1.
In "pride of place" here last the Eagle flew.
Stanza xviii. line 5.
"Pride of place" is a term of falconry, and means the highest pitch of
flight. See _Macbeth_, etc.--
"An eagle towering in his pride of place
Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and killed."
["A falcon towering in her pride of place," etc.
_Macbeth_, act ii. sc. 4, line 12.]
2.
Such as Harmodius drew on Athens' tyrant Lord.
Stanza xx. line 9.
See the famous song on Harmodius and Aristogeiton. The best English
translation is in Bland's _Anthology_, by Mr. Denman--
"With myrtle my sword will I wreathe," etc.
[_Translations chiefly from the Greek Anthology, etc._, 1806, pp. 24,
25. The _Scholium_, attributed to Callistratus (_Poetae Lyrici Graeci_,
Bergk. Lipsiae, 1866, p. 1290), begins thus--
E)n my/rtou kladi\ to\ xi/phos phore/so,
O(\sper A(rmo/dios kai\ A)ristogei/ton,
O(/te to\n y/rannon ktaneten
I)sono/mous t' A)the/nas e)poiesa/ten
"Hence," says Mr. Tozer, "'the sword in myrtles drest' (Keble's
_Christian Year_, Third Sunday in Lent) became the emblem of assertors
of liberty."--_Childe Harold_, 1885, p. 262.]
3.
And all went merry as a marriage bell.
Stanza xxi. line 8.
On the night previous to the action, it is said that a ball was given at
Brussels. [See notes to the text.]
4.
And Evan's--Donald's fame rings in each clansman's ears!
Stanza xxvi. line 9.
Sir Evan Cameron, and his descendant, Donald, the "gentle Lochiel" of
the "forty-five."
[Sir Evan Cameron (1629-1719) fought against Cromwell, finally yielding
on honourable terms to Monk, June 5, 1658, and for James II. at
Killiecrankie, June 17, 1689. His grandson, Donald Cameron of Lochiel
(1695-1748), celebrated by Campbell, in _Lochiel's Warning_, 1802, was
wounded at Culloden, April 16, 1746. His great-great-grandson, John
Cameron, of Fassieferne (b. 1771), in command of the 92nd Highlanders,
was mortally wounded at Quatre-Bras, June 16, 1815. Compare Scott's
stanzas, _The Dance of Death_, lines 33, _sq_.--
"Where through battle's rout and reel,
Storm of shot and hedge of steel,
Led the grandson of Lochiel,
Valiant Fassiefern.
* * * * *
And Morven long shall tell,
And proud Ben Nevis hear with awe,
How, upon bloody Quatre-Bras,
Brave Cameron heard the wild hurra
Of conquest as he fell."
Compare, too, Scott's _Field of Waterloo_, stanza xxi. lines 14, 15--
"And Cameron, in the shock of steel.
Die like the offspring of Lochiel."]
5.
And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves.
Stanza xxvii. line 1.
The wood of Soignies is supposed to be a remnant of the forest of
Ardennes, famous in Bojardo's _Orlando_, and immortal in Shakspeare's
_As You Like It_. It is also celebrated in Tacitus, as being the spot of
successful defence by the Germans against the Roman encroachments. I
have ventured to adopt the name connected with nobler associations than
those of mere slaughter.
[It is a far cry from Soignies in South Brabant to Ardennes in
Luxembourg. Possibly Byron is confounding the "saltus quibus nomen
Arduenna" (Tacitus, _Ann._, 3. 42), the scene of the revolt of the
Treviri, with the "saltus Teutoburgiensis" (the Teutoburgen or Lippische
Wald, which divides Lippe Detmold from Westphalia), where Arminius
defeated the Romans (Tacitus, _Ann_., 1. 60). (For Boiardo's "Ardenna,"
see _Orlando Innamorato_, lib. i. canto 2, st. 30.) Shakespeare's Arden,
the "immortal" forest, in _As You Like It_, "favours" his own Arden in
Warwickshire, but derived its name from the "forest of Arden" in Lodge's
_Rosalynd_.]
6.
I turned from all she brought to those she could not bring.
Stanza xxx. line 9.
My guide from Mount St. Jean over the field seemed intelligent and
accurate. The place where Major Howard fell was not far from two tall
and solitary trees (there was a third cut down, or shivered in the
battle), which stand a few yards from each other at a pathway's side.
Beneath these he died and was buried. The body has since been removed to
England. A small hollow for the present marks where it lay, but will
probably soon be effaced; the plough has been upon it, and the grain is.
After pointing out the different spots where Picton and other gallant
men had perished; the guide said, "Here Major Howard lay: I was near him
when wounded." I told him my relationship, and he seemed then still more
anxious to point out the particular spot and circumstances. The place is
one of the most marked in the field, from the peculiarity of the two
trees above mentioned. I went on horseback twice over the field,
comparing it with my recollection of similar scenes. As a plain,
Waterloo seems marked out for the scene of some great action, though
this may be mere imagination: I have viewed with attention those of
Platea, Troy, Mantinea, Leuctra, Chaeronea, and Marathon; and the field
around Mount St. Jean and Hougoumont appears to want little but a better
cause, and that undefinable but impressive halo which the lapse of ages
throws around a celebrated spot, to vie in interest with any or all of
these, except, perhaps, the last mentioned.
[For particulars of the death of Major Howard, see _Personal Memoirs,
etc._, by Pryse Lockhart Gordon, 1830, ii. 322, 323.]
7.
Like to the apples on the Dead Sea's shore.
Stanza xxxiv. line 6.
The (fabled) apples on the brink of the lake Asphaltites were said to be
fair without, and, within, ashes.
[Compare Tacitus, _Histor._, lib. v. 7, "Cuncta sponte edita, aut manu
sata, sive herbae tenues, aut flores, ut solitam in speciem adolevere,
atra et inania velut in cinerem vanescunt." See, too, _Deut._ xxxii. 32,
"For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah:
their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter."
They are a species of gall-nut, and are described by Curzon (_Visits to
Monasteries of the Levant_, 1897, p. 141), who met with the tree that
bears them, near the Dead Sea, and, mistaking the fruit for a ripe plum,
proceeded to eat one, whereupon his mouth was filled "with a dry bitter
dust."
"The apple of Sodom ... is supposed by some to refer to the fruit of
_Solanum Sodomeum_ (allied to the tomato), by others to the _Calotropis
procera_" (_N. Eng. Dict._, art. "Apple").]
8.
For sceptred Cynics Earth were far too wide a den.
Stanza xli. line 9.
The great error of Napoleon, "if we have writ our annals true," was a
continued obtrusion on mankind of his want of all community of feeling
for or with them; perhaps more offensive to human vanity than the active
cruelty of more trembling and suspicious tyranny. Such were his speeches
to public assemblies as well as individuals; and the single expression
which he is said to have used on returning to Paris after the Russian
winter had destroyed his army, rubbing his hands over a fire, "This is
pleasanter than Moscow," would probably alienate more favour from his
cause than the destruction and reverses which led to the remark.
9.
What want these outlaws conquerors should have?
Stanza xlviii. line 6.
"What wants that knave that a king should have?" was King James's
question on meeting Johnny Armstrong and his followers in full
accoutrements. See the Ballad.
[Johnie Armstrong, the laird of Gilnockie, on the occasion of an
enforced surrender to James V. (1532), came before the king somewhat too
richly accoutred, and was hanged for his effrontery--
"There hang nine targats at Johnie's hat,
And ilk ane worth three hundred pound--
'What wants that knave a king suld have
But the sword of honour and the crown'?"
_Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_, 1821, i. 127.]
10.
The castled Crag of Drachenfels.
Song, stanza 1, line 1.
The castle of Drachenfels stands on the highest summit of "the Seven
Mountains," over the Rhine banks; it is in ruins, and connected with
some singular traditions. It is the first in view on the road from Bonn,
but on the opposite side of the river: on this bank, nearly facing it,
are the remains of another, called the Jew's Castle, and a large cross,
commemorative of the murder of a chief by his brother. The number of
castles and cities along the course of the Rhine on both sides is very
great, and their situations remarkably beautiful.
[The castle of Drachenfels (Dragon's Rock) stands on the summit of one,
but not the highest, of the Siebengebirge, an isolated group of volcanic
hills on the right bank of the Rhine between Remagen and Bonn. The
legend runs that in one of the caverns of the rock dwelt the dragon
which was slain by Siegfried, the hero of the Nibelungen Lied. Hence the
_vin du pays_ is called _Drachenblut_.]
11.
The whiteness of his soul--and thus men o'er him wept.
Stanza lvii. line 9.
The monument of the young and lamented General Marceau (killed by a
rifle-ball at Alterkirchen, on the last day of the fourth year of the
French Republic) still remains as described. The inscriptions on his
monument are rather too long, and not required: his name was enough;
France adored, and her enemies admired; both wept over him. His funeral
was attended by the generals and detachments from both armies. In the
same grave General Hoche is interred, a gallant man also in every sense
of the word; but though he distinguished himself greatly in battle, he
had not the good fortune to die there: his death was attended by
suspicions of poison.
A separate monument (not over his body, which is buried by Marceau's) is
raised for him near Andernach, opposite to which one of his most
memorable exploits was performed, in throwing a bridge to an island on
the Rhine [April 18, 1797]. The shape and style are different from that
of Marceau's, and the inscription more simple and pleasing.
"The Army of the Sambre and Meuse
to its Commander-in-Chief
Hoche."
This is all, and as it should be. Hoche was esteemed among the first of
France's earlier generals, before Buonaparte monopolised her triumphs.
He was the destined commander of the invading army of Ireland.
[The tomb of Francois Severin Desgravins Marceau (1769-1796, general of
the French Republic) bears the following epitaph and inscription:--
"'Hic cineres, ubique nomen.'
"Ici repose Marceau, ne a Chartres, Eure-et-Loir, soldat a seize
ans, general a vingtdeux ans. Il mourut en combattant pour sa
patrie, le dernier jour de l'an iv. de la Republique francaise. Qui
que tu sois, ami ou ennemi de ce jeune heros, respecte ces
cendres."
A bronze statue at Versailles, raised to the memory of General Hoche
(1768-1797) bears a very similar record--
"A Lazare Hoche, ne a Versailles le 24 juin, 1768, sergent a seize
ans, general en chef a vingt-cinq, mort a vingt-neuf, pacificateur
de la Vendee."]
12.
Here Ehrenbreitstein with her shattered wall.
Stanza lviii. line 1.
Ehrenbreitstein, i.e. "the broad stone of honour," one of the strongest
fortresses in Europe, was dismantled and blown up by the French at the
truce of Leoben. It had been, and could only be, reduced by famine or
treachery. It yielded to the former, aided by surprise. After having
seen the fortifications of Gibraltar and Malta, it did not much strike
by comparison; but the situation is commanding. General Marceau besieged
it in vain for some time, and I slept in a room where I was shown a
window at which he is said to have been standing observing the progress
of the siege by moonlight, when a ball struck immediately below it.
[Ehrenbreitstein, which had resisted the French under Marshal Boufflers
in 1680, and held out against Marceau (1795-96), finally capitulated to
the French after a prolonged siege in 1799. The fortifications were
dismantled when the French evacuated the fortress after the Treaty of
Luneville in 1801. The Treaty of Leoben was signed April 18, 1797.]
13.
Unsepulchred they roamed, and shrieked each wandering ghost.
Stanza lxiii. line 9.
The chapel is destroyed, and the pyramid of bones diminished to a small
number by the Burgundian Legion in the service of France; who anxiously
effaced this record of their ancestors' less successful invasions. A few
still remain, notwithstanding the pains taken by the Burgundians for
ages (all who passed that way removing a bone to their own country), and
the less justifiable larcenies of the Swiss postilions, who carried them
off to sell for knife-handles; a purpose for which the whiteness imbibed
by the bleaching of years had rendered them in great request. Of these
relics I ventured to bring away as much as may have made a quarter of a
hero, for which the sole excuse is, that if I had not, the next
passer-by might have perverted them to worse uses than the careful
preservation which I intend for them.
[Charles the Bold was defeated by the Swiss at the Battle of Morat, June
22, 1476. It has been computed that more than twenty thousand
Burgundians fell in the battle. At first, to avoid the outbreak of a
pestilence, the bodies were thrown into pits. "Nine years later ... the
mouldering remains were unearthed, and deposited in a building ... on
the shore of the lake, near the village of Meyriez.... During three
succeeding centuries this depository was several times rebuilt.... But
the ill-starred relics were not destined even yet to remain undisturbed.
At the close of the last century, when the armies of the French Republic
were occupying Switzerland, a regiment consisting mainly of Burgundians,
under the notion of effacing an insult to their ancestors, tore down the
'bone-house' at Morat, covered the contents with earth, and planted on
the mound 'a tree of liberty.' But the tree had no roots; the rains
washed away the earth; again the remains were exposed to view, and lay
bleaching in the sun for a quarter of a century. Travellers stopped to
gaze, to moralize, and to pilfer; postilions and poets scraped off
skulls and thigh-bones.... At last, in 1822, the vestiges were swept
together and resepulchred, and a simple obelisk of marble was erected,
to commemorate a victory well deserving of its fame as a military
exploit, but all unworthy to be ranked with earlier triumphs, won by
hands pure as well as strong, defending freedom and the
right."--_History of Charles the Bold_, by J. F. Kirk, 1868, iii. 404,
405.
Mr. Murray still has in his possession the parcel of bones--the "quarter
of a hero"--which Byron sent home from the field of Morat.]
14.
Levelled Aventicum, hath strewed her subject lands.
Stanza lxv. line 9.
Aventicum, near Morat, was the Roman capital of Helvetia, where Avenches
now stands.
[Avenches (Wiflisburg) lies due south of the Lake of Morat, and about
five miles east of the Lake of Neuchatel. As a Roman colony it bore the
name of _Pia Flavia Constans Emerita_, and circ. 70 A.D. contained a
population of sixty thousand inhabitants. It was destroyed first by the
Alemanni and, afterwards, by Attila. "The Emperor Vespasian--son of the
banker of the town," says Suetonius (lib. viii. i)--"surrounded the city
by massive walls, defended it by semicircular towers, adorned it with a
capitol, a theatre, a forum, and granted it jurisdiction over the
outlying dependencies....
"To-day plantations of tobacco cover the forgotten streets of Avenches,
and a single Corinthian column ['the lonelier column,' the so-called
_Cicognier_], with its crumbling arcade, remains to tell of former
grandeur."--_Historic Studies in Vaud, Berne, and Savoy_, by General
Meredith Read, 1897, i. 16.]
15.
And held within their urn one mind--one heart--one dust.
Stanza lxvi. line 9.
Julia Alpinula, a young Aventian priestess, died soon after a vain
endeavour to save her father, condemned to death as a traitor by Aulus
Caecina. Her epitaph was discovered many years ago;--it is thus:--"Julia
Alpinula: Hic jaceo. Infelicis patris, infelix proles. Deae Aventiae
Sacerdos. Exorare patris necem non potui: Male mori in fatis ille erat.
Vixi annos XXIII."--I know of no human composition so affecting as this,
nor a history of deeper interest. These are the names and actions which
ought not to perish, and to which we turn with a true and healthy
tenderness, from the wretched and glittering detail of a confused mass
of conquests and battles, with which the mind is roused for a time to a
false and feverish sympathy, from whence it recurs at length with all
the nausea consequent on such intoxication.
[A mutinous outbreak among the Helvetii, which had been provoked by the
dishonest rapacity of the twenty-first legion, was speedily quelled by
the Roman general Aulus Caecina. Aventicum surrendered (A.D. 69), but
Julius Alpinus, a chieftain and supposed ring-leader, was singled out
for punishment and put to death. "The rest," says Tacitus, "were left to
the ruth or ruthlessness of Vitellius" (_Histor_., i. 67, 68). Julia
Alpinula and her epitaph were the happy inventions of a
sixteenth-century scholar. "It appears," writes Lord Stanhope, "that
this inscription was given by one Paul Wilhelm, a noted forger
(_falsarius_), to Lipsius, and by Lipsius handed over to Gruterus.
Nobody, either before or since Wilhelm, has even pretended to have seen
the stone ... as to any son or daughter of Julius Alpinus, history is
wholly silent" (_Quarterly Review_, June, 1846, vol. lviii. p. 61;
_Historical Essays_, by Lord Mahon, 1849, pp. 297, 298).]
16.
In the sun's face, like yonder Alpine snow.
Stanza lxvii. line 8.
This is written in the eye of Mont Blanc (June 3rd, 1816), which even at
this distance dazzles mine.--(July 20th.) I this day observed for some
time the distinct reflection of Mont Blanc and Mont Argentiere in the
calm of the lake, which I was crossing in my boat; the distance of these
mountains from their mirror is sixty miles.
[The first lines of the note dated June 3, 1816, were written at
"Dejean's Hotel de l'Angleterre, at Secheron, a small suburb of Geneva,
on the northern side of the lake." On the 10th of June Byron removed to
the Campagne Diodati, about two miles from Geneva, on the south shore of
the lake (_Life of Shelley_, by Edward Dowden, 1896, pp. 307-309).]
17.
By the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone.
Stanza lxxi. line 3.
The colour of the Rhone at Geneva is blue, to a depth of tint which I
have never seen equalled in water, salt or fresh, except in the
Mediterranean and Archipelago.
[The blueness of the Rhone, which has been attributed to various causes,
is due to the comparative purity of the water. The yellow and muddy
stream, during its passage through the lake, is enabled to purge itself
to a very great extent of the solid matter held in suspension--the
glacial and other detritus---and so, on leaving its vast natural
filtering-bed, it flows out clear and blue: it has regained the proper
colour of pure water.]
18.
This hallowed, too, the memorable kiss.
Stanza lxxix. line 3.
This refers to the account, in his _Confessions_, of his passion for the
Comtesse d'Houdetot (the mistress of St. Lambert), and his long walk
every morning, for the sake of the single kiss which was the common
salutation of French acquaintance. Rousseau's description of his
feelings on this occasion may be considered as the most passionate, yet
not impure, description and expression of love that ever kindled into
words; which, after all, must be felt, from their very force, to be
inadequate to the delineation; a painting can give no sufficient idea of
the ocean.
[Here is Rousseau's "passionate, yet not impure," description of his
sensations: "J'ai dit qu'il y avoit loin de l'Hermitage a Eaubonne; je
passois par les coteaux d'Andilly qui sont charmans. Je revois en
marchant a celle que j'allois voir, a l'accueil caressant qu'elle me
feroit, au baiser qui m'attendoit a mon arrivee. Ce seul baiser, ce
baiser funeste avant meme de le recevoir, m'embrasoit le sang a tel
point, que ma tete se troubloit, un eblouissement m'aveugloit, mes
genoux tremblants ne pouroient me soutenir; j'etois force de m'arreter,
de m'asseoir; toute ma machine etoit dans un desordre inconcevable;
j'etois pret a m'evanouir.... A l'instant que je la voyois, tout etoit
repare; je ne sentois plus aupres d'elle que l'importunite d'une vigueur
inepuisable et toujours inutile."--_Les Confessions_, Partie II. livre
ix.; _Oeuvres Completes de J.J. Rousseau_, 1837, i. 233.
Byron's mother "would have it" that her son was like Rousseau, but he
disclaimed the honour antithetically and with needless particularity
(see his letter to Mrs. Byron, and a quotation from his _Detached
Thoughts, Letters_, 1898, i. 192, note). There was another point of
unlikeness, which he does not mention. Byron, on the passion of love,
does not "make for morality," but he eschews nastiness. The loves of Don
Juan and Haidee are chaste as snow compared with the unspeakable
philanderings of the elderly Jean Jacques and the "mistress of St.
Lambert."
Nevertheless, his mother was right. There was a resemblance, and
consequently an affinity, between Childe Burun and the "visionary of
Geneva"--delineated by another seer or visionary as "the dreamer of
love-sick tales, and the spinner of speculative cobwebs; shy of light as
the mole, but as quick-eared too for every whisper of the public
opinion; the teacher of Stoic pride in his principles, yet the victim of
morbid vanity in his feelings and conduct."--_The Friend_; _Works_ of S.
T. Coleridge, 1853, ii. 124.]
19.
Of earth-o'ergazing mountains, and thus take.
Stanza xci. line 3.
It is to be recollected, that the most beautiful and impressive
doctrines of the divine Founder of Christianity were delivered, not in
the _Temple_, but on the _Mount_. To waive the question of devotion, and
turn to human eloquence,--the most effectual and splendid specimens were
not pronounced within walls. Demosthenes addressed the public and
popular assemblies. Cicero spoke in the forum. That this added to their
effect on the mind of both orator and hearers, may be conceived from the
difference between what we read of the emotions then and there produced,
and those we ourselves experience in the perusal in the closet. It is
one thing to read the _Iliad_ at Sigaeum and on the tumuli, or by the
springs with Mount Ida above, and the plain and rivers and Archipelago
around you; and another to trim your taper over it in a snug
library--_this_ I know. Were the early and rapid progress of what is
called Methodism to be attributed to any cause beyond the enthusiasm
excited by its vehement faith and doctrines (the truth or error of which
I presume neither to canvass nor to question), I should venture to
ascribe it to the practice of preaching in the _fields_, and the
unstudied and extemporaneous effusions of its teachers. The Mussulmans,
whose erroneous devotion (at least in the lower orders) is most sincere,
and therefore impressive, are accustomed to repeat their prescribed
orisons and prayers, wherever they may be, at the stated hours--of
course, frequently in the open air, kneeling upon a light mat (which
they carry for the purpose of a bed or cushion as required); the
ceremony lasts some minutes, during which they are totally absorbed, and
only living in their supplication: nothing can disturb them. On me the
simple and entire sincerity of these men, and the spirit which appeared
to be within and upon them, made a far greater impression than any
general rite which was ever performed in places of worship, of which I
have seen those of almost every persuasion under the sun; including most
of our own sectaries, and the Greek, the Catholic, the Armenian, the
Lutheran, the Jewish, and the Mahometan. Many of the negroes, of whom
there are numbers in the Turkish empire, are idolaters, and have free
exercise of their belief and its rites; some of these I had a distant
view of at Patras; and, from what I could make out of them, they
appeared to be of a truly Pagan description, and not very agreeable to a
spectator.
[For this profession of "natural piety," compare Rousseau's
_Confessions_, Partie II. livre xii. (_Oeuvres Completes_, 1837, i.
341)--
"Je ne trouve pas de plus digne hommage a la Divinite que cette
admiration muette qu'excite la contemplation de ses oeuvres, et qui
ne s'exprime point par des actes developpes. Je comprends comment
les habitants des villes, qui ne voient que des murs, des rues et
des crimes, ont peu de foi; mais je ne puis comprendre comment des
campagnards, et surtout des solitaires, peuvent n'en point avoir.
Comment leur ame ne s'eleve-t-elle pas cent fois le jour avec
extase a l'Auteur des merveilles qui les frappent? ... Dans ma
chambre je prie plus rarement et plus sechement; mais a l'aspect
d'un beau paysage je me sens emu sans pourvoir dire de quoi."
Compare, too, Coleridge's lines "To Nature"--
"So will I build my altar in the fields,
And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be,
And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields,
Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee,
Thee only, God! and Thou shalt not despise
Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice."
_Poetical Works_, 1893, p. 190.]
20.
The sky is changed!--and such a change! Oh Night!
Stanza xcii. line 1.
The thunder-storm to which these lines refer occurred on the 13th of
June, 1816, at midnight. I have seen, among the Acroceraunian mountains
of Chimari, several more terrible, but none more beautiful.
21.
And Sun-set into rose-hues sees them wrought.
Stanza xcix. line 5.
Rousseau's _Heloise_, Lettre 17, Part IV., note. "Ces montagnes sont si
hautes, qu'une demi-heure apres le soleil couche, leurs sommets sont
eclaires de ses rayons, dont le rouge forme sur ces cimes blanches _une
belle couleur de rose_, qu'on apercoit de fort loin."[356] This applies
more particularly to the heights over Meillerie.--"J'allai a Vevay loger
a la Clef;[357] et pendant deux jours que j'y restai sans voir personne,
je pris pour cette ville un amour qui m'a suivi dans tous mes voyages,
et qui m'y a fait etablir enfin les heros de mon roman. Je dirois
volontiers a ceux qui ont du gout et qui sont sensibles: Allez a
Vevay--visitez le pays, examinez les sites, promenez-vous sur le lac, et
dites si la Nature n'a pas fait ce beau pays pour une Julie, pour une
Claire,[358] et pour un St. Preux; mais ne les y cherchez pas."--_Les
Confessions_, [P. I. liv. 4, _Oeuvres, etc._, 1837, i. 78].--In July
[June 23-27], 1816, I made a voyage round the Lake of Geneva;[359] and,
as far as my own observations have led me in a not uninterested nor
inattentive survey of all the scenes most celebrated by Rousseau in his
_Heloise_, I can safely say, that in this there is no exaggeration. It
would be difficult to see Clarens (with the scenes around it, Vevay,
Chillon, Boveret, St. Gingo, Meillerie, Evian,[360] and the entrances of
the Rhone) without being forcibly struck with its peculiar adaptation to
the persons and events with which it has been peopled. But this is not
all; the feeling with which all around Clarens, and the opposite rocks
of Meillerie, is invested, is of a still higher and more comprehensive
order than the mere sympathy with individual passion; it is a sense of
the existence of love in its most extended and sublime capacity, and of
our own participation of its good and of its glory: it is the great
principle of the universe, which is there more condensed, but not less
manifested; and of which, though knowing ourselves a part, we lose our
individuality, and mingle in the beauty of the whole.--If Rousseau had
never written, nor lived, the same associations would not less have
belonged to such scenes. He has added to the interest of his works by
their adoption; he has shown his sense of their beauty by the selection;
but they have done that for him which no human being could do for
them.--I had the fortune (good or evil as it might be) to sail from
Meillerie[361] (where we landed for some time) to St. Gingo during a
lake storm, which added to the magnificence of all around, although
occasionally accompanied by danger to the boat, which was small and
overloaded. It was over this very part of the lake that Rousseau has
driven the boat of St. Preux and Madame Wolmar to Meillerie for shelter
during a tempest. On gaining the shore at St. Gingo, I found that the
wind had been sufficiently strong to blow down some fine old chestnut
trees on the lower part of the mountains. On the opposite height of
Clarens is a chateau[362] [Chateau des Cretes]. The hills are covered
with vineyards, and interspersed with some small but beautiful woods;
one of these was named the "Bosquet de Julie;" and it is remarkable
that, though long ago cut down by the brutal selfishness of the monks of
St. Bernard (to whom the land appertained), that the ground might be
enclosed into a vineyard for the miserable drones of an execrable
superstition, the inhabitants of Clarens still point out the spot where
its trees stood, calling it by the name which consecrated and survived
them. Rousseau has not been particularly fortunate in the preservation
of the "local habitations" he has given to "airy nothings." The Prior of
Great St. Bernard has cut down some of his woods for the sake of a few
casks of wine, and Buonaparte has levelled part of the rocks of
Meillerie in improving the road to the Simplon. The road is an excellent
one; but I cannot quite agree with a remark which I heard made, that "La
route vaut mieux que les souvenirs."
22.
Of Names which unto you bequeathed a name.
Stanza cv. line 2.
Voltaire and Gibbon.
[Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694-1778) lived on his estate at
Fernex, five miles north of Geneva, from 1759 to 1777. "In the garden at
Fernex is a long _berceau_ walk, closely arched over with clipped
horn-beam--a verdant cloister, with gaps cut here and there, admitting a
glimpse of the prospect. Here Voltaire used to walk up and down, and
dictate to his secretary."--_Handbook for Switzerland_, p. 174.
Previous to this he had lived for some time at Lausanne, at "Monrepos, a
country house at the end of a suburb," at Monrion, "a square building of
two storeys, and a high garret, with wings, each fashioned like the
letter L," and afterwards, in the spring of 1757, at No. 6, Rue du
Grand Chene.--_Historic Studies_, ii. 210, 218, 219.
Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) finished (1788) _The Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire_ at "La Grotte, an ancient and spacious mansion behind the
church of St. Francis, at Lausanne," which was demolished by the Swiss
authorities in 1879. Not only has the mansion ceased to exist, but the
garden has been almost entirely changed. The wall of the Hotel Gibbon
occupies the site of the famous wooden pavilion, or summer-house, and of
the "berceau of plum trees, which formed a verdant gallery completely
arched overhead," and which "were called after Gibbon, La
Gibboniere."--_Historic Studies_, i. I; ii. 493.
In 1816 the pavilion was "utterly decayed," and the garden neglected,
but Byron gathered "a sprig of _Gibbon's acacia_," and some rose leaves
from his garden and enclosed them in a letter to Murray (June 27, 1816).
Shelley, on the contrary, "refrained from doing so, fearing to outrage
the greater and more sacred name of Rousseau; the contemplation of whose
imperishable creations had left no vacancy in my heart for mortal
things. Gibbon had a cold and unimpassioned spirit."--_Essays, etc._,
1840, ii. 76.]
23.
Had I not filed my mind, which thus itself subdued.
Stanza cxiii. line 9.
"----If't be so,
For Banquo's issue have I _filed_ my mind."
_Macbeth_, [act iii. sc. 1, line 64].
24.
O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve.
Stanza cxiv. line 7.
It is said by Rochefoucault, that "there is _always_ something in the
misfortunes of men's best friends not displeasing to them."
["Dans l'adversite de nos meilleurs amis, nous trouvons toujours quelque
chose qui ne nous deplait pas."--_Appendice aux Maximes de La
Rochefoucauld, Pantheon Litteraire_, Paris, 1836, p. 460.]
FOOTNOTES:
[356] {303} [_Julie, ou La Nouvelle Heloise_: _Oeuvres Completes de J.
J. Rousseau_, Paris, 1837, ii. 262.]
[357] [The Clef, is now a cafe on the Grande Place, and still
distinguished by the sign of the Key. But Vevey had other associations
for Rousseau, more powerful and more persuasive than a solitary visit to
an inn. "Madame Warens," says General Read, "possessed a charming
country resort midway between Vevey and Chillon, just above the
beautiful village of Clarens. It was situated at the Bassets, amid
scenery whose exquisite features inspired some of the fine imagery of
Rousseau. It is now called the Bassets de Pury. ... The exterior of the
older parts has not been changed. ... The stairway leads to a large
_salon_, whose windows command a view of Meillerie, St. Gingolph, and
Bouveret, beyond the lake. Communicating with this _salon_ is a large
dining-room.
"These two rooms open to the east, upon a broad terrace. At a corner of
the terrace is a large summer-house, and through the chestnut trees one
sees as far as Les Cretes, the hillocks and bosquets described by
Rousseau. Near by is a dove-cote filled with cooing doves.... In the
last century this site (Les Cretes) was covered with pleasure-gardens,
and some parts are even pointed out as associated with Rousseau and
Madame de Warens."--_Historic Sketches of Vaud, etc._, by General
Meredith Read, 1897, i. 433-437. There was, therefore, some excuse for
the guide (see Byron's _Diary_, September 18, 1816) "confounding
Rousseau with St. Preux, and mixing the man with the book."]
[358] {304} [Claire, afterwards Madame Orbe, is Julie's cousin and
confidante. She is represented as whimsical and humorous. It is not
impossible that "Claire," in _La Nouvelle Heloise_, "bequeathed her
name" to Claire, otherwise Jane Clairmont.]
[359] [Byron and Shelley sailed round the Lake of Geneva towards the end
of June, 1816. Writing to Murray, June 27, he says, "I have traversed
all Rousseau's ground with the _Heloise_ before me;" and in the same
letter announces the completion of a third canto of _Childe Harold_. He
revisited Clarens and Chillon in company with Hobhouse in the following
September (see extracts from a Journal, September 18, 1816, _Life_, pp.
311, 312).]
[360] [Bouveret, St. Gingolph, Evian.]
[361] {305} [Byron mentions the "squall off Meillerie" in a letter to
Murray, dated Ouchy, near Lausanne, June 27, 1816. Compare, too,
Shelley's version of the incident: "The wind gradually increased in
violence until it blew tremendously; and as it came from the remotest
extremity of the lake, produced waves of a frightful height, and covered
the whole surface with a chaos of foam.... I felt in this near prospect
of death a mixture of sensations, among which terror entered, though but
subordinately. My feelings would have been less painful had I been
alone; but I know that my companion would have attempted to save me, and
I was overcome with humiliation, when I thought that his life might have
been risked to preserve mine."--_Letters from Abroad_, etc.; _Essays_,
by Percy Bysshe Shelley, edited by Mrs. Shelley, 1840, ii. 68, 69.]
[362] [Byron and Shelley slept at Clarens, June 26, 1816. The windows of
their inn commanded a view of the _Bosquet de Julie_. "In the evening we
walked thither. It is, indeed, Julia's wood ... the trees themselves
were aged but vigorous.... We went again (June 27) to the _Bosquet de
Julie_, and found that the precise spot was now utterly obliterated, and
a heap of stones marked the place where the little chapel had once
stood. Whilst we were execrating the author of this brutal folly, our
guide informed us that the land belonged to the Convent of St. Bernard,
and that this outrage had been committed by their orders. I knew before
that if avarice could harden the hearts of men, a system of prescriptive
religion has an influence far more inimical to natural sensibility. I
know that an isolated man is sometimes restrained by shame from
outraging the venerable feelings arising out of the memory of genius,
which once made nature even lovelier than itself; but associated man
holds it as the very sacrament of this union to forswear all delicacy,
all benevolence, all remorse; all that is true, or tender, or
sublime."--_Essays, etc._, 1840, ii. 75.]
* * * * *
CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE.
CANTO THE FOURTH.
"Visto ho Toscana Lombardia Romagna,
Quel monte che divide, e quel che serra
Italia, e un mare e l'altro che la bagna."
_Ariosto_, Satira iv. lines 58-60.
* * * * *
INTRODUCTION TO THE FOURTH CANTO.
The first draft of the Fourth Canto of _Childe Harold_, which embodies
the original and normal conception of the poem, was the work of
twenty-six days. On the 17th of June, 1817, Byron wrote to Murray: "You
are out about the Third Canto: I have not done, nor designed, a line of
continuation to that poem. I was too short a time at Rome for it, and
have no thought of recommencing." But in spite of this assertion, "the
numbers came," and on June 26 he made a beginning. Thirty stanzas "were
roughened off" on the 1st of July, fifty-six were accomplished by the
9th, "ninety and eight" by the 13th, and on July 20 he announces "the
completion of the fourth and ultimate canto of _Childe Harold_. It
consists of 126 stanzas." One stanza (xl.) was appended to the fair
copy. It suggested a parallel between Ariosto "the Southern Scott," and
Scott "the Northern Ariosto," and excited some misgiving.
In commending his new poem to Murray (July 20, August 7), Byron notes
three points in which it differed from its predecessors: it is "the
longest of the four;" "it treats more of works of art than of nature;"
"there are no metaphysics in it--at least, I think not." In other words,
"The Fourth Canto is not a continuation of the Third. I have parted
company with Shelley and Wordsworth. Subject-matter and treatment are
alike new."
The poem as it stood was complete, and, as a poem, it lost as well as
gained by the insertion of additional stanzas and groups of stanzas,
"purple patch" on "purple patch," each by itself so attractive and so
splendid. The pilgrim finds himself at Venice, on the "Bridge of Sighs."
He beholds in a vision the departed glories of "a thousand years." The
"long array of shadows," the "beings of the mind," come to him "like
truth," and repeople the vacancy. But he is an exile, and turns homeward
in thought to "the inviolate island of the sage and free." He is an
exile and a sufferer. He can and will endure his fate, but "ever and
anon" he feels the prick of woe, and with the sympathy of despair would
stand "a ruin amidst ruins," a desolate soul in a land of desolation and
decay. He renews his pilgrimage. He passes Arqua, where "they keep the
dust of Laura's lover," lingers for a day at Ferrara, haunted by
memories of "Torquato's injured shade," and, as he approaches "the fair
white walls" of Florence, he re-echoes the "Italia! oh, Italia!" of
Filicaja's impassioned strains. At Florence he gazes, "dazzled and drunk
with beauty," at the "goddess in stone," the Medicean Venus, but
forbears to "describe the indescribable," to break the silence of Art by
naming its mysteries. Santa Croce and the other glories "in Arno's dome
of Art's most princely shrine," he passes by unsung, if not unseen; but
Thrasymene's "sheet of silver," the "living crystal" of Clitumnus'
"gentlest waters," and Terni's "matchless cataract," on whose verge "an
Iris sits," and "lone Soracte's ridge," not only call forth his spirit's
homage, but receive the homage of his Muse.
And now the Pilgrim has reached his goal, "Rome the wonderful," the
sepulchre of empire, the shrine of art.
Henceforth the works of man absorb his attention. Pompey's "dread
statue;" the Wolf of the Capitol; the Tomb of Cecilia Metella; the
Palatine; the "nameless column" of the Forum; Trajan's pillar; Egeria's
Grotto; the ruined Colosseum, "arches on arches," an "enormous
skeleton," the Colosseum of the poet's vision, a multitudinous ring of
spectators, a bloody Circus, and a dying Gladiator; the Pantheon; S.
Nicola in Carcere, the scene of the Romana Caritas; St. Peter's "vast
and wondrous dome,"--are all celebrated in due succession. Last of all,
he "turns to the Vatican," to view the Laocoon and the Apollo Belvidere,
the counterfeit presentments of ideal suffering and ideal beauty. His
"shrine is won;" but ere he bids us farewell he climbs the Alban Mount,
and as the Mediterranean once more bursts upon his sight, he sums the
moral of his argument. Man and all his works are as a drop of rain in
the Ocean, "the image of eternity, the throne of the Invisible"!
Byron had no sooner completed "this fourth and ultimate canto," than he
began to throw off additional stanzas. His letters to Murray during the
autumn of 1817 announce these successive lengthenings; but it is
impossible to trace the exact order of their composition. On the 7th of
August the canto stood at 130 stanzas, on the 21st at 133; on the 4th of
September at 144, on the 17th at 150; and by November 15 it had reached
167 stanzas. Of nineteen stanzas which were still to be added, six--on
the death of the Princess Charlotte (died November 6, 1817)--were
written at the beginning of December, and two stanzas (clxxvii.,
clxxviii.) were forwarded to Murray in the early spring of 1818.
Of these additions the most notable are four stanzas on Venice
(including stanza xiii. on "The Horses of St. Mark"); "The sunset on the
Brenta" (stanzas xxvii.-xxix.); The tombs in Santa Croce,--the
apostrophe to "the all Etruscan three," Petrarch, Dante, Boccaccio
(stanzas liv.-lx.); "Rome a chaos of ruins--antiquarian ignorance"
(stanzas lxxx.-lxxxii.); "The nothingness of Man--the hope of the
future--Freedom" (stanzas xciii.-xcviii.); "The Tarpeian Rock--the
Forum--Rienzi" (stanzas cxii.-cxiv.); "Love, Life, and Reason" (stanzas
cxx.-cxxvii.); "The Curse of Forgiveness" (stanzas cxxxv.-cxxxvii.);
"The Mole of Hadrian" (stanza clii.); "The death of the Princess
Charlotte" (stanzas clxvii.-clxxii.); "Nemi" (stanzas clxxiii.,
clxxiv.); "The Desert and one fair Spirit" (stanzas clxxvii.,
clxxviii.).
Some time during the month of December, 1817, Byron wrote out a fair
copy of the entire canto, numbering 184 stanzas _(MS. D.)_; and on
January 7, 1818, Hobhouse left Venice for England, with the "whole of
the MSS.," viz. _Beppo_ (begun October, 1817), and the Fourth Canto of
_Childe Harold_, together with a work of his own, a volume of essays on
Italian literature, the antiquities of Rome, etc., which he had put
together during his residence in Venice (July--December, 1817), and
proposed to publish as an appendix to _Childe Harold_. In his preface to
_Historical Illustrations_, etc., 1818, Hobhouse explains that on his
return to England he considered that this "appendix to the Canto would
be swelled to a disproportioned bulk," and that, under this impression,
he determined to divide his material into two parts. The result was that
"such only of the notes as were more immediately connected with the
text" were printed as "Historical Notes to Canto the Fourth," and that
his longer dissertations were published in a separate volume, under his
own name, as _Historical Illustrations to the Fourth Canto of Childe
Harold_. To these "Historical Notes" an interest attaches apart from any
consideration of their own worth and importance; but to understand the
relation between the poem and the notes, it is necessary to retrace the
movements of the poet and his annotator.
Byron and Hobhouse left the Villa Diodati, October 5, 1816, crossed the
Simplon, and made their way together, via Milan and Verona, to Venice.
Early in December the friends parted company. Byron remained at Venice,
and Hobhouse proceeded to Rome, and for the next four months devoted
himself to the study of Italian literature, in connection with
archaeology and art. Byron testifies (September 14, 1817) that his
researches were "indefatigable," that he had "more real knowledge of
Rome and its environs than any Englishman who has been there since
Gibbon." Hobhouse left Rome for Naples, May 21; returned to Rome, June
9; arrived at Terni, July 2; and early in July joined Byron on the
Brenta, at La Mira. The latter half of the year (July--December, 1817)
was occupied in consulting "the best authorities" in the Ducal Library
at Venice, with a view to perfecting his researches, and giving them to
the world as an illustrative appendix to _Childe Harold_. It is certain
that Byron had begun the fourth canto, and written some thirty or more
stanzas, before Hobhouse rejoined him at his villa of La Mira on the
banks of the Brenta, in July, 1817; and it would seem that, although he
had begun by saying "that he was too short a time in Rome for it," he
speedily overcame his misgivings, and accomplished, as he believed, the
last "fytte" of his pilgrimage. The first draft was Byron's unaided
composition, but the "additional stanzas" were largely due to Hobhouse's
suggestions in the course of conversation, if not to his written
"researches." Hobhouse himself made no secret of it. In his preface (p.
5) to _Historical Illustrations_ he affirms that both "illustrations"
and notes were "for the most part written while the noble author was yet
employed in the composition of the poem. They were put into the hands of
Lord Byron much in the state in which they now appear;" and, writing to
Murray, December 7, 1817, he says, "I must confess I feel an affection
for it [Canto IV.] more than ordinary, as part of it was begot as it
were under my own eyes; for although your poets are as shy as elephants
and camels ... yet I have, not unfrequently, witnessed his lordship's
coupleting, and some of the stanzas owe their birth to our morning walk
or evening ride at La Mira." Forty years later, in his revised and
enlarged "Illustrations" (_Italy: Remarks made in Several Visits from
the year 1816 to 1854_, by the Right Hon. Lord Broughton, G.C.B., 1859,
i. p. iv.), he reverts to this collaboration: "When I rejoined Lord
Byron at La Mira ... I found him employed upon the Fourth Canto of
_Childe Harold_, and, later in the autumn, he showed me the first sketch
of the poem. It was much shorter than it afterwards became, and it did
not remark on several objects which appeared to me peculiarly worthy of
notice. I made a list of these objects, and in conversation with him
gave him reasons for the selection. The result was the poem as it now
appears, and he then engaged me to write the notes."
As the "delicate spirit" of Shelley suffused the third canto of _Childe
Harold_, so the fourth reveals the presence and co-operation of
Hobhouse. To his brother-poet he owed a fresh conception, perhaps a
fresh appreciation of nature; to his lifelong friend, a fresh enthusiasm
for art, and a host of details, "dry bones ... which he awakened into
the fulness of life."
The Fourth Canto was published on Tuesday, April 28, 1818. It was
reviewed by [Sir] Walter Scott in the _Quarterly Review_, No. xxxvii.,
April, 1818, and by John Wilson in the _Edinburgh Review_, No. 59, June,
1818. Both numbers were published on the same day, September 26, 1818.
CHILDE HAROLD, CANTO IV. ORIGINAL DRAFT. [MS. M.]
[June 26--July 19. 1817.]
Stanza i. "I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs,"--
Stanza iii.-xi. "In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more,"--"The spouseless
Adriatic mourns her Lord,"--
Stanza xv. "Statues of glass--all shivered--the long file,"--
Stanza xviii.-xxvi. "I loved her from my boyhood--she to me,"--"The
Commonwealth of Kings--the Men of Rome!"--
Stanza xxx.-xxxix. "There is a tomb in Arqua;--reared in air,"--"Peace
to Torquato's injured shade! 'twas his,"--
Stanza xlii.-xlvi. "Italia! oh, Italia! thou who hast,"--"That page is
now before me, and on mine,"--
Stanza xlviii.-l. "But Arno wins us to the fair white walls,"--"We gaze
and turn away, and know not where,"--
Stanza liii. "I leave to learned fingers, and wise hands,"--
Stanza lxi.-lxxix. "There be more things to greet the heart and
eyes,"--"The Niobe of nations! there she stands,"--
Stanza lxxxiii. "Oh, thou, whose chariot rolled on Fortune's wheel,"--
Stanza lxxxiv. "The dictatorial wreath--couldst thou divine,"--
Stanza lxxxvii.-xcii. "And thou, dread Statue! yet existent in,"--"And
would be all or nothing--nor could wait,"--
Stanza xcix.-cviii. "There is a stern round tower of other
days,"--"There is the moral of all human tales,"--
Stanza cx. "Tully was not so eloquent as thou,"--
Stanza cxi. "Buried in air, the deep blue sky of Rome,"--
Stanza cxv.-cxix. "Egeria! sweet creation of some heart,"--"And didst
thou not, thy breast to his replying,"--
Stanza cxxviii.-cxxxiv. "Arches on arches! as it were that Rome,"--"And
if my voice break forth, 'tis not that now,"--
Stanza cxxxviii.-cli. "The seal is set.--Now welcome, thou dread
Power!"--"The starry fable of the Milky Way,"--
Stanza cliii.-clxvi. "But lo! the Dome--the vast and wondrous
Dome,"--"And send us prying into the abyss,"--
Stanza clxxv. "But I forget.--My Pilgrim's shrine is won,"--
Stanza clxxvi. "Upon the blue Symplegades: long years,"--
Stanza clxxix. "Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean--roll!"--
Stanza clxxx. "His steps are not upon thy paths,--thy fields,"--
Stanza clxxxiii.-clxxxvi. "Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's
form,"--"Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been,"--
ADDITIONAL STANZA.
Stanza xl. "Great as thou art, yet paralleled by those,"--
(127 stanzas.)
ADDITIONS BOUND UP WITH MS. M.
Stanza ii. "She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from Ocean,"--
Stanza xii.-xiv. "The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns,"
--(November 10, 1817.)--"In youth She was all glory,--a new Tyre,"--
Stanza xvi. "When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse,"--
Stanza xvii. "Thus, Venice! if no stronger claim were thine,"--
Stanza xxvii.-xxix. "The Moon is up, and yet it is not night,"--"Filled
with the face of heaven, which, from afar,"--
Stanza xlvii. "Yet, Italy! through every other land,"--
Stanza li. "Appear'dst thou not to Paris in this guise?"--
Stanza lii. "Glowing, and circumfused in speechless love,"--
Stanza liv.-lx. "In Santa Croce's holy precincts lie,"--"What is her
Pyramid of precious stones?"--
Stanza lxxx.-lxxxii. "The Goth, the Christian--Time--War--Flood, and
Fire,"--"Alas! the lofty city! and alas!"--
Stanza lxxxv. "Sylla was first of victors; but our own,"--
Stanza lxxxvi. "The third of the same Moon whose former course,"--
Stanza xciii.-xcvi. "What from this barren being do we reap?"--"Can
tyrants but by tyrants conquered be,"--
Stanza cix. "Admire--exult--despise--laugh--weep,--for here,"--
Stanza cxii.-cxiv. "Where is the rock of Triumph, the high
place,"--"Then turn we to her latest Tribune's name,"--
Stanza cxxiii. "Who loves, raves--'tis youth's frenzy--but the cure,"--
Stanza cxxv.-cxxvii. "Few--none--find what they love or could have
loved,"--"Yet let us ponder boldly--'tis a base,"--
Stanza cxxxv.-cxxxvii. "That curse shall be Forgiveness,--Have I
not,"--"But I have lived, and have not lived in vain,"--
Stanza clii. "Turn to the Mole which Hadrian reared on high,"--
Stanza clxvii.-clxxii. "Hark! forth from the abyss a voice
proceeds,"--(On the death of the Princess Charlotte, November 6,
1817.)--"These might have been her destiny--but no,"--
Stanza clxxiii. "Lo, Nemi! navelled in the woody hills,"--
Stanza clxxiv. "And near, Albano's scarce divided waves,"--
Stanza clxxvii. "Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling-place,"--(1818.)
Stanza clxxviii. "There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,"--(1818.)
Stanza clxxxi. "The armaments which thunderstrike the walls,"--
Stanza clxxxii. "Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee,"--
(52 stanzas.)
ADDITIONS INCLUDED IN MS. D.,[363] BUT NOT AMONG MSS. M.
Stanza xli. "The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust,"--
Stanza xcvii. "But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime,"--
Stanza xcviii. "Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying,"--
Stanza cxx. "Alas! our young affections run to waste,"--
Stanza cxxi. "Oh, Love! no habitant of earth thou art,"--
Stanza cxxii. "Of its own beauty is the mind diseased,"--
Stanza cxxiv. "We wither from our youth, we gasp away,"--
(Seven stanzas.)
* * * * *
TO
JOHN HOBHOUSE, ESQ., A.M., F.R.S.,
&c., &c., &c.
Venice, _January_ 2, 1818.
* * * * *
My dear Hobhouse,
After an interval of eight years between the composition of the first
and last cantos of _Childe Harold_, the conclusion of the poem is about
to be submitted to the public. In parting with so old a friend,[364] it
is not extraordinary that I should recur to one still older and
better,--to one who has beheld the birth and death of the other, and to
whom I am far more indebted for the social advantages of an enlightened
friendship, than--though not ungrateful--I can, or could be, to _Childe
Harold_, for any public favour reflected through the poem on the
poet,--to one, whom I have known long, and accompanied far, whom I have
found wakeful over my sickness and kind in my sorrow, glad in my
prosperity and firm in my adversity, true in counsel and trusty in
peril,--to a friend often tried and never found wanting;--to yourself.
In so doing, I recur from fiction to truth; and in dedicating to you in
its complete, or at least concluded state, a poetical work which is the
longest, the most thoughtful and comprehensive of my compositions, I
wish to do honour to myself by the record of many years' intimacy with a
man of learning, of talent, of steadiness, and of honour. It is not for
minds like ours to give or to receive flattery; yet the praises of
sincerity have ever been permitted to the voice of friendship; and it is
not for you, nor even for others, but to relieve a heart which has not
elsewhere, or lately, been so much accustomed to the encounter of
good-will as to withstand the shock firmly, that I thus attempt to
commemorate your good qualities, or rather the advantages which I have
derived from their exertion. Even the recurrence of the date of this
letter, the anniversary of the most unfortunate day of my past
existence,[365] but which cannot poison my future while I retain the
resource of your friendship, and of my own faculties, will henceforth
have a more agreeable recollection for both, inasmuch as it will remind
us of this my attempt to thank you for an indefatigable regard, such as
few men have experienced, and no one could experience without thinking
better of his species and of himself.
It has been our fortune to traverse together, at various periods, the
countries of chivalry, history, and fable--Spain, Greece, Asia Minor,
and Italy; and what Athens and Constantinople were to us a few years
ago, Venice and Rome have been more recently. The poem also, or the
pilgrim, or both, have accompanied me from first to last; and perhaps it
may be a pardonable vanity which induces me to reflect with complacency
on a composition which in some degree connects me with the spot where it
was produced, and the objects it would fain describe; and however
unworthy it may be deemed of those magical and memorable abodes, however
short it may fall of our distant conceptions and immediate impressions,
yet as a mark of respect for what is venerable, and of feeling for what
is glorious, it has been to me a source of pleasure in the production,
and I part with it with a kind of regret, which I hardly suspected that
events could have left me for imaginary objects.
With regard to the conduct of the last canto, there will be found less
of the pilgrim than in any of the preceding, and that little slightly,
if at all, separated from the author speaking in his own person. The
fact is, that I had become weary of drawing a line which every one
seemed determined not to perceive: like the Chinese in Goldsmith's
_Citizen of the World_,[366] whom nobody would believe to be a Chinese,
it was in vain that I asserted, and imagined that I had drawn, a
distinction between the author and the pilgrim; and the very anxiety to
preserve this difference, and disappointment at finding it unavailing,
so far crushed my efforts in the composition, that I determined to
abandon it altogether--and have done so. The opinions which have been,
or may be, formed on that subject are _now_ a matter of indifference:
the work is to depend on itself, and not on the writer; and the author,
who has no resources in his own mind beyond the reputation, transient or
permanent, which is to arise from his literary efforts, deserves the
fate of authors.
In the course of the following canto it was my intention, either in the
text or in the notes, to have touched upon the present state of Italian
literature, and perhaps of manners. But the text, within the limits I
proposed, I soon found hardly sufficient for the labyrinth of external
objects, and the consequent reflections: and for the whole of the notes,
excepting a few of the shortest, I am indebted to yourself,[367] and
these were necessarily limited to the elucidation of the text.
It is also a delicate, and no very grateful task, to dissert upon the
literature and manners of a nation so dissimilar; and requires an
attention and impartiality which would induce us,--though perhaps no
inattentive observers, nor ignorant of the language or customs of the
people amongst whom we have recently abode--to distrust, or at least
defer our judgment, and more narrowly examine our information. The state
of literary, as well as political party, appears to run, or to _have_
run, so high, that for a stranger to steer impartially between them is
next to impossible. It may be enough, then, at least for my purpose, to
quote from their own beautiful language--"Mi pare che in un paese tutto
poetico, che vanta la lingua la piu nobile ed insieme la piu dolce,
tutte tutte le vie diverse si possono tentare, e che sinche la patria di
Alfieri e di Monti non ha perduto l'antico valore, in tutte essa
dovrebbe essere la prima." Italy has great names still--Canova,[368]
Monti, Ugo Foscolo, Pindemonte, Visconti, Morelli, Cicognara, Albrizzi,
Mezzofanti, Mai, Mustoxidi, Aglietti, and Vacca, will secure to the
present generation an honourable place in most of the departments of
Art, Science, and Belles Lettres; and in some the very
highest--Europe--the World--has but one Canova.
It has been somewhere said by Alfieri, that "La pianta uomo nasce piu
robusta in Italia che in qualunque altra terra--e che gli stessi atroci
delitti che vi si commettono ne sono una prova." Without subscribing to
the latter part of his proposition, a dangerous doctrine, the truth of
which may be disputed on better grounds, namely, that the Italians are
in no respect more ferocious than their neighbours, that man must be
wilfully blind, or ignorantly heedless, who is not struck with the
extraordinary capacity of this people, or, if such a word be admissible,
their _capabilities_,[369] the facility of their acquisitions, the
rapidity of their conceptions, the fire of their genius, their sense of
beauty, and, amidst all the disadvantages of repeated revolutions, the
desolation of battles, and the despair of ages, their still unquenched
"longing after immortality,"[370]--the immortality of independence. And
when we ourselves, in riding round the walls of Rome, heard the simple
lament of the labourers' chorus, "Roma! Roma! Roma! Roma non e piu come
era prima!"[371] it was difficult not to contrast this melancholy dirge
with the bacchanal roar of the songs of exultation still yelled from the
London taverns, over the carnage of Mont St. Jean,[372] and the betrayal
of Genoa, of Italy, of France, and of the world, by men whose conduct
you yourself have exposed in a work worthy of the better days of our
history.[373] For me,--
"Non movero mai corda
Ove la turba di sue ciance assorda."
What Italy has gained by the late transfer of nations, it were useless
for Englishmen to enquire, till it becomes ascertained that England has
acquired something more than a permanent army and a suspended Habeas
Corpus;[374] it is enough for them to look at home. For what they have
done abroad, and especially in the South, "Verily they _will have_ their
reward," and at no very distant period.
Wishing you, my dear Hobhouse, a safe and agreeable return to that
country whose real welfare can be dearer to none than to yourself, I
dedicate to you this poem in its completed state; and repeat once more
how truly I am ever
Your obliged
And affectionate friend,
BYRON.
CANTO THE FOURTH[375]
I.
I stood in Venice, on the "Bridge of Sighs;"[376][1.H.]
A Palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the Enchanter's wand:[377]
A thousand Years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying Glory smiles
O'er the far times, when many a subject land
Looked to the winged Lion's marble piles,
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles![lb]
II.
She looks a sea Cybele,[378] fresh from Ocean,
Rising with her tiara of proud towers
At airy distance, with majestic motion,
A Ruler of the waters and their powers:
And such she was;--her daughters had their dowers
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East[lc]
Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.[379]
In purple was she robed,[380] and of her feast
Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased.[ld]
III.
In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more,[2.H.]
And silent rows the songless Gondolier;[381]
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
And Music meets not always now the ear:
Those days are gone--but Beauty still is here.
States fall--Arts fade--but Nature doth not die,
Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear,
The pleasant place of all festivity,[le]
The Revel of the earth--the Masque of Italy!
IV.
But unto us she hath a spell beyond
Her name in story, and her long array
Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond
Above the Dogeless city's vanished sway;
Ours is a trophy which will not decay
With the Rialto;[382] Shylock and the Moor,
And Pierre,[383] can not be swept or worn away--
The keystones of the Arch! though all were o'er,
For us repeopled were the solitary shore.
V.
The Beings of the Mind are not of clay:
Essentially immortal, they create
And multiply in us a brighter ray
And more beloved existence:[384] that which Fate
Prohibits to dull life in this our state[lf]
Of mortal bondage, by these Spirits supplied,
First exiles, then replaces what we hate;
Watering the heart whose early flowers have died,
And with a fresher growth replenishing the void.
VI.
Such is the refuge of our youth and age--
The first from Hope, the last from Vacancy;[385]
And this wan feeling peoples many a page--[lg]
And, may be, that which grows beneath mine eye:[lh]
Yet there are things whose strong reality
Outshines our fairy-land; in shape and hues[li]
More beautiful than our fantastic sky,
And the strange constellations which the Muse
O'er her wild universe is skilful to diffuse:
VII.
I saw or dreamed of such,--but let them go,--
They came like Truth--and disappeared like dreams;
And whatsoe'er they were--are now but so:
I could replace them if I would; still teems
My mind with many a form which aptly seems
Such as I sought for, and at moments found;
Let these too go--for waking Reason deems
Such over-weening phantasies unsound,
And other voices speak, and other sights surround.
VIII.
I've taught me other tongues--and in strange eyes
Have made me not a stranger; to the mind
Which is itself, no changes bring surprise;
Nor is it harsh to make, nor hard to find
A country with--aye, or without mankind;
Yet was I born where men are proud to be,--
Not without cause; and should I leave behind[lj]
The inviolate Island of the sage and free,
And seek me out a home by a remoter sea,[lk]
IX.
Perhaps I loved it well; and should I lay
My ashes in a soil which is not mine,
My Spirit shall resume it--if we may[ll]
Unbodied choose a sanctuary.[386] I twine
My hopes of being remembered in my line
With my land's language: if too fond and far
These aspirations in their scope incline,--
If my Fame should be, as my fortunes are,
Of hasty growth and blight, and dull Oblivion bar
X.
My name from out the temple where the dead
Are honoured by the Nations--let it be--
And light the Laurels on a loftier head!
And be the Spartan's epitaph on me--
"Sparta hath many a worthier son than he."[387]
Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need--
The thorns which I have reaped are of the tree
I planted,--they have torn me,--and I bleed:
I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.
XI.
The spouseless Adriatic mourns her Lord,[lm]
And annual marriage now no more renewed--
The Bucentaur[388] lies rotting unrestored,
Neglected garment of her widowhood!
St. Mark yet sees his Lion[389] where he stood[3.H.]
Stand, but in mockery of his withered power,
Over the proud Place where an Emperor sued,[ln][390]
And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour
When Venice was a Queen with an unequalled dower.
XII.
The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns--[4.H.]
An Emperor tramples where an Emperor knelt;
Kingdoms are shrunk to provinces, and chains
Clank over sceptred cities; Nations melt
From Power's high pinnacle, when they have felt
The sunshine for a while, and downward go
Like Lauwine loosened from the mountain's belt;
Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo![391][5.H.]
Th' octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe.[lo][392]
XIII.
Before St. Mark still glow his Steeds of brass,
Their gilded collars glittering in the sun;
But is not Doria's menace[393] come to pass?[6.H.]
Are they not bridled?--Venice, lost and won,
Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done,
Sinks, like a sea-weed, unto whence she rose![lp][394]
Better be whelmed beneath the waves, and shun,
Even in Destruction's depth, her foreign foes,[lq]
From whom Submission wrings an infamous repose.
XIV.
In youth She was all glory,--a new Tyre,--
Her very by-word sprung from Victory,
The "Planter of the Lion,"[395] which through fire
And blood she bore o'er subject Earth and Sea;
Though making many slaves, Herself still free,
And Europe's bulwark 'gainst the Ottomite;[396]
Witness Troy's rival, Candia![397] Vouch it, ye
Immortal waves that saw Lepanto's fight![398]
For ye are names no Time nor Tyranny can blight.
XV.
Statues of glass--all shivered--the long file
Of her dead Doges are declined to dust;
But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile
Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust;
Their sceptre broken, and their sword in rust,
Have yielded to the stranger: empty halls,
Thin streets, and foreign aspects, such as must
Too oft remind her who and what enthrals,[7.H.]
Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice' lovely walls.
XVI.
When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse,
And fettered thousands bore the yoke of war,
Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse,[399]
Her voice their only ransom from afar:[lr]
See! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car
Of the o'ermastered Victor stops--the reins
Fall from his hands--his idle scimitar
Starts from its belt--he rends his captive's chains,
And bids him thank the Bard for Freedom and his strains.[ls]
XVII.
Thus, Venice! if no stronger claim were thine,
Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot--
Thy choral memory of the Bard divine,
Thy love of Tasso, should have cut the knot[lt]
Which ties thee to thy tyrants; and thy lot
Is shameful to the nations,--most of all,
Albion! to thee:[400] the Ocean queen should not
Abandon Ocean's children; in the fall
Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall.[lu]
XVIII.
I loved her from my boyhood--she to me
Was as a fairy city of the heart,
Rising like water-columns from the sea--
Of Joy the sojourn, and of Wealth the mart;
And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakespeare's art,[lv][401]
Had stamped her image in me, and even so,
Although I found her thus, we did not part;[lw]
Perchance even dearer in her day of woe,
Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show.
XIX.
I can repeople with the past--and of
The present there is still for eye and thought,
And meditation chastened down, enough;
And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought;
And of the happiest moments which were wrought
Within the web of my existence, some
From thee, fair Venice![402] have their colours caught:
There are some feelings Time can not benumb,[lx]
Nor Torture shake, or mine would now be cold and dumb.
XX.
But from their nature will the Tannen[403] grow[ly]
Loftiest on loftiest and least sheltered rocks,
Rooted in barrenness, where nought below
Of soil supports them 'gainst the Alpine shocks
Of eddying storms; yet springs the trunk, and mocks
The howling tempest, till its height and frame
Are worthy of the mountains from whose blocks
Of bleak, gray granite into life it came,[lz]
And grew a giant tree;--the Mind may grow the same.
XXI.
Existence may be borne, and the deep root
Of life and sufferance make its firm abode
In bare and desolated bosoms: mute[ma]
The camel labours with the heaviest load,
And the wolf dies in silence--not bestowed
In vain should such example be; if they,
Things of ignoble or of savage mood,
Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay
May temper it to bear,--it is but for a day.
XXII.
All suffering doth destroy, or is destroyed,[404]
Even by the sufferer--and, in each event,
Ends:--Some, with hope replenished and rebuoyed,
Return to whence they came--with like intent,
And weave their web again; some, bowed and bent,
Wax gray and ghastly, withering ere their time,
And perish with the reed on which they leant;
Some seek devotion--toil--war--good or crime,
According as their souls were formed to sink or climb.
XXIII.
But ever and anon of griefs subdued
There comes a token like a Scorpion's sting,
Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued;
And slight withal may be the things which bring
Back on the heart the weight which it would fling
Aside for ever: it may be a sound--[405]
A tone of music--summer's eve--or spring--[mb]
A flower--the wind--the Ocean--which shall wound,
Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound;
XXIV.
And how and why we know not, nor can trace
Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind,
But feel the shock renewed, nor can efface
The blight and blackening which it leaves behind,
Which out of things familiar, undesigned,
When least we deem of such, calls up to view
The Spectres whom no exorcism can bind,--
The cold--the changed--perchance the dead, anew--
The mourned--the loved--the lost--too many! yet how few![406]
XXV.
But my Soul wanders; I demand it back
To meditate amongst decay, and stand
A ruin amidst ruins; there to track
Fall'n states and buried greatness, o'er a land
Which _was_ the mightiest in its old command,
And _is_ the loveliest, and must ever be
The master-mould of Nature's heavenly hand;
Wherein were cast the heroic and the free,--
The beautiful--the brave--the Lords of earth and sea,
XXVI.
The Commonwealth of Kings--the Men of Rome!
And even since, and now, fair Italy!
Thou art the Garden of the World, the Home
Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree;
Even in thy desert, what is like to thee?
Thy very weeds are beautiful--thy waste
More rich than other climes' fertility;
Thy wreck a glory--and thy ruin graced
With an immaculate charm which cannot be defaced.
XXVII.
The Moon is up, and yet it is not night--
Sunset divides the sky with her--a sea
Of glory streams along the Alpine height
Of blue Friuli's mountains;[407] Heaven is free
From clouds, but of all colours seems to be,--
Melted to one vast Iris of the West,--
Where the Day joins the past Eternity;
While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest
Floats through the azure air--an island of the blest![408]
XXVIII.
A single star is at her side, and reigns
With her o'er half the lovely heaven; but still
Yon sunny Sea heaves brightly, and remains
Rolled o'er the peak of the far Rhaetian hill,
As Day and Night contending were, until
Nature reclaimed her order:--gently flows
The deep-dyed Brenta,[409] where their hues instil
The odorous purple of a new-born rose,
Which streams upon her stream, and glassed within it glows,
XXIX.
Filled with the face of heaven, which, from afar,
Comes down upon the waters! all its hues,
From the rich sunset to the rising star,
Their magical variety diffuse:
And now they change--a paler Shadow strews
Its mantle o'er the mountains; parting Day
Dies like the Dolphin, whom each pang imbues
With a new colour as it gasps away--
The last still loveliest, till--'tis gone--and all is gray.
XXX.
There is a tomb in Arqua;--reared in air,
Pillared in their sarcophagus, repose
The bones of Laura's lover: here repair
Many familiar with his well-sung woes,
The Pilgrims of his Genius. He arose
To raise a language, and his land reclaim
From the dull yoke of her barbaric foes:
Watering the tree which bears his Lady's name[410][8.H.]
With his melodious tears, he gave himself to Fame.
XXXI.
They keep his dust in Arqua,[411] where he died--[9.H.]
The mountain-village where his latter days
Went down the vale of years; and 'tis their pride--
An honest pride--and let it be their praise,
To offer to the passing stranger's gaze
His mansion and his sepulchre--both plain[mc]
And venerably simple--such as raise
A feeling more accordant with his strain
Than if a Pyramid formed his monumental fane.[md]
XXXII.
And the soft quiet hamlet where he dwelt
Is one of that complexion which seems made
For those who their mortality[412] have felt,
And sought a refuge from their hopes decayed
In the deep umbrage of a green hill's shade,
Which shows a distant prospect far away
Of busy cities, now in vain displayed,
For they can lure no further; and the ray[413]
Of a bright Sun can make sufficient holiday,
XXXIII.
Developing the mountains, leaves, and flowers,
And shining in the brawling brook, where-by,
Clear as its current, glide the sauntering hours
With a calm languor, which, though to the eye
Idlesse it seem, hath its morality--
If from society we learn to live,[me]
'Tis Solitude should teach us how to die;
It hath no flatterers--Vanity can give
No hollow aid; alone--man with his God must strive:[mf]
XXXIV.
Or, it may be, with Demons,[414] who impair
The strength of better thoughts, and seek their prey
In melancholy bosoms--such as were
Of moody texture from their earliest day,
And loved to dwell in darkness and dismay
Deeming themselves predestined to a doom
Which is not of the pangs that pass away;[mg]
Making the Sun like blood, the Earth a tomb,
The tomb a hell--and Hell itself a murkier gloom.[mh]
XXXV.
Ferrara![415] in thy wide and grass-grown streets,
Whose symmetry was not for solitude,
There seems as 'twere a curse upon the Seats
Of former Sovereigns, and the antique brood
Of Este,[416] which for many an age made good
Its strength within thy walls, and was of yore
Patron or Tyrant, as the changing mood
Of petty power impelled, of those who wore
The wreath which Dante's brow alone had worn before.
XXXVI.
And Tasso is their glory and their shame--
Hark to his strain! and then survey his cell![417]
And see how dearly earned Torquato's fame,
And where Alfonso bade his poet dwell:
The miserable Despot could not quell
The insulted mind he sought to quench, and blend
With the surrounding maniacs, in the hell
Where he had plunged it. Glory without end
Scattered the clouds away--and on that name attend
XXXVII.
The tears and praises of all time, while thine
Would rot in its oblivion--in the sink
Of worthless dust, which from thy boasted line
Is shaken into nothing--but the link
Thou formest in his fortunes bids us think
Of thy poor malice, naming thee with scorn:
Alfonso! how thy ducal pageants shrink
From thee! if in another station born,[mi]
Scarce fit to be the slave of him thou mad'st to mourn:
XXXVIII.
_Thou!_ formed to eat, and be despised, and die,
Even as the beasts that perish--save that thou
Hadst a more splendid trough and wider sty:--
_He!_ with a glory round his furrowed brow,
Which emanated then, and dazzles now,
In face of all his foes, the Cruscan quire,[418][10.H.]
And Boileau, whose rash envy could allow[mj]
No strain which shamed his country's creaking lyre,
That whetstone of the teeth--Monotony in wire![mk][419]
XXXIX.
Peace to Torquato's injured shade! 'twas his
In life and death to be the mark where Wrong
Aimed with her poisoned arrows,--but to miss.
Oh, Victor unsurpassed in modern song!
Each year brings forth its millions--but how long
The tide of Generations shall roll on,
And not the whole combined and countless throng
Compose a mind like thine? though all in one[ml]
Condensed their scattered rays--they would not form a Sun.[mm]
XL.
Great as thou art, yet paralleled by those,
Thy countrymen, before thee born to shine,
The Bards of Hell and Chivalry: first rose
The Tuscan Father's Comedy Divine;
Then, not unequal to the Florentine,
The southern Scott, the minstrel who called forth
A new creation with his magic line,
And, like the Ariosto of the North,[420]
Sang Ladye-love and War, Romance and Knightly Worth.
XLI.
The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust[11.H.]
The iron crown of laurel's mimicked leaves;
Nor was the ominous element unjust,
For the true laurel-wreath which Glory weaves[12.H.]
Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves,
And the false semblance but disgraced his brow;
Yet still, if fondly Superstition grieves,
Know, that the lightning sanctifies below[13.H.]
Whate'er it strikes;--yon head is doubly sacred now.
XLII.
Italia! oh, Italia! thou who hast[421]
The fatal gift of Beauty, which became
A funeral dower of present woes and past--
On thy sweet brow is sorrow ploughed by shame,[mn]
And annals graved in characters of flame.
Oh, God! that thou wert in thy nakedness
Less lovely or more powerful, and couldst claim
Thy right, and awe the robbers back, who press
To shed thy blood, and drink the tears of thy distress;
XLIII.
Then might'st thou more appal--or, less desired,
Be homely and be peaceful, undeplored[mo]
For thy destructive charms; then, still untired,
Would not be seen the armed torrents poured
Down the deep Alps; nor would the hostile horde
Of many-nationed spoilers from the Po
Quaff blood and water; nor the stranger's sword
Be thy sad weapon of defence--and so,
Victor or vanquished, thou the slave of friend or foe.
XLIV.
Wandering in youth, I traced the path of him,
The Roman friend of Rome's least-mortal mind,[422]
The friend of Tully: as my bark did skim
The bright blue waters with a fanning wind,
Came Megara before me, and behind
AEgina lay--Piraeus on the right,
And Corinth on the left; I lay reclined
Along the prow, and saw all these unite
In ruin--even as he had seen the desolate sight;
XLV.
For Time hath not rebuilt them, but upreared
Barbaric dwellings on their shattered site,
Which only make more mourned and more endeared
The few last rays of their far-scattered light,
And the crashed relics of their vanished might.
The Roman saw these tombs in his own age,
These sepulchres of cities, which excite[mp]
Sad wonder, and his yet surviving page
The moral lesson bears, drawn from such pilgrimage.
XLVI.
That page is now before me, and on mine
_His_ Country's ruin added to the mass
Of perished states he mourned in their decline,
And I in desolation: all that _was_
Of then destruction _is_; and now, alas!
Rome--Rome imperial, bows her to the storm,[423]
In the same dust and blackness, and we pass
The skeleton of her Titanic form,[424]
Wrecks of another world, whose ashes still are warm.
XLVII.
Yet, Italy! through every other land
Thy wrongs should ring--and shall--from side to side;[425]
Mother of Arts! as once of Arms! thy hand
Was then our Guardian, and is still our Guide;
Parent of our Religion! whom the wide
Nations have knelt to for the keys of Heaven!
Europe, repentant of her parricide,
Shall yet redeem thee, and, all backward driven,
Roll the barbarian tide, and sue to be forgiven.
XLVIII.
But Arno wins us to the fair white walls,
Where the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps
A softer feeling for her fairy halls:
Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps
Her corn, and wine, and oil--and Plenty leaps
To laughing life, with her redundant Horn.
Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps
Was modern Luxury of Commerce born,[mq][426]
And buried Learning rose, redeemed to a new Morn.
XLIX.
There, too, the Goddess loves in stone, and fills[mr][427][14.H.]
The air around with Beauty--we inhale[ms]
The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils
Part of its immortality--the veil
Of heaven is half undrawn--within the pale
We stand, and in that form and face behold
What Mind can make, when Nature's self would fail;
And to the fond Idolaters of old
Envy the innate flash which such a Soul could mould:
L.
We gaze and turn away, and know not where,
Dazzled and drunk with Beauty,[428] till the heart
Reels with its fulness; there--for ever there--
Chained to the chariot of triumphal Art,
We stand as captives, and would not depart.
Away!--there need no words, nor terms precise,
The paltry jargon of the marble mart,
Where Pedantry gulls Folly--we have eyes:
Blood--pulse--and breast confirm the Dardan Shepherd's prize.
LI.
Appear'dst thou not to Paris in this guise?
Or to more deeply blest Anchises? or,
In all thy perfect Goddess-ship, when lies
Before thee thy own vanquished Lord of War?
And gazing in thy face as toward a star,
Laid on thy lap, his eyes to thee upturn,
Feeding on thy sweet cheek![429] while thy lips are
With lava kisses melting while they burn,
Showered on his eyelids, brow, and mouth, as from an urn!
LII.
Glowing, and circumfused in speechless love--[mt][430]
Their full divinity inadequate
That feeling to express, or to improve--
The Gods become as mortals--and man's fate[mu]
Has moments like their brightest; but the weight
Of earth recoils upon us;--let it go!
We can recall such visions, and create,
From what has been, or might be, things which grow
Into thy statue's form, and look like gods below.
LIII.
I leave to learned fingers, and wise hands,
The Artist and his Ape, to teach and tell
How well his Connoisseurship understands
The graceful bend, and the voluptuous swell:
Let these describe the undescribable:
I would not their vile breath should crisp the stream
Wherein that Image shall for ever dwell--
The unruffled mirror of the loveliest dream
That ever left the sky on the deep soul to beam.
LIV.
In Santa Croce's[431] holy precincts lie[15.H.]
Ashes which make it holier, dust which is
Even in itself an immortality,
Though there were nothing save the past, and this,
The particle of those sublimities
Which have relapsed to chaos:--here repose
Angelo's--Alfieri's[432] bones--and his,[16.H.]
The starry Galileo, with his woes;
Here Machiavelli's earth returned to whence it rose.[17.H.]
LV.
These are four minds, which, like the elements,
Might furnish forth creation:--Italy![mv]
Time, which hath wronged thee with ten thousand rents
Of thine imperial garment, shall deny[mw]
And hath denied, to every other sky,
Spirits which soar from ruin:--thy Decay
Is still impregnate with divinity,
Which gilds it with revivifying ray;
Such as the great of yore, Canova[433] is to-day.
LVI.
But where repose the all Etruscan three--
Dante, and Petrarch, and, scarce less than they,
The Bard of Prose, creative Spirit! he[mx]
Of the Hundred Tales of Love--where did they lay
Their bones, distinguished from our common clay
In death as life? Are they resolved to dust,
And have their Country's Marbles nought to say?
Could not her quarries furnish forth one bust?
Did they not to her breast their filial earth entrust?
LVII.
Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar,[434][18.H.]
Like Scipio buried by the upbraiding shore:[435][19.H.]
Thy factions, in their worse than civil war,[436]
Proscribed the Bard whose name for evermore
Their children's children would in vain adore
With the remorse of ages; and the crown[437][20.H.]
Which Petrarch's laureate brow supremely wore,
Upon a far and foreign soil had grown,
His Life, his Fame, his Grave, though rifled--not thine own.[438]
LVIII.
Boccaccio[439] to his parent earth bequeathed[my][21.H.]
His dust,--and lies it not her Great among,
With many a sweet and solemn requiem breathed
O'er him who formed the Tuscan's siren tongue?[440]
That music in itself, whose sounds are song,
The poetry of speech? No;--even his tomb
Uptorn, must bear the hyaena bigot's wrong,
No more amidst the meaner dead find room,
Nor claim a passing sigh, because it told for _whom!_
LIX.
And Santa Croce wants their mighty dust;
Yet for this want more noted, as of yore
The Caesar's pageant,[441] shorn of Brutus' bust,
Did but of Rome's best Son remind her more:
Happier Ravenna! on thy hoary shore,
Fortress of falling Empire! honoured sleeps[mz]
The immortal Exile;--Arqua, too, her store
Of tuneful relics proudly claims and keeps,
While Florence vainly begs her banished dead and weeps.[442]
LX.
What is her Pyramid of precious stones?[22.H.]
Of porphyry, jasper, agate, and all hues
Of gem and marble, to encrust the bones
Of merchant-dukes?[443] the momentary dews
Which, sparkling to the twilight stars, infuse
Freshness in the green turf that wraps the dead,
Whose names are Mausoleums of the Muse,
Are gently prest with far more reverent tread
Than ever paced the slab which paves the princely head.
LXI.
There be more things to greet the heart and eyes
In Arno's dome of Art's most princely shrine,
Where Sculpture with her rainbow Sister vies;[444]
There be more marvels yet--but not for mine;
For I have been accustomed to entwine
My thoughts with Nature rather in the fields,
Than Art in galleries: though a work divine
Calls for my Spirit's homage, yet it yields
Less than it feels, because the weapon which it wields
LXII.
Is of another temper, and I roam
By Thrasimene's lake,[445] in the defiles
Fatal to Roman rashness, more at home;
For there the Carthaginian's warlike wiles
Come back before me, as his skill beguiles
The host between the mountains and the shore,
Where Courage falls in her despairing files,[na]
And torrents, swoll'n to rivers with their gore,
Reek through the sultry plain, with legions scattered o'er.
LXIII.
Like to a forest felled by mountain winds;
And such the storm of battle on this day,
And such the frenzy, whose convulsion blinds
To all save Carnage, that, beneath the fray,
An Earthquake[446] reeled unheededly away![23.H.]
None felt stern Nature rocking at his feet,
And yawning forth a grave for those who lay
Upon their bucklers for a winding sheet--
Such is the absorbing hate when warring nations meet!
LXIV.
The Earth to them was as a rolling bark
Which bore them to Eternity--they saw
The Ocean round, but had no time to mark
The motions of their vessel; Nature's law,
In them suspended, recked not of the awe
Which reigns when mountains tremble, and the birds
Plunge in the clouds for refuge, and withdraw[nb]
From their down-toppling nests; and bellowing herds
Stumble o'er heaving plains--and Man's dread hath no words.
LXV.
Far other scene is Thrasimene now;
Her lake a sheet of silver, and her plain
Rent by no ravage save the gentle plough;
Her aged trees rise thick as once the slain
Lay where their roots are; but a brook hath ta'en--
A little rill of scanty stream and bed--
A name of blood from that day's sanguine rain;
And Sanguinetto tells ye where the dead
Made the earth wet, and turned the unwilling waters red.[nc]
LXVI.
But thou, Clitumnus[447]! in thy sweetest wave
Of the most living crystal that was e'er
The haunt of river-Nymph, to gaze and lave
Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou dost rear
Thy grassy banks whereon the milk-white steer[448]
Grazes--the purest God of gentle waters!
And most serene of aspect, and most clear;
Surely that stream was unprofaned by slaughters--
A mirror and a bath for Beauty's youngest daughters!
LXVII.
And on thy happy shore a Temple[449] still,
Of small and delicate proportion, keeps
Upon a mild declivity of hill,[nd]
Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps
Thy current's calmness; oft from out it leaps
The finny darter with the glittering scales,[450]
Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps;
While, chance, some scattered water-lily sails[ne]
Down where the shallower wave still tells its bubbling tales.
LXVIII.
Pass not unblest the Genius of the place!
If through the air a Zephyr more serene
Win to the brow, 'tis his; and if ye trace
Along his margin a more eloquent green,
If on the heart the freshness of the scene
Sprinkle its coolness, and from the dry dust
Of weary life a moment lave it clean
With Nature's baptism,--'tis to him ye must
Pay orisons for this suspension of disgust.[451]
LXIX.
The roar of waters!--from the headlong height
Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice;
The fall of waters! rapid as the light
The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss;
The Hell of Waters! where they howl and hiss,
And boil in endless torture; while the sweat
Of their great agony, wrung out from this
Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet
That gird the gulf around, in pitiless horror set,
LXX.
And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again
Returns in an unceasing shower, which round,
With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain,
Is an eternal April to the ground,
Making it all one emerald:--how profound[nf]
The gulf! and how the Giant Element
From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound,[ng]
Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent
With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful vent
LXXI.
To the broad column which rolls on, and shows
More like the fountain of an infant sea
Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes
Of a new world, than only thus to be
Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly,
With many windings, through the vale:--Look back!
Lo! where it comes like an Eternity,
As if to sweep down all things in its track,
Charming the eye with dread,--a matchless cataract,[452]
LXXII.
Horribly beautiful! but on the verge,
From side to side, beneath the glittering morn,
An Iris[453] sits, amidst the infernal surge,
Like Hope upon a death-bed, and, unworn
Its steady dyes, while all around is torn
By the distracted waters, bears serene
Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn:
Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene,
Love watching Madness with unalterable mien.
LXXIII.
Once more upon the woody Apennine--
The infant Alps, which--had I not before
Gazed on their mightier Parents, where the pine
Sits on more shaggy summits, and where roar[nh]
The thundering Lauwine[454]--might be worshipped more;
But I have seen the soaring Jungfrau rear[ni]
Her never-trodden snow, and seen the hoar
Glaciers of bleak Mont Blanc both far and near--
And in Chimari heard the Thunder-Hills of fear,
LXXIV.
Th' Acroceraunian mountains of old name;
And on Parnassus seen the Eagles fly
Like Spirits of the spot, as 'twere for fame.
For still they soared unutterably high:
I've looked on Ida with a Trojan's eye;
Athos--Olympus--AEtna.--Atlas--made
These hills seem things of lesser dignity;
All, save the lone Soracte's height, displayed
Not _now_ in snow, which asks the lyric Roman's aid
LXXV.
For our remembrance, and from out the plain
Heaves like a long-swept wave about to break,
And on the curl hangs pausing: not in vain
May he, who will, his recollections rake,
And quote in classic raptures, and awake
The hills with Latian echoes--I abhorred
Too much, to conquer for the Poet's sake,[455]
The drilled dull lesson, forced down word by word
In my repugnant youth,[456] with pleasure to record
LXXVI.
Aught that recalls the daily drug which turned
My sickening memory; and, though Time hath taught
My mind to meditate what then it learned,[nj]
Yet such the fixed inveteracy wrought[nk]
By the impatience of my early thought,
That, with the freshness wearing out before
My mind could relish what it might have sought,
If free to choose, I cannot now restore
Its health--but what it then detested, still abhor.[nl]