No More Learning

Tully was not so eloquent as thou,
Thou nameless column[487] 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[oi]
Scoffing; and apostolic statues[488] 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 virtues--still we Trajan's[489] name adore.

CXII.

Where is the rock of Triumph,[490] the high place
Where Rome embraced her heroes? --where the steep
Tarpeian? --fittest goal of Treason's race,
The Promontory whence the Traitor's Leap[oj]
Cured all ambition? [491] 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 breathes-burns with Cicero! [ok][492]

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 her latest Tribune's name,
From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee,
Redeemer of dark centuries of shame--
The friend of Petrarch--hope of Italy--
Rienzi! last of Romans! [493] 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[27. H. ]
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[494] of some fond despair--[ol]
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[495] 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. [496]

CXVIII.

Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover,[497]
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[498]--and seating
Thyself by thine adorer, what befel?
This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting
Of an enamoured Goddess, and the cell
Haunted by holy Love--the earliest Oracle!

CXIX.

And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying,
Blend a celestial with a human heart;[om]
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.

Oh, Love! no habitant of earth thou art--[on]
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;[499]
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 soul--parched--wearied--wrung--and riven.

CXXII.

Of its own beauty is the mind diseased,
And fevers into false creation:--where,
Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath 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[500] the pencil and the pen,
And overpowers the page where it would bloom again?

CXXIII.

Who loves, raves[501]--'tis youth's frenzy--but the cure
Is bitterer still, as charm by charm unwinds
Which robed our idols, and we see too sure
Nor Worth nor Beauty dwells from out the mind's
Ideal shape of such; yet still it binds
The fatal spell, and still it draws us on,
Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds;
The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun,
Seems ever near the prize--wealthiest when most undone.

CXXIV.

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

CXXV.

Few--none--find what they love or could have loved,
Though accident, blind contact, and the strong
Necessity of loving, have removed
Antipathies--but to recur, ere long,
Envenomed with irrevocable wrong;
And Circumstance, that unspiritual God
And Miscreator, makes and helps along
Our coming evils with a crutch-like rod,[502]
Whose touch turns Hope to dust,--the dust we all have trod.

CXXVI.

Our life is a false nature--'tis not in
The harmony of things,--this hard decree,
This uneradicable taint of Sin,
This boundless Upas, this all-blasting tree,
Whose root is Earth--whose leaves and branches be
The skies which rain their plagues on men like dew--
Disease, death, bondage--all the woes we see,
And worse, the woes we see not--which throb through
The immedicable soul,[503] with heart-aches ever new.

CXXVII.

Yet let us ponder boldly--'tis a base
Abandonment of reason[504] to resign
Our right of thought--our last and only place
Of refuge; this, at least, shall still be mine:
Though from our birth the Faculty divine
Is chained and tortured--cabined, cribbed, confined,
And bred in darkness,[505] 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! [506] as it were that Rome,
Collecting the chief trophies of her line,
Would build up all her triumphs in one dome,
Her Coliseum stands;[507] 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.

Oh, Time! the Beautifier of the dead,
Adorner of the ruin[508]--Comforter
And only Healer when the heart hath bled;
Time! the Corrector where our judgments err,
The test of Truth, Love--sole philosopher,
For all beside are sophists--from thy thrift,
Which never loses though it doth defer--
Time, the Avenger! unto thee I lift
My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift:

CXXXI.

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

CXXXII.

And Thou, who never yet of human wrong
Left the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis! [509][28. H. ]
Here, where the ancient paid thee homage long--
Thou, who didst call the Furies from the abyss,
And round Orestes bade them howl and hiss
For that unnatural retribution--just,
Had it but been from hands less near--in this
Thy former realm, I call thee from the dust!
Dost thou not hear my heart? --Awake! thou shalt, and must.

CXXXIII.

It is not that I may not have incurred,
For my ancestral faults or mine, the wound[op]
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 it--_Thou_ shalt take
The vengeance, which shall yet be sought and found--
Which if _I_ have not taken for the sake--
But let that pass--I sleep--but Thou shalt yet awake.

CXXXIV.

And if my voice break forth, 'tis not that now[oq]
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. [or]

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[510] 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 upon 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 worms--on battle-plains or listed spot?
Both are but theatres--where the chief actors rot.

CXL.

I see before me the Gladiator[511] lie:
He leans upon his hand--his manly brow[os]
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,[ot]
Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now[ou]
The arena swims around him--he is gone,[ov]
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.

CXLI.

He heard it, but he heeded not--his 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 mother--he, their sire,
Butchered to make a Roman holiday--[ow][29. H. ]
All this rushed with his blood--Shall he expire
And unavenged? --Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!

CXLII.

But here, where Murder breathed her bloody steam;--
And here, where buzzing nations choked the ways,
And 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--[ox][30. H. ]
My voice sounds much--and fall the stars' faint rays[oy]
On the arena void--seats crushed--walls bowed--
And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud.

CXLIII.

A Ruin--yet what Ruin! from its mass
Walls--palaces--half-cities, have been reared;
Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass,[oz]
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 gray walls wear,[pa]
Like laurels on the bald first Caesar's head--[512]
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. [pb]

CXLV.

"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand:[513]
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;
And when Rome falls--the World. " From our own land
Thus spake the pilgrims o'er this mighty wall
In Saxon times, which we are wont to call
Ancient; and these three mortal things are still
On their foundations, and unaltered all--
Rome and her Ruin past Redemption's skill--
The World--the same wide den--of thieves, or what ye will.

CXLVI.

Simple, erect, severe, austere, sublime--[514]
Shrine of all saints and temple of all Gods,
From Jove to Jesus--spared and blest by Time--
Looking tranquillity, while falls or nods
Arch--empire--each thing round thee--and Man plods
His way through thorns to ashes--glorious Dome!
Shalt thou not last? Time's scythe and Tyrants' rods
Shiver upon thee--sanctuary and home
Of Art and Piety--Pantheon! --pride of Rome! [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.