canto the second i come blue eyed maid of heaven but thou alas didst never yet one mortal song inspire goddess of wisdom here thy temple was and is despite of war and wasting fire and years that bade thy worship to expire but worse than steel and flame and ages slow is the drear sceptre and dominion dire of men who never felt the sacred glow that thoughts of thee and thine on polished breasts bestow ii ancient of days august athena where where are thy men of might thy grand in soul goneglimmering through the dream of things that were first in the race that led to glory s goal they won and passed awayis this the whole a schoolboy s tale the wonder of an hour the warrior s weapon and the sophist s stole are sought in vain and o er each mouldering tower dim with the mist of years grey flits the shade of power iii son of the morning rise approach you here comebut molest not yon defenceless urn look on this spota nation s sepulchre abode of gods whose shrines no longer burn e en gods must yieldreligions take their turn twas jove s tis mahomet s and other creeds will rise with other years till man shall learn vainly his incense soars his victim bleeds poor child of doubt and death whose hope is built on reeds iv bound to the earth he lifts his eyes to heaven is t not enough unhappy thing to know thou art is this a boon so kindly given that being thou wouldst be again and go thou know st not reck st not to what region so on earth no more but mingled with the skies still wilt thou dream on future joy and woe regard and weigh yon dust before it flies that little urn saith more than thousand homilies v or burst the vanished hero s lofty mound far on the solitary shore he sleeps he fell and falling nations mourned around but now not one of saddening thousands weeps nor warlike worshipper his vigil keeps where demi gods appeared as records tell remove yon skull from out the scattered heaps is that a temple where a god may dwell why e en the worm at last disdains her shattered cell vi look on its broken arch its ruined wall its chambers desolate and portals foul yes this was once ambition s airy hall the dome of thought the palace of the soul behold through each lack lustre eyeless hole the gay recess of wisdom and of wit and passion s host that never brooked control can all saint sage or sophist ever writ people this lonely tower this tenement refit vii well didst thou speak athena s wisest son all that we know is nothing can be known why should we shrink from what we cannot shun each hath its pang but feeble sufferers groan with brain born dreams of evil all their own pursue what chance or fate proclaimeth best peace waits us on the shores of acheron there no forced banquet claims the sated guest but silence spreads the couch of ever welcome rest viii yet if as holiest men have deemed there be a land of souls beyond that sable shore to shame the doctrine of the sadducee and sophists madly vain of dubious lore how sweet it were in concert to adore with those who made our mortal labours light to hear each voice we feared to hear no more behold each mighty shade revealed to sight the bactrian samian sage and all who taught the right ix there thou whose love and life together fled have left me here to love and live in vain twined with my heart and can i deem thee dead when busy memory flashes on my brain welli will dream that we may meet again and woo the vision to my vacant breast if aught of young remembrance then remain be as it may futurity s behest for me twere bliss enough to know thy spirit blest x here let me sit upon this mossy stone the marble column s yet unshaken base here son of saturn was thy favourite throne mightiest of many such hence let me trace the latent grandeur of thy dwelling place it may not be nor even can fancy s eye restore what time hath laboured to deface yet these proud pillars claim no passing sigh unmoved the moslem sits the light greek carols by xi but who of all the plunderers of yon fane on high where pallas lingered loth to flee the latest relic of her ancient reign the last the worst dull spoiler who was he blush caledonia such thy son could be england i joy no child he was of thine thy free born men should spare what once was free yet they could violate each saddening shrine and bear these altars o er the long reluctant brine xii but most the modern pict s ignoble boast to rive what goth and turk and time hath spared cold as the crags upon his native coast his mind as barren and his heart as hard is he whose head conceived whose hand prepared aught to displace athena s poor remains her sons too weak the sacred shrine to guard yet felt some portion of their mother s pains and never knew till then the weight of despot s chains xiii what shall it e er be said by british tongue albion was happy in athena s tears though in thy name the slaves her bosom wrung tell not the deed to blushing europe s ears the ocean queen the free britannia bears the last poor plunder from a bleeding land yes she whose generous aid her name endears tore down those remnants with a harpy s hand which envious eld forbore and tyrants left to stand xiv where was thine aegis pallas that appalled stern alaric and havoc on their way where peleus son whom hell in vain enthralled his shade from hades upon that dread day bursting to light in terrible array what could not pluto spare the chief once more to scare a second robber from his prey idly he wandered on the stygian shore nor now preserved the walls he loved to shield before xv cold is the heart fair greece that looks on thee nor feels as lovers o er the dust they loved dull is the eye that will not weep to see thy walls defaced thy mouldering shrines removed by british hands which it had best behoved to guard those relics ne er to be restored curst be the hour when from their isle they roved and once again thy hapless bosom gored and snatched thy shrinking gods to northern climes abhorred xvi but where is harold shall i then forget to urge the gloomy wanderer o er the wave little recked he of all that men regret no loved one now in feigned lament could rave no friend the parting hand extended gave ere the cold stranger passed to other climes hard is his heart whom charms may not enslave but harold felt not as in other times and left without a sigh the land of war and crimes xvii he that has sailed upon the dark blue sea has viewed at times i ween a full fair sight when the fresh breeze is fair as breeze may be the white sails set the gallant frigate tight masts spires and strand retiring to the right the glorious main expanding o er the bow the convoy spread like wild swans in their flight the dullest sailer wearing bravely now so gaily curl the waves before each dashing prow xviii and oh the little warlike world within the well reeved guns the netted canopy the hoarse command the busy humming din when at a word the tops are manned on high hark to the boatswain s call the cheering cry while through the seaman s hand the tackle glides or schoolboy midshipman that standing by strains his shrill pipe as good or ill betides and well the docile crew that skilful urchin guides xix white is the glassy deck without a stain where on the watch the staid lieutenant walks look on that part which sacred doth remain for the lone chieftain who majestic stalks silent and feared by all not oft he talks with aught beneath him if he would preserve that strict restraint which broken ever baulks conquest and fame but britons rarely swerve from law however stern which tends their strength to nerve xx blow swiftly blow thou keel compelling gale till the broad sun withdraws his lessening ray then must the pennant bearer slacken sail that lagging barks may make their lazy way ah grievance sore and listless dull delay to waste on sluggish hulks the sweetest breeze what leagues are lost before the dawn of day thus loitering pensive on the willing seas the flapping sails hauled down to halt for logs like these xxi the moon is up by heaven a lovely eve long streams of light o er dancing waves expand now lads on shore may sigh and maids believe such be our fate when we return to land meantime some rude arion s restless hand wakes the brisk harmony that sailors love a circle there of merry listeners stand or to some well known measure featly move thoughtless as if on shore they still were free to rove xxii through calpe s straits survey the steepy shore europe and afric on each other gaze lands of the dark eyed maid and dusky moor alike beheld beneath pale hecate s blaze how softly on the spanish shore she plays disclosing rock and slope and forest brown distinct though darkening with her waning phase but mauritania s giant shadows frown from mountain cliff to coast descending sombre down xxiii tis night when meditation bids us feel we once have loved though love is at an end the heart lone mourner of its baffled zeal though friendless now will dream it had a friend who with the weight of years would wish to bend when youth itself survives young love and joy alas when mingling souls forget to blend death hath but little left him to destroy ah happy years once more who would not be a boy xxiv thus bending o er the vessel s laving side to gaze on dian s wave reflected sphere the soul forgets her schemes of hope and pride and flies unconscious o er each backward year none are so desolate but something dear dearer than self possesses or possessed a thought and claims the homage of a tear a flashing pang of which the weary breast would still albeit in vain the heavy heart divest xxv to sit on rocks to muse o er flood and fell to slowly trace the forest s shady scene where things that own not man s dominion dwell and mortal foot hath ne er or rarely been to climb the trackless mountain all unseen with the wild flock that never needs a fold alone o er steeps and foaming falls to lean this is not solitude tis but to hold converse with nature s charms and view her stores unrolled xxvi but midst the crowd the hum the shock of men to hear to see to feel and to possess and roam along the world s tired denizen with none who bless us none whom we can bless minions of splendour shrinking from distress none that with kindred consciousness endued if we were not would seem to smile the less of all that flattered followed sought and sued this is to be alone this this is solitude xxvii more blest the life of godly eremite such as on lonely athos may be seen watching at eve upon the giant height which looks o er waves so blue skies so serene that he who there at such an hour hath been will wistful linger on that hallowed spot then slowly tear him from the witching scene sigh forth one wish that such had been his lot then turn to hate a world he had almost forgot xxviii pass we the long unvarying course the track oft trod that never leaves a trace behind pass we the calm the gale the change the tack and each well known caprice of wave and wind pass we the joys and sorrows sailors find cooped in their winged sea girt citadel the foul the fair the contrary the kind as breezes rise and fall and billows swell till on some jocund mornlo land and all is well xxix but not in silence pass calypso s isles the sister tenants of the middle deep there for the weary still a haven smiles though the fair goddess long has ceased to weep and o er her cliffs a fruitless watch to keep for him who dared prefer a mortal bride here too his boy essayed the dreadful leap stern mentor urged from high to yonder tide while thus of both bereft the nymph queen doubly sighed xxx her reign is past her gentle glories gone but trust not this too easy youth beware a mortal sovereign holds her dangerous throne and thou mayst find a new calypso there sweet florence could another ever share this wayward loveless heart it would be thine but checked by every tie i may not dare to cast a worthless offering at thy shrine nor ask so dear a breast to feel one pang for mine xxxi thus harold deemed as on that lady s eye he looked and met its beam without a thought save admiration glancing harmless by love kept aloof albeit not far remote who knew his votary often lost and caught but knew him as his worshipper no more and ne er again the boy his bosom sought since now he vainly urged him to adore well deemed the little god his ancient sway was o er xxxii fair florence found in sooth with some amaze one who twas said still sighed to all he saw withstand unmoved the lustre of her gaze which others hailed with real or mimic awe their hope their doom their punishment their law all that gay beauty from her bondsmen claims and much she marvelled that a youth so raw nor felt nor feigned at least the oft told flames which though sometimes they frown yet rarely anger dames xxxiii little knew she that seeming marble heart now masked by silence or withheld by pride was not unskilful in the spoiler s art and spread its snares licentious far and wide nor from the base pursuit had turned aside as long as aught was worthy to pursue but harold on such arts no more relied and had he doted on those eyes so blue yet never would he join the lover s whining crew xxxiv not much he kens i ween of woman s breast who thinks that wanton thing is won by sighs what careth she for hearts when once possessed do proper homage to thine idol s eyes but not too humbly or she will despise thee and thy suit though told in moving tropes disguise e en tenderness if thou art wise brisk confidence still best with woman copes pique her and soothe in turn soon passion crowns thy hopes xxxv tis an old lesson time approves it true and those who know it best deplore it most when all is won that all desire to woo the paltry prize is hardly worth the cost youth wasted minds degraded honour lost these are thy fruits successful passion these if kindly cruel early hope is crossed still to the last it rankles a disease not to be cured when love itself forgets to please xxxvi away nor let me loiter in my song for we have many a mountain path to tread and many a varied shore to sail along by pensive sadness not by fiction led climes fair withal as ever mortal head imagined in its little schemes of thought or e er in new utopias were read to teach man what he might be or he ought if that corrupted thing could ever such be taught xxxvii dear nature is the kindest mother still though always changing in her aspect mild from her bare bosom let me take my fill her never weaned though not her favoured child oh she is fairest in her features wild where nothing polished dares pollute her path to me by day or night she ever smiled though i have marked her when none other hath and sought her more and more and loved her best in wrath xxxviii land of albania where iskander rose theme of the young and beacon of the wise and he his namesake whose oft baffled foes shrunk from his deeds of chivalrous emprise land of albania let me bend mine eyes on thee thou rugged nurse of savage men the cross descends thy minarets arise and the pale crescent sparkles in the glen through many a cypress grove within each city s ken xxxix childe harold sailed and passed the barren spot where sad penelope o erlooked the wave and onward viewed the mount not yet forgot the lover s refuge and the lesbian s grave dark sappho could not verse immortal save that breast imbued with such immortal fire could she not live who life eternal gave if life eternal may await the lyre that only heaven to which earth s children may aspire xl twas on a grecian autumn s gentle eve childe harold hailed leucadia s cape afar a spot he longed to see nor cared to leave oft did he mark the scenes of vanished war actium lepanto fatal trafalgar mark them unmoved for he would not delight in themes of bloody fray or gallant fight but loathed the bravo s trade and laughed at martial wight xli but when he saw the evening star above leucadia s far projecting rock of woe and hailed the last resort of fruitless love he felt or deemed he felt no common glow and as the stately vessel glided slow beneath the shadow of that ancient mount he watched the billows melancholy flow and sunk albeit in thought as he was wont more placid seemed his eye and smooth his pallid front xlii morn dawns and with it stern albania s hills dark suli s rocks and pindus inland peak robed half in mist bedewed with snowy rills arrayed in many a dun and purple streak arise and as the clouds along them break disclose the dwelling of the mountaineer here roams the wolf the eagle whets his beak birds beasts of prey and wilder men appear and gathering storms around convulse the closing year xliii now harold felt himself at length alone and bade to christian tongues a long adieu now he adventured on a shore unknown which all admire but many dread to view his breast was armed gainst fate his wants were few peril he sought not but ne er shrank to meet the scene was savage but the scene was new this made the ceaseless toil of travel sweet beat back keen winter s blast and welcomed summer s heat xliv here the red cross for still the cross is here though sadly scoffed at by the circumcised forgets that pride to pampered priesthood dear churchman and votary alike despised foul superstition howsoe er disguised idol saint virgin prophet crescent cross for whatsoever symbol thou art prized thou sacerdotal gain but general loss who from true worship s gold can separate thy dross xlv ambracia s gulf behold where once was lost a world for woman lovely harmless thing in yonder rippling bay their naval host did many a roman chief and asian king to doubtful conflict certain slaughter bring look where the second caesar s trophies rose now like the hands that reared them withering imperial anarchs doubling human woes god was thy globe ordained for such to win and lose xlvi from the dark barriers of that rugged clime e en to the centre of illyria s vales childe harold passed o er many a mount sublime through lands scarce noticed in historic tales yet in famed attica such lovely dales are rarely seen nor can fair tempe boast a charm they know not loved parnassus fails though classic ground and consecrated most to match some spots that lurk within this lowering coast xlvii he passed bleak pindus acherusia s lake and left the primal city of the land and onwards did his further journey take to greet albania s chief whose dread command is lawless law for with a bloody hand he sways a nation turbulent and bold yet here and there some daring mountain band disdain his power and from their rocky hold hurl their defiance far nor yield unless to gold xlviii monastic zitza from thy shady brow thou small but favoured spot of holy ground where er we gaze around above below what rainbow tints what magic charms are found rock river forest mountain all abound and bluest skies that harmonise the whole beneath the distant torrent s rushing sound tells where the volumed cataract doth roll between those hanging rocks that shock yet please the soul xlix amidst the grove that crowns yon tufted hill which were it not for many a mountain nigh rising in lofty ranks and loftier still might well itself be deemed of dignity the convent s white walls glisten fair on high here dwells the caloyer nor rude is he nor niggard of his cheer the passer by is welcome still nor heedless will he flee from hence if he delight kind nature s sheen to see l here in the sultriest season let him rest fresh is the green beneath those aged trees here winds of gentlest wing will fan his breast from heaven itself he may inhale the breeze the plain is far beneathoh let him seize pure pleasure while he can the scorching ray here pierceth not impregnate with disease then let his length the loitering pilgrim lay and gaze untired the morn the noon the eve away li dusky and huge enlarging on the sight nature s volcanic amphitheatre chimera s alps extend from left to right beneath a living valley seems to stir flocks play trees wave streams flow the mountain fir nodding above behold black acheron once consecrated to the sepulchre pluto if this be hell i look upon close shamed elysium s gates my shade shall seek for none lii no city s towers pollute the lovely view unseen is yanina though not remote veiled by the screen of hills here men are few scanty the hamlet rare the lonely cot but peering down each precipice the goat browseth and pensive o er his scattered flock the little shepherd in his white capote doth lean his boyish form along the rock or in his cave awaits the tempest s short lived shock liii oh where dodona is thine aged grove prophetic fount and oracle divine what valley echoed the response of jove what trace remaineth of the thunderer s shrine all all forgottenand shall man repine that his frail bonds to fleeting life are broke cease fool the fate of gods may well be thine wouldst thou survive the marble or the oak when nations tongues and worlds must sink beneath the stroke liv epirus bounds recede and mountains fail tired of up gazing still the wearied eye reposes gladly on as smooth a vale as ever spring yclad in grassy dye e en on a plain no humble beauties lie where some bold river breaks the long expanse and woods along the banks are waving high whose shadows in the glassy waters dance or with the moonbeam sleep in midnight s solemn trance lv the sun had sunk behind vast tomerit the laos wide and fierce came roaring by the shades of wonted night were gathering yet when down the steep banks winding wearily childe harold saw like meteors in the sky the glittering minarets of tepalen whose walls o erlook the stream and drawing nigh he heard the busy hum of warrior men swelling the breeze that sighed along the lengthening glen lvi he passed the sacred harem s silent tower and underneath the wide o erarching gate surveyed the dwelling of this chief of power where all around proclaimed his high estate amidst no common pomp the despot sate while busy preparation shook the court slaves eunuchs soldiers guests and santons wait within a palace and without a fort here men of every clime appear to make resort lvii richly caparisoned a ready row of armed horse and many a warlike store circled the wide extending court below above strange groups adorned the corridor and ofttimes through the area s echoing door some high capped tartar spurred his steed away the turk the greek the albanian and the moor here mingled in their many hued array while the deep war drum s sound announced the close of day lviii the wild albanian kirtled to his knee with shawl girt head and ornamented gun and gold embroidered garments fair to see the crimson scarfed men of macedon the delhi with his cap of terror on and crooked glaive the lively supple greek and swarthy nubia s mutilated son the bearded turk that rarely deigns to speak master of all around too potent to be meek lix are mixed conspicuous some recline in groups scanning the motley scene that varies round there some grave moslem to devotion stoops and some that smoke and some that play are found here the albanian proudly treads the ground half whispering there the greek is heard to prate hark from the mosque the nightly solemn sound the muezzin s call doth shake the minaret there is no god but god to prayerlo god is great lx just at this season ramazani s fast through the long day its penance did maintain but when the lingering twilight hour was past revel and feast assumed the rule again now all was bustle and the menial train prepared and spread the plenteous board within the vacant gallery now seemed made in vain but from the chambers came the mingling din as page and slave anon were passing out and in lxi here woman s voice is never heard apart and scarce permitted guarded veiled to move she yields to one her person and her heart tamed to her cage nor feels a wish to rove for not unhappy in her master s love and joyful in a mother s gentlest cares blest cares all other feelings far above herself more sweetly rears the babe she bears who never quits the breast no meaner passion shares lxii in marble paved pavilion where a spring of living water from the centre rose whose bubbling did a genial freshness fling and soft voluptuous couches breathed repose ali reclined a man of war and woes yet in his lineaments ye cannot trace while gentleness her milder radiance throws along that aged venerable face the deeds that lurk beneath and stain him with disgrace lxiii it is not that yon hoary lengthening beard ill suits the passions which belong to youth love conquers ageso hafiz hath averred so sings the teian and he sings in sooth but crimes that scorn the tender voice of ruth beseeming all men ill but most the man in years have marked him with a tiger s tooth blood follows blood and through their mortal span in bloodier acts conclude those who with blood began lxiv mid many things most new to ear and eye the pilgrim rested here his weary feet and gazed around on moslem luxury till quickly wearied with that spacious seat of wealth and wantonness the choice retreat of sated grandeur from the city s noise and were it humbler it in sooth were sweet but peace abhorreth artificial joys and pleasure leagued with pomp the zest of both destroys lxv fierce are albania s children yet they lack not virtues were those virtues more mature where is the foe that ever saw their back who can so well the toil of war endure their native fastnesses not more secure than they in doubtful time of troublous need their wrath how deadly but their friendship sure when gratitude or valour bids them bleed unshaken rushing on where er their chief may lead lxvi childe harold saw them in their chieftain s tower thronging to war in splendour and success and after viewed them when within their power himself awhile the victim of distress that saddening hour when bad men hotlier press but these did shelter him beneath their roof when less barbarians would have cheered him less and fellow countrymen have stood aloof in aught that tries the heart how few withstand the proof lxvii it chanced that adverse winds once drove his bark full on the coast of suli s shaggy shore when all around was desolate and dark to land was perilous to sojourn more yet for awhile the mariners forbore dubious to trust where treachery might lurk at length they ventured forth though doubting sore that those who loathe alike the frank and turk might once again renew their ancient butcher work lxviii vain fear the suliotes stretched the welcome hand led them o er rocks and past the dangerous swamp kinder than polished slaves though not so bland and piled the hearth and wrung their garments damp and filled the bowl and trimmed the cheerful lamp and spread their fare though homely all they had such conduct bears philanthropy s rare stamp to rest the weary and to soothe the sad doth lesson happier men and shames at least the bad lxix it came to pass that when he did address himself to quit at length this mountain land combined marauders half way barred egress and wasted far and near with glaive and brand and therefore did he take a trusty band to traverse acarnania forest wide in war well seasoned and with labours tanned till he did greet white achelous tide and from his farther bank aetolia s wolds espied lxx where lone utraikey forms its circling cove and weary waves retire to gleam at rest how brown the foliage of the green hill s grove nodding at midnight o er the calm bay s breast as winds come whispering lightly from the west kissing not ruffling the blue deep s serene here harold was received a welcome guest nor did he pass unmoved the gentle scene for many a joy could he from night s soft presence glean lxxi on the smooth shore the night fires brightly blazed the feast was done the red wine circling fast and he that unawares had there ygazed with gaping wonderment had stared aghast for ere night s midmost stillest hour was past the native revels of the troop began each palikar his sabre from him cast and bounding hand in hand man linked to man yelling their uncouth dirge long danced the kirtled clan lxxii childe harold at a little distance stood and viewed but not displeased the revelrie nor hated harmless mirth however rude in sooth it was no vulgar sight to see their barbarous yet their not indecent glee and as the flames along their faces gleamed their gestures nimble dark eyes flashing free the long wild locks that to their girdles streamed while thus in concert they this lay half sang half screamed tambourgi tambourgi thy larum afar gives hope to the valiant and promise of war all the sons of the mountains arise at the note chimariot illyrian and dark suliote oh who is more brave than a dark suliote to his snowy camese and his shaggy capote to the wolf and the vulture he leaves his wild flock and descends to the plain like the stream from the rock shall the sons of chimari who never forgive the fault of a friend bid an enemy live let those guns so unerring such vengeance forego what mark is so fair as the breast of a foe macedonia sends forth her invincible race for a time they abandon the cave and the chase but those scarves of blood red shall be redder before the sabre is sheathed and the battle is o er then the pirates of parga that dwell by the waves and teach the pale franks what it is to be slaves shall leave on the beach the long galley and oar and track to his covert the captive on shore i ask not the pleasure that riches supply my sabre shall win what the feeble must buy shall win the young bride with her long flowing hair and many a maid from her mother shall tear i love the fair face of the maid in her youth her caresses shall lull me her music shall soothe let her bring from her chamber the many toned lyre and sing us a song on the fall of her sire remember the moment when previsa fell the shrieks of the conquered the conqueror s yell the roofs that we fired and the plunder we shared the wealthy we slaughtered the lovely we spared i talk not of mercy i talk not of fear he neither must know who would serve the vizier since the days of our prophet the crescent ne er saw a chief ever glorious like ali pasha dark muchtar his son to the danube is sped let the yellow haired giaours view his horsetail with dread when his delhis come dashing in blood o er the banks how few shall escape from the muscovite ranks selictar unsheath then our chief s scimitar tambourgi thy larum gives promise of war ye mountains that see us descend to the shore shall view us as victors or view us no more lxxiii fair greece sad relic of departed worth immortal though no more though fallen great who now shall lead thy scattered children forth and long accustomed bondage uncreate not such thy sons who whilome did await the hopeless warriors of a willing doom in bleak thermopylae s sepulchral strait oh who that gallant spirit shall resume leap from eurotas banks and call thee from the tomb lxxiv spirit of freedom when on phyle s brow thou sat st with thrasybulus and his train couldst thou forbode the dismal hour which now dims the green beauties of thine attic plain not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain but every carle can lord it o er thy land nor rise thy sons but idly rail in vain trembling beneath the scourge of turkish hand from birth till death enslaved in word in deed unmanned lxxv in all save form alone how changed and who that marks the fire still sparkling in each eye who would but deem their bosom burned anew with thy unquenched beam lost liberty and many dream withal the hour is nigh that gives them back their fathers heritage for foreign arms and aid they fondly sigh nor solely dare encounter hostile rage or tear their name defiled from slavery s mournful page lxxvi hereditary bondsmen know ye not who would be free themselves must strike the blow by their right arms the conquest must be wrought will gaul or muscovite redress ye no true they may lay your proud despoilers low but not for you will freedom s altars flame shades of the helots triumph o er your foe greece change thy lords thy state is still the same thy glorious day is o er but not thy years of shame lxxvii the city won for allah from the giaour the giaour from othman s race again may wrest and the serai s impenetrable tower receive the fiery frank her former guest or wahab s rebel brood who dared divest the prophet s tomb of all its pious spoil may wind their path of blood along the west but ne er will freedom seek this fated soil but slave succeed to slave through years of endless toil lxxviii yet mark their mirthere lenten days begin that penance which their holy rites prepare to shrive from man his weight of mortal sin by daily abstinence and nightly prayer but ere his sackcloth garb repentance wear some days of joyaunce are decreed to all to take of pleasaunce each his secret share in motley robe to dance at masking ball and join the mimic train of merry carnival lxxix and whose more rife with merriment than thine o stamboul once the empress of their reign though turbans now pollute sophia s shrine and greece her very altars eyes in vain gay were her minstrels once for free her throng all felt the common joy they now must feign nor oft i ve seen such sight nor heard such song as wooed the eye and thrilled the bosphorus along lxxx loud was the lightsome tumult on the shore oft music changed but never ceased her tone and timely echoed back the measured oar and rippling waters made a pleasant moan the queen of tides on high consenting shone and when a transient breeze swept o er the wave twas as if darting from her heavenly throne a brighter glance her form reflected gave till sparkling billows seemed to light the banks they lave lxxxi glanced many a light caique along the foam danced on the shore the daughters of the land no thought had man or maid of rest or home while many a languid eye and thrilling hand exchanged the look few bosoms may withstand or gently pressed returned the pressure still oh love young love bound in thy rosy band let sage or cynic prattle as he will these hours and only these redeemed life s years of ill lxxxii but midst the throng in merry masquerade lurk there no hearts that throb with secret pain e en through the closest searment half betrayed to such the gentle murmurs of the main seem to re echo all they mourn in vain to such the gladness of the gamesome crowd is source of wayward thought and stern disdain how do they loathe the laughter idly loud and long to change the robe of revel for the shroud lxxxiii this must he feel the true born son of greece if greece one true born patriot can boast not such as prate of war but skulk in peace the bondsman s peace who sighs for all he lost yet with smooth smile his tyrant can accost and wield the slavish sickle not the sword ah greece they love thee least who owe thee most their birth their blood and that sublime record of hero sires who shame thy now degenerate horde lxxxiv when riseth lacedaemon s hardihood when thebes epaminondas rears again when athens children are with hearts endued when grecian mothers shall give birth to men then mayst thou be restored but not till then a thousand years scarce serve to form a state an hour may lay it in the dust and when can man its shattered splendour renovate recall its virtues back and vanquish time and fate lxxxv and yet how lovely in thine age of woe land of lost gods and godlike men art thou thy vales of evergreen thy hills of snow proclaim thee nature s varied favourite now thy fanes thy temples to the surface bow commingling slowly with heroic earth broke by the share of every rustic plough so perish monuments of mortal birth so perish all in turn save well recorded worth lxxxvi save where some solitary column mourns above its prostrate brethren of the cave save where tritonia s airy shrine adorns colonna s cliff and gleams along the wave save o er some warrior s half forgotten grave where the grey stones and unmolested grass ages but not oblivion feebly brave while strangers only not regardless pass lingering like me perchance to gaze and sigh alas lxxxvii yet are thy skies as blue thy crags as wild sweet are thy groves and verdant are thy fields thine olives ripe as when minerva smiled and still his honeyed wealth hymettus yields there the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds the freeborn wanderer of thy mountain air apollo still thy long long summer gilds still in his beam mendeli s marbles glare art glory freedom fail but nature still is fair lxxxviii where er we tread tis haunted holy ground no earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould but one vast realm of wonder spreads around and all the muse s tales seem truly told till the sense aches with gazing to behold the scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon each hill and dale each deepening glen and wold defies the power which crushed thy temples gone age shakes athena s tower but spares gray marathon lxxxix the sun the soil but not the slave the same unchanged in all except its foreign lord preserves alike its bounds and boundless fame the battle field where persia s victim horde first bowed beneath the brunt of hellas sword as on the morn to distant glory dear when marathon became a magic word which uttered to the hearer s eye appear the camp the host the fight the conqueror s career xc the flying mede his shaftless broken bow the fiery greek his red pursuing spear mountains above earth s ocean s plain below death in the front destruction in the rear such was the scenewhat now remaineth here what sacred trophy marks the hallowed ground recording freedom s smile and asia s tear the rifled urn the violated mound the dust thy courser s hoof rude stranger spurns around xci yet to the remnants of thy splendour past shall pilgrims pensive but unwearied throng long shall the voyager with th ionian blast hail the bright clime of battle and of song long shall thine annals and immortal tongue fill with thy fame the youth of many a shore boast of the aged lesson of the young which sages venerate and bards adore as pallas and the muse unveil their awful lore xcii the parted bosom clings to wonted home if aught that s kindred cheer the welcome hearth he that is lonely hither let him roam and gaze complacent on congenial earth greece is no lightsome land of social mirth but he whom sadness sootheth may abide and scarce regret the region of his birth when wandering slow by delphi s sacred side or gazing o er the plains where greek and persian died xciii let such approach this consecrated land and pass in peace along the magic waste but spare its relicslet no busy hand deface the scenes already how defaced not for such purpose were these altars placed revere the remnants nations once revered so may our country s name be undisgraced so mayst thou prosper where thy youth was reared by every honest joy of love and life endeared xciv for thee who thus in too protracted song hath soothed thine idlesse with inglorious lays soon shall thy voice be lost amid the throng of louder minstrels in these later days to such resign the strife for fading bays ill may such contest now the spirit move which heeds nor keen reproach nor partial praise since cold each kinder heart that might approve and none are left to please where none are left to love xcv thou too art gone thou loved and lovely one whom youth and youth s affections bound to me who did for me what none beside have done nor shrank from one albeit unworthy thee what is my being thou hast ceased to be nor stayed to welcome here thy wanderer home who mourns o er hours which we no more shall see would they had never been or were to come would he had ne er returned to find fresh cause to roam xcvi oh ever loving lovely and beloved how selfish sorrow ponders on the past and clings to thoughts now better far removed but time shall tear thy shadow from me last all thou couldst have of mine stern death thou hast the parent friend and now the more than friend ne er yet for one thine arrows flew so fast and grief with grief continuing still to blend hath snatched the little joy that life had yet to lend xcvii then must i plunge again into the crowd and follow all that peace disdains to seek where revel calls and laughter vainly loud false to the heart distorts the hollow cheek to leave the flagging spirit doubly weak still o er the features which perforce they cheer to feign the pleasure or conceal the pique smiles form the channel of a future tear or raise the writhing lip with ill dissembled sneer xcviii what is the worst of woes that wait on age what stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow to view each loved one blotted from life s page and be alone on earth as i am now before the chastener humbly let me bow o er hearts divided and o er hopes destroyed roll on vain days full reckless may ye flow since time hath reft whate er my soul enjoyed and with the ills of eld mine earlier years alloyed canto the third i is thy face like thy mother s my fair child ada sole daughter of my house and heart when last i saw thy young blue eyes they smiled and then we parted not as now we part but with a hope awaking with a start the waters heave around me and on high the winds lift up their voices i depart whither i know not but the hour s gone by when albion s lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye ii once more upon the waters yet once more and the waves bound beneath me as a steed that knows his rider welcome to their roar swift be their guidance wheresoe er it lead though the strained mast should quiver as a reed and the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale still must i on for i am as a weed flung from the rock on ocean s foam to sail where er the surge may sweep the tempest s breath prevail iii in my youth s summer i did sing of one the wandering outlaw of his own dark mind again i seize the theme then but begun and bear it with me as the rushing wind bears the cloud onwards in that tale i find the furrows of long thought and dried up tears which ebbing leave a sterile track behind o er which all heavily the journeying years plod the last sands of lifewhere not a flower appears iv since my young days of passionjoy 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 gladnessso it fling forgetfulness around meit shall seem to me though to none else a not ungrateful theme v he who grown aged in this world of woe in deeds not years piercing the depths of life so that no wonder waits him nor below can love or sorrow fame ambition strife cut to his heart again with the keen knife of silent sharp endurance he can tell why thought seeks refuge in lone caves yet rife with airy images and shapes which dwell still unimpaired though old in the soul s haunted cell vi tis to create and in creating live a being more intense that we endow with form our fancy gaining as we give the life we image even as i do now what am i nothing but not so art thou soul of my thought with whom i traverse earth invisible but gazing as i glow mixed with thy spirit blended with thy birth and feeling still with thee in my crushed feelings dearth vii yet must i think less wildly i have thought too long and darkly till my brain became in its own eddy boiling and o erwrought a whirling gulf of phantasy and flame and thus untaught in youth my heart to tame my springs of life were poisoned tis too late yet am i changed though still enough the same in strength to bear what time cannot abate and feed on bitter fruits without accusing fate viii something too much of this but now tis past and the spell closes with its silent seal long absent harold reappears at last he of the breast which fain no more would feel wrung with the wounds which kill not but ne er heal yet time who changes all had altered him in soul and aspect as in age years steal fire from the mind as vigour from the limb and life s enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim ix his had been quaffed too quickly and he found the dregs were wormwood but he filled again and from a purer fount on holier ground and deemed its spring perpetual but in vain still round him clung invisibly a chain which galled for ever fettering though unseen and heavy though it clanked not worn with pain which pined although it spoke not and grew keen entering with every step he took through many a scene x secure in guarded coldness he had mixed again in fancied safety with his kind and deemed his spirit now so firmly fixed and sheathed with an invulnerable mind that if no joy no sorrow lurked behind and he as one might midst the many stand unheeded searching through the crowd to find fit speculation such as in strange land he found in wonder works of god and nature s hand xi but who can view the ripened rose nor seek to wear it who can curiously behold the smoothness and the sheen of beauty s cheek nor feel the heart can never all grow old who can contemplate fame through clouds unfold the star which rises o er her steep nor climb harold once more within the vortex rolled on with the giddy circle chasing time yet with a nobler aim than in his youth s fond prime xii but soon he knew himself the most unfit of men to herd with man with whom he held little in common untaught to submit his thoughts to others though his soul was quelled in youth by his own thoughts still uncompelled he would not yield dominion of his mind to spirits against whom his own rebelled proud though in desolation which could find a life within itself to breathe without mankind xiii where rose the mountains there to him were friends where rolled the ocean thereon was his home where a blue sky and glowing clime extends he had the passion and the power to roam the desert forest cavern breaker s foam were unto him companionship they spake a mutual language clearer than the tome of his land s tongue which he would oft forsake for nature s pages glassed by sunbeams on the lake xiv like the chaldean he could watch the stars till he had peopled them with beings bright as their own beams and earth and earth born jars and human frailties were forgotten quite could he have kept his spirit to that flight he had been happy but this clay will sink its spark immortal envying it the light to which it mounts as if to break the link that keeps us from yon heaven which woos us to its brink xv but in man s dwellings he became a thing restless and worn and stern and wearisome drooped as a wild born falcon with clipt wing to whom the boundless air alone were home then came his fit again which to o ercome as eagerly the barred up bird will beat his breast and beak against his wiry dome till the blood tinge his plumage so the heat of his impeded soul would through his bosom eat xvi self exiled harold wanders forth again with naught of hope left but with less of gloom the very knowledge that he lived in vain that all was over on this side the tomb had made despair a smilingness assume which though twere wildas on the plundered wreck when mariners would madly meet their doom with draughts intemperate on the sinking deck did yet inspire a cheer which he forbore to check xvii stop for thy tread is on an empire s dust an earthquake s spoil is sepulchred below is the spot marked with no colossal bust nor column trophied for triumphal show none but the moral s truth tells simpler so as the ground was before thus let it be how that red rain hath made the harvest grow and is this all the world has gained by thee thou first and last of fields king making victory xviii and harold stands upon this place of skulls the grave of france the deadly waterloo how in an hour the power which gave annuls its gifts transferring fame as fleeting too in pride of place here last the eagle flew then tore with bloody talon the rent plain pierced by the shaft of banded nations through ambition s life and labours all were vain he wears the shattered links of the world s broken chain xix fit retribution gaul may champ the bit and foam in fetters but is earth more free did nations combat to make one submit or league to teach all kings true sovereignty what shall reviving thraldom again be the patched up idol of enlightened days shall we who struck the lion down shall we pay the wolf homage proffering lowly gaze and servile knees to thrones no prove before ye praise xx if not o er one fall n despot boast no more in vain fair cheeks were furrowed with hot tears for europe s flowers long rooted up before the trampler of her vineyards in vain years of death depopulation bondage fears have all been borne and broken by the accord of roused up millions all that most endears glory is when the myrtle wreathes a sword such as harmodius drew on athens tyrant lord xxi there was a sound of revelry by night and belgium s capital had gathered then her beauty and her chivalry and bright the lamps shone o er fair women and brave men a thousand hearts beat happily and when music arose with its voluptuous swell soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again and all went merry as a marriage bell but hush hark a deep sound strikes like a rising knell xxii did ye not hear it no twas but the wind or the car rattling o er the stony street on with the dance let joy be unconfined no sleep till morn when youth and pleasure meet to chase the glowing hours with flying feet but hark that heavy sound breaks in once more as if the clouds its echo would repeat and nearer clearer deadlier than before arm arm it isit isthe cannon s opening roar xxiii within a windowed niche of that high hall sate brunswick s fated chieftain he did hear that sound the first amidst the festival and caught its tone with death s prophetic ear and when they smiled because he deemed it near his heart more truly knew that peal too well which stretched his father on a bloody bier and roused the vengeance blood alone could quell he rushed into the field and foremost fighting fell xxiv ah then and there was hurrying to and fro and gathering tears and tremblings of distress and cheeks all pale which but an hour ago blushed at the praise of their own loveliness and there were sudden partings such as press the life from out young hearts and choking sighs which ne er might be repeated who would guess if ever more should meet those mutual eyes since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise xxv and there was mounting in hot haste the steed the mustering squadron and the clattering car went pouring forward with impetuous speed and swiftly forming in the ranks of war and the deep thunder peal on peal afar and near the beat of the alarming drum roused up the soldier ere the morning star while thronged the citizens with terror dumb or whispering with white lips the foe they come they come xxvi and wild and high the cameron s gathering rose the war note of lochiel which albyn s hills have heard and heard too have her saxon foes how in the noon of night that pibroch thrills savage and shrill but with the breath which fills their mountain pipe so fill the mountaineers with the fierce native daring which instils the stirring memory of a thousand years and evan s donald s fame rings in each clansman s ears xxvii and ardennes waves above them her green leaves dewy with nature s tear drops as they pass grieving if aught inanimate e er grieves over the unreturniug brave alas ere evening to be trodden like the grass which now beneath them but above shall grow in its next verdure when this fiery mass of living valour rolling on the foe and burning with high hope shall moulder cold and low xxviii last noon beheld them full of lusty life last eve in beauty s circle proudly gay the midnight brought the signal sound of strife the morn the marshalling in arms the day battle s magnificently stern array the thunder clouds close o er it which when rent the earth is covered thick with other clay which her own clay shall cover heaped and pent rider and horse friend foe in one red burial blent xxix their praise is hymned by loftier harps than mine yet one i would select from that proud throng partly because they blend me with his line and partly that i did his sire some wrong and partly that bright names will hallow song and his was of the bravest and when showered the death bolts deadliest the thinned files along even where the thickest of war s tempest lowered they reached no nobler breast than thine young gallant howard xxx there have been tears and breaking hearts for thee and mine were nothing had i such to give but when i stood beneath the fresh green tree which living waves where thou didst cease to live and saw around me the wild field revive with fruits and fertile promise and the spring come forth her work of gladness to contrive with all her reckless birds upon the wing i turned from all she brought to those she could not bring xxxi i turned to thee to thousands of whom each and one as all a ghastly gap did make in his own kind and kindred whom to teach forgetfulness were mercy for their sake the archangel s trump not glory s must awake those whom they thirst for though the sound of fame may for a moment soothe it cannot slake the fever of vain longing and the name so honoured but assumes a stronger bitterer claim xxxii they mourn but smile at length and smiling mourn the tree will wither long before it fall the hull drives on though mast and sail be torn the roof tree sinks but moulders on the hall in massy hoariness the ruined wall stands when its wind worn battlements are gone the bars survive the captive they enthral the day drags through though storms keep out the sun and thus the heart will break yet brokenly live on xxxiii e en as a broken mirror which the glass in every fragment multiplies and makes a thousand images of one that was the same and still the more the more it breaks and thus the heart will do which not forsakes living in shattered guise and still and cold and bloodless with its sleepless sorrow aches yet withers on till all without is old showing no visible sign for such things are untold xxxiv there is a very life in our despair vitality of poison a quick root which feeds these deadly branches for it were as nothing did we die but life will suit itself to sorrow s most detested fruit like to the apples on the dead sea shore all ashes to the taste did man compute existence by enjoyment and count o er such hours gainst years of life say would he name threescore xxxv the psalmist numbered out the years of man they are enough and if thy tale be true thou who didst grudge him e en that fleeting span more than enough thou fatal waterloo millions of tongues record thee and anew their children s lips shall echo them and say here where the sword united nations drew our countrymen were warring on that day and this is much and all which will not pass away xxxvi there sunk the greatest nor the worst of men whose spirit anithetically mixed one moment of the mightiest and again on little objects with like firmness fixed extreme in all things hadst thou been betwixt thy throne had still been thine or never been for daring made thy rise as fall thou seek st even now to reassume the imperial mien and shake again the world the thunderer of the scene xxxvii conqueror and captive of the earth art thou she trembles at thee still and thy wild name was ne er more bruited in men s minds than now that thou art nothing save the jest of fame who wooed thee once thy vassal and became the flatterer of thy fierceness till thou wert a god unto thyself nor less the same to the astounded kingdoms all inert who deemed thee for a time whate er thou didst assert xxxviii oh more or less than manin high or low battling with nations flying from the field now making monarchs necks thy footstool now more than thy meanest soldier taught to yield an empire thou couldst crush command rebuild but govern not thy pettiest passion nor however deeply in men s spirits skilled look through thine own nor curb the lust of war nor learn that tempted fate will leave the loftiest star xxxix yet well thy soul hath brooked the turning tide with that untaught innate philosophy which be it wisdom coldness or deep pride is gall and wormwood to an enemy when the whole host of hatred stood hard by to watch and mock thee shrinking thou hast smiled with a sedate and all enduring eye when fortune fled her spoiled and favourite child he stood unbowed beneath the ills upon him piled xl sager than in thy fortunes for in them ambition steeled thee on to far too show that just habitual scorn which could contemn men and their thoughts twas wise to feel not so to wear it ever on thy lip and brow and spurn the instruments thou wert to use till they were turned unto thine overthrow tis but a worthless world to win or lose so hath it proved to thee and all such lot who choose xli if like a tower upon a headland rock thou hadst been made to stand or fall alone such scorn of man had helped to brave the shock but men s thoughts were the steps which paved thy throne their admiration thy best weapon shone the part of philip s son was thine not then like stern diogenes to mock at men for sceptred cynics earth were far too wide a den xlii but quiet to quick bosoms is a hell and there hath been thy bane there is a fire and motion of the soul which will not dwell in its own narrow being but aspire beyond the fitting medium of desire and but once kindled quenchless evermore preys upon high adventure nor can tire of aught but rest a fever at the core fatal to him who bears to all who ever bore xliii this makes the madmen who have made men mad by their contagion conquerors and kings founders of sects and systems to whom add sophists bards statesmen all unquiet things which stir too strongly the soul s secret springs and are themselves the fools to those they fool envied yet how unenviable what stings are theirs one breast laid open were a school which would unteach mankind the lust to shine or rule xliv their breath is agitation and their life a storm whereon they ride to sink at last and yet so nursed and bigoted to strife that should their days surviving perils past melt to calm twilight they feel overcast with sorrow and supineness and so die even as a flame unfed which runs to waste with its own flickering or a sword laid by which eats into itself and rusts ingloriously xlv he who ascends to mountain tops shall find the loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow he who surpasses or subdues mankind must look down on the hate of those below though high above the sun of glory glow and far beneath the earth and ocean spread round him are icy rocks and loudly blow contending tempests on his naked head and thus reward the toils which to those summits led xlvi away with these true wisdom s world will be within its own creation or in thine maternal nature for who teems like thee thus on the banks of thy majestic rhine there harold gazes on a work divine a blending of all beauties streams and dells fruit foliage crag wood corn field mountain vine and chiefless castles breathing stern farewells from grey but leafy walls where ruin greenly dwells xlvii and there they stand as stands a lofty mind worn but unstooping to the baser crowd all tenantless save to the crannying wind or holding dark communion with the cloud there was a day when they were young and proud banners on high and battles passed below but they who fought are in a bloody shroud and those which waved are shredless dust ere now and the bleak battlements shall bear no future blow xlviii beneath these battlements within those walls power dwelt amidst her passions in proud state each robber chief upheld his armed halls doing his evil will nor less elate than mightier heroes of a longer date what want these outlaws conquerors should have but history s purchased page to call them great a wider space an ornamented grave their hopes were not less warm their souls were full as brave xlix in their baronial feuds and single fields what deeds of prowess unrecorded died and love which lent a blazon to their shields with emblems well devised by amorous pride through all the mail of iron hearts would glide but still their flame was fierceness and drew on keen contest and destruction near allied and many a tower for some fair mischief won saw the discoloured rhine beneath its ruin run l but thou exulting and abounding river making thy waves a blessing as they flow through banks whose beauty would endure for ever could man but leave thy bright creation so nor its fair promise from the surface mow with the sharp scythe of conflict then to see thy valley of sweet waters were to know earth paved like heaven and to seem such to me even now what wants thy stream that it should lethe be li a thousand battles have assailed thy banks but these and half their fame have passed away and slaughter heaped on high his weltering ranks their very graves are gone and what are they thy tide washed down the blood of yesterday and all was stainless and on thy clear stream glassed with its dancing light the sunny ray but o er the blackened memory s blighting dream thy waves would vainly roll all sweeping as they seem lii thus harold inly said and passed along yet not insensible to all which here awoke the jocund birds to early song in glens which might have made e en exile dear though on his brow were graven lines austere and tranquil sternness which had ta en the place of feelings fierier far but less severe joy was not always absent from his face but o er it in such scenes would steal with transient trace liii nor was all love shut from him though his days of passion had consumed themselves to dust it is in vain that we would coldly gaze on such as smile upon us the heart must leap kindly back to kindness though disgust hath weaned it from all worldlings thus he felt for there was soft remembrance and sweet trust in one fond breast to which his own would melt and in its tenderer hour on that his bosom dwelt liv and he had learned to love i know not why for this in such as him seems strange of mood the helpless looks of blooming infancy even in its earliest nurture what subdued to change like this a mind so far imbued with scorn of man it little boots to know but thus it was and though in solitude small power the nipped affections have to grow in him this glowed when all beside had ceased to glow lv and there was one soft breast as hath been said which unto his was bound by stronger ties than the church links withal and though unwed that love was pure and far above disguise had stood the test of mortal enmities still undivided and cemented more by peril dreaded most in female eyes but this was firm and from a foreign shore well to that heart might his these absent greetings pour the castled crag of drachenfels frowns o er the wide and winding rhine whose breast of waters broadly swells between the banks which bear the vine and hills all rich with blossomed trees and fields which promise corn and wine and scattered cities crowning these whose far white walls along them shine have strewed a scene which i should see with double joy wert thou with me and peasant girls with deep blue eyes and hands which offer early flowers walk smiling o er this paradise above the frequent feudal towers through green leaves lift their walls of grey and many a rock which steeply lours and noble arch in proud decay look o er this vale of vintage bowers but one thing want these banks of rhine thy gentle hand to clasp in mine i send the lilies given to me though long before thy hand they touch i know that they must withered be but yet reject them not as such for i have cherished them as dear because they yet may meet thine eye and guide thy soul to mine e en here when thou behold st them drooping nigh and know st them gathered by the rhine and offered from my heart to thine the river nobly foams and flows the charm of this enchanted ground and all its thousand turns disclose some fresher beauty varying round the haughtiest breast its wish might bound through life to dwell delighted here nor could on earth a spot be found to nature and to me so dear could thy dear eyes in following mine still sweeten more these banks of rhine lvi by coblentz on a rise of gentle ground there is a small and simple pyramid crowning the summit of the verdant mound beneath its base are heroes ashes hid our enemy s but let not that forbid honour to marceau o er whose early tomb tears big tears gushed from the rough soldier s lid lamenting and yet envying such a doom falling for france whose rights he battled to resume lvi brief brave and glorious was his young career his mourners were two hosts his friends and foes and fitly may the stranger lingering here pray for his gallant spirit s bright repose for he was freedom s champion one of those the few in number who had not o erstept the charter to chastise which she bestows on such as wield her weapons he had kept the whiteness of his soul and thus men o er him wept lviii here ehrenbreitstein with her shattered wall black with the miner s blast upon her height yet shows of what she was when shell and ball rebounding idly on her strength did light a tower of victory from whence the flight of baffled foes was watched along the plain but peace destroyed what war could never blight and laid those proud roofs bare to summer s rain on which the iron shower for years had poured in vain lix adieu to thee fair rhine how long delighted the stranger fain would linger on his way thine is a scene alike where souls united or lonely contemplation thus might stray and could the ceaseless vultures cease to prey on self condemning bosoms it were here where nature not too sombre nor too gay wild but not rude awful yet not austere is to the mellow earth as autumn to the year lx adieu to thee again a vain adieu there can be no farewell to scene like thine the mind is coloured by thy every hue and if reluctantly the eyes resign their cherished gaze upon thee lovely rhine tis with the thankful glance of parting praise more mighty spots may risemore glaring shine but none unite in one attaching maze the brilliant fair and soft the glories of old days lxi the negligently grand the fruitful bloom of coming ripeness the white city s sheen the rolling stream the precipice s gloom the forest s growth and gothic walls between the wild rocks shaped as they had turrets been in mockery of man s art and these withal a race of faces happy as the scene whose fertile bounties here extend to all still springing o er thy banks though empires near them fall lxii but these recede above me are the alps the palaces of nature whose vast walls have pinnacled in clouds their snowy scalps and throned eternity in icy halls of cold sublimity where forms and falls the avalanchethe thunderbolt of snow all that expands the spirit yet appals gathers around these summits as to show how earth may pierce to heaven yet leave vain man below lxiii but ere these matchless heights i dare to scan there is a spot should not be passed in vain morat the proud the patriot field where man may gaze on ghastly trophies of the slain nor blush for those who conquered on that plain here burgundy bequeathed his tombless host a bony heap through ages to remain themselves their monument the stygian coast unsepulchred they roamed and shrieked each wandering ghost lxiv while waterloo with cannae s carnage vies morat and marathon twin names shall stand they were true glory s stainless victories won by the unambitious heart and hand of a proud brotherly and civic band all unbought champions in no princely cause of vice entailed corruption they no land doomed to bewail the blasphemy of laws making king s rights divine by some draconic clause lxv by a lone wall a lonelier column rears a grey and grief worn aspect of old days tis the last remnant of the wreck of years and looks as with the wild bewildered gaze of one to stone converted by amaze yet still with consciousness and there it stands making a marvel that it not decays when the coeval pride of human hands levelled aventicum hath strewed her subject lands lxvi and thereoh sweet and sacred be the name juliathe daughter the devotedgave her youth to heaven her heart beneath a claim nearest to heaven s broke o er a father s grave justice is sworn gainst tears and hers would crave the life she lived in but the judge was just and then she died on him she could not save their tomb was simple and without a bust and held within their urn one mind one heart one dust lxvii but these are deeds which should not pass away and names that must not wither though the earth forgets her empires with a just decay the enslavers and the enslaved their death and birth the high the mountain majesty of worth should be and shall survivor of its woe and from its immortality look forth in the sun s face like yonder alpine snow imperishably pure beyond all things below lxviii lake leman woos me with its crystal face the mirror where the stars and mountains view the stillness of their aspect in each trace its clear depth yields of their far height and hue there is too much of man here to look through with a fit mind the might which i behold but soon in me shall loneliness renew thoughts hid but not less cherished than of old ere mingling with the herd had penned me in their fold lxix to fly from need not be to hate mankind all are not fit with them to stir and toil nor is it discontent to keep the mind deep in its fountain lest it overboil in one hot throng where we become the spoil of our infection till too late and long we may deplore and struggle with the coil in wretched interchange of wrong for wrong midst a contentious world striving where none are strong lxx there in a moment we may plunge our years in fatal penitence and in the blight of our own soul turn all our blood to tears and colour things to come with hues of night the race of life becomes a hopeless flight to those that walk in darkness on the sea the boldest steer but where their ports invite but there are wanderers o er eternity whose bark drives on and on and anchored ne er shall be lxxi is it not better then to be alone and love earth only for its earthly sake by the blue rushing of the arrowy rhone or the pure bosom of its nursing lake which feeds it as a mother who doth make a fair but froward infant her own care kissing its cries away as these awake is it not better thus our lives to wear than join the crushing crowd doomed to inflict or bear lxxii i live not in myself but i become portion of that around me and to me high mountains are a feeling but the hum of human cities torture i can see nothing to loathe in nature save to be a link reluctant in a fleshly chain classed among creatures when the soul can flee and with the sky the peak the heaving plain of ocean or the stars mingle and not in vain lxxiii and thus i am absorbed and this is life i look upon the peopled desert past as on a place of agony and strife where for some sin to sorrow i was cast to act and suffer but remount at last with a fresh pinion which i felt to spring though young yet waxing vigorous as the blast which it would cope with on delighted wing spurning the clay cold bonds which round our being cling lxxiv and when at length the mind shall be all free from what it hates in this degraded form reft of its carnal life save what shall be existent happier in the fly and worm when elements to elements conform and dust is as it should be shall i not feel all i see less dazzling but more warm the bodiless thought the spirit of each spot of which even now i share at times the immortal lot lxxv are not the mountains waves and skies a part of me and of my soul as i of them is not the love of these deep in my heart with a pure passion should i not contemn all objects if compared with these and stem a tide of suffering rather than forego such feelings for the hard and worldly phlegm of those whose eyes are only turned below gazing upon the ground with thoughts which dare not glow lxxvi but this is not my theme and i return to that which is immediate and require those who find contemplation in the urn to look on one whose dust was once all fire a native of the land where i respire the clear air for awhilea passing guest where he became a being whose desire was to be glorious twas a foolish quest the which to gain and keep he sacrificed all rest lxxvii here the self torturing sophist wild rousseau the apostle of affliction he who threw enchantment over passion and from woe wrung overwhelming eloquence first drew the breath which made him wretched yet he knew how to make madness beautiful and cast o er erring deeds and thoughts a heavenly hue of words like sunbeams dazzling as they past the eyes which o er them shed tears feelingly and fast lxxviii his love was passion s essenceas a tree on fire by lightning with ethereal flame kindled he was and blasted for to be thus and enamoured were in him the same but his was not the love of living dame nor of the dead who rise upon our dreams but of ideal beauty which became in him existence and o erflowing teems along his burning page distempered though it seems lxxix this breathed itself to life in julie this invested her with all that s wild and sweet this hallowed too the memorable kiss which every morn his fevered lip would greet from hers who but with friendship his would meet but to that gentle touch through brain and breast flashed the thrilled spirit s love devouring heat in that absorbing sigh perchance more blest than vulgar minds may be with all they seek possest lxxx his life was one long war with self sought foes or friends by him self banished for his mind had grown suspicion s sanctuary and chose for its own cruel sacrifice the kind gainst whom he raged with fury strange and blind but he was frenzied wherefore who may know since cause might be which skill could never find but he was frenzied by disease or woe to that worst pitch of all which wears a reasoning show lxxxi for then he was inspired and from him came as from the pythian s mystic cave of yore those oracles which set the world in flame nor ceased to burn till kingdoms were no more did he not this for france which lay before bowed to the inborn tyranny of years broken and trembling to the yoke she bore till by the voice of him and his compeers roused up to too much wrath which follows o ergrown fears lxxxii they made themselves a fearful monument the wreck of old opinionsthings which grew breathed from the birth of time the veil they rent and what behind it lay all earth shall view but good with ill they also overthrew leaving but ruins wherewith to rebuild upon the same foundation and renew dungeons and thrones which the same hour refilled as heretofore because ambition was self willed lxxxiii but this will not endure nor be endured mankind have felt their strength and made it felt they might have used it better but allured by their new vigour sternly have they dealt on one another pity ceased to melt with her once natural charities but they who in oppression s darkness caved had dwelt they were not eagles nourished with the day what marvel then at times if they mistook their prey lxxxiv what deep wounds ever closed without a scar the heart s bleed longest and but heal to wear that which disfigures it and they who war with their own hopes and have been vanquished bear silence but not submission in his lair fixed passion holds his breath until the hour which shall atone for years none need despair it came it cometh and will come the power to punish or forgivein one we shall be slower lxxxv clear placid leman thy contrasted lake with the wild world i dwelt in is a thing which warns me with its stillness to forsake earth s troubled waters for a purer spring this quiet sail is as a noiseless wing to waft me from distraction once i loved torn ocean s roar but thy soft murmuring sounds sweet as if a sister s voice reproved that i with stern delights should e er have been so moved lxxxvi it is the hush of night and all between thy margin and the mountains dusk yet clear mellowed and mingling yet distinctly seen save darkened jura whose capt heights appear precipitously steep and drawing near there breathes a living fragrance from the shore of flowers yet fresh with childhood on the ear drops the light drip of the suspended oar or chirps the grasshopper one good night carol more lxxxvii he is an evening reveller who makes his life an infancy and sings his fill at intervals some bird from out the brakes starts into voice a moment then is still there seems a floating whisper on the hill but that is fancy for the starlight dews all silently their tears of love instil weeping themselves away till they infuse deep into nature s breast the spirit of her hues lxxxviii ye stars which are the poetry of heaven if in your bright leaves we would read the fate of men and empires tis to be forgiven that in our aspirations to be great our destinies o erleap their mortal state and claim a kindred with you for ye are a beauty and a mystery and create in us such love and reverence from afar that fortune fame power life have named themselves a star lxxxix all heaven and earth are stillthough not in sleep but breathless as we grow when feeling most and silent as we stand in thoughts too deep all heaven and earth are still from the high host of stars to the lulled lake and mountain coast all is concentered in a life intense where not a beam nor air nor leaf is lost but hath a part of being and a sense of that which is of all creator and defence xc then stirs the feeling infinite so felt in solitude where we are least alone a truth which through our being then doth melt and purifies from self it is a tone the soul and source of music which makes known eternal harmony and sheds a charm like to the fabled cytherea s zone binding all things with beauty twould disarm the spectre death had he substantial power to harm xci nor vainly did the early persian make his altar the high places and the peak of earth o ergazing mountains and thus take a fit and unwalled temple there to seek the spirit in whose honour shrines are weak upreared of human hands come and compare columns and idol dwellings goth or greek with nature s realms of worship earth and air nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy prayer xcii the sky is changed and such a change o night and storm and darkness ye are wondrous strong yet lovely in your strength as is the light of a dark eye in woman far along from peak to peak the rattling crags among leaps the live thunder not from one lone cloud but every mountain now hath found a tongue and jura answers through her misty shroud back to the joyous alps who call to her aloud xciii and this is in the night most glorious night thou wert not sent for slumber let me be a sharer in thy fierce and far delight a portion of the tempest and of thee how the lit lake shines a phosphoric sea and the big rain comes dancing to the earth and now again tis black and now the glee of the loud hills shakes with its mountain mirth as if they did rejoice o er a young earthquake s birth xciv now where the swift rhone cleaves his way between heights which appear as lovers who have parted in hate whose mining depths so intervene that they can meet no more though broken hearted though in their souls which thus each other thwarted love was the very root of the fond rage which blighted their life s bloom and then departed itself expired but leaving them an age of years all winterswar within themselves to wage xcv now where the quick rhone thus hath cleft his way the mightiest of the storms hath ta en his stand for here not one but many make their play and fling their thunderbolts from hand to hand flashing and cast around of all the band the brightest through these parted hills hath forked his lightnings as if he did understand that in such gaps as desolation worked there the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurked xcvi sky mountains river winds lake lightnings ye with night and clouds and thunder and a soul to make these felt and feeling well may be things that have made me watchful the far roll of your departing voices is the knoll of what in me is sleepless if i rest but where of ye o tempests is the goal are ye like those within the human breast or do ye find at length like eagles some high nest xcvii could i embody and unbosom now that which is most within me could i wreak my thoughts upon expression and thus throw soul heart mind passions feelings strong or weak all that i would have sought and all i seek bear know feel and yet breatheinto one word and that one word were lightning i would speak but as it is i live and die unheard with a most voiceless thought sheathing it as a sword xcviii the morn is up again the dewy morn with breath all incense and with cheek all bloom laughing the clouds away with playful scorn and living as if earth contained no tomb and glowing into day we may resume the march of our existence and thus i still on thy shores fair leman may find room and food for meditation nor pass by much that may give us pause if pondered fittingly xcix clarens sweet clarens birthplace of deep love thine air is the young breath of passionate thought thy trees take root in love the snows above the very glaciers have his colours caught and sunset into rose hues sees them wrought by rays which sleep there lovingly the rocks the permanent crags tell here of love who sought in them a refuge from the worldly shocks which stir and sting the soul with hope that woos then mocks c clarens by heavenly feet thy paths are trod undying love s who here ascends a throne to which the steps are mountains where the god is a pervading life and light so shown not on those summits solely nor alone in the still cave and forest o er the flower his eye is sparkling and his breath hath blown his soft and summer breath whose tender power passes the strength of storms in their most desolate hour ci all things are here of him from the black pines which are his shade on high and the loud roar of torrents where he listeneth to the vines which slope his green path downward to the shore where the bowed waters meet him and adore kissing his feet with murmurs and the wood the covert of old trees with trunks all hoar but light leaves young as joy stands where it stood offering to him and his a populous solitude cii a populous solitude of bees and birds and fairy formed and many coloured things who worship him with notes more sweet than words and innocently open their glad wings fearless and full of life the gush of springs and fall of lofty fountains and the bend of stirring branches and the bud which brings the swiftest thought of beauty here extend mingling and made by love unto one mighty end ciii he who hath loved not here would learn that lore and make his heart a spirit he who knows that tender mystery will love the more for this is love s recess where vain men s woes and the world s waste have driven him far from those for tis his nature to advance or die he stands not still but or decays or grows into a boundless blessing which may vie with the immortal lights in its eternity civ twas not for fiction chose rousseau this spot peopling it with affections but he found it was the scene which passion must allot to the mind s purified beings twas the ground where early love his psyche s zone unbound and hallowed it with loveliness tis lone and wonderful and deep and hath a sound and sense and sight of sweetness here the rhone hath spread himself a couch the alps have reared a throne cv lausanne and ferney ye have been the abodes of names which unto you bequeathed a name mortals who sought and found by dangerous roads a path to perpetuity of fame they were gigantic minds and their steep aim was titan like on daring doubts to pile thoughts which should call down thunder and the flame of heaven again assailed if heaven the while on man and man s research could deign do more than smile cvi the one was fire and fickleness a child most mutable in wishes but in mind a wit as various gay grave sage or wild historian bard philosopher combined he multiplied himself among mankind the proteus of their talents but his own breathed most in ridicule which as the wind blew where it listed laying all things prone now to o erthrow a fool and now to shake a throne cvii the other deep and slow exhausting thought and hiving wisdom with each studious year in meditation dwelt with learning wrought and shaped his weapon with an edge severe sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer the lord of irony that master spell which stung his foes to wrath which grew from fear and doomed him to the zealot s ready hell which answers to all doubts so eloquently well cviii yet peace be with their ashes for by them if merited the penalty is paid it is not ours to judge far less condemn the hour must come when such things shall be made known unto all or hope and dread allayed by slumber on one pillow in the dust which thus much we are sure must lie decayed and when it shall revive as is our trust twill be to be forgiven or suffer what is just cix but let me quit man s works again to read his maker s spread around me and suspend this page which from my reveries i feed until it seems prolonging without end the clouds above me to the white alps tend and i must pierce them and survey whate er may be permitted as my steps i bend to their most great and growing region where the earth to her embrace compels the powers of air cx italia too italia looking on thee full flashes on the soul the light of ages since the fierce carthaginian almost won thee to the last halo of the chiefs and sages who glorify thy consecrated pages thou wert the throne and grave of empires still the fount at which the panting mind assuages her thirst of knowledge quaffing there her fill flows from the eternal source of rome s imperial hill cxi thus far have i proceeded in a theme renewed with no kind auspices to feel we are not what we have been and to deem we are not what we should be and to steel the heart against itself and to conceal with a proud caution love or hate or aught passion or feeling purpose grief or zeal which is the tyrant spirit of our thought is a stern task of soul no matter it is taught cxii and for these words thus woven into song it may be that they are a harmless wile the colouring of the scenes which fleet along which i would seize in passing to beguile my breast or that of others for a while fame is the thirst of youth but i am not so young as to regard men s frown or smile as loss or guerdon of a glorious lot i stood and stand alone remembered or forgot cxiii i have not loved the world nor the world me i have not flattered its rank breath nor bowed to its idolatries a patient knee nor coined my cheek to smiles nor cried aloud in worship of an echo in the crowd they could not deem me one of such i stood among them but not of them in a shroud of thoughts which were not their thoughts and still could had i not filed my mind which thus itself subdued cxiv i have not loved the world nor the world me but let us part fair foes i do believe though i have found them not that there may be words which are things hopes which will not deceive and virtues which are merciful nor weave snares for the falling i would also deem o er others griefs that some sincerely grieve that two or one are almost what they seem that goodness is no name and happiness no dream cxv my daughter with thy name this song begun my daughter with thy name this much shall end i see thee not i hear thee not but none can be so wrapt in thee thou art the friend to whom the shadows of far years extend albeit my brow thou never shouldst behold my voice shall with thy future visions blend and reach into thy heart when mine is cold a token and a tone even from thy father s mould cxvi to aid thy mind s development to watch thy dawn of little joys to sit and see almost thy very growth to view thee catch knowledge of objects wonders yet to thee to hold thee lightly on a gentle knee and print on thy soft cheek a parent s kiss this it should seem was not reserved for me yet this was in my nature as it is i know not what is there yet something like to this cxvii yet though dull hate as duty should be taught i know that thou wilt love me though my name should be shut from thee as a spell still fraught with desolation and a broken claim though the grave closed between us twere the same i know that thou wilt love me though to drain my blood from out thy being were an aim and an attainment all would be in vain still thou wouldst love me still that more than life retain cxviii the child of love though born in bitterness and nurtured in convulsion of thy sire these were the elements and thine no less as yet such are around thee but thy fire shall be more tempered and thy hope far higher sweet be thy cradled slumbers o er the sea and from the mountains where i now respire fain would i waft such blessing upon thee as with a sigh i deem thou mightst have been to me canto the fourth i i stood in venice on the bridge of sighs a palace and a prison on each hand i saw from out the wave her structures rise as from the stroke of the enchanter s wand a thousand years their cloudy wings expand around me and a dying glory smiles o er the far times when many a subject land looked to the winged lion s marble piles where venice sate in state throned on her hundred isles ii she looks a sea cybele fresh from ocean rising with her tiara of proud towers at airy distance with majestic motion a ruler of the waters and their powers and such she was her daughters had their dowers from spoils of nations and the exhaustless east poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers in purple was she robed and of her feast monarchs partook and deemed their dignity increased iii in venice tasso s echoes are no more and silent rows the songless gondolier her palaces are crumbling to the shore and music meets not always now the ear those days are gonebut beauty still is here states fall arts fadebut nature doth not die nor yet forget how venice once was dear the pleasant place of all festivity the revel of the earth the masque of italy iv but unto us she hath a spell beyond her name in story and her long array of mighty shadows whose dim forms despond above the dogeless city s vanished sway ours is a trophy which will not decay with the rialto shylock and the moor and pierre cannot be swept or worn away the keystones of the arch though all were o er for us repeopled were the solitary shore v the beings of the mind are not of clay essentially immortal they create and multiply in us a brighter ray and more beloved existence that which fate prohibits to dull life in this our state of mortal bondage by these spirits supplied first exiles then replaces what we hate watering the heart whose early flowers have died and with a fresher growth replenishing the void vi such is the refuge of our youth and age the first from hope the last from vacancy and this worn feeling peoples many a page and may be that which grows beneath mine eye yet there are things whose strong reality outshines our fairy land in shape and hues more beautiful than our fantastic sky and the strange constellations which the muse o er her wild universe is skilful to diffuse vii i saw or dreamed of such but let them go they came like truth and disappeared like dreams and whatsoe er they wereare 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 gofor waking reason deems such overweening phantasies unsound and other voices speak and other sights surround viii i ve taught me other tongues and in strange eyes have made me not a stranger to the mind which is itself no changes bring surprise nor is it harsh to make nor hard to find a country withay or without mankind yet was i born where men are proud to be not without cause and should i leave behind the inviolate island of the sage and free and seek me out a home by a remoter sea ix perhaps i loved it well and should i lay my ashes in a soil which is not mine my spirit shall resume itif we may unbodied choose a sanctuary i twine my hopes of being remembered in my line with my land s language if too fond and far these aspirations in their scope incline if my fame should be as my fortunes are of hasty growth and blight and dull oblivion bar x my name from out the temple where the dead are honoured by the nationslet it be and light the laurels on a loftier head and be the spartan s epitaph on me sparta hath many a worthier son than he meantime i seek no sympathies nor need the thorns which i have reaped are of the tree i planted they have torn me and i bleed i should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed xi the spouseless adriatic mourns her lord and annual marriage now no more renewed the bucentaur lies rotting unrestored neglected garment of her widowhood st mark yet sees his lion where he stood stand but in mockery of his withered power over the proud place where an emperor sued and monarchs gazed and envied in the hour when venice was a queen with an unequalled dower xii the suabian sued and now the austrian reigns an emperor tramples where an emperor knelt kingdoms are shrunk to provinces and chains clank over sceptred cities nations melt from power s high pinnacle when they have felt the sunshine for a while and downward go like lauwine loosened from the mountain s belt oh for one hour of blind old dandolo the octogenarian chief byzantium s conquering foe xiii before st mark still glow his steeds of brass their gilded collars glittering in the sun but is not doria s menace come to pass are they not bridled venice lost and won her thirteen hundred years of freedom done sinks like a seaweed into whence she rose better be whelmed beneath the waves and shun even in destruction s depth her foreign foes from whom submission wrings an infamous repose xiv in youth she was all glory a new tyre her very byword sprung from victory the planter of the lion which through fire and blood she bore o er subject earth and sea though making many slaves herself still free and europe s bulwark gainst the ottomite witness troy s rival candia vouch it ye immortal waves that saw lepanto s fight for ye are names no time nor tyranny can blight xv statues of glassall shiveredthe long file of her dead doges are declined to dust but where they dwelt the vast and sumptuous pile bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust their sceptre broken and their sword in rust have yielded to the stranger empty halls thin streets and foreign aspects such as must too oft remind her who and what enthrals have flung a desolate cloud o er venice lovely walls xvi when athens armies fell at syracuse and fettered thousands bore the yoke of war redemption rose up in the attic muse her voice their only ransom from afar see as they chant the tragic hymn the car of the o ermastered victor stops the reins fall from his handshis idle scimitar starts from its belthe rends his captive s chains and bids him thank the bard for freedom and his strains xvii thus venice if no stronger claim were thine were all thy proud historic deeds forgot thy choral memory of the bard divine thy love of tasso should have cut the knot which ties thee to thy tyrants and thy lot is shameful to the nations most of all albion to thee the ocean queen should not abandon ocean s children in the fall of venice think of thine despite thy watery wall xviii i loved her from my boyhood she to me was as a fairy city of the heart rising like water columns from the sea of joy the sojourn and of wealth the mart and otway radcliffe schiller shakspeare s art had stamped her image in me and e en so although i found her thus we did not part perchance e en dearer in her day of woe than when she was a boast a marvel and a show xix i can repeople with the pastand of the present there is still for eye and thought and meditation chastened down enough and more it may be than i hoped or sought and of the happiest moments which were wrought within the web of my existence some from thee fair venice have their colours caught there are some feelings time cannot benumb nor torture shake or mine would now be cold and dumb xx but from their nature will the tannen grow loftiest on loftiest and least sheltered rocks rooted in barrenness where nought below of soil supports them gainst the alpine shocks of eddying storms yet springs the trunk and mocks the howling tempest till its height and frame are worthy of the mountains from whose blocks of bleak grey granite into life it came and grew a giant tree the mind may grow the same xxi existence may be borne and the deep root of life and sufferance make its firm abode in bare and desolate bosoms mute the camel labours with the heaviest load and the wolf dies in silence not bestowed in vain should such examples be if they things of ignoble or of savage mood endure and shrink not we of nobler clay may temper it to bear it is but for a day xxii all suffering doth destroy or is destroyed even by the sufferer and in each event ends some with hope replenished and rebuoyed return to whence they camewith like intent and weave their web again some bowed and bent wax grey and ghastly withering ere their time and perish with the reed on which they leant some seek devotion toil war good or crime according as their souls were formed to sink or climb xxiii but ever and anon of griefs subdued there comes a token like a scorpion s sting scarce seen but with fresh bitterness imbued and slight withal may be the things which bring back on the heart the weight which it would fling aside for ever it may be a sound a tone of musicsummer s eveor spring a flowerthe windthe oceanwhich shall wound striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound xxiv and how and why we know not nor can trace home to its cloud this lightning of the mind but feel the shock renewed nor can efface the blight and blackening which it leaves behind which out of things familiar undesigned when least we deem of such calls up to view the spectres whom no exorcism can bind the coldthe changedperchance the deadanew the mourned the loved the losttoo 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 bravethe 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 hera 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 airan island of the blest xxviii a single star is at her side and reigns with her o er half the lovely heaven but still yon sunny sea heaves brightly and remains rolled o er the peak of the far rhaetian hill as day and night contending were until nature reclaimed her order gently flows the deep dyed brenta where their hues instil the odorous purple of a new born rose which streams upon her stream and glassed within it glows xxix filled with the face of heaven which from afar comes down upon the waters all its hues from the rich sunset to the rising star their magical variety diffuse and now they change a paler shadow strews its mantle o er the mountains parting day dies like the dolphin whom each pang imbues with a new colour as it gasps away the last still loveliest till tis goneand all is grey xxx there is a tomb in arqua reared in air pillared in their sarcophagus repose the bones of laura s lover here repair many familiar with his well sung woes the pilgrims of his genius he arose to raise a language and his land reclaim from the dull yoke of her barbaric foes watering the tree which bears his lady s name with his melodious tears he gave himself to fame xxxi they keep his dust in arqua where he died the mountain village where his latter days went down the vale of years and tis their pride an honest prideand let it be their praise to offer to the passing stranger s gaze his mansion and his sepulchre both plain and venerably simple such as raise a feeling more accordant with his strain than if a pyramid formed his monumental fane xxxii and the soft quiet hamlet where he dwelt is one of that complexion which seems made for those who their mortality have felt and sought a refuge from their hopes decayed in the deep umbrage of a green hill s shade which shows a distant prospect far away of busy cities now in vain displayed for they can lure no further and the ray of a bright sun can make sufficient holiday xxxiii developing the mountains leaves and flowers and shining in the brawling brook where by clear as its current glide the sauntering hours with a calm languor which though to the eye idlesse it seem hath its morality if from society we learn to live tis solitude should teach us how to die it hath no flatterers vanity can give no hollow aid aloneman with his god must strive xxxiv or it may be with demons who impair the strength of better thoughts and seek their prey in melancholy bosoms such as were of moody texture from their earliest day and loved to dwell in darkness and dismay deeming themselves predestined to a doom which is not of the pangs that pass away making the sun like blood the earth a tomb the tomb a hell and hell itself a murkier gloom xxxv ferrara in thy wide and grass grown streets whose symmetry was not for solitude there seems as twere a curse upon the seat s of former sovereigns and the antique brood of este which for many an age made good its strength within thy walls and was of yore patron or tyrant as the changing mood of petty power impelled of those who wore the wreath which dante s brow alone had worn before xxxvi and tasso is their glory and their shame hark to his strain and then survey his cell and see how dearly earned torquato s fame and where alfonso bade his poet dwell the miserable despot could not quell the insulted mind he sought to quench and blend with the surrounding maniacs in the hell where he had plunged it glory without end scattered the clouds awayand on that name attend xxxvii the tears and praises of all time while thine would rot in its oblivionin the sink of worthless dust which from thy boasted line is shaken into nothing but the link thou formest in his fortunes bids us think of thy poor malice naming thee with scorn alfonso how thy ducal pageants shrink from thee if in another station born scarce fit to be the slave of him thou mad st to mourn xxxviii thou formed to eat and be despised and die even as the beasts that perish save that thou hadst a more splendid trough and wider sty he with a glory round his furrowed brow which emanated then and dazzles now in face of all his foes the cruscan quire and boileau whose rash envy could allow no strain which shamed his country s creaking lyre that whetstone of the teethmonotony in wire xxxix peace to torquato s injured shade twas his in life and death to be the mark where wrong aimed with their poisoned arrowsbut to miss oh victor unsurpassed in modern song each year brings forth its millions but how long the tide of generations shall roll on and not the whole combined and countless throng compose a mind like thine though all in one condensed their scattered rays they would not form a sun xl great as thou art yet paralleled by those thy countrymen before thee born to shine the bards of hell and chivalry first rose the tuscan father s comedy divine then not unequal to the florentine the southern scott the minstrel who called forth a new creation with his magic line and like the ariosto of the north sang ladye love and war romance and knightly worth xli the lightning rent from ariosto s bust the iron crown of laurel s mimicked leaves nor was the ominous element unjust for the true laurel wreath which glory weaves is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves and the false semblance but disgraced his brow yet still if fondly superstition grieves know that the lightning sanctifies below whate er it strikes yon head is doubly sacred now xlii italia o italia thou who hast the fatal gift of beauty which became a funeral dower of present woes and past on thy sweet brow is sorrow ploughed by shame and annals graved in characters of flame oh god that thou wert in thy nakedness less lovely or more powerful and couldst claim thy right and awe the robbers back who press to shed thy blood and drink the tears of thy distress xliii then mightst thou more appal or less desired be homely and be peaceful undeplored for thy destructive charms then still untired would not be seen the armed torrents poured down the deep alps nor would the hostile horde of many nationed spoilers from the po quaff blood and water nor the stranger s sword be thy sad weapon of defence and so victor or vanquished thou the slave of friend or foe xliv wandering in youth i traced the path of him the roman friend of rome s least mortal mind the friend of tully as my bark did skim the bright blue waters with a fanning wind came megara before me and behind aegina lay piraeus on the right and corinth on the left i lay reclined along the prow and saw all these unite in ruin even as he had seen the desolate sight xlv for time hath not rebuilt them but upreared barbaric dwellings on their shattered site which only make more mourned and more endeared the few last rays of their far scattered light and the crushed relics of their vanished might the roman saw these tombs in his own age these sepulchres of cities which excite sad wonder and his yet surviving page the moral lesson bears drawn from such pilgrimage xlvi that page is now before me and on mine his country s ruin added to the mass of perished states he mourned in their decline and i in desolation all that was of then destruction is and now alas romerome imperial bows her to the storm in the same dust and blackness and we pass the skeleton of her titanic form wrecks of another world whose ashes still are warm xlvii yet italy through every other land thy wrongs should ring and shall from side to side mother of arts as once of arms thy hand was then our guardian and is still our guide parent of our religion whom the wide nations have knelt to for the keys of heaven europe repentant of her parricide shall yet redeem thee and all backward driven roll the barbarian tide and sue to be forgiven xlviii but arno wins us to the fair white walls where the etrurian athens claims and keeps a softer feeling for her fairy halls girt by her theatre of hills she reaps her corn and wine and oil and plenty leaps to laughing life with her redundant horn along the banks where smiling arno sweeps was modern luxury of commerce born and buried learning rose redeemed to a new morn xlix there too the goddess loves in stone and fills the air around with beauty we inhale the ambrosial aspect which beheld instils part of its immortality the veil of heaven is half undrawn within the pale we stand and in that form and face behold what mind can make when nature s self would fail and to the fond idolaters of old envy the innate flash which such a soul could mould l we gaze and turn away and know not where dazzled and drunk with beauty till the heart reels with its fulness therefor ever there chained to the chariot of triumphal art we stand as captives and would not depart away there need no words nor terms precise the paltry jargon of the marble mart where pedantry gulls follywe have eyes blood pulse and breast confirm the dardan shepherd s prize li appearedst thou not to paris in this guise or to more deeply blest anchises or in all thy perfect goddess ship when lies before thee thy own vanquished lord of war and gazing in thy face as toward a star laid on thy lap his eyes to thee upturn feeding on thy sweet cheek while thy lips are with lava kisses melting while they burn showered on his eyelids brow and mouth as from an urn lii glowing and circumfused in speechless love their full divinity inadequate that feeling to express or to improve the gods become as mortals and man s fate has moments like their brightest but the weight of earth recoils upon us let it go we can recall such visions and create from what has been or might be things which grow into thy statue s form and look like gods below liii i leave to learned fingers and wise hands the artist and his ape to teach and tell how well his connoisseurship understands the graceful bend and the voluptuous swell let these describe the undescribable i would not their vile breath should crisp the stream wherein that image shall for ever dwell the unruffled mirror of the loveliest dream that ever left the sky on the deep soul to beam liv in santa croce s holy precincts lie ashes which make it holier dust which is e en in itself an immortality though there were nothing save the past and this the particle of those sublimities which have relapsed to chaos here repose angelo s alfieri s bones and his the starry galileo with his woes here machiavelli s earth returned to whence it rose lv these are four minds which like the elements might furnish forth creation italy time which hath wronged thee with ten thousand rents of thine imperial garment shall deny and hath denied to every other sky spirits which soar from ruin thy decay is still impregnate with divinity which gilds it with revivifying ray such as the great of yore canova is to day lvi but where repose the all etruscan three dante and petrarch and scarce less than they the bard of prose creative spirit he of the hundred tales of lovewhere did they lay their bones distinguished from our common clay in death as life are they resolved to dust and have their country s marbles nought to say could not her quarries furnish forth one bust did they not to her breast their filial earth entrust lvii ungrateful florence dante sleeps afar like scipio buried by the upbraiding shore thy factions in their worse than civil war proscribed the bard whose name for evermore their children s children would in vain adore with the remorse of ages and the crown which petrarch s laureate brow supremely wore upon a far and foreign soil had grown his life his fame his grave though riflednot thine own lviii boccaccio to his parent earth bequeathed his dust and lies it not her great among with many a sweet and solemn requiem breathed o er him who formed the tuscan s siren tongue that music in itself whose sounds are song the poetry of speech no even his tomb uptorn must bear the hyaena bigots wrong no more amidst the meaner dead find room nor claim a passing sigh because it told for whom lix and santa croce wants their mighty dust yet for this want more noted as of yore the caesar s pageant shorn of brutus bust did but of rome s best son remind her more happier ravenna on thy hoary shore fortress of falling empire honoured sleeps the immortal exile arqua too her store of tuneful relics proudly claims and keeps while florence vainly begs her banished dead and weeps lx what is her pyramid of precious stones of porphyry jasper agate and all hues of gem and marble to encrust the bones of merchant dukes the momentary dews which sparkling to the twilight stars infuse freshness in the green turf that wraps the dead whose names are mausoleums of the muse are gently prest with far more reverent tread than ever paced the slab which paves the princely head lxi there be more things to greet the heart and eyes in arno s dome of art s most princely shrine where sculpture with her rainbow sister vies there be more marvels yetbut not for mine for i have been accustomed to entwine my thoughts with nature rather in the fields than art in galleries though a work divine calls for my spirit s homage yet it yields less than it feels because the weapon which it wields lxii is of another temper and i roam by thrasimene s lake in the defiles fatal to roman rashness more at home for there the carthaginian s warlike wiles come back before me as his skill beguiles the host between the mountains and the shore where courage falls in her despairing files and torrents swoll n to rivers with their gore reek through the sultry plain with legions scattered o er lxiii like to a forest felled by mountain winds and such the storm of battle on this day and such the frenzy whose convulsion blinds to all save carnage that beneath the fray an earthquake reeled unheededly away none felt stern nature rocking at his feet and yawning forth a grave for those who lay upon their bucklers for a winding sheet such is the absorbing hate when warring nations meet lxiv the earth to them was as a rolling bark which bore them to eternity they saw the ocean round but had no time to mark the motions of their vessel nature s law in them suspended recked not of the awe which reigns when mountains tremble and the birds plunge in the clouds for refuge and withdraw from their down toppling nests and bellowing herds stumble o er heaving plains and man s dread hath no words lxv far other scene is thrasimene now her lake a sheet of silver and her plain rent by no ravage save the gentle plough her aged trees rise thick as once the slain lay where their roots are but a brook hath ta en a little rill of scanty stream and bed a name of blood from that day s sanguine rain and sanguinetto tells ye where the dead made the earth wet and turned the unwilling waters red lxvi but thou clitumnus in thy sweetest wave of the most living crystal that was e er the haunt of river nymph to gaze and lave her limbs where nothing hid them thou dost rear thy grassy banks whereon the milk white steer grazes the purest god of gentle waters and most serene of aspect and most clear surely that stream was unprofaned by slaughters a mirror and a bath for beauty s youngest daughters lxvii and on thy happy shore a temple still of small and delicate proportion keeps upon a mild declivity of hill its memory of thee beneath it sweeps thy current s calmness oft from out it leaps the finny darter with the glittering scales who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps while chance some scattered water lily sails down where the shallower wave still tells its bubbling tales lxviii pass not unblest the genius of the place if through the air a zephyr more serene win to the brow tis his and if ye trace along his margin a more eloquent green if on the heart the freshness of the scene sprinkle its coolness and from the dry dust of weary life a moment lave it clean with nature s baptism tis to him ye must pay orisons for this suspension of disgust lxix the roar of waters from the headlong height velino cleaves the wave worn precipice the fall of waters rapid as the light the flashing mass foams shaking the abyss the hell of waters where they howl and hiss and boil in endless torture while the sweat of their great agony wrung out from this their phlegethon curls round the rocks of jet that gird the gulf around in pitiless horror set lxx and mounts in spray the skies and thence again returns in an unceasing shower which round with its unemptied cloud of gentle rain is an eternal april to the ground making it all one emerald how profound the gulf and how the giant element from rock to rock leaps with delirious bound crushing the cliffs which downward worn and rent with his fierce footsteps yield in chasms a fearful vent lxxi to the broad column which rolls on and shows more like the fountain of an infant sea torn from the womb of mountains by the throes of a new world than only thus to be parent of rivers which flow gushingly with many windings through the vale look back lo where it comes like an eternity as if to sweep down all things in its track charming the eye with dread a matchless cataract lxxii horribly beautiful but on the verge from side to side beneath the glittering morn an iris sits amidst the infernal surge like hope upon a deathbed and unworn its steady dyes while all around is torn by the distracted waters bears serene its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn resembling mid the torture of the scene love watching madness with unalterable mien lxxiii once more upon the woody apennine the infant alps whichhad i not before gazed on their mightier parents where the pine sits on more shaggy summits and where roar the thundering lauwinemight be worshipped more but i have seen the soaring jungfrau rear her never trodden snow and seen the hoar glaciers of bleak mont blanc both far and near and in chimari heard the thunder hills of fear lxxiv the acroceraunian mountains of old name and on parnassus seen the eagles fly like spirits of the spot as twere for fame for still they soared unutterably high i ve looked on ida with a trojan s eye athos olympus aetna atlas made these hills seem things of lesser dignity all save the lone soracte s height displayed not now in snow which asks the lyric roman s aid lxxv for our remembrance and from out the plain heaves like a long swept wave about to break and on the curl hangs pausing not in vain may he who will his recollections rake and quote in classic raptures and awake the hills with latian echoes i abhorred too much to conquer for the poet s sake the drilled dull lesson forced down word by word in my repugnant youth with pleasure to record lxxvi aught that recalls the daily drug which turned my sickening memory and though time hath taught my mind to meditate what then it learned yet such the fixed inveteracy wrought by the impatience of my early thought that with the freshness wearing out before my mind could relish what it might have sought if free to choose i cannot now restore its health but what it then detested still abhor lxxvii then farewell horace whom i hated so not for thy faults but mine it is a curse to understand not feel thy lyric flow to comprehend but never love thy verse although no deeper moralist rehearse our little life nor bard prescribe his art nor livelier satirist the conscience pierce awakening without wounding the touched heart yet fare thee wellupon soracte s ridge we part lxxviii o rome my country city of the soul the orphans of the heart must turn to thee lone mother of dead empires and control in their shut breasts their petty misery what are our woes and sufferance come and see the cypress hear the owl and plod your way o er steps of broken thrones and temples ye whose agonies are evils of a day a world is at our feet as fragile as our clay lxxix the niobe of nations there she stands childless and crownless in her voiceless woe an empty urn within her withered hands whose holy dust was scattered long ago the scipios tomb contains no ashes now the very sepulchres lie tenantless of their heroic dwellers dost thou flow old tiber through a marble wilderness rise with thy yellow waves and mantle her distress lxxx the goth the christian time war flood and fire have dwelt upon the seven hilled city s pride she saw her glories star by star expire and up the steep barbarian monarchs ride where the car climbed the capitol far and wide temple and tower went down nor left a site chaos of ruins who shall trace the void o er the dim fragments cast a lunar light and say here was or is where all is doubly night lxxxi the double night of ages and of her night s daughter ignorance hath wrapt and wrap all round us we but feel our way to err the ocean hath its chart the stars their map and knowledge spreads them on her ample lap but rome is as the desert where we steer stumbling o er recollections now we clap our hands and cry eureka it is clear when but some false mirage of ruin rises near lxxxii alas the lofty city and alas the trebly hundred triumphs and the day when brutus made the dagger s edge surpass the conqueror s sword in bearing fame away alas for tully s voice and virgil s lay and livy s pictured page but these shall be her resurrection all besidedecay alas for earth for never shall we see that brightness in her eye she bore when rome was free lxxxiii o thou whose chariot rolled on fortune s wheel triumphant sylla thou who didst subdue thy country s foes ere thou wouldst pause to feel the wrath of thy own wrongs or reap the due of hoarded vengeance till thine eagles flew o er prostrate asia thou who with thy frown annihilated senatesroman too with all thy vices for thou didst lay down with an atoning smile a more than earthly crown lxxxiv the dictatorial wreath couldst thou divine to what would one day dwindle that which made thee more than mortal and that so supine by aught than romans rome should thus be laid she who was named eternal and arrayed her warriors but to conquershe who veiled earth with her haughty shadow and displayed until the o er canopied horizon failed her rushing wingsoh she who was almighty hailed lxxxv sylla was first of victors but our own the sagest of usurpers cromwell he too swept off senates while he hewed the throne down to a blockimmortal rebel see what crimes it costs to be a moment free and famous through all ages but beneath his fate the moral lurks of destiny his day of double victory and death beheld him win two realms and happier yield his breath lxxxvi the third of the same moon whose former course had all but crowned him on the self same day deposed him gently from his throne of force and laid him with the earth s preceding clay and showed not fortune thus how fame and sway and all we deem delightful and consume our souls to compass through each arduous way are in her eyes less happy than the tomb were they but so in man s how different were his doom lxxxvii and thou dread statue yet existent in the austerest form of naked majesty thou who beheldest mid the assassins din at thy bathed base the bloody caesar lie folding his robe in dying dignity an offering to thine altar from the queen of gods and men great nemesis did he die and thou too perish pompey have ye been victors of countless kings or puppets of a scene lxxxviii and thou the thunder stricken nurse of rome she wolf whose brazen imaged dugs impart the milk of conquest yet within the dome where as a monument of antique art thou standest mother of the mighty heart which the great founder sucked from thy wild teat scorched by the roman jove s ethereal dart and thy limbs blacked with lightningdost thou yet guard thine immortal cubs nor thy fond charge forget lxxxix thou dost but all thy foster babes are dead the men of iron and the world hath reared cities from out their sepulchres men bled in imitation of the things they feared and fought and conquered and the same course steered at apish distance but as yet none have nor could the same supremacy have neared save one vain man who is not in the grave but vanquished by himself to his own slaves a slave xc the fool of false dominionand a kind of bastard caesar following him of old with steps unequal for the roman s mind was modelled in a less terrestrial mould with passions fiercer yet a judgment cold and an immortal instinct which redeemed the frailties of a heart so soft yet bold alcides with the distaff now he seemed at cleopatra s feet and now himself he beamed xci and came and saw and conquered but the man who would have tamed his eagles down to flee like a trained falcon in the gallic van which he in sooth long led to victory with a deaf heart which never seemed to be a listener to itself was strangely framed with but one weakest weaknessvanity coquettish in ambition still he aimed at what can he avouch or answer what he claimed xcii and would be all or nothingnor could wait for the sure grave to level him few years had fixed him with the caesars in his fate on whom we tread for this the conqueror rears the arch of triumph and for this the tears and blood of earth flow on as they have flowed an universal deluge which appears without an ark for wretched man s abode and ebbs but to reflow renew thy rainbow god xciii what from this barren being do we reap our senses narrow and our reason frail life short and truth a gem which loves the deep and all things weighed in custom s falsest scale opinion an omnipotence whose veil mantles the earth with darkness until right and wrong are accidents and men grow pale lest their own judgments should become too bright and their free thoughts be crimes and earth have too much light xciv and thus they plod in sluggish misery rotting from sire to son and age to age proud of their trampled nature and so die bequeathing their hereditary rage to the new race of inborn slaves who wage war for their chains and rather than be free bleed gladiator like and still engage within the same arena where they see their fellows fall before like leaves of the same tree xcv i speak not of men s creedsthey rest between man and his makerbut of things allowed averred and known and daily hourly seen the yoke that is upon us doubly bowed and the intent of tyranny avowed the edict of earth s rulers who are grown the apes of him who humbled once the proud and shook them from their slumbers on the throne too glorious were this all his mighty arm had done xcvi can tyrants but by tyrants conquered be and freedom find no champion and no child such as columbia saw arise when she sprung forth a pallas armed and undefiled or must such minds be nourished in the wild deep in the unpruned forest midst the roar of cataracts where nursing nature smiled on infant washington has earth no more such seeds within her breast or europe no such shore xcvii but france got drunk with blood to vomit crime and fatal have her saturnalia been to freedom s cause in every age and clime because the deadly days which we have seen and vile ambition that built up between man and his hopes an adamantine wall and the base pageant last upon the scene are grown the pretext for the eternal thrall which nips life s tree and dooms man s worsthis second fall xcviii yet freedom yet thy banner torn but flying streams like the thunder storm against the wind thy trumpet voice though broken now and dying the loudest still the tempest leaves behind thy tree hath lost its blossoms and the rind chopped by the axe looks rough and little worth but the sap lasts and still the seed we find sown deep even in the bosom of the north so shall a better spring less bitter fruit bring forth xcix there is a stern round tower of other days firm as a fortress with its fence of stone such as an army s baffled strength delays standing with half its battlements alone and with two thousand years of ivy grown the garland of eternity where wave the green leaves over all by time o erthrown what was this tower of strength within its cave what treasure lay so locked so hid a woman s grave c but who was she the lady of the dead tombed in a palace was she chaste and fair worthy a king sor morea roman s bed what race of chiefs and heroes did she bear what daughter of her beauties was the heir how livedhow lovedhow died she was she not so honouredand conspicuously there where meaner relics must not dare to rot placed to commemorate a more than mortal lot ci was she as those who love their lords or they who love the lords of others such have been even in the olden time rome s annals say was she a matron of cornelia s mien or the light air of egypt s graceful queen profuse of joy or gainst it did she war inveterate in virtue did she lean to the soft side of the heart or wisely bar love from amongst her griefs for such the affections are cii perchance she died in youth it may be bowed with woes far heavier than the ponderous tomb that weighed upon her gentle dust a cloud might gather o er her beauty and a gloom in her dark eye prophetic of the doom heaven gives its favouritesearly 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 agesurviving all charms kindred childrenwith the silver grey on her long tresses which might yet recall it may be still a something of the day when they were braided and her proud array and lovely form were envied praised and eyed by romebut whither would conjecture stray thus much alone we knowmetella died the wealthiest roman s wife behold his love or pride civ i know not whybut standing thus by thee it seems as if i had thine inmate known thou tomb and other days come back on me with recollected music though the tone is changed and solemn like the cloudy groan of dying thunder on the distant wind yet could i seat me by this ivied stone till i had bodied forth the heated mind forms from the floating wreck which ruin leaves behind cv and from the planks far shattered o er the rocks built me a little bark of hope once more to battle with the ocean and the shocks of the loud breakers and the ceaseless roar which rushes on the solitary shore where all lies foundered that was ever dear but could i gather from the wave worn store enough for my rude boat where should i steer there woos no home nor hope nor life save what is here cvi then let the winds howl on their harmony shall henceforth be my music and the night the sound shall temper with the owlet s cry as i now hear them in the fading light dim o er the bird of darkness native site answer each other on the palatine with their large eyes all glistening grey and bright and sailing pinions upon such a shrine what are our petty griefs let me not number mine cvii cypress and ivy weed and wallflower grown matted and massed together hillocks heaped on what were chambers arch crushed column strown in fragments choked up vaults and frescoes steeped in subterranean damps where the owl peeped deeming it midnight temples baths or halls pronounce who can for all that learning reaped from her research hath been that these are walls behold the imperial mount tis thus the mighty falls cviii there is the moral of all human tales tis but the same rehearsal of the past first freedom and then glorywhen that fails wealth vice corruptionbarbarism at last and history with all her volumes vast hath but one page tis better written here where gorgeous tyranny hath thus amassed all treasures all delights that eye or ear heart soul could seek tongue askaway with words draw near cix admire exultdespiselaugh weepfor here there is such matter for all feeling man thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear ages and realms are crowded in this span this mountain whose obliterated plan the pyramid of empires pinnacled of glory s gewgaws shining in the van till the sun s rays with added flame were filled where are its golden roofs where those who dared to build cx tully was not so eloquent as thou thou nameless column with the buried base what are the laurels of the caesar s brow crown me with ivy from his dwelling place whose arch or pillar meets me in the face titus or trajan s no tis that of time triumph arch pillar all he doth displace scoffing and apostolic statues climb to crush the imperial urn whose ashes slept sublime cxi buried in air the deep blue sky of rome and looking to the stars they had contained a spirit which with these would find a home the last of those who o er the whole earth reigned the roman globe for after none sustained but yielded back his conquests he was more than a mere alexander and unstained with household blood and wine serenely wore his sovereign virtuesstill we trajan s name adore cxii where is the rock of triumph the high place where rome embraced her heroes where the steep tarpeianfittest goal of treason s race the promontory whence the traitor s leap cured all ambition did the conquerors heap their spoils here yes and in yon field below a thousand years of silenced factions sleep the forum where the immortal accents glow and still the eloquent air breathesburns with cicero cxiii the field of freedom faction fame and blood here a proud people s passions were exhaled from the first hour of empire in the bud to that when further worlds to conquer failed but long before had freedom s face been veiled and anarchy assumed her attributes till every lawless soldier who assailed trod on the trembling senate s slavish mutes or raised the venal voice of baser prostitutes cxiv then turn we to our latest tribune s name from her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee redeemer of dark centuries of shame the friend of petrarchhope of italy rienzi last of romans while the tree of freedom s withered trunk puts forth a leaf even for thy tomb a garland let it be the forum s champion and the people s chief her new born numa thou with reign alas too brief cxv egeria sweet creation of some heart which found no mortal resting place so fair as thine ideal breast whate er thou art or wert a young aurora of the air the nympholepsy of some fond despair or it might be a beauty of the earth who found a more than common votary there too much adoring whatsoe er thy birth thou wert a beautiful thought and softly bodied forth cxvi the mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled with thine elysian water drops the face of thy cave guarded spring with years unwrinkled reflects the meek eyed genius of the place whose green wild margin now no more erase art s works nor must the delicate waters sleep prisoned in marble bubbling from the base of the cleft statue with a gentle leap the rill runs o er and round fern flowers and ivy creep cxvii fantastically tangled the green hills are clothed with early blossoms through the grass the quick eyed lizard rustles and the bills of summer birds sing welcome as ye pass flowers fresh in hue and many in their class implore the pausing step and with their dyes dance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass the sweetness of the violet s deep blue eyes kissed by the breath of heaven seems coloured by its skies cxviii here didst thou dwell in this enchanted cover egeria thy all heavenly bosom beating for the far footsteps of thy mortal lover the purple midnight veiled that mystic meeting with her most starry canopy and seating thyself by thine adorer what befell this cave was surely shaped out for the greeting of an enamoured goddess and the cell haunted by holy lovethe earliest oracle cxix and didst thou not thy breast to his replying blend a celestial with a human heart and love which dies as it was born in sighing share with immortal transports could thine art make them indeed immortal and impart the purity of heaven to earthly joys expel the venom and not blunt the dart the dull satiety which all destroys and root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys cxx alas our young affections run to waste or water but the desert whence arise but weeds of dark luxuriance tares of haste rank at the core though tempting to the eyes flowers whose wild odours breathe but agonies and trees whose gums are poison such the plants which spring beneath her steps as passion flies o er the world s wilderness and vainly pants for some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants cxxi o love no habitant of earth thou art an unseen seraph we believe in thee a faith whose martyrs are the broken heart but never yet hath seen nor e er shall see the naked eye thy form as it should be the mind hath made thee as it peopled heaven even with its own desiring phantasy and to a thought such shape and image given as haunts the unquenched soulparchedweariedwrungand riven cxxii of its own beauty is the mind diseased and fevers into false creation where where are the forms the sculptor s soul hath seized in him alone can nature show so fair where are the charms and virtues which we dare conceive in boyhood and pursue as men the unreached paradise of our despair which o er informs the pencil and the pen and overpowers the page where it would bloom again cxxiii who loves raves tis youth s frenzybut the cure is bitterer still as charm by charm unwinds which robed our idols and we see too sure nor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind s ideal shape of such yet still it binds the fatal spell and still it draws us on reaping the whirlwind from the oft sown winds the stubborn heart its alchemy begun seems ever near the prizewealthiest when most undone cxxiv we wither from our youth we gasp away sicksick unfound the boon unslaked the thirst though to the last in verge of our decay some phantom lures such as we sought at first but all too late so are we doubly curst love fame ambition avarice tis the same each idle and all ill and none the worst for all are meteors with a different name and death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame cxxv fewnonefind what they love or could have loved though accident blind contact and the strong necessity of loving have removed antipathiesbut to recur ere long envenomed with irrevocable wrong and circumstance that unspiritual god and miscreator makes and helps along our coming evils with a crutch like rod whose touch turns hope to dustthe 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 notwhich 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 thoughtour last and only place of refuge this at least shall still be mine though from our birth the faculty divine is chained and torturedcabined cribbed confined and bred in darkness lest the truth should shine too brightly on the unprepared mind the beam pours in for time and skill will couch the blind cxxviii arches on arches as it were that rome collecting the chief trophies of her line would build up all her triumphs in one dome her coliseum stands the moonbeams shine as twere its natural torches for divine should be the light which streams here to illume this long explored but still exhaustless mine of contemplation and the azure gloom of an italian night where the deep skies assume cxxix hues which have words and speak to ye of heaven floats o er this vast and wondrous monument and shadows forth its glory there is given unto the things of earth which time hath bent a spirit s feeling and where he hath leant his hand but broke his scythe there is a power and magic in the ruined battlement for which the palace of the present hour must yield its pomp and wait till ages are its dower cxxx o time the beautifier of the dead adorner of the ruin comforter and only healer when the heart hath bled time the corrector where our judgments err the test of truth love sole philosopher for all beside are sophists from thy thrift which never loses though it doth defer time the avenger unto thee i lift my hands and eyes and heart and crave of thee a gift cxxxi amidst this wreck where thou hast made a shrine and temple more divinely desolate among thy mightier offerings here are mine ruins of yearsthough 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 vainshall they not mourn cxxxii and thou who never yet of human wrong left the unbalanced scale great nemesis here where the ancients paid thee homage long thou who didst call the furies from the abyss and round orestes bade them howl and hiss for that unnatural retributionjust had it but been from hands less nearin this thy former realm i call thee from the dust dost thou not hear my heart awake thou shalt and must cxxxiii it is not that i may not have incurred for my ancestral faults or mine the wound i bleed withal and had it been conferred with a just weapon it had flowed unbound but now my blood shall not sink in the ground to thee i do devote itthou shalt take the vengeance which shall yet be sought and found which if i have not taken for the sake but let that passi sleep but thou shalt yet awake cxxxiv and if my voice break forth tis not that now i shrink from what is suffered let him speak who hath beheld decline upon my brow or seen my mind s convulsion leave it weak but in this page a record will i seek not in the air shall these my words disperse though i be ashes a far hour shall wreak the deep prophetic fulness of this verse and pile on human heads the mountain of my curse cxxxv that curse shall be forgiveness have i not hear me my mother earth behold it heaven have i not had to wrestle with my lot have i not suffered things to be forgiven have i not had my brain seared my heart riven hopes sapped name blighted life s life lied away and only not to desperation driven because not altogether of such clay as rots into the souls of those whom i survey cxxxvi from mighty wrongs to petty perfidy have i not seen what human things could do from the loud roar of foaming calumny to the small whisper of the as paltry few and subtler venom of the reptile crew the janus glance of whose significant eye learning to lie with silence would seem true and without utterance save the shrug or sigh deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy cxxxvii but i have lived and have not lived in vain my mind may lose its force my blood its fire and my frame perish even in conquering pain but there is that within me which shall tire torture and time and breathe when i expire something unearthly which they deem not of like the remembered tone of a mute lyre shall on their softened spirits sink and move in hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love cxxxviii the seal is set now welcome thou dread power nameless yet thus omnipotent which here walk st in the shadow of the midnight hour with a deep awe yet all distinct from fear thy haunts are ever where the dead walls rear their ivy mantles and the solemn scene derives from thee a sense so deep and clear that we become a part of what has been and grow unto the spot all seeing but unseen cxxxix and here the buzz of eager nations ran in murmured pity or loud roared applause as man was slaughtered by his fellow man and wherefore slaughtered wherefore but because such were the bloody circus genial laws and the imperial pleasure wherefore not what matters where we fall to fill the maws of wormson 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 handhis manly brow consents to death but conquers agony and his drooped head sinks gradually low and through his side the last drops ebbing slow from the red gash fall heavy one by one like the first of a thunder shower and now the arena swims around him he is gone ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won cxli he heard it but he heeded nothis eyes were with his heart and that was far away he recked not of the life he lost nor prize but where his rude hut by the danube lay there were his young barbarians all at play there was their dacian motherhe their sire butchered to make a roman holiday all this rushed with his bloodshall he expire and unavenged arise ye goths and glut your ire cxlii but here where murder breathed her bloody steam and here where buzzing nations choked the ways and roared or murmured like a mountain stream dashing or winding as its torrent strays here where the roman million s blame or praise was death or life the playthings of a crowd my voice sounds muchand fall the stars faint rays on the arena voidseats crushed walls bowed and galleries where my steps seem echoes strangely loud cxliii a ruinyet what ruin from its mass walls palaces half cities have been reared yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass and marvel where the spoil could have appeared hath it indeed been plundered or but cleared alas developed opens the decay when the colossal fabric s form is neared it will not bear the brightness of the day which streams too much on all years man have reft away cxliv but when the rising moon begins to climb its topmost arch and gently pauses there when the stars twinkle through the loops of time and the low night breeze waves along the air the garland forest which the grey walls wear like laurels on the bald first caesar s head when the light shines serene but doth not glare then in this magic circle raise the dead heroes have trod this spot tis on their dust ye tread cxlv while stands the coliseum rome shall stand when falls the coliseum rome shall fall and when rome fallsthe world from our own land thus spake the pilgrims o er this mighty wall in saxon times which we are wont to call ancient and these three mortal things are still on their foundations and unaltered all rome and her ruin past redemption s skill the world the same wide denof thieves or what ye will cxlvi simple erect severe austere sublime shrine of all saints and temple of all gods from jove to jesusspared and blest by time looking tranquillity while falls or nods arch empire each thing round thee and man plods his way through thorns to ashesglorious dome shalt thou not last time s scythe and tyrants rods shiver upon theesanctuary and home of art and pietypantheon pride of rome cxlvii relic of nobler days and noblest arts despoiled yet perfect with thy circle spreads a holiness appealing to all hearts to art a model and to him who treads rome for the sake of ages glory sheds her light through thy sole aperture to those who worship here are altars for their beads and they who feel for genius may repose their eyes on honoured forms whose busts around them close cxlviii there is a dungeon in whose dim drear light what do i gaze on nothing look again two forms are slowly shadowed on my sight two insulated phantoms of the brain it is not so i see them full and plain an old man and a female young and fair fresh as a nursing mother in whose vein the blood is nectar but what doth she there with her unmantled neck and bosom white and bare cxlix full swells the deep pure fountain of young life where on the heart and from the heart we took our first and sweetest nurture when the wife blest into mother in the innocent look or even the piping cry of lips that brook no pain and small suspense a joy perceives man knows not when from out its cradled nook she sees her little bud put forth its leaves what may the fruit be yet i know notcain was eve s cl but here youth offers to old age the food the milk of his own gift it is her sire to whom she renders back the debt of blood born with her birth no he shall not expire while in those warm and lovely veins the fire of health and holy feeling can provide great nature s nile whose deep stream rises higher than egypt s river from that gentle side drink drink and live old man heaven s realm holds no such tide cli the starry fable of the milky way has not thy story s purity it is a constellation of a sweeter ray and sacred nature triumphs more in this reverse of her decree than in the abyss where sparkle distant worlds oh holiest nurse no drop of that clear stream its way shall miss to thy sire s heart replenishing its source with life as our freed souls rejoin the universe clii turn to the mole which hadrian reared on high imperial mimic of old egypt s piles colossal copyist of deformity whose travelled phantasy from the far nile s enormous model doomed the artist s toils to build for giants and for his vain earth his shrunken ashes raise this dome how smiles the gazer s eye with philosophic mirth to view the huge design which sprung from such a birth cliii but lo the domethe vast and wondrous dome to which diana s marvel was a cell christ s mighty shrine above his martyr s tomb i have beheld the ephesian s miracle its columns strew the wilderness and dwell the hyaena and the jackal in their shade i have beheld sophia s bright roofs swell their glittering mass i the sun and have surveyed its sanctuary the while the usurping moslem prayed cliv but thou of temples old or altars new standest alonewith nothing like to thee worthiest of god the holy and the true since zion s desolation when that he forsook his former city what could be of earthly structures in his honour piled of a sublimer aspect majesty power glory strength and beauty all are aisled in this eternal ark of worship undefiled clv enter its grandeur overwhelms thee not and why it is not lessened but thy mind expanded by the genius of the spot has grown colossal and can only find a fit abode wherein appear enshrined thy hopes of immortality and thou shalt one day if found worthy so defined see thy god face to face as thou dost now his holy of holies nor be blasted by his brow clvi thou movestbut increasing with th advance like climbing some great alp which still doth rise deceived by its gigantic elegance vastness which growsbut grows to harmonise all musical in its immensities rich marblesricher paintingshrines where flame the lamps of goldand haughty dome which vies in air with earth s chief structures though their frame sits on the firm set groundand 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 eyeso 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 faultbut thine our outward sense is but of gradual graspand as it is that what we have of feeling most intense outstrips our faint expression e en so this outshining and o erwhelming edifice fools our fond gaze and greatest of the great defies at first our nature s littleness till growing with its growth we thus dilate our spirits to the size of that they contemplate clix then pause and be enlightened there is more in such a survey than the sating gaze of wonder pleased or awe which would adore the worship of the place or the mere praise of art and its great masters who could raise what former time nor skill nor thought could plan the fountain of sublimity displays its depth and thence may draw the mind of man its golden sands and learn what great conceptions can clx or turning to the vatican go see laocoon s torture dignifying pain a father s love and mortal s agony with an immortal s patience blending vain the struggle vain against the coiling strain and gripe and deepening of the dragon s grasp the old man s clench the long envenomed chain rivets the living links the enormous asp enforces pang on pang and stifles gasp on gasp clxi or view the lord of the unerring bow the god of life and poesy and light the sun in human limbs arrayed and brow all radiant from his triumph in the fight the shaft hath just been shotthe arrow bright with an immortal s vengeance in his eye and nostril beautiful disdain and might and majesty flash their full lightnings by developing in that one glance the deity clxii but in his delicate forma dream of love shaped by some solitary nymph whose breast longed for a deathless lover from above and maddened in that visionare expressed all that ideal beauty ever blessed the mind within its most unearthly mood when each conception was a heavenly guest a ray of immortalityand stood starlike around until they gathered to a god clxiii and if it be prometheus stole from heaven the fire which we endure it was repaid by him to whom the energy was given which this poetic marble hath arrayed with an eternal glorywhich if made by human hands is not of human thought and time himself hath hallowed it nor laid one ringlet in the dustnor 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 morethese breathings are his last his wanderings done his visions ebbing fast and he himself as nothing if he was aught but a phantasy and could be classed with forms which live and sufferlet that pass his shadow fades away into destruction s mass clxv which gathers shadow substance life and all that we inherit in its mortal shroud and spreads the dim and universal pall thro which all things grow phantoms and the cloud between us sinks and all which ever glowed till glory s self is twilight and displays a melancholy halo scarce allowed to hover on the verge of darkness rays sadder than saddest night for they distract the gaze clxvi and send us prying into the abyss to gather what we shall be when the frame shall be resolved to something less than this its wretched essence and to dream of fame and wipe the dust from off the idle name we never more shall hear but never more oh happier thought can we be made the same it is enough in sooth that once we bore these fardels of the heartthe heart whose sweat was gore clxvii hark forth from the abyss a voice proceeds a long low distant murmur of dread sound such as arises when a nation bleeds with some deep and immedicable wound through storm and darkness yawns the rending ground the gulf is thick with phantoms but the chief seems royal still though with her head discrowned and pale but lovely with maternal grief she clasps a babe to whom her breast yields no relief clxviii scion of chiefs and monarchs where art thou fond hope of many nations art thou dead could not the grave forget thee and lay low some less majestic less beloved head in the sad midnight while thy heart still bled the mother of a moment o er thy boy death hushed that pang for ever with thee fled the present happiness and promised joy which filled the imperial isles so full it seemed to cloy clxix peasants bring forth in safety can it be o thou that wert so happy so adored those who weep not for kings shall weep for thee and freedom s heart grown heavy cease to hoard her many griefs for one for she had poured her orisons for thee and o er thy head beheld her iris thou too lonely lord and desolate consortvainly wert thou wed the husband of a year the father of the dead clxx of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made thy bridal s fruit is ashes in the dust the fair haired daughter of the isles is laid the love of millions how we did entrust futurity to her and though it must darken above our bones yet fondly deemed our children should obey her child and blessed her and her hoped for seed whose promise seemed like star to shepherd s eyes twas but a meteor beamed clxxi woe unto us not her for she sleeps well the fickle reek of popular breath the tongue of hollow counsel the false oracle which from the birth of monarchy hath rung its knell in princely ears till the o erstrung nations have armed in madness the strange fate which tumbles mightiest sovereigns and hath flung against their blind omnipotence a weight within the opposing scale which crushes soon or late clxxii these might have been her destiny but no our hearts deny it and so young so fair good without effort great without a foe but now a bride and motherand now there how many ties did that stern moment tear from thy sire s to his humblest subject s breast is linked the electric chain of that despair whose shock was as an earthquake s and oppressed the land which loved thee so that none could love thee best clxxiii lo nemi navelled in the woody hills so far that the uprooting wind which tears the oak from his foundation and which spills the ocean o er its boundary and bears its foam against the skies reluctant spares the oval mirror of thy glassy lake and calm as cherished hate its surface wears a deep cold settled aspect nought can shake all coiled into itself and round as sleeps the snake clxxiv and near albano s scarce divided waves shine from a sister valley and afar the tiber winds and the broad ocean laves the latian coast where sprung the epic war arms and the man whose reascending star rose o er an empire but beneath thy right tully reposed from rome and where yon bar of girdling mountains intercepts the sight the sabine farm was tilled the weary bard s delight clxxv but i forget my pilgrim s shrine is won and he and i must part so let it be his task and mine alike are nearly done yet once more let us look upon the sea the midland ocean breaks on him and me and from the alban mount we now behold our friend of youth that ocean which when we beheld it last by calpe s rock unfold those waves we followed on till the dark euxine rolled clxxvi upon the blue symplegades long years long though not very manysince 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 rewardand it is here that we can yet feel gladdened by the sun and reap from earth sea joy almost as dear as if there were no man to trouble what is clear clxxvii oh that the desert were my dwelling place with one fair spirit for my minister that i might all forget the human race and hating no one love but only her ye elements in whose ennobling stir i feel myself exaltedcan 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 oceanroll ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain man marks the earth with ruinhis control stops with the shore upon the watery plain the wrecks are all thy deed nor doth remain a shadow of man s ravage save his own when for a moment like a drop of rain he sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan without a grave unknelled uncoffined and unknown clxxx his steps are not upon thy paths thy fields are not a spoil for him thou dost arise and shake him from thee the vile strength he wields for earth s destruction thou dost all despise spurning him from thy bosom to the skies and send st him shivering in thy playful spray and howling to his gods where haply lies his petty hope in some near port or bay and dashest him again to earth there let him lay clxxxi the armaments which thunderstrike the walls of rock built cities bidding nations quake and monarchs tremble in their capitals the oak leviathans whose huge ribs make their clay creator the vain title take of lord of thee and arbiter of war these are thy toys and as the snowy flake they melt into thy yeast of waves which mar alike the armada s pride or spoils of trafalgar clxxxii thy shores are empires changed in all save thee assyria greece rome carthage what are they thy waters washed them power while they were free and many a tyrant since their shores obey the stranger slave or savage their decay has dried up realms to deserts not so thou unchangeable save to thy wild waves play time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow such as creation s dawn beheld thou rollest now clxxxiii thou glorious mirror where the almighty s form glasses itself in tempests in all time calm or convulsedin breeze or gale or storm icing the pole or in the torrid clime dark heaving boundless endless and sublime the image of eternitythe throne of the invisible even from out thy slime the monsters of the deep are made each zone obeys thee thou goest forth dread fathomless alone clxxxiv and i have loved thee ocean and my joy of youthful sports was on thy breast to be borne like thy bubbles onward from a boy i wantoned with thy breakersthey 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 maneas i do here clxxxv my task is donemy song hath ceasedmy theme has died into an echo it is fit the spell should break of this protracted dream the torch shall be extinguished which hath lit my midnight lampand what is writ is writ would it were worthier but i am not now that which i have beenand my visions flit less palpably before meand 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 werewith you the moral of his strain 