Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto the Second

[Extracts]

                            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 dread sceptre and dominion dire
      Of men who never felt the sacred glow
    That thoughts of thee and thine on polished breasts bestow.

                              III.
    Son of the Morning, rise! approach you here!
      Come— but molest not yon defenceless Urn:
      Look on this spot--a Nation's sepulchre!
      Abode of Gods, whose shrines no longer burn.
      Even Gods must yield--Religions 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.

                              XI.
    But who, of all the plunderers of yon Fane
      On high— where Pallas linger'd, 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 hear these altars o'er the long-reluctant brine.

                              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!

                             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 sail 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.

                             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.

                                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 hath 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.

                            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 emprize:
      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
      (Born beneath some remote inglorious star)
      In themes of bloody fray, or gallant fight,
    But loathed the bravo's trade, and laughed at martial wight.

                              XLI.
    But when he saw the Evening star 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.

                              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 Cæsar'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,
      Ev'n 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.

                              LI.
    Dusky and huge, enlarging on the sight,
      Nature's volcanic Amphitheatre,
      Chimæra'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.
    Ne 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 agéd Grove,
      Prophetic Fount, and Oracle divine?
      What valley echoed the response of Jove?
      What trace remaineth of the Thunderer's shrine?
      All, all forgotten--and shall Man 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:
      Ev'n 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,
      And Laos wide and fierce came roaring by;
      The shades of wonted night were gathering yet,
      When, down the steep banks winding warily,
      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.

          
                            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 helpless warriors of a willing doom,
      In bleak Thermopylæ's sepulchral strait--
      Oh! who that gallant spirit shall resume,
    Leap from Eurotas' banks, and call thee from the tomb?

                            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[182] 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.

                          LXXIX.
    And whose more rife with merriment than thine,
      Oh Stamboul! once the Empress of their reign?
      Though turbans now pollute Sophia's shrine,
      And Greece her very altars eyes in vain:
      (Alas! her woes will still pervade my strain!)
      Gay were her minstrels once, for free her throng,
      All felt the common joy they now must feign,
      Nor oft I've seen such sight, nor heard such song,
    As wooed the eye, and thrilled the Bosphorus along.

                             LXXX.
    Loud was the lightsome tumult on the shore,
      Oft Music changed, but never ceased her tone,
      And timely echoed back the measured oar,
      And rippling waters made a pleasant moan:
      The Queen of tides on high consenting shone,
      And when a transient breeze swept o'er the wave,
      'Twas, as if darting from her heavenly throne,
      A brighter glance her form reflected gave,
    Till sparkling billows seemed to light the banks they lave.

                             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 thy 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 gray 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 olive ripe as when Minerva smiled,
      And still his honied wealth Hymettus yields;
      There the blithe Bee his fragrant fortress builds,
      The free-born 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 Athenæ'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,