What a magnificent picture does he give us in these descriptive lines, one of the finest passages in all poetry : Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Stops with the shore ;-upon the watery plain When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, His steps are not upon thy paths,―thy fields Are not a spoil for him,-thou dost arise And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields The armaments which thunder-strike the walls These are thy toys, and as the snowy flake, Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee— Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts :—not so thou, Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play— Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure browSuch as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm, Dark-heaving ;-boundless, endless, and sublime— The image of Eternity-the throne Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be The foregoing suggests another beautiful passage,wreck,-in Don Juan : Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell The Ship Then shriek'd the timid, and stood still the brave,- As eager to anticipate their grave; And the sea yawn'd around her like a hell, And down she suck'd with her the whirling wave, Like one who grapples with his enemy, And strives to strangle him before he die. And first one universal shriek there rush'd, A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry Another vivid picture is that of an Alpine storm : The sky is changed!—and such a change! O night, Of a dark eye in woman! Far along, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud, mountain now hath found a tongue, But every And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, And this is in the night :-Most glorious night! A sharer in thy fierce and far delight,— And now again 'tis black,-and now the glee Here is another fine allusion to the grandeur of Alpine scenery : Above me are the Alps, The palaces of Nature, whose vast walls How earth may pierce to heaven, yet leave vain man below. Byron's power is seen in the following passage, because it admirably exemplifies the union of great simplicity, both in conception and expression, with true poetic sublimity. The scene which excites the emotion is the memorable plain of Marathon, situated between a range of mountains on the one side, and the sea on the other : The mountains look on Marathon, and Marathon looks on the sea; And musing there an hour alone, I dreamed that Greece might still be free; For, standing on the Persian's grave, I could not deem myself a slave. A king sat on the rocky brow which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; And ships, by thousands, lay below, and men in nations; all were his! He counted them at break of day; And when the sun set,-where were they? Campbell used to say, that the lines which first convinced him that Byron was a true poet, were these, from the Childe' Harold :— Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild; Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields, And still his honeyed wealth Hymettus yields; The Childe Harold, which appeared at various intervals, is generally supposed to be a narration of the author's life and travels. Shall we cite more of the brilliant passages which sparkle over its 1 Childe is the old word for Knight. |