Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: Cantos I - II — Canto 2 Stanza 73-98

LXXIII.

Fair Greece!

sad relic of departed worth!

Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great!

Who now shall lead thy scattered children forth, And long accustomed bondage uncreate?

Not such thy sons who whilome did await, The hopeless warriors of a willing doom, In bleak Thermopylae's sepulchral strait-- Oh, who that gallant spirit shall resume, Leap from Eurotas' banks, and call thee from the tomb?

LXXIV.

Spirit of Freedom!

when on Phyle's brow Thou sat'st with Thrasybulus and his train, Couldst thou forbode the dismal hour which now Dims the green beauties of thine Attic plain?

Not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain, But every carle can lord it o'er thy land;

Nor rise thy sons, but idly rail in vain, Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish hand, From birth till death enslaved; in word, in deed, unmanned.

LXXV.

In all save form alone, how changed!

and who That marks the fire still sparkling in each eye, Who would but deem their bosom burned anew With thy unquenched beam, lost Liberty!

And many dream withal the hour is nigh That gives them back their fathers' heritage: For foreign arms and aid they fondly sigh, Nor solely dare encounter hostile rage, Or tear their name defiled from Slavery's mournful page.

LXXVI.

Hereditary bondsmen!

know ye not Who would be free themselves must strike the blow?

By their right arms the conquest must be wrought?

Will Gaul or Muscovite redress ye?

No!

True, they may lay your proud despoilers low, But not for you will Freedom's altars flame.

Shades of the Helots!

triumph o'er your foe: Greece!

change thy lords, thy state is still the same;

Thy glorious day is o'er, but not thy years of shame.

LXXVII.

The city won for Allah from the Giaour, The Giaour from Othman's race again may wrest;

And the Serai's impenetrable tower Receive the fiery Frank, her former guest;

Or Wahab's rebel brood, who dared divest The Prophet's tomb of all its pious spoil, May wind their path of blood along the West;

But ne'er will Freedom seek this fated soil, But slave succeed to slave through years of endless toil.

LXXVIII.

Yet mark their mirth--ere lenten days begin, That penance which their holy rites prepare To shrive from man his weight of mortal sin, By daily abstinence and nightly prayer;

But ere his sackcloth garb Repentance wear, Some days of joyaunce are decreed to all, To take of pleasaunce each his secret share, In motley robe to dance at masking ball, And join the mimic train of merry Carnival.

LXXIX.

And whose more rife with merriment than thine, O Stamboul!

once the empress of their reign?

Though turbans now pollute Sophia's shrine And Greece her very altars eyes in vain: (Alas!

her woes will still pervade my strain!

) Gay were her minstrels once, for free her throng, All felt the common joy they now must feign;

Nor oft I've seen such sight, nor heard such song, As wooed the eye, and thrilled the Bosphorus along.

LXXX.

Loud was the lightsome tumult on the shore;

Oft Music changed, but never ceased her tone, And timely echoed back the measured oar, And rippling waters made a pleasant moan: The Queen of tides on high consenting shone;

And when a transient breeze swept o'er the wave, 'Twas as if, darting from her heavenly throne, A brighter glance her form reflected gave, Till sparkling billows seemed to light the banks they lave.

LXXXI.

Glanced many a light caique along the foam, Danced on the shore the daughters of the land, No thought had man or maid of rest or home, While many a languid eye and thrilling hand Exchanged the look few bosoms may withstand, Or gently pressed, returned the pressure still: Oh Love!

young Love!

bound in thy rosy band, Let sage or cynic prattle as he will, These hours, and only these, redeemed Life's years of ill!

LXXXII.

But, midst the throng in merry masquerade, Lurk there no hearts that throb with secret pain, E'en through the closest searment half-betrayed?

To such the gentle murmurs of the main Seem to re-echo all they mourn in vain;

To such the gladness of the gamesome crowd Is source of wayward thought and stern disdain: How do they loathe the laughter idly loud, And long to change the robe of revel for the shroud!

LXXXIII.

This must he feel, the true-born son of Greece, If Greece one true-born patriot can boast: Not such as prate of war but skulk in peace, The bondsman's peace, who sighs for all he lost, Yet with smooth smile his tyrant can accost, And wield the slavish sickle, not the sword: Ah, Greece!

they love thee least who owe thee most-- Their birth, their blood, and that sublime record Of hero sires, who shame thy now degenerate horde!

LXXXIV.

When riseth Lacedaemon's hardihood, When Thebes Epaminondas rears again, When Athens' children are with hearts endued, When Grecian mothers shall give birth to men, Then mayst thou be restored; but not till then.

A thousand years scarce serve to form a state;

An hour may lay it in the dust: and when Can man its shattered splendour renovate, Recall its virtues back, and vanquish Time and Fate?

LXXXV.

And yet how lovely in thine age of woe, Land of lost gods and godlike men, art thou!

Thy vales of evergreen, thy hills of snow, Proclaim thee Nature's varied favourite now;

Thy fanes, thy temples to the surface bow, Commingling slowly with heroic earth, Broke by the share of every rustic plough: So perish monuments of mortal birth, So perish all in turn, save well-recorded worth;

LXXXVI.

Save where some solitary column mourns Above its prostrate brethren of the cave;

Save where Tritonia's airy shrine adorns Colonna's cliff, and gleams along the wave;

Save o'er some warrior's half-forgotten grave, Where the grey stones and unmolested grass Ages, but not oblivion, feebly brave, While strangers only not regardless pass, Lingering like me, perchance, to gaze, and sigh 'Alas!'

LXXXVII.

Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild: Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields, Thine olives ripe as when Minerva smiled, And still his honeyed wealth Hymettus yields;

There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds, The freeborn wanderer of thy mountain air;

Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds, Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare;

Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair.

LXXXVIII.

Where'er we tread, 'tis haunted, holy ground;

No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould, But one vast realm of wonder spreads around, And all the Muse's tales seem truly told, Till the sense aches with gazing to behold The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon: Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold, Defies the power which crushed thy temples gone: Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon.

LXXXIX.

The sun, the soil, but not the slave, the same;

Unchanged in all except its foreign lord-- Preserves alike its bounds and boundless fame;

The battle-field, where Persia's victim horde First bowed beneath the brunt of Hellas' sword, As on the morn to distant Glory dear, When Marathon became a magic word;

Which uttered, to the hearer's eye appear The camp, the host, the fight, the conqueror's career.

XC.

The flying Mede, his shaftless broken bow;

The fiery Greek, his red pursuing spear;

Mountains above, Earth's, Ocean's plain below;

Death in the front, Destruction in the rear!

Such was the scene--what now remaineth here?

What sacred trophy marks the hallowed ground, Recording Freedom's smile and Asia's tear?

The rifled urn, the violated mound, The dust thy courser's hoof, rude stranger!

spurns around.

XCI.

Yet to the remnants of thy splendour past Shall pilgrims, pensive, but unwearied, throng: Long shall the voyager, with th' Ionian blast, Hail the bright clime of battle and of song;

Long shall thine annals and immortal tongue Fill with thy fame the youth of many a shore: Boast of the aged!

lesson of the young!

Which sages venerate and bards adore, As Pallas and the Muse unveil their awful lore.

XCII.

The parted bosom clings to wonted home, If aught that's kindred cheer the welcome hearth;

He that is lonely, hither let him roam, And gaze complacent on congenial earth.

Greece is no lightsome land of social mirth;

But he whom Sadness sootheth may abide, And scarce regret the region of his birth, When wandering slow by Delphi's sacred side, Or gazing o'er the plains where Greek and Persian died.

XCIII.

Let such approach this consecrated land, And pass in peace along the magic waste: But spare its relics--let no busy hand Deface the scenes, already how defaced!

Not for such purpose were these altars placed.

Revere the remnants nations once revered;

So may our country's name be undisgraced, So mayst thou prosper where thy youth was reared, By every honest joy of love and life endeared!

XCIV.

For thee, who thus in too protracted song Hath soothed thine idlesse with inglorious lays, Soon shall thy voice be lost amid the throng Of louder minstrels in these later days: To such resign the strife for fading bays-- Ill may such contest now the spirit move Which heeds nor keen reproach nor partial praise, Since cold each kinder heart that might approve, And none are left to please where none are left to love.

XCV.

Thou too art gone, thou loved and lovely one!

Whom youth and youth's affections bound to me;

Who did for me what none beside have done, Nor shrank from one albeit unworthy thee.

What is my being?

thou hast ceased to be!

Nor stayed to welcome here thy wanderer home, Who mourns o'er hours which we no more shall see-- Would they had never been, or were to come!

Would he had ne'er returned to find fresh cause to roam!

XCVI.

Oh!

ever loving, lovely, and beloved!

How selfish Sorrow ponders on the past, And clings to thoughts now better far removed!

But Time shall tear thy shadow from me last.

All thou couldst have of mine, stern Death, thou hast: The parent, friend, and now the more than friend;

Ne'er yet for one thine arrows flew so fast, And grief with grief continuing still to blend, Hath snatched the little joy that life had yet to lend.

XCVII.

Then must I plunge again into the crowd, And follow all that Peace disdains to seek?

Where Revel calls, and Laughter, vainly loud, False to the heart, distorts the hollow cheek, To leave the flagging spirit doubly weak!

Still o'er the features, which perforce they cheer, To feign the pleasure or conceal the pique;

Smiles form the channel of a future tear, Or raise the writhing lip with ill-dissembled sneer.

XCVIII.

What is the worst of woes that wait on age?

What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?

To view each loved one blotted from life's page, And be alone on earth, as I am now.

Before the Chastener humbly let me bow, O'er hearts divided and o'er hopes destroyed: Roll on, vain days!

full reckless may ye flow, Since Time hath reft whate'er my soul enjoyed, And with the ills of eld mine earlier years alloyed.

CANTO THE THIRD.

I.

Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child!

Ada!

sole daughter of my house and heart?

When last I saw thy young blue eyes, they smiled, And then we parted,--not as now we part, But with a hope.

-- Awaking with a start, The waters heave around me; and on high The winds lift up their voices: I depart, Whither I know not; but the hour's gone by, When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye.

II.

Once more upon the waters!

yet once more!

And the waves bound beneath me as a steed That knows his rider.

Welcome to their roar!

Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead!

Though the strained mast should quiver as a reed, And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale, Still must I on; for I am as a weed, Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam, to sail Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail.

III.

In my youth's summer I did sing of One, The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind;

Again I seize the theme, then but begun, And bear it with me, as the rushing wind Bears the cloud onwards: in that tale I find The furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears, Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track behind, O'er which all heavily the journeying years Plod the last sands of life--where not a flower appears.

IV.

Since my young days of passion--joy, or pain, Perchance my heart and harp have lost a string, And both may jar: it may be, that in vain I would essay as I have sung to sing.

Yet, though a dreary strain, to this I cling, So that it wean me from the weary dream Of selfish grief or gladness--so it fling Forgetfulness around me--it shall seem To me, though to none else, a not ungrateful theme.

V.

He who, grown aged in this world of woe, In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life, So that no wonder waits him; nor below Can love or sorrow, fame, ambition, strife, Cut to his heart again with the keen knife Of silent, sharp endurance: he can tell Why thought seeks refuge in lone caves, yet rife With airy images, and shapes which dwell Still unimpaired, though old, in the soul's haunted cell.

VI.

'Tis to create, and in creating live A being more intense, that we endow With form our fancy, gaining as we give The life we image, even as I do now.

What am I?

Nothing: but not so art thou, Soul of my thought!

with whom I traverse earth, Invisible but gazing, as I glow Mixed with thy spirit, blended with thy birth, And feeling still with thee in my crushed feelings' dearth.

VII.

Yet must I think less wildly: I HAVE thought Too long and darkly, till my brain became, In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought, A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame: And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame, My springs of life were poisoned.

'Tis too late!

Yet am I changed; though still enough the same In strength to bear what time cannot abate, And feed on bitter fruits without accusing fate.

VIII.

Something too much of this: but now 'tis past, And the spell closes with its silent seal.

Long-absent Harold reappears at last;

He of the breast which fain no more would feel, Wrung with the wounds which kill not, but ne'er heal;

Yet Time, who changes all, had altered him In soul and aspect as in age: years steal Fire from the mind as vigour from the limb;

And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.

IX.

His had been quaffed too quickly, and he found The dregs were wormwood; but he filled again, And from a purer fount, on holier ground, And deemed its spring perpetual; but in vain!

Still round him clung invisibly a chain Which galled for ever, fettering though unseen, And heavy though it clanked not; worn with pain, Which pined although it spoke not, and grew keen, Entering with every step he took through many a scene.

X.

Secure in guarded coldness, he had mixed Again in fancied safety with his kind, And deemed his spirit now so firmly fixed And sheathed with an invulnerable mind, That, if no joy, no sorrow lurked behind;

And he, as one, might midst the many stand Unheeded, searching through the crowd to find Fit speculation; such as in strange land He found in wonder-works of God and Nature's hand.

XI.

But who can view the ripened rose, nor seek To wear it?

who can curiously behold The smoothness and the sheen of beauty's cheek, Nor feel the heart can never all grow old?

Who can contemplate fame through clouds unfold The star which rises o'er her steep, nor climb?

Harold, once more within the vortex rolled On with the giddy circle, chasing Time, Yet with a nobler aim than in his youth's fond prime.

XII.

But soon he knew himself the most unfit Of men to herd with Man; with whom he held Little in common; untaught to submit His thoughts to others, though his soul was quelled, In youth by his own thoughts; still uncompelled, He would not yield dominion of his mind To spirits against whom his own rebelled;

Proud though in desolation; which could find A life within itself, to breathe without mankind.

XIII.

Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends;

Where rolled the ocean, thereon was his home;

Where a blue sky, and glowing clime, extends, He had the passion and the power to roam;

The desert, forest, cavern, breaker's foam, Were unto him companionship; they spake A mutual language, clearer than the tome Of his land's tongue, which he would oft forsake For nature's pages glassed by sunbeams on the lake.

XIV.

Like the Chaldean, he could watch the stars, Till he had peopled them with beings bright As their own beams; and earth, and earth-born jars, And human frailties, were forgotten quite: Could he have kept his spirit to that flight, He had been happy; but this clay will sink Its spark immortal, envying it the light To which it mounts, as if to break the link That keeps us from yon heaven which woos us to its brink.

XV.

But in Man's dwellings he became a thing Restless and worn, and stern and wearisome, Drooped as a wild-born falcon with clipt wing, To whom the boundless air alone were home: Then came his fit again, which to o'ercome, As eagerly the barred-up bird will beat His breast and beak against his wiry dome Till the blood tinge his plumage, so the heat Of his impeded soul would through his bosom eat.

XVI.

Self-exiled Harold wanders forth again, With naught of hope left, but with less of gloom;

The very knowledge that he lived in vain, That all was over on this side the tomb, Had made Despair a smilingness assume, Which, though 'twere wild--as on the plundered wreck When mariners would madly meet their doom With draughts intemperate on the sinking deck-- Did yet inspire a cheer, which he forbore to check.

XVII.

Stop!

for thy tread is on an empire's dust!

An earthquake's spoil is sepulchred below!

Is the spot marked with no colossal bust?

Nor column trophied for triumphal show?

None; but the moral's truth tells simpler so, As the ground was before, thus let it be;-- How that red rain hath made the harvest grow!

And is this all the world has gained by thee, Thou first and last of fields!

king-making Victory?

XVIII.

And Harold stands upon this place of skulls, The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo!

How in an hour the power which gave annuls Its gifts, transferring fame as fleeting too!

In 'pride of place' here last the eagle flew, Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain, Pierced by the shaft of banded nations through: Ambition's life and labours all were vain;

He wears the shattered links of the world's broken chain.

XIX.

Fit retribution!

Gaul may champ the bit, And foam in fetters, but is Earth more free?

Did nations combat to make ONE submit;

Or league to teach all kings true sovereignty?

What!

shall reviving thraldom again be The patched-up idol of enlightened days?

Shall we, who struck the Lion down, shall we Pay the Wolf homage?

proffering lowly gaze And servile knees to thrones?

No; PROVE before ye praise!

XX.

If not, o'er one fall'n despot boast no more!

In vain fair cheeks were furrowed with hot tears For Europe's flowers long rooted up before The trampler of her vineyards; in vain years Of death, depopulation, bondage, fears, Have all been borne, and broken by the accord Of roused-up millions: all that most endears Glory, is when the myrtle wreathes a sword Such as Harmodius drew on Athens' tyrant lord.

XXI.

There was a sound of revelry by night, And Belgium's capital had gathered then Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men;

A thousand hearts beat happily; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage bell;

But hush!

hark!

a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!

XXII.

Did ye not hear it?

--No; 'twas but the wind, Or the car rattling o'er the stony street;

On with the dance!

let joy be unconfined;

No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet.

But hark!

--that heavy sound breaks in once more, As if the clouds its echo would repeat;

And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!

Arm!

arm!

it is--it is--the cannon's opening roar!

XXIII.

Within a windowed niche of that high hall Sate Brunswick's fated chieftain; he did hear That sound, the first amidst the festival, And caught its tone with Death's prophetic ear;

And when they smiled because he deemed it near, His heart more truly knew that peal too well Which stretched his father on a bloody bier, And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell: He rushed into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell.

XXIV.

Ah!

then and there was hurrying to and fro, And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness;

And there were sudden partings, such as press The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs Which ne'er might be repeated: who would guess If ever more should meet those mutual eyes, Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise!

XXV.

And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed, The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, And swiftly forming in the ranks of war;

And the deep thunder peal on peal afar;

And near, the beat of the alarming drum Roused up the soldier ere the morning star;

While thronged the citizens with terror dumb, Or whispering, with white lips--'The foe!

They come!

they come!'

XXVI.

And wild and high the 'Cameron's gathering' rose, The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes: How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills Savage and shrill!

But with the breath which fills Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers With the fierce native daring which instils The stirring memory of a thousand years, And Evan's, Donald's fame rings in each clansman's ears.

XXVII.

And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves, Dewy with Nature's tear-drops, as they pass, Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves, Over the unreturniug brave,--alas!

Ere evening to be trodden like the grass Which now beneath them, but above shall grow In its next verdure, when this fiery mass Of living valour, rolling on the foe, And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low.

XXVIII.

Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay, The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife, The morn the marshalling in arms,--the day Battle's magnificently stern array!

The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent The earth is covered thick with other clay, Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent, Rider and horse,--friend, foe,--in one red burial blent!

XXIX.

Their praise is hymned by loftier harps than mine;

Yet one I would select from that proud throng, Partly because they blend me with his line, And partly that I did his sire some wrong, And partly that bright names will hallow song;

And his was of the bravest, and when showered The death-bolts deadliest the thinned files along, Even where the thickest of war's tempest lowered, They reached no nobler breast than thine, young, gallant Howard!

XXX.

There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee, And mine were nothing, had I such to give;

But when I stood beneath the fresh green tree, Which living waves where thou didst cease to live, And saw around me the wild field revive With fruits and fertile promise, and the Spring Come forth her work of gladness to contrive, With all her reckless birds upon the wing, I turned from all she brought to those she could not bring.

XXXI.

I turned to thee, to thousands, of whom each And one as all a ghastly gap did make In his own kind and kindred, whom to teach Forgetfulness were mercy for their sake;

The Archangel's trump, not Glory's, must awake Those whom they thirst for; though the sound of Fame May for a moment soothe, it cannot slake The fever of vain longing, and the name So honoured, but assumes a stronger, bitterer claim.

XXXII.

They mourn, but smile at length; and, smiling, mourn: The tree will wither long before it fall: The hull drives on, though mast and sail be torn;

The roof-tree sinks, but moulders on the hall In massy hoariness; the ruined wall Stands when its wind-worn battlements are gone;

The bars survive the captive they enthral;

The day drags through though storms keep out the sun;

And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on: XXXIII.

E'en as a broken mirror, which the glass In every fragment multiplies; and makes A thousand images of one that was, The same, and still the more, the more it breaks;

And thus the heart will do which not forsakes, Living in shattered guise, and still, and cold, And bloodless, with its sleepless sorrow aches, Yet withers on till all without is old, Showing no visible sign, for such things are untold.

XXXIV.

There is a very life in our despair, Vitality of poison,--a quick root Which feeds these deadly branches; for it were As nothing did we die; but life will suit Itself to Sorrow's most detested fruit, Like to the apples on the Dead Sea shore, All ashes to the taste: Did man compute Existence by enjoyment, and count o'er Such hours 'gainst years of life,--say, would he name threescore?

XXXV.

The Psalmist numbered out the years of man: They are enough: and if thy tale be TRUE, Thou, who didst grudge him e'en that fleeting span, More than enough, thou fatal Waterloo!

Millions of tongues record thee, and anew Their children's lips shall echo them, and say, 'Here, where the sword united nations drew, Our countrymen were warring on that day!'

And this is much, and all which will not pass away.

XXXVI.

There sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men, Whose spirit anithetically mixed One moment of the mightiest, and again On little objects with like firmness fixed;

Extreme in all things!

hadst thou been betwixt, Thy throne had still been thine, or never been;

For daring made thy rise as fall: thou seek'st Even now to reassume the imperial mien, And shake again the world, the Thunderer of the scene!

XXXVII.

Conqueror and captive of the earth art thou!

She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name Was ne'er more bruited in men's minds than now That thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame, Who wooed thee once, thy vassal, and became The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert A god unto thyself; nor less the same To the astounded kingdoms all inert, Who deemed thee for a time whate'er thou didst assert.

XXXVIII.

Oh, more or less than man--in high or low, Battling with nations, flying from the field;

Now making monarchs' necks thy footstool, now More than thy meanest soldier taught to yield: An empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild, But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor, However deeply in men's spirits skilled, Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of war, Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest star.

XXXIX.