No More Learning

Shalt thou not last? Time's scythe and Tyrants' rods
Shiver upon thee--sanctuary and home
Of Art and Piety--Pantheon! --pride of Rome! [pc]

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. [515]

CXLVIII.

There is a dungeon, in whose dim drear light[516]
What do I gaze on? Nothing--Look again!
Two forms are slowly shadowed on my sight--
Two insulated phantoms of the brain:[pd]
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? [pe]

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[pf]
No pain and small suspense, a joy perceives[pg]
Man knows not--when from out its cradled nook
She sees her little bud put forth its leaves--
What may the fruit be yet? --I know not--Cain was Eve's.

CL.

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

CLI.

The starry fable of the Milky Way[517]
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[ph]
With life, as our freed souls rejoin the Universe.

CLII.

Turn to the Mole[518] 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,[pi]
To view the huge design which sprung from such a birth!

CLIII. [519]

But lo! the Dome--the vast and wondrous Dome,[pj][520]
To which Diana's marvel was a cell--
Christ's mighty shrine above His martyr's tomb! [pk]
I have beheld the Ephesian's miracle--[521]
Its columns strew the wilderness, and dwell
The hyaena and the jackal in their shade;[522]
I have beheld Sophia's bright roofs swell[pl]
Their glittering mass i' the Sun, and have surveyed[pm]
Its sanctuary the while the usurping Moslem prayed;[523]

CLIV.

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

CLV.

Enter: its grandeur overwhelms thee not;
And why? it is not lessened--but thy mind,
Expanded by the Genius of the spot,
Has grown colossal, and can only find
A fit[524] 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. [pn]

CLVI.

Thou movest--but increasing with the advance,[525]
Like climbing some great Alp, which still doth rise,
Deceived by its gigantic elegance--
Vastness which grows, but grows to harmonize--[po]
All musical in its immensities;
Rich marbles, richer painting--shrines where flame[pp]
The lamps of gold--and haughty dome which vies
In air with Earth's chief structures, though their frame
Sits on the firm-set ground--and this the clouds must claim.

CLVII.

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

CLVIII.

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

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:[ps]
The fountain of Sublimity displays
Its depth, and thence may draw the mind of Man[pt]
Its golden sands, and learn what great Conceptions can. [pu]

CLX.

Or, turning to the Vatican, go see
Laocoon's[526] 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[pv]
Rivets the living links,--the enormous Asp
Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp on gasp. [pw]

CLXI.

Or view the Lord of the unerring bow,[527]
The God of Life, and Poesy, and Light--
The Sun in human limbs arrayed, and brow
All radiant from his triumph in the fight;
The shaft hath just been shot--the arrow bright
With an Immortal's vengeance--in his eye
And nostril beautiful Disdain, and Might
And Majesty, flash their full lightnings by,
Developing in that one glance the Deity.

CLXII.

But in his delicate form--a dream of Love,[528]
Shaped by some solitary Nymph, whose breast
Longed for a deathless lover from above,
And maddened in that vision[529]--are exprest
All that ideal Beauty ever blessed
The mind with in its most unearthly mood,
When each Conception was a heavenly Guest--
A ray of Immortality--and stood,
Starlike, around, until they gathered to a God! [px]

CLXIII.

And if it be Prometheus stole from Heaven
The fire which we endure[530]--it was repaid
By him to whom the energy was given
Which this poetic marble hath arrayed
With an eternal Glory--which, if made
By human hands, is not of human thought--
And Time himself hath hallowed it, nor laid
One ringlet in the dust--nor hath it caught
A tinge of years, but breathes the flame with which 'twas wrought.

CLXIV.

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

CLXV.

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

CLXVI.

And send us prying into the abyss,
To gather what we shall be when the frame
Shall be resolved to something less than this--
Its wretched essence; and to dream of fame,
And wipe the dust from off the idle name
We never more shall hear,--but never more,
Oh, happier thought! can we be made the same:--
It is enough in sooth that _once_ we bore
These fardels[531] of the heart--the heart whose sweat was gore.

CLXVII.

Hark! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds,[532]
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,
Oh thou that wert so happy, so adored!
Those who weep not for Kings shall weep for thee,
And Freedom's heart, grown heavy, cease to hoard
Her many griefs for _One_; for she had poured
Her orisons for thee, and o'er thy head[pz]
Beheld her Iris. --Thou, too, lonely Lord,
And desolate Consort--vainly wert thou wed!
The husband of a year! the father of the dead!

CLXX.

Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made;
Thy bridal's fruit is ashes[533]: in the dust
The fair-haired Daughter of the Isles is laid,
The love of millions! How we did entrust
Futurity to her! and, though it must
Darken above our bones, yet fondly deemed
Our children should obey her child, and blessed
Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seemed
Like stars to shepherd's eyes:--'twas but a meteor beamed. [534]

CLXXI.

Woe unto us--not her--for she sleeps well:[535]
The fickle reek of popular breath,[536] the tongue
Of hollow counsel, the false oracle,
Which from the birth of Monarchy hath rung
Its knell in princely ears, till the o'erstung
Nations have armed in madness--the strange fate
Which tumbles mightiest sovereigns,[537] and hath flung
Against their blind omnipotence a weight
Within the opposing scale, which crushes soon or late,--[qa]

CLXXII.

These might have been her destiny--but no--
Our hearts deny it: and so young, so fair,
Good without effort, great without a foe;
But now a Bride and Mother--and now _there! _
How many ties did that stern moment tear!
From thy Sire's to his humblest subject's breast
Is linked the electric chain of that despair,
Whose shock was as an Earthquake's,[538] and opprest
The land which loved thee so that none could love thee best.

CLXXIII.

Lo, Nemi! [539] 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[qb]
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[31. H. ]
The Tiber winds, and the broad Ocean laves
The Latian coast where sprung the Epic war,
"Arms and the Man," whose re-ascending star
Rose o'er an empire:--but beneath thy right[540]
Tully reposed from Rome;--and where yon bar
Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight[qc]
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[541] unfold
Those waves, we followed on till the dark Euxine rolled

CLXXVI.

Upon the blue Symplegades:[32. H. ] long years--
Long, though not very many--since have done
Their work on both; some suffering and some tears[qd]
Have left us nearly where we had begun:
Yet not in vain our mortal race hath run--
We have had our reward--and it is here,--
That we can yet feel gladdened by the Sun,
And reap from Earth--Sea--joy almost as dear
As if there were no Man to trouble what is clear. [542]

CLXXVII.

Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling-place,[543]
With one fair Spirit for my minister,
That I might all forget the human race,
And, hating no one, love but only her!
Ye elements! --in whose ennobling stir
I feel myself exalted--Can ye not
Accord me such a Being? Do I err
In deeming such inhabit many a spot?
Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot.

CLXXVIII.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and Music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe,[544] and feel
What I can ne'er express--yet can not all conceal.

CLXXIX.

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

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--[545]
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. [qf][546]

CLXXXI.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And Monarchs tremble in their Capitals,
The oak Leviathans,[547] whose huge ribs make[qg]
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. [548]

CLXXXII.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee--
Assyria--Greece--Rome--Carthage--what are they? [549]
Thy waters washed[550] them power while they were free,[qh]
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,[qi]
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow--
Such as Creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

CLXXXIII.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,
Calm or convulsed--in breeze, or gale, or storm--
Icing the Pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving--boundless, endless, and sublime--
The image of Eternity-the throne[qj]
Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime[551]
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[552]
I wantoned with thy breakers--they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror--'twas a pleasing fear,
For I was as it were a Child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane--as I do here. [553]

CLXXXV.

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

CLXXXVI.

Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been--
A sound which makes us linger;--yet--farewell! [ql]
Ye! who have traced the Pilgrim to the scene[qm]
Which is his last--if in your memories dwell
A thought which once was his--if on ye swell
A single recollection--not in vain
He wore his sandal-shoon, and scallop-shell;
Farewell! with _him_ alone may rest the pain,
If such there were--with _you_, the Moral of his Strain. [554]


POEMS 1809-1813.



THE GIRL OF CADIZ. [1]

1.

Oh never talk again to me
Of northern climes and British ladies;
It has not been your lot to see,[a]
Like me, the lovely Girl of Cadiz.
Although her eye be not of blue,
Nor fair her locks, like English lasses,
How far its own expressive hue
The languid azure eye surpasses!

2.

Prometheus-like from heaven she stole
The fire that through those silken lashes
In darkest glances seems to roll,
From eyes that cannot hide their flashes:
And as along her bosom steal
In lengthened flow her raven tresses,
You'd swear each clustering lock could feel,
And curled to give her neck caresses.

3.

Our English maids are long to woo,[b][2]
And frigid even in possession;
And if their charms be fair to view,
Their lips are slow at Love's confession;
But, born beneath a brighter sun,
For love ordained the Spanish maid is,
And who,--when fondly, fairly won,--
Enchants you like the Girl of Cadiz?

4.

The Spanish maid is no coquette,
Nor joys to see a lover tremble,
And if she love, or if she hate,
Alike she knows not to dissemble.
Her heart can ne'er be bought or sold--
Howe'er it beats, it beats sincerely;
And, though it will not bend to gold,
'Twill love you long and love you dearly.

5.

The Spanish girl that meets your love
Ne'er taunts you with a mock denial,
For every thought is bent to prove
Her passion in the hour of trial.
When thronging foemen menace Spain,
She dares the deed and shares the danger;
And should her lover press the plain,
She hurls the spear, her love's avenger.

6.

And when, beneath the evening star,
She mingles in the gay Bolero,[3]
Or sings to her attuned guitar
Of Christian knight or Moorish hero,
Or counts her beads with fairy hand
Beneath the twinkling rays of Hesper,[c]
Or joins Devotion's choral band,
To chaunt the sweet and hallowed vesper;--

7.

In each her charms the heart must move
Of all who venture to behold her;
Then let not maids less fair reprove
Because her bosom is not colder:
Through many a clime 'tis mine to roam
Where many a soft and melting maid is,
But none abroad, and few at home,
May match the dark-eyed Girl of Cadiz. [d]

1809.
[First published, 1832. ]



LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM, AT MALTA. [e][4]

1.

As o'er the cold sepulchral stone
Some _name_ arrests the passer-by;
Thus, when thou view'st this page alone,
May _mine_ attract thy pensive eye!

2.

And when by thee that name is read,
Perchance in some succeeding year,
Reflect on _me_ as on the _dead_,
And think my _Heart_ is buried _here_.

Malta, _September_ 14, 1809.
[First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to). ]



TO FLORENCE. [f]

1.

Oh Lady! when I left the shore,
The distant shore which gave me birth,
I hardly thought to grieve once more,
To quit another spot on earth:

2.

Yet here, amidst this barren isle,
Where panting Nature droops the head,
Where only thou art seen to smile,
I view my parting hour with dread.

3.

Though far from Albin's craggy shore,
Divided by the dark-blue main;
A few, brief, rolling seasons o'er,
Perchance I view her cliffs again:

4.

But wheresoe'er I now may roam,
Through scorching clime, and varied sea,
Though Time restore me to my home,
I ne'er shall bend mine eyes on thee:

5.

On thee, in whom at once conspire
All charms which heedless hearts can move,
Whom but to see is to admire,
And, oh! forgive the word--to love.

6.

Forgive the word, in one who ne'er
With such a word can more offend;
And since thy heart I cannot share,
Believe me, what I am, thy friend.

7.

And who so cold as look on thee,
Thou lovely wand'rer, and be less?
Nor be, what man should ever be,
The friend of Beauty in distress?

8.

Ah! who would think that form had past
Through Danger's most destructive path,[g]
Had braved the death-winged tempest's blast,
And 'scaped a Tyrant's fiercer wrath?

9.

Lady! when I shall view the walls
Where free Byzantium once arose,
And Stamboul's Oriental halls
The Turkish tyrants now enclose;

10.

Though mightiest in the lists of fame,
That glorious city still shall be;
On me 'twill hold a dearer claim,
As spot of thy nativity:

11.

And though I bid thee now farewell,
When I behold that wondrous scene--
Since where thou art I may not dwell--
'Twill soothe to be where thou hast been.

_September_, 1809.
[First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to). ]



STANZAS COMPOSED DURING A THUNDERSTORM. [h][5]

1.

Chill and mirk is the nightly blast,
Where Pindus' mountains rise,
And angry clouds are pouring fast
The vengeance of the skies.

2.

Our guides are gone, our hope is lost,
And lightnings, as they play,
But show where rocks our path have crost,
Or gild the torrent's spray.

3.

Is yon a cot I saw, though low?
When lightning broke the gloom--
How welcome were its shade! --ah, no!
'Tis but a Turkish tomb.

4.

Through sounds of foaming waterfalls,
I hear a voice exclaim--
My way-worn countryman, who calls
On distant England's name.

5.

A shot is fired--by foe or friend?
Another--'tis to tell
The mountain-peasants to descend,
And lead us where they dwell.

6.

Oh! who in such a night will dare
To tempt the wilderness?
And who 'mid thunder-peals can hear
Our signal of distress?

7.

And who that heard our shouts would rise
To try the dubious road?
Nor rather deem from nightly cries
That outlaws were abroad.

8.
Clouds burst, skies flash, oh, dreadful hour!
More fiercely pours the storm!
Yet here one thought has still the power
To keep my bosom warm.

9.

While wandering through each broken path,
O'er brake and craggy brow;
While elements exhaust their wrath,
Sweet Florence, where art thou?

10.

Not on the sea, not on the sea--
Thy bark hath long been gone:
Oh, may the storm that pours on me,
Bow down my head alone!

11.

Full swiftly blew the swift Siroc,
When last I pressed thy lip;
And long ere now, with foaming shock,
Impelled thy gallant ship.

12.

Now thou art safe; nay, long ere now
Hast trod the shore of Spain;
'Twere hard if aught so fair as thou
Should linger on the main.

13.

And since I now remember thee
In darkness and in dread,
As in those hours of revelry
Which Mirth and Music sped;

14.

Do thou, amid the fair white walls,
If Cadiz yet be free,
At times from out her latticed halls
Look o'er the dark blue sea;

15.

Then think upon Calypso's isles,
Endeared by days gone by;
To others give a thousand smiles,
To me a single sigh.

16.

And when the admiring circle mark
The paleness of thy face,
A half-formed tear, a transient spark
Of melancholy grace,

17.

Again thou'lt smile, and blushing shun
Some coxcomb's raillery;
Nor own for once thou thought'st on one,
Who ever thinks on thee.

18.

Though smile and sigh alike are vain,
When severed hearts repine,
My spirit flies o'er Mount and Main,
And mourns in search of _thine_.

_October_ 11, 1809.
[MS. M. First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to). ]



STANZAS WRITTEN IN PASSING THE AMBRACIAN GULF. [i]

1.

Through cloudless skies, in silvery sheen,
Full beams the moon on Actium's coast:
And on these waves, for Egypt's queen,
The ancient world was won and lost.

2.

And now upon the scene I look,
The azure grave of many a Roman;
Where stern Ambition once forsook
His wavering crown to follow _Woman_.

3.

Florence! whom I will love as well
(As ever yet was said or sung,
Since Orpheus sang his spouse from Hell)
Whilst _thou_ art _fair_ and _I_ am _young_;

4.

Sweet Florence! those were pleasant times,
When worlds were staked for Ladies' eyes:
Had bards as many realms as rhymes,[j]
Thy charms might raise new Antonies. [k]

5.

Though Fate forbids such things to be,[l]
Yet, by thine eyes and ringlets curled!
I cannot _lose_ a _world_ for thee,
But would not lose _thee_ for a _World_. [6]

_November_ 14, 1809.
[MS. M. First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to). ]



THE SPELL IS BROKE, THE CHARM IS FLOWN! [m]

WRITTEN AT ATHENS, JANUARY 16, 1810.


The spell is broke, the charm is flown!
Thus is it with Life's fitful fever:
We madly smile when we should groan;
Delirium is our best deceiver.
Each lucid interval of thought
Recalls the woes of Nature's charter;
And _He_ that acts as _wise men ought_,
But _lives_--as Saints have died--a martyr.

[MS. M. First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to). ]



WRITTEN AFTER SWIMMING FROM SESTOS TO ABYDOS. [7]

1.

If, in the month of dark December,
Leander, who was nightly wont
(What maid will not the tale remember? )
To cross thy stream, broad Hellespont!

2.

If, when the wintry tempest roared,
He sped to Hero, nothing loth,
And thus of old thy current poured,
Fair Venus! how I pity both!

3.

For _me_, degenerate modern wretch,
Though in the genial month of May,
My dripping limbs I faintly stretch,
And think I've done a feat to-day.

4.

But since he crossed the rapid tide,
According to the doubtful story,
To woo,--and--Lord knows what beside,
And swam for Love, as I for Glory;

5.

'Twere hard to say who fared the best:
Sad mortals! thus the Gods still plague you!
He lost his labour, I my jest:
For he was drowned, and I've the ague. [8]

_May 9, 1810. _
[First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to). ]



LINES IN THE TRAVELLERS' BOOK AT ORCHOMENUS. [9]

IN THIS BOOK A TRAVELLER HAD WRITTEN:--

"Fair Albion, smiling, sees her son depart
To trace the birth and nursery of art:
Noble his object, glorious is his aim;
He comes to Athens, and he--writes his name. "

BENEATH WHICH LORD BYRON INSERTED THE FOLLOWING:--

The modest bard, like many a bard unknown,
Rhymes on our names, but wisely hides his own;
But yet, whoe'er he be, to say no worse,
His name would bring more credit than his verse.

1810.
[First published, _Life_, 1830. ]



MAID OF ATHENS, ERE WE PART. [n]

? ? ? ? ? ? , ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? .
[Zoe/ mou, sa~s a)gapo~. ]

1.

Maid of Athens,[10] ere we part,
Give, oh give me back my heart!
Or, since that has left my breast,
Keep it now, and take the rest!
Hear my vow before I go,
? ? ? ? ? ? , ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? . [Zoe/ mou, sa~s a)gapo~. ][11]

2.

By those tresses unconfined,
Wooed by each AEgean wind;
By those lids whose jetty fringe
Kiss thy soft cheeks' blooming tinge;
By those wild eyes like the roe,
? ? ? ? ? ? , ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? .

3.

By that lip I long to taste;
By that zone-encircled waist;
By all the token-flowers[12] that tell
What words can never speak so well;
By love's alternate joy and woe,
? ? ? ? ? ? , ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? .

4.

Maid of Athens! I am gone:
Think of me, sweet! when alone.
Though I fly to Istambol,[13]
Athens holds my heart and soul:
Can I cease to love thee? No!
? ? ? ? ? ? , ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? .

_Athens_, 1810.
[First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to). ]



FRAGMENT FROM THE "MONK OF ATHOS. "[14]

1.

Beside the confines of the AEgean main,
Where northward Macedonia bounds the flood,
And views opposed the Asiatic plain,
Where once the pride of lofty Ilion stood,
Like the great Father of the giant brood,
With lowering port majestic Athos stands,
Crowned with the verdure of eternal wood,
As yet unspoiled by sacrilegious hands,
And throws his mighty shade o'er seas and distant lands.

2.

And deep embosomed in his shady groves
Full many a convent rears its glittering spire,
Mid scenes where Heavenly Contemplation loves
To kindle in her soul her hallowed fire,
Where air and sea with rocks and woods conspire
To breathe a sweet religious calm around,
Weaning the thoughts from every low desire,
And the wild waves that break with murmuring sound
Along the rocky shore proclaim it holy ground.

3.

Sequestered shades where Piety has given
A quiet refuge from each earthly care,
Whence the rapt spirit may ascend to Heaven!

Oh, ye condemned the ills of life to bear!
As with advancing age your woes increase,
What bliss amidst these solitudes to share
The happy foretaste of eternal Peace,
Till Heaven in mercy bids your pain and sorrows cease.

[First published in the _Life of Lord Byron_,
by the Hon. Roden Noel, London, 1890, pp. 206, 207. ]



LINES WRITTEN BENEATH A PICTURE. [15]

1.

Dear object of defeated care!
Though now of Love and thee bereft,
To reconcile me with despair
Thine image and my tears are left.

2.

'Tis said with Sorrow Time can cope;
But this I feel can ne'er be true:
For by the death-blow of my Hope
My Memory immortal grew.

_Athens, January_, 1811.
[First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to). ]



TRANSLATION OF THE FAMOUS GREEK WAR SONG,
"? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?