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Crisis Chronicles Cyber Litmag (2008-2015)

~ Contemporary Poetry and Literary Classics from Cleveland to Infinity

Crisis Chronicles Cyber Litmag (2008-2015)

Monthly Archives: June 2008

Manfred (A Dramatic Poem by Lord Byron)

23 Monday Jun 2008

Posted by Crisis Chronicles Press in 1800s, British, Byron (George Gordon Lord), Drama

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Please click here to view an index of all Lord Byron works available on the Crisis Chronicles Free Online Library

Byron in Albanian dress, painted by Thomas Phillips, c. 1835
on display at the National Portrait Gallery in London



MANFRED

A DRAMATIC POEM
‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’


DRAMATIS PERSONAE





MANFRED
CHAMOIS HUNTER
ABBOT OF ST. MAURICE
MANUEL
HERMAN
WITCH OF THE ALPS
ARIMANES
NEMESIS
THE DESTINIES
SPIRITS, etc



The scene of the Drama is amongst the Higher Alps — partly in the Castle of Manfred, and partly in the Mountains.



ACT I

SCENE I

MANFRED alone. — Scene, a Gothic Gallery. — Time, Midnight.

MANFRED. The lamp must be replenish’d, but even then
It will not burn so long as I must watch.
My slumbers– if I slumber– are not sleep,
But a continuance of enduring thought,
Which then I can resist not: in my heart
There is a vigil, and these eyes but close
To look within; and yet I live, and bear
The aspect and the form of breathing men.
But grief should be the instructor of the wise;
Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most 10
Must mourn the deepest o’er the fatal truth,
The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life.
Philosophy and science, and the springs
Of wonder, and the wisdom of the world,
I have essay’d, and in my mind there is
A power to make these subject to itself–
But they avail not: I have done men good,
And I have met with good even among men–
But this avail’d not: I have had my foes,
And none have baffled, many fallen before me– 20
But this avail’d not: Good, or evil, life,
Powers, passions, all I see in other beings,
Have been to me as rain unto the sands,
Since that all-nameless hour. I have no dread,
And feel the curse to have no natural fear
Nor fluttering throb, that beats with hopes or wishes
Or lurking love of something on the earth.
Now to my task.–
Mysterious Agency!
Ye spirits of the unbounded Universe,
Whom I have sought in darkness and in light! 30
Ye, who do compass earth about, and dwell
In subtler essence! ye, to whom the tops
Of mountains inaccessible are haunts,
And earth’s and ocean’s caves familiar things–
I call upon ye by the written charm
Which gives me power upon you– Rise! appear! [A pause.
They come not yet.– Now by the voice of him
Who is the first among you; by this sign,
Which makes you tremble; by the claims of him
Who is undying,– Rise! appear!– Appear! [A pause. 40
If it be so.– Spirits of earth and air,
Ye shall not thus elude me: by a power,
Deeper than all yet urged, a tyrant-spell,
Which had its birthplace in a star condemn’d,
The burning wreck of a demolish’d world,
A wandering hell in the eternal space;
By the strong curse which is upon my soul,
The thought which is within me and around me,
I do compel ye to my will. Appear!
[A star is seen at the darker end of the gallery: it is
stationary; and a voice is heard singing
.
FIRST SPIRIT.
Mortal! to thy bidding bow’d, 50
From my mansion in the cloud,
Which the breath of twilight builds,
And the summer’s sunset gilds
With the azure and vermilion
Which is mix’d for my pavilion;
Though thy quest may be forbidden,
On a star-beam I have ridden,
To thine adjuration bow’d;
Mortal– be thy wish avow’d!
Voice of the SECOND SPIRIT.
Mont Blanc is the monarch of mountains; 60
They crown’d him long ago
On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds,
With a diadem of snow.
Around his waist are forests braced,
The Avalanche in his hand;
But ere it fall, that thundering ball
Must pause for my command.
The Glacier’s cold and restless mass
Moves onward day by day;
But I am he who bids it pass, 70
Or with its ice delay.
I am the spirit of the place,
Could make the mountain bow
And quiver to his cavern’d base–
And what with me wouldst Thou?
Voice of the THIRD SPIRIT.
In the blue depth of the waters,
Where the wave hath no strife,
Where the wind is a stranger
And the sea-snake hath life,
Where the Mermaid is decking 80
Her green hair with shells;
Like the storm on the surface
Came the sound of thy spells;
O’er my calm Hall of Coral
The deep echo roll’d–
To the Spirit of Ocean
Thy wishes unfold!
FOURTH SPIRIT.
Where the slumbering earthquake
Lies pillow’d on fire,
And the lakes of bitumen 90
Rise boilingly higher;
Where the roots of the Andes
Strike deep in the earth,
As their summits to heaven
Shoot soaringly forth;
I have quitted my birthplace,
Thy bidding to bide–
Thy spell hath subdued me,
Thy will be my guide!
FIFTH SPIRIT.
I am the Rider of the wind, 100
The Stirrer of the storm;
The hurricane I left behind
Is yet with lightning warm;
To speed to thee, o’er shore and sea
I swept upon the blast:
The fleet I met sail’d well, and yet
‘T will sink ere night be past.
SIXTH SPIRIT.
My dwelling is the shadow of the night,
Why doth thy magic torture me with light?
SEVENTH SPIRIT
The star which rules thy destiny 110
Was ruled, ere earth began, by me:
It was a world as fresh and fair
As e’er revolved round sun in air;
Its course was free and regular,
Space bosom’d not a lovelier star.
The hour arrived– and it became
A wandering mass of shapeless flame,
A pathless comet, and a curse,
The menace of the universe;
Still rolling on with innate force, 120
Without a sphere, without a course,
A bright deformity on high,
The monster of the upper sky!
And thou! beneath its influence born–
Thou worm! whom I obey and scorn–
Forced by a power (which is not thine,
And lent thee but to make thee mine)
For this brief moment to descend,
Where these weak spirits round thee bend
And parley with a thing like thee– 130
What wouldst thou, Child of Clay! with me?
The SEVEN SPIRITS
Earth, ocean, air, night, mountains, winds, thy star,
Are at thy beck and bidding, Child of Clay!
Before thee at thy quest their spirits are–
What wouldst thou with us, son of mortals– say?
MANFRED. Forgetfulness–
FIRST SPIRIT. Of what– of whom– and why?
MANFRED. Of that which is within me; read it there–
Ye know it, and I cannot utter it.
SPIRIT. We can but give thee that which we possess:
Ask of us subjects, sovereignty, the power 140
O’er earth, the whole, or portion, or a sign
Which shall control the elements, whereof
We are the dominators,– each and all,
These shall be thine.
MANFRED. Oblivion, self-oblivion–
Can ye not wring from out the hidden realms
Ye offer so profusely what I ask?
SPIRIT. It is not in our essence, in our skill;
But– thou mayst die.
MANFRED. Will death bestow it on me?
SPIRIT. We are immortal, and do not forget;
We are eternal; and to us the past 150
Is, as the future, present. Art thou answered?
MANFRED. Ye mock me– but the power which brought ye here
Hath made you mine. Slaves, scoff not at my will!
The mind, the spirit, the Promethean spark,
The lightning of my being, is as bright,
Pervading, and far-darting as your own,
And shall not yield to yours, though coop’d in clay!
Answer, or I will teach you what I am.
SPIRIT. We answer as we answer’d; our reply
Is even in thine own words.
MANFRED. Why say ye so? 160
SPIRIT. If, as thou say’st, thine essence be as ours,
We have replied in telling thee, the thing
Mortals call death hath nought to do with us.
MANFRED. I then have call’d ye from your realms in vain;
Ye cannot, or ye will not, aid me.
SPIRIT. Say;
What we possess we offer; it is thine:
Bethink ere thou dismiss us, ask again–
Kingdom, and sway, and strength, and length of days–
MANFRED. Accursèd! what have I to do with days?
They are too long already.– Hence– begone! 170
SPIRIT. Yet pause: being here, our will would do thee service;
Bethink thee, is there then no other gift
Which we can make not worthless in thine eyes?
MANFRED. No, none: yet stay– one moment, ere we part–
I would behold ye face to face. I hear
Your voices, sweet and melancholy sounds,
As music on the waters; and I see
The steady aspect of a clear large star;
But nothing more. Approach me as ye are,
Or one, or all, in your accustom’d forms. 180
SPIRIT. We have no forms, beyond the elements
Of which we are the mind and principle:
But choose a form– in that we will appear.
MANFRED. I have no choice, there is no form on earth
Hideous or beautiful to me. Let him,
Who is most powerful of ye, take such aspect
As unto him may seem most fitting.– Come!
Seventh spirit (appearing in the shape of a beautiful female
figure).
Behold!
MANFRED. Oh God! if it be thus, and thou
Art not a madness and a mockery
I yet might be most happy–I will clasp thee, 190
And we again will be– [The figure vanishes.
My heart is crushed!
[MANFRED falls senseless.
(A voice is heard in the Incantation which follows.)
When the moon is on the wave,
And the glow-worm in the grass,
And the meteor on the grave,
And the wisp on the morass;
When the falling stars are shooting,
And the answer’d owls are hooting,
And the silent leaves are still
In the shadow of the hill,
Shall my soul be upon thine, 200
With a power and with a sign.
Though thy slumber may be deep,
Yet thy spirit shall not sleep;
There are shades which will not vanish,
There are thoughts thou canst not banish;
By a power to thee unknown,
Thou canst never be alone;
Thou art wrapt as with a shroud,
Thou art gather’d in a cloud;
And forever shalt thou dwell 210
In the spirit of this spell.
Though thou seest me not pass by,
Thou shalt feel me with thine eye
As a thing that, though unseen,
Must be near thee, and hath been;
And when in that secret dread
Thou hast turn’d around thy head,
Thou shalt marvel I am not
As thy shadow on the spot,
And the power which thou dost feel 220
Shall be what thou must conceal.
And a magic voice and verse
Hath baptized thee with a curse;
And a spirit of the air
Hath begirt thee with a snare;
In the wind there is a voice
Shall forbid thee to rejoice;
And to thee shall Night deny
All the quiet of her sky;
And the day shall have a sun, 230
Which shall make thee wish it done.
From thy false tears I did distil
An essence which hath strength to kill;
From thy own heart I then did wring
The black blood in its blackest spring;
From thy own smile I snatch’d the snake,
For there it coil’d as in a brake;
From thy own lip I drew the charm
Which gave all these their chiefest harm;
In proving every poison known, 240
I found the strongest was thine own.
By thy cold breast and serpent smile,
By thy unfathom’d gulfs of guile,
By that most seeming virtuous eye,
By thy shut soul’s hypocrisy;
By the perfection of thine art
Which pass’d for human thine own heart;
By thy delight in others’ pain,
And by thy brotherhood of Cain,
I call upon thee! and compel 250
Thyself to be thy proper Hell!
And on thy head I pour the vial
Which doth devote thee to this trial;
Nor to slumber, nor to die,
Shall be in thy destiny;
Though thy death shall still seem near
To thy wish, but as a fear;
Lo! the spell now works around thee,
And the clankless chain hath bound thee;
O’er thy heart and brain together 260
Hath the word been pass’d — now wither!






SCENE II
The Mountain of the Jungfrau. — Time, Morning.–
MANFRED alone upon the Cliffs.
MANFRED. The spirits I have raised abandon me,
The spells which I have studied baffled me,
The remedy I reck’d of tortured me;
I lean no more on super-human aid,
It hath no power upon the past, and for
The future, till the past be gulf’d in darkness,
It is not of my search. — My mother Earth!
And thou fresh breaking Day, and you, ye Mountains,
Why are ye beautiful? I cannot love ye. 270
And thou, the bright eye of the universe
That openest over all, and unto all
Art a delight — thou shin’st not on my heart.
And you, ye crags, upon whose extreme edge
I stand, and on the torrent’s brink beneath
Behold the tall pines dwindled as to shrubs
In dizziness of distance; when a leap,
A stir, a motion, even a breath, would bring
My breast upon its rocky bosom’s bed
To rest forever — wherefore do I pause? 280
I feel the impulse–yet I do not plunge;
I see the peril — yet do not recede;
And my brain reels — and yet my foot is firm.
There is a power upon me which withholds,
And makes it my fatality to live;
If it be life to wear within myself
This barrenness of spirit, and to be
My own soul’s sepulchre, for I have ceased
To justify my deeds unto myself —
The last infirmity of evil. Ay, 290
Thou winged and cloud-cleaving minister, [An eagle passes.
Whose happy flight is highest into heaven,
Well may’st thou swoop so near me — I should be
Thy prey, and gorge thine eaglets; thou art gone
Where the eye cannot follow thee; but thine
Yet pierces downward, onward, or above,
With a pervading vision. — Beautiful!
How beautiful is all this visible world!
How glorious in its action and itself!
But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we, 300
Half dust, half deity, alike unfit
To sink or soar, with our mix’d essence make
A conflict of its elements, and breathe
The breath of degradation and of pride,
Contending with low wants and lofty will,
Till our mortality predominates,
And men are what they name not to themselves,
And trust not to each other. Hark! the note,
[The Shepherd’s pipe in the distance is heard.
The natural music of the mountain reed
(For here the patriarchal days are not 310
A pastoral fable) pipes in the liberal air,
Mix’d with the sweet bells of the sauntering herd;
My soul would drink those echoes. — Oh, that I were
The viewless spirit of a lovely sound,
A living voice, a breathing harmony,
A bodiless enjoyment — born and dying
With the blessed tone which made me!
Enter from below a CHAMOIS HUNTER.
CHAMOIS HUNTER. Even so
This way the chamois leapt: her nimble feet
Have baffled me; my gains to-day will scarce
Repay my break-neck travail. — What is here? 320
Who seems not of my trade, and yet hath reach’d
A height which none even of our mountaineers
Save our best hunters, may attain: his garb
Is goodly, his mien manly, and his air
Proud as a freeborn peasant’s, at this distance —
I will approach him nearer.
MANFRED (not perceiving the other). To be thus–
Gray–hair’d with anguish, like these blasted pines,
Wrecks of a single winter, barkless, branchless,
A blighted trunk upon a cursèd root
Which but supplies a feeling to decay — 330
And to be thus, eternally but thus,
Having been otherwise! Now furrowed o’er
With wrinkles, plough’d by moments, not by years
And hours — all tortured into ages — hours
Which I outlive! — Ye toppling crags of ice!
Ye avalanches, whom a breath draws down
In mountainous o’erwhelming, come and crush me!
I hear ye momently above, beneath,
Crash with a frequent conflict, but ye pass,
And only fall on things that still would live; 340
On the young flourishing forest, or the hut
And hamlet of the harmless villager.
CHAMOIS HUNTER. The mists begin to rise from up the valley;
I’ll warn him to descend, or he may chance
To lose at once his way and life together.
MANFRED. The mists boil up around the glaciers; clouds
Rise curling fast beneath me, white and sulphury,
Like foam from the roused ocean of deep Hell,
Whose every wave breaks on a living shore
Heap’d with the damn’d like pebbles.– I am giddy. 350
CHAMOIS HUNTER. I must approach him cautiously; if near
A sudden step will startle him, and he
Seems tottering already.
MANFRED. Mountains have fallen,
Leaving a gap in the clouds, and with the shock
Rocking their Alpine brethren; filling up
The ripe green valleys with destruction’s splinters;
Damming the rivers with a sudden dash,
Which crush’d the waters into mist, and made
Their fountains find another channel– thus,
Thus, in its old age, did Mount Rosenberg– 360
Why stood I not beneath it?
CHAMOIS HUNTER. Friend! have a care,
Your next step may be fatal!– for the love
Of him who made you, stand not on that brink!
MANFRED. (not hearing him). Such would have been for me a
fitting tomb;
My bones had then been quiet in their depth;
They had not then been strewn upon the rocks
For the wind’s pastime– as thus– thus they shall be–
In this one plunge.– Farewell, ye opening heavens!
Look not upon me thus reproachfully–
Ye were not meant for me– Earth! take these atoms! 370
[As MANFRED is in act to spring from the cliff, the CHAMOIS
HUNTER seizes and retains him with a sudden grasp.
CHAMOIS HUNTER. Hold, madman!– though aweary of thy life,
Stain not our pure vales with thy guilty blood!
Away with me– I will not quit my hold.
MANFRED. I am most sick at heart– nay, grasp me not–
I am all feebleness– the mountains whirl
Spinning around me– I grow blind– What art thou?
CHAMOIS HUNTER. I’ll answer that anon.– Away with me!
The clouds grow thicker– there– now lean on me–
Place your foot here– here, take this staff, and cling
A moment to that shrub– now give me your hand, 380
And hold fast by my girdle– softly– well–
The Chalet will be gain’d within an hour.
Come on, we’ll quickly find a surer footing,
And something like a pathway, which the torrent
Hath wash’d since winter.– Come, ’tis bravely done;
You should have been a hunter.– Follow me.
[As they descend the rocks with difficulty, the scene closes.




ACT II

SCENE I

A Cottage amongst the Bernese Alps.

MANFRED and the CHAMOIS HUNTER.

CHAMOIS HUNTER. No, no, yet pause, thou must not yet go forth:
Thy mind and body are alike unfit
To trust each other, for some hours, at least;
When thou art better, I will be thy guide–
But whither?
MANFRED. It imports not; I do know
My route full well, and need no further guidance.
CHAMOIS HUNTER. Thy garb and gait bespeak thee of high lineage–
One of the many chiefs, whose castled crags
Look o’er the lower valleys– which of these
May call thee Lord? I only know their portals; 10
My way of life leads me but rarely down
To bask by the huge hearths of those old halls,
Carousing with the vassals, but the paths,
Which step from out our mountains to their doors,
I know from childhood– which of these is thine?
MANFRED. No matter.
CHAMOIS HUNTER. Well, sir, pardon me the question,
And be of better cheer. Come, taste my wine;
‘Tis of an ancient vintage; many a day
‘T has thaw’d my veins among our glaciers, now
Let it do thus for thine. Come, pledge me fairly. 20
MANFRED. Away, away! there’s blood upon the brim!
Will it then never– never sink in the earth?
CHAMOIS HUNTER. What dost thou mean? thy senses wander from thee.
MANFRED. I say ‘t is blood– my blood! the pure warm stream
Which ran in the veins of my fathers, and in ours
When we were in our youth, and had one heart
And loved each other as we should not love,
And this was shed: but still it rises up
Colouring the clouds, that shut me out from heaven
Where thou art not– and I shall never be. 30
CHAMOIS HUNTER. Man of strange words, and some half-maddening sin
Which makes thee people vacancy, whate’er
Thy dread and sufferance be, there’s comfort yet–
The aid of holy men, and heavenly patience–
MANFRED. Patience and patience! Hence– that word was made
For brutes of burthen, not for birds of prey;
Preach it to mortals of a dust like thine,–
I am not of thine order.
CHAMOIS HUNTER. Thanks to heaven!
I would not be of thine for the free fame
Of William Tell; but whatsoe’er thine ill, 40
It must be borne, and these wild starts are useless.
MANFRED. Do I not bear it? — Look on me — I live.
CHAMOIS HUNTER. This is convulsion, and no healthful life.
MANFRED. I tell thee, man! I have lived many years,
Many long years, but they are nothing now
To those which I must number: ages– ages–
Space and eternity– and consciousness,
With the fierce thirst of death– and still unslaked!
CHAMOIS HUNTER. Why, on thy brow the seal of middle age
Hath scarce been set; I am thine elder far. 50
MANFRED. Think’st thou existence doth depend on time?
It doth; but actions are our epochs: mine
Have made my days and nights imperishable
Endless, and all alike, as sands on the shore
Innumerable atoms; and one desart
Barren and cold, on which the wild waves break,
But nothing rests, save carcases and wrecks,
Rocks, and the salt-surf weeds of bitterness.
CHAMOIS HUNTER. Alas! he’s mad– but yet I must not leave him.
MANFRED. I would I were– for then the things I see 60
Would be but a distemper’d dream.
CHAMOIS HUNTER. What is it
That thou dost see, or think thou look’st upon?
MANFRED. Myself, and thee– a peasant of the Alps–
Thy humble virtues, hospitable home
And spirit patient, pious, proud and free;
Thy self-respect, grafted on innocent thoughts;
Thy days of health, and nights of sleep; thy toils
By danger dignified, yet guiltless; hopes
Of cheerful old age and a quiet grave,
With cross and garland over its green turf, 70
And thy grandchildren’s love for epitaph;
This do I see– and then I look within–
It matters not– my soul was scorch’d already!
CHAMOIS HUNTER. And would’st thou then exchange thy lot for mine?
MANFRED. No, friend! I would not wrong thee, nor exchange
My lot with living being: I can bear–
However wretchedly, ‘t is still to bear–
In life what others could not brook to dream,
But perish in their slumber.
CHAMOIS HUNTER. And with this–
This cautious feeling for another’s pain, 80
Canst thou be black with evil?– say not so.
Can one of gentle thoughts have wreak’d revenge
Upon his enemies?
MANFRED. Oh! no, no, no!
My injuries came down on those who loved me–
On those whom I best loved: I never quell’d
An enemy, save in my just defence–
But my embrace was fatal.
CHAMOIS HUNTER. Heaven give thee rest!
And penitence restore thee to thyself;
My prayers shall be for thee.
MANFRED. I need them not,
But can endure thy pity. I depart– 90
‘T is time– farewell!– Here’s gold, and thanks for thee;
No words– it is thy due. Follow me not;
I know my path– the mountain peril’s past:
And once again, I charge thee, follow not! [Exit MANFRED.






SCENE II
A lower Valley in the Alps.– A Cataract.
          Enter MANFRED.
It is not noon– the sunbow’s rays still arch
The torrent with the many hues of heaven,
And roll the sheeted silver’s waving column
O’er the crag’s headlong perpendicular,
And fling its lines of foaming height along,
And to and fro, like the pale courser’s tail, 100
The Giant steed, to be bestrode by Death,
As told in the Apocalypse. No eyes
But mine now drink this sight of loveliness;
I should be sole in this sweet solitude,
And with the Spirit of the place divide
The homage of these waters.– I will call her.
[MANFRED takes some of the water into the palm of his hand, and flings it in the air, muttering the adjuration. After a pause, the WITCH OF THE ALPS rises beneath the arch of the sunbow of the torrent.
Beautiful Spirit! with thy hair of light,
And dazzling eyes of glory, in whose form
The charms of Earth’s least mortal daughters grow
To an unearthly stature, in an essence 110
Of purer elements; while the hues of youth
(Carnation’d like a sleeping infant’s cheek
Rock’d by the beating of her mother’s heart,
Or the rose tints, which summer’s twilight leaves
Upon the lofty glacier’s virgin snow,
The blush of earth embracing with her heaven)
Tinge thy celestial aspect, and make tame
The beauties of the sunbow which bends o’er thee.
Beautiful Spirit! in thy calm clear brow,
Wherein is glass’d serenity of soul, 120
Which of itself shows immortality,
I read that thou wilt pardon to a Son
Of Earth, whom the abstruser powers permit
At times to commune with them– if that he
Avail him of his spells– to call thee thus,
And gaze on thee a moment.
WITCH. Son of Earth!
I know thee, and the powers which give thee power;
I know thee for a man of many thoughts,
And deeds of good and ill, extreme in both,
Fatal and fated in thy sufferings. 130
I have expected this– what wouldst thou with me?
MANFRED. To look upon thy beauty– nothing further.
The face of the earth hath madden’d me, and I
Take refuge in her mysteries, and pierce
To the abodes of those who govern her–
But they can nothing aid me. I have sought
From them what they could not bestow, and now
I search no further.
WITCH. What could be the quest
Which is not in the power of the most powerful,
The rulers of the invisible?
MANFRED. A boon; 140
But why should I repeat it? ’twere in vain.
WITCH. I know not that; let thy lips utter it.
MANFRED. Well, though it torture me, ‘t is but the same;
My pang shall find a voice. From my youth upwards
My spirit walk’d not with the souls of men,
Nor look’d upon the earth with human eyes;
The thirst of their ambition was not mine;
The aim of their existence was not mine;
My joys, my griefs, my passions, and my powers,
Made me a stranger; though I wore the form, 150
I had no sympathy with breathing flesh,
Nor midst the creatures of clay that girded me
Was there but one who– but of her anon.
I said with men, and with the thoughts of men,
I held but slight communion; but instead,
My joy was in the Wilderness, to breathe
The difficult air of the iced mountain’s top,
Where the birds dare not build, nor insect’s wing
Flit o’er the herbless granite; or to plunge
Into the torrent, and to roll along 160
On the swift whirl of the new breaking wave
Of river-stream, or ocean, in their flow.
In these my early strength exulted; or
To follow through the night the moving moon,
The stars and their development, or catch
The dazzling lightnings till my eyes grew dim;
Or to look, list’ning, on the scatter’d leaves,
While Autumn winds were at their evening song.
These were my pastimes, and to be alone;
For if the beings, of whom I was one,– 170
Hating to be so,– cross’d me in my path,
I felt myself degraded back to them,
And was all clay again. And then I dived,
In my lone wanderings, to the caves of death,
Searching its cause in its effect, and drew
From wither’d bones, and skulls, and heap’d up dust,
Conclusions most forbidden. Then I pass’d
The nights of years in sciences, untaught
Save in the old-time; and with time and toil,
And terrible ordeal, and such penance 180
As in itself hath power upon the air
And spirits that do compass air and earth,
Space, and the peopled infinite, I made
Mine eyes familiar with Eternity,
Such as, before me, did the Magi, and
He who from out their fountain dwellings raised
Eros and Anteros, at Gadara,
As I do thee,– and with my knowledge grew
The thirst of knowledge, and the power and joy
Of this most bright intelligence, until– 190
WITCH. Proceed.
MANFRED. Oh! I but thus prolonged my words,
Boasting these idle attributes, because
As I approach the core of my heart’s grief–
But to my task. I have not named to thee
Father or mother, mistress, friend, or being
With whom I wore the chain of human ties;
If I had such, they seem’d not such to me–
Yet there was one–
WITCH. Spare not thyself– proceed.
MANFRED. She was like me in lineaments– her eyes
Her hair, her features, all, to the very tone 200
Even of her voice, they said were like to mine;
But soften’d all, and temper’d into beauty;
She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings,
The quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind
To comprehend the universe: nor these
Alone, but with them gentler powers than mine,
Pity, and smiles, and tears– which I had not;
And tenderness– but that I had for her;
Humility– and that I never had.
Her faults were mine– her virtues were her own– 210
I loved her, and destroy’d her!
WITCH. With thy hand?
MANFRED. Not with my hand, but heart– which broke her heart;
It gazed on mine, and wither’d. I have shed
Blood, but not hers– and yet her blood was shed–
I saw, and could not stanch it.
WITCH. And for this–
A being of the race thou dost despise,
The order which thine own would rise above,
Mingling with us and ours, thou dost forego
The gifts of our great knowledge, and shrink’st back
To recreant mortality– Away! 220
MANFRED. Daughter of Air! I tell thee, since that hour–
But words are breath– look on me in my sleep,
Or watch my watchings– Come and sit by me!
My solitude is solitude no more,
But peopled with the Furies,– I have gnash’d
My teeth in darkness till returning morn,
Then cursed myself till sunset;– I have pray’d
For madness as a blessing– ’tis denied me.
I have affronted death– but in the war
Of elements the waters shrunk from me, 230
And fatal things pass’d harmless– the cold hand
Of an all–pitiless demon held me back,
Back by a single hair, which would not break.
In fantasy, imagination, all
The affluence of my soul– which one day was
A Croesus in creation– I plunged deep,
But, like an ebbing wave, it dash’d me back
Into the gulf of my unfathom’d thought.
I plunged amidst mankind– Forgetfulness
I sought in all, save where ’tis to be found, 240
And that I have to learn– my sciences,
My long pursued and superhuman art,
Is mortal here; I dwell in my despair–
And live– and live for ever.
WITCH. It may be
That I can aid thee.
MANFRED. To do this thy power
Must wake the dead, or lay me low with them.
Do so– in any shape– in any hour–
With any torture– so it be the last.
WITCH. That is not in my province; but if thou
Wilt swear obedience to my will, and do 250
My bidding, it may help thee to thy wishes.
MANFRED. I will not swear– Obey! and whom? the spirits
Whose presence I command, and be the slave
Of those who served me– Never!
WITCH. Is this all?
Hast thou no gentler answer?– Yet bethink thee,
And pause ere thou rejectest.
MANFRED. I have said it.
WITCH. Enough!– I may retire then– say!
MANFRED. Retire! [The WITCH disappears.
MANFRED (alone). We are the fools of time and terror: Days
Steal on us and steal from us; yet we live,
Loathing our life, and dreading still to die. 260
In all the days of this detested yoke–
This vital weight upon the struggling heart,
Which sinks with sorrow, or beats quick with pain,
Or joy that ends in agony or faintness–
In all the days of past and future, for
In life there is no present, we can number
How few, how less than few, wherein the soul
Forbears to pant for death, and yet draws back
As from a stream in winter, though the chill
Be but a moment’s. I have one resource 270
Still in my science– I can call the dead,
And ask them what it is we dread to be:
The sternest answer can but be the Grave,
And that is nothing– if they answer not–
The buried Prophet answered to the Hag
Of Endor; and the Spartan Monarch drew
From the Byzantine maid’s unsleeping spirit
An answer and his destiny– he slew
That which he loved unknowing what he slew,
And died unpardon’d– though he call’d in aid 280
The Phyxian Jove, and in Phigalia roused
The Arcadian Evocators to compel
The indignant shadow to depose her wrath,
Or fix her term of vengeance– she replied
In words of dubious import, but fulfill’d.
If I had never lived, that which I love
Had still been living; had I never loved,
That which I love would still be beautiful–
Happy and giving happiness. What is she?
What is she now?– a sufferer for my sins– 290
A thing I dare not think upon– or nothing.
Within few hours I shall not call in vain–
Yet in this hour I dread the thing I dare:
Until this hour I never shrunk to gaze
On spirit, good or evil–now I tremble,
And feel a strange cold thaw upon my heart.
But I can act even what I most abhor,
And champion human fears.– The night approaches. [Exit.



SCENE III

The Summit of the Jungfrau Mountain.
     Enter FIRST DESTINY.
The moon is rising broad, and round, and bright;
And here on snows, where never human foot 300
Of common mortal trod, we nightly tread,
And leave no traces; o’er the savage sea,
The glassy ocean of the mountain ice,
We skim its rugged breakers, which put on
The aspect of a tumbling tempest’s foam,
Frozen in a moment– a dead whirlpool’s image.
And this most steep fantastic pinnacle,
The fretwork of some earthquake– where the clouds
Pause to repose themselves in passing by–
Is sacred to our revels, or our vigils; 310
Here do I wait my sisters, on our way
To the Hall of Arimanes, for to-night
Is our great festival– ‘t is strange they come not.
A Voice without, singing.
The Captive Usurper,
Hurl’d down from the throne,
Lay buried in torpor,
Forgotten and lone;
I broke through his slumbers,
I shiver’d his chain,
I leagued him with numbers– 320
He’s Tyrant again!
With the blood of a million he’ll answer my care,
With a nation’s destruction– his flight and despair.
Second Voice, without.
The ship sail’d on, the ship sail’d fast,
But I left not a sail, and I left not a mast;
There is not a plank of the hull or the deck,
And there is not a wretch to lament o’er his wreck;
Save one, whom I held, as he swam, by the hair,
And he was a subject well worthy my care;
A traitor on land, and a pirate at sea– 330
But I saved him to wreak further havoc for me!
FIRST DESTINY, answering.
The city lies sleeping;
The morn, to deplore it,
May dawn on it weeping:
Sullenly, slowly,
The black plague flew o’er it–
Thousands lie lowly;
Tens of thousands shall perish–
The living shall fly from
The sick they should cherish; 340
But nothing can vanquish
The touch that they die from.
Sorrow and anguish,
And evil and dread,
Envelope a nation–
The blest are the dead,
Who see not the sight
Of their own desolation;
This work of a night–
This wreck of a realm– this deed of my doing– 350
For ages I’ve done, and shall still be renewing!
Enter the SECOND and THIRD DESTINIES.
The Three.
Our hands contain the hearts of men,
Our footsteps are their graves:
We only give to take again
The spirits of our slaves!
FIRST DESTINY. Welcome!– Where’s Nemesis?
SECOND DESTINY. At some great work;
But what I know not, for my hands were full.
THIRD DESTINY. Behold she cometh.
Enter NEMESIS.
FIRST DESTINY. Say, where hast thou been?
My sisters and thyself are slow to-night.
NEMESIS. l was detain’d repairing shattered thrones, 360
Marrying fools, restoring dynasties,
Avenging men upon their enemies,
And making them repent their own revenge;
Goading the wise to madness, from the dull
Shaping out oracles to rule the world
Afresh, for they were waxing out of date,
And mortals dared to ponder for themselves,
To weigh kings in the balance, and to speak
Of freedom, the forbidden fruit.– Away!
We have outstaid the hour– mount we our clouds! [Exeunt. 370

SCENE IV

The Hall of ARIMANES.– ARIMANES on his Throne, a Globe of Fire, surrounded by the SPIRITS.


Hymn of the SPIRITS
Hail to our Master!– Prince of Earth and Air!–
Who walks the clouds and waters– in his hand
The sceptre of the elements, which tear
Themselves to chaos at his high command!
He breatheth– and a tempest shakes the sea;
He speaketh– and the clouds reply in thunder;
He gazeth– from his glance the sunbeams flee;
He moveth– earthquakes rend the world asunder.
Beneath his footsteps the volcanoes rise;
His shadow is the Pestilence; his path 380
The comets herald through the crackling skies;
And planets turn to ashes at his wrath.
To him War offers daily sacrifice;
To him Death pays his tribute; Life is his,
With all its infinite of agonies–
And his the spirit of whatever is!
Enter the DESTINIES and NEMESIS.
FIRST DESTINY. Glory to Arimanes! on the earth
His power increaseth– both my sisters did
His bidding, nor did I neglect my duty!
SECOND DESTINY. Glory to Arimanes! we who bow 390
The necks of men, bow down before his throne!
THIRD DESTINY. Glory to Arimanes!– we await His nod!
NEMESIS. Sovereign of Sovereigns! we are thine.
And all that liveth, more or less, is ours,
And most things wholly so; still to increase
Our power, increasing thine, demands our care,
And we are vigilant– Thy late commands
Have been fulfill’d to the utmost.
Enter MANFRED.
A SPIRIT. What is here?
A mortal!– Thou most rash and fatal wretch,
Bow down and worship!
SECOND SPIRIT. I do know the man– 400
A Magian of great power, and fearful skill!
THIRD SPIRIT. Bow down and worship, slave! What, know’st thou not
Thine and our Sovereign?– Tremble, and obey!
ALL THE SPIRITS. Prostrate thyself, and thy condemnèd clay,
Child of the Earth! or dread the worst.
MANFRED. I know it;
And yet ye see I kneel not.
FOURTH SPIRIT. ‘T will be taught thee.
MANFRED. ‘Tis taught already,– many a night on the earth,
On the bare ground, have I bow’d down my face,
And strew’d my head with ashes; I have known
The fulness of humiliation, for 410
I sunk before my vain despair, and knelt
To my own desolation.
FIFTH SPIRIT. Dost thou dare
Refuse to Arimanes on his throne
What the whole earth accords, beholding not
The terror of his Glory– Crouch! I say.
MANFRED. Bid him bow down to that which is above him,
The overruling Infinite– the Maker
Who made him not for worship– let him kneel,
And we will kneel together.
THE SPIRITS. Crush the worm!
Tear him in pieces!–
FIRST DESTINY. Hence! Avaunt!– he’s mine. 420
Prince of the Powers invisible! This man
Is of no common order, as his port
And presence here denote. His sufferings
Have been of an immortal nature, like
Our own; his knowledge and his powers and will,
As far as is compatible with clay,
Which clogs the ethereal essence, have been such
As clay hath seldom borne; his aspirations
Have been beyond the dwellers of the earth,
And they have only taught him what we know– 430
That knowledge is not happiness, and science
But an exchange of ignorance for that
Which is another kind of ignorance.
This is not all; the passions, attributes
Of earth and heaven, from which no power, nor being,
Nor breath from the worm upwards is exempt,
Have pierced his heart; and in their consequence
Made him a thing, which I, who pity not,
Yet pardon those who pity. He is mine,
And thine, it may be– be it so, or not, 440
No other Spirit in this region hath
A soul like his– or power upon his soul.
NEMESIS. What doth he here then?
FIRST DESTINY. Let him answer that.
MANFRED. Ye know what I have known; and without power
I could not be amongst ye: but there are
Powers deeper still beyond– I come in quest
Of such, to answer unto what I seek.
NEMESIS. What wouldst thou?
MANFRED. Thou canst not reply to me.
Call up the dead– my question is for them.
NEMESIS. Great Arimanes, doth thy will avouch 450
The wishes of this mortal?
ARIMANES. Yea.
NEMESIS. Whom wouldst thou
Uncharnel?
MANFRED. One without a tomb– call up Astarte.
NEMESIS
Shadow! or Spirit!
Whatever thou art,
Which still doth inherit
The whole or a part
Of the form of thy birth,
Of the mould of thy clay
Which returned to the earth,– 460
Re-appear to the day!
Bear what thou borest,
The heart and the form,
And the aspect thou worest
Redeem from the worm.
Appear!– Appear!– Appear!
Who sent thee there requires thee here!
[The Phantom of ASTARTE rises and stands in the midst.
MANFRED. Can this be death? there’s bloom upon her cheek;
But now I see it is no living hue,
But a strange hectic– like the unnatural red 470
Which Autumn plants upon the perish’d leaf.
It is the same! Oh, God! that I should dread
To look upon the same– Astarte!– No,
I cannot speak to her– but bid her speak–
Forgive me or condemn me.
NEMESIS
By the power which hath broken
The grave which enthrall’d thee,
Speak to him who hath spoken,
Or those who have call’d thee!
MANFRED. She is silent,
And in that silence I am more than answer’d. 480
NEMESIS. My power extends no further.
Prince of air! It rests with thee alone– command her voice.
ARIMANES. Spirit– obey this sceptre!
NEMESIS. Silent still!
She is not of our order, but belongs
To the other powers. Mortal! thy quest is vain,
And we are baffled also.
MANFRED. Hear me, hear me–
Astarte! my belovèd! speak to me;
I have so much endured– so much endure–
Look on me! the grave hath not changed thee more
Than I am changed for thee. Thou lovèdst me 490
Too much, as I loved thee: we were not made
To torture thus each other, though it were
The deadliest sin to love as we have loved.
Say that thou loath’st me not– that I do bear
This punishment for both–that thou wilt be
One of the blessèd– and that I shall die;
For hitherto all hateful things conspire
To bind me in existence– in a life
Which makes me shrink from immortality–
A future like the past. I cannot rest. 500
I know not what I ask, nor what I seek:
I feel but what thou art– and what I am;
And I would hear yet once before I perish
The voice which was my music– Speak to me!
For I have call’d on thee in the still night,
Startled the slumbering birds from the hush’d boughs,
And woke the mountain wolves, and made the caves
Acquainted with thy vainly echo’d name,
Which answer’d me– many things answer’d me–
Spirits and men– but thou wert silent all. 510
Yet speak to me! I have outwatch’d the stars,
And gazed o’er heaven in vain in search of thee.
Speak to me! I have wander’d o’er the earth,
And never found thy likeness– Speak to me!
Look on the fiends around– they feel for me:
I fear them not, and feel for thee alone.
Speak to me! though it be in wrath;– but say–
I reck not what– but let me hear thee once–
This once– once more!
PHANTOM OF ASTARTE. Manfred!
MANFRED. Say on, say on–
I live but in the sound–it is thy voice! 520
PHANTOM. Manfred! To-morrow ends thine earthly ills.
Farewell!
MANFRED. Yet one word more– am I forgiven?
PHANTOM. Farewell!
MANFRED. Say, shall we meet again?
PHANTOM. Farewell!
MANFRED. One word for mercy! Say, thou lovest me.
PHANTOM. Manfred! [The Spirit of ASTARTE departs.
NEMESIS. She’s gone, and will not be recall’d;
Her words will be fulfill’d. Return to the earth.
A SPIRIT. He is convulsed– This is to be a mortal
And seek the things beyond mortality.
ANOTHER SPIRIT. Yet, see, he mastereth himself, and makes
His torture tributary to his will. 530
Had he been one of us, he would have made
An awful spirit.
NEMESIS. Hast thou further question
Of our great sovereign, or his worshippers?
MANFRED. None.
NEMESIS. Then for a time farewell.
MANFRED. We meet then! Where? On the earth?–
Even as thou wilt: and for the grace accorded
I now depart a debtor. Fare ye well! [Exit MANFRED.
(Scene closes).



ACT III

SCENE I

A Hall in the Castle of Manfred.

          MANFRED and HERMAN.
MANFRED. What is the hour?
HERMAN. It wants but one till sunset,
And promises a lovely twilight.
MANFRED. Say,
Are all things so disposed of in the tower
As I directed?
HERMAN. All, my lord, are ready;
Here is the key and casket.
MANFRED. It is well:
Thou mayst retire. [Exit HERMAN.
MANFRED (alone). There is a calm upon me–
Inexplicable stillness! which till now
Did not belong to what I knew of life.
If that I did not know philosophy
To be of all our vanities the motliest, 10
The merest word that ever fool’d the ear
From out the schoolman’s jargon, I should deem
The golden secret, the sought ‘Kalon,’ found,
And seated in my soul. It will not last,
But it is well to have known it, though but once:
It hath enlarged my thoughts with a new sense,
And I within my tablets would note down
That there is such a feeling. Who is there?
Re-enter HERMAN.
HERMAN. My lord, the abbot of St. Maurice craves
To greet your presence.
Enter the ABBOT OF ST. MAURICE.
ABBOT. Peace be with Count Manfred! 20
MANFRED. Thanks, holy father! welcome to these walls;
Thy presence honours them, and blesseth those
Who dwell within them.
ABBOT. Would it were so, Count!–
But I would fain confer with thee alone.
MANFRED. Herman, retire.– What would my reverend guest?
ABBOT. Thus, without prelude:– Age and zeal, my office,
And good intent, must plead my privilege;
Our near, though not acquainted neighbourhood,
May also be my herald. Rumours strange,
And of unholy nature, are abroad, 30
And busy with thy name; a noble name
For centuries: may he who bears it now
Transmit it unimpair’d!
MANFRED. Proceed,– I listen.
ABBOT ‘T is said thou holdest converse with the things
Which are forbidden to the search of man;
That with the dwellers of the dark abodes,
The many evil and unheavenly spirits
Which walk the valley of the shade of death,
Thou communest. I know that with mankind,
Thy fellows in creation, thou dost rarely 40
Exchange thy thoughts, and that thy solitude
Is as an anchorite’s, were it but holy.
MANFRED. And what are they who do avouch these things?
ABBOT. My pious brethren, the scared peasantry,
Even thy own vassals, who do look on thee
With most unquiet eyes. Thy life’s in peril.
MANFRED. Take it.
ABBOT. I come to save, and not destroy.
I would not pry into thy secret soul;
But if these things be sooth, there still is time
For penitence and pity: reconcile thee 50
With the true church, and through the church to heaven.
MANFRED. I hear thee. This is my reply, whate’er
I may have been, or am, doth rest between
Heaven and myself; I shall not choose a mortal
To be my mediator. Have I sinn’d
Against your ordinances? prove and punish!
ABBOT. My son! I did not speak of punishment,
But penitence and pardon; with thyself
The choice of such remains– and for the last,
Our institutions and our strong belief 60
Have given me power to smooth the path from sin
To higher hope and better thoughts, the first
I leave to heaven– ‘Vengeance is mine alone!’
So saith the Lord, and with all humbleness
His servant echoes back the awful word.
MANFRED. Old man! there is no power in holy men,
Nor charm in prayer, nor purifying form
Of penitence, nor outward look, nor fast,
Nor agony, nor, greater than all these,
The innate tortures of that deep despair 70
Which is remorse without the fear of hell
But all in all sufficient to itself
Would make a hell of heaven,– can exorcise
From out the unbounded spirit, the quick sense
Of its own sins, wrongs, sufferance, and revenge
Upon itself; there is no future pang
Can deal that justice on the self-condemn’d
He deals on his own soul.
ABBOT. All this is well;
For this will pass away, and be succeeded
By an auspicious hope, which shall look up 80
With calm assurance to that blessed place
Which all who seek may win, whatever be
Their earthly errors, so they be atoned:
And the commencement of atonement is
The sense of its necessity.– Say on–
And all our church can teach thee shall be taught;
And all we can absolve thee, shall be pardon’d.
MANFRED. When Rome’s sixth Emperor was near his last,
The victim of a self-inflicted wound,
To shun the torments of a public death 90
From senates once his slaves, a certain soldier,
With show of loyal pity, would have staunch’d
The gushing throat with his officious robe;
The dying Roman thrust him back and said–
Some empire still in his expiring glance–
‘It is too late– is this fidelity?’
ABBOT. And what of this?
MANFRED. I answer with the Roman–
‘It is too late!’
ABBOT. It never can be so,
To reconcile thyself with thy own soul,
And thy own soul with heaven. Hast thou no hope? 100
‘Tis strange– even those who do despair above,
Yet shape themselves some phantasy on earth,
To which frail twig they cling, like drowning men.
MANFRED. Ay– father! I have had those earthly visions
And noble aspirations in my youth,
To make my own the mind of other men,
The enlightener of nations; and to rise
I knew not whither– it might be to fall;
But fall, even as the mountain–cataract,
Which having leapt from its more dazzling height, 110
Even in the foaming strength of its abyss
(Which casts up misty columns that become
Clouds raining from the re-ascended skies)
Lies low but mighty still.– But this is past,
My thoughts mistook themselves.
ABBOT. And wherefore so?
MANFRED. I could not tame my nature down; for he
Must serve who fain would sway– and soothe, and sue,
And watch all time, and pry into all place,
And be a living lie, who would become
A mighty thing amongst the mean, and such 120
The mass are; I disdain’d to mingle with
A herd, though to be leader– and of wolves.
The lion is alone, and so am I.
ABBOT. And why not live and act with other men?
MANFRED. Because my nature was averse from life;
And yet not cruel; for I would not make,
But find a desolation. Like the wind,
The red–hot breath of the most lone Simoom,
Which dwells but in the desert, and sweeps o’er
The barren sands which bear no shrubs to blast 130
And revels o’er their wild and arid waves,
And seeketh not, so that it is not sought,
But being met is deadly,– such hath been
The course of my existence; but there came
Things in my path which are no more.
ABBOT. Alas!
I ‘gin to fear that thou art past all aid
From me and from my calling; yet so young,
I still would–
MANFRED. Look on me! there is an order
Of mortals on the earth, who do become
Old in their youth, and die ere middle age, 140
Without the violence of warlike death;
Some perishing of pleasure, some of study,
Some worn with toil, some of mere weariness,
Some of disease, and some insanity,
And some of wither’d or of broken hearts;
For this last is a malady which slays
More than are number’d in the lists of Fate,
Taking all shapes, and bearing many names.
Look upon me! for even of all these things
Have I partaken; and of all these things, 150
One were enough; then wonder not that I
Am what I am, but that I ever was,
Or, having been, that I am still on earth.
ABBOT. Yet, hear me still–
MANFRED. Old man! I do respect
Thine order, and revere thine years; I deem
Thy purpose pious, but it is in vain.
Think me not churlish; I would spare thyself,
Far more than me, in shunning at this time
All further colloquy; and so– farewell. [Exit MANFRED.
ABBOT. This should have been a noble creature: he 160
Hath all the energy which would have made
A goodly frame of glorious elements,
Had they been wisely mingled; as it is,
It is an awful chaos– light and darkness,
And mind and dust– and passions and pure thoughts,
Mix’d, and contending without end or order,
All dormant or destructive. He will perish,
And yet he must not; I will try once more,
For such are worth redemption; and my duty
Is to dare all things for a righteous end. 170
I’ll follow him– but cautiously, though surely. [Exit ABBOT.



SCENE II

Another Chamber.

MANFRED and HERMAN.

HERMAN. My Lord, you bade me wait on you at sunset:
He sinks beyond the mountain.
MANFRED. Doth he so?
I will look on him.
[MANFRED advances to the Window of the Hall.
Glorious Orb! the idol
Of early nature, and the vigorous race
Of undiseased mankind the giant sons
Of the embrace of angels, with a sex
More beautiful than they, which did draw down
The erring spirits who can ne’er return;
Most glorious orb! that wert a worship, ere 180
The mystery of thy making was reveal’d!
Thou earliest minister of the Almighty,
Which gladden’d, on their mountain tops, the hearts
Of the Chaldean shepherds, till they pour’d
Themselves in orisons! Thou material God!
And representative of the Unknown,
Who chose thee for his shadow! Thou chief star!
Centre of many stars! which mak’st our earth
Endurable, and temperest the hues
And hearts of all who walk within thy rays! 190
Sire of the seasons! Monarch of the climes
And those who dwell in them! for near or far
Our inborn spirits have a tint of thee,
Even as our outward aspects;– thou dost rise,
And shine, and set in glory. Fare thee well!
I ne’er shall see thee more. As my first glance
Of love and wonder was for thee, then take
My latest look: thou wilt not beam on one
To whom the gifts of life and warmth have been
Of a more fatal nature. He is gone; 200
I follow. [Exit MANFRED.


SCENE III
The Mountains.– The Castle of MANFRED at some distance.– A Terrace before a Tower.– Time, Twilight.
HERMAN, MANUEL, and other Dependants of MANFRED.
HERMAN. ‘T is strange enough; night after night, for years,
He hath pursued long vigils in this tower,
Without a witness. I have been within it,–
So have we all been oft-times; but from it
Or its contents, it were impossible
To draw conclusions absolute of aught
His studies tend to. To be sure, there is
One chamber where none enter: I would give
The fee of what I have to come these three years 210
To pore upon its mysteries.
MANUEL. ‘T were dangerous;
Content thyself with what thou know’st already.
HERMAN. Ah! Manuel! thou art elderly and wise,
And could’st say much; thou hast dwelt within the castle–
How many years is’t?
MANUEL. Ere Count Manfred’s birth,
I served his father, whom he nought resembles.
HERMAN. There be more sons in like predicament.
But wherein do they differ?
MANUEL. I speak not
Of features or of form, but mind and habits;
Count Sigismund was proud, but gay and free– 220
A warrior and a reveller; he dwelt not
With books and solitude, nor made the night
A gloomy vigil, but a festal time,
Merrier than day; he did not walk the rocks
And forests like a wolf, nor turn aside
From men and their delights.
HERMAN. Beshrew the hour,
But those were jocund times! I would that such
Would visit the old walls again; they look
As if they had forgotten them.
MANUEL. These walls
Must change their chieftain first. Oh! I have seen 230
Some strange things in them, Herman.
HERMAN. Come, be friendly;
Relate me some to while away our watch:
I’ve heard thee darkly speak of an event
Which happen’d hereabouts, by this same tower.
MANUEL. That was a night indeed! I do remember
‘T was twilight, as it may be now, and such
Another evening; yon red cloud, which rests
On Eigher’s pinnacle, so rested then,–
So like that it might be the same; the wind
Was faint and gusty, and the mountain snows 240
Began to glitter with the climbing moon.
Count Manfred was, as now, within his tower,–
How occupied, we knew not, but with him
The sole companion of his wanderings
And watchings– her, whom of all earthly things
That lived, the only thing he seem’d to love,–
As he, indeed, by blood was bound to do,
The Lady Astarte, his–
Hush! who comes here?
Enter the ABBOT.
ABBOT. Where is your master?
HERMAN. Yonder in the tower.
ABBOT. I must speak with him.
MANUEL. ‘T is impossible; 250
He is most private, and must not be thus
Intruded on.
ABBOT. Upon myself I take
The forfeit of my fault, if fault there be–
But I must see him.
HERMAN. Thou hast seen him once
This eve already.
ABBOT. Herman! I command thee,
Knock, and apprize the Count of my approach.
HERMAN. We dare not.
ABBOT. Then it seems I must be herald
Of my own purpose.
MANUEL. Reverend father, stop–
I pray you pause.
ABBOT. Why so?
MANUEL. But step this way,
And I will tell you further. [Exeunt. 260

SCENE IV

Interior of the Tower.

               MANFRED alone.
The stars are forth, the moon above the tops
Of the snow-shining mountains.– Beautiful!
I linger yet with Nature, for the night
Hath been to me a more familiar face
Than that of man; and in her starry shade
Of dim, and solitary loveliness,
I learn’d the language of another world.
I do remember me, that in my youth,
When I was wandering,– upon such a night
I stood within the Coloseum’s wall, 270
Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome.
The trees which grew along the broken arches
Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars
Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar
The watchdog bay’d beyond the Tiber; and
More near from out the Caesars’ palace came
The owl’s long cry, and, interruptedly,
Of distant sentinels the fitful song
Begun and died upon the gentle wind.
Some cypresses beyond the time–worn breach 280
Appear’d to skirt the horizon, yet they stood
Within a bowshot. Where the Caesars dwelt,
And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst
A grove which springs through levell’d battlements,
And twines its roots with the imperial hearths,
Ivy usurps the laurel’s place of growth;–
But the gladiators’ bloody Circus stands,
A noble wreck in ruinous perfection!
While Caesar’s chambers, and the Augustan halls
Grovel on earth in indistinct decay.– 290
And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon
All this, and cast a wide and tender light,
Which soften’d down the hoar austerity
Of rugged desolation, and fill’d up,
As ’twere anew, the gaps of centuries;
Leaving that beautiful which still was so,
And making that which was not, till the place
Became religion, and the heart ran o’er
With silent worship of the great of old,–
The dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule 300
Our spirits from their urns.–
‘T was such a night!
‘T is strange that I recall it at this time;
But I have found our thoughts take wildest flight
Even at the moment when they should array
Themselves in pensive order.
Enter the ABBOT.
ABBOT. My good Lord!
I crave a second grace for this approach;
But yet let not my humble zeal offend
By its abruptness– all it hath of ill
Recoils on me; its good in the effect
May light upon your head– could I say heart— 310
Could I touch that, with words or prayers, I should
Recall a noble spirit which hath wander’d
But is not yet all lost.
MANFRED. Thou know’st me not;
My days are number’d, and my deeds recorded:
Retire, or ‘t will be dangerous– Away!
ABBOT. Thou dost not mean to menace me?
MANFRED. Not I;
I simply tell thee peril is at hand,
And would preserve thee.
ABBOT. What dost thou mean?
MANFRED. Look there!
What dost thou see?
ABBOT. Nothing.
MANFRED. Look there, I say,
And steadfastly;– now tell me what thou seest? 320
ABBOT. That which should shake me– but I fear it not;
I see a dusk and awful figure rise,
Like an infernal god from out the earth;
His face wrapt in a mantle, and his form
Robed as with angry clouds: he stands between
Thyself and me– but I do fear him not.
MANFRED. Thou hast no cause; he shall not harm thee, but
His sight may shock thine old limbs into palsy.
I say to thee– Retire!
ABBOT. And, I reply,
Never– till I have battled with this fiend:– 330
What doth he here?
MANFRED. Why– ay– what doth he here?
I did not send for him,– he is unbidden.
ABBOT. Alas! lost mortal! what with guests like these
Hast thou to do? I tremble for thy sake:
Why doth he gaze on thee, and thou on him?
Ah! he unveils his aspect; on his brow
The thunder-scars are graven; from his eye
Glares forth the immortality of hell–
Avaunt!–
MANFRED. Pronounce– what is thy mission?
SPIRIT. Come!
ABBOT. What art thou, unknown being? answer!– speak! 340
SPIRIT. The genius of this mortal.– Come! ‘t is time.
MANFRED. I am prepared for all things, but deny
The power which summons me. Who sent thee here?
SPIRIT. Thou’lt know anon– Come! Come!
MANFRED. I have commanded
Things of an essence greater far than thine,
And striven with thy masters. Get thee hence!
SPIRIT. Mortal! thine hour is come– Away! I say.
MANFRED. I knew, and know my hour is come, but not
To render up my soul to such as thee:
Away! I’ll die as I have lived– alone. 350
SPIRIT. Then I must summon up my brethren.– Rise!
[Other spirits rise up.
ABBOT. Avaunt! ye evil ones!– Avaunt! I say,–
Ye have no power where piety hath power,
And I do charge ye in the name–
SPIRIT. Old man!
We know ourselves, our mission, and thine order;
Waste not thy holy words on idle uses,
It were in vain; this man is forfeited.
Once more I summon him– Away! away!
MANFRED. I do defy ye,– though I feel my soul
Is ebbing from me, yet I do defy ye; 360
Nor will I hence, while I have earthly breath
To breathe my scorn upon ye– earthly strength
To wrestle, though with spirits; what ye take
Shall be ta’en limb by limb.
SPIRIT. Reluctant mortal!
Is this the Magian who would so pervade
The world invisible, and make himself
Almost our equal?– Can it be that thou
Art thus in love with life? the very life
Which made thee wretched!
MANFRED. Thou false fiend, thou liest!
My life is in its last hour,– that I know, 370
Nor would redeem a moment of that hour.
I do not combat against death, but thee
And thy surrounding angels; my past power
Was purchased by no compact with thy crew,
But by superior science– penance– daring,
And length of watching– strength of mind– and skill
In knowledge of our fathers when the earth
Saw men and spirits walking side by side
And gave ye no supremacy: I stand
Upon my strength– I do defy– deny– 380
Spurn back, and scorn ye!–
SPIRIT. But thy many crimes
Have made thee–
MANFRED. What are they to such as thee?
Must crimes be punish’d but by other crimes,
And greater criminals?– Back to thy hell!
Thou hast no power upon me, that I feel;
Thou never shalt possess me, that I know:
What I have done is done; I bear within
A torture which could nothing gain from thine.
The mind which is immortal makes itself
Requital for its good or evil thoughts, 390
Is its own origin of ill and end,
And its own place and time; its innate sense,
When stripp’d of this mortality, derives
No colour from the fleeting things without,
But is absorb’d in sufferance or in joy,
Born from the knowledge of its own desert.
Thou didst not tempt me, and thou couldst not tempt me;
I have not been thy dupe nor am thy prey,
But was my own destroyer, and will be
My own hereafter.– Back, ye baffled fiends! 400
The hand of death is on me– but not yours!
[The Demons disappear.
ABBOT. Alas! how pale thou art– thy lips are white–
And thy breast heaves– and in thy gasping throat
The accents rattle. Give thy prayers to Heaven–
Pray– albeit but in thought,– but die not thus.
MANFRED. ‘T is over– my dull eyes can fix thee not;
But all things swim around me, and the earth
Heaves as it were beneath me. Fare thee well–
Give me thy hand.
ABBOT. Cold– cold– even to the heart–
But yet one prayer– Alas! how fares it with thee? 410
MANFRED. Old man! ‘t is not so difficult to die. [MANFRED expires.
ABBOT. He’s gone, his soul hath ta’en its earthless flight;
Whither? I dread to think; but he is gone.

 








As nice as it is to be able to read great poetry for free online, there’s no substitute for a real book in one’s hands.  With that in mind, I encourage you to consider buying one of these volumes from Amazon.com.  And remember a percentage of every purchase you make goes to help keep this site up and running.



   

To a Lady; Euthanasia; When We Two Parted (3 Poems by Byron)

22 Sunday Jun 2008

Posted by Crisis Chronicles Press in 1800s, British, Byron (George Gordon Lord), Writing

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Click Lord Byron's image to see an indez of every Byron works available for free on crisischronicles.com

Lord Byron, painted by Richard Westall c. 1813
(on display at the Keats-Shelley House in Rome)



To A Lady

O! had my Fate been join’d with thine,
As once this pledge appear’d a token,
These follies had not, then, been mine,
For, then, my peace had not been broken.

To thee, these early faults I owe,
To thee, the wise and old reproving:
They know my sins, but do not know
‘Twas thine to break the bonds of loving.

For once my soul, like thine, was pure,
And all its rising fires could smother;
But, now, thy vows no more endure,
Bestow’d by thee upon another.

Perhaps, his peace I could destroy,
And spoil the blisses that await him;
Yet let my Rival smile in joy,
For thy dear sake, I cannot hate him.

Ah! since thy angel form is gone,
My heart no more can rest with any;
But what it sought in thee alone,
Attempts, alas! to find in many.

Then, fare thee well, deceitful Maid!
‘Twere vain and fruitless to regret thee;
Nor Hope, nor Memory yield their aid,
But Pride may teach me to forget thee.

Yet all this giddy waste of years,
This tiresome round of palling pleasures;
These varied loves, these matrons’ fears,
These thoughtless strains to Passion’s measures—

If thou wert mine, had all been hush’d:—
This cheek, now pale from early riot,
With Passion’s hectic ne’er had flush’d,
But bloom’d in calm domestic quiet.

Yes, once the rural Scene was sweet,
For Nature seem’d to smile before thee;
And once my Breast abhorr’d deceit,—
For then it beat but to adore thee.

But, now, I seek for other joys—
To think, would drive my soul to madness;
In thoughtless throngs, and empty noise,
I conquer half my Bosom’s sadness.

Yet, even in these, a thought will steal,
In spite of every vain endeavor;
And fiends might pity what I feel—
To know that thou art lost for ever.


* * *

Euthanasia

When Time, or soon or late, shall bring
The dreamless sleep that lulls the dead,
Oblivion! may thy languid wing
Wave gently o’er my dying bed!

No band of friends or heirs be there,
To weep, or wish, the coming blow:
No maiden, with dishevelled hair,
To feel, or feign, decorous woe.

But silent let me sink to earth,
With no officious mourners near:
I would not mar one hour of mirth,
Nor startle friendship with a tear.

Yet Love, if Love in such an hour
Could nobly check its useless sighs,
Might then exert its latest power
In her who lives, and him who dies.

‘Twere sweet, my Psyche! to the last
Thy features still serene to see:
Forgetful of its struggles past,
E’en Pain itself should smile on thee.

But vain the wish — for Beauty still
Will shrink, as shrinks the ebbing breath;
And women’s tears, produced at will,
Deceive in life, unman in death.

Then lonely be my latest hour,
Without regret, without a groan;
For thousands Death hath ceas’d to lower,
And pain been transient or unknown.

`Ay, but to die, and go,’ alas!
Where all have gone, and all must go!
To be the nothing that I was
Ere born to life and living woe!

Count o’er the joys thine hours have seen,
Count o’er thy days from anguish free,
And know, whatever thou hast been,
‘Tis something better not to be.


* * *

When We Two Parted

When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted,
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning
Sank chill on my brow—
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame:
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o’er me—
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well:—
Long, long shall I rue thee
Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met—
In silence I grieve
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?—
With silence and tears.



* * * * * *

As nice as it is to be able to read great poetry for free online, there’s no substitute for a real book in one’s hands.  With that in mind, I encourage you to consider buying one of these volumes from Amazon.com.  And remember a percentage of every purchase you make goes to help keep this site up and running.


   

My Soul Is Dark; Farewell, If Ever; Fare Thee Well (3 Poems by Byron)

22 Sunday Jun 2008

Posted by Crisis Chronicles Press in 1800s, British, Byron (George Gordon Lord), Writing

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Click here to view an index of links to every Byron work available on the Crisis Chronicles free library
[Lord Byron on his deathbed, painted by Joseph-Denis Odevaere]





My Soul is Dark


                    My soul is dark – Oh! quickly string
                        The harp I yet can brook to hear;
                    And let thy gentle fingers fling
                        Its melting murmurs o’er mine ear.
                    If in this heart a hope be dear,
                        That sound shall charm it forth again:
                    If in these eyes there lurk a tear,
                        ‘Twill flow, and cease to burn my brain.


                    But bid the strain be wild and deep,
                        Nor let thy notes of joy be first:
                    I tell thee, minstrel, I must weep,
                        Or else this heavy heart will burst;
                    For it hath been by sorrow nursed,
                        And ached in sleepless silence, long;
                    And now ’tis doomed to know the worst,
                        And break at once – or yield to song. 
 
* * *



Farewell! If Ever Fondest Prayer


                         Farewell! if ever fondest prayer
                             For other’s weal availed on high,
                         Mine will not all be lost in air,
                             But waft thy name beyond the sky.
                         ‘Twere vain to speak, to weep, to sigh:
                             Oh! more than tears of blood can tell,
                         When wrung from guilt’s expiring eye,
                             Are in that word – Farewell! – Farewell!

                         These lips are mute, these eyes are dry;
                             But in my breast and in my brain,
                         Awake the pangs that pass not by,
                             The thought that ne’er shall sleep again.
                         My soul nor deigns nor dares complain,
                             Though grief and passion there rebel;
                         I only know we loved in vain –
                             I only feel – Farewell! – Farewell! 
 
* * *



Fare Thee Well


                             “Alas! they had been friends in youth: 
                             But whispering tongues can poison truth; 
                             And constancy lives in realms above; 
                             And life is thorny; and youth is vain; 
                             And to be wroth with one we love, 
                             Doth work like madness in the brain; 
                                       ________ 

                             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; 
                             A dreary 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.” 
                                                   [Coleridge, Christabel ]
 


                         Fare thee well! and if for ever,
                             Still for ever, fare thee well:
                         Even though unforgiving, never
                             ‘Gainst thee shall my heart rebel.

                         Would that breast were bared before thee
                             Where thy head so oft hath lain,
                         While that placid sleep came o’er thee
                             Which thou ne’er canst know again:

                         Would that breast, by thee glanced over,
                             Every inmost thought could show!
                         Then thou wouldst at last discover
                             ‘Twas not well to spurn it so.

                         Though the world for this commend thee –
                             Though it smile upon the blow,
                         Even its praise must offend thee,
                             Founded on another’s woe:

                         Though my many faults defaced me,
                             Could no other arm be found,
                         Than the one which once embraced me,
                             To inflict a cureless wound?

                         Yet, oh yet, thyself deceive not;
                             Love may sink by slow decay,
                         But by sudden wrench, believe not
                             Hearts can thus be torn away:

                         Still thine own its life retaineth,
                             Still must mine, though bleeding, beat;
                         And the undying thought which paineth
                             Is – that we no more may meet.

                         These are words of deeper sorrow
                             Than the wail above the dead;
                         Both shall live, but every morrow
                             Wake us from a widowed bed.

                         And when thou wouldst solace gather,
                             When our child’s first accents flow,
                         Wilt thou teach her to say “Father!”
                             Though his care she must forego?

                         When her little hands shall press thee,
                             When her lip to thine is pressed,
                         Think of him whose prayer shall bless thee,
                             Think of him thy love had blessed!

                         Should her lineaments resemble
                             Those thou never more may’st see,
                         Then thy heart will softly tremble
                             With a pulse yet true to me.

                         All my faults perchance thou knowest,
                             All my madness none can know;
                         All my hopes, where’er thou goest,
                             Wither, yet with thee they go.

                         Every feeling hath been shaken;
                             Pride, which not a world could bow,
                         Bows to thee – by thee forsaken,
                             Even my soul forsakes me now:

                         But ’tis done – all words are idle –
                             Words from me are vainer still;
                         But the thoughts we cannot bridle
                             Force their way without the will.

                         Fare thee well! thus disunited,
                             Torn from every nearer tie.
                         Seared in heart, and lone, and blighted,
                             More than this I scarce can die. 
 


* * * * * *

As nice as it is to be able to read great poetry for free online, there’s no substitute for a real book in one’s hands.  With that in mind, I encourage you to consider buying one of these volumes from Amazon.com.  And remember a percentage of every purchase you make goes to help keep this site up and running.


   

I Would I Were a Careless Child (by Lord Byron)

22 Sunday Jun 2008

Posted by Crisis Chronicles Press in 1800s, British, Byron (George Gordon Lord), Writing

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I Would I Were a Careless Child

                    I would I were a careless child,
                        Still dwelling in my Highland cave,
                    Or roaming through the dusky wild,
                        Or bounding o’er the dark blue wave;
                    The cumbrous pomp of Saxon pride
                        Accords not with the freeborn soul,
                    Which loves the mountain’s craggy side,
                        And seeks the rocks where billows roll.

                    Fortune! take back these cultured lands,
                        Take back this name of splendid sound!
                    I hate the touch of servile hands,
                        I hate the slaves that cringe around.
                    Place me among the rocks I love,
                        Which sound to Ocean’s wildest roar;
                    I ask but this – again to rove
                        Through scenes my youth hath known before.
                    Few are my years, and yet I feel
                        The world was ne’er designed for me:
                    Ah! why do dark’ning shades conceal
                        The hour when man must cease to be?
                    Once I beheld a splendid dream,
                        A visionary scene of bliss:
                    Truth! – wherefore did thy hated beam
                        Awake me to a world like this?

                    I loved – but those I loved are gone;
                        Had friends – my early friends are fled:
                    How cheerless feels the heart alone,
                        When all its former hopes are dead!
                    Though gay companions o’er the bowl
                        Dispel awhile the sense of ill’
                    Though pleasure stirs the maddening soul,
                        The heart – the heart – is lonely still.

                    How dull! to hear the voice of those
                        Whom rank or chance, whom wealth or power,
                    Have made, though neither friends nor foes,
                        Associates of the festive hour.
                    Give me again a faithful few,
                        In years and feelings still the same,
                    And I will fly the midnight crew,
                        Where boist’rous joy is but a name.

                    And woman, lovely woman! thou,
                        My hope, my comforter, my all!
                    How cold must be my bosom now,
                        When e’en thy smiles begin to pall!
                    Without a sigh would I resign
                        This busy scene of splendid woe,
                    To make that calm contentment mine,
                        Which virtue know, or seems to know.

                    Fain would I fly the haunts of men –
                        I seek to shun, not hate mankind;
                    My breast requires the sullen glen,
                        Whose gloom may suit a darken’d mind.
                    Oh! that to me the wings were given
                        Which bear the turtle to her nest!
                    Then would I cleave the vault of heaven,
                        To flee away, and be at rest. 
 



* * * * * *

As nice as it is to be able to read great poetry for free online, there’s no substitute for a real book in one’s hands.  With that in mind, I encourage you to consider buying one of these volumes from Amazon.com.  And remember a percentage of every purchase you make goes to help keep this site up and running.


   

 

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto IV (by Lord Byron)

22 Sunday Jun 2008

Posted by Crisis Chronicles Press in 1800s, British, Byron (George Gordon Lord), Writing

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Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage


Preface to the Fourth Canto


 



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

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

VENICE, January 2, 1818.

My Dear Hobhouse,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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


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Canto the Fourth



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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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



* * * * * *

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Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto III (by Lord Byron)

22 Sunday Jun 2008

Posted by Crisis Chronicles Press in 1800s, British, Byron (George Gordon Lord), Writing

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Click on Lord Byron to see a link index of Byron works that are available at the Crisis Chronicles Free Online Library


Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage


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 smil’d,
And then we parted — not as now we part,
But with a hope. —
Awaking with a start,
The waters heave around me; and on high
The winds lift up their voices: I depart,
Whither I know not; but the hour’s gone by,
When Albion’s lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye.


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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





    1
    The castle crag of Drachenfels
    Frowns o’er the wide and winding Rhine,
    Whose breast of waters broadly swells
    Between the banks that bear the vine,
    And hills all rich with blossom’d trees,
    And fields which promise corn and wine,
    And scatter’d cities crowning these,
    Whose far white walls along them shine,
    Have strew’d a scene, which I should see
    With double joy wert thou with me.


    2
    And peasant girls, with deep blue eyes,
    And hands which offer early flowers,
    Walk smiling o’er this paradise;
    Above, the frequent feudal towers
    Through green leaves lift their walls of gray;
    And many a rock which steeply lowers,
    And noble arch in proud decay,
    Look o’er the vale of vintage-bowers;
    But one thing want these banks of Rhine, —
    Thy gentle hand to clasp in mine!


    3
    I send the lilies given to me;
    Though long before thy hand they touch,
    I know that they must wither’d be,
    But yet reject them not as such;
    For I have cherish’d them as dear,
    Because they yet may meet thine eye,
    And guide thy soul to mine even here,
    When thou behold’st them drooping nigh,
    And know’st them gather’d by the Rhine,
    And offer’d from my heart to thine!


    4
    The river nobly foams and flows,
    The charm of this enchanted ground,
    And all its thousand turns disclose
    Some fresher beauty varying round:
    The haughtiest breast its wish might bound
    Through life to dwell delighted here;
    Nor could on earth a spot be found
    To nature and to me so dear,
    Could thy dear eyes in following mine
    Still sweeten more these banks of Rhine!



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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

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Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto II (by Lord Byron)

22 Sunday Jun 2008

Posted by Crisis Chronicles Press in 1800s, British, Byron (George Gordon Lord), Writing

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Click on Lord Byron to see a link index of Byron works that are available at the Crisis Chronicles Free Online Library


Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage


Canto the Second


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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





    1
    Tambourgi! Tambourgi! thy ‘larum afar
    Gives hope to the valiant, and promise of war;
    All the sons of the mountains arise at the note,
    Chimariot, Illyrian, and dark Suliote!

    2
    Oh! who is more brave than a dark Suliote,
    In his snowy camise and his shaggy capote?
    To the wolf and the vulture he leaves his wild-flock,
    And descends to the plain like the stream from the rock.


    3
    Shall the sons of Chimari, who never forgive
    The fault of a friend, bid an enemy live?
    Let those guns so unerring such vengeance forego?
    What mark is so fair as the breast of a foe?


    4
    Macedonia sends forth her invincible race;
    For a time they abandon the cave and the chase;
    But those scarfs of blood-red shall be redder, before
    The sabre is sheathed and the battle is o’er.


    5
    Then the pirates of Parga that dwell by the waves
    And teach the pale Franks what it is to be slaves,
    Shall leave on the beach the long galley and oar,
    And track to his covert the captive on shore.


    6
    I ask not the pleasures that riches supply,
    My sabre shall win what the feeble must buy;
    Shall win the young bride with her long flowing hair,
    And many a maid from her mother shall tear.


    7
    I love the fair face of the amid in her youth,
    Her caresses shall lull me, her music shall soother;
    Let her bring from the chamber her many-toned lyre,
    And sing us a song on the fall of her sire.


    8
    Remember the moment when Previsa fell,
    The shrieks of the conquer’d, the conquerors’ yell;
    The roofs that we fired, and the plunder we shared,
    The wealthy we slaughter’d, the lovely we spared.


    9
    I talk not of mercy, I talk not of fear;
    He neither must know who would serve the Vizier:
    Since the days of our prophet the Crescent ne’er saw
    A chief ever glorious like Ali Pashaw.


    10
    Dark Muchtar his son to the Danube is sped,
    Let the yellow-hair’d Giaour’s view his horse-tail with dread;
    When his Delhis come dashing in blood o’er the banks,
    How few shall escape from the Muskovite ranks!


    11
    Selictar! unsheathe then our chief’s scimitar:
    Tambourgi! thy ‘larum gives promise of war.
    Ye mountains, that see us descend to the shore,
    Shall view us as victors, or view us no more!



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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


XCVII
Then 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 destroy’d:
Roll on, vain days! Full reckless may ye flow,
Since Time hath reft whate’er my soul enjoy’d
And with the ills of Eld mine earlier years alloy’d.

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Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Preface and Canto I (by Lord Byron)

22 Sunday Jun 2008

Posted by Crisis Chronicles Press in 1800s, British, Byron (George Gordon Lord), Writing

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Click on Lord Byron to see a link index of Byron works that are available at the Crisis Chronicles Free Online Library


Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage


Preface to the First and Second Cantos


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

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

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

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

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

 London, February, 1812.

Addition to the Preface


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

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

 London, 1813.

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To Ianthe




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


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


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


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


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


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Canto the First



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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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





    1
    Adieu, adieu! my native shore
    Fades o’er the waters blue;
    The night-winds sigh, the breakers roar,
    And shrieks the wild sea-mew.
    Yon sun that sets upon the sea
    We follow in his flight;
    Farewell awhile to him and thee,
    My native Land — Good Night!


    2
    A few short hours and he will rise
    To give the morrow birth;
    And I shall hail the main and skies
    But not my mother earth.
    Deserted is my own good hall,
    Its hearth is desolate;
    Wild weeds are gathering on the wall;
    My dog howls at the gate.


    3
    ‘Come hither, hither, my little page!
    Why dost thou weep and wail?
    Or dost thou dread the billows’ rage,
    Or tremble at the gale?
    But dash the tear-drop from thine eye;
    Our ship is swift and strong:
    Our fleetest falcon scarce can fly
    More merrily along.’


    4
    ‘Let winds be shrill, let waves roll high,
    I fear not wave nor wind:
    Yet marvel not, Sir Childe, that I
    Am sorrowful in mind;
    For I have from my father gone,
    A mother whom I love,
    And have no friend, save these alone,
    But thee — and one above.


    5
    ‘My father bless’d me fervently,
    Yet did not much complain;
    But sorely will my mother sigh
    Till I come back again.’ —
    ‘Enough, enough, my little lad!
    Such tears become thine eye;
    If I thy guileless bosom had,
    Mine own would not be dry.


    6
    ‘Come hither, hither, my staunch yeoman,
    Why dost thou look so pale?
    Or dost thou dread a French foeman?
    Or shiver at the gale?’ —
    ‘Deem’st thou I tremble for my life?
    Sir Childe, I’m not so weak;
    But thinking on an absent wife
    Will blanch a faithful cheek.


    7
    ‘My spouse and boys dwell near thy hall,
    Along the bordering lake,
    And when they on their father call,
    What answer shall she make?’ —
    ‘Enough, enough, my yeoman good,
    Thy grief let none gainsay;
    But I, who am of lighter mood,
    Will laugh to flee away.’


    8
    For who would trust the seeming sighs
    Of wife or paramour?
    Fresh feeres will dry the bright blue eyes
    We late saw streaming o’er.
    For pleasures past I do not grieve,
    Nor perils gathering near;
    My greatest grief is that I leave
    No thing that claims a tear.


    9
    And now I’m in the world alone,
    Upon the wide, wide sea:
    But why should I for others groan,
    When none will sigh for me?
    Perchance my dog will whine in vain,
    Till fed by stranger hands;
    But long ere I come back again
    He’d tear me where he stands.


    10
    With thee, my bark, I’ll swiftly go
    Athwart the foaming brine;
    Nor care what land thou bear’st me to,
    So not again to mine.
    Welcome, welcome, ye dark-blue waves!
    And when you fail my sight,
    Welcome, ye deserts and ye caves!
    My native Land — Good Night!



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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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





    To Inez
    1
    Nay, smile not at my sullen bow;
    Alas, I cannot smile again:
    Yet Heaven avert that ever thou
    Shouldst weep, and haply weep in vain.


    2
    And dost thou ask what secret woe
    I bear, corroding joy and youth?
    And wilt thou vainly seek to know
    A pang, ev’n thou must fail to soothe?


    3
    It is not love, it is not hate,
    Nor low Ambition’s honours lost,
    That bids me loathe my present state,
    And fly from all I prized the most:


    4
    It is that weariness which springs
    From all I meet, or hear, or see:
    To me no pleasure Beauty brings;
    Thine eyes have scarce a charm for me.


    5
    It is that settled, ceaseless gloom
    The fabled Hebrew wanderer bore;
    That will not look beyond the tomb,
    But cannot hope for rest before.


    6
    What Exile from himself can flee?
    To zones though more and more remote,
    Still, still pursues, where’er I be,
    The blight of life — the demon Thought.


    7
    Yet others rapt in pleasure seem,
    And taste of all that I forsake:
    Oh! may they still of transport dream,
    And ne’er, at least like me, awake!


    8
    Thorough many a clime ’tis mine to go,
    With many a retrospection curst;
    And all my solace is to know,
    Whate’er betides, I’ve known the worst.


    9
    What is that worst? Nay, do not ask —
    In pity from the search forbear:
    Smile on — nor venture to unmask
    Man’s heart, and view the Hell that’s there.



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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

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And Thou Art Dead; By the Rivers of Babylon; Darkness (3 Poems by Byron)

22 Sunday Jun 2008

Posted by Crisis Chronicles Press in 1800s, British, Byron (George Gordon Lord), Writing

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Click this photo to view an index of links to Lord Byron works available in the Crisis Chronicles free online library


Three Poems by George Gordon, Lord Byron



And Thou Art Dead, As Young and Fair
 (1812)

And thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;
And form so soft, and charms so rare,
Too soon return’d to Earth!
Though Earth receiv’d them in her bed,
And o’er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,
There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.

I will not ask where thou liest low,
Nor gaze upon the spot;
There flowers or weeds at will may grow,
So I behold them not:
It is enough for me to prove
That what I lov’d, and long must love,
Like common earth can rot;
To me there needs no stone to tell,
‘T is Nothing that I lov’d so well.

Yet did I love thee to the last
As fervently as thou,
Who didst not change through all the past,
And canst not alter now.
The love where Death has set his seal,
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,
Nor falsehood disavow:
And, what were worse, thou canst not see
Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.

The better days of life were ours;
The worst can be but mine:
The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,
Shall never more be thine.
The silence of that dreamless sleep
I envy now too much to weep;
Nor need I to repine
That all those charms have pass’d away,
I might have watch’d through long decay.

The flower in ripen’d bloom unmatch’d
Must fall the earliest prey;
Though by no hand untimely snatch’d,
The leaves must drop away:
And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it pluck’d to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.

I know not if I could have borne
To see thy beauties fade;
The night that follow’d such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade:
Thy day without a cloud hath pass’d,
And thou wert lovely to the last,
Extinguish’d, not decay’d;
As stars that shoot along the sky
Shine brightest as they fall from high.

As once I wept, if I could weep,
My tears might well be shed,
To think I was not near to keep
One vigil o’er thy bed;
To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,
Uphold thy drooping head;
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.

Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain,
Than thus remember thee!
The all of thine that cannot die
Through dark and dread Eternity
Returns again to me,
And more thy buried love endears
Than aught except its living years.


* * *

By the Rivers of Babylon We Sat Down and Wept (1815)


                                        1
                         We sat down and wept by the waters
                             Of Babel, and thought of the day
                         When our foe, in the hue of his slaughters,
                             Made Salem’s high places his prey;
                         And ye, oh her desolate daughters!
                             Were scattered all weeping away.

                                        2
                         While sadly we gazed on the river
                             Which rolled on in freedom below,
                         They demanded the song; but, oh never
                             That triumph the stranger shall know!
                         May this right hand be withered for ever,
                             Ere it string our high harp for the foe!

                                        3
                         On the willow that harp is suspended,
                             Oh Salem!  its sound should be free;
                         And the hour when thy glories were
                                     ended
                             But left me that token of thee:
                         And ne’er shall its soft tones be blended
                             With the voice of the spoiler by me!


* * *

Darkness (1816)


                    I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
                    The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars
                    Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
                    Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
                    Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
                    Morn came and went–and came, and brought no day,
                    And men forgot their passions in the dread
                    Of this their desolation; and all hearts
                    Were chill’d into a selfish prayer for light:
                    And they did live by watchfires–and the thrones,
                    The palaces of crowned kings–the huts,
                    The habitations of all things which dwell,
                    Were burnt for beacons; cities were consum’d,
                    And men were gather’d round their blazing homes
                    To look once more into each other’s face;
                    Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
                    Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:
                    A fearful hope was all the world contain’d;
                    Forests were set on fire–but hour by hour
                    They fell and faded–and the crackling trunks
                    Extinguish’d with a crash–and all was black.
                    The brows of men by the despairing light
                    Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
                    The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
                    And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
                    Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smil’d;
                    And others hurried to and fro, and fed
                    Their funeral piles with fuel, and look’d up
                    With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
                    The pall of a past world; and then again
                    With curses cast them down upon the dust,
                    And gnash’d their teeth and howl’d: the wild birds shriek’d
                    And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
                    And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
                    Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl’d
                    And twin’d themselves among the multitude,
                    Hissing, but stingless–they were slain for food.
                    And War, which for a moment was no more,
                    Did glut himself again: a meal was bought
                    With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
                    Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
                    All earth was but one thought–and that was death
                    Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
                    Of famine fed upon all entrails–men
                    Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
                    The meagre by the meagre were devour’d,
                    Even dogs assail’d their masters, all save one,
                    And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
                    The birds and beasts and famish’d men at bay,
                    Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
    &nb
sp;               Lur’d their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
                    But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
                    And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
                    Which answer’d not with a caress–he died.
                    The crowd was famish’d by degrees; but two
                    Of an enormous city did survive,
                    And they were enemies: they met beside
                    The dying embers of an altar-place
                    Where had been heap’d a mass of holy things
                    For an unholy usage; they rak’d up,
                    And shivering scrap’d with their cold skeleton hands
                    The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
                    Blew for a little life, and made a flame
                    Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
                    Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
                    Each other’s aspects–saw, and shriek’d, and died–
                    Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
                    Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
                    Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
                    The populous and the powerful was a lump,
                    Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless–
                    A lump of death–a chaos of hard clay.
                    The rivers, lakes and ocean all stood still,
                    And nothing stirr’d within their silent depths;
                    Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
                    And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp’d
                    They slept on the abyss without a surge–
                    The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
                    The moon, their mistress, had expir’d before;
                    The winds were wither’d in the stagnant air,
                    And the clouds perish’d; Darkness had no need
                    Of aid from them–She was the Universe.





The Ballad of Reading Gaol (by Oscar Wilde)

22 Sunday Jun 2008

Posted by Crisis Chronicles Press in 1800s, British, Wilde (Oscar), Writing

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The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Oscar Wilde







 


I.


He did not wear his scarlet coat,
  For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
  When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
  And murdered in her bed.


He walked amongst the Trial Men
  In a suit of shabby grey;
A cricket cap was on his head,
  And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
  So wistfully at the day.


I never saw a man who looked
  With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
  Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
  With sails of silver by.


I walked, with other souls in pain,
  Within another ring,
And was wondering if the man had done
  A great or little thing,
When a voice behind me whispered low,
  “That fellows got to swing.”


Dear Christ! the very prison walls
  Suddenly seemed to reel,
And the sky above my head became
  Like a casque of scorching steel;
And, though I was a soul in pain,
  My pain I could not feel.


I only knew what hunted thought
  Quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day
  With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved
  And so he had to die.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves
  By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
  Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
  The brave man with a sword!


Some kill their love when they are young,
  And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
  Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
  The dead so soon grow cold.


Some love too little, some too long,
  Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
  And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
  Yet each man does not die.

He does not die a death of shame
  On a day of dark disgrace,
Nor have a noose about his neck,
  Nor a cloth upon his face,
Nor drop feet foremost through the floor
  Into an empty place


He does not sit with silent men
  Who watch him night and day;
Who watch him when he tries to weep,
  And when he tries to pray;
Who watch him lest himself should rob
  The prison of its prey.


He does not wake at dawn to see
  Dread figures throng his room,
The shivering Chaplain robed in white,
  The Sheriff stern with gloom,
And the Governor all in shiny black,
  With the yellow face of Doom.


He does not rise in piteous haste
  To put on convict-clothes,
While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, and notes
  Each new and nerve-twitched pose,
Fingering a watch whose little ticks
  Are like horrible hammer-blows.


He does not know that sickening thirst
  That sands one’s throat, before
The hangman with his gardener’s gloves
  Slips through the padded door,
And binds one with three leathern thongs,
  That the throat may thirst no more.


He does not bend his head to hear
  The Burial Office read,
Nor, while the terror of his soul
  Tells him he is not dead,
Cross his own coffin, as he moves
  Into the hideous shed.


He does not stare upon the air
  Through a little roof of glass;
He does not pray with lips of clay
  For his agony to pass;
Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek
  The kiss of Caiaphas.


II.


Six weeks our guardsman walked the yard,
  In a suit of shabby grey:
His cricket cap was on his head,
  And his step seemed light and gay,
But I never saw a man who looked
  So wistfully at the day.


I never saw a man who looked
  With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
  Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every wandering cloud that trailed
  Its raveled fleeces by.


He did not wring his hands, as do
  Those witless men who dare
To try to rear the changeling Hope
  In the cave of black Despair:
He only looked upon the sun,
  And drank the morning air.


He did not wring his hands nor weep,
  Nor did he peek or pine,
But he drank the air as though it held
  Some healthful anodyne;
With open mouth he drank the sun
  As though it had been wine!


And I and all the souls in pain,
  Who tramped the other ring,
Forgot if we ourselves had done
  A great or little thing,
And watched with gaze of dull amaze
  The man who had to swing.


And strange it was to see him pass
  With a step so light and gay,
And strange it was to see him look
  So wistfully at the day,
And strange it was to think that he
  Had such a debt to pay.

For oak and elm have pleasant leaves
  That in the spring-time shoot:
But grim to see is the gallows-tree,
  With its adder-bitten root,
And, green or dry, a man must die
  Before it bears its fruit!


The loftiest place is that seat of grace
  For which all worldlings try:
But who would stand in hempen band
  Upon a scaffold high,
And through a murderer’s collar take
  His last look at the sky?


It is sweet to dance to violins
  When Love and Life are fair:
To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes
  Is delicate and rare:
But it is not sweet with nimble feet
  To dance upon the air!


So with curious eyes and sick surmise
  We watched him day by day,
And wondered if each one of us
  Would end the self-same way,
For none can tell to what red Hell
  His sightless soul may stray.


At last the dead man walked no more
  Amongst the Trial Men,
And I knew that he was standing up
  In the black dock’s dreadful pen,
And that never would I see his face
  In God’s sweet world again.


Like two doomed ships that pass in storm
  We had crossed each other’s way:
But we made no sign, we said no word,
  We had no word to say;
For we did not meet in the holy night,
  But in the shameful day.


A prison wall was round us both,
  Two outcast men were we:
The world had thrust us from its heart,
  And God from out His care:
And the iron gin that waits for Sin
  Had caught us in its snare.


In Debtors’ Yard the stones are hard,
  And the dripping wall is high,
So it was there he took the air
  Beneath the leaden sky,
And by each side a Warder walked,
  For fear the man might die.


Or else he sat with those who watched
  His anguish night and day;
Who watched him when he rose to weep,
  And when he crouched to pray;
Who watched him lest himself should rob
  Their scaffold of its prey.


The Governor was strong upon
  The Regulations Act:
The Doctor said that Death was but
  A scientific fact:
And twice a day the Chaplain called
  And left a little tract.


And twice a day he smoked his pipe,
  And drank his quart of beer:
His soul was resolute, and held
  No hiding-place for fear;
He often said that he was glad
  The hangman’s hands were near.


But why he said so strange a thing
  No Warder dared to ask:
For he to whom a watcher’s doom
  Is given as his task,
Must set a lock upon his lips,
  And make his face a mask.


Or else he might be moved, and try
  To comfort or console:
And what should Human Pity do
  Pent up in Murderers’ Hole?
What word of grace in such a place
  Could help a brother’s soul?


With slouch and swing around the ring
  We trod the Fool’s Parade!
We did not care: we knew we were
  The Devil’s Own Brigade:
And shaven head and feet of lead
  Make a merry masquerade.


We tore the tarry rope to shreds
  With blunt and bleeding nails;
We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors,
  And cleaned the shining rails:
And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank,
  And clattered with the pails.


We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones,
  We turned the dusty drill:
We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns,
  And sweated on the mill:
But in the heart of every man
  Terror was lying still.


So still it lay that every day
  Crawled like a weed-clogged wave:
And we forgot the bitter lot
  That waits for fool and knave,
Till once, as we tramped in from work,
  We passed an open grave.


With yawning mouth the yellow hole
  Gaped for a living thing;
The very mud cried out for blood
  To the thirsty asphalte ring:
And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair
  Some prisoner had to swing.


Right in we went, with soul intent
  On Death and Dread and Doom:
The hangman, with his little bag,
  Went shuffling through the gloom
And each man trembled as he crept
  Into his numbered tomb.

That night the empty corridors
  Were full of forms of Fear,
And up and down the iron town
  Stole feet we could not hear,
And through the bars that hide the stars
  White faces seemed to peer.


He lay as one who lies and dreams
  In a pleasant meadow-land,
The watcher watched him as he slept,
  And could not understand
How one could sleep so sweet a sleep
  With a hangman close at hand?


But there is no sleep when men must weep
  Who never yet have wept:
So we–the fool, the fraud, the knave–
  That endless vigil kept,
And through each brain on hands of pain
  Another’s terror crept.
___
Alas! it is a fearful thing
  To feel another’s guilt!
For, right within, the sword of Sin
  Pierced to its poisoned hilt,
And as molten lead were the tears we shed
  For the blood we had not spilt.


The Warders with their shoes of felt
  Crept by each padlocked door,
And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe,
  Grey figures on the floor,
And wondered why men knelt to pray
  Who never prayed before.


All through the night we knelt and prayed,
  Mad mourners of a corpse!
The troubled plumes of midnight were
  The plumes upon a hearse:
And bitter wine upon a sponge
  Was the savior of Remorse.

The cock crew, the red cock crew,
  But never came the day:
And crooked shape of Terror crouched,
  In the corners where we lay:
And each evil sprite that walks by night
  Before us seemed to play.


They glided past, they glided fast,
  Like travelers through a mist:
They mocked the moon in a rigadoon
  Of delicate turn and twist,
And with formal pace and loathsome grace
  The phantoms kept their tryst.


With mop and mow, we saw them go,
  Slim shadows hand in hand:
About, about, in ghostly rout
  They trod a saraband:
And the damned grotesques made arabesques,
  Like the wind upon the sand!


With the pirouettes of marionettes,
  They tripped on pointed tread:
But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear,
  As their grisly masque they led,
And loud they sang, and loud they sang,
  For they sang to wake the dead.


“Oho!” they cried, “The world is wide,
  But fettered limbs go lame!
And once, or twice, to throw the dice
  Is a gentlemanly game,
But he does not win who plays with Sin
  In the secret House of Shame.”
No things of air these antics were
  That frolicked with such glee:
To men whose lives were held in gyves,
  And whose feet might not go free,
Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things,
  Most terrible to see.
Around, around, they waltzed and wound;
  Some wheeled in smirking pairs:
With the mincing step of demirep
  Some sidled up the stairs:
And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer,
  Each helped us at our prayers.

The morning wind began to moan,
  But still the night went on:
Through its giant loom the web of gloom
  Crept till each thread was spun:
And, as we prayed, we grew afraid
  Of the Justice of the Sun.


The moaning wind went wandering round
  The weeping prison-wall:
Till like a wheel of turning-steel
  We felt the minutes crawl:
O moaning wind! what had we done
  To have such a seneschal?


At last I saw the shadowed bars
  Like a lattice wrought in lead,
Move right across the whitewashed wall
  That faced my three-plank bed,
And I knew that somewhere in the world
  God’s dreadful dawn was red.

At six o’clock we cleaned our cells,
  At seven all was still,
But the sough and swing of a mighty wing
  The prison seemed to fill,
For the Lord of Death with icy breath
  Had entered in to kill.


He did not pass in purple pomp,
  Nor ride a moon-white steed.
Three yards of cord and a sliding board
  Are all the gallows’ need:
So with rope of shame the Herald came
  To do the secret deed.


We were as men who through a fen
  Of filthy darkness grope:
We did not dare to breathe a prayer,
  Or give our anguish scope:
Something was dead in each of us,
  And what was dead was Hope.


For Man’s grim Justice goes its way,
  And will not swerve aside:
It slays the weak, it slays the strong,
  It has a deadly stride:
With iron heel it slays the strong,
  The monstrous parricide!


We waited for the stroke of eight:
  Each tongue was thick with thirst:
For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate
  That makes a man accursed,
And Fate will use a running noose
  For the best man and the worst.


We had no other thing to do,
  Save to wait for the sign to come:
So, like things of stone in a valley lone,
  Quiet we sat and dumb:
But each man’s heart beat thick and quick
  Like a madman on a drum!


With sudden shock the prison-clock
  Smote on the shivering air,
And from all the gaol rose up a wail
  Of impotent despair,
Like the sound that frightened marshes hear
  From a leper in his lair.


And as one sees most fearful things
  In the crystal of a dream,
We saw the greasy hempen rope
  Hooked to the blackened beam,
And heard the prayer the hangman’s snare
  Strangled into a scream.


And all the woe that moved him so
  That he gave that bitter cry,
And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats,
  None knew so well as I:
For he who live more lives than one
  More deaths than one must die.


IV.


There is no chapel on the day
  On which they hang a man:
The Chaplain’s heart is far too sick,
  Or his face is far to wan,
Or there is that written in his eyes
  Which none should look upon.


So they kept us close till nigh on noon,
  And then they rang the bell,
And the Warders with their jingling keys
  Opened each listening cell,
And down the iron stair we tramped,
  Each from his separate Hell.


Out into God’s sweet air we went,
  But not in wonted way,
For this man’s face was white with fear,
  And that man’s face was grey,
And I never saw sad men who looked
  So wistfully at the day.


I never saw sad men who looked
  With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
  We prisoners called the sky,
And at every careless cloud that passed
  In happy freedom by.


But their were those amongst us all
  Who walked with downcast head,
And knew that, had each go his due,
  They should have died instead:
He had but killed a thing that lived
  Whilst they had killed the dead.


For he who sins a second time
  Wakes a dead soul to pain,
And draws it from its spotted shroud,
  And makes it bleed again,
And makes it bleed great gouts of blood
  And makes it bleed in vain!


Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb
  With crooked arrows starred,
Silently we went round and round
  The slippery asphalte yard;
Silently we went round and round,
  And no man spoke a word.


Silently we went round and round,
  And through each hollow mind
The memory of dreadful things
  Rushed like a dreadful wind,
An Horror stalked before each man,
  And terror crept behind.

The Warders strutted up and down,
  And kept their herd of brutes,
Their uniforms were spick and span,
  And they wore their Sunday suits,
But we knew the work they had been at
  By the quicklime on their boots.


For where a grave had opened wide,
  There was no grave at all:
Only a stretch of mud and sand
  By the hideous prison-wall,
And a little heap of burning lime,
  That the man should have his pall.


For he has a pall, this wretched man,
  Such as few men can claim:
Deep down below a prison-yard,
  Naked for greater shame,
He lies, with fetters on each foot,
  Wrapt in a sheet of flame!


And all the while the burning lime
  Eats flesh and bone away,
It eats the brittle bone by night,
  And the soft flesh by the day,
It eats the flesh and bones by turns,
  But it eats the heart alway.

For three long years they will not sow
  Or root or seedling there:
For three long years the unblessed spot
  Will sterile be and bare,
And look upon the wondering sky
  With unreproachful stare.


They think a murderer’s heart would taint
  Each simple seed they sow.
It is not true! God’s kindly earth
  Is kindlier than men know,
And the red rose would but blow more red,
  The white rose whiter blow.


Out of his mouth a red, red rose!
  Out of his heart a white!
For who can say by what strange way,
  Christ brings his will to light,
Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore
  Bloomed in the great Pope’s sight?


But neither milk-white rose nor red
  May bloom in prison air;
The shard, the pebble, and the flint,
  Are what they give us there:
For flowers have been known to heal
  A common man’s despair.


So never will wine-red rose or white,
  Petal by petal, fall
On that stretch of mud and sand that lies
  By the hideous prison-wall,
To tell the men who tramp the yard
  That God’s Son died for all.


Yet though the hideous prison-wall
  Still hems him round and round,
And a spirit man not walk by night
  That is with fetters bound,
And a spirit may not weep that lies
  In such unholy ground,


He is at peace–this wretched man–
  At peace, or will be soon:
There is no thing to make him mad,
  Nor does Terror walk at noon,
For the lampless Earth in which he lies
  Has neither Sun nor Moon.

They hanged him as a beast is hanged:
  They did not even toll
A reguiem that might have brought
  Rest to his startled soul,
But hurriedly they took him out,
  And hid him in a hole.


They stripped him of his canvas clothes,
  And gave him to the flies;
They mocked the swollen purple throat
  And the stark and staring eyes:
And with laughter loud they heaped the shroud
  In which their convict lies.


The Chaplain would not kneel to pray
  By his dishonored grave:
Nor mark it with that blessed Cross
  That Christ for sinners gave,
Because the man was one of those
  Whom Christ came down to save.


Yet all is well; he has but passed
  To Life’s appointed bourne:
And alien tears will fill for him
  Pity’s long-broken urn,
For his mourner will be outcast men,
  And outcasts always mourn.


V.


I know not whether Laws be right,
  Or whether Laws be wrong;
All that we know who lie in goal
  Is that the wall is strong;
And that each day is like a year,
  A year whose days are long.


But this I know, that every Law
  That men have made for Man,
Since first Man took his brother’s life,
  And the sad world began,
But straws the wheat and saves the chaff
  With a most evil fan.


This too I know–and wise it were
  If each could know the same–
That every prison that men build
  Is built with bricks of shame,
And bound with bars lest Christ should see
  How men their brothers maim.


With bars they blur the gracious moon,
  And blind the goodly sun:
And they do well to hide their Hell,
  For in it things are done
That Son of God nor son of Man
  Ever should look upon!

The vilest deeds like poison weeds
  Bloom well in prison-air:
It is only what is good in Man
  That wastes and withers there:
Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,
  And the Warder is Despair


For they starve the little frightened child
  Till it weeps both night and day:
And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool,
  And gibe the old and grey,
And some grow mad, and all grow bad,
And none a word may say.


Each narrow cell in which we dwell
  Is foul and dark latrine,
And the fetid breath of living Death
  Chokes up each grated screen,
And all, but Lust, is turned to dust
  In Humanity’s machine.


The brackish water that we drink
  Creeps with a loathsome slime,
And the bitter bread they weigh in scales
  Is full of chalk and lime,
And Sleep will not lie down, but walks
  Wild-eyed and cries to Time.
___
But though lean Hunger and green Thirst
  Like asp with adder fight,
We have little care of prison fare,
  For what chills and kills outright
Is that every stone one lifts by day
  Becomes one’s heart by night.


With midnight always in one’s heart,
  And twilight in one’s cell,
We turn the crank, or tear the rope,
  Each in his separate Hell,
And the silence is more awful far
  Than the sound of a brazen bell.


And never a human voice comes near
  To speak a gentle word:
And the eye that watches through the door
  Is pitiless and hard:
And by all forgot, we rot and rot,
  With soul and body marred.


And thus we rust Life’s iron chain
  Degraded and alone:
And some men curse, and some men weep,
  And some men make no moan:
But God’s eternal Laws are kind
  And break the heart of stone.

And every human heart that breaks,
  In prison-cell or yard,
Is as that broken box that gave
  Its treasure to the Lord,
And filled the unclean leper’s house
  With the scent of costliest nard.


Ah! happy day they whose hearts can break
  And peace of pardon win!
How else may man make straight his plan
  And cleanse his soul from Sin?
How else but through a broken heart
  May Lord Christ enter in?

And he of the swollen purple throat.
  And the stark and staring eyes,
Waits for the holy hands that took
  The Thief to Paradise;
And a broken and a contrite heart
  The Lord will not despise.


The man in red who reads the Law
  Gave him three weeks of life,
Three little weeks in which to heal
  His soul of his soul’s strife,
And cleanse from every blot of blood
  The hand that held the knife.


And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand,
  The hand that held the steel:
For only blood can wipe out blood,
  And only tears can heal:
And the crimson stain that was of Cain
  Became Christ’s snow-white seal.


VI.


In Reading gaol by Reading town
  There is a pit of shame,
And in it lies a wretched man
  Eaten by teeth of flame,
In burning winding-sheet he lies,
  And his grave has got no name.


And there, till Christ call forth the dead,
  In silence let him lie:
No need to waste the foolish tear,
  Or heave the windy sigh:
The man had killed the thing he loved,
  And so he had to die.


And all men kill the thing they love,
  By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
  Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
  The brave man with a sword!


          The End


***


Second Version


                I


He did not wear his scarlet coat,
  For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
  When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
  And murdered in her bed.


He walked amongst the Trial Men
  In a suit of shabby gray;
A cricket cap was on his head,
  And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
  So wistfully at the day.


I never saw a man who looked
  With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
  Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
  With sails of silver by.


I walked, with other souls in pain,
  Within another ring,
And was wondering if the man had done
  A great or little thing,
When a voice behind me whispered low,
  “That fellow’s got to swing.”


Dear Christ! the very prison walls
  Suddenly seemed to reel,
And the sky above my head became
  Like a casque of scorching steel;
And, though I was a soul in pain,
  My pain I could not feel.


I only knew what haunted thought
  Quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day
  With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved,
  And so he had to die.


Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
  By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
  Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
  The brave man with a sword!


Some kill their love when they are young,
  And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
  Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
  The dead so soon grow cold.


Some love too little, some too long,
  Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
  And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
  Yet each man does not die.


He does not die a death of shame
  On a day of dark disgrace,
Nor have a noose about his neck,
  Nor a cloth upon his face,
Nor drop feet foremost through the floor
  Into an empty space.


He does not sit with silent men
  Who watch him night and day;
Who watch him when he tries to weep,
  And when he tries to pray;
Who watch him lest himself should rob
  The prison of its prey.


He does not wake at dawn to see
  Dread figures throng his room,
The shivering Chaplain robed in white,
  The Sheriff stern with gloom,
And the Governor all in shiny black,
  With the yellow face of Doom.


He does not rise in piteous haste
  To put on convict-clothes,
While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, and notes
  Each new and nerve-twitched pose,
Fingering a watch whose little ticks
  Are like horrible hammer-blows.


He does not feel that sickening thirst
  That sands one’s throat, before
The hangman with his gardener’s gloves
  Comes through the padded door,
And binds one with three leathern thongs,
That the throat may thirst no more.


He does not bend his head to hear
  The Burial Office read,
Nor, while the anguish of his soul
  Tells him he is not dead,
Cross his own coffin, as he moves
  Into the hideous shed.


He does not stare upon the air
  Through a little roof of glass:
He does not pray with lips of clay
  For his agony to pass;
Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek
  The kiss of Caiaphas.
               
II


Six weeks the guardsman walked the yard,
  In the suit of shabby gray:
His cricket cap was on his head,
  And his step was light and gay,
But I never saw a man who looked
  So wistfully at the day.


I never saw a man who looked
  With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
  Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every wandering cloud that trailed
  Its ravelled fleeces by.


He did not wring his hands, as do
  Those witless men who dare
To try to rear the changeling Hope
  In the cave of black Despair:
He only looked upon the sun,
  And drank the morning air.


He did not wring his hands nor weep,
  Nor did he peek or pine,
But he drank the air as though it held
  Some healthful anodyne;
With open mouth he drank the sun
  As though it had been wine!


And I and all the souls in pain,
  Who tramped the other ring,
Forgot if we ourselves had done
  A great or little thing,
And watched with gaze of dull amaze
  The man who had to swing.


For strange it was to see him pass
  With a step so light and gay,
And strange it was to see him look
  So wistfully at the day,
And strange it was to think that he
  Had such a debt to pay.


The oak and elm have pleasant leaves
  That in the spring-time shoot:
But grim to see is the gallows-tree,
  With its alder-bitten root,
And, green or dry, a man must die
  Before it bears its fruit!


The loftiest place is the seat of grace
  For which all worldlings try:
But who would stand in hempen band
  Upon a scaffold high,
And through a murderer’s collar take
  His last look at the sky?


It is sweet to dance to violins
  When Love and Life are fair:
To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes
  Is delicate and rare:
But it is not sweet with nimble feet
  To dance upon the air!


So with curious eyes and sick surmise
  We watched him day by day,
And wondered if each one of us
  Would end the self-same way,
For none can tell to what red Hell
  His sightless soul may stray.


At last the dead man walked no more
  Amongst the Trial Men,
And I knew that he was standing up
  In the black dock’s dreadful pen,
And that never would I see his face
  For weal or woe again.


Like two doomed ships that pass in storm
  We had crossed each other’s way:
But we made no sign, we said no word,
  We had no word to say;
For we did not meet in the holy night,
  But in the shameful day.


A prison wall was round us both,
  Two outcast men we were:
The world had thrust us from its heart,
  And God from out His care:
And the iron gin that waits for Sin
  Had caught us in its snare.
               
III


In Debtors’ Yard the stones are hard,
  And the dripping wall is high,
So it was there he took the air
  Beneath the leaden sky,
And by each side a warder walked,
  For fear the man might die.


Or else he sat with those who watched
  His anguish night and day;
Who watched him when he rose to weep,
  And when he crouched to pray;
Who watched him lest himself should rob
  Their scaffold of its prey.


The Governor was strong upon
  The Regulations Act:
The Doctor said that Death was but
  A scientific fact:
And twice a day the Chaplain called,
  And left a little tract.


And twice a day he smoked his pipe,
  And drank his quart of beer:
His soul was resolute, and held
  No hiding-place for fear;
He often said that he was glad
  The hangman’s day was near.


But why he said so strange a thing
  No warder dared to ask:
For he to whom a watcher’s doom
  Is given as his task,
Must set a lock upon his lips,
  And make his face a mask.


Or else he might be moved, and try
  To comfort or console:
And what should Human Pity do
  Pent up in Murderers’ Hole?
What word of grace in such a place
  Could help a brother’s soul?


With slouch and swing around the ring
  We trod the Fools’ Parade!
We did not care: we knew we were
  The Devils’ Own Brigade:
And shaven head and feet of lead
  Make a merry masquerade.


We tore the tarry rope to shreds
  With blunt and bleeding nails;
We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors,
  And cleaned the shining rails:
And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank,
  And clattered with the pails.


We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones,
  We turned the dusty drill:
We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns,
  And sweated on the mill:
But in the heart of every man
  Terror was lying still.


So still it lay that every day
  Crawled like a weed-clogged wave:
And we forgot the bitter lot
  That waits for fool and knave,
Till once, as we tramped in from work,
  We passed an open grave.


With yawning mouth the horrid hole
  Gaped for a living thing;
The very mud cried out for blood
  To the thirsty asphalte ring:
And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair
  The fellow had to swing.


Right in we went, with soul intent
  On Death and Dread and Doom:
The hangman, with his little bag,
  Went shuffling through the gloom:
And I trembled as I groped my way
  Into my numbered tomb.


That night the empty corridors
  Were full of forms of Fear,
And up and down the iron town
  Stole feet we could not hear,
And through the bars that hide the stars
  White faces seemed to peer.


He lay as one who lies and dreams
  In a pleasant meadow-land,
The watchers watched him as he slept,
  And could not understand
How one could sleep so sweet a sleep
  With a hangman close at hand.


But there is no sleep when men must weep
  Who never yet have wept:
So we- the fool, the fraud, the knave-
  That endless vigil kept,
And through each brain on hands of pain
  Another’s terror crept.


Alas! it is a fearful thing
  To feel another’s guilt!
For, right within, the sword of Sin
  Pierced to its poisoned hilt,
And as molten lead were the tears we shed
  For the blood we had not spilt.


The warders with their shoes of felt
  Crept by each padlocked door,
And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe,
  Gray figures on the floor,
And wondered why men knelt to pray
  Who never prayed before.


All through the night we knelt and prayed,
  Mad mourners of a corse!
The troubled plumes of midnight shook
  Like the plumes upon a hearse:
And as bitter wine upon a sponge
  Was the savour of Remorse.


The gray cock crew, the red cock crew,
  But never came the day:
And crooked shapes of Terror crouched,
  In the corners where we lay:
And each evil sprite that walks by night
  Before us seemed to play.


They glided past, the glided fast,
  Like travellers through a mist:
They mocked the moon in a rigadoon
  Of delicate turn and twist,
And with formal pace and loathsome grace
  The phantoms kept their tryst.


With mop and mow, we saw them go,
  Slim shadows hand in hand:
About, about, in ghostly rout
  They trod a saraband:
And the damned grotesques made arabesques,
  Like the wind upon the sand!


With the pirouettes of marionettes,
  They tripped on pointed tread:
But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear,
  As their grisly masque they led,
And loud they sang, and long they sang,
  For they sang to wake the dead.


“Oho!” they cried, “the world is wide,
  But fettered limbs go lame!
And once, or twice, to throw the dice
  Is a gentlemanly game,
But he does not win who plays with Sin
  In the secret House of Shame.”


No things of air these antics were,
  That frolicked with such glee:
To men whose lives were held in gyves,
  And whose feet might not go free,
Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things,
  Most terrible to see.


Around, around, they waltzed and wound;
  Some wheeled in smirking pairs;
With the mincing step of a demirep
  Some sidled up the stairs:
And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer,
  Each helped us at our prayers.


The morning wind began to moan,
  But still the night went on:
Through its giant loom the web of gloom
  Crept till each thread was spun:
And, as we prayed, we grew afraid
  Of the Justice of the Sun.


The moaning wind went wandering round
  The weeping prison wall:
Till like a wheel of turning steel
  We felt the minutes crawl:
O moaning wind! what had we done
  To have such a seneschal?


At last I saw the shadowed bars,
  Like a lattice wrought in lead,
Move right across the whitewashed wall
  That faced my three-plank bed,
And I knew that somewhere in the world
  God’s dreadful dawn was red.


At six o’clock we cleaned our cells,
  At seven all was still,
But the sough and swing of a mighty wing
  The prison seemed to fill,
For the Lord of Death with icy breath
  Had entered in to kill.


He did not pass in purple pomp,
  Nor ride a moon-white steed.
Three yards of cord and a sliding board
  Are all the gallows’ need:
So with rope of shame the Herald came
  To do the secret deed.


We were as men who through a fen
  Of filthy darkness grope:
We did not dare to breathe a prayer,
  Or to give our anguish scope:
Something was dead in each of us,
  And what was dead was Hope.


For Man’s grim Justice goes its way
  And will not swerve aside:
It slays the weak, it slays the strong,
  It has a deadly stride:
With iron heel it slays the strong
  The monstrous parricide!


We waited for the stroke of eight:
  Each tongue was thick with thirst:
For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate
  That makes a man accursed,
And Fate will use a running noose
  For the best man and the worst.


We had no other thing to do,
  Save to wait for the sign to come:
So, like things of stone in a valley lone,
  Quiet we sat and dumb:
But each man’s heart beat thick and quick,
  Like a madman on a drum!


With sudden shock the prison-clock
  Smote on the shivering air,
And from all the gaol rose up a wail
  Of impotent despair,
Like the sound the frightened marshes hear
  From some leper in his lair.


And as one sees most fearful things
  In the crystal of a dream,
We saw the greasy hempen rope
  Hooked to the blackened beam,
And heard the prayer the hangman’s snare
  Strangled into a scream.


And all the woe that moved him so
  That he gave that bitter cry,
And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats,
  None knew so well as I:
For he who lives more lives than one
  More deaths that one must die.
               
IV


There is no chapel on the day
  On which they hang a man:
The Chaplain’s heart is far too sick,
  Or his face is far too wan,
Or there is that written in his eyes
  Which none should look upon.


So they kept us close till nigh on noon,
  And then they rang the bell,
And the warders with their jingling keys
  Opened each listening cell,
And down the iron stair we tramped,
  Each from his separate Hell.


Out into God’s sweet air we went,
  But not in wonted way,
For this man’s face was white with fear,
  And that man’s face was gray,
And I never saw sad men who looked
  So wistfully at the day.


I never saw sad men who looked
  With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
  We prisoners called the sky,
And at every happy cloud that passed
  In such strange freedom by.


But there were those amongst us all
  Who walked with downcast head,
And knew that, had each got his due,
  They should have died instead:
He had but killed a thing that lived,
  Whilst they had killed the dead.


For he who sins a second time
  Wakes a dead soul to pain,
And draws it from its spotted shroud
  And makes it bleed again,
And makes it bleed great gouts of blood,
  And makes it bleed in vain!


Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb
  With crooked arrows starred,
Silently we went round and round
  The slippery asphalte yard;
Silently we went round and round,
  And no man spoke a word.


Silently we went round and round,
  And through each hollow mind
The Memory of dreadful things
  Rushed like a dreadful wind,
And Horror stalked before each man,
  And Terror crept behind.


The warders strutted up and down,
  And watched their herd of brutes,
Their uniforms were spick and span,
  And they wore their Sunday suits,
But we knew the work they had been at,
  By the quicklime on their boots.


For where a grave had opened wide,
  There was no grave at all:
Only a stretch of mud and sand
  By the hideous prison-wall,
And a little heap of burning lime,
  That the man should have his pall.


For he has a pall, this wretched man,
  Such as few men can claim:
Deep down below a prison-yard,
  Naked, for greater shame,
He lies, with fetters on each foot,
  Wrapt in a sheet of flame!


And all the while the burning lime
  Eats flesh and bone away,
It eats the brittle bones by night,
  And the soft flesh by day,
It eats the flesh and bone by turns,
  But it eats the heart alway.


For three long years they will not sow
  Or root or seedling there:
For three long years the unblessed spot
  Will sterile be and bare,
And look upon the wondering sky
  With unreproachful stare.


They think a murderer’s heart would taint
  Each simple seed they sow.
It is not true! God’s kindly earth
  Is kindlier than men know,
And the red rose would but glow more red,
  The white rose whiter blow.


Out of his mouth a red, red rose!
  Out of his heart a white!
For who can say by what strange way,
  Christ brings His will to light,
Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore
  Bloomed in the great Pope’s sight?


But neither milk-white rose nor red
  May bloom in prison air;
The shard, the pebble, and the flint,
  Are what they give us there:
For flowers have been known to heal
  A common man’s despair.


So never will wine-red rose or white,
  Petal by petal, fall
On that stretch of mud and sand that lies
  By the hideous prison-wall,
To tell the men who tramp the yard
  That God’s Son died for all.


Yet though the hideous prison-wall
  Still hems him round and round,
And a spirit may not walk by night
  That is with fetters bound,
And a spirit may but weep that lies
  In such unholy ground,


He is at peace- this wretched man-
  At peace, or will be soon:
There is no thing to make him mad,
  Nor does Terror walk at noon,
For the lampless Earth in which he lies
  Has neither Sun nor Moon.


They hanged him as a beast is hanged:
  They did not even toll
A requiem that might have brought
  Rest to his startled soul,
But hurriedly they took him out,
  And hid him in a hole.


The warders stripped him of his clothes,
  And gave him to the flies:
They mocked the swollen purple throat,
  And the stark and staring eyes:
And with laughter loud they heaped the shroud
  In which the convict lies.


The Chaplain would not kneel to pray
  By his dishonoured grave:
Nor mark it with that blessed Cross
  That Christ for sinners gave,
Because the man was one of those
  Whom Christ came down to save.


Yet all is well; he has but passed
  To  Life’s appointed bourne:
And alien tears will fill for him
  Pity’s long-broken urn,
For his mourners be outcast men,
  And outcasts always mourn.
               
V


I know not whether Laws be right,
  Or whether Laws be wrong;
All that we know who lie in gaol
  Is that the wall is strong;
And that each day is like a year,
  A year whose days are long.


But this I know, that every Law
  That men have made for Man,
Since first Man took His brother’s life,
  And the sad world began,
But straws the wheat and saves the chaff
  With a most evil fan.


This too I know- and wise it were
  If each could know the same-
That every prison that men build
  Is built with bricks of shame,
And bound with bars lest Christ should see
  How men their brothers maim.


With bars they blur the gracious moon,
  And blind the goodly sun:
And the do well to hide their Hell,
  For in it things are done
That Son of things nor son of Man
  Ever should look upon!


The vilest deeds like poison weeds
  Bloom well in prison-air:
It is only what is good in Man
  That wastes and withers there:
Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,
  And the warder is Despair.


For they starve the little frightened child
  Till it weeps both night and day:
And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool,
  And gibe the old and gray,
And some grow mad, and all grow bad,
  And none a word may say.


Each narrow cell in which we dwell
  Is a foul and dark latrine,
And the fetid breath of living Death
  Chokes up each grated screen,
And all, but Lust, is turned to dust
  In Humanity’s machine.


The brackish water that we drink
  Creeps with a loathsome slime,
And the bitter bread they weigh in scales
  Is full of chalk and lime,
And Sleep will not lie down, but walks
  Wild-eyed, and cries to Time.


But though lean Hunger and green Thirst
  Like asp with adder fight,
We have little care of prison fare,
  For what chills and kills outright
Is that every stone one lifts by day
  Becomes one’s heart by night.


With midnight always in one’s heart,
  And twilight in one’s cell,
We turn the crank, or tear the rope,
  Each in his separate Hell,
And the silence is more awful far
  Than the sound of a brazen bell.


And never a human voice comes near
  To speak a gentle word:
And the eye that watches through the door
  Is pitiless and hard:
And by all forgot, we rot and rot,
  With soul and body marred.


And thus we rust Life’s iron chain
  Degraded and alone:
And some men curse, and some men weep,
  And some men make no moan:
But God’s eternal Laws are kind
  And break the heart of stone.


And every human heart that breaks,
  In prison-cell or yard,
Is as that broken box that gave
  Its treasure to the Lord,
And filled the unclean leper’s house
  With the scent of costliest nard.


Ah! happy they whose hearts can break
  And peace of pardon win!
How else may man make straight his plan
  And cleanse his soul from Sin?
How else but through a broken heart
  May Lord Christ enter in?


And he of the swollen purple throat,
  And the stark and staring eyes,
Waits for the holy hands that took
  The Thief to Paradise;
And a broken and a contrite heart
  The Lord will not despise.


The man in red who reads the Law
  Gave him three weeks of life,
Three little weeks in which to heal
  His soul of his soul’s strife,
And cleanse from every blot of blood
  The hand that held the knife.


And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand,
  The hand that held the steel:
For only blood can wipe out blood,
  And only tears can heal:
And the crimson stain that was of Cain
  Became Christ’s snow-white seal.
               
VI


In Reading gaol by Reading town
  There is a pit of shame,
And in it lies a wretched man
  Eaten by teeth of flame,
In a burning winding-sheet he lies,
  And his grave has got no name.


And there, till Christ call forth the dead,
  In silence let him lie:
No need to waste the foolish tear,
  Or heave the windy sigh:
The man had killed the thing he loved,
  And so he had to die.


And all men kill the thing they love,
  By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
  Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
  The brave man with a sword!


                         C. 3. 3.


             THE END




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