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Accord me such a being? Do I err

In deeming such inhabit many a spot?

Though with them converse can rarely be our lot.

CLXXVIII.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar :
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel

What I can ne'er express, yet can not all conceal.

CLXXIX.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin-his control Stops with the shore;-upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When for a moment, like a drop of rain,

He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.

CLXXX.

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

For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies

His petty hope in some near port or bay,

And dashest him again to earth :—there let him lay.

CLXXXI.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;

These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

CLXXXII.

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 Hast 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.

CLXXXIII.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form

Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,

Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving ;-boundless, endless, and sub-
lime-

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.

CLXXXIV.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy I wanton'd with thy breakers--they to me Were a delight; and if the freshening sea Made them a terror--'twas a pleasing fear, For I was as it were a child of thee, And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane-as I do here.

CLXXXV.

My task is done--my song has ceased-my theme Has died into an echo; it is fit

The spell should break of this protracted dream, The torch shall be extinguish'd which hath lit My midnight lamp-and what is writ, is writ,Would it were worthier! but I am not now That which I have been--and my visions flit Less palpably before me--and the glow [low. Which in my spirit dwelt, is fluttering, faint and

CLXXXVI.

Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been-
A sound which makes us linger ;--yet-farewell!
Ye who have traced the Pilgrim to the scene
Which is his last, if in your memories dwell
A thought which once was his, if on ye swell
A single recollection, not in vain

He wore his sandal-shoon, and scallop-shell;
Farewell! with him alone may rest the pain,
If such there were-with you, the moral of his
strain.

END OF CANTO IV.

NOTES

TO

Chlide Harold's Pilgrimage.

CANTO I.

1.

Yes! sigh'd o'er Delphi's long-deserted shrine.

Stanza i. line 6.

THE little village of Castri stands partly on the site of Delphi. Along the path of the mountain, from Chrysso, are the remains of sepulchres hewn in and from the rock: "One," said the guide, "of a king who broke his neck hunting." His Majesty had certainly chosen the fittest spot for such an achievement.

A little above Castri is a cave, supposed the Pythian, of im mense depth; the upper part of it is paved, and now a cowhouse. On the other side of Castri stands a Greek Monastery; some way above which is the cleft in the rock, with a range of caverns difficult of ascent, and apparently leading to the interior of the mountain; probably to the Corycian Cavern mentioned by Pausanias. From this part descend the fountain and the "Dews of the Castalie."

2.

And rest ye at our "Lady's house of wo."
Stanza xx, line 4.

The convent of "Our Lady of Punishment," Nossa Senora de Pena, on the summit of the rock. Below, at some distance, is the Cork Convent, where St. Honorius dug his den, over which is his epitaph. From the hills the sea adds to the beauty of the view.

3.

Throughout this purple land, where law secures not life.

Stanza xxi. line last. It is a well known fact, that in the year 1809, the assassinations

Since the publication of this poem, I have been informed of the misapprehension of the term Nossa Señora de Pena. It was owing to the want of the tilde, or mark over the π, which alters the signification of the word: with it, Peña 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 affixed to it is "our Lady of the Rock," I may well assume the other sense from the severities practised there.

VOL. I.-R

in the streets of Lisbon and its vicinity were not confined by the Portuguese to their countrymen; but that Englishmen were daily butchered: and so far from redress being obtained, we were requested not to interfere if we perceived any compatriot defending himself against his allies. I was once stopped in the way to the theatre at eight o'clock in the evening, when the streets were not more empty than they generally are at that hour, opposite to an open shop, and in a carriage with a friend; had we not fortunately been armed, I have not the least doubt that we should have adorn. ed a taie instead of telling one. The crime of assassination is not confined to Portugal: in Sicily and Malta we are knocked on the head at a handsome average nightly, and not a Sicilian or Maltese is ever punished!

4.

Behold the hall where chiefs were late convened! Stanza xxiv, line 1. The Convention of Cintra was signed in the palace of the Marchese Marialva. The late exploits of Lord Wellington have effaced the follies of Cintra. He has, indeed, done wonders; he has perhaps changed the character of a nation, reconciled 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 decoration; we did not hear them, but were told that their tones were correspondent to their splendour. Mafra is termed the Escurial of Portugal.

6.

Well doth the Spanish hind the difference know

"Twixt him and Lusian slave; the lowest of the low.

Stanza xxxiii. lines 8 and 9.

As I found the Portuguese, so I have characterized them. That they are since improved, at least, in courage, is evident.

7.

When Cava's traitor-sire first called the band
That dyed thy mountain streams with Gothic gore.

Stanza xxxv. lines 3 and 4, Count Julian's daughter, the Helen of Spain. Pelagius preserved his independence in the fastnesses of the Asturias, and the descendants of his followers, after some centuries, completed their struggle by the conquest of Grenada.

8.

No! as he speeds he chants; "Vivú 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 beauti ful. Godoy, the Principe de la Paz, was born at Badajoz, on the frontiers of Portugal, and was originally in the ranks of the Spa nish Guards, till his person attracted the queen's eyes, and raised

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