Turn to the Mole which Hadrian rear'd on high,67 Whose travell❜d phantasy from the far Nile's To build for giants, and for his vain earth, His shrunken ashes, raise this dome: How smiles The gazer's eye with philosophic mirth, CLVI. Thou movest-but increasing with the advance, Like climbing some great Alp, which still doth rise, Deceived by its gigantic elegance; Vastness which grows-but grows to harmonize→ All musical in its immensities; [flame Rich marbles-richer painting-shrines where The lamps of gold-and haughty dome which vies In air with Earth's chief structure, though their frame Sits on the firm-set ground-and this the clouds must claim. CLVII. Thou seest not all; but piecemeal thou must break To seperate contemplation, the great whole; And as the ocean many bays will make, That ask the eye-so here condense thy soul To more immediate objects, and control Thy thoughts until thy mind hath got by heart Its eloquent proportions, and unroll In mighty graduations, part by part, The glory which at once upon thee did not dart, CLVIII. Not by its fault-but thine: Our outward sense That what we have of feeling most intense Fools our fond gaze, and greatest of the great To view the huge design which sprung from such a Our spirits to the size of what they contemplate. birth! And send us prying into the abyss To gather what we shall be when the frame CLXVIII. Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou? Death hush'd that pang for ever; with thee fled CLXIX. Peasants bring forth in safety.—Can it be, Oh thou that wert so happy, so adored! Those who weep not for kings shall weep for thee, And Freedom's heart, grown heavy, cease to hoard Her many griefs for ONE; for she had pour'd Her orisons for thee, and o'er thy head Beheld her Iris.-Thou, too, lonely lord, And desolate consort-vainly wert thou wed! The husband of a year! the father of the dead! CLXX. Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made; Thy bridal's fruit is ashes: in the dust The fair-hair'd Daughter of the Isles is laid, The love of millions! How we did intrust Futurity to her! and, though it must Darken above our bones, yet fondly deem'd Our children should obey her child, and bless'd Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seem'd Like stars to shepherd's eyes :-'twas but a meteor beam'd. CLXXI. Wo unto us, not her; for she sleeps well: The fickle reek of popular breath, the tongue Of hollow counsel, the false oracle, Which from the birth of monarchy hath rung Its knell in princely ears, till the o'erstung Nations have arm'd in madness, the strange fate9 Which stumbles mightiest sovereigns, and hath Against thair blind omnipotence a weight [flung Within the opposing scale, which crushes soon or late, CLXXII. These might have been her destiny; but no, These fardels of the heart-the heart whose sweat The land which loved thee so that none could love was gore. CLXVII. Hark! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds, thee best. CLXXIII. 70 Lo, Nemi! navell'd in the woody hills She clasps a babe to whom her breast yields no relief. All coil'd into itself and round, as sleeps the snake CLXXXV. My task is done-my song hath ceased-my theme The spell should break of this protracted dream. CLXXXVI. Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been- Which in my spirit dwelt is fluttering, faint, and low. If such there were-with you, the moral of his strair NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. CANTO I. 3. Yes! sigh'd o'er Delphi's long deserted shrine. Stanza i. line 6. life. Throughout this purple land, where law secures not Stanza xxi. line last. THE little village of Castri stands partly on the It is a well known fact, that in the year 1809 the site of Delphi. Along the path of the mountain, assassinations in the streets of Lisbon and its from Chrysso, are the remains of sepulchres hewn vicinity were not confined by the Portuguese to in and from the rock. "One," said the guide, "of their countrymen; but that Englishmen were daily a king who broke his neck hunting." His majesty butchered: and so far from redress being obtained, had certainly chosen the fittest spot for such an we were requested not to interfere if we perceived achievement. any compatriot defending himself against his allies. A little above Castri is a cave, supposed the I was once stopped in the way to the theatre at Pythian, of immense depth; the upper part of it is eight o'clock in the evening, when the streets were paved, and now a cow-house. not more empty than they generally are at that On the other side of Castri stands a Greek hour, opposite to an open shop and in a carriage monastery; some way above which is the cleft in with a friend; had we not fortunately been armed, the rock, with a range of caverns difficult of ascent, I have not the least doubt that we should have and apparently leading to the interior of the moun-adorned a tale instead of telling one. The crime tain; probably to the Corycian Cavern mentioned of assassination is not confined to Portugal; in by Pausahias From this part descend the fountain Sicily and Malta we are knocked on the head at a and the "Dews of Castalie. handsome average nightly, and not a Sicilian or Maltese is ever punished! Nossa Senora de Pena,* on the summit of the rock. 4. Behold the hall where chiefs were late convened! The Convent of "Our Lady of Punishment, The Convention of Cintra was signed in the Below, at some distance, is the Cork Convent, palace of the Marchese Marialva. The late exploits where St. Honorius dug his den, over which is his of Lord Wellington have effaced the follies of epitaph. From the hills, the sea adds to the beauty He has, indeed, done wonders; he has of the view. * Since the publication of this poem, I have been informed of the misapprehension of the term Nossa Senora de Pena. It was owing to the want of the tilde, or mark over the n, which alters the signification of the word: with it, Pena signifies a rock; without it, Pena has the sense I adopted. I do not think it necessary to alter the passage, as, though the common acceptation rffixed to it is "Our Lady of the Rock," I may well assume the other sense from the severities practised there. Cintra. perhaps changed the character of a nation, recon ciled rival superstitions, and baffled an enemy who never retreated before his predecessors. 5. Yet Mafra shall one moment claim delay. Stanza xxix. line 1, The extent of Mafra is prodigious; it contains a palace, convent, and most superb church. The six organs are the most beautiful I ever beheld, in point of decorations; we did not hear them, but were told that their tones were correspondent to their splendor. Mafra is termed the Escurial of Portugal. 6. Well doth the Spanish hind the difference know As I found the Portuguese, so I have characterized them. That they are since improved, at least in courage, is evident. 7. 14. Fair is proud Seville; let her country boast Seville was the Hispalis of the Romans. 15. Ask ye, Baotian shades, the reason why? This was written at Thebes, and consequently in the best situation for asking and answering such a question: not as the birthplace of Pindar, but as the capital of Bocotia, where the first riddle was propounded and solved. 16. When Cava's traitor sire first call'd the band Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings. 8. No! as he speeds, he chants, "Viva el Rey!" Stanza xlviii. line 5. "Viva el Rey Fernando!" Long live King Ferdinand is the chorus of most of the Spanish. patriotic songs: they are chiefly in dispraise of the old king Charles, the Queen, and the Prince of Peace. I have heard many of them; some of the airs are beautiful. Godoy, the Principe de la Paz, was born at Badajoz, on the frontiers of Portugal, and was originally in the ranks of the Spanish Guards, till his person attracted the queen's eyes, and raised him to the dukedom of Alcudia, &c. &c. It is to this man that the Spaniards universally impute the ruin of their country. 9. Bears in his cap the badge of crimson hue, 10. The ball-piled pyramid, the ever-blazing match. All who have seen a battery will recollect the pyramidal form in which shot and shells are piled. The Sierra Morena was fortified in every defile through which I passed in my way to Seville. 11. Foil'd by a woman's hand, before a batter'd wall. Stanza Ivi, line last. Such were the exploits of the Maid of Saragoza. When the author was at Seville she walked daily on the Prado, decorated with medals and orders, by command of the Junta. 12. The seal Love's dimpling finger hath impress'd "Sigilla in mento impressa Amoris digitulo 17. Luc. The Honorable I*. W**. of the Guards, who died of a fever at Coinbra. I had known him ten years, the better half of his life, and the happiest part of mine.. who gave me being, and most of those who had In the short space of one month I had lost her made that being tolerable. To me the lines of Young are no fiction: "Insatiate archer! could not one suffice? Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain, I should have ventured a verse to the memory of the late Charles Skinner Matthews, Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge, were he not too much above all praise of mine. His powers of mind, shown in the attainment of greater honors, against the ablest candidates, than those of any graduate on record at Cambridge, have sufficiently established his fame on the spot where it was acquired while his softer qualities live in the recollection of friends who loved him too well to envy his superiority. 13. Oh, thou Parnassus ! Stanza lx. line 1. These stanzas were written in Castri, (Delphos,) at the foot of Parnassus, now called AiakupaLiakura. CANTO II. 1. -despite of war and wasting fire Stanza i. line 4. PART of the Acropolis was destroyed by the explosion of a magazine during the Venetian siege. |