CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. CANTO II. I. COME, blue-eyed maid of heaven!—but thou, alas! And years, Of men who never felt the sacred glow [stow. (2) That thoughts of thee and thine on polish'd breasts be 11. Ancient of days! august Athena! where, Where are thy men of might? thy grand in soul? Gone glimmering through the dream of things that were: First in the race that led to Glory's goal, They won, and pass'd away is this the whole? A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour! The warrior's weapon and the sophist's stole Are sought in vain, and o'er each mouldering tower, Dim with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of power. VOL. I. F III. Son of the morning, rise! approach you here! Come but molest not yon defenceless urn: Look on this spot-a nation's sepulchre! Abode of gods, whose shrines no longer burn. Even gods must yield-religions take their turn: 'Twas Jove's 'tis Mahomet's-and other creeds Will rise with other years, till man shall learn Vainly his incense soars, his victim bleeds; [reeds. Poor child of Doubt and Death, whose hope is built on IV. Bound to the earth, he lifts his eye to heaven— V. Or burst the vanish'd Hero's lofty mound; Far on the solitary shore he sleeps: (3) He fell, and falling nations mourn'd around; But now not one of saddening thousands weeps, Nor warlike-worshipper his vigil keeps Where demi-gods appear'd, as records tell. Remove yon skull from out the scatter'd heaps: Is that a temple where a God may dwell? Why ev'n the worm at last disdains her shatter'd cell! VI. Look on its broken arch, its ruin'd wall, And Passion's host, that never brook'd control: VII. Well didst thou speak, Athena's wisest son! There no forced banquet claims the sated guest, VIII. Yet if, as holiest men have deem'd, there be A land of souls beyond that sable shore, To shame the doctrine of the Sadducee The Bactrian, Samian sage, and all who taught the right! IX. There, thou!-whose love and life together fled, For me 'twere bliss enough to know thy spirit blest! X. Here let me sit upon this massy stone, The marble column's yet unshaken base; Here, son of Saturn! was thy fav'rite throne: (4) Mightiest of many such! Hence let me trace The latent grandeur of thy dwelling-place. It may not be: nor ev'n can Fancy's eye Restore what Time hath labour'd to deface. Yet these proud pillars claim no passing sigh; Unmoved the Moslem sits, the light Greek carols by. XI. But who, of all the plunderers of yon fane Thy free-born men should spare what once was free; |