LXXVII.

LXXIX.

LXXXII. The city won for Allah from the Giaour,

But, ’midst the throng in merry masquerade, The Giaour from Othman's race again may wrest; Lurk there no hearts that throb with secret pain, And the Serai's impenetrable tower

Even through the closest searment half-betray'd ? Receive the fiery Frank, her former guest ;'

To such the gentle murmurs of the main Or Wahab's rebel brood, who dared divest

Seem to re-echo all they mourn in vain ; The prophet's tomb of all its pious spoil, a

To such the gladness of the gamesome crowd May wind their path of blood along the West; Is source of wayward thought and stern disdain ; But ne'er will freedom seek this fated soil,

How do they loathe the laughter idly loud, But slave succeed to slave, through years of endless And long to change the robe of revel for the toil.

shroud! LXXVIII. Yet mark their mirth—ere lenten days begin,

LXXXIII. That penance which their holy rites prepare This must he feel, the true-born son of Greece, To shrive from man his weight of mortal sin, If Greece one true-born patriot still can boast; By daily abstinence and nightly prayer ;

Not such as prate of war, but skulk in peace, Büt ere his sackcloth garb Repentance wear, The bondsman's peace, who sighs for all he lost, Some days of joyaunce are decreed to all,

Yet with smooth smile his tyrant can accost, To take of pleasaunce each his secret share, And wield the slavish sickle, not the sword; In motley robe to dance at masking ball,

Ah, Greece! they love thee least who owe thee And join the mimic train of inerry Carnival.

mostTheir birth, their blood, and that sublime record

Of hero sires, who shame thy now degenerate horde ! And whose more rife with merriment than thine, O Stamboul! once the empress of their reign ? Though turbans now pollute Sophia's shrine,

LXXXIV. And Greece her very altars eyes in vain :

When riseth Lacedæmon's hardihood, (Alas ! her woes will still pervade my strain !)

When Thebes Epaminondas rears again, Gay were her minstrels once, for free her throng,

Wben Athens' children are with hearts endued, All felt the common joy they now must feign; When Grecian mothers shall give birth to men, Nor oft I've seen such sight, nor heard such song,

Then may’st thou be restored; but not till then. As woo'd the eye, and thrillid the Bosphorus along.

A thousand years scarce serve to form a state ;
An hour may lay it in the dust : and when

Can man its shatter'd splendour renovate,
Loud was the lightsome tumult on the shore ;

Recall its virtues back, and vanquish Time and Fate ?
Ost Music changed, but never ceased her tone,
And timely echo'd back the measured oar,
And rippling waters made a pleasant moan:

LXXXV.
The Queen of tides on high consenting shone ;
And when a transient breeze swept o'er the wave,

And yet how lovely in thine age of woe, 'Twas as if, darting from her heavenly throne,

Land of lost gods and godlike men, art thou ! A brighter glance her form reflected gave,

Thy vales of evergreen, thy hills of snow, 3 Till sparkling billows seem'd to light the banks they

Proclaim thee Nature's varied favourite now; lave.

Thy fanes, thy temples to the surface bow,
LXXXI.

Commingling slowly with heroic earth,

Broke by the share of every rustic plough:
Glanced many a light caique along the foam,
Danced on the shore the daughters of the land,

So perish monuments of mortal birth,
No thought had man or maid of rest or home,

So perisli all in turn, save well-recorded Worth;
While many a languid eye and thrilling hand
Exchanged the look few bosoms may withstand,

LXXXVI.
Or gently prest, returned the pressure still :
Oh Love! young Love! bound in thy rosy band, Save where some solitary column mourns
Let sage or cynic prattle as he will,

Above its prostrate brethren of the cave ; These hours, and only these, redeem'd Life's years Save where Tritonia's airy shrine adorns of ill!

Colonna's cliff, and gleams along the wave ;5

LXXX.

(1) When taken by the Latins, and retained for several source of observation and design; to the philosopher, the years.

supposed scene of some of Plato's conversations will not be (2) Mecca and Medina were taken some time ago by the unwelcome; and the traveller will be struck with the beauty Wahabees, a sect yearly increasing.

of the prospect over "isles that crown the Ægean deep : (3) On many of the mountains, particularly Liakura, the but, for an Englishman, Colonna has yet an additional snow never is entirely melted, notwithstanding the intense interest, as the actual spot of Falconer's shipwreck. Pallas heat of the summer ; but I never saw it lie on the plains, and Plato are forgotten, in the recollection of Falconer and even in winter.

Campbell : (4) Of Mount Pentelicus, from whence the marble was dug that constructed the public edifices of Athens.

The modern

"Here in the dead of night by Lonna's steep, name is Mount Mendeli. An immense cave formed by the

The seaman's cry was heard along the deep." quarries still remains, and will till the end of time.

This temple of Minerva may be seen at sea from a great dis(5) In all Attica, if we except Athens itself and Marathon, tance. In two journeys which I made, and one voyage to there is no scene more interesting than Cape Colonna. To tho ('ape ('olonna, the view from either side by land was moro antiquury and artist, sixteen columns are an inexhaustible striking than the approach from the isles. In our second

The sun, the soil, but not the slave, the same-
Unchanged in all except its foreign lord-
Preserves alike its bounds and boundless fame;
The Battle-field, where Persia's victim borde
First bow'd beneath the brunt of Hellas' sword,
As on the morn to distant Glory dear,
When Marathon became a magic word ;1

Which utter'd, to the hearer's eye appear
The camp, the host, the fight, the conqueror's career.

XC.

The flying Mede, his shaftless broken bow;
The fiery Greek, his red pursuing, spear ;
Mountains above, Earth's, Ocean's plain below;
Death in the front, Destruction in the rear :
Such was the scene-what now remaineth here?
What sacred trophy marks the hallow'd ground,
Recording Freedom's smile and Asia's tear ?

The rifled urn, the violated mound,
The dust thy courser's hoof, rude stranger ! spurus

XCIV.
For thee, who thus in too protracted song
Hath soothed thine idlesse with inglorious lays,
Soon shall thy voice be lost amid the throng
Of louder minstrels in these later days:
To such resign the strife for fading bays-
Ill may such contest now the spirit move
Which heeds nor keen reproach nor partial praise,

Since cold each kinder heart that night approve, And none are left to please where none are left to love.

XCV.
Thou too art gone, thou loved and lovely one!
Whom youth and youth's affections bound to me;
Who did for me what none beside have done,
Nor shrank from one albeit unworthy thee.
What is my being? thou hast ceased to be !
Nor stay'd to welcome here thy wanderer home,
Who mourns o'er hours which we no more sball

around.

Yet to the remnants of thy splendour past
Shall pilgrims, pensive, but unwearied, throng ;

Would they had never been, or were to come! Would he had ne'er returu'd to find fresh cause to

III.

XCVI.

Though the strain'd mast should quiver as a reed, Ol! ever loving, lovely, and beloved !

And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale, How selfish Sorrow ponders on the past,

Still must I on; for I am as a weed, And clings to thoughits now better far removed !

Flung from the rock on Ocean's foam, to sail But tine shall tear thy shadow from me last.

Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath All thou couldst have of mine, stern Death, thou

prevail. hastThe parent, friend, and now the more than friend; Ne'er yet for one thine arrows flew so fast, In my youth's summer I did sing of One, And grief with grief continuing still to blend,

The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind; Hath snatch'd the little joy that life had yet to lend. Again I seize the theme, then but begun,

And bear it with me, as the rushing wind
XCVII.

Bears the cloud onwards : in that tale I find Then must I plunge again into the crowd,

The furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears, And follow all that peace disdains to seek ? Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track behind, Where Revel calls, and Laughter, vainly loud, Oer which all heavily the journeying years False to the heart, distorts the hollow cheek, Plod the last sands of life-where not a flower To leave the flagging spirit doubly weak ;

appears.
Still o'er the features which perforce they cheer,
To feign the pleasure or conceal the pique ;

IV.
Smiles form the channel of a future tear,
Or raise the writhing lip with ill-dissembled sneer.

Since my young days of passion-joy, or pain,
Perchance my heart and harp have lost a string,
And both may jar: it may be that in vain

I would essay as I have sung to sing.
What is the worst of woes that wait on age ?

Yet, though a dreary strain, to this I cling, What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow ?

So that it wean me from the weary dream To view each loved one blotted from life's page,

Of selfish grief or gladness- so it fling
And be alone on earth, as I am now.

Forgetfulness around me—it shall seem
Before the Chastener humbly let me bow,
O'er hearts divided, and o'er hopes destroy'd :

To me, though to none else, a not ungrateful theme.
Roll on, vain days ! full reckless may ye flow,
Since Time hatli reft wbate'er my soul enjoy'd,

V.
And with the ills of Eld mine earlier years alloy'd.

He who, grown aged in this world of woe,
In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life,
So that no wonder waits him ; nor below
Can love or sorrow, fame, ambition, strife,

Cut to liis heart again with the keen knife
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.

Of silent, sharp endurance : he can tell
Why thought seeks refuge in lone caves, yet rise

With airy images, and shapes which
Still unimpair'd, though old, in the soul's haunted

cell.

XCVIII.

CAXTO THE THIRD.

VIII.

XIII. Something too much of this : but now 'tis past, Where rose the mountains, there to him were And the spell closes with its silent seal.

friends ; Long-absent Harold reappears at last;

Where rollid the ocean, thereon was his home; He of the breast which fain no more would feel, Where a blue sky, and glowing clime, extends, Wrung with the wounds which kill not, but ne'er He had the passion and the power to roam ;

The desert, forest, cavern, breaker's foam, Yet Time, who changes all, had alter’d him Were unto him companionship; they spake In soul and aspect as in age : years steal

A mutual language, clearer than the tome Fire from the mind as vigour from the limb; Of his land's tongue, which he would oft forsake And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the For Nature's pages glass'd by sunbeams on the brim.

lake.

heal;

pain,

X.

His had been quaff”d too quickly, and he found Like the Chaldean, he could watch the stars, The dregs were wormwood; but he fillid Till he had peopled them with beings bright again,

As their own beams; and earth, and earth-born And from a purer fount, on holier ground,

jars, And deem'd its spring perpetual; but in vain ! And human frailties, were forgotten quite : Still round him clung invisibly a chain

Could he have kept his spirit to that flight, Which gallid for ever, fettering though unseen, He had been happy; but this clay will sink And heavy though it clank'd not; worn with Its spark immortal, envying it the light

To which it mounts, as if to break the link Which pined although it spoke not, and grew That keeps us from yon heaven which woos us to keen,

its brink.
Entering with every step he took through many a
scene.

XV.
But in Man's dwellings he became a thing

Restless and worn, and stern and wearisome, Secure in guarded coldness, he had mix'd

Droop'd as a wild-born falcon with clipt wing, Again in fancied safety with his kind,

To whom the boundless air alone were home : And deem'd his spirit now so firmly fix'd

Then came his fit again, which to o'ercome, And sheath'd with an invulnerable mind,

As eagerly the barr'd-up bird will beat That, if no joy, no sorrow lurk'd behind ;

His breast and beak against his wiry dome
And he, as one, might ’midst the many stand Till the blood tinge his plumage, so the heat
Unheeded, searching through the crowd to find Of his impeded soul would through his bosom eat.

Fit speculation ; such as in strange land
He found in wonder-works of God and Nature's

XVI.
hand.

Self-exiled Harold wanders forth again,
With naught of hope left, but with less of gloom;

The very knowledge that he lived in vain,
But wbo can view the ripen'd rose, nor seek That all was over on this side the tomb,
To wear it? who can curiously behold

Had made Despair a smilingness assume, The smoothness and the sheen of beauty's cheek, Which, though 'twere wild—as on the plunder'd Nor feel the heart can never all grow old ?

wreck Who can contemplate Fame through clouds un. When mariners would madly meet their doom fold

With draughts intemperate on the sinking deckThe star which rises o'er her steep, nor climb ?

Did yet inspire a cheer, which he forbore to check. Harold, once more within the vortex, rolld On with the giddy circle, chasing Time,

XVII. Yet with a nobler aim than in his youth's fond prime.

Stop! for thy tread is on an Empire's dust!

An Earthquake's spoil is sepulchred below! XII.

Is the spot mark'd with no colossal bust?

Nor column trophied for triumphal show ? But soon he knew himself the most unfit

None; but the moral's truth tells simpler so, Of men to herd with man; with whom he

As the ground was before, thus let it be ;held

How that red rain hath made the harvest grow! Little in comnion; untaught to submit His thoughts to others, though his soul was Thou first and last of fields ! king-making Victory ?

And is this all the world has gain'd by thee, quellid In youth by his own thoughts ; still uncompellid,

XVIII. He would not yield dominion of his mind

And Harold stands upon this place of skulls, To spirits against whom his own rebelld; The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo !

Proud though in desolation; which could find How in an hour the power which gave annuls A life within itself, to breathe without mankind. Its gifts, transferring fine as fleeting too!

XI.

In "pride of place "1 bere last the eagle flew,
Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain,
Pierced by the shaft of banded nations through;

Ambition's life and labours all were vain;
He wears the shatter'd links of the world's broken

chain.

And wlien 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,
And roused the vengeance blood alone could

quell :
He rush'd into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell.

XIX.

XXV.

XXI.

XXVI.

XXIV.
Fit retribution ! Gaul may champ the bit,
And foam in fetters, but is Earth more free?

Ah! then there was lurrying to and fro,
Did nations combat to make One submit;

And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, Or league to teach all kings true sovereignty ?

And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago What I shall reviving thraldom again be

Blush'd at the praise of their own loveliness ; The patch'd-up idol of enlighten'd days?

And there were sudden partings, such as press Shall we, who struck the Lion down, shall we

The life from out young hearts, and choking signs Pay the Wolf homage proffering lowly gaze

Which ne'er might be repeated : who would and servile knees to thrones ? No; prove before

guess ye praise !

If ever inore should meet those mutual eyes,

Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could XX,

rise ! 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 And there was mounting in hot haste : the steed, The trampler of her vineyards ; in vain years The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, Of death, depopulation, bondage, fears,

Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, Have all been borne, and broken by the accord And swiftly forming in the ranks of war; Of roused-up millions : all that most endear3 And the deep thunder pcal on peal afar;

Glory, is wlien the myrtle wreathes a sword And near, the beat of the alarming drum Such as Harmodius drew on Athens' tyrant lord.2 Roused up the soldier ere the morning star ;

While throng'd the citizens with terror dumb,

Or whispering, with white lips—“The foe! They There was a sound of revelry by night,

come! they come !"
And Belgium's capital had gather'd then
Her Beauty and ber Chivalry, and bright
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men;

And wild and high the “Cameron's gathering' A thousand hearts beat happily; and when

rose, Music arose with its voluptuous swell

,

The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again,

Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon And all went merry as a marriage bell ;8 But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising

How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills knell !

Savage and shrill! But with ibe breath which XXII.

fills Did ye not hear it ?-No; 'twas but the wind,

Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers Or the car rattling o'er the stony street;

With the fierce native daring which instils On with the dance ! let jog be unconfin'd;

The stirring memory of a thousand years, No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure And Evan’s, Donald's fame rings in each clansman's

meet To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet.

XXVII. But hark !--that heavy sound breaks in once

And Ardennes waves above thein lier green more, As if the clouds its echo would repeat;

leaves, 5 And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before !

Dewy with Nature's tear-drops, as they pass, Arm! arm ! it is-it is—the cannon's opening

Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves, roar !

Over the unreturning brave, –alas !

Ere evening to be trodden like the grass
XXIII.

Which now beneath them, but above shall grow Within a window'd niche of that high hall

In its next verdure, when this fiery mass
Sate Brunswick's fated chiestain ; he did hear Of living valour, rolling on the foe,
That sound, the first amidst the festival,

And burning with high liope, shall moulder cold and And caught its tone with Death's prophetic ear ;

foes :

cars !