No city's towers pollute the lovely view;Unseen is Yanina, though not remote,Veiled by the screen of hills: here men are few,Scanty the hamlet, rare the lonely cot;But, peering down each precipice, the goatBrowseth: and, pensive o'er his scattered flock,The little shepherd in his white capoteDoth lean his boyish form along the rock,Or in his cave awaits the tempest's short-lived shock.
LIII.
Oh! where, Dodona, is thine aged grove,Prophetic fount, and oracle divine?What valley echoed the response of Jove?What trace remaineth of the Thunderer's shrine?All, all forgotten—and shall man repineThat 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 eyeReposes gladly on as smooth a valeAs ever Spring yclad in grassy dye:E'en on a plain no humble beauties lie,Where some bold river breaks the long expanse,And woods along the banks are waving high,Whose shadows in the glassy waters dance,Or with the moonbeam sleep in Midnight's solemn trance.
LV.
The sun had sunk behind vast Tomerit,The Laos wide and fierce came roaring by;The shades of wonted night were gathering yet,When, down the steep banks winding wearilyChilde 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-menSwelling the breeze that sighed along the lengthening glen.
LVI.
He passed the sacred harem's silent tower,And underneath the wide o'erarching gateSurveyed the dwelling of this chief of powerWhere all around proclaimed his high estate.Amidst no common pomp the despot sate,While busy preparation shook the court;Slaves, eunuchs, soldiers, guests, and santons wait;Within, a palace, and without a fort,Here men of every clime appear to make resort.
LVII.
Richly caparisoned, a ready rowOf armed horse, and many a warlike store,Circled the wide-extending court below;Above, strange groups adorned the corridor;And ofttimes through the area's echoing door,Some high-capped Tartar spurred his steed away;The Turk, the Greek, the Albanian, and the Moor,Here mingled in their many-hued array,While the deep war-drum's sound announced the close of day.
LVIII.
The wild Albanian kirtled to his knee,With shawl-girt head and ornamented gun,And gold-embroidered garments, fair to see:The crimson-scarfed men of Macedon;The Delhi with his cap of terror on,And crooked glaive; the lively, supple Greek;And swarthy Nubia's mutilated son;The bearded Turk, that rarely deigns to speak,Master of all around, too potent to be meek,
LIX.
Are mixed conspicuous: some recline in groups,Scanning the motley scene that varies round;There some grave Moslem to devotion stoops,And some that smoke, and some that play are found;Here the Albanian proudly treads the ground;Half-whispering there the Greek is heard to prate;Hark! from the mosque the nightly solemn sound,The muezzin's call doth shake the minaret,'There is no god but God!—to prayer—lo! God is great!'
LX.
Just at this season Ramazani's fastThrough 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 trainPrepared and spread the plenteous board within;The vacant gallery now seemed made in vain,But from the chambers came the mingling din,As page and slave anon were passing out and in.
LXI.
Here woman's voice is never heard: apartAnd scarce permitted, guarded, veiled, to move,She yields to one her person and her heart,Tamed to her cage, nor feels a wish to rove;For, not unhappy in her master's love,And joyful in a mother's gentlest cares,Blest cares! all other feelings far above!Herself more sweetly rears the babe she bears,Who never quits the breast, no meaner passion shares.
LXII.
In marble-paved pavilion, where a springOf 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 throwsAlong that aged venerable face,The deeds that lurk beneath, and stain him with disgrace.
LXIII.
It is not that yon hoary lengthening beardIll suits the passions which belong to youth:Love conquers age—so Hafiz hath averred,So sings the Teian, and he sings in sooth—But crimes that scorn the tender voice of ruth,Beseeming all men ill, but most the manIn years, have marked him with a tiger's tooth:Blood follows blood, and through their mortal span,In bloodier acts conclude those who with blood began.
LXIV.
Mid many things most new to ear and eye,The pilgrim rested here his weary feet,And gazed around on Moslem luxury,Till quickly wearied with that spacious seatOf Wealth and Wantonness, the choice retreatOf 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 lackNot virtues, were those virtues more mature.Where is the foe that ever saw their back?Who can so well the toil of war endure?Their native fastnesses not more secureThan they in doubtful time of troublous need:Their wrath how deadly! but their friendship sure,When Gratitude or Valour bids them bleed,Unshaken rushing on where'er their chief may lead.
LXVI.
Childe Harold saw them in their chieftain's tower,Thronging to war in splendour and success;And after viewed them, when, within their power,Himself awhile the victim of distress;That saddening hour when bad men hotlier press:But these did shelter him beneath their roof,When less barbarians would have cheered him less,And fellow-countrymen have stood aloof—In aught that tries the heart how few withstand the proof!
LXVII.
It chanced that adverse winds once drove his barkFull on the coast of Suli's shaggy shore,When all around was desolate and dark;To land was perilous, to sojourn more;Yet for awhile the mariners forbore,Dubious to trust where treachery might lurk:At length they ventured forth, though doubting soreThat those who loathe alike the Frank and TurkMight once again renew their ancient butcher-work.
LXVIII.
Vain fear! the Suliotes stretched the welcome hand,Led them o'er rocks and past the dangerous swamp,Kinder than polished slaves, though not so bland,And piled the hearth, and wrung their garments damp,And filled the bowl, and trimmed the cheerful lamp,And spread their fare: though homely, all they had:Such conduct bears Philanthropy's rare stamp—To rest the weary and to soothe the sad,Doth lesson happier men, and shames at least the bad.
LXIX.
It came to pass, that when he did addressHimself to quit at length this mountain land,Combined marauders half-way barred egress,And wasted far and near with glaive and brand;And therefore did he take a trusty bandTo traverse Acarnania forest wide,In war well-seasoned, and with labours tanned,Till he did greet white Achelous' tide,And from his farther bank AEtolia's wolds espied.
LXX.
Where lone Utraikey forms its circling cove,And weary waves retire to gleam at rest,How brown the foliage of the green hill's grove,Nodding at midnight o'er the calm bay's breast,As winds come whispering lightly from the west,Kissing, not ruffling, the blue deep's serene:Here Harold was received a welcome guest;Nor did he pass unmoved the gentle scene,For many a joy could he from night's soft presence glean.
LXXI.
On the smooth shore the night-fires brightly blazed,The feast was done, the red wine circling fast,And he that unawares had there ygazedWith gaping wonderment had stared aghast;For ere night's midmost, stillest hour was past,The native revels of the troop began;Each palikar his sabre from him cast,And bounding hand in hand, man linked to man,Yelling their uncouth dirge, long danced the kirtled clan.
LXXII.
Childe Harold at a little distance stood,And viewed, but not displeased, the revelrie,Nor hated harmless mirth, however rude:In sooth, it was no vulgar sight to seeTheir barbarous, yet their not indecent, glee:And as the flames along their faces gleamed,Their gestures nimble, dark eyes flashing free,The long wild locks that to their girdles streamed,While thus in concert they this lay half sang, half screamed:
Tambourgi! Tambourgi! thy larum afarGives hope to the valiant, and promise of war;All the sons of the mountains arise at the note,Chimariot, Illyrian, and dark Suliote!
Oh! who is more brave than a dark Suliote,To his snowy camese and his shaggy capote?To the wolf and the vulture he leaves his wild flock,And descends to the plain like the stream from the rock.
Shall the sons of Chimari, who never forgiveThe fault of a friend, bid an enemy live?Let those guns so unerring such vengeance forego?What mark is so fair as the breast of a foe?
Macedonia sends forth her invincible race;For a time they abandon the cave and the chase:But those scarves of blood-red shall be redder, beforeThe sabre is sheathed and the battle is o'er.
Then the pirates of Parga that dwell by the waves,And teach the pale Franks what it is to be slaves,Shall leave on the beach the long galley and oar,And track to his covert the captive on shore.
I ask not the pleasure that riches supply,My sabre shall win what the feeble must buy:Shall win the young bride with her long flowing hair,And many a maid from her mother shall tear.
I love the fair face of the maid in her youth;Her caresses shall lull me, her music shall soothe:Let her bring from her chamber the many-toned lyre,And sing us a song on the fall of her sire.
Remember the moment when Previsa fell,The shrieks of the conquered, the conqueror's yell;The roofs that we fired, and the plunder we shared,The wealthy we slaughtered, the lovely we spared.
I talk not of mercy, I talk not of fear;He neither must know who would serve the Vizier;Since the days of our prophet, the crescent ne'er sawA chief ever glorious like Ali Pasha.
Dark Muchtar his son to the Danube is sped,Let the yellow-haired Giaours view his horsetail with dread;When his Delhis come dashing in blood o'er the banks,How few shall escape from the Muscovite ranks!
Selictar! unsheath then our chief's scimitar:Tambourgi! thy larum gives promise of war.Ye mountains that see us descend to the shore,Shall view us as victors, or view us no more!
LXXIII.
Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth!Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great!Who now shall lead thy scattered children forth,And long accustomed bondage uncreate?Not such thy sons who whilome did await,The hopeless warriors of a willing doom,In bleak Thermopylae's sepulchral strait—Oh, who that gallant spirit shall resume,Leap from Eurotas' banks, and call thee from the tomb?
LXXIV.
Spirit of Freedom! when on Phyle's browThou sat'st with Thrasybulus and his train,Couldst thou forbode the dismal hour which nowDims the green beauties of thine Attic plain?Not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain,But every carle can lord it o'er thy land;Nor rise thy sons, but idly rail in vain,Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish hand,From birth till death enslaved; in word, in deed, unmanned.
LXXV.
In all save form alone, how changed! and whoThat marks the fire still sparkling in each eye,Who would but deem their bosom burned anewWith thy unquenched beam, lost Liberty!And many dream withal the hour is nighThat gives them back their fathers' heritage:For foreign arms and aid they fondly sigh,Nor solely dare encounter hostile rage,Or tear their name defiled from Slavery's mournful page.
LXXVI.
Hereditary bondsmen! know ye notWho would be free themselves must strike the blow?By their right arms the conquest must be wrought?Will Gaul or Muscovite redress ye? No!True, they may lay your proud despoilers low,But not for you will Freedom's altars flame.Shades of the Helots! triumph o'er your foe:Greece! change thy lords, thy state is still the same;Thy glorious day is o'er, but not thy years of shame.
LXXVII.
The city won for Allah from the Giaour,The Giaour from Othman's race again may wrest;And the Serai's impenetrable towerReceive the fiery Frank, her former guest;Or Wahab's rebel brood, who dared divestThe 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 prepareTo shrive from man his weight of mortal sin,By daily abstinence and nightly prayer;But ere his sackcloth garb Repentance wear,Some days of joyaunce are decreed to all,To take of pleasaunce each his secret share,In motley robe to dance at masking ball,And join the mimic train of merry Carnival.
LXXIX.
And whose more rife with merriment than thine,O Stamboul! once the empress of their reign?Though turbans now pollute Sophia's shrineAnd Greece her very altars eyes in vain:(Alas! her woes will still pervade my strain!)Gay were her minstrels once, for free her throng,All felt the common joy they now must feign;Nor oft I've seen such sight, nor heard such song,As wooed the eye, and thrilled the Bosphorus along.
LXXX.
Loud was the lightsome tumult on the shore;Oft Music changed, but never ceased her tone,And timely echoed back the measured oar,And rippling waters made a pleasant moan:The Queen of tides on high consenting shone;And when a transient breeze swept o'er the wave,'Twas as if, darting from her heavenly throne,A brighter glance her form reflected gave,Till sparkling billows seemed to light the banks they lave.
LXXXI.
Glanced many a light caique along the foam,Danced on the shore the daughters of the land,No thought had man or maid of rest or home,While many a languid eye and thrilling handExchanged the look few bosoms may withstand,Or gently pressed, returned the pressure still:Oh Love! young Love! bound in thy rosy band,Let sage or cynic prattle as he will,These hours, and only these, redeemed Life's years of ill!
LXXXII.
But, midst the throng in merry masquerade,Lurk there no hearts that throb with secret pain,E'en through the closest searment half-betrayed?To such the gentle murmurs of the mainSeem to re-echo all they mourn in vain;To such the gladness of the gamesome crowdIs source of wayward thought and stern disdain:How do they loathe the laughter idly loud,And long to change the robe of revel for the shroud!
LXXXIII.
This must he feel, the true-born son of Greece,If Greece one true-born patriot can boast:Not such as prate of war but skulk in peace,The bondsman's peace, who sighs for all he lost,Yet with smooth smile his tyrant can accost,And wield the slavish sickle, not the sword:Ah, Greece! they love thee least who owe thee most—Their birth, their blood, and that sublime recordOf hero sires, who shame thy now degenerate horde!
LXXXIV.
When riseth Lacedaemon's hardihood,When Thebes Epaminondas rears again,When Athens' children are with hearts endued,When Grecian mothers shall give birth to men,Then mayst thou be restored; but not till then.A thousand years scarce serve to form a state;An hour may lay it in the dust: and whenCan man its shattered splendour renovate,Recall its virtues back, and vanquish Time and Fate?
LXXXV.
And yet how lovely in thine age of woe,Land of lost gods and godlike men, art thou!Thy vales of evergreen, thy hills of snow,Proclaim thee Nature's varied favourite now;Thy fanes, thy temples to the surface bow,Commingling slowly with heroic earth,Broke by the share of every rustic plough:So perish monuments of mortal birth,So perish all in turn, save well-recorded worth;
LXXXVI.
Save where some solitary column mournsAbove its prostrate brethren of the cave;Save where Tritonia's airy shrine adornsColonna's cliff, and gleams along the wave;Save o'er some warrior's half-forgotten grave,Where the grey stones and unmolested grassAges, but not oblivion, feebly brave,While strangers only not regardless pass,Lingering like me, perchance, to gaze, and sigh 'Alas!'
LXXXVII.
Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild:Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields,Thine olives ripe as when Minerva smiled,And still his honeyed wealth Hymettus yields;There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds,The freeborn wanderer of thy mountain air;Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds,Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare;Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair.
LXXXVIII.
Where'er we tread, 'tis haunted, holy ground;No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould,But one vast realm of wonder spreads around,And all the Muse's tales seem truly told,Till the sense aches with gazing to beholdThe scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon:Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold,Defies the power which crushed thy temples gone:Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon.
LXXXIX.
The sun, the soil, but not the slave, the same;Unchanged in all except its foreign lord—Preserves alike its bounds and boundless fame;The battle-field, where Persia's victim hordeFirst bowed beneath the brunt of Hellas' sword,As on the morn to distant Glory dear,When Marathon became a magic word;Which uttered, to the hearer's eye appearThe camp, the host, the fight, the conqueror's career.
XC.
The flying Mede, his shaftless broken bow;The fiery Greek, his red pursuing spear;Mountains above, Earth's, Ocean's plain below;Death in the front, Destruction in the rear!Such was the scene—what now remaineth here?What sacred trophy marks the hallowed ground,Recording Freedom's smile and Asia's tear?The rifled urn, the violated mound,The dust thy courser's hoof, rude stranger! spurns around.
XCI.
Yet to the remnants of thy splendour pastShall 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 tongueFill with thy fame the youth of many a shore:Boast of the aged! lesson of the young!Which sages venerate and bards adore,As Pallas and the Muse unveil their awful lore.
XCII.
The parted bosom clings to wonted home,If aught that's kindred cheer the welcome hearth;He that is lonely, hither let him roam,And gaze complacent on congenial earth.Greece is no lightsome land of social mirth;But he whom Sadness sootheth may abide,And scarce regret the region of his birth,When wandering slow by Delphi's sacred side,Or gazing o'er the plains where Greek and Persian died.
XCIII.
Let such approach this consecrated land,And pass in peace along the magic waste:But spare its relics—let no busy handDeface the scenes, already how defaced!Not for such purpose were these altars placed.Revere the remnants nations once revered;So may our country's name be undisgraced,So mayst thou prosper where thy youth was reared,By every honest joy of love and life endeared!
XCIV.
For thee, who thus in too protracted songHath soothed thine idlesse with inglorious lays,Soon shall thy voice be lost amid the throngOf louder minstrels in these later days:To such resign the strife for fading bays—Ill may such contest now the spirit moveWhich heeds nor keen reproach nor partial praise,Since cold each kinder heart that might approve,And none are left to please where none are left to love.
XCV.
Thou too art gone, thou loved and lovely one!Whom youth and youth's affections bound to me;Who did for me what none beside have done,Nor shrank from one albeit unworthy thee.What is my being? thou hast ceased to be!Nor stayed to welcome here thy wanderer home,Who mourns o'er hours which we no more shall see—Would they had never been, or were to come!Would he had ne'er returned to find fresh cause to roam!
XCVI.
Oh! ever loving, lovely, and beloved!How selfish Sorrow ponders on the past,And clings to thoughts now better far removed!But Time shall tear thy shadow from me last.All thou couldst have of mine, stern Death, thou hast:The parent, friend, and now the more than friend;Ne'er yet for one thine arrows flew so fast,And grief with grief continuing still to blend,Hath snatched the little joy that life had yet to lend.
XCVII.
Then must I plunge again into the crowd,And follow all that Peace disdains to seek?Where Revel calls, and Laughter, vainly loud,False to the heart, distorts the hollow cheek,To leave the flagging spirit doubly weak!Still o'er the features, which perforce they cheer,To feign the pleasure or conceal the pique;Smiles form the channel of a future tear,Or raise the writhing lip with ill-dissembled sneer.
XCVIII.
What is the worst of woes that wait on age?What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?To view each loved one blotted from life's page,And be alone on earth, as I am now.Before the Chastener humbly let me bow,O'er hearts divided and o'er hopes destroyed:Roll on, vain days! full reckless may ye flow,Since Time hath reft whate'er my soul enjoyed,And with the ills of eld mine earlier years alloyed.
I.
Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child!Ada! sole daughter of my house and heart?When last I saw thy young blue eyes, they smiled,And then we parted,—not as now we part,But with a hope.—Awaking with a start,The waters heave around me; and on highThe 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 steedThat knows his rider. Welcome to their roar!Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead!Though the strained mast should quiver as a reed,And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale,Still must I on; for I am as a weed,Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam, to sailWhere'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 windBears the cloud onwards: in that tale I findThe furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears,Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track behind,O'er which all heavily the journeying yearsPlod 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 vainI 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 dreamOf selfish grief or gladness—so it flingForgetfulness around me—it shall seemTo 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 belowCan love or sorrow, fame, ambition, strife,Cut to his heart again with the keen knifeOf silent, sharp endurance: he can tellWhy thought seeks refuge in lone caves, yet rifeWith airy images, and shapes which dwellStill unimpaired, though old, in the soul's haunted cell.
VI.
'Tis to create, and in creating liveA being more intense, that we endowWith form our fancy, gaining as we giveThe 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 glowMixed with thy spirit, blended with thy birth,And feeling still with thee in my crushed feelings' dearth.
VII.
Yet must I think less wildly: I HAVE thoughtToo long and darkly, till my brain became,In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought,A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame:And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame,My springs of life were poisoned. 'Tis too late!Yet am I changed; though still enough the sameIn strength to bear what time cannot abate,And feed on bitter fruits without accusing fate.
VIII.
Something too much of this: but now 'tis past,And the spell closes with its silent seal.Long-absent Harold reappears at last;He of the breast which fain no more would feel,Wrung with the wounds which kill not, but ne'er heal;Yet Time, who changes all, had altered himIn soul and aspect as in age: years stealFire from the mind as vigour from the limb;And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.
IX.
His had been quaffed too quickly, and he foundThe dregs were wormwood; but he filled again,And from a purer fount, on holier ground,And deemed its spring perpetual; but in vain!Still round him clung invisibly a chainWhich galled for ever, fettering though unseen,And heavy though it clanked not; worn with pain,Which pined although it spoke not, and grew keen,Entering with every step he took through many a scene.
X.
Secure in guarded coldness, he had mixedAgain in fancied safety with his kind,And deemed his spirit now so firmly fixedAnd sheathed with an invulnerable mind,That, if no joy, no sorrow lurked behind;And he, as one, might midst the many standUnheeded, searching through the crowd to findFit speculation; such as in strange landHe found in wonder-works of God and Nature's hand.
XI.
But who can view the ripened rose, nor seekTo wear it? who can curiously beholdThe smoothness and the sheen of beauty's cheek,Nor feel the heart can never all grow old?Who can contemplate fame through clouds unfoldThe star which rises o'er her steep, nor climb?Harold, once more within the vortex rolledOn 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 unfitOf men to herd with Man; with whom he heldLittle in common; untaught to submitHis thoughts to others, though his soul was quelled,In youth by his own thoughts; still uncompelled,He would not yield dominion of his mindTo spirits against whom his own rebelled;Proud though in desolation; which could findA life within itself, to breathe without mankind.
XIII.
Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends;Where rolled the ocean, thereon was his home;Where a blue sky, and glowing clime, extends,He had the passion and the power to roam;The desert, forest, cavern, breaker's foam,Were unto him companionship; they spakeA mutual language, clearer than the tomeOf his land's tongue, which he would oft forsakeFor nature's pages glassed by sunbeams on the lake.
XIV.
Like the Chaldean, he could watch the stars,Till he had peopled them with beings brightAs their own beams; and earth, and earth-born jars,And human frailties, were forgotten quite:Could he have kept his spirit to that flight,He had been happy; but this clay will sinkIts spark immortal, envying it the lightTo which it mounts, as if to break the linkThat keeps us from yon heaven which woos us to its brink.
XV.
But in Man's dwellings he became a thingRestless and worn, and stern and wearisome,Drooped as a wild-born falcon with clipt wing,To whom the boundless air alone were home:Then came his fit again, which to o'ercome,As eagerly the barred-up bird will beatHis breast and beak against his wiry domeTill the blood tinge his plumage, so the heatOf his impeded soul would through his bosom eat.
XVI.
Self-exiled Harold wanders forth again,With naught of hope left, but with less of gloom;The very knowledge that he lived in vain,That all was over on this side the tomb,Had made Despair a smilingness assume,Which, though 'twere wild—as on the plundered wreckWhen mariners would madly meet their doomWith draughts intemperate on the sinking deck—Did yet inspire a cheer, which he forbore to check.
XVII.
Stop! for thy tread is on an empire's dust!An earthquake's spoil is sepulchred below!Is the spot marked with no colossal bust?Nor column trophied for triumphal show?None; but the moral's truth tells simpler so,As the ground was before, thus let it be;—How that red rain hath made the harvest grow!And is this all the world has gained by thee,Thou first and last of fields! king-making Victory?
XVIII.
And Harold stands upon this place of skulls,The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo!How in an hour the power which gave annulsIts gifts, transferring fame as fleeting too!In 'pride of place' here last the eagle flew,Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain,Pierced by the shaft of banded nations through:Ambition's life and labours all were vain;He wears the shattered links of the world's broken chain.
XIX.
Fit retribution! Gaul may champ the bit,And foam in fetters, but is Earth more free?Did nations combat to make ONE submit;Or league to teach all kings true sovereignty?What! shall reviving thraldom again beThe patched-up idol of enlightened days?Shall we, who struck the Lion down, shall wePay the Wolf homage? proffering lowly gazeAnd servile knees to thrones? No; PROVE before ye praise!
XX.
If not, o'er one fall'n despot boast no more!In vain fair cheeks were furrowed with hot tearsFor Europe's flowers long rooted up beforeThe trampler of her vineyards; in vain yearsOf death, depopulation, bondage, fears,Have all been borne, and broken by the accordOf roused-up millions: all that most endearsGlory, is when the myrtle wreathes a swordSuch as Harmodius drew on Athens' tyrant lord.
XXI.
There was a sound of revelry by night,And Belgium's capital had gathered thenHer Beauty and her Chivalry, and brightThe lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men;A thousand hearts beat happily; and whenMusic arose with its voluptuous swell,Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,And all went merry as a marriage bell;But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!
XXII.
Did ye not hear it?—No; 'twas but the wind,Or the car rattling o'er the stony street;On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meetTo chase the glowing Hours with flying feet.But hark!—that heavy sound breaks in once more,As if the clouds its echo would repeat;And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!Arm! arm! it is—it is—the cannon's opening roar!
XXIII.
Within a windowed niche of that high hallSate Brunswick's fated chieftain; he did hearThat sound, the first amidst the festival,And caught its tone with Death's prophetic ear;And when they smiled because he deemed it near,His heart more truly knew that peal too wellWhich stretched his father on a bloody bier,And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell:He rushed into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell.
XXIV.
Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,And cheeks all pale, which but an hour agoBlushed at the praise of their own loveliness;And there were sudden partings, such as pressThe life from out young hearts, and choking sighsWhich ne'er might be repeated: who would guessIf 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 drumRoused up the soldier ere the morning star;While thronged the citizens with terror dumb,Or whispering, with white lips—'The foe! They come! they come!'
XXVI.
And wild and high the 'Cameron's gathering' rose,The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hillsHave heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes:How in the noon of night that pibroch thrillsSavage and shrill! But with the breath which fillsTheir mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineersWith the fierce native daring which instilsThe stirring memory of a thousand years,And Evan's, Donald's fame rings in each clansman's ears.
XXVII.
And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves,Dewy with Nature's tear-drops, as they pass,Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves,Over the unreturniug brave,—alas!Ere evening to be trodden like the grassWhich now beneath them, but above shall growIn its next verdure, when this fiery massOf 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 dayBattle's magnificently stern array!The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rentThe earth is covered thick with other clay,Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent,Rider and horse,—friend, foe,—in one red burial blent!
XXIX.
Their praise is hymned by loftier harps than mine;Yet one I would select from that proud throng,Partly because they blend me with his line,And partly that I did his sire some wrong,And partly that bright names will hallow song;And his was of the bravest, and when showeredThe death-bolts deadliest the thinned files along,Even where the thickest of war's tempest lowered,They reached no nobler breast than thine, young, gallant Howard!
XXX.
There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee,And mine were nothing, had I such to give;But when I stood beneath the fresh green tree,Which living waves where thou didst cease to live,And saw around me the wild field reviveWith fruits and fertile promise, and the SpringCome forth her work of gladness to contrive,With all her reckless birds upon the wing,I turned from all she brought to those she could not bring.
XXXI.