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CVIII.

Yet, peace be with their ashes,-for by them, 1005 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,

1010

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.

1015

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

1020

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, 1025 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, 1030 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,

1035

Is a stern task of soul :-No matter,-it is taught. 1040

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.

1045

I have not loved the world, nor the world me; 1050 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 1055
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.

1060

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 failing; I would also deem

O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve; * 1065 That two, or one, are almost what they seem,

That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream.

CXV.

1070

My daughter! with thy name this song begun; My daughter! with thy name thus 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.

1075

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,

1080

I know not what is there, yet something like to this.

CXVII.

Yet, though dull Hate as duty should be taught, 1086 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,—

1090

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

1095

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,

1100

As, with a sigh, I deem thou might'st have been to me.

NOTES.

LINE

2. Ada. Byron married Miss Milbanke in January 1815. Ada, their only child, was born December 10, 1815. They separated in January 1816.

11. Once more upon the waters. Byron left England, never to return again alive, in April 1816.

20. I did sing of One; referring to the first and second Cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, in which the fictitious character of Harold is formally maintained.

25. The furrows of long thought refer to the impressions made upon the poet's mind by his first travels.-Dried-up tears allude to the sorrows for the loss of friends.

35. So, so that, as in the previous line; provided.

40. So that, notifying result, no wonder waits him. Note the different uses here and at lines 34 and 35.

46. Soul's haunted cell; that is, memory haunted by the recollections of past keenly-felt emotions.

47-55. Implies that the poet's life becomes intensified by giving form to his fancies, the life with which he endows the creatures of his imagination acting as a stimulus to his own; that the visible body is nothing, or at most a transient shadow; but not so the soul (soul of my thought), which, though invisible, is my real self, with which I traverse earth, and feel the various changes of life.

60-64. See Canto I., 815-818.

76. A purer fount; that of classic inspiration and natural scenery. 101-109. The sentiments here expressed do not necessarily imply

a feeling of supercilious superiority to mankind, but an inability and want of disposition to conform to the conventionalities of ordinary life. See stanzas xv. and xvi.

110-111. Where rose the mountains. See stanzas lxxii. and lxxv., and note on 325-333, Canto II.

112. Extends has two singular nominatives.

116. Tome, volume, vocabulary.

119. The Chaldean. The Chaldeans, of whose country Babylon was the capital, were the first astronomical observers.

121. Earth-born jars, angry disputes, discords, jarrings. 141. Made Despair a smilingness assume, implies that the worst

being past he became reconciled to a state of despair. Moore,

in reference to Byron's second exile, says: 'He had in the course of one short year gone through every variety of domestic misery.'

146-149. Byron visited Waterloo in May 1816, less than a year after the battle was fought, and before any monument was put up. Three have since been erected, one of which is a tasteless pyramidal mound surmounted by a huge lion. 154. First and last are not used as contrasts-first meaning most important, and last latest. -King-making Victory refers to the restoration of Louis XVIII. and the other dethroned sovereigns which it brought about.

157. The power which gave. Fortune, proverbially capricious. 159. Pride of place is a term of falconry, and means the highest pitch of flight. See Macbeth, ii. 4.—The eagle, used here as a symbol of the military power of France, also specially represents Napoleon.

168-172. Reviving Thraldom refers to the misgovernment of Louis XVIII. and the restoration of the antiquated despotisms whose rigours occasioned the Revolution.-The symbols of the Lion and the Wolf indicate the poet's estimate of Napoleon and the hereditary sovereigns.

180-181. The myrtle wreathes a sword. The myrtle is properly sacred to Venus; at Athens it formed the crown of a bloodless victor, and the symbol of magisterial authority.—Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who slew Hipparchus, the tyrant of Athens, 514 B.C., hid their swords with myrtle wreaths. 182. There was a sound of revelry by night, refers to a ball given by the Duchess of Richmond on the evening preceding the battle of Quatre Bras. Of this and the seven following stanzas, Scott observes: 'I am not sure that any verses in our language surpass in vigour and feeling this most beautiful description.' 201. Brunswick's fated chieftain, William Frederick, Duke of Brunswick, who fell at Quatre Bras.

203. Death's prophetic ear, a poetical application of the superstition, that the senses of those who are near their death are supernaturally acute.

206. His father, Charles, Duke of Brunswick, who was killed at the battle of Auerstadt, October 14, 1806.

216. Mutual eyes, a poetical beauty more easy to understand than logically to justify.

227. The Cameron's gathering. The pibroch, or bagpipe tune, by

which the clan was mustered, and led to battle. In the case

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