Where demi-gods appear'd, as records tell. Why ev'n the worm at last disdains her shatter'd cell! VI. Look on its broken arch, its ruin'd wall, And Passion's host, that never brook'd control: VII. Well didst thou speak, Athena's wisest son! There no forced banquet claims the sated guest, VIII. Yet if, as holiest men have deem'd, there be With those who made our mortal labours light! The Bactrian, Samian sage, and all who taught the right! 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, For me 'twere bliss enough to know thy spirit blest! X. Here let me sit upon this massy stone, XI. But who, of all the plunderers of yon fane The last, the worst, dull spoiler, who was he? Thy free-born men should spare what once was free, XII. But most the modern Pict's ignoble boast, To rive what Goth, and Turk, and Time hath spared ; (3) Cold as the crags upon his native coast, His mind as barren and his heart as hard, Is he whose head conceived, whose hand prepared, Aught to displace Athena's poor remains Her sons too weak the sacred shrine to guard, Yet felt some portion of their mother's pains, (*) And never knew, till then, the weight of Despot's chains. (1) The temple of Jupiter Olympius, of which sixteen columns, entirely of marble, yet survive: originally there were 150. These columns, however, are by many supposed to belong to the Pantheon. (2) The ship was wrecked in the Archipelago. (3) See Appendix to this Canto [A], for a note too long to be placed here. (4) I cannot resist availing myself of the permission of my friend Dr. Clarke, whose name requires no comment with the public, but whose sanction will add tenfold weight to my testimony, to insert the following extract from a very obliging let ter of his to me, as a note to the above lines. "When the last of the Metopes was taken from the Parthenon, and, in moving of it, great part of the superstructure with XIII. What! shall it e'er be said by British tongue, Though in thy name the slaves her bosom wrung, XIV. Where was thine Ægis, Pallas! that appall'd Where Peleus' son? whom Hell in vain enthrall'd, Bursting to light in terrible array! What! could not Pluto spare the chief once more, To scare a second robber from his prey? Idly he wander'd on the Stygian shore, Nor now preserved the walls he loved to shield before. XV. Cold is the heart, fair Greece! that looks on thee, Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed 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, And snatch'd thy shrinking Gods to northern climes abhorr❜d! XVI. But where is Harold? shall I then forget To urge the gloomy wanderer o'er the wave? Little reck'd he of all that men regret; one of the triglyphs was thrown down by the workmen whom Lord Elgin employed, the Disdar, who beheld the mischief done to the building, took his pipe from his mouth, dropped a tear, and, in a supplicating tone of voice, said to Lusieri, Téλos! - I was present." The Disdar alluded to was the father of the present Disdar. (1) According to Zosimus, Minerva and Achilles frightened Alaric from the Acropolis; but others relate that the Gothic king was nearly as mischievous as the Scottish peer. See CHANDLER. No loved-one now in feign'd lament could rave; Ere the cold stranger pass'd to other climes : And left without a sigh the land of war and crimes. XVII. He that has sail'd upon the dark blue sea, So gaily curl the waves before each dashing prow. XVIII. And oh, the little warlike world within! The well-reeved guns, the netted XIX. White is the glassy deck, without a stain, With aught beneath him, if he would preserve From law, however stern, which tends their strength to nerve. (1). The netting to prevent blocks or splinters from falling on deck during ac tion. XX. Blow! swiftly blow, thou keel-compelling gale! The flapping sail haul'd down to halt for logs like these! XXI. The moon is up; by Heaven, a lovely eve! Or to some well-known measure featly move, Thoughtless, as if on shore they still were free to rove. XXII. Through Calpe's straits survey the steepy shore; Lands of the dark-eyed Maid and dusky Moor 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 : Ah! happy years! once more who would not be a boy? |