vi ADDITION TO THE PREFACE. not "sans reproche."-If the story of the institution of the "Garter" be not a fable, the knights of that order have for several centuries borne the badge of a Countess of Salisbury, of indifferent memory. So much for chivalry. Burke need not have regretted that its days are over, though Maria Antoinette was quite as chaste as most of those in whose honours lances were shivered, and knights unhorsed, Before the days of Bayard, and down to those of Sir Joseph Banks (the most chaste and celebrated of ancient and modern times,) few exceptions will be found to this statement, and I fear a little investigation will teach us not to regret those monstrous mummeries of the middle ages. I now leave "Childe Harold” to live his day, such as he is, it had been more agreeable, and certainly more easy, to have drawn an amiable character. It had been easy to varnish over his faults, to make him do more and express less, but he never was intended as an example, further than to show that early perversion of mind and moral, leads to satiety of past pleasure and disappointment in new ones, and that even the beauties of nature, and the stimulus of travel (except ambition, the most powerful of all excitements) are lost on a soul so constituted, or rather misdirected. Had I proceeded with the Poem, this character would have deepened as he drew to the close: for the outline which I once meant to fill up for him was,with some exceptions, the sketch of a modern Timon, perhaps a poetical Zelucco. TO IANTHE. Not in those climes where I have late been straying, Though Beauty long hath there been matchless deem'd ; Not in those visions to the heart displaying To paint those charms which varied as they beam'd- To those who gaze on thee what language could they speak? Ah! may'st thou ever be what now thou art, 8 Young Peri of the West!-'tis well for me Happier, that while all younger hearts shall bleed, To those whose admiration shall succeed, But mixed with pangs to Love's even loveliest hours decreed. Oh! let that eye, which wild as the Gazelle's, Wins as it wanders, dazzles where it dwells, This much, dear maid, accord: nor question why Such is thy name with this my verse entwin'd; Of him who hail'd thee, loveliest as thou wast, Though more than Hope can claim, could Friendship less require ? CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE, A ROMAUNT. CANTO 1. I. Oh, thou! in Hellas deemed of heav'nly birth, Muse! form'd or fabled at the minstrel's will! Since sham'd full oft by later lyres on earth, Mine dares not call thee from thy sacred hill: Yet there I've wander'd by thy vaunted rill; Yes! sighed o'er Delphi's long deserted shrine, (1) Where, save that feeble fountain, all is still; Nor mote my shell awake the weary Nine To grace so plain a tale-this lowly lay of mine. II. Whilome in Albion's isle there dwelt a youth, And flaunting wassailers of high and low degree. III. Childe Harold was he hight:-but whence his name And lineage long, it suits me not to say; Suffice it, that perchance they were of fame, Nor all that heralds rake from coffin'd clay, IV. Childe Harold bask'd him in the noon-tide sun, Nor deem'd before his little day was done Then, loathed he in his native land to dwell, Which seem'd to him more lone than Eremite's sad cell. V. For he through Sin's long labyrinth had run, And now Childe Harold was sore sick at heart, And from his native land resolv'd to go, And visit scorching climes beyond the sea; With pleasure drugg'd he almost long'd for woe, And e'en for change of scene would seek the shades below. VII. The Childe departed from his father's hall: It was a vast and venerable pile; So old; it seemed only not to fall, Yet strength was pillar'd in each massy aisle. |