From morn till night, from night till startled mornPeeps 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 adieuHe bids to sober joy that here sojourns:Nought interrupts the riot, though in lieuOf 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 goreOf man and steed, o'erthrown beneath his horn:The thronged arena shakes with shouts for more;Yells the mad crowd o'er entrails freshly torn,Nor shrinks the female eye, nor e'en affects to mourn.
LXIX.
The seventh day this; the jubilee of man.London! right well thou know'st the day of prayer:Then thy spruce citizen, washed artizan,And smug apprentice gulp their weekly air:Thy coach of hackney, whiskey, one-horse chair,And humblest gig, through sundry suburbs whirl;To Hampstead, Brentford, Harrow, make repair;Till the tired jade the wheel forgets to hurl,Provoking envious gibe from each pedestrian churl.
LXX.
Some o'er thy Thamis row the ribboned fair,Others along the safer turnpike fly;Some Richmond Hill ascend, some scud to Ware,And many to the steep of Highgate hie.Ask ye, Boeotian shades, the reason why?'Tis to the worship of the solemn Horn,Grasped in the holy hand of Mystery,In whose dread name both men and maids are sworn,And consecrate the oath with draught and dance till morn.
LXXI.
All have their fooleries; not alike are thine,Fair Cadiz, rising o'er the dark blue sea!Soon as the matin bell proclaimeth nine,Thy saint adorers count the rosary:Much is the Virgin teased to shrive them free(Well do I ween the only virgin there)From crimes as numerous as her beadsmen be;Then to the crowded circus forth they fare:Young, old, high, low, at once the same diversion share.
LXXII.
The lists are oped, the spacious area cleared,Thousands on thousands piled are seated round;Long ere the first loud trumpet's note is heard,No vacant space for lated wight is found:Here dons, grandees, but chiefly dames abound,Skilled in the ogle of a roguish eye,Yet ever well inclined to heal the wound;None through their cold disdain are doomed to die,As moon-struck bards complain, by Love's sad archery.
LXXIII.
Hushed is the din of tongues—on gallant steeds,With milk-white crest, gold spur, and light-poised lance,Four cavaliers prepare for venturous deeds,And lowly bending to the lists advance;Rich are their scarfs, their chargers featly prance:If in the dangerous game they shine to-day,The crowd's loud shout, and ladies' lovely glance,Best prize of better acts, they bear away,And all that kings or chiefs e'er gain their toils repay.
LXXIV.
In costly sheen and gaudy cloak arrayed,But all afoot, the light-limbed matadoreStands in the centre, eager to invadeThe lord of lowing herds; but not beforeThe ground, with cautious tread, is traversed o'er,Lest aught unseen should lurk to thwart his speed:His arms a dart, he fights aloof, nor moreCan man achieve without the friendly steed—Alas! too oft condemned for him to bear and bleed.
LXXV.
Thrice sounds the clarion; lo! the signal falls,The den expands, and expectation muteGapes 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 suitHis first attack, wide waving to and froHis angry tail; red rolls his eye's dilated glow.
LXXVI.
Sudden he stops; his eye is fixed: away,Away, thou heedless boy! prepare the spear;Now is thy time to perish, or displayThe skill that yet may check his mad career.With well-timed croupe the nimble coursers veer;On foams the bull, but not unscathed he goes;Streams from his flank the crimson torrent clear:He flies, he wheels, distracted with his throes:Dart follows dart; lance, lance; loud bellowings speak his woes.
LXXVII.
Again he comes; nor dart nor lance avail,Nor the wild plunging of the tortured horse;Though man and man's avenging arms assail,Vain are his weapons, vainer is his force.One gallant steed is stretched a mangled corse;Another, hideous sight! unseamed appears,His gory chest unveils life's panting source;Though death-struck, still his feeble frame he rears;Staggering, but stemming all, his lord unharmed he bears.
LXXVIII.
Foiled, bleeding, breathless, furious to the last,Full in the centre stands the bull at bay,Mid wounds, and clinging darts, and lances brast,And foes disabled in the brutal fray:And now the matadores around him play,Shake the red cloak, and poise the ready brand:Once more through all he bursts his thundering way—Vain rage! the mantle quits the conynge hand,Wraps his fierce eye—'tis past—he sinks upon the sand.
LXXIX.
Where his vast neck just mingles with the spine,Sheathed in his form the deadly weapon lies.He stops—he starts—disdaining to decline:Slowly he falls, amidst triumphant cries,Without a groan, without a struggle dies.The decorated car appears on high:The corse is piled—sweet sight for vulgar eyes;Four steeds that spurn the rein, as swift as shy,Hurl the dark bull along, scarce seen in dashing by.
LXXX.
Such the ungentle sport that oft invitesThe Spanish maid, and cheers the Spanish swain:Nurtured in blood betimes, his heart delightsIn vengeance, gloating on another's pain.What private feuds the troubled village stain!Though now one phalanxed host should meet the foe,Enough, alas, in humble homes remain,To meditate 'gainst friends the secret blow,For some slight cause of wrath, whence life's warm stream must flow.
LXXXI.
But Jealousy has fled: his bars, his bolts,His withered sentinel, duenna sage!And all whereat the generous soul revolts,Which the stern dotard deemed he could encage,Have passed to darkness with the vanished age.Who late so free as Spanish girls were seen(Ere War uprose in his volcanic rage),With braided tresses bounding o'er the green,While on the gay dance shone Night's lover-loving Queen?
LXXXII.
Oh! many a time and oft had Harold loved,Or dreamed he loved, since rapture is a dream;But now his wayward bosom was unmoved,For not yet had he drunk of Lethe's stream:And lately had he learned with truth to deemLove 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 springsSome 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 mindE'er deigned to bend her chastely-awful eyes:But Passion raves itself to rest, or flies;And Vice, that digs her own voluptuous tomb,Had buried long his hopes, no more to rise:Pleasure's palled victim! life-abhorring gloomWrote on his faded brow curst Cain's unresting doom.
LXXXIV.
Still he beheld, nor mingled with the throng;But viewed them not with misanthropic hate;Fain would he now have joined the dance, the song,But who may smile that sinks beneath his fate?Nought that he saw his sadness could abate:Yet once he struggled 'gainst the demon's sway,And as in Beauty's bower he pensive sate,Poured forth this unpremeditated lay,To charms as fair as those that soothed his happier day.
TO INEZ.
Nay, smile not at my sullen brow,Alas! I cannot smile again:Yet Heaven avert that ever thouShouldst weep, and haply weep in vain.
And dost thou ask what secret woeI bear, corroding joy and youth?And wilt thou vainly seek to knowA pang even thou must fail to soothe?
It is not love, it is not hate,Nor low Ambition's honours lost,That bids me loathe my present state,And fly from all I prized the most:
It is that weariness which springsFrom all I meet, or hear, or see:To me no pleasure Beauty brings;Thine eyes have scarce a charm for me.
It is that settled, ceaseless gloomThe fabled Hebrew wanderer bore,That will not look beyond the tomb,But cannot hope for rest before.
What exile from himself can flee?To zones, though more and more remote,Still, still pursues, where'er I be,The blight of life—the demon Thought.
Yet others rapt in pleasure seem,And taste of all that I forsake:Oh! may they still of transport dream,And ne'er, at least like me, awake!
Through many a clime 'tis mine to go,With many a retrospection curst;And all my solace is to know,Whate'er betides, I've known the worst.
What is that worst? Nay, do not ask—In pity from the search forbear:Smile on—nor venture to unmaskMan's heart, and view the hell that's there.
LXXXV.
Adieu, fair Cadiz! yea, a long adieu!Who may forget how well thy walls have stood?When all were changing, thou alone wert true,First to be free, and last to be subdued.And if amidst a scene, a shock so rude,Some native blood was seen thy streets to dye,A traitor only fell beneath the feud:Here all were noble, save nobility;None hugged a conqueror's chain save fallen Chivalry!
LXXXVI.
Such be the sons of Spain, and strange her fate!They fight for freedom, who were never free;A kingless people for a nerveless state,Her vassals combat when their chieftains flee,True to the veriest slaves of Treachery;Fond of a land which gave them nought but life,Pride points the path that leads to liberty;Back to the struggle, baffled in the strife,War, war is still the cry, 'War even to the knife!'
LXXXVII.
Ye, who would more of Spain and Spaniards know,Go, read whate'er is writ of bloodiest strife:Whate'er keen Vengeance urged on foreign foeCan act, is acting there against man's life:From flashing scimitar to secret knife,War mouldeth there each weapon to his need—So may he guard the sister and the wife,So may he make each curst oppressor bleed,So may such foes deserve the most remorseless deed!
LXXXVIII.
Flows there a tear of pity for the dead?Look o'er the ravage of the reeking plain:Look on the hands with female slaughter red;Then to the dogs resign the unburied slain,Then to the vulture let each corse remain;Albeit unworthy of the prey-bird's maw,Let their bleached bones, and blood's unbleaching stain,Long mark the battle-field with hideous awe:Thus only may our sons conceive the scenes we saw!
LXXXIX.
Nor yet, alas, the dreadful work is done;Fresh legions pour adown the Pyrenees:It deepens still, the work is scarce begun,Nor mortal eye the distant end foresees.Fall'n nations gaze on Spain: if freed, she freesMore than her fell Pizarros once enchained.Strange retribution! now Columbia's easeRepairs the wrongs that Quito's sons sustained,While o'er the parent clime prowls Murder unrestrained.
XC.
Not all the blood at Talavera shed,Not all the marvels of Barossa's fight,Not Albuera lavish of the dead,Have won for Spain her well-asserted right.When shall her Olive-Branch be free from blight?When shall she breathe her from the blushing toil?How many a doubtful day shall sink in night,Ere the Frank robber turn him from his spoil,And Freedom's stranger-tree grow native of the soil?
XCI.
And thou, my friend! since unavailing woeBursts from my heart, and mingles with the strain—Had the sword laid thee with the mighty low,Pride might forbid e'en Friendship to complain:But thus unlaurelled to descend in vain,By all forgotten, save the lonely breast,And mix unbleeding with the boasted slain,While glory crowns so many a meaner crest!What hadst thou done, to sink so peacefully to rest?
XCII.
Oh, known the earliest, and esteemed the most!Dear to a heart where nought was left so dear!Though to my hopeless days for ever lost,In dreams deny me not to see thee here!And Morn in secret shall renew the tearOf Consciousness awaking to her woes,And Fancy hover o'er thy bloodless bier,Till my frail frame return to whence it rose,And mourned and mourner lie united in repose.
XCIII.
Here is one fytte of Harold's pilgrimage.Ye who of him may further seek to know,Shall find some tidings in a future page,If he that rhymeth now may scribble moe.Is this too much? Stern critic, say not so:Patience! and ye shall hear what he beheldIn other lands, where he was doomed to go:Lands that contain the monuments of eld,Ere Greece and Grecian arts by barbarous hands were quelled.
I.
Come, blue-eyed maid of heaven!—but thou, alas,Didst never yet one mortal song inspire—Goddess of Wisdom! here thy temple was,And is, despite of war and wasting fire,And years, that bade thy worship to expire:But worse than steel, and flame, and ages slow,Is the drear sceptre and dominion direOf men who never felt the sacred glowThat thoughts of thee and thine on polished breasts bestow.
II.
Ancient of days! august Athena! where,Where are thy men of might, thy grand in soul?Gone—glimmering through the dream of things that were:First in the race that led to Glory's goal,They won, and passed away—is this the whole?A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour!The warrior's weapon and the sophist's stoleAre sought in vain, and o'er each mouldering tower,Dim with the mist of years, grey flits the shade of power.
III.
Son of the morning, rise! approach you here!Come—but molest not yon defenceless urn!Look on this spot—a nation's sepulchre!Abode of gods, whose shrines no longer burn.E'en gods must yield—religions take their turn:'Twas Jove's—'tis Mahomet's; and other creedsWill rise with other years, till man shall learnVainly his incense soars, his victim bleeds;Poor child of Doubt and Death, whose hope is built on reeds.
IV.
Bound to the earth, he lifts his eyes to heaven—Is't not enough, unhappy thing, to knowThou art? Is this a boon so kindly given,That being, thou wouldst be again, and go,Thou know'st not, reck'st not to what region, soOn earth no more, but mingled with the skies!Still wilt thou dream on future joy and woe?Regard and weigh yon dust before it flies:That little urn saith more than thousand homilies.
V.
Or burst the vanished hero's lofty mound;Far on the solitary shore he sleeps;He fell, and falling nations mourned around;But now not one of saddening thousands weeps,Nor warlike worshipper his vigil keepsWhere demi-gods appeared, as records tell.Remove yon skull from out the scattered heaps:Is that a temple where a God may dwell?Why, e'en the worm at last disdains her shattered cell!
VI.
Look on its broken arch, its ruined wall,Its chambers desolate, and portals foul:Yes, this was once Ambition's airy hall,The dome of Thought, the Palace of the Soul.Behold through each lack-lustre, eyeless hole,The gay recess of Wisdom and of Wit,And Passion's host, that never brooked control:Can all saint, sage, or sophist ever writ,People this lonely tower, this tenement refit?
VII.
Well didst thou speak, Athena's wisest son!'All that we know is, nothing can be known.'Why should we shrink from what we cannot shun?Each hath its pang, but feeble sufferers groanWith brain-born dreams of evil all their own.Pursue what chance or fate proclaimeth best;Peace waits us on the shores of Acheron:There no forced banquet claims the sated guest,But Silence spreads the couch of ever welcome rest.
VIII.
Yet if, as holiest men have deemed, there beA land of souls beyond that sable shore,To shame the doctrine of the SadduceeAnd sophists, madly vain of dubious lore;How sweet it were in concert to adoreWith those who made our mortal labours light!To hear each voice we feared to hear no more!Behold each mighty shade revealed to sight,The Bactrian, Samian sage, and all who taught the right!
IX.
There, thou!—whose love and life together fled,Have left me here to love and live in vain—Twined with my heart, and can I deem thee dead,When busy memory flashes on my brain?Well—I will dream that we may meet again,And woo the vision to my vacant breast:If aught of young Remembrance then remain,Be as it may Futurity's behest,For me 'twere bliss enough to know thy spirit blest!
X.
Here let me sit upon this mossy stone,The marble column's yet unshaken base!Here, son of Saturn, was thy favourite throne!Mightiest of many such! Hence let me traceThe latent grandeur of thy dwelling-place.It may not be: nor even can Fancy's eyeRestore what time hath laboured to deface.Yet these proud pillars claim no passing sigh;Unmoved the Moslem sits, the light Greek carols by.
XI.
But who, of all the plunderers of yon faneOn high, where Pallas lingered, loth to fleeThe latest relic of her ancient reign—The last, the worst, dull spoiler, who was he?Blush, Caledonia! such thy son could be!England! I joy no child he was of thine:Thy free-born men should spare what once was free;Yet they could violate each saddening shrine,And bear these altars o'er the long reluctant brine.
XII.
But most the modern Pict's ignoble boast,To rive what Goth, and Turk, and Time hath spared:Cold as the crags upon his native coast,His mind as barren and his heart as hard,Is he whose head conceived, whose hand prepared,Aught to displace Athena's poor remains:Her sons too weak the sacred shrine to guard,Yet felt some portion of their mother's pains,And never knew, till then, the weight of Despot's chains.
XIII.
What! shall it e'er be said by British tongueAlbion 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, bearsThe last poor plunder from a bleeding land:Yes, she, whose generous aid her name endears,Tore down those remnants with a harpy's hand.Which envious eld forbore, and tyrants left to stand.
XIV.
Where was thine aegis, Pallas, that appalledStern Alaric and Havoc on their way?Where Peleus' son? whom Hell in vain enthralled,His shade from Hades upon that dread dayBursting to light in terrible array!What! could not Pluto spare the chief once more,To scare a second robber from his prey?Idly he wandered on the Stygian shore,Nor now preserved the walls he loved to shield before.
XV.
Cold is the heart, fair Greece, that looks on thee,Nor feels as lovers o'er the dust they loved;Dull is the eye that will not weep to seeThy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removedBy British hands, which it had best behovedTo guard those relics ne'er to be restored.Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved,And once again thy hapless bosom gored,And snatched thy shrinking gods to northern climes abhorred!
XVI.
But where is Harold? shall I then forgetTo urge the gloomy wanderer o'er the wave?Little recked he of all that men regret;No loved one now in feigned lament could rave;No friend the parting hand extended gave,Ere the cold stranger passed to other climes.Hard is his heart whom charms may not enslave;But Harold felt not as in other times,And left without a sigh the land of war and crimes.
XVII.
He that has sailed upon the dark blue sea,Has viewed at times, I ween, a full fair sight;When the fresh breeze is fair as breeze may be,The white sails set, the gallant frigate tight,Masts, spires, and strand retiring to the right,The glorious main expanding o'er the bow,The convoy spread like wild swans in their flight,The dullest sailer wearing bravely now,So gaily curl the waves before each dashing prow.
XVIII.
And oh, the little warlike world within!The well-reeved guns, the netted canopy,The hoarse command, the busy humming din,When, at a word, the tops are manned on high:Hark to the boatswain's call, the cheering cry,While through the seaman's hand the tackle glidesOr 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 remainFor the lone chieftain, who majestic stalks,Silent and feared by all: not oft he talksWith aught beneath him, if he would preserveThat strict restraint, which broken, ever baulksConquest and Fame: but Britons rarely swerveFrom law, however stern, which tends their strength to nerve.
XX.
Blow, swiftly blow, thou keel-compelling gale,Till the broad sun withdraws his lessening ray;Then must the pennant-bearer slacken sail,That lagging barks may make their lazy way.Ah! grievance sore, and listless dull delay,To waste on sluggish hulks the sweetest breeze!What leagues are lost before the dawn of day,Thus loitering pensive on the willing seas,The flapping sails hauled down to halt for logs like these!
XXI.
The moon is up; by Heaven, a lovely eve!Long streams of light o'er dancing waves expand!Now lads on shore may sigh, and maids believe:Such be our fate when we return to land!Meantime some rude Arion's restless handWakes 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 feelWe 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 possessedA thought, and claims the homage of a tear;A flashing pang! of which the weary breastWould 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 holdConverse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unrolled.
XXVI.
But midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men,To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,And roam along, the world's tired denizen,With none who bless us, none whom we can bless;Minions of splendour shrinking from distress!None that, with kindred consciousness endued,If we were not, would seem to smile the lessOf all that flattered, followed, sought, and sued:This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!
XXVII.
More blest the life of godly eremite,Such as on lonely Athos may be seen,Watching at eve upon the giant height,Which looks o'er waves so blue, skies so serene,That he who there at such an hour hath been,Will wistful linger on that hallowed spot;Then slowly tear him from the witching scene,Sigh forth one wish that such had been his lot,Then turn to hate a world he had almost forgot.
XXVIII.
Pass we the long, unvarying course, the trackOft trod, that never leaves a trace behind;Pass we the calm, the gale, the change, the tack,And each well-known caprice of wave and wind;Pass we the joys and sorrows sailors find,Cooped in their winged sea-girt citadel;The foul, the fair, the contrary, the kind,As breezes rise and fall, and billows swell,Till on some jocund morn—lo, land! and all is well.
XXIX.
But not in silence pass Calypso's isles,The sister tenants of the middle deep;There for the weary still a haven smiles,Though the fair goddess long has ceased to weep,And o'er her cliffs a fruitless watch to keepFor him who dared prefer a mortal bride:Here, too, his boy essayed the dreadful leapStern Mentor urged from high to yonder tide;While thus of both bereft, the nymph-queen doubly sighed.
XXX.
Her reign is past, her gentle glories gone:But trust not this; too easy youth, beware!A mortal sovereign holds her dangerous throne,And thou mayst find a new Calypso there.Sweet Florence! could another ever shareThis wayward, loveless heart, it would be thine:But checked by every tie, I may not dareTo cast a worthless offering at thy shrine,Nor ask so dear a breast to feel one pang for mine.
XXXI.
Thus Harold deemed, as on that lady's eyeHe looked, and met its beam without a thought,Save Admiration glancing harmless by:Love kept aloof, albeit not far remote,Who knew his votary often lost and caught,But knew him as his worshipper no more,And ne'er again the boy his bosom sought:Since now he vainly urged him to adore,Well deemed the little god his ancient sway was o'er.
XXXII.
Fair Florence found, in sooth with some amaze,One who, 'twas said, still sighed to all he saw,Withstand, unmoved, the lustre of her gaze,Which others hailed with real or mimic awe,Their hope, their doom, their punishment, their law:All that gay Beauty from her bondsmen claims:And much she marvelled that a youth so rawNor felt, nor feigned at least, the oft-told flames,Which, though sometimes they frown, yet rarely anger dames.
XXXIII.
Little knew she that seeming marble heart,Now masked by silence or withheld by pride,Was not unskilful in the spoiler's art,And spread its snares licentious far and wide;Nor from the base pursuit had turned aside,As long as aught was worthy to pursue:But Harold on such arts no more relied;And had he doted on those eyes so blue,Yet never would he join the lover's whining crew.
XXXIV.
Not much he kens, I ween, of woman's breast,Who thinks that wanton thing is won by sighs;What careth she for hearts when once possessed?Do proper homage to thine idol's eyes,But not too humbly, or she will despiseThee and thy suit, though told in moving tropes;Disguise e'en tenderness, if thou art wise;Brisk Confidence still best with woman copes;Pique her and soothe in turn, soon Passion crowns thy hopes.
XXXV.
'Tis an old lesson: Time approves it true,And those who know it best deplore it most;When all is won that all desire to woo,The paltry prize is hardly worth the cost:Youth wasted, minds degraded, honour lost,These are thy fruits, successful Passion! these!If, kindly cruel, early hope is crossed,Still to the last it rankles, a disease,Not to be cured when Love itself forgets to please.
XXXVI.
Away! nor let me loiter in my song,For we have many a mountain path to tread,And many a varied shore to sail along,By pensive Sadness, not by Fiction, led—Climes, fair withal as ever mortal headImagined in its little schemes of thought;Or e'er in new Utopias were read:To teach man what he might be, or he ought;If that corrupted thing could ever such be taught.
XXXVII.
Dear Nature is the kindest mother still;Though always changing, in her aspect mild:From her bare bosom let me take my fill,Her never-weaned, though not her favoured child.Oh! she is fairest in her features wild,Where nothing polished dares pollute her path:To me by day or night she ever smiled,Though I have marked her when none other hath,And sought her more and more, and loved her best in wrath.
XXXVIII.
Land of Albania! where Iskander rose;Theme of the young, and beacon of the wise,And he his namesake, whose oft-baffled foes,Shrunk from his deeds of chivalrous emprise:Land of Albania! let me bend mine eyesOn thee, thou rugged nurse of savage men!The cross descends, thy minarets arise,And the pale crescent sparkles in the glen,Through many a cypress grove within each city's ken.
XXXIX.
Childe Harold sailed, and passed the barren spotWhere sad Penelope o'erlooked the wave;And onward viewed the mount, not yet forgot,The lover's refuge, and the Lesbian's grave.Dark Sappho! could not verse immortal saveThat breast imbued with such immortal fire?Could she not live who life eternal gave?If life eternal may await the lyre,That only Heaven to which Earth's children may aspire.
XL.
'Twas on a Grecian autumn's gentle eve,Childe Harold hailed Leucadia's cape afar;A spot he longed to see, nor cared to leave:Oft did he mark the scenes of vanished war,Actium, Lepanto, fatal Trafalgar:Mark them unmoved, for he would not delight(Born beneath some remote inglorious star)In themes of bloody fray, or gallant fight,But loathed the bravo's trade, and laughed at martial wight.
XLI.
But when he saw the evening star aboveLeucadia's far-projecting rock of woe,And hailed the last resort of fruitless love,He felt, or deemed he felt, no common glow:And as the stately vessel glided slowBeneath the shadow of that ancient mount,He watched the billows' melancholy flow,And, sunk albeit in thought as he was wont,More placid seemed his eye, and smooth his pallid front.
XLII.
Morn dawns; and with it stern Albania's hills,Dark Suli's rocks, and Pindus' inland peak,Robed half in mist, bedewed with snowy rills,Arrayed in many a dun and purple streak,Arise; and, as the clouds along them break,Disclose the dwelling of the mountaineer;Here roams the wolf, the eagle whets his beak,Birds, beasts of prey, and wilder men appear,And gathering storms around convulse the closing year.
XLIII.
Now Harold felt himself at length alone,And bade to Christian tongues a long adieu:Now he adventured on a shore unknown,Which all admire, but many dread to view:His breast was armed 'gainst fate, his wants were few:Peril he sought not, but ne'er shrank to meet:The scene was savage, but the scene was new;This made the ceaseless toil of travel sweet,Beat back keen winter's blast; and welcomed summer's heat.
XLIV.
Here the red cross, for still the cross is here,Though sadly scoffed at by the circumcised,Forgets that pride to pampered priesthood dear;Churchman and votary alike despised.Foul Superstition! howsoe'er disguised,Idol, saint, virgin, prophet, crescent, cross,For whatsoever symbol thou art prized,Thou sacerdotal gain, but general loss!Who from true worship's gold can separate thy dross.
XLV.
Ambracia's gulf behold, where once was lostA world for woman, lovely, harmless thing!In yonder rippling bay, their naval hostDid many a Roman chief and Asian kingTo doubtful conflict, certain slaughter, bringLook where the second Caesar's trophies rose,Now, like the hands that reared them, withering;Imperial anarchs, doubling human woes!God! was thy globe ordained for such to win and lose?
XLVI.
From the dark barriers of that rugged clime,E'en to the centre of Illyria's vales,Childe Harold passed o'er many a mount sublime,Through lands scarce noticed in historic tales:Yet in famed Attica such lovely dalesAre rarely seen; nor can fair Tempe boastA 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 takeTo greet Albania's chief, whose dread commandIs lawless law; for with a bloody handHe sways a nation, turbulent and bold:Yet here and there some daring mountain-bandDisdain his power, and from their rocky holdHurl their defiance far, nor yield, unless to gold.
XLVIII.
Monastic Zitza! from thy shady brow,Thou small, but favoured spot of holy ground!Where'er we gaze, around, above, below,What rainbow tints, what magic charms are found!Rock, river, forest, mountain all abound,And bluest skies that harmonise the whole:Beneath, the distant torrent's rushing soundTells where the volumed cataract doth rollBetween 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 nighRising in lofty ranks, and loftier still,Might well itself be deemed of dignity,The convent's white walls glisten fair on high;Here dwells the caloyer, nor rude is he,Nor niggard of his cheer: the passer-byIs welcome still; nor heedless will he fleeFrom hence, if he delight kind Nature's sheen to see.
L.
Here in the sultriest season let him rest,Fresh is the green beneath those aged trees;Here winds of gentlest wing will fan his breast,From heaven itself he may inhale the breeze:The plain is far beneath—oh! let him seizePure pleasure while he can; the scorching rayHere pierceth not, impregnate with disease:Then let his length the loitering pilgrim lay,And gaze, untired, the morn, the noon, the eve away.
LI.
Dusky and huge, enlarging on the sight,Nature's volcanic amphitheatre,Chimera's alps extend from left to right:Beneath, a living valley seems to stir;Flocks play, trees wave, streams flow, the mountain firNodding 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.