XIV.

Like the Chaldean, he could watch the stars,
Till he had peopled them with beings bright

As their own beams; and earth, and earth-born jars,
And human frailties, were forgotten quite :
Could he have kept his spirit to that flight
He had been happy; but this clay will sink
Its spark immortal, envying it the light

To which it mounts, as if to break the link [brink. That keeps us from yon heaven which woos us to its

XV.

But in Man's dwellings he became a thing
Restless and worn, and stern and wearisome,
Droop'd as a wild-born falcon with clipt wing,
To whom the boundless air alone were home:
Then came his fit again, which to o'ercome,
As eagerly the barr'd-up bird will beat
His breast and beak against his wiry dome
Till the blood tinge his plumage, so the heat
Of his impeded soul would through his bosom eat.

XVI.

Self-exiled Harold wanders forth again,
With nought of hope left, but with less of gloom;
The very knowledge that he lived in vain,

That all was over on this side the tomb,

"In the third canto of Childe Harold there is much inequality. The thoughts and images are sometimes laboured ; but still they are a very great improvement upon the first two cantos. Lord Byron here speaks in his own language and character, not in the tone of others; - he is describing, not inventing; therefore he has not, and cannot have, the freedom with which fiction is composed. Sometimes he has a conciseness which is very powerful, but almost abrupt. From trusting himself alone, and working out his own deep-buried thoughts, he now, perhaps, fell into a habit of labouring, even where there was no occasion to labour.

Had made Despair a smilingness assume, [wreck Which, though 'twere wild, as on the plunder'd When mariners would madly meet their doom

With draughts intemperate on the sinking deck, —Did yet inspire a cheer, which he forebore to check. 1

XVII.

Stop! - for thy tread is on an Empire's dust!
An Earthquake's spoil is sepulchred below!
Is the spot mark'd with no colossal bust?
Nor column trophied for triumphal show?
None; but the moral's truth tells simpler so,
As the ground was before, thus let it be;
How that red rain hath made the harvest grow!
And is this all the world has gain'd by thee,
Thou first and last of fields! king-making Victory?

In the first sixteen stanzas there is yet a mighty but groaning burst of dark and appalling strength. It was unquestionably the unexaggerated picture of a most tempestuous and sombre, but magnificent soul."- BRYDGES.]

[These stanzas, -in which the author, adopting more distinctly the character of Childe Harold than in the original poem, assigns the cause why he has resumed his Pilgrim's staff, when it was hoped he had sat down for life a denizen of his native country, -abound with much moral interest and poetical beauty. The commentary through which the meaning of this melancholy tale is rendered obvious, is still in vivid remembrance; for the errors of those who excel their fellows in gifts and accomplishments are not soon forgotten. Those scenes, ever most painful to the bosom, were rendered yet more so by public discussion; and it is at least possible that amongst those who exclaimed most loudly on this unhappy occasion, were some in whose eyes literary superiority exaggerated Lord Byron's offence. The scene may be described in a few words:- the wise condemned - the good regretted the multitude, idly or maliciously inquisitive, rushed from place to place, gathering gossip, which they mangled and exaggerated while they repeated it; and impudence, ever ready to hitch itself into notoriety, hooked on, as Falstaff enjoins Bardolph, blustered, bullied, and talked of "pleading a cause," and "taking a side.". SIR WALTER SCOTT.]

XVIII.

And Harold stands upon this place of skulls,
The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo!
How in an hour the power which gave annuls
Its gifts, transferring fame as fleeting too!
In "pride of place" 1 here last the eagle flew,
Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain, 2
Pierced by the shaft of banded nations through;
Ambition's life and labours all were vain ;

[chain. He wears the shatter'd links of the world's broken

XIX.

Fit retribution! Gaul may champ the bit

And foam in fetters;-but is Earth more free? Did nations combat to make One submit ; Or league to teach all kings true sovereignty? What! shall reviving Thraldom again be The patch'd-up idol of enlighten'd days? Shall we, who struck the Lion down, shall we Pay the Wolf homage? proffering lowly gaze And servile knees to thrones? No; prove before ye praise!

1 "Pride of place" is a term of falconry, and means the highest pitch of flight. See Macbeth, &c.

"An eagle towering in his pride of place," &c.

2 [In the original draught of this stanza (which, as well as the preceding one, was written after a visit to the field of Waterloo), the lines stood

"Here his last flight the haughty eagle flew,

Then tore with bloody beak the fatal plain ".

On seeing these lines, Mr. Reinagle sketched a spirited chained eagle, grasping the earth with his talons. The circumstance being mentioned to Lord Byron, he wrote thus to a friend at Brussels, "Reinagle is a better poet and a better ornithologist than I am eagles, and all birds of prey, attack with their talons, and not with their beaks; and I have altered the line thus:'Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain.' This is, I think, a better line, besides its poetical justice."]

XX.

If not, o'er one fallen despot boast no more!
In vain fair cheeks were furrow'd with hot tears
For Europe's flowers long rooted up before
The trampler of her vineyards; in vain years
Of death, depopulation, bondage, fears,
Have all been borne, and broken by the accord
Of roused-up millions: all that most endears
Glory, is when the myrtle wreathes a sword
Such as Harmodius I drew on Athens' tyrant lord.

XXI.

There was a sound of revelry by night, 2
And Belgium's capital had gather'd then
Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men;
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,

Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage-bell; 3

But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!

1 See the famous song on Harmodius and Aristogiton. The best English translation is in Bland's Anthology, by Mr. (now Lord Chief Justice) Denman,

"With myrtle my sword will I wreathe," &c.

2 [There can be no more remarkable proof of the greatness of Lord Byron's genius, than the spirit and interest he has contrived to communicate to his picture of the often-drawn and difficult scene of the breaking up from Brussels before the great Battle. It is a trite remark, that poets generally fail in the representation of great events, where the interest is recent, and the particulars are consequently clearly and commonly known. It required some courage to venture on a theme beset with so many dangers, and deformed with the wrecks of so many former adventurers. See, however, with what easy strength he enters upon it, and with how much grace he gradually finds his way back to his own peculiar vein of sentiment and diction! JEFFREY.]

3 On the night previous to the action, it is said that a ball was given at Brussels. [The popular error of the Duke of Wellington

XXII.

Did ye not hear it?—No; 'twas but the wind,
Or the car rattling o'er the stony street;
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;

No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet
that heavy sound breaks in once more,
As if the clouds its echo would repeat;

But hark!

And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!

Arm! Arm! it is-it is - the cannon's opening roar !

XXIII.

Within a window'd niche of that high hall
Sate Brunswick's fated chieftain; he did hear
That sound the first amidst the festival,

And caught its tone with Death's prophetic ear;
And when they smiled because he deem'd it near,
His heart more truly knew that peal too well
Which stretch'd his father on a bloody bier, 1
And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell:
He rush'd into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell.

having been surprised, on the eve of the battle of Waterloo, at a ball given by the Duchess of Richmond at Brussels, was first corrected on authority, in the History of Napoleon Buonaparte, which forms a portion of the "Family Library." The Duke had received intelligence of Napoleon's decisive operations, and it was intended to put off the ball; but, on reflection, it seemed highly important that the people of Brussels should be kept in ignorance as to the course of events, and the Duke not only desired that the ball should proceed, but the general officers received his commands to appear at it-each taking care to quit the apartment as quietly as possible at ten o'clock, and proceed to join his respective di vision en route.]

[The father of the Duke of Brunswick, who fell at Quatrebras, received his death-wound at Jena.]

2 [This stanza is very grand, even from its total unadornment. It is only a versification of the common narratives: but here may well be applied a position of Johnson, that "where truth is suf ficient to fill the mind, fiction is worse than useless."-BRYDGES.]