The poetical works of lord Byron. Repr. with life, notes &c. 'Albion' ed

Of Salamis! there, there the waves arise,
Not to be lull'd by tyrant victories.
Lone, lost, abandon'd in their utmost need
By Christians, unto whom they gave their creed,
The desolated lands, the ravaged isle,
The foster'd feud encouraged to beguile,
The aid evaded, and the cold delay,
Prolong'd but in the hope to make a prey ;-
These, these shall tell the tale, and Greece can
show

The false friend worse than the infuriate foe.
But this is well: Greeks only should free Greece,
Not the barbarian, with his mask of peace.
How should the autocrat of bondage be
The king of serfs, and set the nations free?
Better still serve the haughty Mussulman,
Than swell the Cossaque's prowling caravan ;
Better still toil for masters, than await,
The slave of slaves, before a Russian gate,-
Number'd by hordes, a human capital,
A live estate, existing but for thrall,
Lotted by thousands, as a meet reward
For the first courtier in the Czar's regard;
While their immediate owner never tastes
His sleep, sans dreaming of Siberia's wastes
Better succumb even to their own despair,
And drive the camel than purvey the bear.

VII.

But not alone within the hoariest clime
Where Freedom dates her birth with that of
Time,

And not alone where, plunged in night, a crowd
Of Incas darken to a dubious cloud,

The dawn revives: renown'd, romantic Spain
Holds back the invader from her soil again.
Not now the Roman tribe nor Punic horde
Demand her fields as lists to prove the sword;
Not now the Vandal or the Visigoth
Pollute the plains, alike abhorring both;
Nor old Pelayo on his mountain rears
The warlike fathers of a thousand years.
That seed is sown and reap'd, as oft the Moor
Sighs to remember on his dusky shore.
Long in the peasant's song or poet's page
Has dwelt the memory of Abencerrage;
The Zegri, and the captive victors, flung
Back to the barbarous realm from whence they

Yet left more anti-christian foes than they;
The bigot monarch, and the butcher priest,
The Inquisition, with her burning feast,
The faith's red 'auto,' fed with human fuel,
While sate the Catholic Moloch, calmly cruel,
Enjoying, with inexorable eye,

That fiery festival of agony!

The stern or feeble sovereign, one or both
By turns; the haughtiness whose pride was sloth;
The long degenerate noble; the debased
Hidalgo, and the peasant less disgraced,
But more degraded; the unpcopled realm;
The once proud navy which forgot the helm;

The once impervious phalanx disarray'd;
The idle forge that form'd Toledo's blade;
The foreign wealth that flow'd on ev'ry shore,
Save hers who earn'd it with the natives' gore;
The very language which might vie with Rome's,
And once was known to nations like their homes,
Neglected or forgotten :-such was Spain;
But such she is not, nor shall be again.
These worst, these home invaders, felt and feel
The new Numantine soul of old Castile.
Up! up again! undaunted Tauridor!
The bull of Phalaris renews his roar ;
Mount, chivalrous Hidalgo! not in vain
Revive the cry!-'lago! and close Spain !'
Yes, close her with your armed bosoms round,
And form the barrier which Napoleon found,-
The exterminating war, the desert plain,
The streets without a tenant, save the slain !
The wild sierra, with its wilder troop
Of vulture-plumed guerillas, on the stoop
For their incessant prey; the desperate wall
Of Saragossa, mightiest in her fall;
The man nerved to a spirit, and the maid
Waving her more than Amazonian blade;
The knife of Arragon, + Toledo's steel;
The famous lance of chivalrous Castile;
The unerring rifle of the Catalan ;

The Andalusian courser in the van;
The torch to make a Moscow of Madrid;
And in each heart the spirit of the Cid :-
Such have been, such shall be, such are.

Ad[France! And win-not Spain! but thine own freedom,

vance,

VIII.

But lo! a Congress! What! that hallow'd name Which freed the Atlantic! May we hope the

same

For outworn Europe? With the sound arise,
Like Samuel's shade to Saul's monarchic eyes,
The prophets of young Freedom, summon'd far
From climes of Washington and Bolivar;
Henry, the forest-born Demosthenes,
Whose thunder shook the Philip of the seas;
And stoic Franklin's energetic shade,
Robed in the lightnings which his hand allay'd;
And Washington, the tyrant-tamer, wake,
To bid us blush for these old chains, or break.
But who compose this senate of the few
That should redeem the many? Who renew
This consecrated name, till now assign'd
To councils held to benefit mankind?
Who now assemble at the holy call?
The blest Alliance, which says three are all !
An earthly trinity! which wears the shape
Of heaven's, as man is mimick'd by the ape.
A pious unity! in purpose one-
To melt three fools to a Napoleon.
Why, Egypt's gods were rational to these ;
Their dogs and oxen knew their own degrees,

Thrice blest Verona! since the holy three
With their imperial presence shine on thee!
Honour'd by them, thy treacherous site forgets
The vaunted tomb of all the Capulets;'
Thy Scaligers-for what was 'Dog the Great,'
'Can Grande' (which I venture to translate,)
To these sublimer pugs? Thy poet too,
Catullus, whose old laurels yield to new;
Thine amphitheatre, where Romans sate;
And Dante's exile shelter'd by thy gate;
Thy good old man, whose world was all within
Thy wall, nor knew the country held him in;
Would that the royal guests it girds about
Were so far like, as never to get out!
Ay, shout! inscribe! rear monuments of shame,
To tell Oppression that the world is tame!
Crowd to the theatre with loyal rage,
The comedy is not upon the stage;
The show is rich in ribandry and stars,
Then gaze upon it through thy dungeon bars;
Clap thy permitted palms, kind Italy,

For thus much still thy fetter'd hands are free.

Yet think upon, thou somewhat aged youth,
Thy predecessor on the banks of Pruth;
Thou hast to aid thee, should his lot be thine,
Many an old woman, but no Catherine.*
Spain, too, hath rocks, and rivers, and defiles-
The bear may rush into the lion's toils.
Fatal to Goths are Xeres' sunny fields;
Think'st thou to thee Napoleon's victor yields?
Better reclaim thy deserts, turn thy swords
To ploughshares, shave and wash thy Bashkir
hordes,

Redeem thy realms from slavery and the knout,
Than follow headlong in the fatal route,
To infest the clime whose skies and laws are pure
With thy foul legions. Spain wants no manure :
Her soil is fertile, but she feeds no foe:
Her vultures, too, were gorged not long ago;
And wouldst thou furnish them with fresher
prey?

Alas! thou wilt not conquer, but purvey.
I am Diogenes, though Russ and Hun
Stand between mine and many a myriad's sun;
But were I not Diogenes, I'd wander
Rather a worm than such an Alexander!
Be slaves who will, the cynic shall be free;
His tub hath tougher walls than Sinopè :
Still will he hold his lantern up to scan
The face of monarchs for an honest man.'

XI.

And what doth Gaul, the all-prolific land
Of ne plus ultra ultras and their band
Of mercenaries? and her noisy chambers
And tribune, which each orator first clambers
Before he finds a voice, and when 'tis found,
Hears the lie' echo for his answer round?
Our British Commons sometimes deign to 'hear!'

Resplendent sight! Behold the coxcomb Czar, A Gallic senate hath more tongue than ear;

The autocrat of waltzes and of war !
As eager for a plaudit as a realm,
And just as fit for flirting as the helm ;
A Calmuck beauty with a Cossack wit,
And generous spirit, when 'tis not frost-bit;
Now half dissolving to a liberal thaw,
But harden'd back whene'er the morning's raw;
With no objection to true liberty,
Except that it would make the nations free.
How well the imperial dandy prates of peace!
How fain, if Greeks would be his slaves, free

Greece!

How nobly gave he back the Poles their Diet,
Then told pugnacious Poland to be quiet!
How kindly would he send the mild Ükraine,
With all her pleasant pulks, to lecture Spain !
How royally show off in proud Madrid
His goodly person, from the South long hid!
A blessing cheaply purchased, the world knows,
By having Muscovites for friends or foes.
Proceed, thou namesake of great Philip's son !
La Harpe, thine Aristotle, beckons on;
And that which Scythia was to him of yore
Find with thy Scythians on Iberia's shore.

• Claudian's famous old man of Verona.

Even Constant, their sole master of debate,
Must fight next day his speech to vindicate.
But this costs little to true Franks, who'd rather
Combat than listen, were it to their father.
What is the simple standing of a shot,
Though this was not the method of old Rome,
To listening long, and interrupting not?
When Tully fulmined o'er each vocal dome,
Demosthenes has sanction'd the transaction,

In saying eloquence meant Action, action!'

XII.

But where's the monarch? hath he dined? or yet
Groans beneath indigestion's heavy debt?
Have revolutionary patés risen,
And turn'd the royal entrails to a prison?
Have discontented movements stirr'd the troops?
Or have no movements follow'd traitorous soups?

Have Carbonaro cooks not carbonadoed
Each course enough? or doctors dire dissuaded
Repletion? Ah! in thy dejected looks

I read all France's treason in her cooks!

The dexterity of Catherine extricated Peter (called the Great by courtesy), when surrounded by the Mussulinans on the banks of the river Pruth.

I feel almost at times as I have felt

In happy childhood, trees, and flowers, and brooks,

Which do remember me of where I dwelt

Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books,
Come as of yore upon me, and can melt

My heart with recognition of their looks;
And even at moments I could think I see
Some living thing to love-but none like thee.
Here are the Alpine landscapes which create
A fund for contemplation ;-to admire
Is a brief feeling of a trivial date;

[spire. But something worthier do such scenes inHere to be lonely is not desolate,

For much I view which I could most desire,
And, above all, a lake I can behold
Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old.
Oh that thou wert but with me !--but I grow
The fool of my own wishes, and forget
The solitude which I have vaunted so

Has lost its praise in this but one regret ;
There may be others which I less may show :--
I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet
I feel an ebb in my philosophy,
And the tide rising in my alter'd eye.

I did remind thee of our own dear Lake,

By the old Hall which may be mine no more. Leman's is fair; but think not I forsake

The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore : Sad havoc Time must with my memory make,

Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before; Though, like all things which I have loved, they Resign'd for ever, or divided far.

The world is all before me; I but ask

Lare

Of Nature that with which she will comply-
It is but in her summer's sun to bask,

To mingle with the quiet of her sky,
To see her gentle face without a mask,
And never gaze on it with apathy.
She was my early friend, and now shall be
My sister-till I look again on thee.

I can reduce all feelings but this one;
And that I would not ;-for at length I see
Such scenes as those wherein my life begun.
The earliest-even the only paths for me-
Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun,

I had been better than I now can be ; [slept:
The passions which have torn me would have

I had not suffer'd, and thou hadst not wept.
With false Ambition what had I to do?

Little with Love, and least of all with Fame;
And yet they came unsought, and with me grew,
And made me all which they can make--a
Yet this was not the end I did pursue; [name.
Srely I once beheld a nobler aim.

over-I am one the more

4 millions which have gone before.
he future, this world's future may
the demand but little of my care;

I have outlived myself by many a day,
Having survived so many things that were
My years have been no slumber, but the prey
Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share
Of life which might have fill'd a century,
Before its fourth in time had pass'd me by.
And for the remnant which may be to come
I am content; and for the past I feel
Not thankless,-for within the crowded sum
Of struggles, happiness at times would steal :
And for the present, I would not benumb

My feelings further.-Nor shall I conceal
That with all this I still can look around,
And worship Nature with a thought profound.

For thee, my own sweet sister, in thy heart
I know myself secure, as thou in mine;
We were and are-I am, even as thou art-
Beings who ne'er each other can resign;
It is the same, together or apart,

From life's commencement to its slow decline
We are entwined: let death come slow or fast,
The tie which bound the first endures the last!

ENDORSEMENT TO

THE DEED OF SEPARATION.

IN THE APRIL OF 1816.

A YEAR ago, you swore, fond she!
'To love, to honour,' and so forth:
Such was the vow you pledged to me,
And here's exactly what 'tis worth.

THE DREAM.

OUR life is twofold: Sleep hath its own world,
A boundary between the things misnamed
Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world,
And a wide realm of wild reality.

And dreams in their development have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They take a weight from off our waking toils,
They do divide our being; they become
A portion of ourselves as of our time,
And look like heralds of eternity;
Like sibyls of the future; they have power-
They pass like spirits of the past,--they speak
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain:

They make us what we were not--what they will,
And shake us with the vision that's gone by,
The dread of vanish'd shadows-are they so?
Is not the past all shadow?-What are they?
Creations of the mind ?-The mind can nake
Substance, and people planets of its own
With beings brighter than have been, and give
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.
I would recall a vision which I dream'd
Perchance in sleep; for in itself a thought,
A slumbering thought, is capable of years,
And curdles a long life into one hour.

II.

I saw two beings in the hues of youth
Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,
Green, and of mild declivity, the last
As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such,
Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
But a most living landscape, and the wave
Of woods and cornfields, and the abodes of men
Scatter'd at intervals, and wreathing smoke
Ansing from such rustic roofs;-the hill
Was crown'd with a peculiar diadem
Of trees, in circular array, so fix'd,
Not by the sport of nature, but of man:
These two, a maiden and a youth, were there
Gazing-the one on all that was beneath,
Fair as herself-but the boy gazed on her;
And both were young, and one was beautiful:
And both were young-yet not alike in youth.
As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge,
The maid was on the eve of womanhood;
The buy had fewer summers, but his heart
Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye
There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him; he had look'd
Upon it till it could not pass away;
He had no breath, no being, but in hers;
She was his voice; he did not speak to her,
Bat trembled on her words; she was his sight,
For his eye follow'd hers, and saw with hers;
Which colour'd all his objects :-he had ceased
To live within himself; she was his life,
The ocean to the river of his thoughts,
Which terminated all upon a tone,
A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow,
And his cheek change tempestuously-his heart
Unknowing of its cause of agony.

But she in these fond feelings had no share:
Her sighs were not for him; to her he was
Even as a brother-but no more; twas much,
For brotherless she was, save in the name
Her infant friendship had bestow'd on him;
Herself the solitary scion left

Of a time-honour'd race.-It was a name
Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not-
and why?

Time taught him a deep answer-when she loved
Another; even now she loved another,
And on the summit of that hill she stood
Looking afar if yet her lover's steed
Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew.

III.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
There was an ancient mansion, and before
Its walls there was a steed caparison'd:
Within an antique Oratory stood

The Boy of whom I spake ;-he was alone,
And pale, and pacing to and fro: anon
He sate him down, and seized a pen, and traced
Words which I could not guess of; then he
lean'd
['twere
shook as

His bow'd head on his hands, and
With a convulsion-then arose again,

And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear
What he had written, but he shed no tears,
And he did calm himself, and fix his brow
Into a kind of quiet as he paused,
The Lady of his love re-enter'd there;
She was serene and smiling then, and yet
She knew she was by him beloved,-she knew,
For quickly comes such knowledge, that his

heart

Was darken'd with her shadow, and she saw
That he was wretched, but she saw not all.
He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp
He took her hand; a moment o'er his face
A tablet of unutterable thoughts

Was traced, and then it faded, as it came;
He dropp'd the hand he held, and with slow steps
Retired, but not as bidding her adieu,
For they did part with mutual smiles; he pass'd
From out the massy gate of that old Hall,
And mounting on his steed he went his way;
And ne'er repass'd that hoary threshold more.

IV.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Boy was sprung to manhood; in the wilds
Of fiery climes he made himself a home,
And his soul drank their sunbeams: he was girt
With strange and dusky aspects; he was not
Himself like what he had been; on the sea
And on the shore he was a wanderer;
There was a mass of many images
Crowded like waves upon me, but he was
A part of all; and in the last he lay
Reposing from the noontide sultriness,
Couch'd among fallen columns, in the shade
Of ruin'd walls that had survived the names
Of those who rear'd them; by his sleeping side
Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds
Were fasten'd near a fountain; and a man,
Clad in a flowing garb, did watch the while,
While many of his tribe slumber'd around:
And they were canopied by the blue sky,
So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful,
That God alone was to be seen in heaven.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Lady of his love was wed with One
Who did not love her better:-in her home,
A thousand leagues from his,-her native home,
She dwelt, begirt with growing Infancy,
Daughters and sons of Beauty,-but behold!
Upon her face there was the tint of grief,
The settled shadow of an inward strife,
And an unquiet drooping of the eye,
As if its lid were charged with unshed tears.
What could her grief be?--she had all she loved;
And he who had so loved her was not there
To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish,
Or ill-repress'd affliction, her pure thoughts.
What could her grief be?-she had loved him not,
Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved;
Nor could he be a part of that which prey'd
Upon her mind-a spectre of the past.

VI.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Wanderer was return'd.-I saw him stand
Before an altar-with a gentle bride;

Her face was fair, but was not that which made
The starlight of his Boyhood. As he stood
Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came
The self-same aspect, and the quivering shock
That in the antique Oratory shook
His bosom in its solitude; and then-
As in that hour-a moment o'er his face
The tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced, and then it faded as it came,
And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke
The fitting vows, but heard not his own words,

And all things reel'd around him; he could see Not that which was, nor that which should have been

But the old mansion, and the accustom'd hall,

And the remember'd chambers, and the place,
The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade,
All things pertaining to that place and hour,
And her who was his destiny,-came back
And thrust themselves between him and the light:
What business had they there at such a time?
VII.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream,
The Lady of his love;-oh! she was changed
As by the sickness of the soul; her mind
Had wander'd from its dwelling, and her eyes,
They had not their own lustre, but the look
Which is not of the earth; she was become
The queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughts
Were combinations of disjointed things;
And forms impalpable and unperceived
Of others' sight familiar were to hers.
And this the world calls frenzy: but the wise
Have a far deeper madness, and the glance
Of melancholy is a fearful gift;
What is it but the telescope of truth?
Which strips the distance of its fantasies,
And brings life near in utter nakedness,
Making the cold reality too real!

VIII.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Wanderer was alone as heretofore,
The beings which surrounded him were gone,
Or were at war with him; he was a mark
For blight and desolation, compass'd round
With Hatred and Contention; Pain was mix'd
In all which was served up to him, until,
Like to the Pontic monarch* of old days,
He fed on poisons, and they had no power,
But were a kind of nutriment; he lived [men,
Through that which had been death to many
And made him friends of mountains: with the
And the quick Spirit of the Universe [stars
He held his dialogues; and they did teach
To him the magic of their mysteries;
To him the book of Night was open'd wide,

* Mithridates of Pontus.

And voices from the deep abyss reveal'd A marvel and a secret.-Be it so.

IX.

My dream was past; it had no further change. It was of a strange order, that the doom

Of these two creatures should be thus traced out Almost like a reality-the one

To end in madness-both in misery.

LINES

ON HEARING THAT LADY BYRON WAS ILL.

AND thou wert sad-yet I was not with thee! And thou wert sick, and yet I was not near;

Methought that joy and health alone could be

Where I was not--and pain and sorrow here! And is it thus ?-it is as I foretold,

Upon itself, and the wreck'd heart lies cold,
It is not in the storm nor in the strife
While heaviness collects the shatter'd spoils.

And shall be more so; for the mind recoils

We feel benumb'd, and wish to be no more. When all is lost, except a little life. But in the after-silence on the shore,

I am too well avenged!--but 'twas my right! Whate'er my sins might be, thou wert not sent To be the Nemesis who should requite

Nor did Heaven choose so near an instrument. Mercy is for the merciful!-if thou Hast been of such, 'twill be accorded now. Thy nights are banish'd from the realms of sleep!

Yes! they may flatter thee, but thou shalt feel
A hollow agony which will not heal,
For thou art pillow'd on a curse too deep;
Thou hast sown in my sorrow, and must reap
The bitter harvest in a woe as real!

I have had many foes, but none like thee;
For 'gainst the rest myself I could defend,
And be avenged, or turn them into friend;
But thou in safe implacability [shielded,

Hadst nought to dread-in thy own weakness
And in my love, which hath but too much yielded,
And spared, for thy sake, some I should not

spare ;

And thus upon the world-trust in thy truth,
And the wild fame of my ungovern'd youth-

On things that were not, and on things that

are

Even upon such a basis hast thou built
A monument, whose cement hath been guilt!
The moral Clytemnestra of thy lord,
And hew'd down with an unsuspected sword,
|Fame, peace, and hope-and all the better life

Which, but for this cold treason of thy heart,
Might still have risen from out the grave of strife,
And found a nobler duty than to part.
But of thy virtues didst thou make a vice,

Trafficking with them in a purpose cold, For present anger, and for future goldAnd buying other's grief at any price. And thus once enter'd into crooked ways, The early truth, which was thy proper praise,

« Previous Continue »

Books