5.

66

My father bless'd me fervently,
Yet did not much complain;
But sorely will my mother sigh
Till I come back again.”—
"Enough, enough, my little lad!
Such tears become thine eye;
If I thy guileless bosom had,
Mine own would not be dry. (1)

6.

“Come hither, hither, my staunch yeoman, (2)
Why dost thou look so pale?
Or dost thou dread a French foeman?
Or shiver at the gale?"

"Deem'st thou I tremble for my life?

Sir Childe, I'm not so weak;
But thinking on an absent wife
Will blanch a faithful cheek.

(1) Here follows in the original MS. :

"My Mother is a high-born dame,
And much misliketh me;

She saith my riot bringeth shame
On all my ancestry :

I had a sister once I ween,

Whose tears perhaps will flow;
But her fair face I have not seen

For three long years and moe."

(2) [William Fletcher, the faithful valet; -who, after a service of twenty years, (" during which," he says, "his Lord was more to him than a father,") received the Pilgrim's last words at Missolonghi, and did not quit his remains, until he had seen them deposited in the family vault at Hucknell. This unsophisticated "yeoman" was a constant source of pleasantry to his master:-e. g. 66 Fletcher,' "he says, in a letter to his mother " is not

7.

My spouse and boys dwell near thy hall,
Along the bordering lake,

And when they on their father call,

66

What answer shall she make ?”

Enough, enough, my yeoman good,
Thy grief let none gainsay;

But I, who am of lighter mood,

Will laugh to flee away.

8.

"For who would trust the seeming sighs
Of wife or paramour?

Fresh feres will dry the bright blue eyes

We late saw streaming o'er.

For pleasures past I do not grieve,

Nor perils gathering near;
My greatest grief is that I leave
No thing that claims a tear.

valiant: he requires comforts that I can dispense with, and sighs for beer, and beef, and tea, and his wife, and the devil knows what besides. We were one night lost in a thunder-storm, and since, nearly wrecked. In both cases he was sorely bewildered; from apprehensions of famine and banditti in the first, and drowning in the second instance. His eyes were a little hurt by the lightning, or crying, I don't know which. I did what I could to console him, but found him incorrigible. He sends six sighs to Sally. I shall settle him in a farm; for he has served me faithfully, and Sally is a good woman." After all his adventures by flood and field, short commons included, this humble Achates of the poet has now established himself as the keeper of an Italian warehouse, in Charles Street, Berkeley Square, where, if he does not thrive, every one who knows anything of his character will say he deserves to do so. -E]

9.

"And now I'm in the world alone,
Upon the wide, wide sea:

But why should I for others groan,
When none will sigh for me?
Perchance my dog will whine in vain,
Till fed by stranger hands;

But long ere I come back again
He'd tear me where he stands. (1)

10.

"With thee, my bark, I'll swiftly go
Athwart the foaming brine;

Nor care what land thou bear'st me to,
So not again to mine.

Welcome, welcome, ye dark-blue waves !
And when you fail my sight,
Welcome, ye deserts, and ye caves!
My native Land-Good Night!"(2)

(1) [Here follows in the original MS. :

"Methinks it would my bosom glad,

To change my proud estate,

And be again a laughing lad

With one beloved playmate.

Since youth 1 scarce have pass'd an hour
Without disgust or pain,

Except sometimes in Lady's bower,

Or when the bowl I drain." — E.]

"And of his train there was a henchman page,
A peasant boy, who served his master well;
And often would his pranksome prate engage
Childe Harold's ear, when his proud heart did swell
With sable thoughts that he disdain'd to tell.

XIV.

On, on the vessel flies, the land is gone,
And winds are rude in Biscay's sleepless bay.
Four days are sped, but with the fifth, anon,
New shores descried make every bosom gay;
And Cintra's mountain greets them on their way,
And Tagus dashing onward to the deep,
His fabled golden tribute bent to pay;

And soon on board the Lusian pilots leap, [reap. And steer 'twixt fertile shores where yet few rustics

XV.

Oh, Christ! it is a goodly sight to see

What Heaven hath done for this delicious land! What fruits of fragrance blush on every tree! What goodly prospects o'er the hills expand! But man would mar them with an impious hand : And when the Almighty lifts his fiercest scourge 'Gainst those who most transgress his high command,

With treble vengeance will his hot shafts urge Gaul's locust host, and earth from fellest foemen purge.

Then would he smile on him, and Alwin smiled,
When aught that from his young lips archly fell
The gloomy film from Harold's eye beguiled;
And pleased for a glimpse appeared the woeful Childe.
Him and one yeoman only did he take

To travel eastward to a far countrie;

And, though the boy was grieved to leave the lake
On whose fair banks he grew from infancy,

Eftsoons his little heart beat merrily

With hope of foreign nations to behold,
And many things right marvellous to see,

Of which our vaunting voyagers oft have told,
In many a tome as true as Mandeville's of old."-

-E]

XVI.

What beauties doth Lisboa (1) first unfold!
Her image floating on that noble tide,
Which poets vainly pave with sands of gold,
But now whereon a thousand keels did ride
Of mighty strength, since Albion was allied,
And to the Lusians did her aid afford:
A nation swoln with ignorance and pride,

Who lick yet loathe the hand that waves the sword To save them from the wrath of Gaul's unsparing lord. (2)

XVII.

But whoso entereth within this town, That, sheening far, celestial seems to be, Disconsolate will wander up and down, 'Mid many things unsightly to strange ee; For hut and palace show like filthily: The dingy denizens are rear'd in dirt; Ne personage of high or mean degree Doth care for cleanness of surtout or shirt, Though shent with Egypt's plague, unkempt, unwash'd; unhurt.

(1) ["A friend advises Ulissipont; but Lisboa is the Portuguese word, consequently the best. Ulissipont is pedantic; and as I had lugged in Hellas and Eros not long before, there would have been something like an affectation of Greek terms, which I wished to avoid. On the submission of Lusitania to the Moors, they changed the name of the capital, which till then had been Ulisipo, or Lispo; because, in the Arabic alphabet, the letter p is not used. Hence, I believe, Lisboa; whence, again, the French Lisbonne, and our Lisbon,-God knows which the earlier corruption! " Byron, MS.]

(2) [By comparing this and the thirteen following stanzas with the account of his progress which Lord Byron sent home to his mother, the reader will see that they are the exact echoes of the thoughts which oc. curred to his mind as he went over the spots described. See the Notice of Lord Byron's Life, vol. i. p. 280.-E.]