Through Calpe's straits XXII. survey the steepy shore; Europe and Afric on each other gaze! Lands of the dark-eyed Maid and dusky Moor Alike beheld beneath pale Hecate's blaze: How softly on the Spanish shore she plays, Disclosing rock, and slope, and forest brown, From mountain-cliff to coast descending sombre down. XXIII. 'Tis night, when Meditation bids us feel We once have loved, though love is at an end: Death hath but little left him to destroy! Ah! happy years! once more who would not be a boy? XXIV. Thus bending o'er the vessel's laving side, A thought, and claims the homage of a tear; XXV. To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, 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, Such as on lonely Athos may be seen, Watching at eve upon the giant height, Which looks o'er waves so blue, skies so serene, That he who there at such an hour hath been Will wistful linger on that hallow'd spot; Then slowly tear him from the 'witching scene, Sigh forth one wish that such had been his lot, Then turn to hate a world he had almost forgot. XXVIII. Pass we the long, unvarying course, the track Pass we the calm, the gale, the change, the tack, 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, (10) The sister tenants of the middle deep; There for the weary still a haven smiles, Though the fair goddess long hath ceased to weep, 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 sigh'd. 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 He look'd, and met its beam without a thought, Love kept aloof, albeit not far remote, Well deem'd the little God his ancient sway was o'er. |