  The 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 looked on Ida with a Trojan's eye;
  Athos, Olympus, AEtna, Atlas, made
  These hills seem things of lesser dignity,
  All, save the lone Soracte's height displayed,

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 abhorred
  Too much, to conquer for the poet's sake,
  The drilled dull lesson, forced down word by word

In my repugnant youth, with pleasure to record

LXXVI.

  Aught that recalls the daily drug which turned
  My sickening memory; and, though Time hath taught
  My mind to meditate what then it learned,
  Yet such the fixed 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 touched heart,

Yet fare thee well--upon Soracte's ridge we part.

LXXVIII.

  O 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 a 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 withered hands,
  Whose holy dust was scattered 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 dwelt upon the seven-hilled city's pride:
  She saw her glories star by star expire,
  And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride,
  Where the car climbed 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 its chart, the 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 of 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 rolled 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 arrayed
  Her warriors but to conquer--she who veiled
  Earth with her haughty shadow, and displayed
  Until the o'er-canopied horizon failed,

Her rushing wings--Oh! she who was almighty hailed!

LXXXV.

  Sylla was first of victors; but our own,
  The sagest of usurpers, Cromwell!--he
  Too swept off senates while he hewed 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 crowned him, on the self-same day
  Deposed him gently from his throne of force,
  And laid him with the earth's preceding clay.
  And showed 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 Caesar 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 sucked from thy wild teat,
  Scorched by the Roman Jove's ethereal dart,
  And thy limbs blacked with lightning--dost thou yet

Guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget?

LXXXIX.

  Thou dost;--but all thy foster-babes are dead--
  The men of iron; and the world hath reared
  Cities from out their sepulchres:  men bled
  In imitation of the things they feared,
  And fought and conquered, and the same course steered,
  At apish distance; but as yet none have,
  Nor could, the same supremacy have neared,
  Save one vain man, who is not in the grave,

But, vanquished by himself, to his own slaves a slave,

XC.

  The fool of false dominion--and a kind
  Of bastard Caesar, following him of old
  With steps unequal; for the Roman's mind
  Was modelled in a less terrestrial mould,
  With passions fiercer, yet a judgment cold,
  And an immortal instinct which redeemed
  The frailties of a heart so soft, yet bold.
  Alcides with the distaff now he seemed

At Cleopatra's feet, and now himself he beamed.

XCI.

  And came, and saw, and conquered.  But the man
  Who would have tamed his eagles down to flee,
  Like a trained falcon, in the Gallic van,
  Which he, in sooth, long led to victory,
  With a deaf heart which never seemed to be
  A listener to itself, was strangely framed;
  With but one weakest weakness--vanity:
  Coquettish in ambition, still he aimed

At what? Can he avouch, or answer what he claimed?

XCII.

  And would be all or nothing--nor could wait
  For the sure grave to level him; few years
  Had fixed him with the Caesars 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 flowed,
  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 weighed 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 allowed,
  Averred, and known,--and daily, hourly seen--
  The yoke that is upon us doubly bowed,
  And the intent of tyranny avowed,
  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 conquered be,
  And Freedom find no champion and no child
  Such as Columbia saw arise when she
  Sprung forth a Pallas, armed and undefiled?
  Or must such minds be nourished 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 and 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,
  Chopped 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 bitter 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'erthrown:
  What was this tower of strength? within its cave

What treasure lay so locked, so hid?--A woman's grave.

C.

  But who was she, the lady of the dead,
  Tombed 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 the 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, bowed
  With woes far heavier than the ponderous tomb
  That weighed 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 grey
  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 seat 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 shattered 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 foundered 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 owlet's cry,
  As I now hear them, in the fading light
  Dim o'er the bird of darkness' native site,
  Answer each other on the Palatine,
  With their large eyes, all glistening grey 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 massed together, hillocks heaped
  On what were chambers, arch crushed, column strown
  In fragments, choked-up vaults, and frescoes steeped
  In subterranean damps, where the owl peeped,
  Deeming it midnight:--Temples, baths, or halls?
  Pronounce who can; for all that Learning reaped
  From her research hath been, that these are walls--

Behold the 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 amassed
  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 filled!

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 Caesar'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 contained
  A spirit which with these would find a home,
  The last of those who o'er the whole earth reigned,
  The Roman globe, for after none sustained
  But yielded back his conquests:--he was more
  Than a mere Alexander, and unstained
  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 factions 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 failed;
  But long before had Freedom's face been veiled,
  And Anarchy assumed her attributes:
  Till every lawless soldier who assailed
  Trod on the trembling Senate's slavish mutes,

Or raised the venal voice of baser prostitutes.

CXIV.

  Then turn we to our 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 withered 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,
  Prisoned 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,

Kissed by the breath of heaven, seems coloured by its skies.

CXVIII.

  Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover,
  Egeria! thy all heavenly bosom beating
  For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover;
  The purple Midnight veiled 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 enamoured 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 poison; 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.

  O 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 unquenched soul--parched--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 seized?
  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 unreached 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 oft-sown 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 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,
  Envenomed 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 chained and tortured--cabined, cribbed, confined,
  And bred in darkness, lest the truth should shine
  Too brightly on the unprepared 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 ruined battlement,
  For which the palace of the present hour

Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower.

CXXX.

  O 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 ancients 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 incurred
  For my ancestral faults or mine the wound
  I bleed withal, and had it been conferred
  With a just weapon, it had flowed 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 suffered:  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 suffered things to be forgiven?
  Have I not had my brain seared, my heart riven,
  Hopes sapped, 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 sigh,

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 remembered tone of a mute lyre,
  Shall on their softened 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 murmured pity, or loud-roared applause,
  As man was slaughtered by his fellow-man.
  And wherefore slaughtered? 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 drooped 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 hailed the wretch who won.

CXLI.

  He heard it, but he heeded not--his eyes
  Were with his heart, and that was far away;
  He recked not of the life he lost nor prize,
  But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
  THERE were his young barbarians all at play,
  THERE was their Dacian mother--he, their sire,
  Butchered to make a Roman holiday--
  All this rushed 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 roared or murmured 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 crushed, walls bowed,

And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud.

CXLIII.

  A ruin--yet what ruin! from its mass
  Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been reared;
  Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass,
  And marvel where the spoil could have appeared.
  Hath it indeed been plundered, or but cleared?
  Alas! developed, opens the decay,
  When the colossal fabric's form is neared:
  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 grey walls wear,
  Like laurels on the bald first Caesar'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 unaltered 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!
  Despoiled 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 honoured 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 shadowed 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 reared on high,
  Imperial mimic of old Egypt's piles,
  Colossal copyist of deformity,
  Whose travelled phantasy from the far Nile's
  Enormous model, doomed the artist's toils
  To build for giants, and for his vain earth,
  His shrunken ashes, raise this dome:  How smiles
  The gazer's eye 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 hyaena and the jackal in their shade;
  I have beheld Sophia's bright roofs swell
  Their glittering mass i' the sun, and have surveyed

Its sanctuary the while the usurping Moslem prayed;

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 lessened; 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 th' 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 vies
  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; e'en 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.

CLIX.

  Then pause and be enlightened; 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
  Laocoon'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 envenomed 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 arrayed, 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 one glance the Deity.

CLXII.

  But in his delicate form--a dream of Love,
  Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose breast
  Longed for a deathless lover from above,
  And maddened in that vision--are expressed
  All that ideal beauty ever blessed
  The mind within its most unearthly mood,
  When each conception was a heavenly guest--
  A ray of immortality--and stood

Starlike, around, until they gathered 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 arrayed
  With an eternal glory--which, if made
  By human hands, is not of human thought
  And Time himself hath hallowed 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 classed
  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
  Thro' which all things grow phantoms; and the cloud
  Between us sinks and all which ever glowed,
  Till Glory's self is twilight, and displays
  A melancholy halo scarce allowed
  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 discrowned,
  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 hushed that pang for ever:  with thee fled
  The present happiness and promised joy

Which filled the imperial isles so full it seemed to cloy.

CLXIX.

  Peasants bring forth in safety.--Can it be,
  O 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 poured
  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-haired Daughter of the Isles is laid,
  The love of millions!  How we did entrust
  Futurity to her! and, though it must
  Darken above our bones, yet fondly deemed
  Our children should obey her child, and blessed
  Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seemed

Like star to shepherd's eyes; 'twas but a meteor beamed.

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 rung
  Its knell in princely ears, till the o'erstrung
  Nations have armed 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 linked the electric chain of that despair,
  Whose shock was as an earthquake's, and oppressed

The land which loved thee so, that none could love thee best.

CLXXIII.

  Lo, Nemi! navelled 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 cherished hate, its surface wears
  A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake,

All coiled 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 reascending 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 tilled, 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 followed on till the dark Euxine rolled

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 gladdened 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 ennobling 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, unknelled, uncoffined, 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 leviathans, 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 washed 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 wantoned 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 extinguished 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.

Footnotes:

{1} Lady Charlotte Harley, daughter of the Earl of Oxford.

BYRON'S CHILDE HAROLD EDITED BY WILLIAM J. ROLFE

CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE,

CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE A Komaunt BY LORD BYRON EDITED WITH NOTES BY WILLIAM J. ROLFE, Litt. D. FORMERLY HEAD MASTER OF THE HIGH SCHOOL, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS btenTou TheRiversidePres? BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1898 821 B99ch4 Copyright, 1885, 1886, BY TICKNOR AND COMPANY. All rights reserved. The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass. , U. S. A. Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company. PREFAC E. THE text of this edition of Childe Harold is the result of a careful collation of the standard English editions, in which I have found comparatively few corruptions and misprints. In but one instance (see on ii. 97. 6) have I had any doubt as to the correct reading ; and there I should not have hesitated if I had not found myself at odds with the only editor who has commented on the passage. The punctuation of the poem has been very carefully revised . Many superfluous commas have been deleted, many semicolons replaced by commas, many exclamation-points transposed from the middle to the end of the sentence, and sundry other changes made that seemed to be required by the usage of the present day. The original pointing, which has been retained in all the other editions known to me, was liable in some instances to mislead even editors and critics. I suspect that Byron's use of the semicolon where we should put the comma was the real cause of the confusion in pointing and construing the perplexing passage ( ii . 97. 6 fol. ) mentioned above. In the Notes I have made free use of Dr. Darmesteter's admirable "édition classique "9 (Paris, 1882) , and also of Mr. H. F. Tozer's "Clarendon Press " edition ( Oxford, 1885 ) , both of which the teacher and the critical student will find helpful and suggestive. Mr. Tozer's book I should not put into the hands of the young student, because he will find it too helpful. It does for him much of the work that he vi PREFACE. - can and should do for himself, - the learning to do it himself being, indeed, one of the main objects in the study of the poem. If my notes give certain matter which Mr. Tozer omits, it is because I know how few books of reference thousands of American students and readers, to say nothing of teachers, have at their command. The illustrations are selected from the much larger number in Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.'s elegant holiday edition of the poem . CONTENTS. CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE DEDICATION CANTO FIRST PAGE • 9 I I 13 SECOND 66 THIRD 51 89 "" FOURTH . • 133 NOTES • 201 STAMBOUL.

서울 TO IANTHE. Not in those climes where I have late been straying, Though Beauty long hath there been matchless deemed, Not in those visions to the heart displaying Forms which it sighs but to have only dreamed, Hath aught like thee in truth or fancy seemed : Nor, having seen thee, shall I vainly seek To paint those charms which varied as they beamedTo such as see thee not my words were weak ; To those who gaze on thee what language could they speak? Ah ! mayst 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. 12 CHILDE HAROLD. Young Peri of the West! 't is 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 mixed with pangs to Love's even loveliest hours decreed. O, 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 numbered, should this homage past Attract thy fairy fingers near the lyre Of him who hailed thee, loveliest as thou wast, Such is the most my memory may desire ; Though more than Hope can claim, could Friendship less require? CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. CANTO FIRST. I. O thou in Hellas deemed of heavenly birth, Muse, formed 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 wandered by thy vaunted rill, Yes ! sighed 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. 14 childe HAROLD. CANTO I 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 vexed 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 favor 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 offame, 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 coffined clay, Nor florid prose, nor honeyed lies of rhyme Can blazon evil deeds or consecrate a crime. IV. Childe Harold basked him in the noontide sun, Disporting there like any other fly, Nor deemed before his little day was done One blast might chill him into misery. But long ere scarce a third of his passed by, Worse than adversity the Childe befell ; He felt the fulness of satiety : Then loathed he in his native land to dwell, Which seemed to him more lone than eremite's sad cell. CANTO I. CHILDE HAROLD. 15 V. For he through Sin's long labyrinth had run, Nor made atonement when he did amiss, Had sighed to many though he loved but one, And that loved one, alas ! could ne'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 spoiled her goodly lands to gild his waste, Nor calm domestic peace had ever deigned 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 congealed the drop within his ee : Apart he stalked in joyless reverie, And from his native land resolved to go, And visit scorching climes beyond the sea ; With pleasure drugged, he almost longed 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 seemed only not to fall, Yet strength was pillared in each massy aisle. Monastic dome, condemned 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. 16 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO I VIII. Yet ofttimes in his maddest mirthful mood Strange pangs would flash along Childe Harold's brow, As ifthe memory of some deadly feud Or disappointed passion lurked 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 gathered revellers from far and near, He knew them flatterers 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 fere ; 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 ' t is to doat upon A few dear objects, will in sadness feel Such partings break the heart they fondly hope to heal. • CANTO I. CHILDE HAROLD. 17 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 Might shake the saintship of an anchorite, And long had fed his youthful appetite ; His goblets brimmed with every costly wine, And all that mote to luxury invite, Without a sigh he left, to cross the brine, hands And traverse Paynim shores, and pass Earth's central line. XII. The sails were filled, 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, while others 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 deemed 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 poured his last ' Good Night.' 2 18 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO L I. ADIEU, adieu ! my native shore Fades o'er the waters blue ; The night-winds sigh, the breakers roar, And shrieks the wild seamew. Yon sun that sets upon the sea We follow in his flight ; Farewell awhile to him and thee, My native land― Good Night ! II. Afew 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. III. '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.' IV. ' 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 ; CANTO I. CHILDE HAROLD. 19 For I have from my father gone, Amother whom I love, And have no friend, save these alone, But thee -and One above. V. " My father blessed 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. VI. '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 Sir Childe, I'm not so weak ; But thinking on an absent wife Will blanch a faithful cheek. life ? 1 20 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO L VII. 'My spouse and boys dwell near thy hall, Along the bordering lake , And when they on their father call, 6 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.' VIII . For who would trust the seeming sighs Ofwife or paramour ? Fresh feres 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 . IX . 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 . X. 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 ! CANTO I. CHILDE HAROLD. 21 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. O 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. 22 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO I. 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 reared in dirt ; Ne personage of high or mean degree Doth care for cleanness of surtout or shirt, Though shent with Egypt's plague, unkempt, unwashed, 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 unlocked Elysium's gates ? XIX . The horrid crags, by toppling convent crowned, The cork-trees hoar that clothe the shaggy steep, The mountain- moss by scorching skies imbrowned, 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, Mixed in one mighty scene, with varied beauty glow. CANTO I. CHILDE HAROLD. 23 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 punished been, and lo ! Deep in yon cave Honorius 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 offeringThese are memorials frail of murderous wrath : For wheresoe'er the shrieking victim hath Poured 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 ruined splendor still is lingering there. And yonder towers the Prince's palace fair : There thou too, Vathek, England's wealthiest son, Once formed thy Paradise, as not aware When wanton Wealth her mightiest deeds hath done Meek Peace voluptuous lures was ever wont to shun. 3 24 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO L XXIII. Here didst thou dwell, here schemes of pleasure plan, Beneath yon mountain's ever beauteous brow ; But now, as if a thing unblest by man, Thy fairy dwelling is as lone as thou ! Here 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 ! O dome displeasing unto British eye ! With diadem hight foolscap, lo ! a fiend, A little fiend that scoffs incessantly, There sits in parchment robe arrayed, and by His side is hung a seal and sable scroll, Where blazoned 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 foiled 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 dashed to earth the victor's plume, And Policy regained what arms had lost : For chiefs like ours in vain may laurels bloom ! Woe to the conquering, not the conquered host, Since baffled Triumph droops on Lusitania's coast ! CANTO I. CHILDE HAROLD. 25 CINTRA. 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'erthrown, yet victors here, Where Scorn her finger points through many a coming year? 26 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO I. XXVII. So deemed 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 learned to moralize, For Meditation fixed at times on him, And conscious Reason whispered 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 fixed 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 Lusian's 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. CANTO I. CHILDE HAROLD. 27 XXX. - O'er vales that teem with fruits, romantic hills, - O that such hills upheld a freeborn 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, O, 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 lands defend ; For Spain is compassed 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 ; 28 CHILDE HAROLD . CANTO 1. 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 Spanish hind the difference know 'Twixt him and Lusian slave, the lowest of the low. XXXIV. But ere the mingling bounds have far been passed, 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 mailed splendor drest : Here ceased the swift their race, here sunk the strong ; The Paynim turban and the Christian crest Mixed on the bleeding stream, by floating hosts oppressed. XXXV. O lovely Spain ! renowned, romantic land ! Where is that standard which Pelagio bore, When Cava's traitor- sire first called the band That dyed thy mountain streams with Gothic gore? Where are those bloody banners which of yore Waved o'er thy sons, victorious to the gale, And drove at last the spoilers to their shore? Red gleamed the cross and waned the crescent pale, While Afric's echoes thrilled with Moorish matrons' wail. CANTO I. CHILDE HAROLD. 29 XXXVI. Teems not each ditty with the glorious tale ? Ah ! such, alas ! the hero's amplest fate ! When granite moulders and when records fail, A peasant's plaint prolongs his dubious date. Pride, bend thine eye from heaven to thine estate, See howthe 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, Nor 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. 30 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO I. XXXIX. Lo ! where the Giant on the mountain stands, His blood-red tresses deepening in the sun, With death-shot glowing in his fiery hands, And eye that scorcheth all it glares upon ; Restless it rolls, now fixed, and now anon Flashing afar, and at his iron feet -a Destruction cowers to mark what deeds are done ; For on this morn three potent nations met, To shed before his shrine the blood he deems most sweet. XL. By Heaven, it is a splendid sight to seeFor one who hath no friend, no brother there Their rival scarfs of mixed 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 triumphs 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. CANTO I. CHILDE HAROLD. 31 XLII. There shall they rot - Ambition's honored fools ! Yes, Honor 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. O Albuera ! glorious field of grief ! As o'er thy plain the Pilgrim pricked his steed, Who could foresee thee, in a space so brief, A scene where mingling foes should boast and bleed ? Peace to the perished ! 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 ' t were sad to thwart their noble aim Who strike, blest hirelings ! for their country's good, And die, that living might have proved her shame ; Perished, perchance, in some domestic feud, Or in a narrower sphere wild Rapine's path pursued. 32 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO I. XLV. Full swiftly Harold wends his lonely way Where proud Sevilla triumphs unsubdued ; Yet is she free -the spoiler's wished-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 famished brood Is vain, or Ilion, Tyre, might yet survive, And Virtue vanquish all, and Murder cease to thrive. XLVI. But all unconscious ofthe 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 : Not here War's clarion , but Love's rebeck sounds ; Here Folly still his votaries enthralls, And young- eyed Lewdness walks her midnight rounds : Girt with the silent crimes of capitals, Still to the last kind Vice clings to the tottering walls. Not so the rustic XLVII. 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 ! CANTO I. 333 CHILDE HAROLD. XLVIII. How carols now the lusty muleteer? Oflove, 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 chaunts, ' Viva 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 sprung from her adulterate joy. XLIX. On yon long, level plain, at distance crowned With crags, whereon those Moorish turrets rest, Wide scattered hoof-marks dint the wounded ground ; And, scathed by fire, the green sward's darkened vest Tells that the foe was Andalusia's guest : Here was the camp, the watch-flame, and the host, Here the bold peasant stormed 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 cloak, Could blunt the sabre's edge, or clear the cannon's smoke. 3 34 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO I 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'erflowed, The stationed bands, the never-vacant watch, The magazine in rocky durance stowed The holstered 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 unfurled, And thou shalt view thy sons in crowds to Hades hurled ! 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 valor acts in vain? And counsel sage, and patriotic zeal, The veteran's skill, youth's fire, and manhood's heart of steel ? CANTO I. CHILDE HAROLD. 35 LIV. Is it for this the Spanish maid, aroused, Hangs on the willow her unstrung guitar, And, all unsexed, the anlace hath espoused, Sung the loud song, and dared the deed of war? And she, whom once the semblance of a scar Appalled, an owlet's larum chilled with dread, Now views the column-scattering bayonet 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, O, had you known her in her softer hour, Marked 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 ! Her lover sinks Her chief is slain Her fellows flee - — LVI. she sheds no ill-timed tear ; - she fills his fatal post ; 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 flushed hope is lost ? Who hang so fiercely on the flying Gaul, Foiled by a woman's hand, before a battered wall ? 36 CHILDE HAROLD . CANTO I. LVII. Yet are Spain's maids no race of Amazons, But formed 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 impressed 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 wooed 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 even 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. CANTO I. CHILDE HAROLD. 37 PARNASSUS. LX. O thou Parnassus, whom I now survey, Not in the phrenzy 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. 38 CHILDE HAROLD . CANTO I LXI. Oft have I dreamed of thee, whose glorious name Who knows not knows not man's divinest lore ; And now I view thee, ' t is, 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 hallowed 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. Ofthee hereafter. ― LXIII. Even amidst my strain I turned aside to pay my homage here, Forgot the land, the sons, the maids of Spain, Her fate, to every freeborn bosom dear, And hailed 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 deemed an idle vaunt. ΣΑΝΤΟ Ι. 39 CHILDE HAROLD. 333 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 deigned to flee, And fixed 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. 40 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO L 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'erthrown beneath his horn ; The thronged arena shakes with shouts for more ; Yells the mad crowd o'er entrails freshly torn, Nor shrinks the female eye, nor even 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, washed artizan, 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. CANTO I. CHILDE HAROLD. 41 LXX. Some o'er thy Thamis row the ribboned 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, Grasped in the holy hand of Mystery, In whose dread name both men and maids are sworn, And consecrate the oath with draught, and dance till morn. All have their fooleries LXXI. 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 cleared, 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, Skilled in the ogle of a roguish eye, Yet ever well inclined to heal the wound ; None through their cold disdain are doomed to die, As moonstruck bards complain, by Love's sad archery. 42 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO J. LXXIII. Hushed 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 : Ifin the dangerous game they shine to-day, 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 arrayed, But all afoot, the light-limbed 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 arms a dart, he fights aloof, nor more Can man achieve without the friendly steed, Alas ! toc oft condemned 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. CANTO I. 33333 CHILDE HAROLD. 43 LXXVI. Sudden he stops ; his eye is fixed : 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 follows 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 stretched a mangled corse ; Another, hideous sight ! unseamed appears, His gory chest unveils life's panting source ; Though death- struck, still his feeble frame he rears, Staggering, but stemming all, his lord unharmed he bears. LXXVIII. Foiled, 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 wayVain rage ! the mantle quits the conynge hand, Wraps his fierce eye —' t is past - - - he sinks upon the sand ! 44 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO I. 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 phalanxed 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 withered sentinel, Duenna sage, And all whereat the generous soul revolts, Which the stern dotard deemed he could encage, Have passed to darkness with the vanished 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? CANTO I. CHILDE HAROLD. 45 LXXXII. O many a time and oft had Harold loved, Or dreamed 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 learned 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 forrn he was not blind, Though now it moved him as it moves the wise ; Not that Philosophy on such a mind E'er deigned 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 palled victim ! life-abhorring gloom Wrote on his faded brow curst Cain's unresting doom. LXXXIV. Still he beheld, nor mingled with the throng, But viewed them not with misanthropic hate : Fain would he now have joined 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, Poured forth this unpremeditated lay, To charms as fair as those that soothed his happier day. 46 CHILDE HAROLD . CANTO L TO INEZ. I. NAY, smile not at my sullen brow, Alas ! I cannot smile again ; Yet Heaven avert that ever thou Shouldst weep, and haply weep in vain. II. And dost thou ask what secret woe I bear, corroding joy and youth ? And wilt thou vainly seek to know A pang even thou must fail to soothe? III. It is not love, it is not hate, Nor low ambition's honors lost, That bids me loathe my present state, And fly from all I prize the most : IV. 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 v. It is that settled , ceaseless gloom The fabled Hebrew wanderer bore ; That will not look beyond the tomb , But cannot hope for rest before. CANTO I. CHILDE HAROLD. 47 VI. 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. VII. Yet others rapt in pleasure seem, And taste of all that I forsake ; O, may they still of transport dream, And ne'er, at least like me, awake ! VIII. Through many a clime ' t is mine to go, With many a retrospection cursed ; And all my solace is to know, Whate'er betides, I've known the worst. IX. 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, yea, 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 hugged a conqueror's chain save fallen Chivalry ! 48 CHILDE HAROLD . CANTO I. 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 bleached bones, and blood's unbleaching stain, Long mark the battle-field with hideous awe : Thus only may our sons conceive the scenes we saw ! CANTO I. CHILDE HAROLD. 49 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 . Fallen nations gaze on Spain ; if freed, she frees More than her fell Pizarros once enchained. Strange retribution ! now Columbia's ease Repairs the wrongs that Quito's sons sustained, While o'er the parent clime prowls Murder unrestrained. XC. Not all the blood at Talavera shed, Not all the marvels of Barossa's fight, Not Albuera 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 unlaureled 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 ? 4 50 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO I. XCII. O, known the earliest, and esteemed 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 mourned 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 doomed to go ; Lands that contain the monuments of eld, Ere Greece and Grecian arts by barbarous hands were quelled . THE PARTHENON. CANTO 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 polished breasts bestow. 52 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO II II. Ancient of days ! august Athena ! where, Where are thy men ofmight, thy grand in soul ? Gone -glimmering through the dream ofthings that were : First in the race that led to Glory's goal, They won, and passed away--is this the whole ? Aschool-boy'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 mist of years, gray flits the shade of power ! III. Son of the morning, rise ! approach you here ! Come― but molest not yon defenceless urn ; Look on this spot -a nation's sepulchre ! Abode of gods, whose shrines no longer burn. Even gods must yield — religions take their turn : 'Twas Jove's ' t is 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 neaven Is ' t not enough, unhappy thing, to know Thou art? Is this a boon so kindly given, That being, thou wouldst 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. CANTO II. CHILDE HAROLD. 53 V. Or burst the vanished Hero's lofty mound ; Far on the solitary shore he sleeps : He fell, and falling nations mourned around ; But now not one of saddening thousands weeps, Nor warlike worshipper his vigil keeps Where demigods appeared, as records tell. Remove yon skull from out the scattered heaps : Is that a temple where a God may dwell ? Why, even the worm at last disdains her shattered 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 brooked 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 has his pang, but feeble sufferers groan With brain-born dreams of evil all their own. Pursue what Chance or 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. 54 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IL VIII. Yet if, as holiest men have deemed, 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 in concert to adore With those who made our mortal labors light ! To hear each voice we feared to hear no more ! Behold each mighty shade revealed 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 remembrance then remain, Be as it may futurity's behest, For me ' t were 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 favorite throne, Mightiest of many such ! Hence let me trace The latent grandeur of thy dwelling- place. It may not be ; nor even can Fancy's eye Restore what Time hath labored to deface. Yet these proud pillars claim no passing sigh ; Unmoved the Moslem sits, the light Greek carols by. CANTO II. CHILDE HAROLD. 55 THE TEMPLE OF JUPITER. XI. But who, ofall the plunderers of yon fane On high, where Pallas lingered, 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 freeborn men should spare what once was free ; Yet they could violate each saddening shrine, And bear these altars o'er the long-reluctant brine. 56 CHILDE HAROLD . CANTO IL 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 be 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 generous 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 Ægis, Pallas, that appalled Stern Alaric and Havoc on their way? Where Peleus' son, whom Hell in vain enthralled, 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 wandered on the Stygian shore, Nor now preserved the walls he loved to shield before. CANTO II. CHILDE HAROLD. 57 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 snatched thy shrinking Gods to northern climes abhorred ! XVI. But where is Harold ? shall I then forget To urge the gloomy wanderer o'er the wave? Little recked he of all that men regret ; No loved-one now in feigned lament could rave ; No friend the parting hand extended gave, Ere the cold stranger passed 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 war and crimes. XVII. He that has sailed upon the dark blue sea, Has viewed 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. 58 CHILDE HAROLD . CANTO II. XVIII . And O, 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 manned 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 feared 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 hauled down to halt for logs like these ! CANTO II. CHILDE HAROLD. 59 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? бо CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO II. 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 possessed 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 ; ' t is but to hold Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unrolled. 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 splendor shrinking from distress ! None that, with kindred consciousness endued, Ifwe were not, would seem to smile the less Of all that flattered , followed, sought, and sued ; — This is to be alone ; this, this is solitude ! CANTO IL CHILDE HAROLD. 61 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 an hour hath been Will wistful linger on that hallowed 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, Cooped 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 essayed the dreadful leap Stern Mentor urged from high to yonder tide ; While thus of both bereft, the nymph- queen doubly sighed. 62 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IL 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 mayst 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 deemed, as on that lady's eye He looked, 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 deemed the little God his ancient sway was o'er. XXXII. Fair Florence found, in sooth with some amaze, One who, ' t was said, still sighed to all he saw, Withstand, unmoved, the lustre of her gaze, Which others hailed with real or mimic awe, Their hope, their doom, their punishment, their law, All that gay Beauty from her bondsmen claims ; And much she marvelled that a youth so raw Nor felt, nor feigned at least, the oft-told flames, Which, though sometimes they frown, yet rarely anger dames. CANTO 11. CHILDE HAROLD. 63 XXXIII. Little knew she that seeming marble heart, Now masked 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 turned aside As long as aught was worthy to pursue : But Harold on such arts no more relied ; And had he doated 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 possessed ? 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 even 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, honor 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. 64 CHILDE HAROLD . CANTO II. 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 always changing in her aspect mild ; From her bare bosom let me take my fill, Her never-weaned, though not her favored child. O, she is fairest in her features wild, Where nothing polished dares pollute her path ! To me by day or night she ever smiled, Though I have marked 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 ofthe young, and beacon of the wise, And he his namesake, whose oft- baffled foes Shrunk from his deeds of chivalrous emprise ! 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. CANTO II. CHILDE HAR LD. 65 XXXIX. Childe Harold sailed, and passe. ae barren spot Where sad Penelope o'erlooked the wave, And onward viewed 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 fire ? 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 hailed Leucadia's cape afar, A spot he longed to see, nor cared to leave : Oft did he mark the scenes of vanished 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 hailed the last resort of fruitless love, He felt, or deemed he felt, no common glow ; And as the stately vessel glided slow Beneath the shadow of that ancient mount, He watched the billows ' melancholy flow, And, sunk albeit in thought as he was wont, More placid seemed his eye and smooth his pallid front. 5 66 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO II XLII. Morn dawns ; and with it stern Albania's hills, Dark Suli's rocks, and Pindus' inland peak, Robed half in mist, bedewed with snowy rills, Arrayed 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 of 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 armed '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 scoffed at by the circumcised, Forgets that pride to pampered priesthood dear, Churchman and votary alike despised. Foul Superstition ! howsoe'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 ? ' CANTO II. 67 CHILDE HAROLD. 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 Cæsar's trophies rose, Now, like the hands that reared them, withering ; Imperial anarchs, doubling human woes ! God ! was thy globe ordained for such to win and lose ? XLVI. From the dark barriers of that rugged clime, Even to the centre of Illyria's vales, Childe Harold passed o'er many a mount sublime, Through lands scarce noticed in historic tales ; Yet in famed Attica such lovely dales Are rarely seen, nor can fair Tempe 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 greet 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. 68 CHILDE HAROLD CANTO II. . TEMPE. XLVIII. Monastic Zitza, from thy shady brow, Thou small, but favored 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. CANTO II. CHILDE HAROLD. 69 XLIX. Amidst the grove that crowns yon tufted hill, Which, were it not for many a mountain nigh Rising in lofty ranks and loftier still, Might well itself be deemed of dignity, The convent's white walls glistened 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 is 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 — O, 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, Chimera'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 ! 70 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO II. LII. Ne city's towers pollute the lovely view ; Unseen is Yanina, though not remote, Veiled 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. O, where, Dodona, is thine aged grove, Prophetic fount, and oracle divine? What valley echoed 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 upgazing still , the wearied eye Reposes gladly on as smooth a vale As ever Spring yclad in grassy dye : Even 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. CANTO II. CHILDE HAROLD. 71 TEPALEN. 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 sighed along the lengthening glen. 8 LVI. He passed the sacred Haram's silent tower, And underneath the wide o'erarching gate Surveyed the dwelling of this chief of power, Where all around proclaimed 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. 72 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO II. LVII. Richly caparisoned, a ready row Of armed horse, and many a warlike store Circled the wide-extending court below ; Above, strange groups adorned the corridore, And oft- times through the area's echoing door Some high-capped Tartar spurred 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-embroidered garments fair to see ; The crimson- scarfed men of Macedon ; The Delhi with his cap of terror on And crooked glaive ; 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 mixed 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 ; Halfwhispering 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 ! ' CANTO II. CHILDE HAROLD. 73 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 seemed made 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, veiled, 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 marbled- 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. 74 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO II. LXIII. It is not that yon hoary lengthening beard Ill suits the passions which belong to youth ; Love conquers age so Hafiz hath averred, So sings the Teian, and he sings in soothBut crimes that scorn the tender voice of ruth, Beseeming all men ill, but most the man In years, have marked him with a tiger's tooth ; Blood follows blood, and, through their mortal span, In bloodlier 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 OfWealth 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 fastnesses not more secure Than they in doubtful time of troublous need : Their wrath how deadly ! but their friendship sure, When gratitude or valor bids them bleed, Unshaken rushing on where'er their chief may lead. CANTO IL CHILDE HAROLD. 75 LXVI. Childe Harold saw them in their chieftain's tower Thronging to war in splendor and success, And after viewed 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 cheered him less, And fellow-countrymen have stood aloofIn 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 awhile 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 stretched the welcome hand, Led them o'er rocks and past the dangerous swamp, Kinder than polished slaves though not so bland, And piled the hearth, and wrung their garments damp, And filled the bowl, and trimmed 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. 76 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IL LXIX. It came to pass, that when he did address Himself to quit at length this mountain- land, Combined marauders half-way barred 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 seasoned, and with labors tanned, Till he did greet white Achelous' tide, And from his further bank Ætolia's wolds espied. LXX. Where lone Utraikey forms its circling cove, And weary waves retire to gleam at rest, How brown the foliage of the green hill's 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 linked to man, Yelling their uncouth dirge, long daunced the kirtled clan. CANTO II. CHILDE HAROLD. 77 LXXII. Childe Harold at a little distance stood And viewed, 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 gleamed, Their gestures nimble, dark eyes flashing free, The long wild locks that to their girdles streamed, While thus in concert they this lay half sang, half screamed : I. 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 ! II. O, who is more brave than a dark Suliote, In his snowy camese 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. III. 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 ? IV. 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. 78 CHILDE HAROLD . CANTO II. V. 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. VI. 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. VII. I love the fair face of the maid in her youth, Her caresses shall lull me, her music shall soothe ; Let her bring from the chamber her many-toned lyre, And sing us a song on the fall of her sire. VIII. Remember the moment when Previsa fell, The shrieks of the conquered, the conqueror's yell, The roofs that we fired, and the plunder we shared, The wealthy we slaughtered, the lovely we spared ! IX. 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 Achief ever glorious like Ali Pashaw. X. Dark Muchtar his son to the Danube is sped , Let the yellow-haired Giaours view his horse- tail with dread ; When his Delhis come dashing in blood o'er the banks, How few shall escape from the Muscovite ranks ! CANTO IL CHILDE HAROLD. 79 XI. Selictar, unsheath 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 ! THERMOPYLE. LXXIII. Fair Greece ! sad relic of departed worth ! Immortal, though no more ; though fallen, great ! Who now shall lead thy scattered children forth, And long-accustomed bondage uncreate ? Not such thy sons who whilome did await, The hopeless warriors of a willing doom, In bleak Thermopyla's sepulchral strait O, who that gallant spirit shall resume, Leap from Eurotas' banks, and call thee from the tomb? 80 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO II LXXIV. Spirit of freedom ! when on Phyle's brow Thou sat'st with Thrasybulus and his train, Couldst thou forbode 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 rail in vain, Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish hand, From birth till death enslaved, in word, in deed, unmanned.' 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 burned anew With thy unquenched beam, lost Liberty ! And many dream withal the hour is nigh That gives them back their fathers' 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 your foe ! Greece ! change thy lords, thy state is still the same ; Thy glorious day is o'er, but not thy years of shame. CANTO II. CHILDE HAROLD. 81 LXXVII. The city won for Allah from the Giaour, The Giaour from Othman'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 ofjoyaunce 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 merriment than thine, O Stamboul, 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 wooed the eye, and thrilled the Bosphorus along. 6 82 CHILDE HAROLD . CANTO II. LXXX. Loud was the lightsome tumult of the shore, Oft Music changed, but never ceased her tone, And timely echoed back the measured 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 seemed to light the banks they lave. LXXXI. Glanced many a light caique along the foam, Danced on the shore the daughters of the land, Ne thought had man or maid of rest or home, While many a languid eye and thrilling hand Exchanged the look few bosoms may withstand, Or, gently prest, returned the pressure still : O 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 betrayed ? 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 Is 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 ! CANTO II. 83 CHILDE HAROLD. 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 mayst thou be restored, but not till then. Athousand years scarce serve to form a state, An hour may lay it in the dust ; and when Can man its shattered splendor renovate, Recall its virtues back, and vanquish Time and Fate? LXXXV. And yet how lovely in thine age ofwoe, Land of lost gods and godlike men, art thou ! Thy vales of evergreen, thy hills of snow Proclaim thee Nature's varied favorite 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 ; 84 CHILDE HAROLD . CANTO II. LXXXVI. Save where some solitary column mourns Above its prostrate brethren ofthe cave ; Save where Tritonia's airy shrine adorns Colonna's cliff, and gleams along the wave ; Save o'er some warrior's 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, Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smiled, And still his honeyed 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 ' t is 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 crushed thy temples gone ; Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon. CANTO II. CHILDE HAROLD. 85 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 bowed beneath the brunt of Hellas' sword, As on the morn to distant Glory dear, When Marathon became a magic word : Which uttered, 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 hallowed 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 splendor 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 ofthe aged ! lesson of the young ! Which sages venerate and bards adore, As Pallas and the Muse unveil their awful lore. 86 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO II, XCII. The parted bosom clings to wonted home, If aught that ' s kindred cheer the 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 mayst thou prosper where thy youth was reared, By every honest joy of love and life endeared ! XCIV. For thee, who thus in too protracted song Hast soothed thine idlesse with inglorious lays, Soon shall thy voice be lost amid 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 nor 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. CANTO II. 87 CHILDE HAROLD. XCV. Thou too art gone, thou loved and lovely one, Whom youth and youth's affection 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 mourns o'er hours which we no more — shall see Would they had never been, or were to come ! Would he had ne'er returned to find fresh cause to roam ! XCVI. O, 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 could'st 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 snatched the little joy that life had yet to lend. XCVII. Then must 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. 888 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO II. 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 destroyed ; Roll on, vain days ! full reckless may ye flow, Since Time hath reft whate'er my soul enjoyed , And with the ills of eld mine earlier years alloyed. 10 CANTO THIRD. 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 smiled, 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. 90 CHILDE HAROLD . CANTO III. 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 strained 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 oflife, 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 Forgetfulness around me - · so it fling it shall seem To me, though to none else, a not ungrateful theme. CANTO III. CHILDE HAROLD. 91 V. He, who grown aged in this world of woe, In deeds, not years, piercing the depths oflife, 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 unimpaired, 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 Mixed with thy spirit, blended with thy birth, And feeling still with thee in my crushed 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'erwrought, A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame ; And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame, My springs of life were poisoned. "Tis too late ! Yet am I changed ; though still enough the same In strength to bear what time can not abate, And feed on bitter fruits without accusing Fate. 92 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IIL VIII. Something too much of this : — but now ' t is past, And the spell closes with its silent seal. Long-absent Harold reappears 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 altered him In soul and aspect as in age : years steal Fire from the mind as vigor from the limb,, And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim. IX. His had been quaffed too quickly, and he found The dregs were wormwood ; but he filled again, And from a purer fount, on holier ground, And deemed its spring perpetual ; but in vain ! Still round him clung invisibly a chain Which galled for ever, fettering though unseen, And heavy though it clanked not ; worn with pain, Which pined although it spoke not, and grew keen, Entering with every step he took through many a scene. X. Secure in guarded coldness, he had mixed Again in fancied safety with his kind, And deemed his spirit now so firmly fixed And sheathed with an invulnerable mind, That, if no joy, no sorrow lurked 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. CANTO III. Childe HAROLD. 93 XI. But who can view the ripened 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, rolled 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 quelled In youth by his own thoughts ; still uncompelled, He would not yield dominion of his mind To spirits against whom his own rebelled ; Proud though in desolation, which could find Alife within itself, to breathe without mankind. XIII. Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends ; Where rolled 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 glassed by sunbeams on the lake. 94 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO III "Where a blue sky, and glowing clime, extends. " XIV. Like the Chaldean, he could watch the stars, Till he had peopled them with beings bright As their own beams, and earth, and earth-born 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. CANTO III. CHILDE HAROLD. 95 XV. But in man's dwellings he became a thing Restless and worn, and stern and wearisome, Drooped as a wild-born falcon with clipped wing, To whom the boundless air alone were home : Then came his fit again, which to o'ercome, As eagerly the barred-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-exiled 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 ' t were wild, as on the plundered 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 marked 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 gained by thee, Thou first and last of fields, king-making victory? 96 CHILDE HAROLD . CANTO III. 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, Pierced by the shaft of banded nations through ; Ambition's life and labors all were in vain ; He wears the shattered 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 patched-up idol of enlightened 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 furrowed 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 roused-up millions : all that most endears Glory is when the myrtle wreathes a sword Such as Harmodius drew on Athens' tyrant lord . CANTO III. CHILDE HAROLD. 97 XXI. There was a sound of revelry by night, And Belgium's capital had gathered then Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men ; Athousand hearts beat happily ; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes looked 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 not hear No ; ' t was but the wind, it ? ye Or the car rattling o'er the stony street ; On with the dance ! let joy be unconfined ; No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet To chase the glowing Hours with flying feetBut 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 windowed 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 smiled because he deemed it near, His heart more truly knew that peal too well Which stretched his father on a bloody bier, And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell : He rushed into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell. 7 98 CHILDE HAROLD . CANTO III 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 Blushed 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 ofwar ; And the deep thunder peal on peal afar ; And near, the beat of the alarming drum Roused up the soldier ere the morning star ; While thronged 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 ! CANTO III. CHILDE HAROLD. 99 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 Ofliving valor, 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, Battle's magnificently stern array ! the day The thunder-clouds close o'er it , which when rent The earth is covered thick with other clay, Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent, Rider and horse, - — friend , foe, —in one red burial blent ! XXIX . Their praise is hymned 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 showered The death-bolts deadliest the thinned files along, Even where the thickest of war's tempest lowered, They reached no nobler breast than thine, young gallant Howard ! 100 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO III. 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 Come forth her work of gladness to contrive, With all her reckless birds upon the wing, I turned from all she brought to those she could not bring. " XXXI. I turned 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 honored but assumes a stronger, bitterer claim. XXXII. They mourn, but smile at length, and, smiling, mourn. The tree will wither 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 ruined wall Stands when its wind-worn battlements are gone ; The bars survive the captive they enthrall ; The day drags through, though storms keep out the sun ; And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on : CANTO III. CHILDE HAROLD. IOI XXXIII. Even as a broken mirror, which the glass In every fragment multiplies, and makes Athousand 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 shattered 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 numbered 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. 102 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO III. XXXVI. There sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men, Whose spirit, antithetically mixed , One moment of the mightiest, and again On little objects with like firmness fixed, 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 reassume 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 wooed 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 deemed thee for a time whate'er thou didst assert. XXXVIII. Q, 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 skilled, Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of war, Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest star ! CANTO III. CHILDE HAROLD. 103 XXXIX. Yet well thy soul hath brooked 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 smiled With a sedate and all- enduring eye ; When Fortune fled her spoiled and favorite child, He stood unbowed beneath the ills upon him piled. XL. Sager than in thy fortunes ; for in them Ambition steeled thee on too far to show That just habitual scorn which could contemn Men and their thoughts ; 't was 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 turned unto thine overthrow : 'Tis but a worthless world to win or lose ; So hath it proved to thee, and all such lot who choose. XLI. If, like a tower upon a headlong rock, Thou hadst been made to stand or fall alone, Such scorn of man had helped to brave the shock ; But men's thoughts were the steps which paved 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. r 104 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IIL 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 nursed 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. CANTO III. CHILDE HAROLD. 105 XLV. He who ascends to mountain- tops shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapped 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 passed 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. 106 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO III. 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 conquerors 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 discolored 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 for ever 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. CANTO III. CHILDE HAROLD. 107 LI. A thousand battles have assailed thy banks, But these and half their fame have passed away, And Slaughter heaped on high his weltering ranks ; Their very graves are gone, and what are they? Thy tide washed down the blood of yesterday, And all was stainless, and on thy clear stream Glassed with its dancing light the sunny ray ; But o'er the blackened memory's blighting dream Thy waves would vainly roll, all sweeping as they seem. LII. Thus Harold inly said, and passed 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 in vain that we would coldly gaze On such as smile upon us ; the heart must Leap kindly back to kindness, though disgust Hath weaned 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. 108 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO III. LIV. And he had learned to love - I know not why, For this in such as him seems strange of moodThe 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 nipped affections have to grow, In him this glowed 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, Thatlove 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 greetings pour ! I. The castled crag of Drachenfels Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine, Whose breast of waters broadly swells Between the banks which bear the vine ; And hills all rich with blossomed trees, And fields which promise corn and wine, And scattered cities crowning these, Whose far white walls along them shine, Have strewed a scene, which I should see With double joy wert thou with me ! CANTO III. CHILDE HAROLD. 109 DRACHENFELS. II. 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 this vale of vintage-bowers : But one thing want these banks of Rhine, - Thy gentle hand to clasp in mine ! IIO CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO III. III. I send the lilies given to me ; Though long before thy hand they touch, I know that they must withered be, But yet reject them not as such ; For I have cherished 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 gathered by the Rhine, And offered from my heart to thine ! IV. 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 heroes' ashes hid, Our enemy's, - but let not that forbid Honor to Marceau, o'er whose early tomb Tears, big tears, gushed from the rough soldier's lid, Lamenting and yet envying such a doom, Falling for France, whose rights he battled to resume. CANTO IIL CHILDE HAROLD. III LVII. ― Brief, brave, and glorious was his young career, His mourners were two hosts, his friends and foes ; And fitly maythe 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'erstepped 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 shattered 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 ; Atower of victory, from whence the flight Of baffled foes was watched along the plain ! But Peace destroyed what War could never blight, And laid those proud roofs bare to Summer's rain On which the iron shower for years had poured 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 nor too gay, Wild but not rude, awful yet not austere, Is to the mellow earth as Autumn to the year. 112 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO III LX. Adieu to thee again ! a vain adieu ! There can be no farewell to scene like thine ; The mind is colored by thy every hue, And if reluctantly the eyes resign Their cherished 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 these withal A race of faces happy as the scene, Whose fertile bounties here extend to all, Still springing o'er thy banks, though empires near them fall. But these recede. LXII. 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 Ofcold sublimity, where forms and falls The avalanche - the thunderbolt of snow ! All that expands the spirit, yet appalls, Gather around these summits, as to show How earth may pierce to heaven, yet leave vain man below. CANTO III. CHILDE HAROLD. 113 LXIII. - But ere these matchless heights I dare to scan, There is a spot should not be passed in vain, Morat, the proud, the patriot field, where man May gaze on ghastly trophies of the slain, Nor blush for those who conquered on that plain ! Here Burgundy bequeathed his tombless host, A bony heap, through ages to remain, Themselves their monument ; - the Stygian coast Unsepulchred they roamed, and shrieked each wandering ghost. LXIV. While Waterloo with Canna'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 Ofvice-entailed Corruption ; they no land Doomed 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-bewildered 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, Levelled Aventicum, hath strewed her subject lands. 8 [ 14 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO III. LXVI. And there -O, 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 the 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 cherished than of old, Ere mingling with the herd had penned me in their fold. CANTO III. CHILDE HAROLD. 115 CHILLON . 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 overboil 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 color 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 anchored ne'er shall be. 116 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO III 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, doomed 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, Classed 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 absorbed, 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. CANTO III. CHILDE HAROLD. 117 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, Ofwhich, 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 compared 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 turned 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 ; ' t was a foolish quest, The which to gain and keep he sacrificed all rest. 118 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO III 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 Howto make madness beautiful, and cast O'er erring deeds and thoughts a heavenly hue Of words, like sunbeams, dazzling as they passed 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 enamored, 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, distempered though it seems. LXXIX. This breathed itself to life in Julie, this Invested her with all that's wild and sweet ; This hallowed, too, the memorable kiss Which every morn his fevered lip would greet From hers, who but with friendship his would meet ; But to that gentle touch through brain and breast Flashed the thrilled spirit's love- devouring heat, In that absorbing sigh perchance more blest Than vulgar minds may be with all they seek possessed. CANTO III. CHILDE HAROLD. 119 LXXX. His life was one long war with self- sought foes, Or friends by him self-banished ; for his mind Had grown Suspicion's sanctuary, and chose For its own cruel sacrifice the kind, - 'Gainst whom he raged with fury strange and blind. But he was phrensied, wherefore, who may know? Since cause might be which skill could never find ; But he was phrensied, by disease or woe, To that worst pitch of all, which wears a reasoning show. LXXXI. For then he was inspired, and from him came, As from the Pythian's mystic cave ofyore, Those oracles which set the world in flame, Nor ceased to burn till kingdoms were no more. Did he not this for France, which lay before Bowed to the inborn tyranny of years, Broken and trembling to the yoke she bore, Till by the voice of him and his compeers Roused 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, Breathed 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 refilled, As heretofore, because ambition was self-willed. 120 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO III. LXXXIII. But this will not endure, nor be endured ! Mankind have felt their strength, and made it felt. They might have used it better, but, allured By their new vigor, sternly have they dealt On one another ; Pity ceased to melt With her once natural charities. But they, Who in oppression's darkness caved had dwelt, They were not eagles, nourished with the day ; What marvel then, at times, if they mistook their prey? LXXXIV. What deep wounds ever closed 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 vanquished, bear Silence, but not submission : in his lair Fixed 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 Earth's 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. CANTO IIL CHILDE HAROLD. 121 LXXXVI. It is the hush of night, and all between Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen, Save darkened Jura, whose capped 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.. · I22 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO III. 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 of heaven ! If in your bright leaves we would read the fate Of men and empires, -' t is to be forgiven, That in our aspirations to be great Our destinies 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 themselves 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 Ofstars, to the lulled lake and mountain-coast, All is concentred in a life intense, Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, But hath a part of being, and a sense Ofthat which is of all Creator and defence. " CANTO III. CHILDE HAROLD. 123 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 ; -' t would 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 unwalled temple, there to seek The Spirit in whose honor shrines are weak, Upreared 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 prayer ! XCII. The sky is changed ! - and such a change ! O 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 ! 1 124 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO III. 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 't is black, and now the glee - Ofthe 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 thunderbolts from hand to hand, Flashing and cast around ; of all the band, The brightest through these parted hills hath forked. His lightnings, as if he did understand That in such gaps as desolation worked, There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurked. CANTO III. CHILDE HAROLD. 125 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 Ofyour departing voices is the knoll Of what in me is sleepless, if I rest. But where of ye, O tempests, 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, know, 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. XCVIII. The morn is up again, the dewy morn, With breath all incense and with cheek all bloom , Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn, - And living as if earth contained no tomb, And glowing into day ; we may resume The march of our existence : and thus I, Still on thy shores, fair Leman, may find room And food for meditation, nor pass by Much that may give us pause, if pondered fittingly. 126 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO III. 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 colors caught, And sunset 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 Oftorrents, where he listeneth, to the vines Which slope his green path downward to the shore, Where the bowed 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 ; CANTO III. CHILDE HAROLD. 127 CII. A populous solitude of bees and birds, And fairy-formed and many-colored 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 ' t is 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 ; ' t was the ground Where early Love his Psyche's zone unbound, And hallowed it with loveliness : ' t is 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 reared a throne. 128 CHILDE HAROLD CANTO III. . CV. Lausanne and Ferney, ye have been the abodes Of names which unto you bequeathed 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 assailed , 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, grave, 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 grewfrom fear, And doomed him to the zealot's ready hell, Which answers to all doubts so eloquently well. CANTO III. CHILDE HAROLD. 129 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 allayed ― By slumber, on one pillow, in the dust, Which, thus much we are sure, must lie decayed ; 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. 9 130 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IIL CXI. Thus far have I proceeded in a theme Renewed 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 aughtPassion 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 coloring 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, — remembered or forgot. - CXIII. I have not loved the world, nor the world me ; I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bowed To its idolatries a patient knee, Nor coined 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. CANTO III. CHILDE HAROLD. 131 3 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 wrapped 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, Atoken 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. 132 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO III. 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, -'t were the same, I know that thou wilt love me ; though to drain Myblood 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 tempered, 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 mightst have been to me ! " CANTO 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 : Athousand years their cloudy wings expand Around me, and a dying glory smiles O'er the far times when many a subject land Looked to the winged Lion's marble piles, Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles ! 134 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV. 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 Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers. In purple was she robed, and of her feast Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased. 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 Ofmighty shadows, whose dim forms despond Above the dogeless city's vanished 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 repeopled were the solitary shore. CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD 135 V. The beings of the mind are not of clay ; Essentially immortal, they create And multiply in us a brighter ray And more beloved 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, may be, 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 dreamed of such, - but let them go — They came like truth, and disappeared 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 phantasies unsound, And other voices speak, and other sights surround. 136 CHILDE HAROLD . CANTO IV. 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 loved 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 remembered 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 honored 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 reaped 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. CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 137 XI. The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord ; And, annual marriage now no more renewed, The Bucentaur lies rotting unrestored, Neglected garment of her widowhood ! Saint Mark yet sees his lion where he stood Stand, but in mockery of his withered power, Over the proud Place where an emperor sued, And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour When Venice was a queen with an unequalled 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 loosened from the mountain's belt ; O, for one hour of blind old Dandolo, Th' octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe ! XIII. Before Saint 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 seaweed, into whence she rose ! Better be whelmed beneath the waves, and shun, Even in destruction's depth, her foreign foes, From whom submission wrings an infamous repose. .. 138 CHILDE HAROLD . CANTO IV. XIV.. In youth she was all glory, a new Tyre ; Her very byword sprung from victory, 6 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 shivered. - the long file Of her dead Doges are declined 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 fettered 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 Ofthe o'ermastered victor stops, the reins Fall from his hands, his idle scimitar B Starts from its belt -he rends his captive's chains, And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his strains. CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 139 XVII. Thus, Venice, if no stronger claim were thine, Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot, Thy choral memory ofthe 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 OfVenice 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, Ofjoy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart ; And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakespeare's art, Had stamped her image in me, and even so, Although I found her thus, we did not part ; Perchance even dearer in her day ofwoe, 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 chastened 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 colors caught : There are some feelings Time can not benumb, Nor Torture shake, or mine would now be cold and dumb. 140 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV. /xx. But from their nature will the tannen grow Loftiest on loftiest and least-sheltered 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 In bare and desolated bosoms : mute The camel labors with the heaviest load, And the wolf dies in silence, not bestowed 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 destroyed Even by the sufferer, and in each event Ends. Some, with hope replenished and rebuoyed, Return to whence they came with like intent, And weave their web again ; some, bowed 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 formed to sink or climb. CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 141 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 Atone of music· summer's eve - - or springA 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 renewed, nor can efface The blight and blackening which it leaves behind, Which out of things familiar, undesigned, 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 mourned, 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 Fallen 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, 142 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV. 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 Ofall 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 colors 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 Rolled o'er the peak of the far Rhætian hill, As Day and Night contending were, until Nature reclaimed 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 glassed within it glows, CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 143 J arbitis fand XXIX . Filled 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 color as it gasps away, The last still loveliest, till ' t is gone —and all is gray. - XXX. There is a tomb in Arqua ; reared in air, Pillared 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 ' t is 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 strain Than if a pyramid formed his monumental fane. 144 CHILLILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV. 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 decayed In the deep umbrage of a green hill's shade, Which shows a distant prospect far away Ofbusy cities, now in vain displayed, For they can lure no further ; and the ray Ofa 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 morality. If from society we learn to live, 'Tis solitude should teach us how to die ; It hath no flatterers ; No hollow aid ; alone --vanity can give Iman 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. CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 145 FERRARA. XXXV. Ferrara, in thy wide and grass-grown streets, Whose symmetry was not for solitude , There seems as ' t were 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, and was of yore Patron or tyrant, as the changing mood Ofpetty power impelled, of those who wore The wreath which Dante's brow alone had worn before. ΙΟ 146 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV. XXXVI. And Tasso is their glory and their shame. Hark to his strain, and then survey his cell ! And see how dearly earned 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. Scattered the clouds away ― Glory without end - 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 Ofthy 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, formed 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 furrowed 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 ! CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 147 XXXIX. Peace to Torquato's injured shade ! ' t was his In life and death to be the mark where Wrong Aimed with her poisoned arrows, but to miss. O victor unsurpassed 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 scattered rays, they would not form a sun. XL. Great as thou art, yet paralleled 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 called 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 mimicked leaves ; Nor was the ominous element unjust, For the true laurel-wreath which Glory weaves Is ofthe 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. 148 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV. XLII. Italia ! O 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 ploughed by shame, And annals graved in characters of flame. O 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 mightst thou more appall ; or, less desired, Be homely and be peaceful, undeplored For thy destructive charms ; then, still untired, Would not be seen the armed torrents poured Down the deep Alps ; nor would the hostile horde Of many-nationed spoilers from the Po Quaffblood and water, nor the stranger's sword Be thy sad weapon of defence, and so, Victor or vanquished, 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 : 2) CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 149 XLV. For Time hath not rebuilt them, but upreared Barbaric dwellings on their shattered site, Which only make more mourned and more endeared The few last rays of their far- scattered light, And the crushed relics of their vanished 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 perished states he mourned 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, repentant of her parricide, Shall yet redeem thee, and, all backward driven, Roll the barbarian tide, and sue to be forgiven. 150 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV. 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, redeemed to a 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 idolaters 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 Chained to the chariot of triumphal Art, We stand as captives, and would not depart. Away ! there need 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. CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 151 LI. Appearedst 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 vanquished 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, " Showered 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. 152 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV. 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 returned to whence it rose. LV. These are four minds, which, like the elements, Might furnish forth creation. - Italy ! Time, which hath wronged thee with ten thousand rents Of thine imperial 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 to-day. LVI. But where repose the all-Etruscan three Dante, and Petrarch, and, scarce less than they, The Bard of Prose, creative spirit, he Ofthe Hundred Tales of love -- where did they lay Their bones, distinguished 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 ? CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 153 DANTE. ! 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 for evermore 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 bequeathed His dust, - and lies it not her great among, With many a sweet and solemn requiem breathed O'er him who formed the Tuscan's siren tongue, 154 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV. e 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, honored sleeps The immortal exile ; -Arqua, too, her store Oftuneful relics proudly claims and keeps, While Florence vainly begs her banished dead and weeps. LX. What is her pyramid of precious stones, Of porphyry, jasper, agate, and all hues Ofgem 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 pressed 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 ; CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 155 For I have been accustomed 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 ofanother 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 and the shore, Where Courage falls in her despairing files, And torrents, swoln to rivers with their gore, Reek through the sultry plain, with legions scattered o'er, • LXIII. Like to a forest felled by mountain winds ; And such the storm of battle on this day, And such the phrensy, whose convulsion blinds To all save carnage, that, beneath the fray, An earthquake reeled 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 no time to mark The motions of their vessel ; Nature's law, 156 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV. In them suspended, recked 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 turned the unwilling waters red. LXVI. But thou, Clitumnus, in thy sweetest wave Ofthe 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 CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 157 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 scattered water-lily sails Down where 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, ' t is 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 Ofweary life a moment lave it clean With Nature's baptism, — ' t is to him ye must Pay orisons for this suspension of disgust. The roar of waters ! LXIX. 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 ofjet That gird 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, 158 CHILDE HAROLD . CANTO IV. FALLS OF TERNI. 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, yield 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 flow 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, CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 159 LXXII. X 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 worshipped 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 ofthe spot, as ' t were for fame, For still they soared unutterably high : I've looked 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, displayed Not now in snow, which asks the lyric Roman's aid 1.60 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV 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 abhorred Too much, to conquer for the poet's sake, The drilled dull lesson, forced down word by word In my repugnant youth, with pleasure to record LXXVI. Aught that recalls the daily drug which turned My sickening memory ; and, though Time hath taught My mind to meditate what then it learned, Yet such the fixed 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 Iffree 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 touched heart, Yet fare thee well- upon Soracte's ridge we part. CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 161 LXXVIII. O 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 a day - Aworld 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 withered hands, Whose holy dust was scattered 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-hilled city's pride ; She saw her glories star by star expire, And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride, Where the car climbed 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? II 162 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV. LXXXI. The double night of ages, and of her, Night's daughter, Ignorance, hath wrapped and wrap All round us ; we but feel our way to err : The ocean hath his chart, the 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 clearWhen but some false mirage of 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 rolled on Fortune's wheel, Triumphant Sylla ! Thou who didst subdue Thy country's foes ere thou would pause to feel The wrath ofthy 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 CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 163 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 arrayed Her warriors but to conquer— she who veiled Earth with her haughty shadow, and displayed, Until the o'er-canopied horizon failed, Her rushing wings -O, she who was Almighty hailed ! LXXXV. Sylla was first of victors, but our own The sagest of usurpers, Cromwell ; he Too swept off senates while he hewed 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 crowned him, on the selfsame day Deposed him gently from his throne offorce, And laid him with the earth's preceding clay. And showed 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 ! 164 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV. 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 sucked from thy wild teat, Scorched by the Roman Jove's ethereal dart, And thy limbs black with lightning- dost thou yet Guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget? LXXXIX. Thou dost ; but all thy foster-babes are dead - The men of iron ; and the world hath reared Cities from out their sepulchres : men bled In imitation of the things they feared, - And fought and conquered, and the same course steered, At apish distance ; but as yet none have, Nor could the same supremacy have neared, Save one vain man, who is not in the grave, But, vanquished by himself, to his own slaves a slave — CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 165 XC. The fool of false dominion- and a kind Ofbastard Cæsar, following him of old With steps unequal ; for the Roman's mind. Was modelled in a less terrestrial mould, With passions fiercer, yet a judgment cold, And an immortal instinct which redeemed The frailties of a heart so soft yet bold, Alcides with the distaff now he seemed At Cleopatra's feet, - and now himself he beamed, XCI. And came and saw - and conquered ! But the man Who would have tamed his eagles down to flee, Like a trained falcon, in the Gallic van, Which he, in sooth, long led to victory, With a deaf heart which never seemed to be A listener to itself, was strangely framed ; With but one weakest weakness vanity, Coquettish in ambition, still he aimedAt what ? can he avouch, or answer what he claimed ? – XCII. And would be all or nothing--nor could wait For the sure grave to level him ; few years Had fixed 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 flowed, An universal deluge, which appears Without an ark for wretched man's abode, And ebbs but to reflow ! - Renew thy rainbow, God ! 166 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV. 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 weighed 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 allowed, Averred, and known, and daily, hourly seen — The yoke that is upon us doubly bowed, And the intent of tyranny avowed, 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. CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 167 XCVI. Can tyrants but by tyrants conquered be, And Freedom find no champion and no child Such as Columbia saw arise when she Sprung forth a Pallas, armed and undefiled ? Or must such minds be nourished 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 and 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, Chopped 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 bitter fruit bring forth. 168 CHILDE HAROLD CANTO IV. . TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA. 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'erthrown ; What was this tower of strength ? within its cave What treasure lay so locked, so hid ? -A woman's grave. / CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 169 C. But who was she, the lady of the dead, Tombed 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 the heir? How lived -- how loved --- how died she? Was she not So honored 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 ofjoy 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, bowed With woes far heavier than the ponderous tomb That weighed 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 favorites - 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. 4 170 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV. 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 seat 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 shattered 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 foundered 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. CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 171 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 massed together, hillocks heaped On what were chambers, arch crushed, column strown In fragments, choked-up vaults, and frescos steeped In subterranean damps, where the owl peeped, Deeming it midnight : -temples, baths, or halls ? Pronounce who can ; for all that Learning reaped From her research hath been, that these are walls Behold the Imperial Mount ! ' t is 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, - 't is better written here, Where gorgeous Tyranny had thus amassed All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear, Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask-awaywith words ! draw near, 172 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV. CIX . Admire, exult, despise, laugh, weep, There is such matter for all feeling. Hand - for here 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 filled ! 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-'t is that ofTime : 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 contained A spirit which with these would find a home, The last of those who o'er the whole earth reigned, The Roman globe, for after none sustained, But yielded back his conquests : -he was more Than a mere Alexander, and, unstained With household blood and wine, serenely wore His sovereign virtues still we Trajan's name adore. CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 173 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 Athousand years of silenced factions sleepThe Forum, where the immortal accents glow, And still the eloquent air breathes - burns with Cicero ! CXIII. The field offreedom, 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 failed ; But long before had Freedom's face been veiled, And Anarchy assumed her attributes, Till every lawless soldier who assailed 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 withered trunk puts forth a leaf, Even for thy tomb a garland let it be - The forum's champion, and the people's chiefHer new-born Numa thou —with reign, alas ! too brief. 174 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV. 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 Ofthy 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, Prisoned in marble ; bubbling from the base Ofthe 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, Kissed by the breath of heaven, seems colored by its skies. CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 175 CXVIII. Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover, Egeria, thy all-heavenly bosom beating For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover ! The purple Midnight veiled that mystic meeting With her most starry canopy, and seating Thyselfby thine adorer, what befel ? This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting Of an enamored 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 odors breathe but agonies, And trees whose gums are poison ; 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. 176 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV CXXI. O 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 unquenched soul parched, wearied, wrung, and riven. CXXII. Ofits own beauty is the mind diseased, And fevers into false creation. Where, Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seized ? 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 unreached 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 —' t is youth's phrensy — 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 oft- sown winds ; The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun, Seems ever near the prize, — wealthiest when most undone. CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 177 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 cursed. Love, fame, ambition, avarice ' t is the same, -― - Each idle, and all ill, and none the worst - For all are meteors with a different name, - And death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame. FewCXXV. 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, Envenomed 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 't is 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. 12 178 CHILDE HAROLD . CANTO IV. CXXVII. Yet let us ponder boldly — ' t is 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 chained and tortured - cabined, cribbed, confined, And bred in darkness, lest the truth should shine Too brightly on the unprepared 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 ' t were 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 ruined battlement, For which the palace of the present hour Must yield its pomp and wait till ages are its dower, CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 179 IN THE COLISEUM. CXXX. 1 O 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 : 180 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV. CXXXI. Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a shrine And temple more divinely desolate, Among thy mightier offerings here are mine, Ruins ofyears 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 longThou 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 incurred For my ancestral faults or mine the wound I bleed withal, and, had it been conferred With a just weapon, it had flowed 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 Ihave not taken for the sake - But let that pass —I sleep, but thou shalt yet awake. CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD 181 . CXXXIV. And if my voice break forth, 't is not that now I shrink from what is suffered : 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 notHear me, my mother Earth ! behold it, Heaven ! Have I not had to wrestle with my lot? Have I not suffered things to be forgiven ? Have I not had my brain seared, my heart riven, Hopes sapped, 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 sigh, Deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy ? 182 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV. 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 remembered tone of a mute lyre, Shall on their softened 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 ofthe 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 murmured pity or loud- roared applause, As man was slaughtered by his fellow- man. And wherefore slaughtered ? 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. - CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 183 CXL. I see before me the Gladiator lie : He leans upon his hand - his manly brow Consents to death, but conquers agony, And his drooped head sinks gradually lowAnd 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 hailed the wretch who won. CXLI. He his eyes heard it, but he heeded not Were with his heart, and that was far away ; He recked not of the life he lost nor prize, But where his rude hut by the Danube lay There were his young barbarians all at play, There was their Dacian mother — he, their sire, Butchered to make a Roman holiday · All this rushed 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 roared or murmured 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 crushed walls bowed And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud. L ― 184 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV. CXLIII. A ruin yet what ruin ! from its mass Walls, palaces, half- cities, have been reared ; Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass, And marvel where the spoil could have appeared. Hath it indeed been plundered, or but cleared ? Alas ! developed, opens the decay, When the colossal fabric's form is neared : 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 —' t is 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 unaltered all ; Rome and her Ruin past Redemption's skill, The World, the same wide den — of thieves, or what ye will. CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 185 CXLVI. Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublimeShrine 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 ! Despoiled 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 honored 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 shadowed 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 ? 186 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV. 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 Ofhealth 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 P sparkle distant worlds. O 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. CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 187 CLII. Turn to the Mole which Hadrian reared on high, Imperial mimic of old Egypt's piles, Colossal copyist of deformity, Whose travelled phantasy from the far Nile's Enormous model doomed the artist's toils To build for giants, and for his vain earth , His shrunken ashes, raise this dome. How smiles The gazer's eye with philosophic mirth, To view the huge design which sprung from such a birth ! But lo ! the dome - CLIII. - the vast and wondrous dome, To which Diana's marvel was a cellChrist's mighty shrine above his martyr's tomb ! I have beheld the Ephesian's miracleIts 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 surveyed Its sanctuary the while the usurping Moslem prayed ; CLIV. But thou, of temples old or altars new, Standest alone, with nothing like to theeWorthiest 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 honor piled, Of a sublimer aspect? Majesty, Power, Glory, Strength, and Beauty, all are aisled In this eternal ark of worship undefiled. 188 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV. CLV. Enter : its grandeur overwhelms thee not ; And why? it is not lessened ; but thy mind, Expanded by the genius of the spot, Has grown colossal, and can only find Afit 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 harmonize · All musical in its immensities ; Rich marbles -richer painting The lamps of gold — shrines where flame and haughty dome which vies 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, CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 189 ST. PETER'S. 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. 190 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV CLIX. Then pause, and be enlightened ; there is more In such a survey than the sating gaze Ofwonder 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 Laocoon'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 envenomed 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 lightThe Sun in human limbs arrayed, 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 one glance the Deity. CANTO IV. Childe HAROLD. 191 CLXII. But in his delicate form a dream of Love, Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose breast Longed for a deathless lover from above, And maddened in that vision - are expressed All that ideal beauty ever blessed The mind with in its most unearthly mood, When each conception was a heavenly guestAray of immortality - and stood, Starlike, around, until they gathered 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 arrayed With an eternal glory which, if made By human hands, is not of human thought ; And Time himself hath hallowed it, nor laid One ringlet in the dust nor hath it caught - A tinge of years, but breathes the flame with which ' t was 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 classed With forms which live and suffer -let that pass His shadow fades away into Destruction's mass, — 192 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV. 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 glowed, Till Glory's self is twilight, and displays A melancholy halo scarce allowed 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, O happier thought ! can we be made the same : It is enough in sooth that once we bore These fardels of the heart www 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 gulfis thick with phantoms, but the chief Seems royal still, though with her head discrowned, And pale, but lovely, with maternal grief She clasps a babe, to whom her breast yields no relief. CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 193 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 hushed that pang for ever ; with thee fled The present happiness and promised joy Which filled the imperial isles so full it seemed to cloy. CLXIX. Peasants bring forth in safety. - Can it be, O 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 poured 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-haired Daughter of the Isles is laid, The love of millions ! How we did entrust Futurity to her ! and, though it must Darken above our bones, yet fondly deemed Our children should obey her child, and blessed Her and her hoped- for seed, whose promise seemed Like stars to shepherds' eyes . -'t was but a meteor beamed. 13 194 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV. 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 rung Its knell in princely ears, till the o'erstung Nations have armed 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 linked the electric chain of that despair, Whose shock was as an earthquake's and oppressed The land which loved thee so that none could love thee best. CLXXIII. Lo ! Nemi, navelled 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 cherished hate, its surface wears A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake, All coiled into itself and round, as sleeps the snake. CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 195 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 tilled, the weary bard's delight. But I forget. CLXXV. 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 followed on till the dark Euxine rolled 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 gladdened by the sun, And reap from earth, sea, joy almost as dear As if there were no man to trouble what is clear. 196 CHILDE HAROLD CANTO IV. . "From the Alban Mount. " CLXXVII. O,2 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 ennobling 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 ? CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 197 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 Ashadow 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, unknelled, uncoffined, 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. 198 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV. CLXXXI. The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake And monarchs tremble in their capitals, The oak leviathans, 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 washed 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' playTime 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 Ofthe Invisible ; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made ; each zone Obeys thee ; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. CANTO IV. CHILDE HAROLD. 199 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 wantoned with thy breakers- they to me Were a delight ; and if the freshening sea Made them a terror, ' t was 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. My task is done - CLXXXV. - my song hath ceased.- my theme Has died into an echo ; it is fit 200 CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV. The spell should break of this protracted dream . The torch shall be extinguished 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. ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THE NOTES. Cf. (confer) , compare. D., Dr. James Darmesteter's ed. of Childe Harold ( Paris, 1882) . F. Q., Spenser's Faërie Queene. Fol. , following. Id. (idem) , the same. P. L., Milton's Paradise Lost. P. R., Milton's Paradise Regained. New Eng. Dict. , the Philological Society's New English Dictionary, edited by J. A. H. Murray ( Oxford, 1885). Skeat, Rev. W. W. Skeat's Concise Etymological Dictionary ( Harper's ed. , 1882) .. T., Mr. H. F. Tozer's ed. of Childe Harold ( Oxford, 1885). The abbreviations of the names of Shakespeare's plays will be readily understood. The line-numbers are those of the " Globe " edition . The cross-references to Childe Harold are to canto, stanza, and line ; but in refer ring to another part of the same canto, only the stanza and line are given. NOTES. THE COAST OF ALBANIA. INTRODUCTION. IN June, 1809, Byron, then just come of age (he was born Jan. 22, 1788), left England for a foreign tour with his college friend Hobhouse, afterwards Lord Broughton. Landing at Lisbon early in July, they rode into Spain, and by way of Seville and Cadiz to Gibraltar, whence they proceeded by sea to Malta and Albania. After a visit to Ali Pasha, they went on through Epirus and Acarnania to Missolonghi (where, fifteen years later, Byron returned to die) , and thence to Patros and Vostizza, on approaching which town, the snowy peak of Parnas- sus, towering on the other side of the Gulf, first broke on his eyes ; and, two days after, among the sacred hollows of Delphi, the stanzas with 204 NOTES. which that vision had inspired him were written " (Moore). Having visited Delphi and Thebes, the travellers turned towards Athens, where they arrived on Christmas-day, 1809. After a ten weeks' stay in the ancient city, they left on the 5th of March, 1810, for Smyrna, where, on the 28th of the month, Byron finished the second canto of Childe Harold. The poem had been begun at Yanina, in Albania, on the 31st of October. In April the poet and his friend went from Smyrna to the Troad, and thence to Constantinople. There they parted, Hobhouse going home to England, while Byron remained abroad a year longer, the greater part of which was spent in Athens. In July, 1811 , he was once more in his native land, but it was not until the next February that the two cantos of Childe Harold were given to the world. The author had not intended to publish them ; but, believing satire to be his forte, was going to bring out his Hints from Horace as "a good finish to the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers." He submitted the Hints to his friend Dallas, who was grievously disappointed when he came to examine it, and expressed some surprise that his friend should have produced noth- ing else during his absence from England. "Upon this,"to quote what Dallas himself says, " Lord Byron told me that he had occasionally written short poems, besides a great many stanzas in Spenser's meas ure, relative to the countries he had visited. They are not worth troubling you with, but you shall have them all with you, if you like.' So came I by Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. He took it from a small trunk, with a number of verses. He said they had been read but by one person, who had found very little to commend and much to condemn ; that he himself was of that opinion, and he was sure I should be so too. Such as it was, however, it was at my service ; but he was urgent that the Hints from Horace should be immediately put in train, which I promised to have done." • Dallas was quick to discern the merit of the " stanzas in Spenser's measure," and wrote to Byron that very evening as follows : " You have written one of the most delightful poems I ever read. I have been so fascinated with Childe Harold that I have not been able to lay it down. I would almost pledge my life on its advancing the reputation of your poetical powers, and on its gaining you great honor and regard, " etc. It was some time, however, before Byron could make up his mind to allow the poem to be published, in place of the inferior satire he was so eager to put in print ; and when at last he yielded to his friend's impor- tunities, it was with no little anxiety as to the reception the Childe might meet with in the world. The poem was first offered to Mr. Miller of Albemarle Street, who, being the publisher of Lord Elgin, declined it on account of the severity of its strictures upon that nobleman for carrying off the sculptures of the Parthenon. It was fortunate that Mr. Murray, to whom the poem was next offered, accepted it promptly ; for, had there been any further difficulty in obtaining a publisher, Byron would probably have relapsed into his original intention of withholding it from the press. INTRODUCTION. 205 66 When it appeared at last, its success was immediate and extraordi- nary. As Byron himself expressed it in his memoranda, " I awoke one morning and found myself famous. " The first edition was disposed of instantly, and Childe Harold and its author were the talk of the town. The leading men of the day came thronging to congratulate him, some of them persons whom he had much wronged in his satire, but who now forgot their resentment in generous admiration. " A fifth edition of that satire (the English Bards, etc. ) was about to be issued, but Byron ordered the publisher to commit the whole impression to the flames. The Hints from Horace was also suppressed, and never saw the light until after the death of the author. Four years later, in April, 1816, Byron quitted England never to return. He went first to Brussels, where, after a visit to the field of Waterloo, he wrote the first two stanzas of the portion of Childe Harold referring to the battle, and then travelled by way of the Rhine to Switzerland. There he settled down on the shores of Lake Leman, not far from Geneva. The third canto of Childe Harold was begun in May, finished by the end of June, and sent to Murray for publication. In the autumn, having been rejoined by Hobhouse, the two made a tour in the Bernese Alps, and then passed into Italy. The main part of the fourth canto was written at Venice in the summer of 1817, after a visit to Ferrara, Florence, Rome, and other places of historic or poetic interest. On the 20th of July he had written to Murray, saying that it was " completed, " and consisted of “ 126 stanzas." On the 4th of September he referred to it as having " 144 stanzas, " and again on the 17th as one hundred and fifty stanzas. " By the 15th of November it " has expanded to one hundred and sixty-seven stanzas," to which seventeen more were added before it was finally sent to Murray in January, 1818, and two in April as it was going through the press. 66 The titlepage of the first two cantos of Childe Harold, as published in 1812, bears the following motto : " L'univers est une espèce de livre, dont on n'a lu que la première page quand on n'a vu que son pays. J'en ai feuilleté un assez grand nombre, que j'ai trouvé également mauvaises. Cet examen ne m'a point été infructueux . Je haïssais ma patrie. Toutes les impertinences des peuples divers, parmi lesquels j'ai vécu, m'ont réconcilié avec elle. Quand je n'aurais tiré d'autre bénéfice de mes voyages que celui-là, je n'en regretterais ni les frais ni les fatigues.” —Le Cosmopolite.¹ abroad. 66 1 Le Cosmopolite, ou le Citoyen du Monde, by F. de Monbron, who died in 1760. In a letter to Dallas, Sept. 23 , 1811 , Byron says : The Cosmopolite was an acquisition It is an amusing volume, and full of French flippancy. " Full ofbitterest irony, he might better have said. Monbron travelled through Europe only, as he says, ' d'avoir appris à haïr par raison ce qu'il haïssait par instinct. " Like Byron's hero, he was "un être isolé au milieu des vivants " His book was a favorite with Byron, and, as Dr. Darmesteter remarks, its influence is to be seen in his Don Juan: "C'est le même cadre, la même philosophie, souvent le même ton, quelquefois les mêmes incidents. " 206 NOTES. The preface to the volume was as follows : - "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 obser- vations 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. "Afictitious character 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 opinions 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 appellation ' Childe,' as ' Childe Waters,' Childe Childers,' etc., 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.'1 Strengthened in my opinion by such authority, and by the example of some in the high- est 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.2 " LONDON, February, 1812." Beattie's Letter to Blacklock, Sept. 22, 1776, in Sir W. Forbes's Life of Beattie, vol. i. p. 89. 2 The poems referred to are Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, Thomson's Castle of Indo- lence, and Beattie's Minstrel. INTRODUCTION. 207 The following " Addition to the Preface " appeared in a later edition : "I have now waited till almost all our periodical journals have dis- tributed their usual portion of criticism. To the justice of the gener ality 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. 69.1 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 cour- tesy or gentleness. See Roland 2 on the same subject with SaintePalaye. Whatever other objection may be urged to that most unami- able 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 Tristrem and Sir Lancelot were no better than they should be, although very poetical personages and true knights ' sans peur,' though not ' sans réproche. If the story of the institution of the ' Garter ' be not a fable, the knights of that order have for several cen- turies borne the badge of a Countess of Salisbury, of indifferent mem- ory. 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. "Before the days of Bayard, and down to those of Sir Joseph Banks 4 (the most chaste and celebrated of ancient and modern times) , few ex- ceptions will be found to this statement ; and I fear a little investiga- tion will teach us not to regret these monstrous mummeries of the middle ages. "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 1 Mémoires sur l'Ancienne Chevalerie, Paris, 1781 . 2 Recherches sur les prérogatives des dames chez Gaulois, sur les cours d'amour, etc. , by Rolland d' Erceville, 1788 (D.). 3 Quoted from The Rovers, or the Double Arrangement, a parody of the sentimen- tal drama of Schiller and the Germans, by Canning and Frere, published in the Anti- Jacobin, 1797. 4 "The eminent naturalist. The banter here refers to the admiration which Sir Joseph Banks's person excited in the females of Otaheite during Cook's first voyage in 1769 (T.). 208 NOTES. more and express less ; but he never was intended as an example, fur- ther 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, ¹ perhaps a poetical Zeluco.2 “ LONDON, 1813." The third canto was published without a preface, but with the follow- ing motto on the titlepage : " Afin que cette application vous forçât de penser à autre chose ; il n'y a en vérité de remède que celui- la et le temps.” —Lettre du roi de Prusse à d'Alembert ( Sept. 7, 1776).8 The first edition of the fourth canto had the motto : "Visto ho Toscana, Lombardia, Romagna, Quel Monte che divide, e quel che serra Italia, e un mare e l'altro, che la bagna." ARIOSTO, Satira iii.4 It was also prefaced with the following epistle : "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 advan- tages 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 - I Timon of Athens, " the typical misanthrope of antiquity. " See Shakespeare's play. "The hero of Dr. Moore's romance with that title. He is represented as being ruined and rendered miserable by the consequences of want of restraint in youth, not- withstanding numerous advantages of nature and fortune. The author was father of Sir John Moore, who died at Corunna " (T.). 3 In the original, the sentence begins thus : " Je voudrais fort qu'on vous proposât quelque problème bien difficile à résoudre, afin que cette application," etc. D'Alembert had just lost Mlle. de Lespinasse (D.). 4 I have seen Tuscany, Lombardy, and the Romagna, the mountain-range that divides Italy and that which hems her in, and the one and the other sea that bathes her. Ariosto adds, "Questo mi basta, " and that suffices me. INTRODUCTION. 209 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 bythe record of many years' intimacy with a man of learning, of talent, of steadiness, and of honour. It is not for minds like ours to give or to receive flattery ; yet the praises of sincer- ity have ever been permitted to the voice 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, ¹ 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 recol- lection for both, inasmuch as it will remind us of this my attempt to thank you for an indefatigable regard, such as few men have experi- enced, and no one could experience without thinking better of his species and of himself. - "It has been our 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 to us 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 a pardonable vanity which induces me to reflect with com- placency 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 imme- diate 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 ofthe World, whom nobody would believe to be a 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 I His marriage is meant. 14 210 NOTES. no resources in his own mind beyond the reputation, transient or per manent, 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 atten- tion and impartiality which would induce us -though perhaps no inat- tentive observers, nor ignorant of the language or customs of the people amongst whom we have recently abode . to distrust, or at 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'antico valore, in tutte essa dovrebbe essere la prima.'¹ Italy has great names still, Canova, Monti, Ugo Fos- colo, Pindemonte, Visconti, Morelli, Cicognara, Albrizzi, Mezzophanti, Mai, Mustoxidi, Alglietti, and Vacca,2 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.' 3 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 ad- missible, their capabilities, the facility of their acquisitions, the rapidity of their conceptions, the fire of their genius, their sense of beauty, and, I It seems to me that, in a country wholly poetic, which boasts a language at once the noblest and the sweetest, all the different ways can be tried, and that since the land of Alfieri and of Monti has not lost her ancient worth, in all she ought to be the first. 2 Canova, the sculptor ; Monti, Ugo Foscolo, Pindemonte, poets ; Visconti, Aglietti , Cicognara, archæologists ; Morelli, bibliographer; Mai, Mezzophanti, philologists ; Madame d'Albrizzi, critic ( Byron calls her "the Staël of Italy ") ; and Vacca, physician. Mustoxidi was a Greek archæologist who wrote in Italian. 3 The human plant grows in Italy more robust than in any other land, and even the atrocious crimes committed there are a proof ofit. 4 The word had been used by Shakespeare in Hamlet, iv. 4. 38 : "That capability and godlike reason," etc. D. cites Shelley, preface to Prometheus Unbound (1819) : "The mass of capabilities remains at every period materially the same, " etc. DEDICATION. 211 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 our- selves, in riding round the walls of Rome, heard the simple lament of the labourers' chorus, Roma ! Roma ! Roma ! Roma non è più come era prima,' ¹ it was difficult not to contrast this melancholy dirge with the bacchanal roar of the songs of exultation still yelled from the Lon- don taverns over the carnage of Mont St. Jean, and the betrayal of Genoa, of Italy, of France, and of the world, by men whose conduct you yourself have exposed in a work 2 worthy of the better days of our history. For me, " Non movero mai corda Ove la turba di sue ciance assorda.' 3 "What Italy has gained by the late transfer of nations, it were use- less 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. 66 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. " " DEDICATION. THIS dedication was not in the first edition, but was written late in the year 1812. Ianthe was Lady Charlotte Harley, second daughter of the Earl of Oxford. Byron was so much impressed by her beauty that he had her portrait made by Westall for the illustrated edition of Childe Harold. The engraving on p. 10 is copied from that picture. I. 1. Those climes, etc. Spain and Turkey. Straying. A " double rhyme. " As T. notes, there is no instance of this in the first two cantos, though it is not uncommon in the others. "The poet seems at first to have intentionally avoided it as undignified , and only to have admitted it in this place owing to the playful character of the Dedication." II. Only Superfluous after but. 2. Unbeseem. Fail to beseem, or become ; belie. 4. Without his wing. Alluding to a French proverb often quoted by Byron, L'amitié est l'amour sans ailes ( Friendship is love without wings), and the title of one of his poems. One of his first pieces, Childish Rome! Rome! Rome ! Rome is no longer what she was. 2 Letters written by an Englishman during the last Reign ofNapoleon, 1816. 8 I will never touch the lyre where the rabble deafens me with its fooleries. 212 NOTES. Recollections, ends with this verse, ' And love, without his pinion, smiled on youth (D.) . Cf. also 82. 6 below. " "" 8. The rainbow. For the rainbow as the emblem of hope, cf. iv. 72. 3, and 169. 7. The Persian fairy. Byron was now twenty-four, Ianthe less than III. I. Peri. 2. My years, etc. eleven. IV. 2, 3. Now brightly bold, etc. D. compares Pope, Essay on Crit. ii. 40: " Correctly bold, and regularly low ; " and Id. i. 198 : “ Glows while he reads, but trembles as he writes." V. 1. Such is thy name, etc. Such a pure lily is thy name entwined in the garland of my verse. 2. Kinder. The comparative used absolutely, 3. Ianthe's. That is, her name. somewhat kind. CANTO FIRST. I. I. O thou, etc. This invocation to the Muse, after the ancient fashion, was not in the original draft of the poem, the stanza having been inserted after Byron's return to England. Hellas. The old native name of Greece. 3. Since shamed. Since thou hast been dishonored. 4. Thysacred hill. Parnassus. Cf. stanza 9 below. 5. I've wandered, etc. This would prove the stanza to have been written after the poem was begun in Albania, for at that time he had not seen Parnassus or the vaunted rill of Castalia, which flows from the side of the mountain near Delphi. Vaunted is opposed to feeble, just below. 6. Shrine. The famous temple of Apollo at Delphi. 8. Mote. Must ; an archaic form, properly present as here (must being the original preterite of it ), but also used by Spenser and others as past. Cf. F. Q. iv. 7. 42 : "His owne deare Lord Prince Arthure came that way, Seeking adventures where he mote [ that is, might] heare tell." Byron seems to have tired of these archaisms as he went on. They occur frequently in the opening stanzas, but soon begin to disappear. In the second canto there are very few of them, and in the third and fourth almost none: Shell. The lyre is often so called, because, according to the old myth, Hermes (Mercury) first made it from the shell of a tortoise. The weary Nine. The Muses, weary with listening to modern poetry, the later lyres just mentioned. II. 1. Whilome. sore, etc., below. Formerly, once an archaism, like ne (not) , wight, 4. The drowsy ear of Night. Some editors read "the drowsy ear of night " in King John, iii. 3. 39, where the original text has drowsy race. " CANTO FIRST. 213 5. Sooth. Trath ; as in soothsayer ( teller of hidden truth) . Cf. Shakespeare, Henry V. iii. 6. 151 : " to say the sooth ; " Macb. v. 5. 40 : " if thy speech be sooth, " etc. 6. Sore. Sorely, grievously ; often used in the Bible, but only with verbs and adjectives of feeling or suffering. Cf. sore sick in 6. I below. 7. Few earthly things, etc. The MS. reading was "He cheered the bad and did the good affright With concubines," etc. 9. Flaunting wassailers. "Gay boon-companions " ( T. ) . Cf. Milton, Comus, 179: Of such late wassailers," etc. III. 1. Childe. Identical with child, and the title given to the son of a knight before he was in turn received into the order. For the ballad of Childe Waters, to which Byron refers in his preface, see Percy's Reliques. For Childe Harold here the original draft of the . poem has " Childe Burun, " the early form of Byron. Hight. Called. Cf. Spenser, F. Q. i. 9. 32 : “ I, that hight Trevisan ; " Shakespeare, M. N. D. v. 1. 140 : " This grisly beast, which lion hight by name," etc. In Old English the verb is both transitive and intran- sitive. 5. Losel. Loose fellow, prodigal. Cf. Spenser, F. Q. ii. 3. 4 : “ The whyles a losell wandring by the way ; " Id. vi. 5. 10 : " that vile lozell which her late offended, " etc. 7. From coffined clay. That is, from ancestral records or histories. IV. I. Basked him. This reflexive use of the personal pronoun is common in poetry. Cf. Shakespeare, A. Y. L. ii. 7. 15.: "Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun, " etc. 3, 4. Nor deemed, etc. these lines. V. 3. Loved but one. The metaphor of the insect is continued in Alluding to the poet's early passion for Miss Chaworth. D. quotes his Stanzas to a Lady on Leaving England: "And I must from this land be gone, Because I cannot love but one. " 8. Togild his waste. To supply the means for his prodigality. VI. I. Sore. See on 2. 6 above. 4. Ee. Old English and Scotch for eye. D. compares Scott, Lay, i . 9 : "And burning pride and high disdain Forbade the rising tear to flow. " 5. Apart he stalked, etc. The MS. reads : " And straight he fell into a reverie. " 7. Scorching climes. When Byron left England he intended to visit India. Cf. II. 9 below. VII. 1. His father's hall. Newstead Abbey, to which, as D. remarks, Byron refers with affection in his first poem ( On Leaving New stead Abbey) as in his last (Don Juan, xiii . 55. 73). 3. Only not. All but, almost. Cf. ii. 86. 8 below. 4. Yet strength was pillar'd, etc. still stood strong. Yet the pillars of its massive aisles

214 NOTES. 7. Paphian girls. Votaries of Venus, who was called the Paphian goddess from Paphos in the Island of Cyprus, one of her favorite haunts. Cf. 66. 1 below. 8. Agen. An old spelling of again. VIII. 9. Mote. See on 1. 8 above, and cf. 11. 7 below. IX. 1. Hall and bower. The words are often thus associated in the ballads and other poetry of the olden time. The hall was the great public room of the mansion, while bower meant a bed-chamber or any room except the hall, often the lady's boudoir or apartments. Cf. 55. 4 and 84. 7 below. 5. Lemans. ― Mistresses. The word was originally both masculine and feminine. Cf. Shakespeare, Merry Wives, iv. 2. 172 : “ his wife's leman" (that is, paramour) , etc. 7. Eros. The Greek Cupid. Fere =companion, consort. Cf. Spenser, F. Q. iv. 3. 52 : "And Cambel tooke Cambina to his fere," etc. X. 2. Though parting, etc. Byron left England without going to take leave of his mother or his sister Augusta. 4. Begun. Began ; as in iii . 115. I. etc. 6. Yet deem, etc. The MS. has " Yet deem him not from this with breast of steel." 9. Fondly. Foolishly ; the original sense of the word. Cf. Shakespeare, K. John, ii. 1. 258 : " But if you fondly pass [ foolishly reject] our proffer'd offer," etc. See also the adjective in 41. 5 below. XI. I. His house, etc. The MS. reads : "His house, his home, his vassals , and his lands , The Dalilahs in whom," etc. 9. Paynim. Pagan. In 34. 8 below, it is applied to the Moors, as often. Earth's central line. The Equator. See on 6. 7 above. In a letter to Dallas, Sept. 7, 1811 , Byron says : " Your objection to the expression ' central line I can only meet by saying that, before Childe Harold left England, it was his full intention to traverse Persia and return by India, which he could not have done without passing the equinoctial." XII. 4. Circumambient. T. says, " This hardly means more than washing round the shores." Is not the circumambient foam rather that of the surrounding sea, into which the white rocks (the chalk cliffs of the English shore ) seem at last to disappear ? The wind was light, but sufficient to produce " white caps " on the water. XIII. 9. "Good Night." The Scotch ballad, referred to in the pref- ace (see p. 206 above) begins thus : 66' Adieu, madame, my mother dear, But and my sisters three ! Adieu, fair Robert of Orchardstane ! My heart is wae for thee. Adieu, the lily and the rose, The primrose fair to see ! Adieu, my lady, and only joy! For I may not stay with thee. " The little page of the song was Robert Rushton, the son of one of Byron's tenants. "Robert I take with me," says the poet in a letter CANTO FIRST. 215 to his mother; " I like him because, like myself, he seems a friendless animal." But, seeing that the boy continued to be "sorrowful in mind at the separation from his parents, Byron, on reaching Gibraltar, sent him back to England in the care of his old servant, Joe Murray. The staunch yeoman was William Fletcher, the faithful valet of Byron, who followed him in all his travels, and after a service of twenty years (" during which," he says, " my Lord was more to me than a father ") was with the dying poet at Missolonghi, and accompanied his remains to their final resting- place in England. Originally the page and yeoman were introduced by the following stanzas : "And of his train there was a henchman page, A peasant boy, who served his master well ; And often would his pranksome prate engage Childe Harold's ear, when his proud heart did swell With sable thoughts that he disdained to tell. Then would he smile on him, and Alwin smiled, When aught that from his young lips archly fell The gloomy film from Harold's eye beguiled, And pleased for a glimpse appeared the woful Childe. " Him and one yeoman only did he take To travel eastward to a far countrie ; And though the boy was grieved to leave the lake On whose fair banks he grew from infancy, Eftsoons his little heart beat merrily With hope offoreign nations to behold, And many things right marvellous to see, Ofwhich our vaunting voyagers oft have told In many a tome as true as Mandeville's of old. " After the 5th stanza of the song the MS. has the following : " My mother is a high-born dame, And much misliketh me ; She saith my riot bringeth shame On all my ancestry : I had a sister once, I ween, Whose tears perhaps will flow ; But her fair face I have not seen For three long years and moe. ' 29 England was then at war with France, which will explain the refer- ence to a Frenchfoeman in the 6th stanza. The bordering lake is the same to which the poet refers in the Epistle to Augusta: " I did remind thee of our own dear Lake By the old Hall which may be mine no more. ' It is thus described in Don Juan, xiii . 57 : "Before the mansion lay a lucid lake, Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed By a river, which its softened way did take In currents through the calmer water spread Around the wild fowl nestled in the brake And sedges, brooding in their liquid bed ; The woods sloped downwards to its brink, and stood With their green faces fixed upon the flood." 216 NOTES. The second quatrain of the 7th stanza, and the first of the 8th, read thus in the MS.: "Enough, enough, my yeoman good, All this is well to say ; But, if I in thy sandals stood, I'd laugh to get away. "For who would trust a paramour, Or e'en a wedded fere, Though her blue eyes were streaming o'er, And torn her yellow hair ? " The feeling expressed in the latter part of the 8th stanza is in keep- ing with what Byron wrote to his mother, June 22, 1809 : " The world is all before me, and I leave England without regret, and without a wish to revisit any thing it contains, except yourself." Three days later, he wrote to his friend Hodgson : " I leave England without re- gret, and I shall return to it without pleasure. I am like Adam, the first convict sentenced to transportation, but I have no Eve, and have eaten no apple but what was sour as a crab." Dallas appears to have urged Byron to alter or suppress the 9th stanza, for in a letter to him (Sept. 23, 1811 ) the poet says : "I do not mean to exchange the ninth verse of the ' Good Night.' I have no reason to suppose my dog better than his brother brutes, mankind ; and Argus we know to be a fable." He thought better of the dog at least three years earlier ( November, 1808) , when he wrote the epitaph on his favorite Boatswain : " Near this spot Are deposited the Remains of one Who possessed Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, Courage without Ferocity, And all the Virtues of Man without his Vices.” The following was suppressed between stanzas 9 and 10: "Methinks it would my bosom glad To change my proud estate, And be again a laughing lad With one beloved playmate. Since youth I scarce have passed an hour Without disgust or pain, Except sometimes in lady's bower, Or when the bowl I drain." XIV. 2. Sleepless bay. proverbially tempestuous. A " troubled sea that cannot rest, " being 3. The fifth. Byron sailed from Falmouth on the 2d of July, 1809, and landed at Lisbon on the 7th. 5. Cintra's mountain, etc. "As Cintra is northward of Lisbon, on the ground which intervenes between the estuary of the Tagus and the sea, its hills are visible before Lisbon is approached (T.). "" 7. His fabled golden tribute. Referring to the ancient belief that the Tagus was a gold-bearing stream. D. quotes Ovid, Amores, i. 15 : CANTO FIRST. 217 "C Tagus aurifer ; " and Pliny, Nat. Hist. iv. 35. 3 : " Tagus auriferis arenis celebratur." 8. Lusian. Portuguese ; from Lusitania, the classical name of the country. XV. 1. O Christ, etc. T. notes the repetition of the line with slight variations in 40. I below, and also in ii . 72. 4. 3. Fruits offragrance. Fragrant fruits. Cf. iv. 73.9 below : der-hills of fear." Thun4. Goodly. The repetition of the adjective so soon appears to be an oversight. 8. Urge. Follow, pursue. 9. Gaul's locust host, etc. The MS. has, " These Lusian brutes, and earth from worst of wretches purge." Portugal was invaded by the troops of Napoleon in November, 1807. XVI. 1. Lisboa. Dallas objected to the name, but Byron replied ( Sept. 23, 1811) : " Lisboa is the Portuguese word, consequently the very best." 3. Which poets, etc. The MS. reads : " Which poets, prone to lie, have paved with gold." 4. A thousand keels. The synecdoche is a classical one. Cf. Virgil, En. ii. 198 : "mille carinae. " 5. Since Albion was allied. " During the summer of 1808, Sir Arthur Wellesley ( Wellington) landed on the coast of Portugal with 10,000 men, and shortly afterwards defeated the French in the battle of Vimiera. He was superseded, however, by the Home Government, and his successor in the chief command, Sir Hew Dalrymple, signed a conven- tion greatly to the advantage of the French, by which Junot was enabled safely to evacuate Portugal at the moment when his army was threat- ened with annihilation. The most humiliating point in the agreement was the provision that the French_troops should be conveyed to the coast of France at the expense of England and in British vessels, and should be landed there without any stipulation that they should not immediately serve again. This convention has been wrongly called the ' Convention of Cintra,' in consequence of Dalrymple's despatches on that subject being dated from Cintra ; for the scene of the negotiations was at some distance from that place. Then followed the retreat of Sir John Moore, who had penetrated too far into Spain, and his death at Corunna, after he had succeeded in embarking his troops. Shortly after this Sir Arthur Wellesley was finally appointed general- in- chief, and during the spring of 1809 he drove the French out of Portugal, which they had once more invaded under Soult's command. It was in the summer of that year that Byron's visit occurred ; and while he was riding with Hobhouse from Lisbon to Seville the important battle of Talavera was fought " (T.). XVII. 2. Sheening. Shining. Sheen is common in early writers and in poetry as noun (cf. 29. 7 below) and adjective, but we have met with no other instance of the verb. 4. Unsightly to strange ee. The MS. has " that grieve both nose and ee. For ee, see on 6. 4 above. " 218 NOTES. 5. Like. For the adverbial use, cf. Henry V. ii. 2. 183 : " Shall be to you, as us, like glorious," etc. 9. Shent. Disgraced, shamed ; participle of the old verb shend. Cf. Spenser, F. Q. i . I. 53 : "Herfawning love with foule disdainefull spight He would not shend ; " And Id. ii. I. II : " How may it be, ' sayd then the knight, halfe wroth, "That knight should knighthood ever so have shent?' " For Egypt's plague, see Gen. viii . 16 fol. XVIII. 3. Cintra's glorious Eden. Byron wrote to his mother : "To make amends for the filthiness of Lisbon, and its still filthier inhabitants, the village of Cintra, about fifteen miles from the capital, is, perhaps in every respect, the most delightful in Europe ; it contains beauties of every description, natural and artificial . Palaces and gardens rising in the midst of rocks, cataracts, and precipices ; convents on stupendous heights ; a distant view of the sea and the Tagus." 8. The bard. Dante, in his description of Paradise. XIX. I. Horrid. As T. remarks, the word here combines the two meanings of " awe-inspiring " and " rough, " like the Latin horridus. For the latter sense, cf. Spenser, F. Q. i . 7. 31 : " His haughtie Helmet, horrid all with gold." For the convent, see the next stanza. 2. Shaggy. Rough, rugged. Cf. ii . 67. 2 and iv. 73. 4 below. 6. The orange tints, etc. Referring to the orange-trees laden with fruit. XX. I. Then slowly climb, etc. "Observe the skill with which, after the description, the reader is made present at the scene, and shares the increasing impression of its beauty " ( T.) . 4. Our Lady's House ofWoe. "The convent of Our Lady of Pun- ishment,' as Byron called it in a note to the 1st ed.; but in the 2d ed. he explained that he had mistranslated Nossa Señora de Peña, erly "Our Lady of the Rock, " -from confounding peña, rock, with pena, punishment. - - prop- " 8. Deep in yon cave, etc. "Below, at some distance, is the Cork Convent, where St. Honorius dug his den, over which is his epitaph (Byron). He died here in 1596. This is an error : 9. Making earth a hell. That is, by his penance. XXI. 4. Memorials frail of murderous wrath. the crosses merely mark the winding way to the convent. 5. Hath. As T. notes, it is bad to end a line with an auxiliary or other word closely connected with the beginning of the next. Cf. 23. 7 and 24. 5 below. 9. Purple. Bloody. In a note Byron refers to the frequent assassi- nations in Lisbon and its vicinity in 1809. Englishmen were sometimes the victims, and on one occasion he and a friend came near being added to the list. " Had we not fortunately been armed, " he says, " I have not the least doubt that we should have adorned a tale instead of telling one." CANTO FIRST. 219 XXII. 2. Domes, etc. The buildings of a royal palace, then de- serted. The Prince's palace, mentioned just below, was that of the Prince Regent, who became King in 1816. 6. Vathek. William Beckford ( 1760-1844) , the author of the Orien- tal romance Vathek ( 1787 ), bought a palace at Cintra, where he resided for two years. Vathek was a book which Byron says he " had a very early admiration of. ” 7. Formed. The proper construction would be formedst. Cf. iv. 83. 7 and iv. 132. 2 below. 8. When wanton Wealth, etc. The MS. reads : "When Wealth and Taste their worst and best have done, Meek Peace pollution's lure voluptuous still must shun. " Byron afterwards, in reply to some criticism on this allusion to Beck- ford, said : " I only wish to adduce an example of wasted wealth, and the reflection which arose in surveying the most desolate mansion in the most beautiful spot I ever beheld. " 66 XXIII. 3. Unblest by man. Regarded by men as ill-omened " (T.) . 4. As lone as thou. Referring to the secluded life Beckford led at Fonthill Abbey, his English residence. 8. Pleasaunces. Pleasures, or objects affording pleasure ( Fr. plai- sance). Cf. Spenser, F. Q. ii . 12. 50 : " Strowed with pleasauns ; " Shep. Kal. Feb.: " Puffed up with pryde and vaine pleasaunce," etc. 99 XXIV. 1. The hall, etc. Byron says in a note that " The Convention of Cintra was signed in the palace of the Marchese Marialva ; ' but the negotiations were begun and finished some thirty miles from there. See on 16. 5 above. 3. Hight. See on 3. I above. Lo! afiend, etc. The satirical element in this passage is unsuited to the rest of the poem, and would not have been admitted into the later cantos. The Convention aroused a feeling of deep indignation in Eng- land, which the poet here echoes. The Demon of the Convention is an elaborate personification in the style of Spenser. In prose the Fiend may be described as Diplomacy, which fools its victims ( " foolscap diadem ' ) and parades its insignia of parchment documents, and elabor- ate signatures " (T.). 9. Urchin. Elf, demon. Cf. Milton, Comus, 845 : "Helping all urchin blasts, and ill-lucked signs That the shrewd meddling elf delights to make. " See also Shakespeare, Merry Wives, iv. 4. 49 : " Like urchins, ouphes, and fairies," etc. After this stanza the MS. had the following : " In golden characters right well designed, First on the list appeareth one ' Junot ;' Then certain other glorious names we find, Which rhyme compelleth me to place below: 220 NOTES. Dull victors ! baffled by a vanquished foe, Wheedled by conynge¹ tongues of laurels due, Stand, worthy of each other, in a row- Sir Arthur, Harry, and the dizzard Hew Dalrymple, seely wight, sore dupe of tother tew. " XXV. 5. Here folly, etc. Instead of the remainder of this stanza, the MS. reading was as follows : "For well I wot, when first the news did come That Vimiera's field by Gaul was lost, For paragraph ne paper scarce had room, Such pæans teemed for our triumphant host In Courier, Chronicle, and eke in Morning Post. "But when Convention sent his handy-work, Pens, tongues, feet, hands, combined in wild uproar ; Mayor, aldermen, laid down the uplifted fork ; The Bench of Bishops half forgot to snore ; Stern Cobbett, who for one whole week forbore To question aught, once more with transport leapt, And bit his devilish quill agen, and swore With foe such treaty never should be kept, 2 Then burst the blatant beast, and roared, and raged, and — slept ! "Thus unto Heaven appealed the people : Heaven, Which loves the lieges of our gracious king, Decreed that, ere our generals were forgiven, Inquiry should be held about the thing. But Mercy cloaked the babes beneath her wing ; And as they spared our babes, so spared we them; (Where was the pity of our sires for Byng?) 3 Yet knaves, not idiots, should the law condemn ; Then live, ye gallant knights ! and bless your Judges' phlegm ." XXVI. 9. Where Scorn herfinger points, etc. "Afixed figure for the time of scorn Cf. Othello, iv. 2. 53° To point his slow unmoving finger at ! " XXVII. 5. To moralize. As he had just been doing with reference to the Convention. 7. Conscious. That is, conscious of past errors. XXVIII. I. To horse! Writing to Hodgson, Aug. 6, 1809, Byron says : "We left Lisbon, and travelled on horseback to Seville and Cadiz. . . . The horses are excellent ; we rode seventy miles a day. " 3. Rouses. For the reflexive use, cf. Macbeth, iii. 2. 53 : night's black agents to their prays do rouse." "Whiles 1 Conynge cunning ; dizzard = dizzy ; seely silly ; tew =two. Sir Arthur Wellesley, Sir Henry Burrard, and Sir Hew Dalrymple were the three English signers of the convention. 2 "Blatant beast —a figure for the mob, I think first used by Smollett in his Adven- tures ofan Atom. Horace has the ' bellua multorum capitum : ' in England, fortuna- tely enough, the illustrious mobility have not even one (Byron). " 3 "For Byng. By this query it is not meant that our foolish generals should have been shot, but that Byng might have been spared, though the one suffered, and the others escaped, probably for Candide's reason, pour encourager les autres ' (Byron). CANTO FIRST. 221 66 7. Changing scenes must roll. Apparently a confusion of metaphors between years rolling over a man (as a tide) and scenes passing before him (T.) . "" XXIX. 1. Mafra. "Near this place [ Cintra] , about ten miles to the right, is the palace of Mafra, the boast of Portugal, as it might be of any other country, in point of magnificence without elegance " ( By- ron). It was erected in 1730 by John V. in fulfilment of a vow to con- vert the poorest monastery in his kingdom into the most splendid. 2. The Lusians' luckless queen. Maria Francesca, who became in- sane in 1792. At the time of the French invasion she was taken to Brazil, where she died in 1816. Freres. Friars ( Fr. frère) . Fry, like lordlings, is contemptuous. The Babylonian whore. The Romish Church, supposed to be re ferred to in Rev. xvii. 5. 7. Sheen. Brilliancy ; a pet word with Byron. See on 17. 2 above. XXX. 3. Foyaunce. Joy ; an archaism, like pleasaunce in 23. 8 above. Cf. Spencer, F. Q. iii . 12. 18 : " She chearfull, fresh, and full of joyaunce glad," etc. XXXI. 1. More bleak to view, etc. and at length are left behind " ( T. ) . "The hills became more bleak, For recede, cf. ii . 54. I below. 4. Withouten. Without ; an old form. Cf. F. Q. v. 12. 39 : “ with- outen dread," etc. 7. Pastor's. Shepherd's ; the original sense . 8. Unyieldingfoes. The French. XXXII. 1. Lusitania. See on 14. 8 above. Her Sister is Spain. 3. Orere. Before. The or is the A. S. ær ( our ere) , which appears in early English in the forms er, air, ar, ear, or, eror. For or == before, cf. Chaucer, Knightes Tale, 1685 : “ Cleer was the day, as I have told or this," etc. Ere seems to have been added to or for emphasis when the meaning of the latter was dying out. Some take or ere to be a corruption of or e'er. Or ever is, indeed, not unfrequently found (see Eccles. xii. 6, Prov. viii . 23, Dan. vi. 24, for instance) ; but, as Dr. Abbott remarks ( Shakes. Gr. § 131 ) , it is much more likely that ever should be substituted for ere than ere for ever. 4. Tayo. The Tagus ; the Spanish form of the name. 6. Vasty. Vast ; as in Shakespeare, M. of V. ii . 7. 41 : " The vasty wilds of wide Arabia," etc. The MS. reads : " Or Art's vain fence, like China's vasty wall." 9. The rocks, etc. The Pyrenees. XXXIII. 1. A silver streamlet. The Rivillas, a small branch of the Guadiana, forming the boundary only for a short distance, between Badajoz and Elvas, where Byron passed into Spain. The Sierras guard the frontier for most of its extent. 9. The lowest ofthe low. In a note Byron gives the Portuguese credit for having afterwards proved good soldiers in the Peninsular War. XXXIV. 1. But ere, etc. The MS. reads : "But ere the bounds of Spain have far been passed, For ever famed in many a noted song," etc. 222 NOTES. 4. Ancient roundelays. The old Spanish ballads. 7. Here ceased, etc. A reminiscence of Eccles. ix. II : "the rage is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.' "" 8. Paynim. See on 11. 9 above. The reference is to the wars of the Moors and Christians in the Middle Ages. XXXV. 2. Pelagio. The Spanish hero, Pelayo, who first turned the tide of conquest against the Moors. "When his countrymen were driven back into the mountains of the Asturias in the far north of Spain, he sallied from the Cave of Covadonga with 300 followers in the year 718, and routed the invaders, whom he forced to retire from that part of the country. His standard was an oaken cross, which is still shown at Oviedo. The history of these events is related in verse in Southey's Roderic" (T.). 3. Cava's traitor-sire. Count Julian, who, in revenge for the outrage done his daughter, Cava or Florinda, by King Roderick, invited the Moors to invade Spain, which they did in 711 . 4. Gothicgore. The Goths were then the rulers of Spain. 8. Red gleamed the cross. The red cross was the special emblem of Christianity. Cf. F. Q. i. 2. 1 : "And on his brest a bloudie crosse he bore, The deare remembrance of his dying Lord." "Pale is applied to the crescent, partly as an epithet of the moon, partly because it is usually gilt in Mahometan countries " ( T. ) . Cf. ii . 38. 8 below. date = 66 XXXVI. 2. Amplestfate. The utmost that is allotted to him. 4. A peasant's plaint. A mournful ballad or popular ditty. For duration ( here of fame) , cf. Shakespeare, Sonn. 18. 4 : "And summer's lease hath all too short a date ; " Id. 38. 12 : Eternal numbers to outlive long date, " etc. XXXVII. 3. Thirsty. That is , for blood. 4. Her crimson plumage. son wing." 5. Now onthe smoke, etc. 66 Cf. Gray, Bard, i. 1. 3 : Conquest's crimReferring to the introduction of gunpowder into warfare. D. aptly quotes Scott, Don Roderick, xxvi. : " For War a new and dreadful language spoke, Never by ancient warrior heard or known ; Lightning and smoke her breath, and thunder was her tone. " 9. On Andalusia's shore. In the wars with the Moors. XXXVIII. 4. Nor saved, etc. And, seeing, did ye not save, etc. 6. Bale-fires. Properly beacon-fires , signal-fires ; as in Scott, Lay of Last Minstrel, iv. 1 : "Sweet Teviot ! on thy silver tide The glaring bale-fires blaze no more ; " but here used for the blaze of musketry. From rock to rock, etc. The MS. reads : "from rock to rock Blue columns soar aloft in sulphurous wreath, Fragments on fragments in confusion knock, " etc. CANTO FIRST. 223 8. Siroc. A contraction of sirocco, here = hot fumes of gunpowder. XXXIX. 1. The Giant. " This personification of battle is the most elaborate in the poem " (T.) . 8. On this morn, etc. Referring to the battle of Talavera ( cf. 41, 8 below), which began on the 26th of July, 1809, and lasted three days. The threepotent nations were England, Spain, and France. 9. To shed before his shrine, etc. D. quotes Shakespeare, 1 Henry IV. iv. 1. 113 : "They come like sacrifices in their trim, And to the fire- eyed maid ofsmoky war All hot and bleeding will we offer them ; Then mailed Mars shall on his altar sit Up to the ears in blood." XL. 5. War-hounds. The soldiers, eager for the fight. Cf. Henry V. iii. I. 31: "I see you stand, like greyhounds in the slips , Straining upon the start. The game's afoot : Follow your spirit, " etc. XLI. 3. Flout the pale blue skies. Cf. Macbeth, i. 2. 51 : “ Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky. " 5. The foe, the victim. France and Spain. For fond = foolish, cf. F. Q. i. 9. 39 : "Most envious man, that grieves at neighbours good ; And fond, that joyest in the woe thou hast ! " See also on 10. 9 above. XLII. 1. There shall they rot, etc. The MS. reads : "There let them rot : while rhymers tell the fools How honour decks the turf that wraps their clay ! Liars, avaunt ! " Cf. Collins, Ode (" How sleep the brave," etc. ) : "There Honour comes, a pilgrim gray, To bless the turf that wraps their clay." 9. Save that, etc. D. compares Richard II. iii . 2. 152 : " And nothing can we call our own but death, And that small model of the barren earth Which serves as paste and cover to our bones. " XLIII. O Albuera, etc. This stanza was not in the original MS. , but was written at Newstead in August, 1811 , soon after the battle of Albuera, which was fought May 15, 1811. 2. Pricked. Spurred; used both transitively and intransitively. Cf. F. Q. i. 1. 1: " A gentle knight was pricking on the plaine," etc. XLIV. 1. Minions. The word ( Fr. mignon) originally meant dar- lings, favorites . Cf. Macbeth, i. 2. 19 : " Like valour's minion ; " Tem- pest, iv. 1. 98 : " Mars's hot minion," etc. Afterwards it came to be used contemptuously. 3. Scarce. "Highly ironical " (T. ) ; as the whole passage is. 224 NOTES . XLV. 2. Unsubdued. The French did not enter Seville until Feb 1, 1810 six months after Byron was there. - 5. Domes. A pet word with the poet. 8. Ilion. Troy. XLVI. 5. Rebeck. "A kind of fiddle with only two strings, played on by a bow, said to have been brought by the Moors into Spain (By- ron) . Cf. Milton, L'Allegro, 94 : "And the jocund rebecks sound," etc. 9. Kind. Ironical ; with perhaps the added idea that ' vice mitigated suffering " (T.). XLVII. 1. Mate. Wife. 5. Eve's consenting star. Venus, the star of love. 6. Fandango. A lively Spanish dance, accompanied by castanets ; here personified. XLVIII. 5. Viva el Rey! Long live the King ! that is, King Fer- dinand. 6. Godoy. Prime minister of the weak Charles IV. , and the queen's paramour. 7. Wittol. A willing cuckold. Cf. Shakespeare, Merry Wives, ii. 2. 313: "cuckold ! wittol-cuckold ! the devil himself hath not such a name." XLIX. 1. Yon long level plain, etc. Andalusia, the last province of Spain that the Moors retained, and still the richest in monuments of their art. 7. The dragon's nest. L. 2. The badge, etc. in the centre " (Byron) . The heights occupied by the enemy. "The red cockade with Fernando Septimo' 7. And sorely, etc. "It would be the worse for the French invaders if assassination were a match for fighting in the field ” ( T. ) . LI. 1. Morena's dusky height. The Sierra Morena ; the latter word meaning dusky. The name, however, is really derived from the Latin Mons Marianus. 9. The ball-piled pyramid. "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 " (Byron) . LII. 1. He whose nod, etc. Napoleon. 5. Through these. That is, the defences just described. " LIV. 1. The Spanish maid. "The Maid of Saragoza, who by her valor 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 command of the Junta (Byron). Her name was Augustina, and her exploits are recorded at length in Southey's History of the Peninsular War. At the time when she first attracted notice by mounting a battery where her lover had fallen, and working a gun in his place, she was in her twenty- second year and as beautiful as brave. 3. Anlace. "A short two-edged knife or dagger, broad at the hilt and tapering to the point, formerly worn at the girdle. " The word was "obsolete before 1500, is erroneously defined in early Dicts. , and used loosely by modern poets " ( New Eng. Dict. ) . CANTO FIRST. 225 9. Minerva's step. As goddess of war. LV. 4. Lady's bower. See on 9. 1 above. 8. Danger's Gorgonface. head turned every one who LVI. 5. A lover's ghost. "That petrifies the beholder, as Medusa's looked at it to stone " (T. ). D. quotes Macbeth, v. 7. 15 : "If thou be'st slain, and with no stroke of mine, My wife and children's ghosts will haunt me still." 7. What maid retrieve, etc. the fortune of the day, etc. LVII. 5. Tenderfierceness. For the oxymoron, or " juxtaposition of apparently contradictory notions, " cf. 65. 8 and 85. 8 below ; also ii. 47. 5, iv. 16. 6, etc. That is, what maid can like her retrieve 8. Remoterfemales, etc. English women are of course meant. 9. Perchance. A touch of irony. LVIII. 1. The seal, etc. Byron quotes from " Aulus Gellius," though, according to Nonius, it is from Varro's Saturæ: "Sigilla in mento impressa Amoris digitulo Vestigio demonstrant mollitudinem." 4. Bid man be valiant, etc. D. quotes Dryden, Alexander's Feast: " None but the brave deserve the fair. " 6. To spoil her cheek. That is, by sunburning. 7. His amorous clutch. Cf. Shakespeare, A. and C. i. 5. 28 : Phoebus' amorous pinches black. " "with LIX. 2. The land, etc. This stanza was written in Turkey, “ far distant" from Spain. 4. Beauties, etc. The MS. has " Beauties that need not fear a broken vow. " 5. Houries. Nymphs of the Mohammedan Paradise . To taste the gale, etc. " A splendidly poetical expression for ' to walk abroad for fear of suitors '"' (T. ) . 66 LX. I. Othou Parnassus, etc. Byron says that " these stanzas were written in Castri ( Delphos, at the foot of Parnassus) ; " but the mountain cannot be seen soaring snow-clad " from that place. Cf. what Moore says (p. 203 above) of the poet's first view of Parnassus, and the composition of this passage on his arrival at Delphi two days later. Byron wrote thus in his diary in 1821 : " Upon Parnassus, going to the fountain of Delphi ( Castri ) in 1809, I saw a flight of twelve eagles (Hobhouse says they were vultures at least in conversation ) , and I seized the omen. On the day before I composed the lines to Parnassus (in Childe Harold) , and, on beholding the birds, had a hope that Apollo had accepted my homage. I have at least had the name and fame of a poet during the poetical period of life ( from twenty to thirty) ; whether it will last is another matter : but I have been a votary of the deity and the place, and am grateful for what he has done in my behalf, leaving the future in his hands, as I left the past." LXII. 5. His grot. The cavern of the Pythian Apollo at Delphi. 9. Yon melodious wave. The streamlet of Castalia. Cf. 1. 5 above. The MS. has " And walks with glassy steps o'er Aganippe's wave. " 15 226 NOTES. LXIII. 8. Daphne's deathless plant. The laurel into which Daphne, pursued by Apollo, was transformed. For a graceful English version of the story T. refers to Wordsworth's Russian Fugitive, Part III.; and we may remind young readers that a humorous one is to be found in the opening verses of Lowell's Fable for Critics. In the MS. this line reads, " Some glorious thought to my petition grant. " LXIV. 4. With more than mortalfire. Cf. Virgil, Æn. vi. 50 : “ Nec mortale sonans.' "" 8. Ah! that to these, etc. Referring to the war in Spain. LXV. 2. Site ofancient days. "Seville was the Hispalis of the Romans " (Byron) . 7. Thefascination, etc. The MS. has " The lurking lures of thy en- chanting gaze." 8. A cherub-hydra. See on 57. 5 above ; and cf. Shakespeare, R. and F. iii. 2. 75 : LXVI. "Beautiful tyrant ! fiend angelical ! Dove-feather'd raven ! wolvish-ravening lamb ! Despised substance of divinest show ! Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st, Adamned saint, an honourable villain ! " 1. Paphos. 4. Her native sea. foam of the sea. 6. Walls of white. See on 7. 7 above. Referring to the story that she sprang from the Cf. 71. 2 below. More than one traveller has re- ferred to the striking contrast of the white buildings of the city and the blue sea from which they seem to rise. 7. Dome. See on 45. 5 above. LXVII. 1. From morn till night, etc. A reminiscence of Milton, P. L. i. 742 : be - "from morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve." 5. Kibes. The word means chilblains, but Byron seems to take it to heels. He may have had in mind the passage in Hamlet, v. I. 150 : "The age is grown so picked that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heel of the courtier, he galls his kibe." 8. Monkish incense, etc. The MS. reads : "monkish temples share The hours misspent, and all in turn is love and prayer. " Line 6 probably ended with " repair " in the MS. (with " They bid " for He bids) , but the reading is not noted in any ed. that we have seen. LXVIII. 1. The Sabbath comes, etc. To show how religion and revelry go hand in hand in Cadiz, the poet describes the observance of Sunday there, and this introduces the episode of the bull-fight, which is briefly sketched here, and elaborately depicted further on, after a sati- rical description of an English Sunday " ( T. ) . LXIX. 1. The seventh day this. Byron confounds the Christian Sunday with the Jewish Sabbath, which was the seventh day of the week. CANTO FIRST. 227 " but on sec- He wrote to Dallas, Aug. 21 , 1811 : " Perhaps the two stanzas of a buffooning cast on London's Sunday are as well left out ; ond thought he decided to retain them. T. says that " he half repented of publishing " them, and cites this letter, apparently supposing it to have been written after the poem was printed. 5. Coach of hackney. Hackney- coach. The first ed. prints " Hack- ney," as if this use of the word were connected with the London borough so called ; but see Wb. or Skeat. The whiskey was a light two-wheeled vehicle. Chair:- chaise. 7. Hampstead, Brentford, Harrow. All suburban towns, the first now almost absorbed in the growing metropolis. Harrow is familiar as the seat of the school where Byron was a student in his youth. 8. Hurl. Whirl, drive ; a Scotch use of the verb. See Jamieson's Dict.; and cf. Burns, To : "If on a beastie I can speel Or hurl in a cartie. " 9. Provoking, etc. The MS. has, “ And droughty then alights, and roars for Roman purl." LXX. 1. Thamis. A form of the name Thames. 3. Richmond-hill. A favorite resort on the banks of the Thames, nine miles from London. Ware is twenty-one miles north of the city. The steep ofHighgate is Highgate Hill , near Hampstead. 5. Baotian shades. "This was written at Thebes, and consequently in the best place 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 (Byron). The famous riddle of the Sphinx is meant. "" 6. The worship, etc. The allusion is to a ridiculous custom which formerly prevailed at the public- houses in Highgate of administering a burlesque oath to the traveller who stopped there. He was sworn upon a pair of horns " never to kiss the maid when he could the mistress, never to eat brown bread when he could get white, never to drink small beer when he could get strong, " and the like ; to all which was added, " unless you like it best. " LXXI. 7. Her beadsmen. Those who pray to her. The term was properly applied to persons hired to offer prayers for another. Cf. Shakespeare, T. G. of V. i . 1. 18 : "Commend thy grievance to my holy prayers, For I will be thy beadsman, Valentine. " See also Henry V. iv. 1. 315 : "Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay, Who twice a day their wither'd hands hold up Toward heaven, to pardon blood. " LXXII. 1. The lists are oped, etc. "The bull-ring is in shape like a Roman amphitheatre, with tiers of seats rising all round the central The men who take part in the fight are divided into three classes, the chulos or ordinary footmen, the picadors or horsemen, and the area. 228 NOTES. 1 matador. The function of the chulos is to attract the bull's attention from a fallen picador by waving bright handkerchiefs, and to stick barbed darts into the animal's shoulders ( his arms a dart,' 74. 7) . The picadors are armed with a lance, and their legs are padded and sheathed to pro- tect them against the bull's horns. The matador, who is the final and most skilled combatant, is the ' slayer ' of the bull (matador from matar, ' to kill ' ) ; this he accomplishes by standing before it in single combat, and when a favorable opportunity presents itself, flinging his cloak over its head, and plunging his sword between its shoulder-blades. Before the bull enters, the actors make obeisance to the official who presides on the occasion ( ' lowly bending,' 73. 4) . At the conclusion, the car- case of the dead bull is dragged out by a number of gaily decorated mules. It will be seen that Byron has not distinguished between the two classes who fight on foot, for he calls them all by the name of 'Matadores.' "The whole passage is very fine, the scene being idealised through- out, and the brutality veiled by felicitous diction ( see especially 77. 6, 7). Observe how in successive stanzas (76, 77, 78) our sympathy is enlisted, first for the picador, next for the horse, finally, and most of all, for the bull. Note also the dramatic turn given by the sudden address to the picador in 76. 3 " ( T.) . 4. Lated. Belated. Cf. Macbeth, iii. 3. 6 : the lated traveller, " etc. LXXIII. 3. Cavaliers. The picadors described above. 5. Featly. Dexterously. Cf. Shakespeare, W. T. iv. 4. 176 : “ She dances featly. " 7. Crowd's ... ladies'. The 1st ed. misprints " crowds ... ladies. " LXXIV. 1. Sheen. See on 17. 2 above. LXXV. 1. The signalfalls. The flag is dropped. 2. Expands. Is thrown open. LXXVI. 5. Croupe. In a MS. note Byron says : particular leap taught in the manège. " Cf. Wb. "The croupe is a LXXVII. 6. Unseamed. Ripped open. Cf. Macbeth, i. 2. 22 : “ Till he unseam'd him from the nave to the chaps, " etc. LXXVIII. 3. Brast. An archaic form for burst. Cf. F. Q. i. 5. 31 : "But dreadfull Furies, which their chaines have brast ; " Id. iii. 7. 40 (of a lance) : 8. Conynge. " But, glauncing on the tempred metall, brast In thousand shivers, " etc. Cunning, in the original sense of skilful. Cf. Gen. xxv. 27, I Sam. xvi. 16, etc. See also p. 220, foot-note, above. LXXIX. 7. The corse is piled, etc. The MS. has the two variations, "The trophy corse is reared disgusting prize," and " The corse is reared - sparkling the chariot flies." 9. Hurl. Cf. 69. 8 above. LXXX. 9. Whence. On account of which. LXXXI. 2. Duenna. A kind of personification of the custom. Cf. Fandango in 47. 6 above. 9. While on the gay dance, etc. T. quotes Horace, Od. i. 4. 5 : “ Jam Cytherea choros ducit Venus, imminente luna." CANTO FIRST. 229 LXXXII. 4. For not yet, etc. That is, he had not yet forgotten his early passion for Miss Chaworth. 6. Love has no gift, etc. That is, a transient passion is the happiest, since the joy is likely to be soon mingled with bitterness. For the fig- ure, cf. the Dedication, 2. 4 above. 8. Fullfrom thefount, etc. The MS. reads : " Full from the heart of Joy's delicious springs Some bitter bubbles up, and e'en on roses stings. " Byron in a note quotes from Lucretius : "Medio de fonte leporum Surgit amari aliquid quod in ipsis floribus angat." LXXXIV. 7. Beauty's bower. See on 9. I above, and cf. 55. 4. 9. This unpremeditated lay. Cf. Scott, Lay ofLast Minstrel, introd.: " No longer courted and caressed He poured to lord and lady gay The unpremeditated lay. ” " The ex- The Song to Inez was written at Athens, Jan. 25, 1810. treme simplicity of its style is in keeping with its melancholy tone ; it has few metaphors or epithets, and alliteration is almost absent. In these points it forms a marked contrast to the ' Good Night ' song ' (T. ) . In the 5th stanza thefabled Hebrew wanderer is the Wandering Jew. The first line of the 6th stanza is a translation of Horace, Od. ii. 16. 19 : "Patriae quis exsul Se quoque fugit ? " The MS. reading of the last three lines of the same stanza was : " To other zones, howe'er remote, Still, still pursuing clings to me The blight of life--the demon Thought. " In place of the Song, the first draught of the canto had seven lively eight- line stanzas, of which the first may serve as a sample : 66' O, never talk again to me Ofnorthern climes and British ladies ! It has not been your lot to see, Like me, the lovely girl of Cadiz. Although her eyes be not of blue, Nor fair her locks, like English lasses, How far its own expressive hue The languid azure eye surpasses ! " LXXXV. 4. To be free. That is, to remain free, to refuse to sub- mit to foreign power. 66 7. A traitor only, etc. Alluding to the conduct and death of So- lano, the governor of Cadiz, in May, 1809 " ( Byron). When ordered by the provisional government at Seville to attack a French squadron which had taken refuge in the harbor of Cadiz, he refused and was killed by the people. This was in May, 1808, not 1809. 230 NOTES. 8. All were noble, etc For the oxymoron, cf. 57. 5 and 65, 8 above. LXXXVI. 3. A kingless people. Ferdinand VII. had been deposed by Napoleon, who placed his own brother Joseph on the throne. 9. War even to the knife. " War to the knife,' was Palafox's answer to the French general at the siege of Saragoza " (Byron) . As T. states, it was George Ibort, the other leader on that occasion, who made this answer. LXXXVII. I. Ye who would, etc. In the original MS. the canto closed with the following stanzas : "Ye who would more of Spain and Spaniards know, Sights, Saints, Antiques, Arts, Anecdotes, and War, Go, hie ye hence to Paternoster Row¹- Are they not written in the book ofCarr, Green Erin's knight and Europe's wandering star? 2 Then listen, readers, to the Man of Ink, Hear what he did, and sought, and wrote afar ; . All these are cooped within one quarto's brink, This borrow, steal, —don't buy, —and tell us what you think. There may you read, with spectacles on eyes, HowmanyWellesleys did embark for Spain, As if they therein meant to colonize, Howmany troops y-crossed the laughing main That ne'er beheld the same return again : How many buildings are in such a place, Howmany leagues from this to yonder plain, Howmany relics each cathedral grace, And where Giralda stands on her gigantic base.3 " There you may read (O Phoebus, save Sir John, That these my words prophetic may not err!) All that was said, or sung, or lost, or won, By vaunting Wellesley or by blundering Frere, He that wrote half the ' Needy Knife- Grinder. ' 4 Thus poesy the way to grandeur paves, Who would not such diplomatists prefer ? But cease, my Muse, thy speed some respite craves, Leave legates to their house and armies to their graves. "Yet here of Vulpes 5 mention may be made, Whofor the Junta modelled sapient laws, Taught them to govern ere they were obeyed : Certes, fit teacher to command, because His soul Socratic no Xantippe awes ; 1 A booksellers' street in London. 2 Sir John Carr, author ofDescriptive Travels in Spain, etc. 3 The Giralda is the Moorish tower of the cathedral at Seville. It was built in 1196 to the height of 250 feet, to which 100 more were added in 1568. It is surmounted by a female figure in bronze, 14 feet high, and weighing 2800 pounds, which serves as a vane, turning with the slightest breeze. It is from this figure that the tower takes its name, giralda being Spanish for such a vane. 4 This satirical squib, written by Canning and Frere, is to be found in many collec- tions of English poetry. 5 Vulpes refers to Fox, Lord Holland, nephew of the great orator. Lady Holland had been the wife of Sir Godfrey Webster, who had obtained a divorce from her on account of her intimacy with Fox. CANTO SECOND. 231 Blest with a dame in Virtue's bosom nurst, With her let silent admiration pause ! True to her second husband and her first : - On such mistaken fame let Satire do her worst ! " 9. So may such foes deserve, etc. That is, may they receive the merciless treatment they deserve. LXXXIX. 2. Ádown. The old word of which down is a corruption. 7. Columbia's ease, etc. The Napoleonic usurpation in Spain led to the independence of the Spanish colonies in America. Quito revolted in August, 1809. The wrongs referred to were those of the Spanish Conquest under Pizarro. XC. 1. Talavera. See on 39. 8 above. 2. Barossa's fight. The battle of Barossa, near Cadiz, in 1811. The marvels were those of English bravery in desperate circumstances. 3. Albuera. See on 43. I above. 6. Breathe her. Take breath. For the reflexive her, see on 4. I above, and cf. turn him just below. Blushing " which causes the blood to mantle in her cheeks " (T.) . XCI. I. My friend. " The Honorable John Wingfield, of the Guards, who died of a 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 had 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 one suffice ? Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain, And thrice ere thrice yon moon had filled 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 " ( Byron). Matthews was drowned while bathing in the Cam, Aug. 2, 1811. This stanza and the next (re- ferring to his mother) were added in that month. XCII. 1. Esteemed. The MS. has " beloved. " 7. Bloodless bier. As contrasted with that of one dying in battle , XCIII. 1. Fytte. Canto, division of a song. 4. Moe. More. Cf. Shakespeare, Much Ado, ii. 3. 65 : " Sing no more ditties, sing no moe," etc. In the forty or more instances of the word in Shakespeare it is used only with the plural. In the one apparent exception ( Temp. v. 1. 234 : 'moe diversity of sounds ") the expres. sion is virtually a plural. CANTO SECOND. I. 1. Blue-eyed maid of heaven. Pallas. Blue-eyed is Byron's equiva. lent for the Homeric уλаuкŵπis, now better translated " with gleaming eyes. " 3. Thy temple. The Parthenon at Athens. 4. War and wasting fire. "Part of the Acropolis was destroyed by the explosion of a magazine during the Venetian siege " ( Byron). This was in 1687. 232 NOTES. II. 1. Ancient ofdays, etc. Byron has the following note here : " We can all feel, or imagine, the regret with which the ruins of cities, once the capitals of empires, are beheld ; the reflections suggested by such objects are too trite to require recapitulation. But never did the littleness of man, and the vanity of his very best virtues, of patriotism to exalt, and of valor to defend his country, appear more conspicuous than in the record of what Athens was, and the certainty of what she now is. This theatre of contention between mighty factions, of the struggles of orators, the exaltation and deposition of tyrants, the tri- umph and punishment of generals, is now become a scene of petty intrigue and perpetual disturbance, between the bickering agents of certain British nobility and gentry. The wild foxes, the owls and ser- pents in the ruins of Babylon, ' were surely less degrading than such inhabitants. The Turks have the plea of conquest for their tyranny, and the Greeks have only suffered the fortune of war, incidental to the bravest ; but how are the mighty fallen, when two painters contest the privilege of plundering the Parthenon, and triumph in turn, according to the tenor of each succeeding firman ! Sylla could but punish, Philip subdue, and Xerxes burn Athens ; but it remained for the paltry Anti- quarian, and his despicable agents, to render her contemptible as him- self and his pursuits. " The Parthenon, before its destruction in part by fire during the Venetian siege, had been a temple, a church, and a mosque. In each point of view it is an object of regard ; it changed its worshippers ; but still it was a place of worship thrice sacred to devotion : its violation is a triple sacrilege. But ' Man, vain man, Drest in a little briefauthority, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven As make the angels weep. ' ' 6. Aschool-boy's tale, etc. D. quotes Juvenal, Sat. x. 166 : "I, demens, et saevas curre per Alpes, Ut pueris placeas et declamatio fias ! " 7. The sophist's stole. Referring to Greek philosophy. The stole ( Gr. OTOAH, Lat. stola ) was, properly, a long robe worn by women. Cf. Milton's description of Melancholy in Il Penseroso, 35: "And sable stole of Cypress lawn, Over thy decent shoulders drawn. " III. 1. Son of the morning, rise ! D. says that this is undoubtedly an apostrophe to the sun, though what follows is addressed to the stranger ; but we prefer the explanation of T.: " The poet supposes himself to be standing amid the ruins of the temple of Zeus Olympius by the Ilissus ( 10. 3) with the Acropolis full in view ; in front of him lies a broken sepulchral urn, and not far off is a skull from some neigh- boring burial-ground ( 5.7) ; then, as he is proceeding to moralise on human vicissitude, he summons to him as audience a native, who is supposed to be standing near. For a similar instance in Byron of summoning an audience, .cf. The Giaour: CANTO SECOND. 233 ' Approach, thou craven crouching slave : Say, is not this Thermopylae? "" Son ofthe morning is poetical for an Oriental. 3. This spot. The Acropolis. 5 IV. Thou know'st not, etc. D. quotes Shakespeare, M.for M. iii. 1. 117 : Ay, but to die, and go we knownot where." "So =provided that, if only. 7. Wilt thou dream ? The MS. has " wilt thou harp. " V. I. Burst, etc. Lay open the tumulus which covers the remains of some ancient hero. Byron says here : " It was not always the custom of the Greeks to burn their dead ; the greater Ajax in particular was interred entire. Almost all the chiefs became gods after their decease, and he was indeed neglected, who had not annual games near his tomb, or festivals in honor of his memory by his countrymen, as Achilles, Brasidas, etc., and at last even Antinous, whose death was as heroic as his life was infamous." 8. A temple where a God may dwell. D. quotes 2 Cor. vi. 16. A、god may mean one who " in apprehension " is "like a god," as Hamlet ex- presses it ; or there may be a reference to the deified heroes of the preceding note. The meditation that follows may be compared with Hamlet's on the skull of Yorick. VII. 1. Athena's wisest son. Socrates. 7. Acheron. One of the rivers of the lower world in the Greek myth- ology. VIII. 1. Yet if, etc. In place of this fine stanza, the original MS. had the following : " Frown not upon me, churlish priest, that I Look not for life where life may never be ; I am no sneerer at thy phantasy : Thou pitiest me —-alas ! I envy thee, Thou bold discoverer, in an unknown sea, Ofhappy isles and happier tenants there ; I ask thee not to prove a Sadducee ; Still dream of Paradise, thou know'st not where, But lov'st too well to bid thine erring brother share. " 3. The Sadducee. See Matt. xxii. 23 and Acts, iv. 2. 9. The Bactrian, Samian sage. The former was Zoroaster, who was born in Bactriana ; the latter Pythagoras, who was a native of Samos. IX. 1. There, thou, etc. According to Moore, this stanza was written at Newstead in October, 1811 , on hearing of the death of his Cambridge friend, young Eddlestone ; " making, " Byron says, " the sixth, within four months, of friends and relations that I have lost between May and the end of August.' T. says that Eddlestone is "the person referred to in the stanza ; " but this is disproved by internal evidence, as well as by what Byron wrote to Dallas, Oct. 14, 1811 : " I think it proper to state to you that this stanza alludes to an event which has taken place since my arrival here, and not to the death of any male friend. " 6. My vacant breast. Cf. the lines To Thyrza, which D. thinks may refer to this same mysterious friend : 234 NOTES. $ "For wert thou banished from my mind, Where could my vacant bosom turn?" X. 1. Here let me sit, etc. The reference, as Byron tells us in a note, is to "the temple of Jupiter Olympius, of which sixteen columns, en- tirely of marble, still survive. " 4. Mightiest of many such. It was the largest of all the temples of Zeus, or Jupiter. XI. I. Von fane. The Parthenon, to Lord Elgin's spoliation of which the poet now reverts . 5. Blush, Caledonia ! Elgin was a Scotchman. Cf. The Curse of Minerva, written in 1811, though not published until after the death of Byron: " Frown not on England ; England owns him not : Athena, no thy plunderer was a Scot. Ask'st thou the difference ? From fair Phyle's towers Survey Boeotia, - Caledonia's ours." 9. The long-reluctant brine. "The ship was wrecked in the Archipelago " (Byron).

XII. 2. To rive, etc. "Quod non fecerunt Gothi, fecerunt Scoti," said Hobhouse, adapting the hit at Urban VIII. (who belonged to the Barberini family) for despoiling the Pantheon at Rome : "Quod non fecere Barbari fecere Barberini."

3. Cold as the crags, etc. The MS. has " Cold and accursed as his native coast. " XIII. After this stanza the MS. had the following : XIV. "Come then, ye classic Thanes of each degree, Dark Hamilton and sullen Aberdeen, ¹ Come pilfer all the Pilgrim loves to see, All that yet consecrates the fading scene : O, better were it ye had never been, Nor ye, nor Elgin, nor that baser wight, The victim sad ofvase- collecting spleen, House-furnisher withal, one Thomas hight, Than ye should bear one stone from wronged Athena's site ! Or will the gentle Dilettanti crew Now delegate the task to digging Gell ? 2. That mighty limner of a bird's- eye view ; Howlike to nature let his volumes tell : Who can with him the folio's limits swell With all the author saw, or said he saw? Who can topographize or delve so well ? No boaster he, nor impudent and raw, His pencil, pen, and shade, alike without a flaw. " 1. Where was thine Ægis, etc. "According to Zozimus, Minerva and Achilles frightened Alaric from the Acropolis ; but others I William Hamilton, the antiquary, whose collection of vases is nowin the British Museum ; and Lord Aberdeen, who figures in the English Bards, etc. Thomas, men- tioned below, was Thomas Hope, who wrote a work on furniture before he became better known as the author of Anastasius, which some attributed to Byron. 2 Sir William Gell, the archæologist, author of The Topography of Rome, and kindred works. Cf. English Bards : "I leave topography to classic Gell. " CANTO Second. 235 relate that the Gothic king was nearly as mischievous as the Scottish peer " ( Byron). XVII. 4. Tight. In the nautical sense ( = sound, in perfect condi tion), for which cf. Shakespeare, Temp. v. 1. 224 : " tight, and yare, and bravely rigg'd," etc. 5. To the right. The poet seems to have in mind some actual depart- ure from port. 7. The convoy. The fleet of merchant-vessels or transports under the protection of the frigate. For the figure, like wild swans, cf. Virgil, Æn. i . 393–400. 8. Wearing bravely. Bearing herself finely. For this old use of bravely, cf. the quotation in note on 4 above. XVIII. 2. Well-reeved. Well secured by the tackle that keeps them in place. The netted canopy is used "to prevent blocks or splinters from fall- ing on deck during action " (Byron). 7. Or schoolboy midshipman. Or to the call of the midshipman. 8. Pipe. Voice ; used only of boyish or feminine organs. Cf. Shake- speare, T. N. i . 4. 32 : " thy small pipe Is as the maiden's organ, shrill and sound." XIX. 3. Thatpart, etc. The quarter-deck, the lone chieftain being the captain. 9. From law, however stern, etc. The MS. has " From discipline's stern law," etc. XX. 1. Keel-compelling. Urging the ship onward. 3. Thepennant-bearer. The frigate in charge of the " convoy." The term is properly applied to the " flag-ship " of a fleet, or the one bearing the officer in command. Sail is slackened at sunset in order that the vessels may not get separated during the night. 9. Logs. Contemptuous for the slower ships. XXI. 3. May sigh, etc. May tell their love with sighs, and maids may believe them. 5. Arion's. Musician's ; alluding to the classical story of the minstrel Arion, who, when about to be thrown overboard by the sailors that they might get possession of his property, played his " swan-song " so sweetly on his lyre, that the dolphins around the ship, charmed by the music, bore him safe to shore. 6. Wakes the brisk harmony. The MS. has " Plies the brisk instru- ment. " 8. Featly. See on i . 73. 5 above. XXII. 1. Calpe's straits. The straits of Gibraltar, Calpe being the ancient name of the Rock. Cf. iv. 175. 8 below. 4. Hecate's blaze. The light of the moon. Hecate is Anglicized into a dissyllable, as regularly in Shakespeare and often in other poets. 5. How softly, etc. The moon being on or near the meridian, the Spanish coast would be in the light, the African in shadow. 8. Mauritania. The classical name of Morocco. • 236 NOTES. XXIII. 3. The heart, etc. The MS. reads : "Bleeds the lone heart, once boundless in its zeal, And friendless now, yet dreams it had a friend. " 9. Once more, etc. a boy." "" The first reading was I would I were once more XXIV. 1. Laving. Washed by the waves ; active for passive. XXV. 2. To slowly trace. This insertion of the adverb between the to of the infinitive and the verb has often been condemned by gram- marians, but it has the sanction of many of the best modern writers. 8. This is not solitude. Cf. iv. 178 below. Cf. Hamlet, ii. 1. 42 : 999 9. Converse. Accented on the first syllable. "Your party in converse, him you would sound," etc. XXVI. 5. Minions. See on i . 44. I above. 7. Would seem, etc. "There is intense bitterness in the word seem : 'would, I do not say smile the less, but even seem to do so (T.) . XXVII. 2. Lonely Athos. The mountain is so much higher than those about it that, seen from a distance, it seems to stand alone. It is "the great centre of the monasticism of the Eastern Church, " there being nineteen monasteries and some six thousand monks in the district. 4. Waves so blue. The Ægean, of which the mountain commands an extended view. 7. 'Witching. So Byron prints the word, as if a contraction of bewitching, though he has witching in i. 57. 2 above. Cf. Hamlet, iii. 2. 406 : "The very witching time of night," etc. XXVIII. 2. That never leaves, etc. Cf. iv. 179. 2 below. 7. The contrary, the kind. Referring to favorable and unfavorable winds, as fair andfoul do to weather. XXIX. 1. Calypso's isles. "Goza is said to have been the island of Calypso " (Byron ) . It is near Malta, the other isle here referred to. 2. The middle deep. The middle of the Mediterranean. 6. Him who dared, etc. Ulysses. His boy is Telemachus, who in Fenelon's Télémaque (vi. ) is pushed by Mentor from the cliffs into the sea, to rescue him from the fascinations of Calypso. The goddess, inconsolable, retired to her grotto, which she filled with her lamentations ("inconsolable, rentra dans sa grotte, qu'elle remplit de ses hurlements "). XXX. 5. Sweet Florence ! Mrs. Spencer Smith, whom Byron met at Malta, and to whom he addressed several poems. Moore remarks : " His description here of the unmoved and ' loveless heart,' with which he contemplated even the charms of this attractive person, is wholly at variance with the statements in many of his letters ; and, above all, with one of the most graceful of his lesser poems, addressed to this same lady, during a thunder-storm on his road to Zitza." XXXI. 1. Deemed. The MS. has " spoke." 7. The boy. Love, or Cupid. XXXII. 2. Still. Ever, always ; as often in Shakespeare and earlier writers. Cf. 34. 8 below. CANTO SECOND. 237 • 4. Real. Metrically equivalent to a monosyllable, but not (as T. directs) to be so pronounced. 66 XXXIII. 3. Was not unskilful, etc. Against this line," says Moore, " it is sufficient to set the poet's own declaration, in 1821 : I am not a Joseph, nor a Scipio, but I can safely affirm that I never in my life seduced any woman. ' 999 XXXIV. 6. Tropes. Figurative language, affected style. 8. Confidence. The MS. has " Impudence." XXXV. 1. Approves. Proves. 79: " Approve it with a text," etc. Cf. Shakespeare, M. of V. iii. 2. 7. Kindly cruel. This seems to refer to Fate or Destiny, implied in the following clause ; as it, in the next line, refers to the disappointment implied in the same clause. XXXVI. 7. Ared. Set forth, described ; participle of the old verb aread. Cf. F. Q. i . 9. 23 : " Sir knight, aread who hath ye thus arayd ; Id. vi. 4. 38 : "That which your selfe have earst ared so right," etc. " XXXVIII. I. Iskander. "Albania comprises part of Macedonia, Illyria, Chaonia, and Epirus. Iskander is the Turkish word for Alex- ander; and the celebrated Scanderbeg ( Lord Alexander) is alluded to in the third and fourth lines of the thirty-eighth stanza. I do not know whether I am correct in making Scanderbeg the countryman of Alex- ander, who was born at Pella in Macedon, but Mr. Gibbon terms him so, and adds Pyrrhus to the list, in speaking of his exploits " ( Byron) . Alexander the Great, though not born in Albania, had Albanian (Epirote) blood in his veins, his mother Olympias being of the royal house of Epirus. His namesake, Scanderbeg (Iskander Bey, or Lord Alexander) , was so called in honor of his achievements. His real name was George Castriota ( or Castrioto) . A descendant of the ancient kings of Albania, he wrested his native land from the hands of the Turks, to whom he was a terror for twenty-four years ( 1443-1467) . 4. Emprise. Enterprise ; a poetical word. Cf. F. Q. ii . 7. 39 : “ But give me leave to follow mine emprise," etc. 7. The cross descends, etc. The cross, crowning the spires of Chris- tian churches, is no longer seen, but the minarets of mosques appear instead. The pale crescent ( see on i. 35. 8 above) is the symbol of Mo- hammedanism upon the domes and minarets ; and the cypress-groves are those planted near the mosques or in the cemeteries. XXXIX. 1. Childe Harold sailed, etc. Byron left Malta, Sept. 21, 1809, on the " Spider, " a British war-vessel, and after a call at Patras, disembarked at Previsa, Sept. 29. The barren spot, etc. Ithaca, the home of Ulysses. 3. The mount, etc. "Leucadia, now Santa Maura. From the pro- montory (the Lover's Leap ) Sappho is said to have thrown herself " Byron). Hobhouse writes : " Sept. 28th, we doubled the promontory of Santa Maura, and saw the precipice which the fate of Sappho, the poetry of Ovid, and the rocks so formidable to the ancient mariners, have made forever memorable." 5. Dark Sappho. "The epithet implies profound, mysterious feel- ing " (T.) . 238 NOTES. XL "Actium and Trafalgar . 5. Actium, Lepanto, fatal Trafalgar. need no further mention. The battle of Lepanto, equally bloody and considerable, but less known, was fought in the Gulf of Patras ; here the author of Don Quixote lost his left hand " (Byron). 9. Laughed at martial wight. Cf. i . 44 above. XLI. 4. Or deemed he felt. own feeling is characteristic. 8. And sunk, etc. XLII. Cf. i. 82. 2 above. The distrust of his The MS. reads : "And roused him more from thought than he was wont, While Pleasure almost seemed to smoothe his pallid front." 2. Dark Suli's rocks. "The wild mountain district about the river Acheron in the south of Epirus." Pindus inland peak. That is, the mountains in that direction , for Pindus itself is not visible from the coast. XLIII. 1. Found. The early eds. all have " felt. ” 3. A shore unknown. "Of Albania Gibbon remarks, that a country 'within sight of Italy is less known than the interior of America.' Cir- cumstances, of little consequence to mention, led Mr. Hobhouse and myself into that country before we visited any other part of the Otto- man dominions ; and with the exception of Major Leake, then officially resident at Joannina, no other Englishmen have ever advanced beyond the capital into the interior, as that gentleman very lately assured me (Byron). XLIV. 1. The red cross. See on i . 35. 8 above. " 2. Circumcised. Mohammedans, like Jews, practise circumcision. 4. Alike despised. That is, being alike despised by the circumcised. XLV. 1. Ambracia's gulf. The Gulf of Arta, the scene of the battle of Actium. 2. For woman. That is, on account of Cleopatra. " 4. Many a Roman chief, etc. It is said that, on the day previous to the battle of Actium, Antony had thirteen kings at his levee " ( Byron) . 6. Where the second Cæsar's trophies rose. ' Nicopolis, whose ruins are most extensive, is at some distance from Actium, where the wall of the Hippodrome survives in a few fragments " (Byron) . Nicopolis was built by Augustus in honor of his victory. 8. Imperial anarchs. For the oxymoron, see on i . 57. 5 above. XLVI. 2. Illyria's vales. Albania (see on 38. I above) includes part of the ancient Illyria. XLVII (( . I. Acherusia's lake. According to Pouqueville, the lake of Yanina ; but Pouqueville is always out " ( Byron) . He is certainly "out " in this instance, the Palus Acherusia being "in the plain at the exit of the Acheron from the gorges of Suli " ( T.) . 2. The primal city, etc. Yanina, the capital. 4. Albania's chief. Ali Pasha. 5. Lawless law. See on i. 57. 5 above. 7. Some daring mountain-band. "Five thousand Suliotes, among the rocks and in the castle of Suli, withstood 30,000 Albanians for eighteen years ; the castle at last was taken by bribery. In this contest there CANTO SECOND. 239 were several acts performed not unworthy of the better days of Greece " (Byron). XLVIII. 1. Monastic Zitza. "The convent and village of Zitza are four hours journey from Joannina, or Yanina, the capital of the Pachalick. In the valley the river Kalamas (once the Acheron) flows, and not far from Zitza forms a fine cataract. The situation is perhaps the finest in Greece, though the approach to Delvinachi and parts of Acarnania and Ætolia may contest the palm. Delphi, Parnassus, and, in Attica, even Cape Colonna and Port Raphti, are very inferior ; as also every scene in Ionia or the Troad : I am almost inclined to add the approach to Constantinople ; but from the different features of the last, a comparison can hardly be made " (Byron). XLIX. 6. The caloyer. "The Greek monks are so called " ( Byron) . The word (kaλóуepos) means " a good old man. ” 9. Sheen. See on i . 29. 7 above. L. 7. Disease. The malarial fevers of summer. 8. Then let, etc. " Observe the adaptation of sound to sense in these two lines ; the alliteration on the soft 7 in the first expressing ease, and the pauses in the second expressing delay (T.). وو LI. 1. Enlarging on the sight. Cf. the description of St. Peter's in iv. 155 below. 2. Volcanic. So Byron, in a note, says the mountains here are re- garded, but this is not now the case. 3. Chimera's alps. The Acroceraunian mountains, now called those of Khimara ( the Chimari of the song following stanza 72 below) from the neighboring town of that name, the ancient Chimera. 6. Acheron. Byron says, "6 now called Kalamas (as also in note quoted on 48. I above) ; but the true Acheron is farther south, among the mountains of Suli. 7. Consecrated to the sepulchre. Associated with the lower world. 9. Close shamed Elysium's gates. The MS. has, " Keep heaven for better souls, my shade, " etc. LII. 7. Capote. "Albanese cloak " (Byron). 9. The tempest's short-lived shock. The neighborhood is noted for frequent and sudden thunder-storms. LIII. 1. Dodona. The sight of this ancient oracle was discovered in 1875 by Constantine Carapanos, a Greek archæologist, not far to the south of Yanina. The aged grove is that " In which the swarthy ringdove sat, And mystic sentence spoke "" (as Tennyson sings in The Talking Oak) ; and the fount is the one at the foot of the sacred oak, the sound of whose waters was prophetic. The oracle divine refers to the third method of consulting the god at Dodona, by means of a brazen cauldron. LIV. 1. Recede. See on i. 31. 1 above. The poet now passes from Epirus into Illyria. 2. Still. Continually. See on 32. 2 above. 4. Yclad. Clothed. The archaic form, however, is that of the par- ticiple, not of the past tense, which never took the prefix y-. 240 NOTES. LV. 1. Tomerit. "Anciently Mount Tomarus (Byron) . T. remarks : " There are two curious mistakes in these lines. Mt. Tomerit, or Tomohr, lies N. E. of Tepelen, and therefore the sun could not set behind it. ' Laos,' which is repeated in the notes, is a mere blunder for 'Aous,' the ancient name of the Viosa, which flows under the walls of Tepelen. Hobhouse, in his Travels, gives the right name. The Viosa is the largest river in Albania." 6. Tepalen. The birthplace and favorite residence of Ali Pasha, about sixty miles to the northwest of Yanina. At the time of Byron's visit, which was during the fast of the Ramazan ( cf. 60. I below) , the gallery of each minaret was decorated with lamps, which seemed like meteors in the sky." 66

LVI. 1. Haram's. Harem's, as the word is now written. Sacred = not to be profaned by men.' 7. Santons. Dervishes. "" = LVII. 5. Door. The word forms an " identical " rhyme with the last syllable of corridore. 6. High-capped. "Tartar (Tatar) is the name for the government couriers in Turkey, who act as messengers, and carry the post. They wear tall black caps, like the Persians " (T. ). LVIII. 5. Delhi. In a note on the same word in the song below, Byron says that the Delhis are " horsemen, answering to our forlorn hope." 6. Glaive. Broadsword ; as in 69. 4 below. 7. Mutilated son. That is, eunuch. LIX. 8. The Muezzin's call. The crier who serves as a substitute for our church-bell. Five times a day he calls the people to prayers. LX. 1. Ramazani's fast. This fast, which continues for a month, is observed with great strictness from sunrise to sunset, but the feasting at night makes up for the abstinence of the day. 7. Made in vain. Because left vacant. LXII. 5. Ali reclined, etc. "Ali was born about 1740, and began life as an independent freebooter, in which capacity he obtained a large amount of plunder, owing to the disorganised and lawless condition of Albania. By this means he was able to purchase a Pashalik from the Porte, and when he attacked and succeeded in subduing many of the neighbouring Pashas, he was permitted to extend his power, because he was of service in reducing the half independent tribes, and establishing order in the country. At last his government included Albania, Epirus, Thessaly, and a great part of Greece, as far as the Corinthian Gulf. He encouraged education and favored letters, until, under his patronage, Yanina became the literary capital of the Greek nation. But towards the end of his long life he rebelled against the central government, and after having been defeated by the Sultan's forces, was killed on an island in the lake of Yanina in 1822. In character he was cunning, treacherous, avaricious , and frightfully cruel. His two most famous acts of barbarity were the extermination of the village of Gardiki, in revenge for an insult offered to his mother many years before, and the drowning of a number of ladies in the lake, the fate of one of whom, CANTO SECOND. 241 Euphrosyne, who was distinguished for her beauty, has been the subject of many ballads " (T.). LXIII. 2. Ill suits, etc. The MS. has, " Delights to mingle with the lip of youth. " 3. Hafiz. "The Persian Horace, " as D. aptly calls him. He flour- ished in the 14th century. 4. The Teian. Anacreon, who was a native of Teos. Cf. Horace, Od. i. 17. 18: " fide Teia. " Sooth truth ; as in i. 2. 5 above. 5. Ruth. Pity ; as in the derivative ruthless. The 1st ed. had, " But crimes, those ne'er forgotten crimes of ruth ; " but the Quarterly Re- view reminded the poet that ruth did not mean cruelty, as he had appeared to suppose. LXIV. 1. Mid manythings, etc. Inthe MS. the stanza begins thus : LXVI. "Childe Harold with the chief held colloquy, Yet what they spoke it boots not to repeat : Converse may little charm strange ear or eye ; Albeit he rested on that spacious seat Of Moslem luxury, the choice retreat, " etc. 2. Thronging to war. Ali was then besieging Ibrahim Pasha in the fortress of Berat. 3. After. Afterwards. See the next stanza. For the adverbial use of after, cf. Shakespeare, Temp. ii. 2. 10 : “ And after bite me,” etc. 7. Less barbarians. Men less barbarous. 8. And fellow-countrymen, etc. " Alluding to the wreckers of Corn- wall " (Byron). LXVII. 1. It chanced, etc. This was after Byron had left Tepelen, and returning to the Gulf of Arta, had sailed for Patras. 2. Suli's shaggy shore. See on 42. 2 above. 8. Frank. The Turkish name for the inhabitants of Western Europe. LXVIII. 9. Happier. More fortunate or prosperous. For lesson, cf. Shakespeare, T. G. of V. ii . 7. 5 : “ To lesson me, and tell me some good mean," etc. LXIX. 1. Address. Prepare. Cf. Shakespeare, M. W. iii. 5. 135: "I will then address me to my appointment, " etc. 4. Glaive. See on 58. 6 above. 5. A trusty band. A guard of thirty-seven Albanian soldiers. 8. White Achelous' tide. The modern name of the Achelous is Aspro- potamo, or white river. 9. Etolia's wolds. The open plains of the western part of Ætolia. LXX. 1. Utraikey. Avillage in one of the bays ofthe Gulf of Arta. T. compares the description with that in the Eneid, i . 159–165. 3. Brown. Cf. 22. 6 above. "Brown is Byron's usual epithet for landscape seen in moonlight " ( T. ) . See Siege ofCorinth, 11. 1: ""Tis midnight : on the mountains brown The cold, round moon shines deeply down, " etc. LXXI. 2. The red wine, etc. "The Albanian Mussulmans do not abstain from wine, and, indeed, very few of the others " (Byron). 3. Ygazed. Gazed. See on 54. 4 above. 16 242 NOTES. "6 7. Each Palikar. ' Palikar, shortened when addressed to a single person, from Παλικάρι [ παλληκάρι ] a general name for a soldier amongst the Greeks and Albinese who speak Romaic it means properly ' a lad "" (Byron). 9. Daunced. Archaic spelling of danced. LXXII. 9. This lay. Byron says in a note : "These stanzas are partly taken from different Albinese songs, as far as I was able to make them out by the exposition of the Albinese in Romaic and Italian." one who In the first stanza of the song, tambourgi ― drummer ; fromthe Fr. tam- bour, a drum, and the Turkish termination -gi, which signifies " discharges any occupation. " In the second stanza, camese ( Ital. camicia, Fr. chemise) =the Alba- nian kilt. For capote, see on 52. 7 above. Parga ( 5th stanza) is a seaport near Suli. above. For Franks see on 67. 8 Previsa ( 8th stanza) in " Ambracia's gulf," (see on 45. I above ) was taken from the French by Ali in 1798. The yellow-haired Giaours, or Infidels ( 10th stanza) , are the Russians. The horsetail is the badge of a Pasha. A Vizier is a " Pasha of three tails." For Delhis see on 58.5 above. Selictar ( 11th stanza ) =sword- bearer. LXXIII. 9. Eurotas. This Spartan river is mentioned " because of the Spartans who died at Thermopyla " (T.). LXXIV. I. Phyle's brow. The fort of Phyle, which commands the pass of the same name leading from Boeotia into Attica, was occupied by Thrasybulus when preparing to expel the Thirty Tyrants from Athens. It was from this point that Byron obtained his first view of that city. 6. Carle. Churl, rustic. LXXV. 8. Solely. Without foreign help. LXXVI. 4. Gaul or Muscovite. French or Russians. 7. Helots. The Spartan serfs. The descendants of their masters are now reduced to serfdom. LXXVII. 1. The city, etc. Constantinople. Allah is put for the Mohammedans, as Giaour for the Christians. 2. Othman's race. The Ottomans, of whose dynasty Othman was the founder. 3. The Serai's impenetrable tower. The Serai or Seraglio, the palace ofthe Sultan, inaccessible to ordinary mortals. 4. Herformerguest. "When taken by the Latins, and retained for several years " (Byron) ; that is , from 1204 to 1261 . 5. Wahab's rebel brood. "The Arab Sheikh Wahab was the founder of the sect of the Wahabees, the Puritans of Mahometanism, who cap- tured and sacked Mecca in 1803, and Medina in 1804 " ( T.) . LXXVIII. 3. Shrive from man. As T. remarks, the more natural expression would be " Shrive man from." 6. Joyaunce. See on i. 30. 3 above ; and for pleasaunce, cf. i. 23. 8. 9. Carnival. For the personification see on i . 81. 2 above. LXXIX. 1. Whose. That is, whose carnival. CANTO SECOND. 243 2. Stamboul. The Turkish name of Constantinople. Empress oftheir reign capital of the Greek Empire. 3. Sophia's shrine. church. The mosque of St. Sophia, originally a Christian 9. As wooed the eye, etc. The first clause refers to sight, the second to song. For the " chiastic " arrangement, cf. Macbeth, i. 3. 60 : 66 Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear Your favours nor your hate ; " and Winter's Tale, iii . 2. 164 : "though I with death and with Reward did threaten and encourage him, Not doing ' t and being done." LXXX. 5. The Queen oftides. "The moon, the governess of floods" (M. N. D. ii. 1. 103). For consenting, cf. i. 47. 5 above. LXXXI. 1. Caique. A light boat used on the Bosphorus. 7. Bound, etc. That is, when we are bound, etc. LXXXII. 3. Searment. A less correct spelling of cerement (from Latin cera, wax), waxed cloth used for wrapping a corpse. Cf. Hamlet, i. 4. 47: " but tell Whythy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death, Have burst their cerements, " etc. The word is here used figuratively for a close covering meant to con- ceal what is beneath. LXXXIII. 8. Record. Accented on the second syllable ; as often in Shakespeare and earlier writers. Cf. Hamlet, i . 5. 99 : " I'll wipe away all trivial fond records," etc. LXXXIV. I. When riseth Lacedæmon's hardihood. When the hardy Spartans reappear. In hardihood we have the abstract used for the concrete. Cf. iii. 49. 8 below. LXXXV. 3. Thy vales ofevergreen, thy hills ofsnow. " On many of the mountains, particularly Liakura, the snow never is entirely melted ; but I never saw it lie on the plains, even in winter " (Byron) . LXXXVI. 1. Some prostrate column, etc. "Of Mount Pentelicus, from whence the marble was dug that constructed the public edifices of Athens. The modern name is Mount Mendeli. An immense cave formed by the quarries still remains, and will till the end of time " (Byron) . Cf. the next stanza. 3. Tritonia's airy shrine. The temple of Minerva on the promontory of Sunium, or Cape Colonna, as it was called (from the ruined col- umns) until it regained its ancient name. For Tritonia, cf.Virgil, Æn ii. 171 : "Nec dubiis ea signa dedit Tritonia monstris,” etc. 8. Only not. See on i. 7. 3 above. LXXXVII. 3. Thine olive, etc. The olive was the gift of Minerva to Attica. 4. Hymettus. The mountain near Athens famous from classic times for its honey. 244 NOTES. LXXXVIII. 9. Athena's tower. The Parthenon. LXXXIX . 7. When Marathon, etc. " Siste, Viator - heroa calcas ! ' was the epitaph on the famous Count Merci ; -what then must be our feelings when standing on the tumulus of the two hundred (Greeks) who fell on Marathon ? The principal barrow has recently been opened by Fauvel ; few or no relics, as vases, etc., were found by the excavator. The plain of Marathon was offered to me for sale at the sum of sixteen thousand piastres, about nine hundred pounds ! Alas ! - Expende - quot libras in duce summo invenies? - was the dust of Miltiades worth no more ? it could scarcely have fetched less if sold by weight" (Byron) . XC. 3. Mountains above, etc. "The plain of Marathon is enclosed on three sides by the rocky arms of Parnes and Pentelicus, while the fourth is bounded by the sea (T.) . Cf. The Isles of Greece: "" "The mountains look on Marathon, And Marathon looks on the sea. "" 7. Asia's tear. The grief of the Persians at their defeat. XCI. 3. Th' Ionian blast. The wind that bears him over the Ionian sea. 9. Pallas and the Muse. The former to the sages, the latter to the bards. XCII. The original MS. closes with this stanza. added while the canto was passing through the press. The rest was XCIII. 6. Revere the remnants, etc. As D. remarks, this is a reminiscence of the famous letter of Pliny upon Greece (ix. 24) : " Reve- rere conditores deos, nomina deorum ; reverere gloriam veterem, et hanc ipsam senectutem, quae in hominibus venerabilis, in urbibus sacra est." XCIV. I. For thee, etc. T. says that the line seems to have been suggested by Gray's Elegy, 93 : " For thee, who, mindful of the un- honour'd dead. " 2. Idlesse. Idleness ; an archaic form. Cf. iv. 33. 5 below. XCV. 1. Thou too art gone, etc. This appears to refer to the same bereavement as stanza 9 above. 3. Who did, etc. We should expect " didst " for did, etc. See on i. 22. 7 above. XCVI. 7. Thine arrows, etc. on i. 91. I above. Cf. the quotation from Young in note XCVII. 5. To leave, etc. That is, only to leave, etc. 6. Still o'er thefeatures, etc. The connection and construction of this line and the next are somewhat uncertain. The earliest edition that we have seen ( 1815 ) and all the other English eds. down to 1847, have semicolons at the end of the 5th and 7th lines. D. and T. (who pro- fesses to follow Murray's " revised " text of 1884) have a semicolon at the end of the 5th and an interrogation mark at the end of the 7th. T. explains 6 and 7 thus : " despite weariness ( still ) , in the countenance, which they (revel and laughter ) force to wear a cheerful aspect ; " and of the next line he says : "the construction is involved, but the meaning apparently is ' revel and laughter distort the cheek so as to feign. " " -- CANTO THIRD. 245 We join 6 and 7 to what follows, making they refer to smiles, not to Revel and Laughter; and we believe that this was the poet's intention, his second semicolon (after pique) being used instead of a comma, as in repeated instances where there are several commas indicating minor subdivisions in the sentence . We have changed scores of these semicolons to commas in order to make the pointing conform to the best usage of the present day. The last four lines of the stanza, as we understand them, simply resume and enlarge upon the reference in the preceding lines to the forced and futile attempt to drown sorrow in dissipation. The laughter vainly loud, false to the real feeling in the heart, merely distorts the grief-worn cheek it wreathes with the semblance of mirth, only to leave ' the flagging spirit the weaker for the effort to disguise its suffering and these smiles, forced into the face to feign pleasure or conceal pique, must soon give way to sincere tears or ill-dissembled scorn. We may add that Mr. Henry Morley's ed. of Childe Harold in “ Cassell's National Library " ( 1886) , divides the stanza as we do, by putting the exclamation point after weak. It retains the semicolon after pique, as it does in many other places where we prefer the comma. CANTO THIRD. It will be recollected that this canto was written six years after the second. Meanwhile Byron's genius had ripened, and his style had changed. In the later cantos the style is " more vigorous, more impas- sioned, and more rhetorical, and the versification is more varied and irregular, not to say careless." T. states the matter more minutely as follows : "I. In Cantos 1 , 2 the considerable pauses are usually at the end of a line ; in 3, 4 they are frequently in the middle. 2. The neglect of the natural pause between the verses, which arises from ending a line with a word closely connected with the begin- ning of the next, is rare in the earlier cantos, common in Canto 4. 3. In Cantos 1, 2 the stanzas are almost always complete in them- selves ; in Canto 4 they frequently run into one another. 4. Double rhymes are entirely wanting in Cantos 1 , 2 ; they first appear in Canto 3 , and become more numerous as the poem advances. 5. Similes are very rare in the first two, common in the last two cantos. 6. Personification on a large scale is found in Canto 1 , but not after- wards. 7. Archaisms, which are somewhat numerous in Canto I , and occa sional in Canto 2, are hardly ever found in the later portion. It is also worthy of notice that the treatment of the subject is hence- forth more intensely personal ; and that external nature, which in Canto 2 is usually combined with historical associations, in Canto 3 is employed as a contrast to human society " 246 NOTES. - I. 1. Myfair child. She was born Dec. 10, 1815. In a letter to Moore, Jan. 5, 1816, Byron says : "The little girl was born on the 10th of December last ; her name is Augusta Ada (the second a very antique family name, I believe not used since the reign of King John) . She was, and is, very flourishing and fat, and reckoned very large for her days - squalls and sucks incessantly." Lady Byron left her husband in the middle of January, when Ada was five weeks old, and the poet never saw his child again. Cf. stanza 115 below. 9. Could grieve, etc. The MS. reading, according to Moore, was "could grieve or glad my gazing eye, ”. a foot too long, unless lessen- ing was omitted . It was on the 25th of April, 1816, that Byron left England, attended by Fletcher and Rushton, the yeoman and page of Canto I.; his phy-* sician, Dr. Polidorf ; and a Swiss valet. II. 2. As a steed, etc. Moore compares The Two Noble Kinsmen, ii. 2. 17 : " O, never Shall we two exercise, like twins of honour, Our arms again, and feel our fiery horses Like proud seas under us ! " 6. Fluttering. The MS. has " tattering." 7. As a weed, etc. ated man" (T. ). "A fine image of a homeless, friendless, expatriIII. I. In myyouth's summer, etc. That is, in the early days when he wrote the preceding cantos. 2. Outlaw of his own dark mind. T. regards the expression as ambiguous; " meaning either " driven into exile by his evil conscience," or flying from his evil conscience. " He inclines, however, to the former interpretation, which is probably the right one. "C 6. The furrows, etc. The metaphor is " derived from a torrent- bed, which, when dried up, serves as a sandy or shingly path, as is often the case in Southern Europe " ( T.). V. 2. In deeds, not years. D. quotes Manfred, ii . I : "Think'st thou existence doth depend on time? It doth ; but actions are our epochs. " Cf. also Bailey, Festus : "We live in deeds, not years ; in thoughts, not breaths ; In feelings, not in figures on a dial . We should count time by heart-throbs ; 66 29 and Sheridan, Pizarro, iv. 1 : A life spent worthily should be meas. ured by a nobler line, by deeds, not years." 9. The soul's haunted cell. D. remarks that this expression seems to be the germ of Poe's poem, The Haunted Palace. VIII. 1. Something too much ofthis. A quotation from Hamlet, iii. 2. 69. As T. notes, Byron also uses it in his Journal, April 9, 1814 : "Psha ! something too much of this. ' " IX. 3. From a purer fount, etc. sical antiquity " (D.) . "The love of nature and of clas CANTO THIRD. 247 7. Heavy, though it clanked not. D. compares Manfred, i. I : " Lo! the spell now works around thee, And the clankless chain hath bound thee, " etc. XI. 3. Sheen. See on i. 17. 2 above. 8. Chasing Time. 9. Fond. Foolish. T. compares 22. 5 below. See on i. 10. 9 above, and cf. i . 41. 5. XII. 9. To breathe without mankind. Cf. Manfred, ii. 2 : "From my youth upwards My spirit walked not with the souls ofmen, Nor looked upon the earth with human eyes. Myjoys, my griefs, my passions, and my powers Made me a stranger ; though I wore the form , I had no sympathy with breathing flesh ," etc. For the next two stanzas, cf. the continuation of the same speech in Manfred. XIII. 2. Where rolled the ocean, etc. Cf. iv. 184 below. XIV. 1. The Chaldean. Alluding to the astrological studies of the Chaldeans. Cf. stanza 88 below. XV. 5. Then came his fit again. Cf. Macbeth, iii. 4. 21 : comes my fit again. ” "Then XVI. 1. Self-exiled Harold, etc. Sir Walter Scott remarks in the Quarterly Review : " These stanzas -in which the author, adopting more distinctly the character of Childe Harold than in the original poem [the 1st and 2d cantos], assigns the cause why he has resumed his Pilgrim's staff, when it was hoped he had sat down for life a denizen of his own country - abound with much moral interest and poetical beauty. The commentary through which the meaning of this melan- choly tale is rendered obvious, is still in vivid remembrance ; for the errors of those who excel their fellows in gifts and accomplishments are not soon forgotten. Those scenes, ever most painful to the bosom, were rendered more so by public discussion ; and it is at least possible that amongst those who exclaimed most loudly on this unhappy occa- sion were some in whose eyes literary superiority exaggerated Lord Byron's offence. " 6. Plundered wreck. The reference seems to be to a vessel plundered and abandoned by pirates. XVII. 1. Stop!-for thy tread, etc. Cf. the Latin quotation in Byron's note on ii. 89. 7 above. T. says : " Observe the skill with which the reader, who is supposed to have started with the poet or his hero on their journey, is suddenly brought face to face with Waterloo. To understand the effect produced by these lines at the time of their publication, we must remember that a year had barely elapsed since the battle at the time of Byron's visit." 3. Is the spot marked, etc. No monument had then been erected on the battle-field . The colossal " Lion of Waterloo " was not set up until 1823. 8. And is this all, etc. Cf. The Age of Bronze, v.: “ O bloody and most bootless Waterloo ! " 248 NOTES. 9. King-making. That is, " establishing kings more firmly on their thrones " (T.) by the Holy Alliance that followed. XVIII. 1. Place ofskulls. Cf. Matt. xxvii. 33. 5. In pride ofplace. In a note Byron says : " Pride of place is a term of falconry, and means the highest pitch of flight. See Macbeth [ii . 4. 12 ] : ' An eagle towering in his pride of place." He either quotes from memory, or modifies the passage to bring in the French eagle. The correct form is, " A falcon towering in her pride of place." . The original reading of this line and the next was : "Here his last flight the haughty eagle flew, Then tore with bloody beak the fatal plain." On seeing these lines, Mr. Reinagle sketched a spirited chained eagle grasping the earth with his talons. Byron, hearing of this, wrote to a friend at Brussels : " Reinagle is a better poet and a better ornithologist than I am eagles, and all birds of prey, attack with their talons and not with their beaks ; and I have altered the line thus : ' Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain.' This is, I think, a better line, besides its poetical justice." Were it not for this comment of the author, we should take the passage to refer to the death-agony of the bird, not its attack upon the plain; and it is possible that the latter meaning did not occur to him until he was told of Reinagle's illustration. XIX. 2. But is Earth more free ? D. quotes Victor Hugo, L'Expiation: "Il tomba : Dieu changea la chaine de l'Europe." Cf. Shelley's Feelings ofa Republican on the Fall ofBonaparte, 1816 : " I know Too late, since thou and France are in the dust, That Virtue owns a more eternal foe Than force or fraud - old Custom, legal Crime, And bloody Faith, the foulest birth of Time. " 6. The patched-up idol, etc. "After throwing down the image of Slavery in the person of Napoleon on enlightened principles, shall we set up again its broken fragments in the shape of the Holy Alliance ? (T.) "" XX. 9. Such as Harmodius drew, etc. "When Hippias and Hipparchus, sons of Peisistratus, were tyrants of Athens, two friends, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, conspired against them, and killed Hipparchus at the festival of the Panathenea with daggers concealed in the myrtle- branches which were carried on that occasion ( B.C. 514) . The famous song which was composed in their honour begins thus : Ἐν μύρτου κλαδὶ τὸ ξίφος φορήσω, ὥσπερ Αρμόδιος κ' ᾿Αριστογείτων, ὅτε τὸν τύραννον κτανέτην ἰσονόμους τ' ᾿Αθήνας ἐποιησάτην.Ι Hence the sword in myrtles drest ' ( Keble's Christian Year, ' Third Sunday in Lent ' ) became the emblem of assertors of liberty" (T.). I "I'll wreathe my sword in myrtle bough, The sword that laid the tyrant low, When patriots , burning to be free, To Athens gave equality " ( Denman's trans. ). CANTO THIRD. 249 XXI. I. There was a sound, etc. Cf. Miss Martineau's Introduction to the History ofthe Peace: " It was on the evening of the 15th [of June, 1815] that Wellington received the news at Brussels of the whereabout of the French. He instantly perceived that the object was to separate his force from the Prussians. He sent off orders to his troops in every direction to march upon Quatre-Bras. This done, he dressed and went to a ball, where no one would have discovered from his manner that he had heard any remarkable_news. It was whispered about the rooms, however, that the French were not far off; and some officers dropped off in the course of the evening, —called by their duty, and leaving heavy hearts behind them. Many parted so who never met again. It was about midnight when the general officers were sum- moned. Somewhat later, the younger officers were very quietly called away from their partners : and by sunrise of the summer morning of the 16th all were on their march." 2. Brunswick's fated chieftain. The Duke of Brunswick, 6. Voluptuous swell. The expression occurs in a different sense in iv. 53. 4 below. XXIII. killed at Quatre-Bras, as his father had been at Jena in 1806. XXVI. 1. The Cameron's gathering.' The rallying-cry or slogan of the clan of the Camerons. 2. Lochiel. The most noted of the Camerons was Donald, the "gentle Lochiel, " the subject of Campbell's familiar Lochiel's Warning. He was a descendant of Evan Cameron, "the Ulysses of the High- lands," who was born about 1630, and died in 1719. Albyn is the old Gaelic name of Scotland. XXVII. I. Ardennes. "The wood of Soignies is supposed to be a remnant of the Forest of Ardennes, famous in Boiardo's Orlando and immortal in Shakespeare's As You Like It. It is also celebrated in Tacitus, as being the spot of successful defence by the Germans against the Roman encroachments. I have ventured to adopt the name con- nected with nobler associations than those of mere slaughter " (Byron) . XXIX. 1. Loftier harps than mine. "Especially by Scott, whom Byron placed at the head of the poets of his age, in his poem The Field of Waterloo" (T.) . 4. I did his sire some wrong. Major Howard was the son_of_the Earl of Carlisle, Byron's guardian, whom he had satirized in the Eng- lish Bards, etc. In a letter to Moore, Byron says : "In the late battles, like all the world, I have lost a connection -poor Frederick Howard, the best of his race. I had little intercourse of late years with his family ; but I never saw or heard but good of him." XXX. 3. The fresh green tree, etc. In a note Byron says : "My guide from Mont St. Jean over the field seemed intelligent and accurate. The place where Major Howard fell was not far from two tall and soli- tary trees (there was a third, cut down or shivered in the battle), which stand a few yards from each other at a pathway's side. Beneath these he died and was buried." XXXIII. 1. Even as a broken mirror, etc. D. quotes Burton, Anat. of Melancholy, ii. 3. 7 : " 'Tis a hydra's head, contention ; the more 250 NOTES. they strive, the more they may; as Praxiteles did by his glass, when he saw a scurvy face in it, broke it in pieces : but for that one saw many more as bad in a moment." Jeffrey says of stanzas 32 and 33 : " There is a richness and energy in this passage which is peculiar to Lord Byron among all modern poets, -athrong of glowing images, poured forth at once, with a facility and profusion which must appear mere wastefulness to more economical writers, and a certain negligence and harshness of diction, which can belong only to an author who is oppressed with the exuberance and rapidity of his conceptions." XXXIV. 6. Like to the apples, etc. "The ( fabled) apples on the brink of the lake Asphaltes were said to be fair without, and within ashes. Vide Tacitus, Hist. v. 7 " ( Byron) . They are really a species of gall-nut. See Curzon, Monasteries in the Levant, p. 187. XXXV. 1. The Psalmist, etc. See Ps. xc. IO. 2. Tale. D. makes the word here =counting, numeration. Cf. Exod. v. 8. 18, 1 Sam. xviii. 27, 1 Chron. ix. 28, etc. T. takes it in its ordinary sense : "if we may judge from what thou hast to tell us of the duration of life." We are inclined to accept this latter explanation. XXXVI. 1. Thegreatest, etc. That is, Napoleon. 2. Antithetically mixed. Made up of contrarieties . D. says that " the construction is also mixed." He connects of the mightiest with mixed; but it is better to take it as = " one of the mightiest," as T. does. 5. Betwixt. ofV. i. 2. 8). "Seated in the mean," as Shakespeare expresses it (M. D. quotes here The Age ofBronze, v.: XXXVII. "A single step into the right had made This manthe Washington of worlds betrayed ; Asingle step into the wrong has given His name a doubt to all the winds of heaven.' 2. She trembles at thee still. Chateaubriand, quoted by Pichot, Translation ofByron's Works, vol. 2, p. 362, said : " Le redingote grise et le chapeau de Napoléon, placés au bout d'un bâton sur la côte de Brest, feraient courir l'Europe aux armes." 8. Inert. Paralyzed with their astonishment. XLI. 1. Headlong. Precipitous ; sometimes misprinted " headland. " 4. But men's thoughts, etc. Cf. i. 42. 5. T. paraphrases the passage thus : " The popular belief that Napoleon was invincible did more than anything else to support his throne and defeat his enemies : he ought, therefore, to have taken Alexander, not Diogenes, as his model —ought to have been the great conqueror, not the cynic - as long, at all events, as he desired to retain the throne." - 9. For sceptred cynics, etc. " The great error of Napoleon, if we have writ our annals true, ' was a continued obtrusion on mankind of his want of all community of feeling for or with them ; perhaps more offensive to human vanity than the active cruelty of more trembling and suspicious tyranny. Such were his speeches to public assemblies as well as to individuals ; and the single expression which he is said to have used on returning to Paris after the Russian winter had destroyed his army, rubbing his hands over a fire, ' This is pleasanter than Mos- CANTO THIRD. 251 cow, ' would probably alienate more favor from his cause than the des- truction and reverses which led to the remark " (Byron) . XLII. 5. Thefitting medium. The " golden mean, " le juste milieu. D. remarks that Byron here describes himself as well as Napoleon. XLIII. 8. One breast laid open, etc. D. quotes Tacitus : " Si pectora tyrannorum aperirentur," etc. " Trained and obstinately attached " XLIV. 3. Nursed and bigoted. (T.) . XLV. 1. He who ascends, etc. " In the first four lines of this stanza the comparison is put first, and its relation to that to which it is compared is only marked by the correspondence of the lines. It means- as he who ascends . so he who surpasses, etc.' It is difficult to arrange satisfactorily the different points of the comparison in the whole stanza ; but the first four lines seem to refer to the solitariness, the last five to the disquiet, of the summit of ambition. Interpret thus — ' As the mountaineer among the highest peaks finds himself in the midst of clouds and snow, so he who rises above his fellows must expect to be solitary in consequence of their jealousy : and as this climber finds sunshine above him, and a wide expanse outspread below him, while in his immediate neighborhood are rocks and storms, so the successfully ambitious man is crowned with glory, and has the world at his feet, but enjoys no repose or safety. This interpretation gives consistency to the passage ; but as Byron is apt to mix his metaphors, it is possible that he began by comparing the heroic man to the mountain-tops, and after the two intervening lines, went on to compare him to one among the mountain-tops " (T.). XLVI. 2. Within its own creation. Cf. stanza 6 above. "6 4. Thy majestic Rhine. From Brussels Byron continued his journey up the Rhine 'a line of road which he has strewed over with all the riches of poesy " ( Moore) . - 1 8. Farewells. To the traveller who passes them. There may be a reference to the original sense of the word, as wishing well to the way- farer. XLVII. 1. As stands a lofty mind, etc. This simile is an illustration of what is comparatively rare in figurative language -taking the immaterial to exemplify the material. Cf. Scott, Lady ofthe Lake, iii. 28, where the " mountain-shadows on Loch Katrine are said to be "Like future joys to Fancy's eye " (see note in our ed. p. 214) ; and Tennyson's and Shelley's "" "thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, That like a broken purpose waste in air ; " "Our boat is asleep on Serchio's stream ; Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream. ' See also iv. 173. 7 below. "" 3. Crannying. Finding its way into the crannies. 6. Banners on high. That is , waved on high; an example of zeugma. D. takes battles to be=battalions (as in Macbeth, v. 6. 4: "Lead our 252 NOTES. first battle," etc.) ; but the next line indicates that the word has its ordi- nary_meaning. XLVIII. 36. 4 above. 5. Of a longer date. Of more enduring renown. Cf. i. 6. What want these outlaws, etc. For the ellipsis of the relative, cf. 63. 2 below. " What wants that knave that a king should have ? ' was King James's question on meeting Johnnie Armstrong and his followers in full accoutrements. See the Ballad " (Byron). Johnnie Armstrong, Laird of Gilnockie, came to make his submission to James V. in 1532, but he was so imprudent as to present himself in all his Border pomp : 'There hung nine targets at Johnnie's hat, And ilk ane worth three hundred pound 'What wants that knave a king should have, But the sword of honour and the crown ? "" 66 The king caused him to be hung with all his suite. 8. An ornamented, etc. Some eds. have " or " for an. XLIX. 3. And Love, which lent, etc. Referring to the arms of a lady, or other device in her honor, which the knight sometimes bore upon his shield. 8. Fair mischief. Mischief-making fair one. See on ii. 84. I above. L. 9. That it should Lethe be. That it should make me forget the past. LI. 4. Their verygraves have gone. D. quotes Lucan, Pharsalia, ix. 969 : "Etiam periere ruinae." 7. Glassed. Was reflected. For the transitive, cf. 13. 9 above. The intransitive use is exceptional. LII. 9. With transient trace. D. compares ii. 41 above. LIII. 8. One fond breast. Referring to his sister Augusta. Cf. i . 10. 3 above. LIV. 1. And he had learned to love, etc. For Byron's love of children, cf. ii . 61. 7 above, and stanza 116 below. See also iv. 149. LV. 5. Had stood the test, etc. D. quotes To Augusta : "When all around grew drear and dark, And reason half withheld her ray, And hope but shed a dying spark Which more misled my lonely way, When fortune changed, and love fled far, And hatred's shafts flew thick and fast, Thou wert the solitary star Which rose, and set not to the last." The lyric that follows was written to Augusta in May, 1816, when the poet was on the banks of the Rhine. The Drachenfels ( Dragon's Rock) is the southernmost of the Siebenge- birge, or Seven Mountains. The old castle on the summit is one of the most conspicuous and picturesque ruins on the river. This Ist stanza of the poem in the 1st and many other eds. has no point but the comma from beginning to end ; but there should be a semicolon at the end of the 4th line, as hills, fields, and cities are obvi ously in the same construction. CANTO THIRD. 253 LVI. 1. On a rise of gentle ground. That is, on a gentle rise of ground ; an example of hypallage, or transference of epithets.' 5. Our enemy's. T. says : "If heroes' refers to the fact of General Hoche being interred in the same grave with Marceau, then enemy is collective a harsh use, when only two persons are intended." It does not strike us so. Our enemy's our enemy's men, the collective noun referring to the enemy in general. It would not have occurred to us that any other interpretation of enemy's was possible, if we had not seen this note by T. 9. Battled to resume. Fought to regain. LVII. 1. Brief, brave, etc. Marceau, general of the French Republic, died in 1796 from a wound received a few days before at Alten- kirchen, near Coblenz, in an engagement with the forces of the Arch-Duke Charles. He was only twenty-seven, but had already dis- tinguished himself in former campaigns. "France adored, and her enemies admired ; both wept over him. His funeral was attended by the generals and detachments from both armies " (Byron). LVIII. 1. "Ehrenbreitstein, that is , ' the broad stone of honour, ' one of the strongest fortresses in Europe, was dismantled and blown up by the French at the truce of Leoben. It had been and could only be reduced by famine or treachery. It yielded to the former, aided by surprise. . . . General Marceau besieged it in vain for some time, and I slept in a room where I was shown a window at which he is said to have been standing observing the progress of the siege by moonlight, when a ball struck immediately below it " (Byron). The fortress has been restored and strengthened in our day, and is appropriately called "the Gibraltar of the Rhine." The precipitous rock on which it stands is 387 feet above the river. 9. The iron shower. T. quotes Gray, The Fatal Sisters: "Iron sleet of arrowy shower Hurtles in the darken'd air. " Note "the pathetic contrast between the soft rain and the falling missiles." LIX. 5. The ceaseless vultures. Conscience, preying upon the heart, as the vulture upon the vitals of Prometheus. 9. Mellow. That is, which it makes mellow ; an example of prolepsis, or anticipation of meaning. Cf. Macbeth, i. 6. 1 : " This castle hath a pleasant seat ; the air Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself Unto our gentle senses ; that is, which it soothes, or makes gentle. See also the same play, i . 3. 84 and iii . 4. 76. LX. 6. Glance. Some eds. misprint " heart. " 8. Attaching. Attractive. LXI. 2. Sheen. See on i. 17. 2 above. LXII. 6. The thunderbolt ofsnow. Cf. the description of Mont Blanc in Manfred, i. I : "Around his waist are forests braced, The Avalanche in his hand ; But ere it fall, that thundering ball Must pause for my command. " 254 NOTES. 8. Gather. The change to the plural after the two singular verbs that immediately precede in the sentence, is unpleasantly abrupt ; and it is as uncalled for as it is disagreeable. If it were not found in all the standard editions from the 1st down, we should suspect it to be a mis- print for " Gathers . " LXIII. 3. Morat. The patriot field is about a mile and a half from Morat, a town on the lake of the same name, a little to the east of the Lake of Neuchâtel. The battle, fought on the 22d of June, 1476, was the bloodiest of the three disastrous conflicts (Grandson, Morat, and Nancy) in which the Duke of Burgundy successively lost his treasure, his courage, and his life (" Gut, Muth, and Blut "). The Burgundians left 15,000 men dead on the field, which was strewn with scattered bones when Byron saw it, the mortuary chapel in which they had been en- closed having been destroyed in 1798 by the Burgundians in the French Revolutionary army. In 1822 they were gathered up and buried, and an obelisk set up to mark the spot. Byron says in a note : " Of these relics I ventured to bring away as much as may have made a quarter of a hero, for which the sole excuse is, that, if I had not, the next passer-by might have perverted them to worse uses than the careful preser- vation which I intend for them." Many of them had been carried off and sold for making knife-handles. 8. The Stygian coast, etc. Alluding to the ancient idea that the souls of those whose bodies had not received the rites of sepulture were doomed to wander for a hundred years on the banks of the Styx before they could be ferried over the infernal river. Cf. Virgil, Æn. vi. 374. LXIV. 1. Canna's carnage. The Romans are said to have lost 45,000 men at Cannæ. 9. By some Draconic clause. As after Waterloo by the Holy Alli- ance, which the poet compares to the severe and inflexible code of the Athenian Draco. LXV. I. A lonelier column. The only column left standing to mark the site of the Roman Aventicum (now Avenches, about five miles from Morat) , the ancient capital of Helvetia. It is of the Corinthian order, 39 feet high, and belonged to a temple of Apollo. It is now called Le Cigognier, from the stork's nest which has surmounted it for centuries. LXVI. 1. And there, etc. Byron says in a note : "Julia Alpinula, a young Aventian priestess, died soon after a vain endeavor to save her father, condemned to death as a traitor by Aulus Cæcina. Her epitaph was discovered many years ago ; -it is thus : Julia Alpinula hicjaceo, infelicis patris infelix proles, Deae Aventiae sacerdos. Exorare patris necem non potui : male mori in fatis illi erat. 6 Vixiannos xxiii.' I know of no human composition so affecting as this, nor a history of deeper interest. These are the names and actions which ought not to perish, and to which we turn, with a true and healthy tenderness, from the wretched and glittering detail of a confused mass of conquests and battles, with which the mind is roused for a time to a false and feverish sympathy, from whence it recurs at length with all the nausea conse- quent on such intoxication. " It is now known that both monument and inscription were invented by a certain Paulus Guilielmus of the 16th century. We may forgive him a forgery which was the means of inspir- CANTO THIRD. 255 ing this part of Childe Harold, and rejoice that the fraud was not dis- covered until after the poem was written. - LXVII. 8. Like yonder Alpine snow. " This is written in the eye of Mont Blanc ( June 3, 1816) , which even at this distance dazzles mine. (July 20) I this day observed for some time the distinct reflection of Mont Blanc and Mont Argentière in the calm of the lake, which I was crossing in my boat ; the distance of these mountains from their mirror is sixty miles " (Byron). LXVIII. 1. Lake Leman. The Lacus Lemanus of the Romans. " LXIX. 4. Lest it overboil, etc. T. says that " there is a confusion of metaphors here between water in a spring and water in a cauldron ; ' but we doubt whether the latter image came into Byron's mind. He was probably thinking only of boiling springs. LXX. 8. Wanderers der Eternity. Hence, as D. suggests, "the beautiful name of ' Pilgrim of Eternity,' which Shelley gives Byron in Adonais, xxx. " For the idea of " predestination to evil," T. compares iv. 34 below. LXXI. 3. The blue rushing, etc. "The color of the Rhone at Gen- eva is blue, to a depth of tint which I have never seen equalled in water, salt or fresh, except in the Mediterranean and Archipelago (Byron). Cf. Don Juan, xiv. 87. "" LXXII. 3. High mountains are afeeling. A reminiscence of Words- worth, Tintern Abbey: "The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion : the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colors and their forms, were then to me An appetite, a feeling, and a love, " etc. But the hum, etc. Here, as D. well says, we see "the deep abyss between Byron and Wordsworth : for him Nature and man are ene- mies, for Wordsworth they are brethren ; and he quotes Tintern Abbey: "I have learned " To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth, but hearing oftentimes The still, sad music ofhumanity, Nor harsh, nor grating, though of ample power To soften and subdue.' 9. Mingle, etc. T. quotes The Siege of Corinth, II : "Who ever gazed upon them shining, And turned to earth without repining, Nor wished for wings to flee away, And mix with their eternal ray? " LXXIII. 6. With a fresh pinion, etc. D. compares Horace, Od. iii 2. 24 : " et udam Spernit humum fugiente penna ; ' and T. quotes Od. ii. 20. 9 : "Jam jam residunt cruribus asperae Pelles et album mutor in alitem Superne, nascunturque leves Per digitos humerosque plumae." 256 NOTES. 9. Spurning the clay-cold bonds, etc. Cf. Cymbeline, v. 4. z8 : “ And cancel these cold bonds. " LXXIV. 1. And when atlength, etc. "The feeling of antagonism between the flesh and spirit which Byron expresses in this passage is the same which appears in Manichæism, in extravagant asceticism, and in other wild forms of philosophical and religious opinion. But the mystical, half-pantheistic views which are expressed throughout this part of the poem, hardly amount to anything more definite than the feeling infinite ' of 90. 1., together with the poetic longing to be identified with what is sublime and beautiful in nature. Their greater prominence in this part of Childe Harold (though similar opinions are stated more obscurely elsewhere) is attributable to Byron's having now for the first time seen the Alps, under circumstances which caused them to exercise a peculiar influence over him ; and also to his having been in Shelley's company " (T.) . 9. Ofwhich even now, etc. Cf. iv. 138. 8 below. LXXVI. 2. Immediate. That is, suggested by the locality. Rous seau, of whom he is about to speak, was born at Geneva in 1712. 3. The urn. The dead. LXXVII. 1. true of Byron as gusta: The self-torturing sophist. As D. remarks, this is as of Rousseau, by his own avowal. Cf. Epistle to Au- "I have been cunning in mine overthrow, The careful pilot of my proper woe.' 7. Erring deeds and thoughts. "The illicit love of Saint- Preux and Julie " (T.) . LXXIX. 3. The memorable kiss, etc. "This refers to the account in his Confessions of his passion for the Countess d'Houdetot, and his long walk every morning for the sake of the single kiss, which was the common salutation of French acquaintance (Byron). "" LXXX. 2. Self-banished. Banished by him, not by themselves : Diderot, Hume, Saint-Lambert, Grimm (D.). 4. The kind. Mankind. LXXXI. 2. The Pythian's mystic cave. Cf. i . 64. 4 above. 3. These oracles, etc. "Le Contrat Social, the Gospel of the Jaco- bins " (D.). LXXXII. 3. The veil they rent. "The veil was the sense of awe which enveloped ancient institutions, such as the idea of the divine right of kings ; when this was withdrawn, posterity would estimate those institutions by their own merits " (T.) . 6. Leaving but ruins, etc. "That is, the overthrow of society led to a reaction, which resulted in political repression (dungeons), in the empire of Napoleon, and in the restoration of the Bourbons (thrones)." Cf. iv. 97 below. LXXXIII. 1. But this, etc. Later, in 1822, Byron wrote : "The king times are finishing. There will be blood shed. like water, and tears like mist ; but the peoples will conquer in the end. I shall not live to see it, but I foresee it.' LXXXIV. 2. And but heal, etc. D. quotes Rochefoucauld, 194: "Les défauts de l'âme sont comme les blessures du corps ; quelque soin qu'on prenne de les guérir, la cicatrice parait toujours. ” CANTO THIRD. 257 LXXXV. 1. Clear placid Leman, etc. Stanzas 85-91 have a harmony and a sweetness that is like Shelley ( D. ) . They are the fruit of an excursion that Byron made with Shelley in a boat along the shores of the lake, in the last days of June, 1816. Shelley then read the Nou- velle Héloïse for the first time, and Byron reread it. In a letter to Murray, June 27, 1816, he says : "I have traversed all Rousseau's ground with the Héloïse before me, and am struck to a degree that I cannot express with the force and accuracy of his description, and the beauty of their reality. " Thy contrasted lake, etc. That is, thy lake contrasted, etc. For the transposition, cf. Richard II. iii. 2. 8 : " As a long parted mother with her child ; " Henry VIII. iii . 1. 134 : " Bring me a constant woman to her husband," etc. LXXXVI. 5. Drawing near. As we draw near. 7. Childhood. "Notice the beautiful pause after the seventh sylla- ble, which is frequent in this part of the poem " ( T.) . 8. Drops the light drip. The correspondence of sound and sense is noteworthy. LXXXVII. 2. An infancy. Careless and joyous as an infant's. LXXXVIII. 9. Thatfortune, fame, power, life, etc. T. cites iii . II. 6, iii. 38. 9, iv. 174, 5 ; Numb. xxiv. 17 ; also Shelley, Adonais, 55. 8: "The soul of Adonais, like a star ; " and Wordsworth, Intim. of Im- mortality: "The soul that rises with us, our life's star." LXXXIX. 1. All heaven and earth, etc. "A stanza à la Wordsworth, only that Wordsworth in the last line would have written Of him who . » (D.) . XC. 2. Where we are least alone. Cf. ii . 25. 8 above, and iv. 178. 3 below. 7. Cytherea's zone. The cestus or girdle of Venus, which had the power of inspiring love for the wearer. XCI. I. The early Persian, etc. Herodotus (i. 131 ) says that " the Persians offer their sacrifices to Zeus on the highest peaks of the moun- tains, giving the name of Zeus to the whole circle of the heavens.” Cf. Wordsworth, Excursion, iv.: "The Persian - zealous to reject Altar and image, and the inclusive walls And roofs of temples built by human hands- To loftiest heights ascending, from their tops, With myrtle-wreathed tiara on his brow, Presented sacrifice to moon and stars, And to the winds and mother elements, And the whole circle of the heavens, for him A sensitive existence, and a god, With lifted hands invoked and songs of praise." 7. Goth. Gothic. 9. Fond. " Foolishly valued ; a rare use, because it is applied to the object " (T.) . See on i. 10. 9 above. XCII. 3. As is the light, etc. be found except in Byron " ( D.). "A comparison which could hardly In the excursion which Byron and Shelley took on Lake Geneva, they were nearly lost in a storm ; but the one described here, Byron 17 · 258 NOTES. tells us in a note, occurred a fortnight earlier, on the 13th of June. He adds : " I have seen among the Acroceraunian mountains of Chimari, several more terrible, but none more beautiful." See on ii. 52.9 above. 8. And Jura answers, etc. The passage may have been suggested by Wordsworth's description of the "loud uproar among the hills ” in response to the lady's laugh in To Joanna: " The Rock, like something starting from a sleep, Took up the lady's voice, and laughed again ; The ancient Woman seated on Helm- crag Was ready with her cavern ; Hammar-scar And the tall steep of Silver How sent forth A noise of laughter ; Southern Loughrigg heard, And Fairfield answered with a mountain tone ; Helvellyn far into the clear blue sky Carried the lady's voice, - old Skiddaw blew His speaking- trumpet ; -back out of the clouds Of Glaramara southward came the voice ; And Kirkstone tossed it from his misty head. " 66 9. Thejoyous Alps. ' Perhaps the finest thing in this famous pas- sage is the element of Titanic revelry which is introduced into it- ' joyous Alps,' ' fierce delight,' ' glee," ' mountain-mirth,' ' play.' The lake of Geneva lies between the Alps and the Jura ” (T.) . XCIII. 9. As ifthey did rejoice, etc. We cannot agree with D. that this is an " imitation malheureuse " of Ps. cxiv. 4. XCIV. 2. As lovers, etc. T. thinks there can be little doubt that here Byron had in mind the following passage in Coleridge's Christabel, of which poem he often expressed his admiration : "They parted -ne'er to meet again! But never either found another To free the hollow heart from paining- They stood aloof, the scars remaining, Like cliffs which had been rent asunder; Adreary sea now flows between ; - But neither heat nor frost nor thunder Shall wholly do away, I ween, The marks of that which once hath been. " These lines, by the way, are quoted by Byron as an introduction to his Fare thee well, addressed to his wife in 1816. XCIX. 1. Clarens ! " The village of Clarens, near Vevey, towards the head of the lake of Geneva, is situated in the midst of vineyards on sloping ground near the shore, and commands beautiful views of the lake and the mountains which here hem it in, conspicuous among which are the glaciers of the Dent du Midi. It has been elaborately described by Rousseau in the Nouvelle Héloïse. Byron visited Clarens in Shelley's company, and this passage, more than any other in Childe Harold, gives evidence of his influence. In a note to this stanza the following passage -The feeling with which all around Clarens, and the opposite rocks of Meillerie, is invested, is of a still higher and more comprehensive order than the mere sympathy with individual passion ; it is a sense of the existence of love in its most extended and sublime capacity, and of our own participation of its good and of its glory : it is the great prin. occurs - CANTO THIRD. 259 ciple of the universe, which is there more condensed, but not less mani- fested ; and of which, though knowing ourselves a part, we lose our individuality, and mingle in the beauty of the whole.' In this, as Moore (Life, p. 317 ) and Dr. Karl Elze (Life of Lord Byron, p. 209) have re- marked, Shelley's pantheism of love is distinctly to be traced " ( T.) . 5. Andsunset into rose-hues, etc. Referring to the rosy glow often seen on the snowy summits after sunset. Byron in a note quotes the Héloïse : " Ces montagnes sont si hautes qu' une demi- heure après le soleil couche leurs sommets sont encore éclairés de ses rayons, dont le rouge forme sur les cimes blanches une belle couleur de rose qu'on apperçoit de fort loin. " CI. 9. A populous solitude. Cf. 73. 2 above ; and see on 57. 5. CIII. 1. He who hath loved not, etc. D. quotes the Pervigilium Veneris : "Cras amet qui nunquain amavit, Quique amavit cras amet ; or, as Parnell translates it : "" "Let those love now who never loved before ; Let those who always loved now love the more. " CIV. I. ' Twas not for fiction, etc. Byron quotes Rousseau's Confessions, iv.: "Je dirais volontiers à ceux qui ont du goût et qui sont sensibles : Allez à Vevay -visitez le pays, examinez les sites, promenez- vous sur le lac, et dites si la Nature n'a pas fait ce beau pays pour une Julie, pour une Claire, et pour un Saint-Preux. ” 5. Where early Love, etc. Alluding to the story of Cupid and Psyche. ČV. 2. Ofnames, etc. "Voltaire and Gibbon " ( Byron) . 6. Titan-like, etc. As the Giants and Titans piled Pelion on Ossa in their attempt to climb into heaven and dethrone Jupiter. Cf. Virgil, Geor. i. 281. CVI. 1. The one, etc. That is, Voltaire. 6. Proteus. The prophetic sea-god, whose power of assuming varied shapes to elude those who wished to consult him has made his name a synonyme for changeableness. 7. As the wind, etc. Cf. John iii. 8. CVII. 1. The other. Gibbon, who resided long at Lausanne, where he finished his Decline and Fall. CIX. 8. Their most great and growing region. The higher regions of the Alps. CX. 3. Thefierce Carthaginian. Hannibal. CXIII. 7. Among them, but not ofthem. D. quotes Manfred, ii. 1 : " My spirit walked not with the souls of men, Nor looked upon the earth with human eyes ; The thirst of their ambition was not mine, The aim oftheir existence was not mine." 9. Had I notfiled my mind. That is, defiled it. Byron quotes Mac beth, iii. 1. 64 : "For Banquo's issue have I filed my mind." CXV. 1. This song. This canto . 9. A token, etc. Cf. iv. 137 below. CXVIII. 7. The mountains. Of Switzerland. 260 NOTES. CANTO FOURTH. I. I. Istood in Venice, etc. When Byron first went to Venice he wrote to Moore ( Dec. 5, 1816) : " Of Venice I shall say little. It is a poetical place and classical, to us, from Shakespeare and Otway. I have not yet sinned against it in verse, nor do I know that I shall do so, having been tuneless since I crossed the Alps, and feeling as yet no renewal of the ' estro."" The renewal, however, soon came, and the results, besides this portion of Childe Harold, were the Ode on Venice ( 1816), Beppo ( 1817 ), Marino Faliero ( 1820) , and The Two Foscari (1821). The Bridge of Sighs, " which few repass " ( The Two Foscari, iv. 1 ) , connects the Ducal Palace with the State Prisons on the other side of a canal. 8. The winged Lion's, etc. The Lion of St. Mark, the emblem of Venice. Cf. II . 5 below. 9. Her hundred isles. The city is built upon three large and 114 small islands, connected by 378 bridges ( Baedeker) . II. I. A sea Cybele. Byron says in a note : " An old writer, describing the appearance of Venice, has made use of the above image, which would not be poetical were it not true : ' Quo fit ut qui superne urbem contempletur turritam telluris imaginem medio Oceano figuratam se putet inspicere (Marci Antonii Sabellici de Venetae Urbis situ Nar- ratio, 1527) . The goddess Cybele was sometimes represented as wear- ing a turreted crown. The name is usually Cyběle in Latin, but there is some authority for Cybele. III. 1. Tasso's echoes are no more. "The well known song of the gondoliers, of alternate stanzas, from Tasso's Jerusalem, has died with the independence of Venice. Editions of the poem, with the original on one column and the Venetian variations on the other, as sung by the boatmen, were once common, and are still to be found " (Byron). 9. Masque. Masquerade, carnival. ÍV. 6. The Rialto. The famous bridge- until our day the only one across the Grand Canal - takes its name from the island to which it leads, originally the commercial centre of Venice. Here, a short distance from the bridge, was the merchant's exchange, the " Rialto " of Shakespeare. • Shylock and the Moor. Referring of course to the Merchant of Venice and Othello, as Pierre does to the Venice Preserved of Otway. V. 6. Spirits. Metrically equivalent to a monosyllable, as often in Shakespeare and other old writers. 9. Void. The rhyme is a very imperfect one. Cf. iv. 80 below. VI. 2. Thefirstfrom hope, etc. D. quotes Don Juan: "In youth I wrote because my mind was full, And now because I find it growing dull. " VII. 3. But so. That is, but dreams. VIII. 1. Taught me. For the reflexive see on i. 4. I above. Byron spoke Italian like a native. CANTO FOURTH. 261 6. Where men are proud to be, etc. As D. remarks, this " patriotic note " is rare in Byron. IX. 3. Shall resume it. "Shall reclaim my right to it " (T.) . X. 1. The temple, etc. Westminster Abbey. Cf. what Byron wrote to Murray, June 7, 1819 : “ I trust they won't think of ' pickling and bringing me home to Clod or Blunderbuss Hall. ' I amsure mybones would not rest in an English grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that country. I believe the thought would drive me mad on my deathbed, could I suppose that any of my friends would be base enough to convey my carcass back to your soil. I would not even feed your worms, if I could help it." 5. Sparta hath, etc. "The answer of the mother of Brasidas, the Lacedæmonian general, to the strangers who praised the memory of her son (Byron). " 7. The thorns, etc. Cf. iii . 77 above. XI. 1. The spouseless Adriatic, etc. Annually on Ascension Day the Doge used to perform the ceremony of " wedding the Adriatic " by throwing a ring into the sea from the state-galley Bucentaur (or Bucen- toro) -in token of the maritime supremacy of the Republic. Cf. Wordsworth's sonnet on the downfall of Venice : " And when she took unto herself a mate, She must espouse the everlasting Sea. " The Bucentaur was destroyed by the French ; but the scanty remains of it, with a model, are preserved in the Arsenal at Venice. The 5. Saint Mark. The patron saint of Venice. Cf. 1. 8 above. Lion is on the top of a lofty column overlooking the Piazza di San Marco. In this proud Place, in front of the Cathedral, the German Em- peror Frederic Barbarossa ( called the Suabian below, because he was of the house of Suabia) made his submission to Pope Alexander III. in 1177. XII. 1. The Austrian reigns. Venice, wrested from Austria by Napoleon in 1805, was restored to that power in 1814, and remained in her possession until 1866, when it was ceded to Italy. 7. Lauwine. The German word for avalanche. In 73. 5 below the poet uses it again as a plural. 8. O,for one hour ofblind old Dandolo ! "The reader will recollect the exclamation of the Highlander, ' O, for one hour of Dundee ! ' Henry Dandolo, when elected Doge in 1192 was eighty-five years of age. When he commanded the Venetians at the taking of Constanti- nople, he was consequently ninety-seven years of age " ( Byron) . He led the attack on Constantinople in person, and was one of the first to rush into the city. XIII. 1. His steeds ofbrass. The famous bronze horses above the portal of St. Mark's church. They have travelled more than most of their race. Constantine carried them from Rome ( where they probably 1 See The Rivals, v. 2: " If you should get a quietus, you may command me entirely. I'll get you a snug lying in the Abbey here ; or pickle you, and send you over to Blunderbuss Hall. 262 NOTES. adorned the triumphal arch of Nero, and afterwards that of Trajan) to Constantinople, whence Dandolo brought them to Venice in 1204. In 1797 Napoleon took them to Paris and set them on the Arch of the Carrousel ; but in 1815 they were restored to their former position in Venice. 3. Doria's menace. After the loss of the battle of Pola and the taking of Chioza in August, 1379, when the Venetians were reduced to great straits by the Genoese, and offered to submit to any terms provided their independence was left to them, the Genoese commander, Peter Doria, replied : " Ye shall have no peace until we have first put a rein upon those unbridled horses of yours, which are upon the porch of your evangelist St. Mark. " 5. Her thirteen hundredyears offreedom done. " The foundation of Venice dates from the invasion of Italy by the Huns under Attila, A.D. 452, when many of the inhabitants of the neighboring districts took refuge in the islands in the lagoons " (T. ) . Cf. the Ode on Venice, I : "Thirteen hundred years Of wealth and glory turned to dust and tears. " 6. Sinks, etc. Apparently suggested by the gradual subsidence of Venetian buildings, the foundations of which rest on piles. In Byron's day there would seem to have been a serious apprehension that the city was doomed on this account to sink at last into the sea. Shelley, in his Lines Written among the Euganean Hills, 1818, apostrophizes Venice thus : " Sun-girt City ! thou hast been Ocean's child, and then his queen ; Nowis come a darker day, And thou soon must be his prey. " He goes on to anticipate the time "when the sea- mew Flies, as once before it flew, O'er thine isles depopulate, And all is in its ancient state, Save where many a palace-gate, With green sea-flowers overgrown Like a rock of ocean's own, Topples o'er the abandoned sea As the tides change sullenly." XIV. 3. The Planter ofthe Lion. "That is, the Lion of St. Mark, the standard of the Republic, which is the origin of the word Panta- loon Piantaleone, Pantaleon, Pantaloon " (Byron) . T. appears to endorse this etymology, which is on a par with Punch's jocose deriva- tion of the word, " from pene, almost, and talones, the heels, because they come quite down to the heels. " St. Pantaleone was a patron of Venice, and his name from being a common baptismal one in the city came to be an Italian nickname for a Venetian. Pantaloons were so called " because worn by Venetians " ( Skeat) . 6. Europe's bulwark, etc. Cf. Wordsworth's sonnet, already cited : "Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee, And was the safeguard of the West. " CANTO FOURTH. 263 For Ottomite =Ottoman, cf. Othello, i. 3. 233 : "These present wars against the Ottomites , " etc. 7. Candia. The town of that name in the island of Crete. The Venetians defended it against the Turks for twenty-four years, while the siege of Troy lasted only ten years. 8. Lepanto'sfight. See on ii. 40. 5 above. XV. 1. File. Here treated as a collective noun, though T. thinks it can hardly be regarded as such. 3. The vast and sumptuous pile. The Ducal Palace. 1 7. Streets. There are as many streets in Venice as in any other city of the size, though most of them are very narrow. The canals are the highways of travel, as there are no horses in the place. Foreign aspects. The Austrians. XVI. 3. In the Attic Muse, etc. " The story is told in Plutarch's Life of Nicias " (Byron) . He relates how some of the captives gained ' their freedom by reciting the poetry of Euripides. 6. O'ermastered victor. See on i. 57. 5 above. 7. Scimitar. As D. notes, the term is an anachronism here. It is used by poetic license for sword. Cf. i . 87. 5 above. XVII. 9. Thy watery wall. Richard II. ii. 1. 46: XVIII. Cf. the description of England in "This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands. " 5. And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakespeare's art, etc. For Otway and Shakespeare, see on 4. 6 above. The other allusions are to Mrs. Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho and Schiller's Ghost-seer (Der Geisterscher). XIX. 7. From thee, fair Venice, etc. Cf. Shelley's reference to Byron in the apostrophe to Venice quoted in note on 13. 6 above : "That a tempest-cleaving swan Of the songs of Albion, Driven from his ancestral streams Bythe might of evil dreams, Found a nest in thee ; and Ocean Welcomed him with such emotion That its joy grew his, and sprung From his lips like music flung O'er a mighty thunder-fit, Chastening terror," etc. XX. 1. The tannen. Byron says in a note : "Tannen is the plural of tanne, a species of fir peculiar to the Alps, which only thrives in very rocky parts, where scarcely soil sufficient for its nourishment can be found. On these spots it grows to a greater height than any other mountain tree." Tanne is simply the name of the fir in German. In a letter to Murray, June 7, 1820, the poet, referring to Goethe, says : " His Faust I never read, for I don't know German." XXI. 5. The wolf dies in silence. D. quotes Vigny, La Mort du Loup: 264 NOTES. "Comment on doit quitter la vie et tous ses maux, C'est vous qui le savez, sublimes animaux ! Avoir ce que l'on fut sur terre et ce qu'on laisse, Seul le silence est grand ; tout le reste est faiblesse ." XXII. 1. All suffering, etc. D. quotes Sir Thomas Browne : " Sense endureth no extremities, and sorrows destroy us or themselves. " 7. The reed, etc. Cf. Isaiah, xxxvi. 6. XXIII. 9. The electric chain. Cf. 172. 7 below. XXIV. 8. The cold, the changed, etc. Cf. Scott, Lady of the Lake, i. 33 : "They come, in dim procession led, The cold, the faithless, and the dead. " 9. The mourned, the loved, the lost. "The mention of the dead suggests the thought of their being mourned, while loved and lost forms as it were a compound idea " (T.). XXV. Rome. 2. To meditate amongst decay. That is, among the ruins of During the spring of 1817 Byron spent six weeks in visiting the principal Italian cities and places renowned from poetic or historical recollections, including Arquà, Ferrara, Florence, and Rome. XXVI. 5. Even in thy desert, etc. D. quotes Rogers, Italy, ix. : "O Italy, how beautiful thou art! Yet I could weep -for thou art lying, alas! Low in the dust ; and they who come admire thee As we admire the beautiful in death. " XXVII. 4. Blue Friuli's mountains. Friuli's blue mountains. See on iii. 56. I above. The mountains meant are " the Julian Alps, which form an arc from behind Trieste to the neighbourhood of Verona ; and the word must be taken in its widest acceptation, for the mountains intended are evidently those to the west of Venice, while Friuli itself (the ancient Forum Julii) is to the north-east of that city " ( T. ) . The same chain, or higher summits beyond, are called below "the far Rhæ tian hill," that is, the Tyrolese heights . 9. An island ofthe blest. "The above description may seem fantastical or exaggerated to those who have never seen an Oriental or an Italian sky, yet it is but a literal and hardly sufficient delineation of an August evening as contemplated in one of many rides along the banks of the Brenta near La Mira" ( Byron) . XXIX. 7. The dolphin, whom, etc. This use of whom for which is by no means rare in English writers, especially the poets. XXX. 1. Arqua. That is, Arquà del Monte, on the Euganean Hills, where Petrarch, exiled from Florence, spent the last years of his life. His tomb is a sarcophagus supported on short pillars of red marble. It stands in front of the village church. His house, which contains a few relics of its renowned occupant, is carefully preserved. 8. Thetree, etc. The laurel (Ital. lauro) . Petrarch was fond of play- ing upon the names ofthe lady and the tree. "C XXXIII. 2. Whereby. Beside which ; printed where-by "in the English eds. , to distinguish it from the more familiar use of the word. 5. Idlesse. See on ii. 94. 2 above. CANTO FOURTH. 265 XXXIV. I. Or it may be, with demons. " The struggle is full as likely to be with demons as with our better thoughts. Satan chose the wilderness for the temptation of our Saviour. And our unsullied John Locke preferred the presence of a child to complete solitude (Byron). 9. A murkiergloom. D. quotes Macbeth, v. I. 40 : " Hell is murky ! XXXV. 5. of Este. The house of Este, long the rulers of Ferrara. 8. Those who wore, etc. XXXVI. 4. Alfonso. Ariosto and Tasso. "" That is, Alfonso II. , Duke of Ferrara, with whose sister Tasso became enamored, and was therefore shut up by him for many years as a madman. Cf. Byron's Lament of Tasso, and Goethe's Torquato Tasso. XXXVII. 1. Thine. Alfonso's. "" 6. Thypoor malice. Cf. Macbeth, iii. 2. 14 : our poor malice." XXXVIII. 2. The beasts that perish. Cf. Ps. xlix. 20. 6. The Cruscan quire. The Accademia della Crusca, established at Florence in 1582, with the object of purifying the national language. It censured Tasso's Jerusalem. Quire is now commonly spelled choir. 7. Boileau. The celebrated French critic, who complained that the taste of his time preferred the tinsel of Tasso to the gold of Virgil ( " le clinquant du Tasse à tout l'or de Virgile " ) . 8. His country's creaking lyre, etc. A fling at the monotony of French heroic verse. XL. 3. The Bards ofHell and Chivalry. Dante and Ariosto. The Divina Commedia of the former is referred to in the next line. 6. The southern Scott. Ariosto ; as Scott is called below the Ariosto of the North. The juxtaposition of the two comparisons is open to criticism . XLI. 1. The lightning, etc. "Before the remains of Tasso were removed from the Benedictine church to the library of Ferrara, his bust, which surmounted the tomb, was struck by lightning, and a crown of iron laurels melted away " ( Byron) . 5. No bolt of thunder, etc. Laurel was supposed to be a protection against lightning, and Suetonius says that Tiberius never failed to wear a wreath of it when the sky threatened a thunder-storm . 8. The lightning sanctifies, etc. This was an old Roman superstition. XLII. I. Italia, O Italia ! etc. Byron says in a note that this stanza and the next are, "with the exception of a line or two, a translation of the famous sonnet of Filicaja : " Italia, Italia, o tu, cui feo la sorte Dono infelice di bellezza, ond' hai. Funesta dote d' infiniti guai, Che in fronte scritti per gran doglia porte : Deh ! fossi tu men bella, o almen più forte ; Onde assai più ti paventasse, o assai T'amasse men, chi del tuo bello ai rai Par che si strugga, e pur ti sfida a morte. Chè giù dall' Alpi non vedrei torrenti Scender d' armati, nè di sangue tinta Bever l'onda del Po gallici armenti, Nè ti vedrei del non tuo ferro cinta Pugnar col braccio di straniere genti, Per servir sempre, o vincitrice, o vinta. " 266 NOTES. 1 6. O God, that thou wert, etc. D. quotes Rogers, Italy, 66 Thine was a dangerous gift, the gift ofbeauty. Would thou hadst less, or wert as once thou wast, Inspiring awe in those who now enslave thee ! " i. 9: XLIV. 2. The Romanfriend, etc. Servius Sulpicius. In his letter to Cicero, written from Athens to condole with him on the death of his daughter Tullia (included in Cicero's Epist. ad Fam. , 4. 5. 4) , he dwells on the insignificance of human bereavements in comparison with the downfall of famous states : "ex Asia rediens, cum ab Aegina Megaram versus navigarem, coepi regiones circumcirca prospicere : post me erat Aegina, ante me Megara, dextra Piraeus, sinistra Corinthus ; quae oppida quodam tempore florentissima fuerunt, nunc prostrata et diruta ante oculos jacent. Coepi egomet mecum sic cogitare : hem! nos ho- munculi indignamur, si quis nostrum interiit aut occisus est, quorum vita brevior esse debet, cum uno loco tot oppidum cadavera projecta jacent ? " XLV. 3. Make more mourned. "An awkward collocation of words, both in respect of diction and sound. These stanzas on the decadence of Greece contrast unfavourably with those at the end of Canto II. " ( T.) . XLVI. 8. The skeleton, etc. Byron quotes the exclamation of Pog- gio on looking down from the Capitoline Hill upon ruined Rome : " Ut nunc omni decore nudata, prostrata jacet, instar gigantei cadaveris corrupti atque undique exesi." XLVII. 2. Thy wrongs should ring, etc. Cf. Milton, Sonn. xix.: "Of which all Europe rings from side to side. " XLVIII. 2. The Etrurian Athens. Florence on the Arno. XLIX . 1. The Goddess, etc. gallery. The Venus de ' Medici, in the Uffizi 8. Fond. "Foolishly devoted. " See on iii . 91. 9 above. L. 2. Drunk with beauty. In a letter to Murray, April 26, 1817, the poet says of his visit to Florence : " I went to the two galleries, from which one returns drunk with beauty." 7. Thejargon of the marble mart. statuary. The technical cant of dealers in 9. The Dardan Shepherd's prize. The judgment of Paris in awarding the prize of beauty to Venus. LI. 2. Anchises. Beloved of Venus, who bore him Æneas. 7. Feeding on thy sweet cheek. Byron quotes (from whom ?) : 'Opłaλ- μoùs éσTiâv ; and Ovid, Amor. ii.: “ Atque oculos pascat uterque suos. " 8. Lava kisses, etc. Cf. Hodgson, Monitor of Childe Harold, 1818 : ' When, as in some high Sorcerer's mystic glass, These pictured forms before thy fancy pass, Stain not the mirrored beauty ofthe scene With Gothic clouds that grossly intervene ; Nor chill at once, and scorch us, with an ' urn,' Where cold conceits flow forth, and ' lava kisses ' burn." CANTO FOURTH. 267 LIII. 2. His ape. The Amateur. 5. Describe the indescribable. See on i . 57. 5 above. LIV. 1. Santa Croce's holy precincts. The Church of Santa Croce, "the Florentine Pantheon, " built in 1294, is remarkable for the number of eminent men whose graves or monuments are within its walls. Byron, in a note, calls it " the Mecca of Italy ; " and, in one of his letters, "the Westminster Abbey of Italy." 5. Sublimities. Sublime beings. See on ii . 84. I above. 7. Angelo's. Michael Angelo's. Of Alfieri Byron says : "Alfieri is the great name of this age. The Italians, without waiting for the hundred years, consider him as a poet good in law.' His memory is the more dear to them because he is the bard of freedom ; and because, as such, his tragedies can receive no countenance from any of their sovereigns." 8. With his woes. Referring to the persecution he suffered from the Inquisition on account of his scientific views. 9. Machiavelli. The eminent historical and political writer. LV. 1. The elements. The four elements, fire, air, earth, and water, from which all things were anciently supposed to be made. 9. Canova. The famous sculptor, who was living when Byron wrote. He died in 1822. LVI. 3. The Bard ofProse. Boccaccio, author of the Decameron. LVII. 1. Dante sleeps afar. At Ravenna. Cf. 59. 5 below. 2. Like Scipio, etc. Scipio Africanus the Elder, who was said to have been buried near the sea at Liternum, in Campania, where he spent the last years of his life. His tomb, according to some authori- ties, bore the inscription : " Ingrata patria, cineres meos non habebis ! " 3. Thyfactions. The Guelf and Ghibelline parties at Florence. Worse than civil war. D. quotes Lucan, Pharsalia, i . 1 : " Plus quam civilia bella." 7. Petrarch's laureate brow. He was crowned in the capitol at Rome, in 1341, for his poem on Africa. 8. Afar andforeign soil. At Vaucluse in France. 9. His grave, though rifled, etc. In 1630 the tomb of Petrarch was broken open, and some of his bones carried away. The robbers were banished by the Venetian government, of which they were subjects. LVIII. 1. Boccaccio to his parent earth, etc. "Boccaccio was buried in the church of St. Michael and St. James at Certaldo, a small town in the Valdelsa, which was by some supposed the place of his birth. But the ' hyæna bigots ' of Certaldo tore up the tombstone of Boccaccio, and ejected it from the holy precincts " (Byron). LIX. 3. The Casar's pageant, etc. At the funeral of Junia, wife of Cassius, and sister of Brutus, A.D. 22, during the reign of Tiberius, the busts of those two distinguished men were not allowed to be carried in the procession, on account of their having taken part in the murder of Julius Cæsar. On this Tacitus remarks (Ann. 3. 76) : " Praefulgebant Cassius atque Brutus, eo ipso quod effigies eorum non visebantur. ” 6. Fortress offalling empire. "The strength and importance of Ra- venna was shown at the period of the barbarian invasions, when the Roman emperors of the West used to take refuge there, instead of remaining in Rome " ( T. ). 268 NOTES. LX. 1. Her pyramid, etc. Referring to the splendid tombs of the Medici in the church of San Lorenzo at Florence. In a letter to Murray, Byron says : " I also went to the Medici chapel, —fine frippery in great slabs of various expensive stones, to commemorate fifty rotter and forgotten carcasses. He was so much disgusted with the osten tatious magnificence of the chapel that he did not notice Michael An gelo's celebrated statues on the tombs. LXI. I. There be. Archaic for there are. Cf. Hamlet, iii. 2. 32 : " O, there be players that I have seen play," etc. 2. Arno's dome, etc. The great gallery in the Uffizi and Pitti palaces. 8. Yet it yields, etc. Byron writes to Murray: " I never yet saw the picture or the statue which came a league within my conception or ex pectation ; but I have seen many mountains and seas and rivers and views, and two or three women, who were as far beyond it." LXII. 2. Thrasimene's lake. T. says : "It is a curious question how Byron arrived at the pronunciation Thrasimenè ; the Latin is Trasimenus Lacus, the Ital . Trasimeno; the Gr. in Polybius is Tapou λίμνη, in Strabo Τρασουμέννα. Was the poet thinking of the Greek forms ? or did he merely sound, for the convenience of his verse, the mute final vowel of the traditional English Thrasimene ? " The latter is the more probable explanation. 3. Fatal to Roman rashness. The Romans, led by the consul Fla minius, unguardedly entered the pass between the mountains and the lake, and found themselves in a valley, the eminences commanding which were occupied by Hannibal's troops, while their retreat was cut off by his cavalry, who closed the pass in their rear. LXIII. 5. An earthquake, etc. According to Livy ( 22. 5 ) , such was the fury of the battle, that a great earthquake which occurred at the time was not felt by the combatants. He says : " tantusque fuit ardor armorum, adeo intentus pugnae animus, ut eum motum terrae, qui multarum urbium Italiae magnas partes prostravit, avertitque cursu rapidos amnes, mare fluminibus invexit, montes lapsu ingenti proruit, nemo pugnantium senserit." Cf. Rogers, Italy, ii.: "The shore that once, when armies met, Rocked to and fro unfelt, so terrible The rage, the slaughter. " LXVI. I. But thou, Clitumnus, etc. "No book of travels has omitted to expatiate on the temple of the Clitumnus, between Foligno and Spoleto ; and no site or scenery, even in Italy, is more worthy of a description " ( Byron) . 5. The milk-white steer. Cf. Virgil, Geor. ii. 146 : " Hinc albi, Cli tumne, greges ; " and Macaulay, Horatius : "Unwatched along Clitumnus Grazes the milk-white steer. " LXVII. 8. Chance. Perchance. Cf. Gray, Elegy, 95 : " If, chance, by lonely contemplation led," etc. LXIX. 1. The roar of waters, etc. the Velino (Velinus ) , about three miles which again is an affluent of the Tiber. The fall of Terni is formed by before it joins the Nera (Nar), "Observe the fine climax in CANTO FOURTH. 269 this stanza, the impression increasing as the spectator first hears, then sees the fall, and then looks over " (T. ). 8. Phlegethon. One ofthe rivers of the infernal regions. LXXI. I. Shows. Appears. Cf. King John, iii . 4. 115 : "evils that take leave, On their departure most of all show evil. " LXXII. 1. Horribly beautiful. For the oxymoron, see on i. 57. 5 above. 3. An Iris. Arainbow. 4. Like Hope, etc. Cf. 169. 7 below. 9. Love watching Madness, etc. See on iii. 47. I above. LXXIII. 5. Lauwine. See on 12. 7 above. Here Byron has the note : " In the greater part of Switzerland the avalanches are known by the name of lauwine." 6. The soaring Jungfrau. One of the loftiest of the Bernese Alps. In Byron's time it was the virgin mountain that its name implies ; but its never-trodden snow has been ascended by many a climber in these later days. 9. Chimari. See on ii. 51. 3 above. LXXIV. 1. Th' Acroceraunian mountains. The name means thunder-hills ('Аkроkeрavvia, peaks struck by lightning) . 2. On Parnassus, etc. See on i. 60. I above. 5. With a Trojan's eye. As the Trojan saw it from his native plains. 6. Atlas. The mountains of Northern Africa, as seen from Spain or from the Mediterranean. For Athos, see on ii . 27. 2 above. 8. Soracte's height. This mountain (now known as San Oreste), to the north of Rome, though only 2260 feet high, is a conspicuous object in the view from many points in the city, on account of its isolated po- sition. Its broken contour, as it rises " from out the plain " (we have in mind particularly the view from San Pietro di Montorio- the ancient Janiculum), at once recalls the poet's comparison to a breaking wave. Virgil refers to Soracte in the Æn. vi. 696 : " Hi Soractis_habent arces ; " and Id. xi. 785 : "Summe deum, sancti custos Soractis Apollo ; " and Horace, in Od. i. 9 : " Vides ut alta stet nive candidum Soracte." It is this last passage that Byron had in mind in saying that the height is " not now in snow.' The temple of Apollo on the summit, to which Virgil alludes, is replaced by the modern church of San Silvestro. 99 6. Latian. Misprinted " Latin " in some eds. I abhorred, etc. It is remarkable that this passage has not been quoted in the recent attacks upon the study of Latin and Greek in our schools. It might well be used in the criticism of some of the methods of study. Cf. what Byron says of Virgil in a letter to Moore, April 11 , 1817 : "I shall go to Bologna by Ferrara, instead of Mantua ; because I would rather see the cell where they caged Tasso .. than his own MSS. at Modena, or the Mantuan birthplace of that harmonious plagiary and miserable flatterer whose cursed hexameters were drilled into me at Harrow." 270 NOTES. In a note here the poet says : " I wish to express that we become tired of the task before we can comprehend the beauty; that we learn by rote before we can get by heart ; that the freshness is worn away, and the future pleasure and advantage deadened and destroyed, by the didactic anticipation, at an age when we can neither feel nor understand the power of compositions which it requires an acquaintance with life , as well as Latin and Greek, to relish or to reason upon. In some parts of the Continent young persons are taught from more common authors, and do not read the best classics till their maturity." LXXVII. 6. Nor bard prescribe his art. Ars Poetica, as it is often called. Referring to Horace's LXXIX. 1. The Niobe of nations. This statuesque image must have been suggested by a reminiscence of the mournful and queenly figure of Niobe in the famous group at Florence, though the details of the word-sculpture are different from those of the classic marble. 5. The Scipios' tomb, etc. This tomb was discovered near the Appian Way in 1780, and the bones found in it were soon carried off. 9. Yellow waves. The "flavus Tiber" of the Latin writers. LXXX. I. The Goth, etc. D. summarizes the history thus : "Alaric, 409 ; Genseric, 455 ; Ricimer, 472 ; Theodoric, 493 ; Totila, 546 ; Fred- eric Barbarossa, 1167 ; the Constable of Bourbon, 1527 ; Massena, 1798." وو 4. The steep, etc. " The clivus Capitolinus, or carriage-road up the Capitoline Hill, by which the triumphal car of a victorious general as- cended, often with barbarian monarchs as captives in his train." LXXXI. 2. And wrap. Elliptical for " and doth wrap ; or there may be a "confusion of construction, " as in iii. 62. 8 above. 6. Where we steer. There seems to be a blending of the figures of ocean and desert, though steer is not inapplicable to the latter. 8. Eureka ! " I have found it ! " the exclamation of Archimedes in the familiar story. 9. Mirage. A continuation of the figure of the desert. LXXXII. 2. The trebly hundred triumphs. the number of triumphs " ( Byron) . "Orosius gives 320 for 3. When Brutus made, etc. Referring to the assassination of Cæsar. 6. But these shall be, etc. D. quotes Shelley, Adonais, 48 : LXXXIII. "the kings ofthought Who waged contention with their times' decay, And of the past are all that cannot pass away.' I. On Fortune's wheel. He received the surname of Felix on account of his continued good luck. 3. Ere thou wouldst pause, etc. He set out for the Mithridatic War, B.C. 87, without waiting to follow up his victory over Marius at Rome. 7. Annihilated. Didst annihilate. See on i. 22. 7 above. 8. Didst lay down, etc. He resigned the dictatorship, B.C. 79, and retired to private life . LXXXV. 3. Swept off senates, etc. brought a king's head to the block. 7. Hisfate, etc. Dissolved parliaments, and "On the 3d of September Cromwell gained the vic- CANTO FOURTH. 271 tory of Dunbar ; a year afterwards he obtained ' his crowning mercy ' of Worcester ; and a few years after, on the same day, which he had ever esteemed the most fortunate for him, died " ( Byron) . LXXXVII. 1. Dread statue. The statue of Pompey in the Spada Palace at Rome, which the best antiquarians and art critics believe to be the one at whose base Cæsar fell . See the long note in our ed. of Shakespeare's Julius Cæsar, p. 193. 7. Nemesis. The ancient goddess of retribution. 9. Puppets. In the hands of Fate. LXXXVIII. I. Thunder-stricken nurse ofRome. The famous bronze "wolf ofthe Capitol," which is believed by some antiquarians to be the one referred to by Cicero ( Orat. in Catilinam, iii . 8) as having been struck by lightning. 3. The dome. The Palace of the Conservatori, one of the divisions of the Capitoline Museum. See on i . 45. 5 above. 66 LXXXIX. 8. One vain man, etc. Napoleon. Cf. iii. 36 fol. above. 9. To his own slaves, etc. Cf. The Age of Bronze, v.: The king of kings, and yet of slaves the slave. " XC. 3. With steps unequal. Cf. Virgil, Æn. ii . 724 : " sequiturque patrem non passibus aequis." 8. Alcides. Hercules, who became the slave of Omphale, and spun wool in the dress of a hand-maiden. Cæsar was captivated by Cleopatra when he pursued Pompey to Egypt, B.C. 48. XCI. 1. And came, etc. A reference to the familiar " Veni, vidi, vici." XCII. 2. Few years. In prose we should say " a few years. " 9. Renew thy rainbow. As at the end of the Noachian Flood. Cf. Gen. ix. 13. XCIII. 1. What from this barren being, etc. ... omnes pene veteres ; qui nihil cognosci, nihil percepi, nihil sciri posse dixerunt ; angustos sensus ; imbecillos animos, brevia curricula vitae ; in profundo veritatem demersam ; opinionibus et institutis omnia teneri ; nihil veritati relinqui deinceps omnia tenebris circumfusa esse dixerunt.' The eighteen hundred years which have elapsed since Cicero wrote this,¹ have not removed any of the imperfections of humanity ; and the complaints of the ancient philosophers may, without injustice or affectation, be transcribed in a poem written yesterday " ( Byron) . 3. Truth a gem, etc. Cf. the old proverb, " Truth lies at the bottom of a well. " 5. Opinion. "Conventional ideas " ( T.) . XCV. 4. The yoke, etc. Referring to the European reaction of 1815, and the principles of the Holy Alliance. 7. Apes ofhim, etc. Imitators of Napoleon. XCVI. 4. A Pallas. The goddess was said to have sprung fullgrown from the head of Zeus (Jupiter) . XCVII. 2. Saturnalia. Alluding to the license of the Roman festi. val, when even the slaves were allowed the greatest freedom . 7. The base pageant, etc. T. explains this as "the empire and court 1 Academ. i. 13. T 272 NOTES. of Napoleon." He adds that " it cannot mean the restoration of the Bourbons, though that was in reality ' last upon the scene, ' because that could not be a ' pretext.' He may be right, but we cannot help think ing that the base pageant refers, as D. makes it, to "the comedy of Vienna and the European restoration." This action on the part of the powers, or rather their claim that this action was necessary, is to be made the pretext to justify them in tightening the chains of despotism . XCVIII. 1. Yet, Freedom, etc. Bold words for that day, and prophetic withal. The seed deep sown has sprung up since, and promises a goodly harvest. "6 XCIX. 1. A stern round tower, etc. ' Alluding to the tomb of Cæcilia Metella, called Capo di Bove " ( Byron) . It is one of the most conspicious of the old sepulchral monuments on the Appian Way, near Rome. 2. Firm as afortress. In the 13th century it was actually made the main tower of a fortress ; but the additions to the ancient structure were destroyed in the time of Sixtus V. In 1312, Henry VII. of Eng- land took Rome without being able to reduce this stronghold. C. 1. But who was she, etc. All that we know is that she was the daughter of Metellus Creticus and wife of the younger Crassus, son of the triumvir. 8. Must not dare to rot. CI. 5. Cornelia's mien. 6. Egypt'sgraceful queen. CII. 5. The doom, etc. Must not presume to find a resting- place. The mother of the Gracchi. Cleopatra. Byron quotes the Greek saying, " Ov oi Beol φιλοῦσιν ἀποθνήσκει νέος, " Whom the gods love die young. 8. Hesperus. The evening star. 9. Consuming. Wasting away. For the autumnal leaf-like red, cf. Manfred, ii. 4: "There's bloom upon her cheek ; But now I see it is no living hue, But a strange hectic like the unnatural red Which Autumn plants upon the perished leaf." CIV. 5. Like the cloudy groan, etc. D. compares stanzas 23, 24 above. CVI. 6. The Palatine. The Palatine Hill. CVII. 6. Temples, baths, or halls ? It is only in recent years that the ruins of the Palatine have begun to be thoroughly excavated and ex- amined by the Italian Government. Important discoveries have been made, and the ancient topography of the Imperial Mount is gradually being settled. CIX. 3. Thoupendulum, etc. A metaphor that has become classical. 4. In this span, etc. " Inthe narrow area of the Palatine Hill, which, notwithstanding that even its foundations cannot definitely be traced, was the crowning point of Rome, which itself was the culminating point of the world" ( T.). CX. 2. Thou nameless column, etc. A column, 54 feet high, one of the most striking objects in the Roman forum. Its base was cleared in 1813, and it is now known to have been erected in honor of the emperor Phocas, A. D. 608. CANTO FOURTH. 273 8. Apostolic statues climb, etc. Pope Sixtus V. caused a statue of St. Peter to be placed on the top of Trajan's column, and one of St. Paul on the column of Marcus Aurelius. 9. Whose ashes slept sublime, etc. It was formerly supposed that the ashes of Trajan were enclosed in a globe held in the hand of his statue on the column, but this is now known to be an error. D. says that "the ashes of the emperor reposed in an urn surmounting the column ; " but there is no doubt that it was originally crowned with his statue. 66 CXI. 9. We Trajan's name adore. Trajan was proverbially the best of the Roman princes ( Eutrop. Hist. viii. 5) ; and it would be easier to find a sovereign uniting exactly the opposite characteristics than one possessed of all the happy qualities ascribed to this emperor ' (Byron) . " CXII. 1. The rock of Triumph. The Capitoline Hill. 2. Embraced her heroes. Welcomed them home. The steep Tarpeian was the Tarpeian Rock, from which criminals were thrown. 4. The Traitor's Leap. An expression parodied from The Lover's Leap. Cf. ii. 39 above. 6. Here. That is , in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, the recep- tacle of many votive offerings from the spoils of victory. 8. The Forum. At the foot of the Capitoline Hill. CXIII. 9. The venal voice, etc. The paid oratory of hirelings who thus prostituted their talents for gold. CXIV. I. Her latest tribune's name. Nicola Rienzi, who in 1347 headed an insurrection against the oppressive rule of the nobles and was declared tribune of the people. 9. Numa. He is compared to Numa Pompilius, because he strove to be, like him, a lawgiver to Rome. CXV. 1. Egeria. The nymph who was said to have loved Numa, and helped him with her wise counsel. Cf. Tennyson, Palace of Art, 109 : "Or hollowing one hand against his ear, To list a foot fall, ere he saw The wood-nymph, stay'd the Ausonian king to hear Of wisdom and oflaw." 5. Nympholepsy. Hallucination ; some forms of which the Greeks supposed to be due to the influence ofthe nymphs. 19 8. Too much adoring. Since he made her a goddess. CXVI. I. Thy fountain. The so- called " Grotto of Egeria " is near the Appian Way, about a mile and a half from Rome. The " grotto is "a nymphæum, originally covered with marble, the shrine of the brook Almo (which now flows past it in an artificial channel ) and erected at a somewhat late period. A niche in the posterior wall con- tains the mutilated statue of the river-god, standing on corbels, from which the water used to flow " ( Baedeker) . There is also a " Fountain of Egeria " near Nemi ( cf. 173 below) ; but Byron refers to the other. CXVII. 9. Colored byits skies. D. quotes Shelley, Prometheus Un bound, iỵ.: "As a violet's gentle eye Gazes on the azure sky Until its hue grows like what it beholds. " 1 18 274 NOTES. CXXIII. 7. Reaping the whirlwind, etc. Cf. Hosea, viii. 7. 9. Seems ever near the prize. Like the old alchemists, who were ever hoping to find the secret of transmuting the baser metals to gold, and did not despair even when they had wasted their all in the search- wealthiest in dreams when most undone in reality. CXXIV. 3. In verge. Upon the verge. ― CXXV. 4. But to recur. Only to recur. Byron has in mind here his own married life. CXXVI. 4. Upas. The tree which was fabled to poison and de- stroy all life around it. 5. Be. See on 61. I above. ČXXVII. 6. Cabined, cribbed, confined. From Macbeth, iii . 4. 24 : "But now I am cabin'd, cribb'd , confin'd, bound in To saucy doubts and fears. 9. Couch. The technical term for removing a cataract on the eye. CXXVIII. 4. Her Coliseum. By far the largest of the Roman amphitheatres. CXXX. I. O Time, etc. " The stanzas which follow are Byron's appeal to the judgment of posterity " (T.) . CXXXI. 2. More divinely desolate. More divine in desolation. 9. They. That is, his persecutors . CXXXII. 2. Left the unbalanced scale. In a letter to Murray, Sept. 24, 1818, Byron says : " In the 132d stanza of Canto Fourth, the stanza runs in the manuscript - 'Andthou who never yet of human wrong Leftthe unbalanced scale, great Nemesis !' and not lost,' which is nonsense, as what losing a scale means, I know not ; but leaving an unbalanced scale, or a scale unbalanced, is intelligible. Correct this, I pray- not for the public, or the poetry ; but I do not choose to have blunders made in addressing any of the deities so seriously as this is addressed . " "Lost " appears, however, in some recent eds. For Nemesis, see on 87. 7 above. 5. Orestes. Whom the Furies pursued because he had killed his mother to avenge the murder of his father. CXXXIII. 4. Unbound. That is, with no effort on my part to check it. CXXXV. following : Between this stanza and the next the MS. had the "If to forgive be heaping coals of fire- As God hath spoken on the heads offoes, Mine should be a volcano, and rise higher Than, o'er the Titans crushed, Olympus rose, Or Athos soars, or blazing Etna glows : - True, they who stung were creeping things ; but what Than serpent's teeth inflicts with deadlier throes? The lion may be goaded by the gnat. - Who seeks the slumberer's blood ? The eagle ? No, the bat. " For the first line, cf. Proverbs, xxv. 22. CXXXVI. 6. Janus. The Roman god who had two faces. CANTO FOURTH. 275 CXXXIX. 8. Listed spot. The lists of the knightly tournaments or other place enclosed for combat. CXL. 1. The Gladiator. The statue of the Dying Gladiator (now believed to represent a Gaul fallen in battle ) in the Capitoline Museum. The measure of this line seems imperfect, and the 7th below halts a little. CXLI. 6. Dacian. Dacia lay to the north of the lower Danube, now Roumania. Captives from this and other barbarian regions helped to supply combatants for the Roman arena. Cf. The Deformed Trans- formed, i. 2: "Made even the forest pay its tribute of Life to their amphitheatre, as well As Dacia men to die the eternal death For a sole instant's pastime, and ' Pass on To a new gladiator !"' "' CXLII. 5. Where the Roman million's blame, etc. When a gladiator was wounded, his life depended on the caprice of the spectators . CXLIII. I. From its mass. This is literally true. The ruins of the Coliseum were long a quarry whence stone was taken for new buildings in Rome. 6. Developed. Examined in detail. CXLIV. 6. Like laurels, etc. "Suetonius informs us that Julius Cæsar was particularly gratified by that decree of the senate which enabled him to wear a wreath of laurel on all occasions. He was anxious, not to show that he was the conqueror of the world, but to hide that he was bald " (Byron). CXLV. I. While stands the Coliseum, etc. " This is quoted in the Decline and Fall ofthe Roman Empire as a proof that the Coliseum was entire when seen by the Anglo- Saxon pilgrims at the end of the 7th or the beginning of the 8th century " ( Byron) . It is ascribed to the Venerable Bede, and the original reads : "Quamdiu stabit Coli- seus, stabit et Roma ; quando cadet Coliseus, cadet Roma ; quando cadet Roma, cadet et mundus." CXLVI. 2. Shrine of all saints, etc. The Pantheon, built by M. Agrippa, B.C. 27, and the best preserved ancient edifice in Rome, at least so far as its walls and vaulting are concerned. CXLVII. 7. Altars. In 609 the building was consecrated as a church by Pope Boniface IV. under the name of Sta. Maria ad Martyres. It afterwards came to be known as Sta. Maria Rotonda, or La Rotonda. 9. Honored forms. Raphael, A. Caracci, and many other celebrated artists are buried here. CXLVIII. "This and the three next stanzas allude to the story of a Roman daughter, which is recalled to the traveller by the site or pretended site of that adventure now shown at the church of San Nic- ola in Carcere " ( Byron). According to the legend, the young woman had lately become a mother, and when admitted to the prison of her father, who was condemned to death by starvation, she nourished him with her milk. The story is found in Festus ( De Verb. Signif. xx. ) , 276 NOTES. and with variations in Pliny the Elder ( vii. 36) and Valerius Maxi- mus (v. 4). CLI. 1. The starry fable, etc. A Greek myth to account for the origin of the Milky Way was, that Hercules, after he was born of Alcmena, was carried by Hermes ( Mercury) to Olympus and put to the breast of Hera (Juno) while she was asleep, but that when she woke she pushed him away, and the milk that was spilled produced the Milky Way. CLII. 1. The Mole, etc. The Mausoleum of Hadrian, now the Castle of St. Angelo. 2. Old Egypt's piles. The Pyramids. 4. Travelled phantasy. Hadrian was a great traveller and a great builder. 5. Toils. For the rhyme, cf. 5. 9 above. CLIII. 1. The dome, etc. St. Peter's. Dome:= in the poem. See on i. 45. 5 above. edifice ; as so often 2. Diana's marvel. The temple of Diana at Ephesus. 7. Sophia's bright roofs. The Mosque of St. Sophia at Constantino- ple. Cf. ii. 79. 3 above. "" CLIV. 4. When that. This use of that as a conjunctional affix " is archaic. Cf. Julius Cæsar, iii. 2. 96 : “ When that the poor hath cried," etc. CLV. 1. Enter ; its grandeur, etc. Every visitor to St. Peter's recognizes the truth of this. It is only by degrees that one realizes its vastness . CLVI. 7. Which vies, etc. Michael Angelo said that his plan for the dome would " raise the Pantheon in the air." CLIX. 9. What great conceptions_can. This absolute use of can (= can effect) is archaic. Cf. Hamlet, iv. 7. 85 : " And they can well on horseback," etc. CLX . 2. Laocoon's torture. The celebrated group of Laocoön in the Vatican Museum. Cf. Virgil Æn. ii. 201 fol. 8. Asp. Used of a large serpent only in poetry, and rarely at that. CLXI. 1. The lord ofthe unerring bow. The Apollo Belvedere. 5. The shaft hath just been shot, etc. According to the best recent critics, the statue represents Apollo bearing the ægis in his left hand, not the bow. CLXII. 4. And maddened, etc. whole stanza reminds one of 118. D. compares 115. 5 above. The CLXIII. 2. Thefire which we endure. "The life, or higher nature, which is the source of our pain " ( T. ) ; alluding to the story that Prometheus made men of clay, and animated them with the fire he had stolen from heaven. It was repaid, etc. That is, the sculptor has here made the image of a god, and given it life by the flame of his heaven- born genius. CLXIV. 3. He cometh late, etc. He was last mentioned in iii. 55 above. 6. Ifhe was. The rhyme of was and pass is bad. See on 5. 9 above. CANTO FOURTH. 277 CLXVI. 9. These fardels ofthe heart. The heavy burdens of life, the troubles that weigh down the heart. Cf. Hamlet, iii . 1. 76: "Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, " etc. CLXVII. 1. Hark! forth from the abyss, etc. "From the thought of death the poet passes to the death of the Princess Charlotte, which happened when he was at Venice. No other event during the present century has caused so great a shock to public feeling in England; and Byron himself, as we learn from his letters, was deeply moved by it. She was the only daughter of George IV. , who at that time was Prince Regent, and consequently she was Heiress Presumptive to the British crown. She was virtuous, accomplished, large-hearted, and sympathetic, and the hopes of the nation were fixed upon her, as one who might inaugurate an era of prosperity. On May 16, 1816, she married Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg ( afterwards king of the Belgians ), and on Nov. 6, 1817, she died in childbirth " (T.) . CLXIX. 7. Her Iris. For the rainbow as the emblem of hope, cf. 72. 3 above. CLXX. 2. Is ashes. Cf. the reference to Dead Sea fruit in iii. 34. 6 above. CLXXI. 1. She sleeps well. fitful fever he sleeps well." Cf. Macbeth, iii . 2. 23 : " After life's 2. Thefickle reek ofpopular breath. T. quotes Coriolanus, iii . 3. 122 : You common cry of curs ! whose breath I hate As reek o' the rotten fens." 6. The strangefate, etc. " Mary died on the scaffold ; Elizabeth of a broken heart ; Charles V. a hermit ; Louis XIV. a bankrupt in means and glory ; Cromwell of anxiety ; and, ' the greatest is behind,' Na- poleon lives a prisoner. To these sovereigns a long but superfluous list might be added of names equally illustrious and unhappy " ( Byron). CLXXII. 6. From thy Sire's, etc. "A very bad line " (T.). 7. The electric chain, etc. Cf. 23. 9 above. 8. Whose shock, etc. In a letter from Venice Byron says : " The death of the Princess Charlotte has been a shock even here, and must have been an earthquake at home." CLXXIII. I. Nemi. As T. remarks, the poet probably takes the reader to the Alban Hills for the sake of the view of the sea, with which he wishes to end the poem. The Lake of Nemi (sometimes called in ancient times Lacus Nemorensis, or the woody lake), 1066 feet above the sea, is an extinct crater about three miles in circuit. It has been termed "the gem of the Alban Mountains. " Byron says : "The lake of Nemi lies in a very deep bottom, so surrounded on all sides with mountains and groves that the surface of it is never ruffled with the least breath of wind, which, perhaps, together with the clearness of the water, gave it formerly the name of Diana's Looking-glass, ' speculumque Dianae.' The Lake of Albano in the neighboring valley ( cf. the next stanza) is another ancient crater, considerably larger and more sombre in its surroundings. 278 NOTES. 7. Calm as cherished hate. See on iii. 47. I above. CLXXIV. 5. Arms and the Man. Referring to the first line of the Eneid: "Arma virumque cano, " etc. Byron says in a note : " The whole declivity of the Alban Hill [ Monte Cavo] is of unrivalled beauty, and from the convent on the highest point, which has succeeded to the temple of the Latian Jupiter, the prospect embraces all the objects alluded to in this stanza ; the whole scene of the latter half of the Eneid, and the coast from beyond the mouth of the Tiber to the headland of Circæum and the Cape of Terracina. The site of Cicero's villa may be supposed either at the Grotta Ferrata or at the Tusculum of Prince Lucien Bonaparte.1 . . . From the same eminence are seen the Sabine Hills, embosomed in which lies the long valley of Rustica. There are several circumstances which tend to establish the identity of this valley with the Ustica of Horace." 9. The Sabine farm. Cf. Horace, Epist. i. 16. CLXXV. 5. The Midland Ocean. The Mediterranean. 8. Calpe's rock. Gibraltar. Cf. ii . 22. I above. "Last must refer to Byron's first view of the Mediterranean from Gibraltar on his first journey, though he had often seen it since ; but that was the last occasion on which he and Childe Harold together had caught sight of it, as he supposes them to be doing now from the Alban Mount " (T. ). CLXXVI. 1. The blue Symplegades. Two small rocky islands at the entrance of the Black Sea from the Bosphorus. The Greeks called them al Kuavéal, or the blue islands. The name Symplegades, or Clash- ing Islands, refers to the old story that, before the voyage of the Argonauts, they were floating islands, continually knocked against each other by the waves. After Jason managed to get his ship between them in safety, they became stationary. 3. Both. The Pilgrim and the poet. ČLXXVIII. 3. Society where none intrudes. Cf. ii. 25 and iii . 13 above. 5. Ilove not man the less, etc. Cf. iii . 69. I above. 8. To mingle with the Universe. Cf. iii . 72. 7 fol. CLXXIX. 3. Man marks the earth, etc. D. remarks that the thought here, and to some extent the expression, seem inspired by Cor- inne (i. 4 ) : " Cette superbe mer, sur laquelle l'homme jamais ne peut imprimer sa trace. La terre est travaillée par lui, les montagnes sont coupées par ses routes ; les rivières se resserent en canaux pour porter ses marchandises ; mais si les vaisseaux sillonnent un moment les on- des, la vague vient effacer aussitôt cette légère marque de servitude, et la mer reparait telle qu'elle fut au premier jour de la creation. ” 6. Save his own. That is, his own ravage, or destruction ; his being the " objective genitive, ” as man's is the " subjective. " 9. Unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown. This combination of three The Villa Ruffinella, or Tusculana, formerly the property of Prince Lucien Bona- parte, is generally believed to occupy the site of Cicero's celebrated Tusculan villa. Grotta Ferrata is an old Greek monastery higher up on the slope ofthe hill and nearer Lake Albano. CANTO FOURTH. 279 (occasionally more) adjectives beginning with un- is common in the poets. Cf. i. 17. 9 above. See also Milton, P. L. ii. 185 : " Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved ; " Id. iii . 231 : " Comes unprevented, unimplored, unsought ; " Id. v. 899 : " Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified ; P. R. iii. 429: "Unhumbled, unrepentant, unreformed ; " Spenser, F. Q. ii. 10. 5: "Unpeopled, unmannurd, unprovd, unpraysd ; " Id. iv. 7. 40 : "Uncomb'd, uncurl'd, and carelessly unshed; " Id. vii. 7. 46 : “ Un- bodied, unsoul'd, unheard, unseene ; " Scott, Lay, vi. 1 : " Unwept, un- honored, and unsung," etc. Sometimes other negative adjectives are thus used ; as in F. Q. i . 7. 11 : “ Disarmd, disgraste, and inwardly dis- mayde ; " Id. i. 7. 51 : " disarmed, dissolute, dismaid ; " P. L. iii. 373 : Immutable, Immortal, Infinite," etc. Sometimes different negatives are combined ; as in Hamlet, i . 5. 77 : " Unhousel'd, disappointed, un- anel'd " (where Theobald substituted " unappointed ") ; Milton, P. R. iii. 243: "Irresolute, unhardy, unadventurous ; " S. 4. 417 : " Unmanly, ignominious, infamous, " etc. Milton is so fond of these triple negatives that he uses them even in prose ; as in Reform in Eng. i.: “ undiocesed, unreverenced, unlorded ; " Reason of Ch. Gov. ii. 3 : "undue, unlawful, and ungospel-like " (both of these examples, it will be seen, are really iambic verse) , etc. CLXXX. 9. There let him lay. As Hodgson asks, in the Monitor ofChilde Harold, " What is to become of grammar if a popular poet is to close a stanza with such a barbarism as ' there let him lay ' ? " No stretch of " poetic license can justify it. CLXXXI. 8. Yeast of waves. Cf. Macbeth, iv. 1. 53 : waves." "the yesty 9. The Armada's pride, etc. The Spanish Armada was destroyed in a tempest, as were nearly all the vessels taken by the British at Trafalgar. CLXXXII. 3. Thy waters washed them power while they were free. That is, they owed their power to commerce. The line was misprinted, "Thy waters wasted them while they were free, " in the 1st ed. , and has retained that form in most of the eds. since, though Byron protested against it in a letter to Murray ( Sept. 24, 1818 ) as follows : " What does ' thy waters wasted them ' mean ( in the canto) ? That is not me. Consult the MS. always." 4. And many a tyrant since. Referring to conquests by foreign fleets. Of course tyrant is the object of washed (= brought by sea) . D. suggests that we should read 66 And many a tyrant since their shores obey, The stranger, slave, or savage ; but-to say nothing of the improbability that Byron could have over- looked such an error in punctuation the change makes the reference to manya tyrant quite pointless. - 9. Such as creation's dawn beheld, etc. Cf. the quotation from Corinne above. CLXXXIV. 1. And myjoy, etc. Byron was a good swimmer, and very proud of the accomplishment. In May, 1810, he swam across the Hellespont. In a letter to Mr. Drury, he says : "This morning I swam 280 NOTES. - from Sestos to Abydos. The immediate distance is not above a mile, but the current renders it hazardous. I attempted it a week ago, and failed , owing to the north wind and the wonderful rapidity of the tide, though I have been from my childhood a strong swimmer. But this morning being calmer, I succeeded, and crossed the ' broad Hellespont' in an hour and ten minutes." In 1818 he performed a far more remarkable feat in swimming from the Lido to Venice, and through the whole length of the Grand Canal in addition. " I had been in the water," he tells Murray in a letter, " by my watch, without help or rest, and never touching ground or boat, four hours and twenty minutes. He adds : "I am sure that I could have continued two hours longer, though I had on a pair of trowsers, an accoutrement which by no means assists the performance. " 9. As I do here. The poet no longer supposes himself to be on the Alban Mount (cf. 175. 6 above) , where he began this apostrophe to the ocean. CLXXXVI. 7. His sandal-shoon and scallop-shell. The emblems of the pilgrim to the Holy Land. The scallop-shell he wore in his hat in token that he had crossed the sea. Cf. Hamlet, iv. 5. 23 : "How should I your true love know From another one ? By his cockle hat and staff, And his sandal shoon. " The archaic plural shoon is suggested by these old ballad descriptions of the pilgrim . ADDENDA. ANALYSIS OF THE POEM. -— For the benefit of teachers, who may wish to use only selections from the poem, we add a translation of Dr. Darmesteter's excellent " Analysis," with some modifications of our own.1 CANTO FIRST : PORTUGAL AND SPAIN. I. Invocation. II.-IX.* Childe Harold. X -XII.* His Departure on his Pilgrimage. XIII.* His Adieu to England. XIV -XVII. His Arrival in Portugal : Lisbon. XVIII. XXIII. * Cintra. XXIV.-XXVI. The Convention of Cintra. We mark with an asterisk, as Dr. D. does, the passages which are perhaps best worthy of study for their poetical or their historical interest. Our selection differs in some particulars from that of the French critic ; and that of the teacher who uses the book may differ materially from ours. CANTO CANT FOURTH. 281 XXVII.-XXXIV. The Childe resumes his journey, and, after a pause at Mafra ( XXIX) , passes into Spain. XXXV.-XXXVIII. * The Struggles of Spain against the Moors, and against Napoleon. XXXIX.-XLI. * The Battle of Talavera. XLII.-XLIV. * The Folly of Military Ambition. XLV. , XLVI. Seville. XLVII.-LIII. The National Resistance to Napoleon. LIV.-LVI.* The Maid of Saragossa. LVII.-LIX. The Women of Spain. LX.-LXIV.* Invocation to Parnassus. LXV.-LXVII. Cadiz and its Pleasures. LXVIII.-LXXI. Sunday at Cadiz and at London. LXXII.-LXXXI.* The Bull Fight. LXXXII., LXXXIII. Harold's Loves and Disappointments LXXXIV. His Stanzas to Inez. LXXXV.-XC. Adieu to Spain, and Lament over her Fate. XCI., XCII. The Death of Wingfield and Byron's Mother. XCIII. The Close of the Canto. CANTO SECOND : GREECE. I.* Invocation to Pallas ; the Parthenon. II -IX.* The Fall of Athens ; the Nothingness of Man ; the Hope of Immortality. X.* The Temple of Olympian Jupiter. XI.-XV. Lord Elgin's Spoliation of the Parthenon. XVI. Harold's Departure for Greece. XVII.-XXI. The Frigate at Sea. XXII. The Straits of Gibraltar. XXIII. , XXIV. * Night at Sea. XXV.-XXVII.* Meditations on Solitude. XXVIII. The Voyage. XXIX.-XXXV. Calypso's Isles ; and Florence, the new Calypso. XXXVI. Harold continues his Voyage. XXXVII. Mother Nature. XXXVIII.* Albania. XXXIX .-XLI.* Leucadia and Sappho. XLII.-XLVII.* The Albanian Coast ; the Gulf of Ambracia ; Jour. ney through Albania. XLVIII.-LII. The Monastery of Zitza. LIII. Dodona. LIV.-LXI. To Tepalen ; the Palace of Ali Pasha ; his People. LXII.-LXIV. Ali Pasha. LXV.-LXXI. Albanian Virtues. LXXII.* The Albanian War-Song. LXXIII.-LXXVII. * The Downfall and Degradation of Greece. LXXVIII.-LXXXI. The Carnival at Constantinople. 282 NOTES. LXXXII.-LXXXIV.* Will Greece rise again ? LXXXV.-XCIII. * The Eternal Beauty and Sacred Memories of Greece. XCIV.-XCVIII.* Lament for Lost Friends. CANTO THIRD : WATERLOO ; THE RHINE ; SWITZERLAND. I.-XVI.* Ada ; the Childe's Second Pilgrimage, and the Experiences that Led to it. XVII.-XXVIII.* Waterloo. XXIX.-XXXV. * The Death of Major Howard ; Reflections upon Waterloo. XXXVI.-XLII.* Napoleon. XLIII.-XLV.* The Misery of Successful Ambition. XLVI.-LI.* The Rhine and its Castles. LII.-LV.* Childe Harold and Augusta. LVI., LVII.* The Tomb of Marceau at Coblenz. LVIII.* Ehrenbreitstein. LIX.-LXI. * Farewell to the Rhine. LXII.* The Alps. LXIII. , LXIV. Morat and Marathon. LXV.-LXVII. Aventicum and Julia Alpinula. LXVIII.-LXXV. * Lake Leman and Life with Nature. LXXVI.-LXXXI. Rousseau. LXXXII.-LXXXIV. The French Revolution. LXXXV. -XCI.* Night on Lake Leman. XCII -XCVIII.* The Thunderstorm on the Lake. XCIX.-CIV. Clarens ; La Nouvelle Héloïse ; The Philosophy of Love. CV.-CIX. Lausanne and Ferney ; Voltaire and Gibbon. CX. * Italy. CXI.-CXIV.* Personal Reflections. CXV.-CXVIII.* To Ada. A CANTO FOURTH : ITALY. I.-XVIII.* Venice. XIX.-XXIV.* Imagination and Memory. XXV., XXVI.* The Beauty of Italy even in Ruins. XXVII -XXIX.* An Italian Sunset. XXX.-XXXIV. * Arquà and Petrarch. XXXVI.-XXXIX.* Ferrara and Tasso. XL., XLI.* Ariosto. XLII., XLIII. Apostrophe to Italy ( Filicaja's Sonnet) . XLIV.-XLVII.* Sulpicius and the Downfall of Rome. XLVIII. Florence. XLIX.-LIII. The Venus de' Medici. CANTO FOURTH. 283 LIV.-LVI.* Santa Croce and its Dead. LVII.-LIX .* Dante and Boccaccio. LX.* The Tombs of the Medici and the Graves of the Poets. LXI. Art and Nature. LXII.-LXV. * Lake Thrasimene. LXVI.-LXVIII. Clitumnus and its Temple. LXIX.-LXXII.* The Fall of Terni. LXXIII.-LXXVII. The Apennines ; Soracte and Horace. LXXVIII.-LXXXII.* Rome and her Ruins. LXXXIII.-LXXXVI.* Sylla and Cromwell. LXXXVII.* The Statue of Pompey. LXXXVIII.* The Wolf of the Capitol. LXXXIX.-XCII. * Cæsar and Napoleon. XCIII.-XCVII.* The Reaction of 1815. XCVIII.* The Coming Triumph of Freedom. XCIX.-CV. The Tomb of Cæcilia Metella. CVI.-CIX. The Ruins of the Palatine Hill. CX. , CXI. The Columns of Phocas and of Trajan. CXÍI.-CXIV. The Capitol ; the Forum ; Rienzi. CXV.-CXIX. Egeria and her Fountain. CXX.-CXXVII. Love ; its Ideals and its Realities. CXXVIII.-CXLV.* The Coliseum ; Byron's Imprecation and For- giveness of his Enemies ; The Dying Gladiator. CXLVI. , CXLVII.* The Pantheon. CXLVIII.-CLI. The Legend of the Roman Daughter. CLII.* The Mausoleum of Hadrian. CLIII.-CLIX.* St. Peter's. CLX.* The Laocoon. CLXI.-CLXIII. * The Apollo Belvedere . CLXIV.-CLXVI. Childe Harold recalled. CLXVII.-CLXXII. The Death of the Princess Charlotte. CLXXIII.-CLXXVI.* Lakes Nemi and Albano ; the view from the Alban Mount. CLXXVII.-CLXXXIV.* Apostrophe to the Ocean. CLXXXV., CLXXXVI.* The End of the Song and the Poet's Fare well. BYRON'S INFLUENCE ON LITERATURE. " It is remarkable that the influence of Byron's poetry has been far greater on the Continent than it has been in England. No English poet, except Shakespeare, has been so much read or so much admired by foreigners. His works, or parts of them, have been translated into many European languages, and numerous foreign writers have been affected by their ideas and style. The estimate that has been formed of them is extraordinarily high. Charles Nodier said : " The appearance of Lord Byron in the field of European literature is one of those events the influence of which is felt by all peoples and through all generations ; and his judgment in this respect by no means stands alone. The chief reason of this, independ- ently of the splendor of his compositions, is to be found in his political 284 NOTES. - opinions . Byron's poetry, like that of most of his English contem- poraries Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, and Shelley — was the outcome of the French Revolution ; but whereas the three first-named of these poets, disgusted with the excesses of that movement, went over into the opposite camp, and the idealism of Shelley was too far re- moved from the sphere of practical politics to be a moving force, Byron became, almost unintentionally, the apostle of the principles which it represented. He has put on record ( iii . 82, iv. 97 ) his condemnation of its criminal extravagances ; but, when men had become weary of the strife between liberty run wild and absolutism reasserting itself, instead of preaching, as Goethe did, the doctrine of acquiescence in the exist- ing order of things, and gradual development by culture, he stood forth as the poetic champion of freedom. The lines (iv. 98), 'Yet Freedom ! yet thy banner, torn but flying, Streams like the thunderstorm against the wind, ' etc., struck a chord which vibrated in the hearts of thousands. Thus his writings became a political power throughout Europe, and more so on the Continent than in England, in proportion as the loss of liberty was more keenly felt by foreign nations. Wherever aspirations for independence arose, Byron's poems were read and admired ” (T.). INDEX OF WORDS AND PHRASES EXPLAINED. Achelous' tide, 241. Acheron, 233, 239. Acherusia's lake, 238. Acroceraunian mountains, 239, 258, 269. Actium, 238. Ada, 246. address (= prepare), 241 . adown, 231 . Adriatic, the spouseless, 261. Ætolia's wilds, 241 . after (adverb) , 241 . agen, 214. Albania, 238. Albano, Lake, 277. Albuera, 223, 231. Albyn, 249. Alcides, 271. Alfieri , 267. Alfonso, 265. Ali Pasha, 240. Allah, 242. Alpine snow, 255 . attaching (= attractive), 253. | Candia, 263. Aventicum, 254. Babylonian whore, 221 . Bactrian sage, 233. bale-fires, 222. ball-piled pyramid, 224. Bard of Prose, 267. Bards of Hell and Chivalry, 265. Barossa's fight, 231 . base pageant, etc. , 271. basked him, 213. battle (= battalion) , 251 . be ( are), 268, 274. beadsmen, 227. begun (= began), 214. betwixt, 250. blatant beast, 220 . blue- eyed maid of heaven, 231. blushing, 231. Cannæ's carnage, 254. canopy, netted, 235. Canova, 267. capabilities, 210. Capitoline Hill, 273. capote, 239, 242. carle, 242. carnival ( personified ) , 242 . Carthaginian, the fierce, 259 Castalia, 212, 225. Cava's traitor sire, 222. chair (= chaise), 227. Chaldean, 247• . chance ( perchance) , 268. Charlotte, Princess, 277. cherub-hydra, 226. Childe, 213. Chimæra's alps, 239. Cintra, 216, 218. Chimari, 239, 269.. chulos, 227. circumambient foam, 214. circumcised (Mohammedclay-cold bonds, 256. Cleopatra, 272. Ambracia's gulf, 238. Anchises, 266. anlace, 224. annihilated (form) , 270. antithetically mixed, 250. Apollo Belvedere, 276. apples, Dead Sea, 250, 277. approves (= proves), 237. Ardennes, 249. ared, 237. Arion, 235. Ariosto, 265 . Armada's pride, 279. Arms and the Man, 278. Arno's dome, 268. Arqua, 264. Asia's tear, 244. asp (= large serpent), 276. Athena's tower, 244. Athena's wisest son, 233. Athos, 236, 269. Atlas, 269. Boccaccio, 267. Boeotian shades, 227. Boileau, 265. ans), 238. bower(=chamber), 214, 229. Clarens, 258. brast, 228. bravely, 235. breathe her, 231. Brentford, 227. Bridge of Sighs, 260. brown, 241. Brunswick's chieftain , 249. Bucentaur, 261. Clitumnus, 268. coach of hackney, 227. Coliseum, the, 274. converse (accent) , 236. convoy, 235. Conynge, 220, 228. cabined, cribbed, confined, couch (the eye) , 274. 274. Cadiz, 226. Cæcilia Metella, 272. caique, 243 . caloyer, 239. Calpe, 235, 278. Calypso's isles, 236. Cameron's gathering, 249. camese, 242. can (absolute), 276. Cornelia's mien, 272. crannying, 251 . Cromwell, 270, 277. Cruscan quire, 265. croupe, 228. Cybele, 260. Cytherea's zone, 257. Dacian, 275. Dandolo, 261. Danger's Gorgon face, 225. 286 INDEX of words AND PHRASES EXPLAINED. Dante, 218, 267. Daphne's deathless plant, 226. Dardan Shepherd, the, 266. dark (Sappho), 237. date ( duration) , 222, 252. daunced, 242. Dead Sea apples, 250, 277. Delhi, 240, 242. Delphi, 212, 225. describe the indescribable, 267. developed, 275; Diana's marvel, 275. did (= didst) , 244. dizzard , 220. Dodona, 239. domes, 224, 226, 276. door (rhyme), 240. Doria's menace, 262. Drachenfels, 252. Draconic clause, 254. dragon's nest, 224. duenna, 228. earth's central line, 214. ee ( eye) , 213. Egeria, 273. Egypt's graceful queen, 272. Egypt's piles, 276. Egypt's plague, 218. Ehrenbreitstein, 253. emprise, 237. Eros, 214. Este, 265. Etrurian Athens, the, 266. eureka ! 270. Eurotas, 242. Eve's consenting star, 224. expands, 228. fandango, 224. fardels of the heart, 277. featly, 228, 235. fere, 214. file ( collective) , 263.. filed (= defiled) , 259. fitting medium, 251. flaunting wassailers, 213. Florence (Mrs. Smith), 236. flout the sky, 223. fond ( foolish), 214, 247,. 257, 266. fondly ( foolishly), 214. formed ( formedst), 219. Forum, the, 273. Frank, 241 , 242. freres, 221. Friuli's mountains, 264. fruits of fragrance, 217. fry (contemptuous) , 221. fytte, 231. gather (plural), 254. Gaul or Muscovite, 242. Giaour, 242. Gibbon, 259. Giralda, 230. Gladiator, the Dying, 275. glaive, 240. glassed, 252. Godoy, 224. Gorgon face, 225. Goth, 257. Grotta Ferrata, 278. Hadrian, 276. Hafiz, 241. hall and bower, 214. Hampstead, 227. happier, 241. Haram, 240. hardihood (concrete), 243. Harmodius, 248. Harrow, 227. headlong, 250. Hebrew wanderer, fabled , 229. Hecate's blaze, 235. Hellas, 212. Helots, 242. Hesperus, 272. high-capped, 240. Highgate, 227. hight, 213, 219. Horn, worship of the, 227. horribly beautiful, 269. horrid, 218. horsetail , 242. Houries, 225. hurl ( whirl) , 227, 228. Hymettus, 243. hypallage, 253. Ianthe, 211 . idlesse, 244, 264. Ilion, 224. Illyria's vales, 238. immediate, 256. imperial anarchs, 238. inert (from fear) , 250. in verge, 274. Iris (= rainbow) , 269, 277. Ionian blast, 244. iron shower, 253. Iskander, 237. Janus, 274. keel- compelling, 235. keels (= ships), 217. kibes, 226. kind ( mankind) , 256. kinder (absolute), 212. king- making, 248. Laocoön's torture, 276. Laos, 240. lated, 228. lauwine, 261 , 269. lava kisses, 266. laving (passive), 236. lawless law, 238. lay (= lie), 279. left the unbalanced scale, 274. Leman, Lake, 255. lemans, 214. Lepanto, 238, 263. less barbarians, 241. lesson (verb), 241. Lethe, 252. Leucadia, 237. like (adverb), 218. Lion of St. Mark, 260, 261. Lisboa, 217. listed spot, 275. Lochiel, 249. logs ( slow ships) , 235. losel, 213. Love without wings, 211. Lusian, 217. Lusitania, 217, 221. Machiavelli, 267. Mafra, 221. Maid of Saragoza, 224. Marathon, 244. Marceau, 253 . Mark, Saint, 261. masque, 260. matador, 228. mate ( wife) , 224. Mauritania, 235. Medici chapel, 268. mellow (proleptic) , 253. Mendeli, 243. Michael Angelo, 267. Midland Ocean, 278. milk-white steer, 268. minions, 223 , 236. mirage (figurative) , 270. mischief (personal) , 252 . moe, 231. Mole of Hadrian, 276. jargon of the marble mart, Moor, the (= Othello) , 260 266. joyaunce, 221, 242. joyous Alps , 258. Julia Alpinula, 254. Jungfrau, the, 269. Jura answers, etc., 258. Morat, 254. Morena's dusky height, 224. mote (verb) , 212, 214. mountains a feeling, 255. muezzin, 240. 1 INDEX OF WORDS AND PHRASES EXPLAINED. 287 Muscovite, 242. mutilated son, 240. Napoleon, 250, 271, 277. ne ( not), 212. Nemesis, 271 , 274. Nemi, 277. netted canopy, 235. Newstead Abbey, 213. Nicopolis, 238. Nine, the weary, 212. Niobe ofnations, 270. Numa, 273. nympholepsy, 273. o'ermastered victor, 263. only not, 213, 243. opinion, 271. or ere, 221. Orestes, 274. Othman's race, 242. Ottomite, 263. Otway, 263. queen of tides, 243. quire (= choir), 265. Radcliffe, 263. Ramazani's fast, 240. real (monosyllable), 237. reaping the whirlwind, 274. rebeck, 224. recede, 221 , 239. record (accent), 243. red cross, 222. reek of popular breath, 277. Rhætian hill , 264. Rhone, the, 255. Rialto, 260. Richmond Hill , 227. Rienzi, 273. rock of Triumph, 273. Roman Daughter, the, 275. rose-hues (Alpine), 259. roundelays, 222. rouses (reflexive) , 220. Our Lady's House of Woe, Rousseau, 257, 258, 259. 218. oxymoron, 225. Palatine, the, 272. pale crescent, 222, 237. Palikar, 242. Pallas, birth of, 271. Pantheon, the, 275. Paphian girls, 214. ruth (= pity) , 241. Sabine farm (Horace's), 278. Sabine Hills, 278. sacred, 240. Sadducee, 233. Samian sage, 233. Pantaloon (derivation) , 262. sandal-shoon, 280. Parga, 242. Parnassus, 212, 225, 269. Parthenon, 231 , 232, 244. pass (rhyme), 276. pastor ( shepherd) , 221. Paynim, 214, 222. Pelagio, 222 . pennant-bearer, 235. Peri, 212. Peter's, St., 276. Petrarch, 264, 267. Phlegethon, 269. Phocas, column of, 272. Phyle's brow, 242 . picador, 228. Pierre, 260. Pindus, 238. pipe ( voice), _235. Planter ofthe Lion, 262 pleasaunce, 219, 242. Pompey, statue of, 271. populous solitude, 259. Previsa, 242. pricked ( =spurred) , 223. pride of place, 248. Proteus, 259. purple ( bloody) , 218. Pythian's cave, 256. Santa Croce at Florence, 267. santons, 240. Saragoza, the Maid of, 224. Saturnalia, 271. scallop-shell, 280. Scanderbeg, 237. Schiller, 263. scimitar (anachronism) , 263. Scipio's tomb, 267, 270. searment, 243. seely, 220. self-banished, 256. self- torturing sophist, 256. Selictar, 242. Serai's tower, 242. Servius Sulpicius, 266. Seville, 226. shaggy ( rough) , 218. Shakespeare, 263. sheen, 217, 221, 228, 239, 247, 253. sheening, 217. shell ( lyre), 212. Shelley, 256, 257, 258, 259. shent, 218. shrive from man, 242. Shylock, 260. Siroc, 223. sleepless bay, 216. sleeps well , 277. solely, 242. something too much of this, 246. son ofthe morning, 232. sooth (= truth) , 213, 241. Sophia's shrine, 243, 276. sophist's stole, 232. Soracte, 269. sore (adverb), 212, 213. southern Scott, the, 265. spirits (monosyllabic) , 260. Stamboul, 243. starry fable, etc., 276. steeds ofbrass (St. Mark's), 261. steps unequal, with, 271. still (= ever) , 236, 239. stole ( robe), 232 . straying (rhyme), 211 . Stygian coast, 254. Suabian, the ( Barbarossa), 261. sublimities (concrete), 267. Suli, 238, 241. Sylla, 270. Symplegades, the blue, 278. Tagus, the, 216. Talavera, 231. tale, 250. tambourgi, 242. tannen, 263. Tarpeian rock, 273. Tasso's echoes, 260. Tayo, 221. Teian, the, 241. tender fierceness, 225. Tepalen, 240. Terni, 268. tew, 220. Thamis, 227. that (with conjunctions), 276. thirsty, 222. Thrasimene (pronunciation), 268. thunderbolt of snow, 253. Tiber, yellow waves of, 270. tight (nautical) , 235. Titan-like, 259. toils (rhyme), 276. Tomerit, 240. Trafalgar, 238, 279. Traitor's Leap, the, 273. Trajan, 273. trebly hundred triumphs, 270. Tritonia, 243. tropes, 237. unbeseem, 211. unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown, 278. 288 INDEX OF WORDS AND PHRASES EXPLAINED. unseamed, 228. upas, 274. urchin (= elf), 219. urn (= the dead), 256. Ustica (Horace's) , 278. Utraikey, 241 . vasty, 221 . Vathek, 219. Velino, the, 268: Villa Ruffinella, 278. Viva el Rey ! 224 vizier, 242. void (rhyme), 260. Voltaire, 259. voluptuous swell, 249. Vulpes, 230. Wahab's rebel brood, 242. war-hounds, 223. was (rhyme), 276. washed them power, 279. Waterloo, 247. watery wall, 263. wearing bravely, 235. well-reeved, 235. whence, 228. when that, 276. whereby, 264. whilome, 212. whiskey ( carriage), 227. whom ( which ), 264. wight, 212. 'witching, 236. withouten, 221 . wittol, 224. wolf dying in silence, 263. wrap (= doth wrap), 270. yclad, 239. yeast ofwaves, 279. yellow waves (Tiber's), 270 ygazed, 241. Zitza, 239. "The swift Rhone " (iii . 94. 1 ).