To wear it ever on thy lip and brow, 'Tis but a worthless world to win or lose; So hath it proved to thee, and all such lot who choose. XLI. 360 If, like a tower upon a headland rock,1 Thou hadst been made to stand or fall alone, Such scorn of man had helped to brave the shock; But men's thoughts were the steps which paved thy throne, The part of Philip's son was thine, not then Like stern Diogenes to mock at men; For sceptered cynics earth were far too wide a den.2 XLII.3 365 But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell, 370 And there hath been thy bane; there is a fire And motion of the soul which will not dwell 1 Steep. 375 2 "The great error of Napoleon," says Byron, was a continued obtrusion on mankind of his want of all community of feeling for or with them." Diogenes, in his tub, may mock at men, but Alexander, if he wishes to rule the world, cannot afford to be a cynic. 3 This and the two following stanzas form an interesting poetical study of ambition, a passion to which Byron himself was not a stranger. The lines are strong and suggestive. XLIII. This makes the madmen who have made men mad XLIV. Their breath is agitation, and their life XLV.1 He who ascends to mountain tops, shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow; Must look down on the hate of those below. Though high above the sun of glory glow, And thus reward the toils which to those summits led. 1 Point out the fallacy in this stanza. 380 385 390 395 400 405 410 XLVI. Away with these! true Wisdom's world will be Maternal Nature!1 for who teems like thee, A blending of all beauties; streams and dells, Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mountain, vine, From gray but leafy walls, where Ruin greenly dwells.3 XLVII. And there they stand, as stands a lofty mind, 415 All tenantless, save to the crannying wind,4 There was a day when they were young and proud; 420 But they who fought are in a bloody shroud, And those which waved are shredless dust ere now, And the bleak battlements shall bear no future blow. 1 "The transition from the subject of Napoleon to that of the Rhine is made by contrasting ambition with the love of nature" (TOZER). 2 What literature pertaining to the Rhine have you read? 3 Observe the force and beauty of the last four lines. 4 Blowing through crannies. Recall Tennyson's Flower in the Crannied Wall. CANTO THE FOURTH.1 "Visto ho Toscana, Lombardia, Romagna, Quel Monte che divide, e quel che serra' I. I STOOD in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;3 I saw from out the wave her structures rise O'er the far times, when many a subject land Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles! II. She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, Rising with her tiara of proud towers 5 10 1 This canto was begun at Venice in June, 1817, and. was published early in 1818, with an introductory letter to the poet's friend and traveling companion, Hobhouse, who furnished ample historical notes for it. 2 "I have seen Tuscany, Lombardy, and the Romagna, the mountain ranges which divide and those which border Italy, and the one sea and the other which bathe her." 3 Across which prisoners were conducted from the palace to the prison. 4 The goddess of the earth. At airy distance, with majestic motion, A ruler of the waters and their powers: And such she was; -her daughters had their dowers III. In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, 15 20 25 IV. But unto us she hath a spell beyond Her name in story, and her long array Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond For us repeopled were the solitary shore. 1 A bridge spanning the Grand Canal, Venice. 2 30 35 2 See Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice and Othello the Moor of Venice; also Otway's Venice Preserved. |