Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Part 16

He who hath loved not, here would learn that lore, And make his heart a spirit: he who knows That tender mystery, will love the more, For this is Love's recess, where vain men's woes, And the world's waste, have driven him far from those, For 'tis his nature to advance or die; He stands not still, but or decays, or grows Into a boundless blessing, which may vie With the immortal lights, in its eternity!

CIV.

'Twas not for fiction chose Rousseau this spot, Peopling it with affections; but he found It was the scene which pa.s.sion must allot To the mind's purified beings; 'twas the ground Where early Love his Psyche's zone unbound, And hallowed it with loveliness: 'tis lone, And wonderful, and deep, and hath a sound, And sense, and sight of sweetness; here the Rhone Hath spread himself a couch, the Alps have reared a throne.

CV.

Lausanne! and Ferney! ye have been the abodes Of names which unto you bequeathed a name; Mortals, who sought and found, by dangerous roads, A path to perpetuity of fame: They were gigantic minds, and their steep aim Was, t.i.tan-like, on daring doubts to pile Thoughts which should call down thunder, and the flame Of Heaven, again a.s.sailed, if Heaven the while On man and man's research could deign do more than smile.

CVI.

The one was fire and fickleness, a child Most mutable in wishes, but in mind A wit as various,--gay, grave, sage, or wild,-- Historian, bard, philosopher combined: He multiplied himself among mankind, The Proteus of their talents: But his own Breathed most in ridicule,--which, as the wind, Blew where it listed, laying all things p.r.o.ne,-- Now to o'erthrow a fool, and now to shake a throne.

CVII.

The other, deep and slow, exhausting thought, And hiving wisdom with each studious year, In meditation dwelt, with learning wrought, And shaped his weapon with an edge severe, Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer; The lord of irony,--that master spell, Which stung his foes to wrath, which grew from fear, And doomed him to the zealot's ready h.e.l.l, Which answers to all doubts so eloquently well.

CVIII.

Yet, peace be with their ashes,--for by them, If merited, the penalty is paid; It is not ours to judge, far less condemn; The hour must come when such things shall be made Known unto all,--or hope and dread allayed By slumber on one pillow, in the dust, Which, thus much we are sure, must lie decayed; And when it shall revive, as is our trust, 'Twill be to be forgiven, or suffer what is just.

CIX.

But let me quit man's works, again to read His Maker's spread around me, and suspend This page, which from my reveries I feed, Until it seems prolonging without end.

The clouds above me to the white Alps tend, And I must pierce them, and survey whate'er May be permitted, as my steps I bend To their most great and growing region, where The earth to her embrace compels the powers of air.

CX.

Italia! too, Italia! looking on thee Full flashes on the soul the light of ages, Since the fierce Carthaginian almost won thee, To the last halo of the chiefs and sages Who glorify thy consecrated pages; Thou wert the throne and grave of empires; still, The fount at which the panting mind a.s.suages Her thirst of knowledge, quaffing there her fill, Flows from the eternal source of Rome's imperial hill.

CXI.

Thus far have I proceeded in a theme Renewed with no kind auspices:--to feel We are not what we have been, and to deem We are not what we should be, and to steel The heart against itself; and to conceal, With a proud caution, love or hate, or aught,-- Pa.s.sion or feeling, purpose, grief, or zeal,-- Which is the tyrant spirit of our thought, Is a stern task of soul:--No matter,--it is taught.

CXII.

And for these words, thus woven into song, It may be that they are a harmless wile,-- The colouring of the scenes which fleet along, Which I would seize, in pa.s.sing, to beguile My breast, or that of others, for a while.

Fame is the thirst of youth,--but I am not So young as to regard men's frown or smile As loss or guerdon of a glorious lot; I stood and stand alone,--remembered or forgot.

CXIII.

I have not loved the world, nor the world me; I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bowed To its idolatries a patient knee,-- Nor coined my cheek to smiles, nor cried aloud In worship of an echo; in the crowd They could not deem me one of such; I stood Among them, but not of them; in a shroud Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still could, Had I not filed my mind, which thus itself subdued.

CXIV.

I have not loved the world, nor the world me,-- But let us part fair foes; I do believe, Though I have found them not, that there may be Words which are things,--hopes which will not deceive, And virtues which are merciful, nor weave Snares for the falling: I would also deem O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve; That two, or one, are almost what they seem,-- That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream.

CXV.

My daughter! with thy name this song begun-- My daughter! with thy name this much shall end-- I see thee not, I hear thee not,--but none Can be so wrapt in thee; thou art the friend To whom the shadows of far years extend: Albeit my brow thou never shouldst behold, My voice shall with thy future visions blend, And reach into thy heart, when mine is cold,-- A token and a tone, even from thy father's mould.

CXVI.

To aid thy mind's development,--to watch Thy dawn of little joys,--to sit and see Almost thy very growth,--to view thee catch Knowledge of objects, wonders yet to thee!

To hold thee lightly on a gentle knee, And print on thy soft cheek a parent's kiss,-- This, it should seem, was not reserved for me Yet this was in my nature:--As it is, I know not what is there, yet something like to this.

CXVII.

Yet, though dull Hate as duty should be taught, I know that thou wilt love me; though my name Should be shut from thee, as a spell still fraught With desolation, and a broken claim: Though the grave closed between us,--'twere the same, I know that thou wilt love me: though to drain MY blood from out thy being were an aim, And an attainment,--all would be in vain,-- Still thou wouldst love me, still that more than life retain.

CXVIII.

The child of love,--though born in bitterness, And nurtured in convulsion. Of thy sire These were the elements, and thine no less.

As yet such are around thee; but thy fire Shall be more tempered, and thy hope far higher.

Sweet be thy cradled slumbers! O'er the sea, And from the mountains where I now respire, Fain would I waft such blessing upon thee, As, with a sigh, I deem thou mightst have been to me!

CANTO THE FOURTH.

I.

I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; A palace and a prison on each hand: I saw from out the wave her structures rise As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand: A thousand years their cloudy wings expand Around me, and a dying glory smiles O'er the far times when many a subject land Looked to the winged Lion's marble piles, Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles!

II.

She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, Rising with her tiara of proud towers At airy distance, with majestic motion, A ruler of the waters and their powers: And such she was; her daughters had their dowers From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.

In purple was she robed, and of her feast Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased.

III.

In Venice, Ta.s.so's echoes are no more, And silent rows the songless gondolier; Her palaces are crumbling to the sh.o.r.e, And music meets not always now the ear: Those days are gone--but beauty still is here.

States fall, arts fade--but Nature doth not die, Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear, The pleasant place of all festivity, The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy!

IV.

But unto us she hath a spell beyond Her name in story, and her long array Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond Above the dogeless city's vanished sway; Ours is a trophy which will not decay With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor, And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn away-- The keystones of the arch! though all were o'er, For us repeopled were the solitary sh.o.r.e.

V.

The beings of the mind are not of clay; Essentially immortal, they create And multiply in us a brighter ray And more beloved existence: that which Fate Prohibits to dull life, in this our state Of mortal bondage, by these spirits supplied, First exiles, then replaces what we hate; Watering the heart whose early flowers have died, And with a fresher growth replenishing the void.

VI.

Such is the refuge of our youth and age, The first from Hope, the last from Vacancy; And this worn feeling peoples many a page, And, may be, that which grows beneath mine eye: Yet there are things whose strong reality Outshines our fairy-land; in shape and hues More beautiful than our fantastic sky, And the strange constellations which the Muse O'er her wild universe is skilful to diffuse: