XVIII. And oh, the little warlike world within! The well-reeved guns, the netted canopy, 1 The hoarse command, the busy humming din, When, at a word, the tops are mann'd on high: Hark, to the Boatswain's call, the cheering cry! While through the seaman's hand the tackle glides; Or schoolboy Midshipman that, standing by, Strains his shrill pipe as good or ill betides, And well the docile crew that skilful urchin guides. XIX. White is the glassy deck, without a stain, Where on the watch the staid Lieutenant walks : Look on that part which sacred doth remain For the lone chieftain, who majestic stalks, Silent and fear'd by all—not oft he talks With aught beneath him, if he would preserve That strict restraint, which broken, ever balks Conquest and Fame: but Britons rarely swerve From law, however stern, which tends their strength to nerve. 2 XX. Blow! swiftly blow, thou keel-compelling gale! The flapping sail haul'd down to halt for logs like these! 1 To prevent blocks or splinters from falling on deck during action. 2 [" From Discipline's stern law," &c. — MS.] XXI. The moon is up; by Heaven, a lovely eve! Long streams of light o'er dancing waves expand; Or to some well-known measure featly move, Thoughtless, as if on shore they still were free to rove. XXII. Through Calpe's straits survey the steepy shore; From mountain-cliff to coast descending sombre down. XXIII. 'Tis night, when Meditation bids us feel Ah! happy years! once more who would not be a boy? 1 ["Plies the brisk instrument that sailors love." - MS.] 2["Bleeds the lone heart, once boundless in its zeal, And friendless now, yet dreams it had a friend,' MS.] XXIV. Thus bending o'er the vessel's laving side, The soul forgets her schemes of Hope and Pride, A thought, and claims the homage of a tear; XXV. To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unroll'd. XXVI. But midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, And roam along, the world's tired denizen, With none who bless us, none whom we can bless; Minions of splendour shrinking from distress! None that, with kindred consciousness endued, If we were not, would seem to smile the less, Of all that flatter'd, follow'd, sought, and sued; This is to be alone; this, this is solitude! XXVII. More blest the life of godly eremite, Which looks o'er waves so blue, skies so serene, XXVIII. Pass we the long, unvarying course, the track Oft trod, that never leaves a trace behind; Pass we the calm, the gale, the change, the tack, And each well known caprice of wave and wind; Pass we the joys and sorrows sailors find, Coop'd in their winged sea-girt citadel; The foul, the fair, the contrary, the kind, As breezes rise and fall and billows swell, Till on some jocund morn-lo, land! and all is well: XXIX. But not in silence pass Calypso's isles, 2 The sister tenants of the middle deep; 1[One of Lord Byron's chief delights was, as he himself states in one of his journals, after bathing in some retired spot, to seat himself on a high rock above the sea, and there remain for hours, gazing upon the sky and the waters. "He led the life," says Sir Egerton Brydges, "as he wrote the strains, of a true poet. He could sleep, and very frequently did sleep, wrapped up in his rough great coat, on the hard boards of a deck, while the winds and the waves were roaring round him on every side, and could subsist on a crust and a glass of water. It would be difficult to persuade me, that he who is a coxcomb in his manners, and artificial in his habits of life, could write good poetry."] 2 Goza is said to have been the island of Calypso. -[" The F There for the weary still a haven smiles, Though the fair goddess long hath ceased to weep, And o'er her cliffs a fruitless watch to keep For him who dared prefer a mortal bride: Here, too, his boy essay'd the dreadful leap Stern Mentor urged from high to yonder tide; While thus of both bereft, the nymph-queen doubly sighed. XXX. Her reign is past, her gentle glories gone: To cast a worthless offering at thy shrine, XXXI. Thus Harold deem'd, as on that lady's eye 1 Who knew his votary often lost and caught, identity of the habitation assigned by poets to the nymph Calypso, has occasioned much discussion and variety of opinion. Some place it at Malta, and some at Goza." — Sir R. C. Hoare's Classical Tour.] ["Thus Harold spoke," &c. - MS.] |