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LXXXIV.

Still he beheld, nor mingled with the throng;
But view'd them not with misanthropic hate:
Fain would he now have joined the dance, the song,
But who may smile that sinks beneath his fate?
Nought that he saw his sadness could abate:
Yet once he struggled 'gainst the demon's sway,
And as in Beauty's bower he pensive sate,
Pour'd forth this unpremeditated lay

To charms as fair as those that soothed his happier
day.

TO INEZ.

1.

NAY, smile not at my sullen brow;
Alas! I cannot smile again:

Yet Heaven avert that ever thou

Shouldst weep, and haply weep in vain

2.

And dost thou ask, what secret wo
I bear, corroding joy and youth?
And wilt thou vainly seek to know
A pang, ev'n thou must fail to sooth?

3.

It is not love, it is not hate,

Nor low Ambition's honors lost,

That bids me loathe my present state,
And fly from all I prized the most:

4.

It is that weariness which springs
From all I meet, or hear, or see:
To me no pleasure Beauty brings;
Thine eyes have scarce a charm for me.

5.

It is that settled, ceaseless gloom
The fabled Hebrew wanderer bore;
That will not look beyond the tomb,
But cannot hope for rest before.

6.

What Exile from himself can flee?

To Zones, though more and more remote, Still, still pursues, where'er I be,

The blight of life-the demon Thought.

7.

Yet others rapt in pleasure seem,
And taste of all that I forsake;
Oh! may they still of transport dream,
And ne'er, at least like me, awake!

8.

Through many a clime 'tis mine to go,
With many a retrospection curst;
And all my solace is to know,

Whate'er betides, I've known the worst.

9.

What is that worst? Nay do not ask-
In pity from the search forbear:
Smile on-nor venture to unmask

LXXXV.

Adieu, fair Cadiz! yea, a long adieu!
Who may forget how well thy walls have stood?
When all were changing thou alone wert true,
First to be free and last to be subdued:
And if amidst a scene, a shock so rude,
Some native blood was seen thy streets to dye;
A traitor only fell beneath the feud: 17
Here all were noble, save Nobility;
None hugg'd a conqueror's chain, save fallen
Chivalry!

LXXXVI.

Such be the sons of Spain, and strange her fate!
They fight for freedom who were never free;
A Kingless people for a nerveless state,
Her vassals combat when their chieftains flee,
True to the veriest slaves of Treachery:
Fond of a land which gave them nought but life,
Pride points the path that leads to Liberty;
Back to the struggle, baffied in the strife,
War, war is still the cry, "War even to the
knife!" 18

LXXXVII.

Ye, who would more of Spain and Spaniards know,
Go, read whate'er is writ of bloodiest strife:
Whate'er keen Vengeance urged on foreign foe
Can act, is acting there against man's life:
From flashing scimitar to secret knife,
War mouldeth there each weapon to his need
So may he guard the sister and the wife,

So may he make each curst oppressor bleed,
So may such foes deserve the most remorseless deed

LXXXVII.

Flows there a tear of pity for the dead?
Look o'er the ravage of the recking plain;
Look on the hands with female slaughter red;
Then to the dogs resign the unburied slain,
Then to the vulture let each corse remain;
Albeit unworthy of the prey-bird's maw, [stain,
Let their bleach'd bones, and blood's unbleaching
Long mark the battle-field with hideous awe:
Thus only may our sons conceive the scenes we saw !

LXXXIX.

Nor yet, alas! the dreadful work is done;
Fresh legions pour adown the Pyreneen:
It deepens still, the work is scarce begun,
Nor mortal eye the distant end foresces.
Fall'n nations gaze on Spain; if freed, she frees
More than her fell Pizarros once enchain'd:
Strange retribution! now Columbia's case
Repairs the wrongs that Quito's sons sustain'd,
While o'er the parent clime prowls Murder un
restrain'd.

XC.

Not all the blood at Talavera shed,
Not all the marvels of Barossa's fight,
Not Albuera lavish of the dead,

Have won for Spain her well-asserted right.
When shall her Olive-Branch be free from blight?
When shall she breathe her from the blushing toil?
How many a doubtful day shall sink in night,
Ere the Frank robber turn him from his spoil,

Man's heart, and view the Hell that's there. And Freedom's stranger-tree grow native of the soil

XCI.

And thou, my friend! 19-since unavailing wo
Burst from my heart, and mingles with the strain-
Had the sword laid thee with the mighty low,
Pride might forbid ev'n Friendship to complain;
But thus unlaurel'd to descend in vain,
By all forgotten, save the lonely breast,
And mix unbleeding with the boasted slain,
While Glory crowns so many a meaner crest!
What hadst thou done to sink so peacefully to
rest?

XCII.

Oh, known the earliest, and esteem'd the most!
Dear to a heart where nought was left so dear!
Though to my hopeless days for ever lost,
In dreams deny me not to see thee here!
And Morn in secret shall renew the tear
Of Consciousness awaking to her woes,
And Fancy hover o'er thy bloodless bier,
Till my frail frame return to whence it rose,
And mourn'd and mourner lie united in repose.

XCIII.

Here is one fytte of Harold's pilgrimage:
Ye who of him may further seek to know,
Shall find some tidings in a future page,
If he that rhymeth now may scribble moe.
Is this too much? stern Critic! say not so:
Patience! and ye shall hear what he beheld
In other lands, where he was doom'd to go:
Lands that contain the monuments of Eld,
Ere Greece and Grecian arts by barbarous hands we
quell'd.

CANTO II.

I.

COME, blue-eyed maid of heaven!—but thou, alas.
Didst never yet one mortal song inspire-
Goddess of Wisdom! here thy temple was,
And is, despite of war and wasting fire,'
And years, that bade thy worship to expire;
But worse than steel, and flame, and ages slow,
Is the dread sceptre and dominion dire
Of men who never felt the sacred glow
That thoughts of thee and thine on polish'd breasts
bestow.2

II.

[were:

Ancient of days! august Athena! where,
Where are thy men of might? thy grand in soul?
Gone, glimmering through the dream of things that
First in the race that led to Glory's goal
They won, and pass'd away-is this the whole ?
A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour!
The warrior's weapon and the sophists stole
Are sought in vain, and o'er each mouldering
tower.

III.

Son of the morning, rise! approach you here;
Come-but molest not yon defenceless urn:
Look on this spot-a nation's sepulchre !
Abode of gods, whose shrines no longer burn.
Even gods must yield-religions take their turn:
'Twas Jove's-'tis Mahomet's-and other creeds
Will rise with other years, till man shall learn
Vainly his incense soars, his victim bleeds;
Poor child of Doubt and Death, whose hope is built
on reeds.

IV.

Bound to the earth, he lifts his eye to heaven-
Is't not enough, unhappy thing! to know
Thou art? Is this a boon so kindly given,
That being, thou would'st be again, and go
Thou know'st not, reck'st not to what region, so
On earth no more, but mingled with the skies?
Still wilt thou dream on future joy and wo?
Regard and weigh yon dust before it flies;
That little urn saith more than thousand homilies.

V.

Or burst the vanish'd Hero's lofty mound;
Far on the solitary shore he sleeps :3
He fell, and falling nations mourn'd around;
But now not one of saddening thousands weeps,
Nor war-like worshipper his vigil keeps
Where demi-gods appear'd, as records tell.
Remove yon scull from out the scatter'd heaps:
Is that a temple where a God may dwell?
Why ev'n the worm at last disdains her shatter'd
cell!

VI.

Look on its broken arch, its ruin'd wall,
Its chambers desolate, and portals foul;
Yes, this was once Ambition's airy hall,
The dome of Thought, the palace of the Soul;
Behold through each lack-lustre, eyeless hole,
The gay recess of Wisdom and of Wit

And Passion's host, that never brook'd control;
Can all saint, sage, or sophist ever writ,
People this lonely tower, this tenement refit;

VII.

Well didst thou speak, Athena's wisest son!
"All that we know is, nothing can be known."
Why should we shrink from what we cannot shun?
Each has his pang, but feeble sufferers groan
With brain-born dreams of evil all their own.
Pursue what Chance or Fate proclaimeth best;
Peace waits us on the shores of Acheron :
There no forced banquet claims the sated guest,
But Silence spreads the couch of ever welcome rest.

VIII.

Yet if, as holiest men have deem'd, there be A land of souls beyond that sable shore, To shame the doctrine of the Sadducee And sophists, madly vain of dubious lore; How sweet it were in concert to adore With those who made our mortal labors light! To hear each voice we fear'd to hear no more! Behold each mighty shade reveal'd to sight, Dim with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of The Bactrian, Samian sage, and all who taught the

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IX.
There, thou!-whose love and life together fled,
Have left me here to love and live in vain-
Twined with my heart, and can I deem thee dead
When busy Memory flashes on my brain?
Well-I will dream that we may meet again,
And woo the vision to my vacant breast;

If aught of young Remembrance then remain,
Be as it may Futurity's behest,

XV.

Cold is the heart, fair Greece! that looks on thee,
Nor feels as lovers o'er the dust they loved;
Dull is the eye that will not weep to see [moved
Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines re-
By British hands, which it had best behooved

To guard those relics ne'er to be restored.
Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved,
And once again thy hapless bosom gored,

For me 'twere bliss enough to know thy spirit blest. And snatch'd thy shrinking Gods to northern climes

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Nor now preserved the walls he loved to shield The flapping sail haul'd down to halt for logs like

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XXI.

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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 hallowed 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
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,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,
And o'er her cliffs a fuitless 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
sigh'd.

XXX.

Her reign is past, her gentle glories gone: But trust not this; too easy youth, beware! A mortal sovereign holds her dangerous throne, And thou may'st find a new Calypso there. Sweet Florence! could another ever share This wayward, loveless heart, it would be thine: But check'd by every tie, I may not dare To cast a worthless offering at thy shrine, Nor ask so dear a breast to feel one pang for mine.

XXXI.

Thus Harold deem'd, as on that lady's eye He look'd, and met its beam without a thought, Save Admiration glancing harmless by: Love kept aloof, albeit not far remote, Who knew his votary often lost and caught, But knew him as his worshipper no more, And ne'er again the boy his bosom sought; Since now he vainly urged him to adore, Well deem'd the little God his ancient sway was o'er.

XXXII.

Fair Florence found, in sooth with some amaze, One who, 'twas said, still sigh'd to all he saw, Withstand, unmoved, the lustre of her gaze, Which others hail'd with real or mimic awe, [law; Their hope, their doom, their punishment, their All that gay Beauty from her bondsmen claims; And much she marvelled that a youth so raw Nor felt, nor feign'd at least, the oft-told flames, Which, though sometimes they frown, yet rarely anger dames.

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