1773-1855; Salomon, of Vienna, 1774-1855; Nathan Mayer, of London,
1777-1836; Charles, of Naples, 1788-1855; and James, of Paris,
1792-1868. In 1821 Austria raised 37-1/2 million guldens through the
firm, and, as an acknowledgment of their services, the Emperor raised
the brothers to the rank of baron, and appointed Baron Nathan Mayer
Consul-General in London, and Baron James to the same post in Paris. In
1822 both Russia (see line 684) and England raised 3-1/2 millions sterling
through the Rothschilds. The "two Jews" (line 686, etc.) are, probably,
the two Consuls-General. In 1822 their honours were new, and some
mocked. There is the story that Talleyrand once presented the Parisian
brother to Montmorenci as _M. le premier Juif_ to _M. le premier Baron
Chretien_; while another tale, parent or offspring of the preceding,
which appeared in _La Quotidienne_, December 21, 1822, testifies to the
fact, not recorded, that a Rothschild was at Verona during the Congress:
"M. de Rotschild, baron et banquier general des gouvernemens absolus,
s'est, dit-on, rendu an congres, il a ete presente a l'empereur
d'Autriche, et S.M., en lui remettant une decoration, a daigne lui dire:
'Vous pouvez etre assure, Monsieur, que _la maison d'Autriche_ sera
toujours disposee a reconnaitre vos services et a vous accorder ce qui
pourra vous etre agreable,'--'Votre Majeste,' a repondu le baron
financier, 'pourra toujours egalement compter sur _la maison
Rotschild_.'"--See _The Rothschilds_, by John Reeves, 1886.]
[341] {574}[In 1822 the Neapolitan Government raised 22,000,000 ducats
through the Rothschilds.]
[342] {575} Monsieur Chateaubriand, who has not forgotten the author in
the minister, received a handsome compliment at Verona from a literary
sovereign: "Ah! Monsieur C., are you related to that Chateaubriand
who--who--who has written _something?_" (ecrit _quelque chose!_) It is
said that the author of Atala repented him for a moment of his
legitimacy. [Francois Rene Vicomte de Chateaubriand (1768-1848)
published _Les Martyrs ou le Triomphe de la religion chretienne_ in
1809.]
[343] [Count Capo d'Istria (b. 1776)--afterwards President of Greece.
The count was murdered, in September, 1831, by the brother and son of a
Mainote chief whom he had imprisoned (note to ed. 1832). Byron may have
believed that Capo d'Istria was still in the service of the Czar, but,
according to Allison, his advocacy of his compatriots the Greeks had led
to his withdrawal from the Russian Foreign Office, and prevented his
taking part in the Congress. It was, however, stated in the papers that
he had been summoned, and was on his way to Verona.]
[344] [Jean Mathieu Felicite, Duc de Montmorenci (1766-1826), was, in
his youth, a Jacobin. He proposed, August 4, 1789, to abrogate feudal
rights, and June 15, 1790, to abolish the nobility. He was superseded as
plenipotentiary by Chateaubriand, and on his return to Paris created a
duke. Before the end of the year he was called upon to resign his
portfolio as Minister of Foreign Affairs. The king disliked him, and
there were personal disagreements between him and the Prime Minister, M.
de Villele.
The following "gazette" appeared in the _Moniteur_:--
"Ordonnance du Roi. Signe Louis. Art 1^er^ Le Vicomte de Chateaubriand,
pair de France, est nomme ministre secretaire d'etat au departement des
affaires etrangeres. Louis par la grace de Dieu Roi de France et de
Navarre.
"Art. 1^er^ Le Duc Mathieu de Montmorenci, pair de France, est nomme
ministre d'Etat, et membre de notre Conseil prive.
"Dimanche, 29 Decembre, 1822."
"On Tuesday, January 1, 1823," writes Chateaubriand, _Congress_, 1838,
i. 258, "we crossed the bridges, and went to sleep in that minister's
bed, which was not made for us,--a bed in which one sleeps but little,
and in which one remains only for a short time."]
[345] {576}[From Pope's line on Lord Peterborough, _Imitations of
Horace_, Sat. i. 132.]
[346] [Marie Louise, daughter of Francis I. of Austria, was born
December 12, 1791, and died December 18, 1849. She was married to
Napoleon, April 2, 1810, and gave birth to a son, March 29, 1811. In
accordance with the Treaty of Paris, she left France April 26, 1814,
renounced the title of Empress, and was created Duchess of Parma,
Placentia, and Guastalla. After Napoleon's death (May 5, 1821). "Proud
Austria's mournful flower" did not long remain a widow, but speedily and
secretly married her chamberlain and gentleman of honour, Count Adam de
Neipperg (_ce polisson_ Neipperg, as Napoleon called him), to whom she
had long been attached. It was supposed that she attended the Congress
of Verona in the interest of her son, the ex-King of Rome, to whom
Napoleon had bequeathed money and heirlooms. She was a solemn stately
personage, _tant soit peu declassee_, and the other potentates whispered
and joked at her expense. Chateaubriand says that when the Duke of
Wellington was bored with the meetings of the Congress, he would while
away the time in the company of the Orsini, who scribbled on the margin
of intercepted French despatches, "Pas pour Mariee." Not for Madame de
Neipperg.]
[347] [Napoleon Francois Charles Joseph, Duke of Reichstadt, died at the
palace of Schoenbrunn, July 22, 1832, having just attained his
twenty-first year.]
[348] [Count Adam Albrecht de Neipperg had lost an eye from a wound in
battle.]
[349] {577}[_La Quotidienne_ of December 4, 1822, has a satirical
reference to a passage in the _Courrier_, which attached a diplomatic
importance to the "galanterie respectueuse que le duc de Wellington
aurait faite a cette jeune Princesse." We read, too, of another
victorious foe, the King of Prussia, giving "la main a l'archduchesse
Marie-Louise jusqu'a son carrosse" (_Le Constitutionnel_, November 19,
1822). "All the world wondered" what Andromache did, and how she would
fare--_dans ce galere_. It is difficult to explain the allusion to
Pyrrhus. Andromache was the unwilling bride of Pyrrhus or Neoptolemus,
whose father had slain her husband, Hector; Marie Louise the willing
bride of Neipperg, who had certainly fought at Leipsic, but who could
not be said to have given the final blow to Napoleon at Waterloo.
Pyrrhus must stand for the victorious foe, and the right arm on which
the too-forgiving Andromache leant, must have been offered by "the
respectful gallantry" of the Duke of Wellington.]
[ew]
_She comes the Andromache of Europe's Queens,_
_And led by Pyrrhus arm on which she leans_.--[MS. M.]
[350] {578}[Sir William Curtis (1752-1805), maker of sea-biscuits at
Wapping, was M.P. for the City of London 1790-1818, Lord Mayor 1795-6.
George IV. affected his society, visited him at Ramsgate, and sailed
with him in his gorgeously appointed yacht. When the king visited
Scotland in August, 1822, Curtis followed in his train. On first landing
at Leith, "Sir William Curtis, who had _celtified_ himself on the
occasion, marched joyously in his scanty longitude of kilt." At the
Levee, August 17, "Sir William Curtis again appeared in the Royal
tartan, but he had forsaken the philabeg and addicted himself to the
trews" (_Morning Chronicle_, August 19, 20, 1822). "The Fat Knight" was
seventy years of age, and there was much joking at his expense. See, for
instance, some lines in "Hudibrastic measure," _Gentleman's Magazine_,
vol. 92, Part II. p. 606--
"And who is he, that sleek and smart one
Pot-bellied pyramid of Tartan?
So mountainous in pinguitude,
_Ponderibus librata_ SUIS,
He stands like _pig_ of lead, so true is,
That his abdomen throws alone
A _Body-guard_ around the Throne!"]
[351] [Lines 771, 772 are not in the MS.]
THE ISLAND
OR,
CHRISTIAN AND HIS COMRADES.
INTRODUCTION TO _THE ISLAND_
The first canto of _The Island_ was finished January 10, 1823. We know
that Byron was still at work on "the poeshie," January 25 (_Letters_,
1901, vi. 164), and may reasonably conjecture that a somewhat illegible
date affixed to the fourth canto, stands for February 14, 1823. The MS.
had been received in London before April 9 (_ibid_., p. 192); and on
June 26, 1823, _The Island; or, The Adventures of Christian and his
Comrades_, was published by John Hunt.
Byron's "Advertisement," or note, prefixed to _The Island_ contains all
that need be said with regard to the "sources" of the poem.
Two separate works were consulted: (1) _A Narrative of the Mutiny on
board His Majesty's Ship Bounty, and the subsequent Voyage of ... the
Ship's Boat from Tafoa, one of the Friendly Islands, to Timor, a Dutch
Settlement in the East Indies_, written by Lieutenant William Bligh,
1790; and (2) _An Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands_, Compiled
and Arranged from the Extensive Communications of Mr. William Mariner,
by John Martin, M.D., 1817.
According to George Clinton (_Life and Writings of Lord Byron_, 1824, p.
656), Byron was profoundly impressed by Mariner's report of the scenery
and folklore of the _Friendly Islands_, was "never tired of talking of
it to his friends," and, in order to turn this poetic material to
account, finally bethought him that Bligh's _Narrative_ of the mutiny of
the _Bounty_ would serve as a framework or structure "for an embroidery
of rare device"--the figures and foliage of a tropical pattern. That, at
least, is the substance of Clinton's analysis of the "sources" of _The
Island_, and whether he spoke, or only feigned to speak, with authority,
his criticism is sound and to the point. The story of the mutiny of the
_Bounty_, which is faithfully related in the first canto, is not, as the
second title implies, a prelude to the "Adventures of Christian and his
Comrades," but to a description of "The Island," an Ogygia of the South
Seas.
It must be borne in mind that Byron's acquaintance with the details of
the mutiny of the _Bounty_ was derived exclusively from Bligh's
_Narrative_; that he does not seem to have studied the minutes of the
court-martial on Peter Heywood and the other prisoners (September,
1792), or to have possessed the information that in 1809, and, again, in
1815, the Admiralty received authentic information with regard to the
final settlement of Christian and his comrades on Pitcairn Island.
Articles, however, had appeared in the _Quarterly Review_, February,
1810, vol. iii. pp. 23, 24, and July, 1815, vol. xiii. pp. 376-378,
which contained an extract from the log-book of Captain Mayhew Folger,
of the American ship _Topaz_, dated September 29, 1808, and letters from
Folger (March 1, 1813), and Sir Thomas Staines, October 18, 1814, which
solved the mystery. Moreover, the article of February, 1810, is quoted
in the notes (pp. 313-318) affixed to Miss Mitford's _Christina, the
Maid of the South Seas_, 1811, a poem founded on Bligh's _Narrative_, of
which neither Byron or his reviewers seem to have heard.
But whatever may have been his opportunities of ascertaining the facts
of the case, it is certain (see his note to Canto IV. section vi. line
122) that he did not know what became of Christian, and that whereas in
the first canto he follows the text of Bligh's _Narrative_, in the three
last cantos he draws upon his imagination, turning Tahiti into Toobonai
(Tubuai), and transporting Toobonai from one archipelago to
another--from the Society to the Friendly Islands.
Another and still more surprising feature of _The Island_ is that Byron
accepts, without qualification or reserve, the guilt of the mutineers
and the innocence and worth of Lieutenant Bligh. It is true that by
inheritance he was imbued with the traditions of the service, and from
personal experience understood the necessity of discipline on board
ship; but it may be taken for granted that if he had known that the
sympathy, if not the esteem, of the public had been transferred from
Bligh to Christian, that in the opinion of grave and competent writers,
the guilt of mutiny on the high seas had been almost condoned by the
violence and brutality of the commanding officer, he would have sided
with the oppressed rather than the oppressor. As it is, he takes Bligh
at his own valuation, and carefully abstains from "eulogizing mutiny."
(Letter to L. Hunt, January 25, 1823.)
The story of the "mutiny of the _Bounty_" happened in this wise. In 1787
it occurred to certain West India planters and merchants, resident in
London, that it would benefit the natives, and perhaps themselves, if
the bread-fruit tree, which flourished in Tahiti (the Otaheite of
Captain Cook and Sir Joseph Banks, see _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 7,
note 2) and other islands of the South Seas, could be acclimatized in
the West Indies. A petition was addressed to the king, with the result
that a vessel, with a burden of 215 tons, which Banks christened the
_Bounty_, sailed from Spithead December 23, 1787. Lieutenant William
Bligh, who had sailed with Cook in the _Resolution_, acted as commanding
officer, and under him were five midshipmen, a master, two master's
mates, etc.--forty-four persons all told. The _Bounty_ arrived at Tahiti
October 26, 1788, and there for six delightful months the ship's company
tarried, "fleeting the time carelessly, as in the elder world." But
"Scripture saith an ending to all fine things must be," and on April 4,
1789, the _Bounty_, with a cargo of over a thousand bread-fruit trees,
planted in pots, tubs, and boxes (see for plate of the pots, etc., _A
Voyage, etc._, 1792, p. 1), sailed away westward for the Cape of Good
Hope, and the West Indies. All went well at first, but "just before
sun-rising" on Tuesday, April 28, 1789, "the north-westernmost of the
Friendly Islands, called Tofoa, bearing north-east," Fletcher Christian,
who was mate of the watch, assisted by Charles Churchill,
master-at-arms, Alexander Smith (the John Adams of Pitcairn Island), and
Thomas Burkitt, able seamen, seized the captain, tied his hands behind
his back, hauled him out of his berth, and forced him on deck. The
boatswain, William Cole, was ordered to hoist out the ship's launch,
which measured twenty-three feet from stem to stern, and into this open
boat Bligh, together with eighteen of the crew, who were or were
supposed to be on his side, were thrust, on pain of instant death. When
they were in the boat they were "veered round with a rope, and finally
cast adrift." Bligh and his eighteen innocent companions sailed
westward, and, after a voyage of "twelve hundred leagues," during which
they were preserved from death and destruction by the wise ordering and
patient heroism of the commander, safely anchored in K[oe]pang Bay, on the
north-west coast of the Isle of Timor, June 14, 1789. (See Bligh's
_Narrative, etc._, 1790, pp. 11-88; and _The Island_, Canto I. section
ix. lines 169-201.)
The _Bounty_, with the remainder of the crew, twenty-five in number,
"the most able of the ship's company," sailed eastward, first to
Toobooai, or Tubuai, an island to the south of the Society Islands,
thence to Tahiti (June 6), back to Tubuai (June 26), and yet again, to
Tahiti (September 20), where sixteen of the mutineers, including the
midshipman George Stewart (the "Torquil" of _The Island_), were put on
shore. Finally, September 21, 1789, Fletcher Christian, with the
_Bounty_ and eight of her crew, six Tahitian men, and twelve women,
sailed away still further east to unknown shores, and, so it was
believed, disappeared for good and all. Long afterwards it was known
that they had landed on Pitcairn Island, broken up the _Bounty_, and
founded a permanent settlement.
When Bligh returned to England (March 14, 1790), and acquainted the
Government "with the atrocious act of piracy and mutiny" which had been
committed on the high seas, the _Pandora_ frigate, with Captain Edwards,
was despatched to apprehend the mutineers, and bring them back to
England for trial and punishment. The _Pandora_ reached Tahiti March 23,
1791, set sail, with fourteen prisoners, May 8, and was wrecked on the
"Great Barrier Reef" north-east of Queensland, August 29, 1791. Four of
the prisoners, including George Stewart, who had been manacled, and were
confined in "Pandora's box," perished in the wreck, and the remaining
ten were brought back to England, and tried by court-martial. (See _The
Eventful History of the Mutiny, etc._ (by Sir John Barrow), 1831, pp.
205-244.)
The story, which runs through the second, third, and fourth cantos, may
possibly owe some of its details to a vague recollection of incidents
which happened, or were supposed to happen, at Tahiti, in the interval
between the final departure of the _Bounty_, September 21, 1789, and the
arrival of the _Pandora_, March 23, 1791; but, as a whole, it is a work
of fiction.
With the exception of the fifteenth and sixteenth cantos of _Don Juan_,
_The Island_ was the last poem of any importance which Byron lived to
write, and the question naturally suggests itself--Is the new song as
good as the old? Byron answers the question himself. He tells Leigh Hunt
(January 25, 1823) that he hopes the "poem will be a little above the
ordinary run of periodical poesy," and that, though portions of the
Toobonai (_sic_) islanders are "pamby," he intends "to scatter some
_un_common places here and there nevertheless." On the whole, in point
of conception and execution, _The Island_ is weaker and less coherent
than the _Corsair_; but it contains lines and passages (_e.g._ Canto I.
lines 107-124, 133-140; Canto II. lines 272-297; Canto IV. lines 94-188)
which display a finer feeling and a more "exalted wit" than the "purple
patches" of _The Turkish Tales_.
The poetic faculty is somewhat exhausted, but the poetic vision has been
purged and heightened by suffering and self-knowledge.
_The Island_ was reviewed in the _Monthly Review_, July, 1823, E.S.,
vol. 101, pp. 316-319; the _New Monthly Magazine_, N.S., 1823, vol. 8,
pp. 136-141; the _Atlantic Magazine_, April, 1826, vol. 2, pp. 333-337;
in the _Literary Chronicle_, June 21, 1823; and the _Literary Gazette_,
June 21, 1823.
ADVERTISEMENT.
The foundation of the following story will be found partly in Lieutenant
Bligh's "Narrative of the Mutiny and Seizure of the Bounty, in the South
Seas (in 1789);" and partly in "Mariner's Account of the Tonga Islands."
GENOA, 1823.
THE ISLAND
CANTO THE FIRST.
I.
The morning watch was come; the vessel lay
Her course, and gently made her liquid way;[ex]
The cloven billow flashed from off her prow
In furrows formed by that majestic plough;
The waters with their world were all before;
Behind, the South Sea's many an islet shore.
The quiet night, now dappling, 'gan to wane,
Dividing darkness from the dawning main;
The dolphins, not unconscious of the day,
Swam high, as eager of the coming ray;
The stars from broader beams began to creep,
And lift their shining eyelids from the deep;[ey]
The sail resumed its lately shadowed white,
And the wind fluttered with a freshening flight;
The purpling Ocean owns the coming Sun,
But ere he break--a deed is to be done.
II.
The gallant Chief[352] within his cabin slept,
Secure in those by whom the watch was kept:
His dreams were of Old England's welcome shore,
Of toils rewarded, and of dangers o'er; 20
His name was added to the glorious roll
Of those who search the storm-surrounded Pole.
The worst was over, and the rest seemed sure,[353]
And why should not his slumber be secure?
Alas! his deck was trod by unwilling feet,
And wilder hands would hold the vessel's sheet;
Young hearts, which languished for some sunny isle,
Where summer years and summer women smile;
Men without country, who, too long estranged,
Had found no native home, or found it changed, 30
And, half uncivilised, preferred the cave
Of some soft savage to the uncertain wave--
The gushing fruits that nature gave unfilled;
The wood without a path--but where they willed;
The field o'er which promiscuous Plenty poured
Her horn; the equal land without a lord;
The wish--which ages have not yet subdued
In man--to have no master save his mood;[354]
The earth, whose mine was on its face, unsold,
The glowing sun and produce all its gold; 40
The Freedom which can call each grot a home;
The general garden, where all steps may roam,
Where Nature owns a nation as her child,
Exulting in the enjoyment of the wild;[ez]
Their shells, their fruits, the only wealth they know,
Their unexploring navy, the canoe;[fa]
Their sport, the dashing breakers and the chase;
Their strangest sight, an European face:--
Such was the country which these strangers yearned
To see again--a sight they dearly earned. 50
III.
Awake, bold Bligh! the foe is at the gate!
Awake! awake!----Alas! it is too late!
Fiercely beside thy cot the mutineer
Stands, and proclaims the reign of rage and fear.
Thy limbs are bound, the bayonet at thy breast;
The hands, which trembled at thy voice, arrest;
Dragged o'er the deck, no more at thy command
The obedient helm shall veer, the sail expand;
That savage Spirit, which would lull by wrath
Its desperate escape from Duty's path, 60
Glares round thee, in the scarce believing eyes
Of those who fear the Chief they sacrifice:
For ne'er can Man his conscience all assuage,
Unless he drain the wine of Passion--Rage.
IV.
In vain, not silenced by the eye of Death,
Thou call'st the loyal with thy menaced breath:--
They come not; they are few, and, overawed,
Must acquiesce, while sterner hearts applaud.
In vain thou dost demand the cause: a curse
Is all the answer, with the threat of worse. 70
Full in thine eyes is waved the glittering blade,
Close to thy throat the pointed bayonet laid.
The levelled muskets circle round thy breast
In hands as steeled to do the deadly rest.
Thou dar'st them to their worst, exclaiming--"Fire!"
But they who pitied not could yet admire;
Some lurking remnant of their former awe
Restrained them longer than their broken law;
They would not dip their souls at once in blood,
But left thee to the mercies of the flood.[355] 80
V.
"Hoist out the boat!" was now the leader's cry;
And who dare answer "No!" to Mutiny,
In the first dawning of the drunken hour,
The Saturnalia of unhoped-for power?
The boat is lowered with all the haste of hate,
With its slight plank between thee and thy fate;
Her only cargo such a scant supply
As promises the death their hands deny;
And just enough of water and of bread
To keep, some days, the dying from the dead: 90
Some cordage, canvass, sails, and lines, and twine,
But treasures all to hermits of the brine,
Were added after, to the earnest prayer
Of those who saw no hope, save sea and air;
And last, that trembling vassal of the Pole--
The feeling compass--Navigation's soul.[356]
VI.
And now the self-elected Chief finds time
To stun the first sensation of his crime,
And raise it in his followers--"Ho! the bowl!"[357]
Lest passion should return to reason's shoal.[fb] 100
"Brandy for heroes!"[358] Burke could once exclaim--
No doubt a liquid path to Epic fame;
And such the new-born heroes found it here,
And drained the draught with an applauding cheer.
"Huzza! for Otaheite!"[359] was the cry.
How strange such shouts from sons of Mutiny!
The gentle island, and the genial soil,
The friendly hearts, the feasts without a toil,
The courteous manners but from nature caught,
The wealth unhoarded, and the love unbought; 110
Could these have charms for rudest sea-boys, driven
Before the mast by every wind of heaven?
And now, even now prepared with others' woes
To earn mild Virtue's vain desire, repose?
Alas! such is our nature! all but aim
At the same end by pathways not the same;
Our means--our birth--our nation, and our name,
Our fortune--temper--even our outward frame,
Are far more potent o'er our yielding clay
Than aught we know beyond our little day. 120
Yet still there whispers the small voice within,
Heard through Gain's silence, and o'er Glory's din:
Whatever creed be taught, or land be trod,
Man's conscience is the Oracle of God.[360]
VII.
The launch is crowded with the faithful few
Who wait their Chief, a melancholy crew:
But some remained reluctant on the deck
Of that proud vessel--now a moral wreck--
And viewed their Captain's fate with piteous eyes;
While others scoffed his augured miseries, 130
Sneered at the prospect of his pigmy sail,
And the slight bark so laden and so frail.
The tender nautilus, who steers his prow,
The sea-born sailor of his shell canoe,
The ocean Mab, the fairy of the sea,
Seems far less fragile, and, alas! more free.
He, when the lightning-winged Tornados sweep
The surge, is safe--his port is in the deep--
And triumphs o'er the armadas of Mankind,
Which shake the World, yet crumble in the wind. 140
VIII.
When all was now prepared, the vessel clear
Which hailed her master in the mutineer,
A seaman, less obdurate than his mates,
Showed the vain pity which but irritates;
Watched his late Chieftain with exploring eye,
And told, in signs, repentant sympathy;
Held the moist shaddock to his parched mouth,
Which felt Exhaustion's deep and bitter drouth.
But soon observed, this guardian was withdrawn,
Nor further Mercy clouds Rebellion's dawn.[361] 150
Then forward stepped the bold and froward boy
His Chief had cherished only to destroy,
And, pointing to the helpless prow beneath,
Exclaimed, "Depart at once! delay is death!"
Yet then, even then, his feelings ceased not all:
In that last moment could a word recall
Remorse for the black deed as yet half done,
And what he hid from many showed to one:
When Bligh in stern reproach demanded where
Was now his grateful sense of former care? 160
Where all his hopes to see his name aspire,
And blazon Britain's thousand glories higher?
His feverish lips thus broke their gloomy spell,
"Tis that! 'tis that! I am in hell! in hell!"[362]
No more he said; but urging to the bark
His Chief, commits him to his fragile ark;
These the sole accents from his tongue that fell,
But volumes lurked below his fierce farewell.
IX.
The arctic[363] Sun rose broad above the wave;
The breeze now sank, now whispered from his cave; 170
As on the AEolian harp, his fitful wings
Now swelled, now fluttered o'er his Ocean strings.[fc]
With slow, despairing oar, the abandoned skiff
Ploughs its drear progress to the scarce seen cliff,
Which lifts its peak a cloud above the main:
_That_ boat and ship shall never meet again!
But 'tis not mine to tell their tale of grief,
Their constant peril, and their scant relief;
Their days of danger, and their nights of pain;
Their manly courage even when deemed in vain; 180
The sapping famine, rendering scarce a son
Known to his mother in the skeleton;[364]
The ills that lessened still their little store,
And starved even Hunger till he wrung no more;
The varying frowns and favours of the deep,
That now almost ingulfs, then leaves to creep
With crazy oar and shattered strength along
The tide that yields reluctant to the strong;
The incessant fever of that arid thirst[365]
Which welcomes, as a well, the clouds that burst 190
Above their naked bones, and feels delight
In the cold drenching of the stormy night,
And from the outspread canvass gladly wrings
A drop to moisten Life's all-gasping springs;
The savage foe escaped, to seek again
More hospitable shelter from the main;
The ghastly Spectres which were doomed at last
To tell as true a tale of dangers past,
As ever the dark annals of the deep
Disclosed for man to dread or woman weep. 200
X.
We leave them to their fate, but not unknown
Nor unredressed. Revenge may have her own:[fd]
Roused Discipline aloud proclaims their cause,
And injured Navies urge their broken laws.
Pursue we on his track the mutineer,
Whom distant vengeance had not taught to fear.
Wide o'er the wave--away! away! away!
Once more his eyes shall hail the welcome bay;
Once more the happy shores without a law
Receive the outlaws whom they lately saw; 210
Nature, and Nature's goddess--Woman--woos
To lands where, save their conscience, none accuse;
Where all partake the earth without dispute,[fe]
And bread itself is gathered as a fruit;[366]
Where none contest the fields, the woods, the streams:--
The goldless Age, where Gold disturbs no dreams,
Inhabits or inhabited the shore,
Till Europe taught them better than before;
Bestowed her customs, and amended theirs,
But left her vices also to their heirs.[367] 220
Away with this! behold them as they were,
Do good with Nature, or with Nature err.
"Huzza! for Otaheite!" was the cry,
As stately swept the gallant vessel by.
The breeze springs up; the lately flapping sail
Extends its arch before the growing gale;
In swifter ripples stream aside the seas,
Which her bold bow flings off with dashing ease.
Thus Argo ploughed the Euxine's virgin foam,[ff]
But those she wafted still looked back to home; 230
These spurn their country with their rebel bark,
And fly her as the raven fled the Ark;
And yet they seek to nestle with the dove,
And tame their fiery spirits down to Love.
End of Canto 1^st^, J^n 14.
CANTO THE SECOND.
I.
How pleasant were the songs of Toobonai,[368]
When Summer's Sun went down the coral bay!
Come, let us to the islet's softest shade,
And hear the warbling birds! the damsels said:
The wood-dove from the forest depth shall coo,
Like voices of the Gods from Bolotoo;[369]
We'll cull the flowers that grow above the dead,
For these most bloom where rests the warrior's head;
And we will sit in Twilight's face, and see
The sweet Moon glancing through the Tooa[370] tree, 10
The lofty accents of whose sighing bough
Shall sadly please us as we lean below;
Or climb the steep, and view the surf in vain
Wrestle with rocky giants o'er the main,
Which spurn in columns back the baffled spray.
How beautiful are these! how happy they,
Who, from the toil and tumult of their lives,
Steal to look down where nought but Ocean strives!
Even He too loves at times the blue lagoon,
And smooths his ruffled mane beneath the Moon. 20
II.
Yes--from the sepulchre we'll gather flowers,
Then feast like spirits in their promised bowers,
Then plunge and revel in the rolling surf,
Then lay our limbs along the tender turf,
And, wet and shining from the sportive toil,
Anoint our bodies with the fragrant oil,
And plait our garlands gathered from the grave,
And wear the wreaths that sprung from out the brave.
But lo! night comes, the Mooa[371] woos us back,
The sound of mats[372] are heard along our track; 30
Anon the torchlight dance shall fling its sheen
In flashing mazes o'er the Marly's[373] green;
And we too will be there; we too recall
The memory bright with many a festival,
Ere Fiji blew the shell of war, when foes
For the first time were wafted in canoes.[fg]
Alas! for them the flower of manhood bleeds;
Alas! for them our fields are rank with weeds:
Forgotten is the rapture, or unknown,[fh]
Of wandering with the Moon and Love alone. 40
But be it so:--_they_ taught us how to wield
The club, and rain our arrows o'er the field:
Now let them reap the harvest of their art!
But feast to-night! to-morrow we depart.
Strike up the dance! the Cava bowl[374] fill high!
Drain every drop!--to-morrow we may die.
In summer garments be our limbs arrayed;
Around our waists the Tappa's white displayed;
Thick wreaths shall form our coronal,[375] like Spring's,
And round our necks shall glance the Hooni strings; 50
So shall their brighter hues contrast the glow
Of the dusk bosoms that beat high below.
III.
But now the dance is o'er--yet stay awhile;
Ah, pause! nor yet put out the social smile.
To-morrow for the Mooa we depart,
But not to-night--to-night is for the heart.
Again bestow the wreaths we gently woo,
Ye young Enchantresses of gay Licoo![376]
How lovely are your forms! how every sense
Bows to your beauties, softened, but intense,[fi] 60
Like to the flowers on Mataloco's steep,
Which fling their fragrance far athwart the deep!--
We too will see Licoo; but--oh! my heart!--
What do I say?--to-morrow we depart!
IV.
Thus rose a song--the harmony of times
Before the winds blew Europe o'er these climes.
True, they had vices--such are Nature's growth--
But only the barbarian's--we have both;
The sordor of civilisation, mixed
With all the savage which Man's fall hath fixed. 70
Who hath not seen Dissimulation's reign,
The prayers of Abel linked to deeds of Cain?
Who such would see may from his lattice view
The Old World more degraded than the New,--
Now _new_ no more, save where Columbia rears
Twin giants, born by Freedom to her spheres,
Where Chimborazo, over air,--earth,--wave,--
Glares with his Titan eye, and sees no slave.[fj][377]
V.
Such was this ditty of Tradition's days,
Which to the dead a lingering fame conveys 80
In song, where Fame as yet hath left no sign
Beyond the sound whose charm is half divine;
Which leaves no record to the sceptic eye,
But yields young History all to Harmony;
A boy Achilles, with the Centaur's lyre
In hand, to teach him to surpass his sire.
For one long-cherished ballad's[378] simple stave,
Rung from the rock, or mingled with the wave,
Or from the bubbling streamlet's grassy side,
Or gathering mountain echoes as they glide, 90
Hath greater power o'er each true heart and ear,
Than all the columns Conquest's minions rear;[fk]
Invites, when Hieroglyphics[379] are a theme
For sages' labours, or the student's dream;
Attracts, when History's volumes are a toil,--
The first, the freshest bud of Feeling's soil.
Such was this rude rhyme--rhyme is of the rude--
But such inspired the Norseman's solitude,
Who came and conquered; such, wherever rise
Lands which no foes destroy or civilise, 100
Exist: and what can our accomplished art
Of verse do more than reach the awakened heart?[380]
VI.
And sweetly now those untaught melodies
Broke the luxurious silence of the skies,
The sweet siesta of a summer day,
The tropic afternoon of Toobonai,
When every flower was bloom, and air was balm,
And the first breath began to stir the palm,
The first yet voiceless wind to urge the wave
All gently to refresh the thirsty cave, 110
Where sat the Songstress with the stranger boy,
Who taught her Passion's desolating joy,
Too powerful over every heart, but most
O'er those who know not how it may be lost;
O'er those who, burning in the new-born fire,
Like martyrs revel in their funeral pyre,
With such devotion to their ecstacy,
That Life knows no such rapture as to die:
And die they do; for earthly life has nought
Matched with that burst of Nature, even in thought; 120
And all our dreams of better life above
But close in one eternal gush of Love.
VII.
There sat the gentle savage of the wild,
In growth a woman, though in years a child,
As childhood dates within our colder clime,
Where nought is ripened rapidly save crime;
The infant of an infant world, as pure
From Nature--lovely, warm, and premature;
Dusky like night, but night with all her stars;
Or cavern sparkling with its native spars; 130
With eyes that were a language and a spell,
A form like Aphrodite's in her shell,
With all her loves around her on the deep,
Voluptuous as the first approach of sleep;
Yet full of life--for through her tropic cheek
The blush would make its way, and all but speak;
The sun-born blood suffused her neck, and threw
O'er her clear nut-brown skin a lucid hue,
Like coral reddening through the darkened wave,
Which draws the diver to the crimson cave. 140
Such was this daughter of the southern seas,
Herself a billow in her energies,[fl]
To bear the bark of others' happiness,
Nor feel a sorrow till their joy grew less:
Her wild and warm yet faithful bosom knew
No joy like what it gave; her hopes ne'er drew
Aught from Experience, that chill touchstone, whose
Sad proof reduces all things from their hues:
She feared no ill, because she knew it not,
Or what she knew was soon--too soon--forgot: 150
Her smiles and tears had passed, as light winds pass
O'er lakes to ruffle, not destroy, their glass,
Whose depths unsearched, and fountains from the hill,
Restore their surface, in itself so still,
Until the Earthquake tear the Naiad's cave,
Root up the spring, and trample on the wave,
And crush the living waters to a mass,
The amphibious desert of the dank morass!
And must their fate be hers? The eternal change
But grasps Humanity with quicker range; 160
And they who fall but fall as worlds will fall,
To rise, if just, a Spirit o'er them all.
VIII.
And who is he? the blue-eyed northern child[381]
Of isles more known to man, but scarce less wild;
The fair-haired offspring of the Hebrides,
Where roars the Pentland with its whirling seas;
Rocked in his cradle by the roaring wind,
The tempest-born in body and in mind,
His young eyes opening on the ocean-foam,
Had from that moment deemed the deep his home, 170
The giant comrade of his pensive moods,
The sharer of his craggy solitudes,
The only Mentor of his youth, where'er
His bark was borne; the sport of wave and air;
A careless thing, who placed his choice in chance,
Nursed by the legends of his land's romance;
Eager to hope, but not less firm to bear,
Acquainted with all feelings save despair.
Placed in the Arab's clime he would have been
As bold a rover as the sands have seen, 180
And braved their thirst with as enduring lip
As Ishmael, wafted on his Desert-Ship;[382]
Fixed upon Chili's shore, a proud cacique:
On Hellas' mountains, a rebellious Greek;[383]
Born in a tent, perhaps a Tamerlane;
Bred to a throne, perhaps unfit to reign.
For the same soul that rends its path to sway,
If reared to such, can find no further prey
Beyond itself, and must retrace its way,[384]
Plunging for pleasure into pain: the same 190
Spirit which made a Nero, Rome's worst shame,
A humbler state and discipline of heart,
Had formed his glorious namesake's counterpart;[385]
But grant his vices, grant them all his own,
How small their theatre without a throne!
IX.
Thou smilest:--these comparisons seem high
To those who scan all things with dazzled eye;
Linked with the unknown name of one whose doom
Has nought to do with glory or with Rome,
With Chili, Hellas, or with Araby;-- 200
Thou smilest?--Smile; 'tis better thus than sigh;
Yet such he might have been; he was a man,
A soaring spirit, ever in the van,
A patriot hero or despotic chief,[fm]
To form a nation's glory or its grief,
Born under auspices which make us more
Or less than we delight to ponder o'er.
But these are visions; say, what was he here?
A blooming boy, a truant mutineer.
The fair-haired Torquil, free as Ocean's spray, 210
The husband of the bride of Toobonai.
X.
By Neuha's side he sate, and watched the waters,--
Neuha, the sun-flower of the island daughters,
Highborn, (a birth at which the herald smiles,
Without a scutcheon for these secret isles,)
Of a long race, the valiant and the free,
The naked knights of savage chivalry,
Whose grassy cairns ascend along the shore;
And thine--I've seen--Achilles! do no more.[386]
She, when the thunder-bearing strangers came, 220
In vast canoes, begirt with bolts of flame,
Topped with tall trees, which, loftier than the palm,
Seemed rooted in the deep amidst its calm:
But when the winds awakened, shot forth wings
Broad as the cloud along the horizon flings,
And swayed the waves, like cities of the sea,
Making the very billows look less free;--
She, with her paddling oar and dancing prow,
Shot through the surf, like reindeer through the snow,
Swift-gliding o'er the breaker's whitening edge, 230
Light as a Nereid in her ocean sledge,
And gazed and wondered at the giant hulk,
Which heaved from wave to wave its trampling bulk.
The anchor dropped; it lay along the deep,
Like a huge lion in the sun asleep,
While round it swarmed the Proas' flitting chain,
Like summer bees that hum around his mane.
XI.
The white man landed!--need the rest be told?
The New World stretched its dusk hand to the Old;
Each was to each a marvel, and the tie 240
Of wonder warmed to better sympathy.
Kind was the welcome of the sun-born sires,
And kinder still their daughters' gentler fires.
Their union grew: the children of the storm
Found beauty linked with many a dusky form;
While these in turn admired the paler glow,
Which seemed so white in climes that knew no snow.
The chace, the race, the liberty to roam,
The soil where every cottage showed a home;
The sea-spread net, the lightly launched canoe, 250
Which stemmed the studded archipelago,
O'er whose blue bosom rose the starry isles;
The healthy slumber, earned by sportive toils;
The palm, the loftiest Dryad of the woods,
Within whose bosom infant Bacchus broods,
While eagles scarce build higher than the crest
Which shadows o'er the vineyard in her breast;
The Cava feast, the Yam, the Cocoa's root,
Which bears at once the cup, and milk, and fruit;
The Bread-tree, which, without the ploughshare, yields 260
The unreaped harvest of unfurrowed fields,
And bakes its unadulterated loaves
Without a furnace in unpurchased groves,
And flings off famine from its fertile breast,
A priceless market for the gathering guest;--
These, with the luxuries of seas and woods,
The airy joys of social solitudes,
Tamed each rude wanderer to the sympathies
Of those who were more happy, if less wise,
Did more than Europe's discipline had done, 270
And civilised Civilisation's son!
XII.
Of these, and there was many a willing pair,
Neuha[387] and Torquil were not the least fair:
Both children of the isles, though distant far;
Both born beneath a sea-presiding star;
Both nourished amidst Nature's native scenes,
Loved to the last, whatever intervenes
Between us and our Childhood's sympathy,
Which still reverts to what first caught the eye.
He who first met the Highlands' swelling blue 280
Will love each peak that shows a kindred hue,
Hail in each crag a friend's familiar face,
And clasp the mountain in his Mind's embrace.
Long have I roamed through lands which are not mine,
Adored the Alp, and loved the Apennine,
Revered Parnassus, and beheld the steep
Jove's Ida and Olympus crown the deep:
But 'twas not all long ages' lore, nor all
_Their_ nature held me in their thrilling thrall;
The infant rapture still survived the boy, 290
And Loch-na-gar with Ida looked o'er Troy,[388]
Mixed Celtic memories with the Phrygian mount,
And Highland linns with Castalie's clear fount.
Forgive me, Homer's universal shade!
Forgive me, Ph[oe]bus! that my fancy strayed;
The North and Nature taught me to adore
Your scenes sublime, from those beloved before.
XIII.
The love which maketh all things fond and fair,
The youth which makes one rainbow of the air,
The dangers past, that make even Man enjoy 300
The pause in which he ceases to destroy,
The mutual beauty, which the sternest feel
Strike to their hearts like lightning to the steel,
United the half savage and the whole,
The maid and boy, in one absorbing soul.
No more the thundering memory of the fight
Wrapped his weaned bosom in its dark delight;
No more the irksome restlessness of Rest
Disturbed him like the eagle in her nest,
Whose whetted beak[389] and far-pervading eye 310
Darts for a victim over all the sky:
His heart was tamed to that voluptuous state,
At once Elysian and effeminate,
Which leaves no laurels o'er the Hero's urn;--
These wither when for aught save blood they burn;
Yet when their ashes in their nook are laid,
Doth not the myrtle leave as sweet a shade?
Had Caesar known but Cleopatra's kiss,
Rome had been free, the world had not been his.
And what have Caesar's deeds and Caesar's fame 320
Done for the earth? We feel them in our shame.
The gory sanction of his Glory stains
The rust which tyrants cherish on our chains.
Though Glory--Nature--Reason--Freedom, bid
Roused millions do what single Brutus did--
Sweep these mere mock-birds of the Despot's song
From the tall bough where they have perched so long,--
Still are we hawked at by such mousing owls,[390]
And take for falcons those ignoble fowls,
When but a word of freedom would dispel 330
These bugbears, as their terrors show too well.
XIV.
Rapt in the fond forgetfulness of life,
Neuha, the South Sea girl, was all a wife,
With no distracting world to call her off
From Love; with no Society to scoff
At the new transient flame; no babbling crowd
Of coxcombry in admiration loud,
Or with adulterous whisper to alloy
Her duty, and her glory, and her joy:
With faith and feelings naked as her form, 340
She stood as stands a rainbow in a storm,
Changing its hues with bright variety,
But still expanding lovelier o'er the sky,
Howe'er its arch may swell, its colours move,
The cloud-compelling harbinger of Love.
XV.
Here, in this grotto of the wave-worn shore,
They passed the Tropic's red meridian o'er;
Nor long the hours--they never paused o'er time,
Unbroken by the clock's funereal chime,[391]
Which deals the daily pittance of our span, 350
And points and mocks with iron laugh at man.[fn]
What deemed they of the future or the past?
The present, like a tyrant, held them fast:
Their hour-glass was the sea-sand, and the tide,
Like her smooth billow, saw their moments glide
Their clock the Sun, in his unbounded tower
They reckoned not, whose day was but an hour;
The nightingale, their only vesper-bell,
Sung sweetly to the rose the day's farewell;[392]
The broad Sun set, but not with lingering sweep, 360
As in the North he mellows o'er the deep;
But fiery, full, and fierce, as if he left
The World for ever, earth of light bereft,
Plunged with red forehead down along the wave,
As dives a hero headlong to his grave.
Then rose they, looking first along the skies,
And then for light into each other's eyes,
Wondering that Summer showed so brief a sun,
And asking if indeed the day were done.
XVI.
And let not this seem strange: the devotee 370
Lives not in earth, but in his ecstasy;
Around him days and worlds are heedless driven,
His Soul is gone before his dust to Heaven.
Is Love less potent? No--his path is trod,
Alike uplifted gloriously to God;
Or linked to all we know of Heaven below,
The other better self, whose joy or woe
Is more than ours; the all-absorbing flame
Which, kindled by another, grows the same,[fo]
Wrapt in one blaze; the pure, yet funeral pile, 380
Where gentle hearts, like Bramins, sit and smile.
How often we forget all time, when lone,
Admiring Nature's universal throne,
Her woods--her wilds--her waters--the intense
Reply of _hers_ to our intelligence!
Live not the Stars and Mountains? Are the Waves
Without a spirit? Are the dropping caves
Without a feeling in their silent tears?[393]
No, no;--they woo and clasp us to their spheres,
Dissolve this clog and clod of clay before 390
Its hour, and merge our soul in the great shore.
Strip off this fond and false identity!--
Who thinks of self when gazing on the sky?
And who, though gazing lower, ever thought,
In the young moments ere the heart is taught
Time's lesson, of Man's baseness or his own?
All Nature is his realm, and Love his throne.
XVII.
Neuha arose, and Torquil: Twilight's hour
Came sad and softly to their rocky bower,
Which, kindling by degrees its dewy spars, 400
Echoed their dim light to the mustering stars.
Slowly the pair, partaking Nature's calm,
Sought out their cottage, built beneath the palm;
Now smiling and now silent, as the scene;
Lovely as Love--the Spirit!--when serene.
The Ocean scarce spoke louder with his swell,
Than breathes his mimic murmurer in the shell,[394]
As, far divided from his parent deep,
The sea-born infant cries, and will not sleep,
Raising his little plaint in vain, to rave 410
For the broad bosom of his nursing wave:
The woods drooped darkly, as inclined to rest,
The tropic bird wheeled rockward to his nest,
And the blue sky spread round them like a lake
Of peace, where Piety her thirst might slake.
XVIII.
But through the palm and plantain, hark, a Voice!
Not such as would have been a lover's choice,
In such an hour, to break the air so still;
No dying night-breeze, harping o'er the hill,
Striking the strings of nature, rock and tree, 420
Those best and earliest lyres of Harmony,
With Echo for their chorus; nor the alarm
Of the loud war-whoop to dispel the charm;
Nor the soliloquy of the hermit owl,
Exhaling all his solitary soul,
The dim though large-eyed winged anchorite,
Who peals his dreary Paean o'er the night;
But a loud, long, and naval whistle, shrill
As ever started through a sea-bird's bill;
And then a pause, and then a hoarse "Hillo! 430
Torquil, my boy! what cheer? Ho! brother, ho!"
"Who hails?" cried Torquil, following with his eye
The sound. "Here's one," was all the brief reply.
XIX.
But here the herald of the self-same mouth[395]
Came breathing o'er the aromatic south,
Not like a "bed of violets" on the gale,
But such as wafts its cloud o'er grog or ale,
Borne from a short frail pipe, which yet had blown
Its gentle odours over either zone,
And, puffed where'er winds rise or waters roll, 440
Had wafted smoke from Portsmouth to the Pole,
Opposed its vapour as the lightning flashed,
And reeked, 'midst mountain-billows, unabashed,
To AEolus a constant sacrifice,
Through every change of all the varying skies.
And what was he who bore it?--I may err,
But deem him sailor or philosopher.[396]
Sublime Tobacco! which from East to West
Cheers the tar's labour or the Turkman's rest;
Which on the Moslem's ottoman divides 450
His hours, and rivals opium and his brides;
Magnificent in Stamboul, but less grand,
Though not less loved, in Wapping or the Strand;
Divine in hookas, glorious in a pipe,
When tipped with amber, mellow, rich, and ripe:
Like other charmers, wooing the caress,
More dazzlingly when daring in full dress;
Yet thy true lovers more admire by far[fp]
Thy naked beauties--Give me a cigar![397]
XX.
Through the approaching darkness of the wood 460
A human figure broke the solitude,
Fantastically, it may be, arrayed,
A seaman in a savage masquerade;
Such as appears to rise out from the deep,
When o'er the line the merry vessels sweep,
And the rough Saturnalia of the tar
Flock o'er the deck, in Neptune's borrowed car;[398]
And, pleased, the God of Ocean sees his name
Revive once more, though but in mimic game
Of his true sons, who riot in the breeze 470
Undreamt of in his native Cyclades.
Still the old God delights, from out the main,
To snatch some glimpses of his ancient reign.
Our sailor's jacket, though in ragged trim,
His constant pipe, which never yet burned dim,
His foremast air, and somewhat rolling gait,
Like his dear vessel, spoke his former state;
But then a sort of kerchief round his head,
Not over tightly bound, nor nicely spread;
And, 'stead of trowsers (ah! too early torn! 480
For even the mildest woods will have their thorn)
A curious sort of somewhat scanty mat
Now served for inexpressibles and hat;
His naked feet and neck, and sunburnt face,
Perchance might suit alike with either race.
His arms were all his own, our Europe's growth,
Which two worlds bless for civilising both;
The musket swung behind his shoulders broad,
And somewhat stooped by his marine abode,
But brawny as the boar's; and hung beneath, 490
His cutlass drooped, unconscious of a sheath,
Or lost or worn away; his pistols were
Linked to his belt, a matrimonial pair--
(Let not this metaphor appear a scoff,
Though one missed fire, the other would go off);
These, with a bayonet, not so free from rust
As when the arm-chest held its brighter trust,
Completed his accoutrements, as Night
Surveyed him in his garb heteroclite.
XXI.
"What cheer, Ben Bunting?" cried (when in full view 500
Our new acquaintance) Torquil. "Aught of new?"
"Ey, ey!" quoth Ben, "not new, but news enow;
A strange sail in the offing."--"Sail! and how?
What! could you make her out? It cannot be;
I've seen no rag of canvass on the sea."
"Belike," said Ben, "you might not from the bay,
But from the bluff-head, where I watched to-day,
I saw her in the doldrums; for the wind
Was light and baffling."--"When the Sun declined
Where lay she? had she anchored?"--"No, but still 510
She bore down on us, till the wind grew still."
"Her flag?"--"I had no glass: but fore and aft,
Egad! she seemed a wicked-looking craft."
"Armed?"--"I expect so;--sent on the look-out:
'Tis time, belike, to put our helm about."
"About?--Whate'er may have us now in chase,
We'll make no running fight, for that were base;
We will die at our quarters, like true men."
"Ey, ey! for that 'tis all the same to Ben."
"Does Christian know this?"--"Aye; he has piped all hands 520
To quarters. They are furbishing the stands
Of arms; and we have got some guns to bear,
And scaled them. You are wanted."--"That's but fair;
And if it were not, mine is not the soul
To leave my comrades helpless on the shoal.
My Neuha! ah! and must my fate pursue
Not me alone, but one so sweet and true?
But whatsoe'er betide, ah, Neuha! now
Unman me not: the hour will not allow
A tear; I am thine whatever intervenes!" 530
"Right," quoth Ben; "that will do for the marines."[399]
CANTO THE THIRD.
I.
The fight was o'er; the flashing through the gloom,
Which robes the cannon as he wings a tomb,
Had ceased; and sulphury vapours upward driven
Had left the Earth, and but polluted Heaven:
The rattling roar which rung in every volley
Had left the echoes to their melancholy;
No more they shrieked their horror, boom for boom;
The strife was done, the vanquished had their doom;
The mutineers were crushed, dispersed, or ta'en,
Or lived to deem the happiest were the slain. 10
Few, few escaped, and these were hunted o'er
The isle they loved beyond their native shore.
No further home was theirs, it seemed, on earth,
Once renegades to that which gave them birth;
Tracked like wild beasts, like them they sought the wild,
As to a Mother's bosom flies the child;
But vainly wolves and lions seek their den,
And still more vainly men escape from men.
II.
Beneath a rock whose jutting base protrudes
Far over Ocean in its fiercest moods, 20
When scaling his enormous crag the wave
Is hurled down headlong, like the foremost brave,
And falls back on the foaming crowd behind,
Which fight beneath the banners of the wind,
But now at rest, a little remnant drew
Together, bleeding, thirsty, faint, and few;
But still their weapons in their hands, and still
With something of the pride of former will,
As men not all unused to meditate,
And strive much more than wonder at their fate. 30
Their present lot was what they had foreseen,
And dared as what was likely to have been;
Yet still the lingering hope, which deemed their lot
Not pardoned, but unsought for or forgot,
Or trusted that, if sought, their distant caves
Might still be missed amidst the world of waves,
Had weaned their thoughts in part from what they saw
And felt, the vengeance of their country's law.
Their sea-green isle, their guilt-won Paradise,
No more could shield their Virtue or their Vice: 40
Their better feelings, if such were, were thrown
Back on themselves,--their sins remained alone.
Proscribed even in their second country, they
Were lost; in vain the World before them lay;
All outlets seemed secured. Their new allies
Had fought and bled in mutual sacrifice;
But what availed the club and spear, and arm
Of Hercules, against the sulphury charm,
The magic of the thunder, which destroyed
The warrior ere his strength could be employed? 50
Dug, like a spreading pestilence, the grave
No less of human bravery than the brave![400]
Their own scant numbers acted all the few
Against the many oft will dare and do;
But though the choice seems native to die free,
Even Greece can boast but one Thermopylae,
Till _now_, when she has forged her broken chain
Back to a sword, and dies and lives again!
III.
Beside the jutting rock the few appeared,
Like the last remnant of the red-deer's herd; 60
Their eyes were feverish, and their aspect worn,
But still the hunter's blood was on their horn.
A little stream came tumbling from the height,
And straggling into ocean as it might,
Its bounding crystal frolicked in the ray,
And gushed from cliff to crag with saltless spray;
Close on the wild, wide ocean, yet as pure
And fresh as Innocence, and more secure,
Its silver torrent glittered o'er the deep,
As the shy chamois' eye o'erlooks the steep, 70
While far below the vast and sullen swell
Of Ocean's alpine azure rose and fell.
To this young spring they rushed,--all feelings first
Absorbed in Passion's and in Nature's thirst,--
Drank as they do who drink their last, and threw
Their arms aside to revel in its dew;
Cooled their scorched throats, and washed the gory stains
From wounds whose only bandage might be chains;
Then, when their drought was quenched, looked sadly round,
As wondering how so many still were found 80
Alive and fetterless:--but silent all,
Each sought his fellow's eyes, as if to call
On him for language which his lips denied,
As though their voices with their cause had died.
IV.
Stern, and aloof a little from the rest,
Stood Christian, with his arms across his chest.
The ruddy, reckless, dauntless hue once spread
Along his cheek was livid now as lead;
His light-brown locks, so graceful in their flow,
Now rose like startled vipers o'er his brow. 90
Still as a statue, with his lips comprest
To stifle even the breath within his breast,
Fast by the rock, all menacing, but mute,
He stood; and, save a slight beat of his foot,
Which deepened now and then the sandy dint
Beneath his heel, his form seemed turned to flint.
Some paces further Torquil leaned his head
Against a bank, and spoke not, but he bled,--
Not mortally:--his worst wound was within;
His brow was pale, his blue eyes sunken in, 100
And blood-drops, sprinkled o'er his yellow hair,
Showed that his faintness came not from despair,
But Nature's ebb. Beside him was another,
Rough as a bear, but willing as a brother,--
Ben Bunting, who essayed to wash, and wipe,
And bind his wound--then calmly lit his pipe,
A trophy which survived a hundred fights,
A beacon which had cheered ten thousand nights.
The fourth and last of this deserted group
Walked up and down--at times would stand, then stoop 110
To pick a pebble up--then let it drop--
Then hurry as in haste--then quickly stop--
Then cast his eyes on his companions--then
Half whistle half a tune, and pause again--
And then his former movements would redouble,
With something between carelessness and trouble.
This is a long description, but applies
To scarce five minutes passed before the eyes;
But yet _what_ minutes! Moments like to these
Rend men's lives into immortalities. 120
V.
At length Jack Skyscrape, a mercurial man,
Who fluttered over all things like a fan,
More brave than firm, and more disposed to dare
And die at once than wrestle with despair,
Exclaimed, "G--d damn!"--those syllables intense,--
Nucleus of England's native eloquence,
As the Turk's "Allah!" or the Roman's more
Pagan "Proh Jupiter!" was wont of yore
To give their first impressions such a vent,
By way of echo to embarrassment.[fq] 130
Jack was embarrassed,--never hero more,
And as he knew not what to say, he swore:
Nor swore in vain; the long congenial sound
Revived Ben Bunting from his pipe profound;
He drew it from his mouth, and looked full wise,
But merely added to the oath his _eyes_;
Thus rendering the imperfect phrase complete,
A peroration I need not repeat.
VI.
But Christian,[401] of a higher order, stood
Like an extinct volcano in his mood; 140
Silent, and sad, and savage,--with the trace
Of passion reeking from his clouded face;
Till lifting up again his sombre eye,
It glanced on Torquil, who leaned faintly by.
"And is it thus?" he cried, "unhappy boy!
And thee, too, _thee_--my madness must destroy!"
He said, and strode to where young Torquil stood,
Yet dabbled with his lately flowing blood;
Seized his hand wistfully, but did not press,
And shrunk as fearful of his own caress; 150
Enquired into his state: and when he heard
The wound was slighter than he deemed or feared,
A moment's brightness passed along his brow,
As much as such a moment would allow.
"Yes," he exclaimed, "we are taken in the toil,
But not a coward or a common spoil;
Dearly they have bought us--dearly still may buy,--
And I must fall; but have _you_ strength to fly?
'Twould be some comfort still, could you survive;
Our dwindled band is now too few to strive. 160
Oh! for a sole canoe! though but a shell,
To bear you hence to where a hope may dwell!
For me, my lot is what I sought; to be,
In life or death, the fearless and the free."
VII.
Even as he spoke, around the promontory,
Which nodded o'er the billows high and hoary,
A dark speck dotted Ocean: on it flew
Like to the shadow of a roused sea-mew;
Onward it came--and, lo! a second followed--
Now seen--now hid--where Ocean's vale was hollowed; 170
And near, and nearer, till the dusky crew
Presented well-known aspects to the view,
Till on the surf their skimming paddles play,
Buoyant as wings, and flitting through the spray;--
Now perching on the wave's high curl, and now
Dashed downward in the thundering foam below,
Which flings it broad and boiling sheet on sheet,
And slings its high flakes, shivered into sleet:
But floating still through surf and swell, drew nigh
The barks, like small birds through a lowering sky. 180
Their art seemed nature--such the skill to sweep
The wave of these born playmates of the deep.
VIII.
And who the first that, springing on the strand,
Leaped like a Nereid from her shell to land,
With dark but brilliant skin, and dewy eye
Shining with love, and hope, and constancy?
Neuha--the fond, the faithful, the adored--
Her heart on Torquil's like a torrent poured;
And smiled, and wept, and near, and nearer clasped,
As if to be assured 'twas _him_ she grasped; 190
Shuddered to see his yet warm wound, and then,
To find it trivial, smiled and wept again.
She was a warrior's daughter, and could bear
Such sights, and feel, and mourn, but not despair.
Her lover lived,--nor foes nor fears could blight
That full-blown moment in its all delight:
Joy trickled in her tears, joy filled the sob
That rocked her heart till almost heard to throb;
And Paradise was breathing in the sigh
Of Nature's child in Nature's ecstasy. 200
IX.
The sterner spirits who beheld that meeting
Were not unmoved; who are, when hearts are greeting?
Even Christian gazed upon the maid and boy
With tearless eye, but yet a gloomy joy
Mixed with those bitter thoughts the soul arrays
In hopeless visions of our better days,
When all's gone--to the rainbow's latest ray.
"And but for me!" he said, and turned away;
Then gazed upon the pair, as in his den
A lion looks upon his cubs again; 210
And then relapsed into his sullen guise,
As heedless of his further destinies.
X.
But brief their time for good or evil thought;
The billows round the promontory brought
The plash of hostile oars.--Alas! who made
That sound a dread? All around them seemed arrayed
Against them, save the bride of Toobonai:
She, as she caught the first glimpse o'er the bay
Of the armed boats, which hurried to complete
The remnant's ruin with their flying feet,[fr] 220
Beckoned the natives round her to their prows,
Embarked their guests and launched their light canoes;
In one placed Christian and his comrades twain--
But she and Torquil must not part again.
She fixed him in her own.--Away! away!
They cleared the breakers, dart along the bay,
And towards a group of islets, such as bear
The sea-bird's nest and seal's surf-hollowed lair,
They skim the blue tops of the billows; fast
They flew, and fast their fierce pursuers chased. 230
They gain upon them--now they lose again,--
Again make way and menace o'er the main;
And now the two canoes in chase divide,
And follow different courses o'er the tide,
To baffle the pursuit.--Away! away!
As Life is on each paddle's flight to-day,
And more than Life or lives to Neuha: Love
Freights the frail bark and urges to the cove;
And now the refuge and the foe are nigh--
Yet, yet a moment! Fly, thou light ark, fly! 240
CANTO THE FOURTH.
I.
White as a white sail on a dusky sea,
When half the horizon's clouded and half free,
Fluttering between the dun wave and the sky,
Is Hope's last gleam in Man's extremity.
Her anchor parts; but still her snowy sail
Attracts our eye amidst the rudest gale:
Though every wave she climbs divides us more,
The heart still follows from the loneliest shore.
II.
Not distant from the isle of Toobonai,
A black rock rears its bosom o'er the spray, 10
The haunt of birds, a desert to mankind,
Where the rough seal reposes from the wind,
And sleeps unwieldy in his cavern dun,
Or gambols with huge frolic in the sun:
There shrilly to the passing oar is heard
The startled echo of the Ocean bird,
Who rears on its bare breast her callow brood,
The feathered fishers of the solitude.
A narrow segment of the yellow sand
On one side forms the outline of a strand;[402] 20
Here the young turtle, crawling from his shell,
Steals to the deep wherein his parents dwell;
Chipped by the beam, a nursling of the day,
But hatched for ocean by the fostering ray;
The rest was one bleak precipice, as e'er
Gave mariners a shelter and despair;
A spot to make the saved regret the deck
Which late went down, and envy the lost wreck.
Such was the stern asylum Neuha chose
To shield her lover from his following foes; 30
But all its secret was not told; she knew
In this a treasure hidden from the view.
III.
Ere the canoes divided, near the spot,
The men that manned what held her Torquil's lot,
By her command removed, to strengthen more
The skiff which wafted Christian from the shore.
This he would have opposed; but with a smile
She pointed calmly to the craggy isle,
And bade him "speed and prosper." _She_ would take
The rest upon herself for Torquil's sake. 40
They parted with this added aid; afar,
The Proa darted like a shooting star,
And gained on the pursuers, who now steered
Right on the rock which she and Torquil neared.
They pulled; her arm, though delicate, was free
And firm as ever grappled with the sea,
And yielded scarce to Torquil's manlier strength.
The prow now almost lay within its length
Of the crag's steep inexorable face,
With nought but soundless waters for its base; 50
Within a hundred boats' length was the foe,
And now what refuge but their frail canoe?
This Torquil asked with half upbraiding eye,
Which said--"Has Neuha brought me here to die?
Is this a place of safety, or a grave,
And yon huge rock the tombstone of the wave?"
IV.
They rested on their paddles, and uprose
Neuha, and pointing to the approaching foes,
Cried, "Torquil, follow me, and fearless follow!"
Then plunged at once into the Ocean's hollow. 60
There was no time to pause--the foes were near--
Chains in his eye, and menace in his ear;
With vigour they pulled on, and as they came,
Hailed him to yield, and by his forfeit name.
Headlong he leapt--to him the swimmer's skill
Was native, and now all his hope from ill:
But how, or where? He dived, and rose no more;
The boat's crew looked amazed o'er sea and shore.
There was no landing on that precipice,
Steep, harsh, and slippery as a berg of ice. 70
They watched awhile to see him float again,
But not a trace rebubbled from the main:
The wave rolled on, no ripple on its face,
Since their first plunge recalled a single trace;
The little whirl which eddied, and slight foam,
That whitened o'er what seemed their latest home,
White as a sepulchre above the pair
Who left no marble (mournful as an heir)
The quiet Proa wavering o'er the tide
Was all that told of Torquil and his bride; 80
And but for this alone the whole might seem
The vanished phantom of a seaman's dream.
They paused and searched in vain, then pulled away;
Even Superstition now forbade their stay.
Some said he had not plunged into the wave,
But vanished like a corpse-light from a grave;
Others, that something supernatural
Glared in his figure, more than mortal tall;
While all agreed that in his cheek and eye
There was a dead hue of Eternity. 90
Still as their oars receded from the crag,
Round every weed a moment would they lag,
Expectant of some token of their prey;
But no--he had melted from them like the spray.
V.
And where was he the Pilgrim of the Deep,
Following the Nereid? Had they ceased to weep
For ever? or, received in coral caves,
Wrung life and pity from the softening waves?
Did they with Ocean's hidden sovereigns dwell,
And sound with Mermen the fantastic shell? 100
Did Neuha with the mermaids comb her hair
Flowing o'er ocean as it streamed in air?
Or had they perished, and in silence slept
Beneath the gulf wherein they boldly leapt?
VI.
Young Neuha plunged into the deep, and he
Followed: her track beneath her native sea
Was as a native's of the element,
So smoothly--bravely--brilliantly she went,
Leaving a streak of light behind her heel,
Which struck and flashed like an amphibious steel, 110
Closely, and scarcely less expert to trace
The depths where divers hold the pearl in chase,
Torquil, the nursling of the northern seas,
Pursued her liquid steps with heart and ease.
Deep--deeper for an instant Neuha led
The way--then upward soared--and as she spread
Her arms, and flung the foam from off her locks,
Laughed, and the sound was answered by the rocks.
They had gained a central realm of earth again,
But looked for tree, and field, and sky, in vain. 120
Around she pointed to a spacious cave,
Whose only portal was the keyless wave,[403]
(A hollow archway by the sun unseen,
Save through the billows' glassy veil of green,
In some transparent ocean holiday,
When all the finny people are at play,)
Wiped with her hair the brine from Torquil's eyes,
And clapped her hands with joy at his surprise;
Led him to where the rock appeared to jut,
And form a something like a Triton's hut; 130
For all was darkness for a space, till day,
Through clefts above let in a sobered ray;
As in some old cathedral's glimmering aisle
The dusty monuments from light recoil,
Thus sadly in their refuge submarine
The vault drew half her shadow from the scene.
VII.
Forth from her bosom the young savage drew
A pine torch, strongly girded with gnatoo;
A plantain-leaf o'er all, the more to keep
Its latent sparkle from the sapping deep. 140
This mantle kept it dry; then from a nook
Of the same plantain-leaf a flint she took,
A few shrunk withered twigs, and from the blade
Of Torquil's knife struck fire, and thus arrayed
The grot with torchlight. Wide it was and high,
And showed a self-born Gothic canopy;
The arch upreared by Nature's architect,
The architrave some Earthquake might erect;
The buttress from some mountain's bosom hurled,
When the Poles crashed, and water was the world; 150
Or hardened from some earth-absorbing fire,
While yet the globe reeked from its funeral pyre;
The fretted pinnacle, the aisle, the nave,[404]
Were there, all scooped by Darkness from her cave.
There, with a little tinge of phantasy,
Fantastic faces moped and mowed on high,
And then a mitre or a shrine would fix
The eye upon its seeming crucifix.
Thus Nature played with the stalactites,[405]
And built herself a Chapel of the Seas. 160
VIII.
And Neuha took her Torquil by the hand,
And waved along the vault her kindled brand,
And led him into each recess, and showed
The secret places of their new abode.
Nor these alone, for all had been prepared
Before, to soothe the lover's lot she shared:
The mat for rest; for dress the fresh gnatoo,
And sandal oil to fence against the dew;
For food the cocoa-nut, the yam, the bread
Born of the fruit; for board the plantain spread 170
With its broad leaf, or turtle-shell which bore
A banquet in the flesh it covered o'er;
The gourd with water recent from the rill,
The ripe banana from the mellow hill;
A pine-torch pile to keep undying light,
And she herself, as beautiful as night,
To fling her shadowy spirit o'er the scene,
And make their subterranean world serene.
She had foreseen, since first the stranger's sail
Drew to their isle, that force or flight might fail, 180
And formed a refuge of the rocky den
For Torquil's safety from his countrymen.[fs]
Each dawn had wafted there her light canoe,
Laden with all the golden fruits that grew;
Each eve had seen her gliding through the hour
With all could cheer or deck their sparry bower;
And now she spread her little store with smiles,
The happiest daughter of the loving isles.
IX.
She, as he gazed with grateful wonder, pressed
Her sheltered love to her impassioned breast; 190
And suited to her soft caresses, told
An olden tale of Love,--for Love is old,
Old as eternity, but not outworn
With each new being born or to be born:[406]
How a young Chief, a thousand moons ago,
Diving for turtle in the depths below,
Had risen, in tracking fast his ocean prey,
Into the cave which round and o'er them lay;
How, in some desperate feud of after-time,
He sheltered there a daughter of the clime, 200
A foe beloved, and offspring of a foe,
Saved by his tribe but for a captive's woe;
How, when the storm of war was stilled, he led
His island clan to where the waters spread
Their deep-green shadow o'er the rocky door,
Then dived--it seemed as if to rise no more:
His wondering mates, amazed within their bark,
Or deemed him mad, or prey to the blue shark;
Rowed round in sorrow the sea-girded rock,
Then paused upon their paddles from the shock; 210
When, fresh and springing from the deep, they saw
A Goddess rise--so deemed they in their awe;
And their companion, glorious by her side,
Proud and exulting in his Mermaid bride;
And how, when undeceived, the pair they bore
With sounding conchs and joyous shouts to shore;
How they had gladly lived and calmly died,--
And why not also Torquil and his bride?
Not mine to tell the rapturous caress
Which followed wildly in that wild recess 220
This tale; enough that all within that cave
Was love, though buried strong as in the grave,
Where Abelard, through twenty years of death,
When Eloisa's form was lowered beneath
Their nuptial vault, his arms outstretched, and pressed
The kindling ashes to his kindled breast.[407]
The waves without sang round their couch, their roar
As much unheeded as if life were o'er;
Within, their hearts made all their harmony,
Love's broken murmur and more broken sigh. 230
X.
And they, the cause and sharers of the shock
Which left them exiles of the hollow rock,
Where were they? O'er the sea for life they plied,
To seek from Heaven the shelter men denied.
Another course had been their choice--but where?
The wave which bore them still their foes would bear,
Who, disappointed of their former chase,
In search of Christian now renewed their race.
Eager with anger, their strong arms made way,
Like vultures baffled of their previous prey. 240
They gained upon them, all whose safety lay
In some bleak crag or deeply-hidden bay:
No further chance or choice remained; and right
For the first further rock which met their sight
They steered, to take their latest view of land,
And yield as victims, or die sword in hand;
Dismissed the natives and their shallop, who
Would still have battled for that scanty crew;
But Christian bade them seek their shore again,
Nor add a sacrifice which were in vain; 250
For what were simple bow and savage spear
Against the arms which must be wielded here?
XI.
They landed on a wild but narrow scene,
Where few but Nature's footsteps yet had been;
Prepared their arms, and with that gloomy eye,
Stern and sustained, of man's extremity,
When Hope is gone, nor Glory's self remains
To cheer resistance against death or chains.--
They stood, the three, as the three hundred stood
Who dyed Thermopylae with holy blood. 260
But, ah! how different! 'tis the _cause_ makes all,
Degrades or hallows courage in its fall.
O'er them no fame, eternal and intense,
Blazed through the clouds of Death and beckoned hence;
No grateful country, smiling through her tears,
Begun the praises of a thousand years;
No nation's eyes would on their tomb be bent,
No heroes envy them their monument;
However boldly their warm blood was spilt,
Their Life was shame, their Epitaph was guilt. 270
And this they knew and felt, at least the one,
The leader of the band he had undone;
Who, born perchance for better things, had set
His life upon a cast which lingered yet:
But now the die was to be thrown, and all
The chances were in favour of his fall:
And such a fall! But still he faced the shock,
Obdurate as a portion of the rock
Whereon he stood, and fixed his levelled gun,
Dark as a sullen cloud before the sun. 280
XII.
The boat drew nigh, well armed, and firm the crew
To act whatever Duty bade them do;
Careless of danger, as the onward wind
Is of the leaves it strews, nor looks behind.
And, yet, perhaps, they rather wished to go
Against a nation's than a native foe,
And felt that this poor victim of self-will,
Briton no more, had once been Britain's still.
They hailed him to surrender--no reply;
Their arms were poised, and glittered in the sky. 290
They hailed again--no answer; yet once more
They offered quarter louder than before.
The echoes only, from the rock's rebound,
Took their last farewell of the dying sound.
Then flashed the flint, and blazed the volleying flame,
And the smoke rose between them and their aim,
While the rock rattled with the bullets' knell,
Which pealed in vain, and flattened as they fell;
Then flew the only answer to be given
By those who had lost all hope in earth or heaven. 300
After the first fierce peal as they pulled nigher,
They heard the voice of Christian shout, "Now, fire!"
And ere the word upon the echo died,
Two fell; the rest assailed the rock's rough side,
And, furious at the madness of their foes,
Disdained all further efforts, save to close.
But steep the crag, and all without a path,
Each step opposed a bastion to their wrath,
While, placed 'midst clefts the least accessible,
Which Christian's eye was trained to mark full well, 310
The three maintained a strife which must not yield,
In spots where eagles might have chosen to build.
Their every shot told; while the assailant fell,
Dashed on the shingles like the limpet shell;
But still enough survived, and mounted still,
Scattering their numbers here and there, until
Surrounded and commanded, though not nigh
Enough for seizure, near enough to die,
The desperate trio held aloof their fate
But by a thread, like sharks who have gorged the bait; 320
Yet to the very last they battled well,
And not a groan informed their foes _who_ fell.
Christian died last--twice wounded; and once more
Mercy was offered when they saw his gore;
Too late for life, but not too late to die,[ft]
With, though a hostile hand, to close his eye.
A limb was broken, and he drooped along
The crag, as doth a falcon reft of young.[fu]
The sound revived him, or appeared to wake
Some passion which a weakly gesture spake: 330
He beckoned to the foremost, who drew nigh,
But, as they neared, he reared his weapon high--
His last ball had been aimed, but from his breast
He tore the topmost button from his vest,[408][fv]
Down the tube dashed it--levelled--fired, and smiled
As his foe fell; then, like a serpent, coiled
His wounded, weary form, to where the steep
Looked desperate as himself along the deep;
Cast one glance back, and clenched his hand, and shook
His last rage 'gainst the earth which he forsook; 340
Then plunged: the rock below received like glass
His body crushed into one gory mass,
With scarce a shred to tell of human form,
Or fragment for the sea-bird or the worm;
A fair-haired scalp, besmeared with blood and weeds,
Yet reeked, the remnant of himself and deeds;
Some splinters of his weapons (to the last,
As long as hand could hold, he held them fast)
Yet glittered, but at distance--hurled away
To rust beneath the dew and dashing spray. 350
The rest was nothing--save a life mis-spent,
And soul--but who shall answer where it went?
'Tis ours to bear, not judge the dead; and they
Who doom to Hell, themselves are on the way,
Unless these bullies of eternal pains
Are pardoned their bad hearts for their worse brains.
XIII.
The deed was over! All were gone or ta'en,
The fugitive, the captive, or the slain.
Chained on the deck, where once, a gallant crew,
They stood with honour, were the wretched few 360
Survivors of the skirmish on the isle;
But the last rock left no surviving spoil.
Cold lay they where they fell, and weltering,
While o'er them flapped the sea-birds' dewy wing,
Now wheeling nearer from the neighbouring surge,
And screaming high their harsh and hungry dirge:
But calm and careless heaved the wave below,
Eternal with unsympathetic flow;
Far o'er its face the Dolphins sported on,
And sprung the flying fish against the sun, 370
Till its dried wing relapsed from its brief height,
To gather moisture for another flight.
XIV.
'Twas morn; and Neuha, who by dawn of day
Swam smoothly forth to catch the rising ray,
And watch if aught approached the amphibious lair
Where lay her lover, saw a sail in air:
It flapped, it filled, and to the growing gale
Bent its broad arch: her breath began to fail
With fluttering fear, her heart beat thick and high,
While yet a doubt sprung where its course might lie. 380
But no! it came not; fast and far away
The shadow lessened as it cleared the bay.
She gazed, and flung the sea-foam from her eyes,
To watch as for a rainbow in the skies.
On the horizon verged the distant deck,
Diminished, dwindled to a very speck--
Then vanished. All was Ocean, all was Joy!
Down plunged she through the cave to rouse her boy;
Told all she had seen, and all she hoped, and all
That happy love could augur or recall; 390
Sprung forth again, with Torquil following free
His bounding Nereid over the broad sea;
Swam round the rock, to where a shallow cleft
Hid the canoe that Neuha there had left
Drifting along the tide, without an oar,
That eve the strangers chased them from the shore;
But when these vanished, she pursued her prow,
Regained, and urged to where they found it now:
Nor ever did more love and joy embark,
Than now were wafted in that slender ark. 400
XV.
Again their own shore rises on the view,
No more polluted with a hostile hue;
No sullen ship lay bristling o'er the foam,
A floating dungeon:--all was Hope and Home!
A thousand Proas darted o'er the bay,
With sounding shells, and heralded their way;
The chiefs came down, around the people poured,
And welcomed Torquil as a son restored;
The women thronged, embracing and embraced
By Neuha, asking where they had been chased, 410
And how escaped? The tale was told; and then
One acclamation rent the sky again;
And from that hour a new tradition gave
Their sanctuary the name of "Neuha's Cave."
A hundred fires, far flickering from the height,[fw]
Blazed o'er the general revel of the night,
The feast in honour of the guest, returned
To Peace and Pleasure, perilously earned;
A night succeeded by such happy days
As only the yet infant world displays.[fx] 420
J. 10^th^ 1823.
FOOTNOTES:
[ex] {587} ----_and made before the breeze her way_.--[MS. D. erased.]
[ey] ----_their doubtful shimmer from the deep_.--[MS. D. erased]
[352] [William Bligh, the son of Cornish parents, was born September 9
1754 (? 1753). He served under Cook in his second voyage in the
_Resolution_, 1772-75, as sailing-master; and, in 1782, fought under
Lord Howe at Gibraltar. He married a daughter of William Betham, first
collector of customs in the Isle of Man, and hence his connection with
Fletcher Christian, who belonged to a Manx family, and the midshipman
Peter Hayward, who was the son of a Deemster. He was appointed to the
_Bounty_ in December, 1787, and in 1791 to the _Providence_, which was
despatched to the Society Islands to obtain a fresh cargo of bread-fruit
trees in place of those which were thrown overboard by the mutineers. He
commanded the _Glatton_ at Copenhagen, May 21, 1801, and on that and
other occasions served with distinction. He was made Governor of New
South Wales in 1805, but was forcibly deposed in an insurrection headed
by Major Johnston, January, 1808. He was kept in prison till 1810, but
on his return to England his administration of his office was approved,
and Johnston was cashiered. He was advanced to the rank of Vice-Admiral
of the Blue in 1814, and died, December 7, 1817.
In his _Narrative_ Bligh describes the mutiny as "a close-planned act of
villainy," and attributes the conspiracy not to his own harshness, or to
disloyalty provoked by "real or imaginary grievances," but to the
contrast of life on board ship, "in ever climbing up the climbing wave,"
with the unearned luxuries of Tahiti, "the allurements of dissipation
... the female connections," which the sailors had left behind. Besides
his own apology, there are the sworn statements of the two midshipmen,
Hayward and Hallet, and others, which Bligh published in answer to a
pamphlet which Edward Christian, afterwards Chief Justice of Ely, wrote
in defence of his brother Fletcher. The evidence against Bligh is
contained in the MS. journal of the boatswain's mate, James Morrison,
which was saved, as by a miracle, from the wreck of the _Pandora_, and
is quoted by Sir John Barrow, Lady Belcher, and other authorities. There
is, too, the testimony of John Adams (Alexander Smith), as recorded by
Captain Beachey, and, as additional proof of indifference and tyrannical
behaviour, there are Bligh's own letters to Peter Hayward's mother and
uncle (March 26, April 2, 1790), and W. C. Wentworth's account of his
administration as Governor of New South Wales (see _A Statistical
Description_, etc., 1819, p. 166). It cannot be gainsaid that Bligh was
a man of integrity and worth, and that he was upheld and esteemed by the
Admiralty. Morrison's Journal, though in parts corroborated by Bligh's
MS. Journal, is not altogether convincing, and the testimony of John
Adams in his old age counts for little. But according to his own
supporters he "damned" his men though not the officers, and his own
_Narrative_, as well as Morrison's Journal, proves that he was
suspicious, and that he underrated and misunderstood the character and
worth of his subordinates. He was responsible for the prolonged sojourn
at Tahiti, and he should have remembered that time and distance are
powerful solvents, and that between Portsmouth Hard and the untracked
waters of the Pacific, "all Arcadia" had intervened. He was a man of
imperfect sympathies, wanting in tact and fineness, but in the hour of
need he behaved like a hero, and saved himself and others by submission
to duty and strenuous self-control. Moreover, he "helped England" not
once or twice, "in the brave days of old." (See _A_ _Narrative, etc._,
1790; _The Naval History of Great Britain_, by E. P. Brenton, 1823, i.
96, _sq._; _Royal Naval Biography_, by John Marshall, 1823-35, ii. pp.
747, _sq._; _Mutineers of the Bounty_, by Lady Belcher, 1870, p. 8;
_Dictionary of National Biography_, art. "Bligh.")]
[353] {589}["A few hours before, my situation had been peculiarly
flattering. I had a ship in the most perfect order, and well stored with
every necessary, both for service and health; ... the voyage was two
thirds completed, and the remaining part in a very promising way."--_A
Narrative of the Mutiny, etc._, by Lieut. W. Bligh, 1790, p. 9.]
[354] ["The women at Otaheite are handsome, mild, and cheerful in their
manners and conversation, possessed of great sensibility, and have
sufficient delicacy to make them admired and beloved. The chiefs were so
much attached to our people, that they rather encouraged their stay
among them than otherwise, and even made them promises of large
possessions. Under these and many other attendant circumstances equally
desirable, it is now, perhaps, not so much to be wondered at ... that a
set of sailors, most of them void of connections, should be led away,
especially when they imagined it in their power to fix themselves, in
the midst of plenty, ... on the finest island in the world, where they
need not labour, and where the allurements of dissipation are beyond
anything that can be conceived,"--_Ibid._, p. 10.]
[ez] _And all enjoy the exuberance of the wild_.--[MS. D. erased.]
[fa] {590} _Their formidable fleet the quick canoe_.--[MS. D. erased.]
[355] {591}["Just before sunrising Mr. Christian, with the
master-at-arms, gunner's mate, and Thomas Burkitt, seaman, came into my
cabin while I was asleep, and, seizing me, tied my hands with a cord
behind my back, and threatened me with instant death if I spoke or made
the least noise. I, however, called out so loud as to alarm every one;
but they had already secured the officers who were not of their party,
by placing sentinels at their doors. There were three men at my cabin
door, besides the four within; Christian had only a cutlass in his hand,
the others had muskets and bayonets. I was hauled out of bed, and forced
on deck in my shirt, suffering great pain from the tightness with which
they had tied my hands.... The boatswain was now ordered to hoist the
launch out. The boat being hoisted out, Mr. Hayward and Mr. Hallet,
midshipmen, were ordered into it; upon which I demanded the cause of
such an order, and endeavoured to persuade some one to a sense of duty;
but it was to no effect: 'Hold your tongue, sir, or you are dead this
instant,' was constantly repeated to me."--_A Narrative of the Mutiny,
etc._, by Lieut. W. Bligh, 1790, pp. 1, 2.]
[356] ["The boatswain, and seamen who were to go in the boat, were
allowed to collect twine, canvass, lines, sails, cordage, an
eight-and-twenty-gallon cask of water, and the carpenter to take his
tool-chest. Mr. Samuel got one hundred and fifty pounds of bread with a
small quantity of rum and wine ... also a quadrant and
compass."--_Ibid._, p. 3.]
[357] {592}["The mutineers now hurried those they meant to get rid of
into the boat, ... Christian directed a dram to be served to each of his
own crew."--_A Narrative, etc._, 1790, p. 3.]
[fb]
_And lull it in his followers--"Ho! the dram"_
_Rebellions sacrament, and paschal lamb_.
(_A broken metaphor of flesh for wine_
_But Catholics know the exchange is none of mine_.--[MS. D. erased.]
_And raise it in his followers--Ho! the bowl_
_That sure Nepenthe for the wavering_ [_soul_].--[MS. D. erased.]
[358] [It was Johnson, not Burke, who upheld the claims of brandy.--"He
was persuaded," says Boswell, "to drink one glass of it [claret]. He
shook his head, and said, 'Poor stuff!--No, Sir, claret is the liquor
for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero (smiling) must
drink brandy.'"--Boswell's _Life of Johnson_, 1848, p. 627.]
[359] ["While the ship ... was in sight she steered to the W.N.W., but I
considered this only a feint; for when we were sent away, 'Huzza for
Otaheite!' was frequently heard among the mutineers."--_A Narrative,
etc._, 1790, pp. 4-8. This statement is questioned by Sir John Barrow
(_The Eventful History, etc._, 1831, p. 91), on the grounds that the
mutiny was the result of a sudden determination on the part of
Christian, and that liberty, and not the delights of Tahiti, was the
object which the mutineers had in view.]
[360] {593}[A variant of Pope's lines--
"For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight,
His can't be wrong, whose life is in the right."
_Essay on Man_, iii. 305, 306.]
[361] ["Isaac Martin, one of the guard over me, I saw, had an
inclination to assist me; and as he fed me with shaddock (my lips being
quite parched with my endeavours to bring about a change), we explained
our wishes to each other by our looks; but this being observed, Martin
was instantly removed from me."--_A Narrative, etc._, 1790, p. 4.]
[362] {594}["Christian ... then ... said, 'Come, Captain Bligh, your
officers and men are now in the boat; and you must go with them; if you
attempt to make the least resistance you will instantly be put to
death;' and without any farther ceremony, holding me by the cord that
tied my hands, with a tribe of armed ruffians about me, I was forced
over the side, where they untied my hands. Being in the boat, we were
veered astern by a rope. A few pieces of pork were thrown to me and some
clothes.... After having undergone a great deal of ridicule, and being
kept for some time to make sport for these unfeeling wretches, we were
at length cast adrift in the open ocean.... When they were forcing me
out of the ship, I asked him [Christian] if this treatment was a proper
return for the many instances he had received of my friendship? He
appeared disturbed at the question, and answered, with much emotion,
'That,--Captain Bligh,--that is the thing;--I am in hell--I am in
hell.'"--_A Narrative, etc._, 1790, pp. 4-8.
Bligh's testimony on this point does not correspond with Morrison's
journal, or with the evidence of the master, John Fryer, given at the
court-martial, September 12, 1792. According to Morrison, when the
boatswain tried to pacify Christian, he replied, "It is too late, I have
been in hell for this fortnight past, and am determined to bear it no
longer." The master's version is that he appealed to Christian, and that
Christian exclaimed, "Hold your tongue, sir, I have been in hell for
weeks past; Captain Bligh has brought all this on himself." Bligh seems
to have flattered himself that in the act of mutiny Christian was seized
with remorse, but it is clear that the wish was father to the thought.
Moreover, on being questioned, Fryer, who was a supporter of the
captain, explained that Christian referred to quarrels, to abuse in
general, and more particularly to a recent accusation of stealing
cocoa-nuts. (See _The Eventful History_, etc., 1831, pp. 84, 208, 209.)]
[363] {595}[Byron must mean "antarctic." "Arctic" is used figuratively
for "cold," but not as a synonym for "polar."]
[fc] _Now swelled now sighed along_----.--[MS. D. erased.]
[364] ["At dawn of day some of my people seemed half dead; our
appearances were horrible; and I could look no way, but I caught the eye
of some one in distress."--_A Narrative, etc._, p. 37. Later on, p. 80,
when the launch reached Timor, he speaks of the crew as "so many
spectres, whose ghastly countenances, if the cause had been unknown,
would have excited terror rather than pity."]
[365] [Bligh dwells on the misery caused to the luckless crew by
drenching rains and by hunger, but says that no one suffered from
thirst.]
[fd] {596} _Nor yet unpitied. Vengeance had her own_.--[MS. D. erased.]
[fe] ----_the undisputed root_.--[MS. D. erased.]
[366] The now celebrated bread fruit, to transplant which Captain
Bligh's expedition was undertaken.
[The bread-fruit (_Autocarpus incisa_) was discovered by Dampier, in
1688. "Cook says that its taste is insipid, with a slight sweetness,
somewhat resembling that of the crumb of wheaten bread mixed with a
Jerusalem artichoke."--_The Eventful History, etc._, 1831, p. 43.]
[367] [See _Letters from Mr. Fletcher Christian_ (_pseud_.),
1796, pp. 48, 49.]
[ff] _Thus Argo plunged into the Euxine's foam_.--[MS. D, erased.]
[368] {598} The first three sections are taken from an actual song of
the Tonga Islanders, of which a prose translation is given in "Mariner's
Account of the Tonga Islands." Toobonai is _not_ however one of them;
but was one of those where Christian and the mutineers took refuge. I
have altered and added, but have retained as much as possible of the
original.
["Whilst we were talking of _Vavaoo tooa Lico_, the women said to us,
'Let us repair to the back of the island to contemplate the setting sun:
there let us listen to the warbling of the birds, and the cooing of the
wood-pigeon. We will gather flowers from the burying-place at _Matawto_,
and partake of refreshments prepared for us at _Lico O'n[)e]_: we will
then bathe in the sea, and rinse ourselves in the _Vaoo A'ca_; we will
anoint our skins in the sun with sweet-scented oil, and will plait in
wreaths the flowers gathered at _Matawto_.' And now as we stand
motionless on the eminence over _Anoo Manoo_, the whistling of the wind
among the branches of the lofty _toa_ shall fill us with a pleasing
melancholy; or our minds shall be seized with astonishment as we behold
the roaring surf below, endeavouring but in vain to tear away the firm
rocks. Oh! how much happier shall we be thus employed, than when engaged
in the troublesome and insipid cares of life!
"Now as night comes on, we must return to the _Mooa_. But hark!--hear
you not the sound of the mats?--they are practising a _bo-oola_ ['a kind
of dance performed by torch-light'], to be performed to-night on the
_malai_, at _Tanea_. Let us also go there. How will that scene of
rejoicing call to our minds the many festivals held there, before
_Vavdoo_ was torn to pieces by war! Alas! how destructive is war!
Behold! how it has rendered the land productive of weeds, and opened
untimely graves for departed heroes! Our chiefs can now no longer enjoy
the sweet pleasure of wandering alone by moonlight in search of their
mistresses. But let us banish sorrow from our hearts: since we are at
war, we must think and act like the natives of _Fiji_, who first taught
us this destructive art. Let us therefore enjoy the present time, for
to-morrow perhaps, or the next day, we may die. We will dress ourselves
with _chi coola_, and put bands of white _tappa_ round our waists. We
will plait thick wreaths of _jiale_ for our heads, and prepare strings
of _hooni_ for our necks, that their whiteness may show off the colour
of our skins. Mark how the uncultivated spectators are profuse of their
applause! But now the dance is over: let us remain here to-night and
feast and be cheerful, and to-morrow we will depart for the Mooa. How
troublesome are the young men, begging for our wreaths of flowers! while
they say in their flattery, 'See how charming these young girls look
coming from _Licoo_!--how beautiful are their skins, diffusing around a
fragrance like the flowering precipice of _Mataloco_:--Let us also visit
_Licoo_. We will depart to-morrow.'"--_An Account of the Natives of the
Tonga Islands, etc._, 1817, i. 307, 308. See, too, for another version,
ed. 1827, vol. ii. Appendix, p. xl.]
[369] {599}[Bolotoo is a visionary island to the north westward, the
home of the Gods. The souls of chieftains, priests, and, possibly, the
gentry, ascend to Bolotoo after death; but the souls of the lower
classes "come to dust" with their bodies.--_An Account, etc._, 1817, ii.
104, 105.]
[370] [The toa, or drooping casuarina (_C. equisetifolia_). "Formerly
the toa was regarded as sacred, and planted in groves round the 'Morais'
of Tahiti."--_Polynesia_, by G. F. Angas, 1866, p. 44.]
[371] {600}[The capital town of an island.]
[372] ["The preparation of _gnatoo_, or _tappa_-cloth, from the inner
bark of the paper mulberry tree, occupies much of the time of the Tongan
women. The bark, after being soaked in water, is beaten out by means of
wooden mallets, which are grooved longitudinally.... Early in the
morning," says Mariner, "when the air is calm and still, the beating of
the _gnatoo_ at all the plantations about has a very pleasing effect;
some sounds being near at hand, and others almost lost by the distance,
some a little more acute, others more grave, and all with remarkable
regularity, produce a musical variety that is ... heightened by the
singing of the birds, and the cheerful influence of the
scene."--_Polynesia_, 1846, pp. 249, 250.]
[373] [Marly, or Malai, is an open grass plat set apart for public
ceremonies.]
[fg]
_Ere Fiji's children blew the shell of war_
_And armed Canoes brought Fury from afar_.--[MS. D. erased.]
[fh] _Too long forgotten in the pleasure ground_.--[MS. D. erased.]
[374] [Cava, "kava," or "ava," is an intoxicating drink, prepared from
the roots and stems of a kind of pepper (_Piper methysticum_). Mariner
(_An Account, etc._, 1817, ii. 183-206) gives a highly interesting and
suggestive account of the process of brewing the kava, and of the solemn
"kava-drinking," which was attended with ceremonial rites. Briefly, a
large wooden bowl, about three feet in diameter, and one foot in depth
in the centre (see, for a typical specimen, King Thakombau's kava-bowl,
in the British Museum), is placed in front of the king or chief, who
sits in the midst, surrounded by his guests and courtiers. A portion of
kava root is handed to each person present, who chews it to a pulp, and
then deposits his quid in the kava bowl. Water being gradually added,
the roots are well squeezed and twisted by various "curvilinear turns"
of the hands and arms through the "fow," _i.e._ shavings of fibrous
bark. When the "kava is in the cup," quaighs made of the "unexpanded
leaf of the banana" are handed round to the guests, and the symposium
begins. Mariner (_ibid._, p. 205, note) records a striking feature of
the preliminary rites, a consecration or symbolic "grace before"
drinking. "When a god has no priest, as Tali-y-Toobo [the Supreme Deity
of the Tongans], no person ... presides at the head of his cava circle,
the place being left ... vacant, but which it is supposed the god
invisibly occupies.... And they go through the usual form of words, as
if the first cup was actually filled and presented to the god: thus,
before any cup is filled, the man by the side of the bowl says ... 'The
cava is in the cup:' the mataboole answers ... 'Give it to our god:' but
this is mere form, for there is no cup filled for the god." (See, too,
_The Making of Religion_, by A. Lang, 1900, p. 279.)]
[375] {601}[The gnatoo, which is a piece of tappa cloth, is worn in
different ways. "Twenty yards of fine cloth are required by a Tahitian
woman to make one dress, which is worn from the waist
downwards."--_Polynesia_, 1866, p. 45.]
[376] [_Licoo_ is the name given to the back of or unfrequented part of
any island.]
[fi]
_How beauteous are their skins, how softly all_
_The forms of Beauty wrap them like a pall_.--[MS. D. erased.]
[fj] {602} _Glares with his mountain eye_--.--[MS. D. erased.]
[377] [The _Morning Chronicle_, November 6, 1822, prints the following
proclamation of Jose Maria Carreno, Commandant-General of Panama:
"Inhabitants of the Isthmus! The Genius of History, which has everywhere
crowned our arms, announces peace to Colombia.... From the banks of
Orinoco to the towering summits of Chimborazo not a single enemy exists,
and those who proudly marched towards the abode of the ancient children
of the Sun have either perished or remain prisoners expecting our
clemency."]
[378] [Compare "a wise man's sentiment," as quoted by Andrew Fletcher of
Saltoun: "He believed if a man were permitted to make all the Ballads,
he need not care who should make the Laws."--_An Account of a
Conversation, etc._, 1704, p. 10.]
[fk] {603} _Than all the records History's annals rear_.--[MS. D.
erased.]
[379] [Jean Francois Champollion (1790-1832), at a meeting of the
_Academie des inscriptions_, at Paris, September 17, 1822, announced the
discovery of the alphabet of hieroglyphics.]
[380] [So, too, Shelley, in his Preface to the _Revolt of Islam_, speaks
of "that more essential attribute of Poetry, the power of awakening in
others sensations like those which animate my own bosom."]
[fl] {604}
_And she herself the daughter of the Seas_
_As full of gems and energy as these_.--[MS. D. erased.]
[381] {605}[George Stewart was born at Ronaldshay (circ. 1764), but was
living at Stromness in 1780 (where his father's house, "The White
House," is still shown), when, on the homeward voyage of the Resolution,
Cook and Bligh were hospitably entertained by his parents. He was of
honourable descent. His mother's ancestors were sprung from a
half-brother of Mary Stuart's, and his father's family dated back to
1400. When he was at Timor, Bligh gave a "description of the pirates"
for purposes of identification by the authorities at Calcutta and
elsewhere. "George Stewart, midshipman, aged 23 years, is five feet
seven inches high, good complexion, dark hair, slender made ... small
face, and black eyes; tatowed on the left breast with a star," etc.
Lieutenant Bligh took Stewart with him, partly in return for the
"civilities" at Stromness, but also because "he was a seaman, and had
always borne a good character." Alexander Smith told Captain Beachey
(_Narrative of a Voyage to the Pacific_, 1831, Part I. p. 53) that it
was Stewart who advised Christian "to take possession of the ship," but
Peter Hayward, who survived to old age, strenuously maintained that this
was a calumny, that Stewart was forcibly detained in his cabin, and that
he would not, in any case, have taken part in the mutiny. He had,
perhaps, already wooed and won a daughter of the isles, and when the
_Bounty_ revisited Tahiti, September 20, 1789, he was put ashore, and
took up his quarters in her father's house. There he remained till
March, 1791, when he "voluntarily surrendered himself" to the captain of
the _Pandora_, and was immediately put in irons. The story of his
parting from his bride is told in _A Missionary Voyage to the Southern
Pacific Ocean in the Ship Duff_ (by W. Wilson), 1799, p. 360: "The
history of Peggy Stewart marks a tenderness of heart that never will be
heard without emotion.... They had lived with the old chief in the most
tender state of endearment; a beautiful little girl had been the fruit
of their union, and was at the breast when the Pandora arrived....
Frantic with grief, the unhappy Peggy ... flew with her infant in a
canoe to the arms of her husband. She was separated from him by
violence, and conveyed on shore in a state of despair and grief too big
for utterance ... she sank into the deepest dejection, pined under a
rapid decay ... and fell a victim to her feelings, dying literally of a
broken heart." Stewart was drowned or killed by an accident during the
wreck of the _Pandora_, August 29, 1791. _Sunt lacrymae rerum!_ It is a
mournful tale.]
[382] {606} The "ship of the desert" is the Oriental figure for the
camel or dromedary; and they deserve the metaphor well,--the former for
his endurance, the latter for his swiftness. [Compare _The Deformed
Transformed_, Part I. sc. i, line 117.]
[383] [Compare _The Age of Bronze_, lines 271-279.]
[384]
"Lucullus, when frugality could charm.
Had roasted turnips in the Sabine farm."
POPE [_Moral Essays_, i. 218, 219.]
[385] The consul Nero, who made the unequalled march which deceived
Hannibal, and defeated Asdrubal; thereby accomplishing an achievement
almost unrivalled in military annals. The first intelligence of his
return, to Hannibal, was the sight of Asdrubal's head thrown into his
camp. When Hannibal saw this, he exclaimed with a sigh, that "Rome would
now be the mistress of the world." And yet to this victory of Nero's it
might be owing that his imperial namesake reigned at all. But the infamy
of one has eclipsed the glory of the other. When the name of "Nero" is
heard, who thinks of the consul?--But such are human things! [For
Hannibal's cry of despair, "Agnoscere se fortunam Carthaginis!" see
Livy, lib. xxvii. cap. li. _s.f._]
[fm] _Tyrant or hero--patriot or a chief_.--[MS. erased.]
[386] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto II. stanza v. line i, see
_Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 102, and 99, note 1.]
[387] {609}[Toobo Neuha is the name of a Tongan chieftain. See Mariner's
_Account, etc._, 1817, 141, _sq._]
[388] When very young, about eight years of age, after an attack of the
scarlet fever at Aberdeen, I was removed by medical advice into the
Highlands. Here I passed occasionally some summers, and from this period
I date my love of mountainous countries. I can never forget the effect,
a few years afterwards, in England, of the only thing I had long seen,
even in miniature, of a mountain, in the Malvern Hills. After I returned
to Cheltenham, I used to watch them every afternoon, at sunset, with a
sensation which I cannot describe. This was boyish enough: but I was
then only thirteen years of age, and it was in the holidays. [Byron
spent his summer holidays, 1796-98, at the farm-house of Ballatrich, on
Deeside. (See _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 192, note 2. For his visit to
Cheltenham, in the summer of 1801, see _Life_, pp. 8, 19.)
[389] {610}[For the eagle's beak, see _Childe Harold_, Canto III. stanza
xviii. line 6, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 226, note 1.]
[390] {611}[Compare _Macbeth_, act ii. sc. 4, line 13.]
[391] [Compare--"The never-merry clock," _Werner_, act iii. sc. 3, line
3.]
[fn] _Which knolls the knell of moments out of man_.--[MS. D. erased.]
[392] {612} The now well-known story of the loves of the nightingale and
rose need not be more than alluded to, being sufficiently familiar to
the Western as to the Eastern reader. [Compare _Werner_, act iv. sc. 1,
lines 380-382; and _The Giaour_, lines 21, 33.]
[fo] _Which kindled by another's_--.--[MS. D.]
[393] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto III. stanzas lxxii., lxxv. Once
again the language and the sentiment recall Wordsworth's _Tintern
Abbey_. (See _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 261, note 2.)]
[394] {613} If the reader will apply to his ear the sea-shell on his
chimney-piece, he will be aware of what is alluded to. If the text
should appear obscure, he will find in _Gebir_ the same idea better
expressed in two lines. The poem I never read, but have heard the lines
quoted, by a more recondite reader--who seems to be of a different
opinion from the editor of the _Quarterly Review_, who qualified it in
his answer to the Critical Reviewer of his _Juvenal_, as trash of the
worst and most insane description. It is to Mr. Landor, the author of
_Gebir_, so qualified, and of some Latin poems, which vie with Martial
or Catullus in obscenity, that the immaculate Mr. Southey addresses his
declamation against impurity!
[These are the lines in _Gebir_ to which Byron alludes--
"But I have sinuous shells of pearly hue.
* * * * *
Shake one and it awakens; then apply
Its polisht lips to your attentive ear,
And it remembers its august abodes,
And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there."
Compare, too, _The Excursion_, bk. iv.--
"I have seen
A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract
Of inland ground, applying to his ear
The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell,
To which, in silence hushed, his very soul
Listened intently," etc.
Landor, in his _Satire upon Satirists_, 1836, p. 29, commenting on
Wordsworth's alleged remark that he "would not give five shillings for
all the poetry that Southey had written" (see _Letters_, 1900, iv.
Appendix IX. pp. 483, 484), calls attention to this unacknowledged
borrowing, "It would have been honester," he says, "and more decorous if
the writer of the following verses had mentioned from what bar he drew
his wire." According to H. C. Robinson (_Diary_, 1869, iii. 114),
Wordsworth acknowledged no obligation to Landor's _Gebir_ for the image
of the sea-shell. "From his childhood the shell was familiar to him,
etc. The 'Satire' seemed to give Wordsworth little annoyance."]
[395] {615}[In his Preface to Cantos I., II. of _Childe Harold_
(_Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 5), Byron relies on the authority of
"Ariosto Thomson and Beattie" for the inclusion of droll or satirical
"variations" in a serious poem. Nevertheless, Dallas prevailed on him to
omit certain "ludicrous stanzas." It is to be regretted that no one
suggested the excision of sections xix.-xxi. from the second canto of
The Island.]
[396] Hobbes, the father of Locke's and other philosophy, was an
inveterate smoker,--even to pipes beyond computation.
["Soon after dinner he [Hobbes] retired to his study, and had his
candle, with ten or twelve pipes of tobacco laid by him; then, shutting
his door, he fell to smoking, and thinking, and writing for several
hours."--_Memoirs of the Family of Cavendish_, by White Kennet, D.D.,
1708, pp. 14, 15.]
[fp] _Yet they who love thee best prefer by far_.--[MS. D. erased.]
[397] ["I shall now smoke two cigars, and get me to bed.... The Havannah
are the best;--but neither are so pleasant as a hooka or
chiboque."--_Journal_, December 6, 1813, _Letters_, 1898, ii. 368.]
[398] {616} This rough but jovial ceremony, used in crossing the line,
has been so often and so well described, that it need not be more than
alluded to.
[399] {617} "That will do for the marines, but the sailors won't believe
it," is an old saying: and one of the few fragments of former jealousies
which still survive (in jest only) between these gallant services.
[400] {619} Archidamus, King of Sparta, and son of Agesilaus, when he
saw a machine invented for the casting of stones and darts, exclaimed
that it was the "grave of valour." The same story has been told of some
knights on the first application of gunpowder; but the original anecdote
is in Plutarch. [The Greek is "[Greek: A)po/lolen, a)ndro\s a)reta/],"
Plutarch's _Scripta Moralia_, 1839, i. 230.]
[fq] {621} _To people in a small embarrassment_.--[MS. D. erased.]
[401] {622} [Fletcher Christian, born 1763, was the fourth son of
Charles Christian, an attorney, of Moreland Close, in the parish of
Brigham, Cumberland. His family, which was of Manx extraction, was
connected with the Christians of Ewanrigg, and the Curwens of Workington
Hall. His brother Edward became Chief Justice of Ely, and was well known
as the editor of _Blackstones Commentaries_. For purposes of
verification (see _An Answer to certain Assertions, etc._, 1794, p. 9),
Bligh described him as "aged 24 years, five feet nine inches high,
blackish or very dark brown complexioned, dark brown hair, strong made,
star tatowed on the left breast," etc. According to "Morrison's
Journal," high words had passed between Bligh and Christian on more than
one occasion, and, on the day before the mutiny, a question having
arisen with regard to the disappearance of some cocoa-nuts, Christian
was cross-examined by the captain as to his share of the plunder. "I
really do not know, sir," he replied; "but I hope you do not think me so
mean as to be guilty of stealing yours." "Yes," said Bligh,
"you ---- hound, I do think so, or you could have given a better account
of them." It was after this offensive accusation that Christian
determined, in the first instance, to quit the ship, and on the morning
of April 28, 1788, finding the mate of the watch asleep, on the spur of
the moment resolved to lay violent hands on the captain, and assume the
command of the _Bounty_. The language attributed to Bligh reads like a
translation into the vernacular, but if Christian kept his designs to
himself, it is strange that they were immediately understood and acted
upon by a body of impromptu conspirators. Testimony, whether written or
spoken, with regard to the succession of events "in moments like to
these," is worth very little; but it is pretty evident that Christian
was a gentleman, and that Bligh's violent and unmannerly ratings were
the immediate cause of the mutiny.
Contradictory accounts are given of Christian's death. It is generally
believed that in the fourth year of the settlement on Pitcairn Island
the Tahitians formed a plot to massacre the Englishmen, and that
Christian was shot when at work in his plantation (_The Mutineers,
etc._, by Lady Belcher, 1870, p. 163; _The Mutiny, etc._, by Rosalind A.
Young, 1894, p. 28). On the other hand, Amasa Delano, in his _Narrative
of Voyages, etc._ (Boston, 1817, cap. v. p. 140), asserts that Captain
Mayhew Folger, who was the first to visit the island in 1808, "was very
explicit in his inquiry at the time, as well as in his account of it to
me, that they lived under Christian's government several years after
they landed; that during the whole time they enjoyed tolerable harmony;
that Christian became sick, and died a natural death." It stands to
reason that the ex-pirate, Alexander Smith, who had developed into John
Adams, the pious founder of a patriarchal colony, would be anxious to
draw a veil over the early years of the settlement, and would satisfy
the curiosity of visitors who were officers of the Royal Navy, as best
he could, and as the spirit moved him.]
[fr] {625} _The ruined remnant of the land's defeat_.--[MS. D. erased.]
[402] {626}[Compare _The Siege of Corinth_, lines 438, 439, Poetical
Works, 1900, iii. 467.]
[403] {629} Of this cave (which is no fiction) the original will be
found in the ninth chapter of "Mariner's Account of the Tonga Islands"
[1817, i. 267-279]. I have taken the poetical liberty to transplant it
to Toobonai, the last island where any distinct account is left of
Christian and his comrades.
[The following is the account given by Mariner: "On this island [Hoonga]
there is a peculiar cavern, which was first discovered by a young chief,
whilst diving after a turtle. The nature of this cavern will be better
understood if we imagine a hollow rock rising sixty feet or more above
the surface of the water, into the cavity of which there is no known
entrance but one, and that is on the side of the rock, as low down as
six feet under the water, into which it flows; and, consequently, the
base of the cavern may be said to be the sea itself." Mariner seeing
some young chiefs diving into the water one after another, and not rise
again, he inquired of the last, ... what they were about? "'Follow me,'"
said he, "'and I will take you where you have never been before....'"
Mariner prepared to follow his companion, and, guided by the light
reflected from his heels, entered the opening in the rock, and rose into
the cavern. The light was sufficient, after remaining about five
minutes, to show objects with some little distinctness; ...
Nevertheless, as it was desirable to have a stronger light, Mariner
dived out again, and, priming his pistol, tied plenty of gnatoo tight
round it, and wrapped the whole up in a plantain-leaf: he directed an
attendant to bring a torch in the same way. Thus prepared, he re-entered
the cavern, unwrapped the gnatoo, fired it by the flash of the powder,
and lighted the torch. "The place was now illuminated tolerably well....
It appeared (by guess) to be about forty feet wide in the main part, but
it branched off, on one side, in two narrower portions. The medium
height seemed also about forty feet. The roof was hung with stalactites
in a very curious way, resembling, upon a cursory view, the Gothic
arches and ornaments of an old church." According to one of the
matabooles present, the entire family of a certain chief had, in former
times, been condemned to death for conspiring against a rival
tyrant--the chief to be taken out to sea and drowned, the rest of the
family to be massacred. One of the chiefs daughters was a beautiful
girl, to whom the youth who discovered the cave was attached. "He had
long been enamoured of this young maiden, but had never dared to make
her acquainted with the soft emotions of his heart, knowing that she was
betrothed to a chief of higher rank and greater power, but now, ... no
time was to be lost; he flew to her abode ... declared himself her
deliverer if she would trust to his honour.... Soon her consenting hand
was clasped in his: the shades of evening favoured their escape ... till
her lover had brought a small canoe to a lonely part of the beach. In
this they speedily embarked.... They soon arrived at the rock, he leaped
into the water, and she, instructed by him, followed close after; they
rose into the cavern, and rested from their fatigue, partaking of some
refreshments which he had brought there for himself...." Here she
remained, visited from time to time by her more fortunate Leander, until
he was enabled to carry her off to the Fiji islands, where they dwelt
till the death of the tyrant, when they returned to Vavaoo, "and lived
long in peace and happiness."]
[404] {631} This may seem too minute for the general outline (in
Mariner's Account) from which it is taken. But few men have travelled
without seeing something of the kind--on _land_, that is. Without
adverting to Ellora, in Mungo Park's last journal, he mentions having
met with a rock or mountain so exactly resembling a Gothic cathedral,
that only minute inspection could convince him that it was a work of
nature.
[Ellora, a village in the Nizam's dominions, is thirteen miles
north-west of Aurangabad. "It is famous for its rock-caves and temples.
The chief building, called the kailas, ... is a great monolithic temple,
isolated from surrounding rock, and carved outside as well as in.... It
is said to have been built about the eighth century by Raja Edu of
Ellichpur."--Hunter's _Imperial Gazetteer of India_, 1885, iv. 348-351.
The passage in Mungo Park's _Journal of a Mission to the Interior of
Africa_, 1815, p. 75, runs thus: "June 24th [1805],--Left Sullo, and
travelled through a country beautiful beyond imagination, with all the
possible diversities of _rock_, sometimes towering up like ruined
castles, spires, pyramids, etc. We passed one place so like a ruined
Gothic abbey, that we halted a little, before we could satisfy ourselves
that the niches, windows, etc., were all natural rock."]
[405] [Byron's quadrisyllable was, probably, a poetic licence. There is,
however, an obsolete plural, _stalactitae_, to be found in the works of
John Woodward, M.D., _Fossils of England_, 1729, i. 155.]
[fs] {632} _Where Love and Torquil might lie safe from men_.--[MS. D.
erased.]
[406] {633} The reader will recollect the epigram of the Greek
anthology, or its translation into most of the modern languages--
"Whoe'er thou art, thy master see--
He was, or is, or is to be."
[Byron is quoting from memory an "Illustration" in the notes to
_Collections from the Greek Anthology_, by the Rev. Robert Bland, 1813,
p. 402--
"Whoe'er thou art, thy Lord and master see.
Thou wast my Slave, thou art, or thou shall be."
The couplet was written by George Granville, Lord Lansdowne (1667-1735),
as an _Inscription for a Figure representing the God of Love_. (See _The
Genuine Works, etc._, 1732, I. 129.)]
[407] {634} The tradition is attached to the story of Eloisa, that when
her body was lowered into the grave of Abelard (who had been buried
twenty years), he opened his arms to receive her.
[The story is told by Bayle, who quotes from a manuscript chronicle of
Tours, preserved in the notes of Andreas Quercetanus, affixed to the
_Historia Calamitatum Abaelardi_: "Eadem defuncta ad tumulam apertum
depertata, maritus ejus qui multis diebus ante eam defunctus fuerat,
elevatis brachiis eam recepit, et ita earn amplexatus brachia sua
strinxit."--See Petri Abelardi _Opera_, Paris, 1616, ii. 1195.]
[ft] {636} _Too late it might be still at least to die_.--[MS. D.
erased.]
[fu] {637} _The crag as droop a bird without her young_.--[MS. D.
erased.]
[408] In Thibault's account of Frederick the Second of Prussia, there is
a singular relation of a young Frenchman, who with his mistress appeared
to be of some rank. He enlisted and deserted at Schweidnitz; and after a
desperate resistance was retaken, having killed an officer, who
attempted to seize him after he was wounded, by the discharge of his
musket loaded with a _button_ of his uniform. Some circumstances on his
court-martial raised a great interest amongst his judges, who wished to
discover his real situation in life, which he offered to disclose, but
to the king only, to whom he requested permission to write. This was
refused, and Frederic was filled with the greatest indignation, from
baffled curiosity or some other motive, when he understood that his
request had been denied. [_Mes Souvenirs de vingt ans de sejour a
Berlin, ou Frederic Le Grand, etc._, Paris, 1804, iv. 145-150.]
[fv] _He tore a silver vest_----.--[MS. D. erased.]
[fw] {639} _Their hollow shrine_----.--[MS. D. erased.]
[fx]
_As only a yet infant_----.--[MS. D.]
{_As only an infantine World_----.
{_As only a yet unweaned World_----.--[Alternative readings. MS. D.]