Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Part 17

VII.

I saw or dreamed of such,--but let them go-- They came like truth, and disappeared like dreams; And whatsoe'er they were--are now but so; I could replace them if I would: still teems My mind with many a form which aptly seems Such as I sought for, and at moments found; Let these too go--for waking reason deems Such overweening phantasies unsound, And other voices speak, and other sights surround.

VIII.

I've taught me other tongues, and in strange eyes Have made me not a stranger; to the mind Which is itself, no changes bring surprise; Nor is it harsh to make, nor hard to find A country with--ay, or without mankind; Yet was I born where men are proud to be, Not without cause; and should I leave behind The inviolate island of the sage and free, And seek me out a home by a remoter sea,

IX.

Perhaps I loved it well: and should I lay My ashes in a soil which is not mine, My spirit shall resume it--if we may Unbodied choose a sanctuary. I twine My hopes of being remembered in my line With my land's language: if too fond and far These aspirations in their scope incline,-- If my fame should be, as my fortunes are, Of hasty growth and blight, and dull Oblivion bar.

X.

My name from out the temple where the dead Are honoured by the nations--let it be-- And light the laurels on a loftier head!

And be the Spartan's epitaph on me-- 'Sparta hath many a worthier son than he.'

Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need; The thorns which I have reaped are of the tree I planted,--they have torn me, and I bleed: I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.

XI.

The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord; And, annual marriage now no more renewed, The Bucentaur lies rotting unrestored, Neglected garment of her widowhood!

St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stood Stand, but in mockery of his withered power, Over the proud place where an Emperor sued, And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour When Venice was a queen with an unequalled dower.

XII.

The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns-- An Emperor tramples where an Emperor knelt; Kingdoms are shrunk to provinces, and chains Clank over sceptred cities; nations melt From power's high pinnacle, when they have felt The sunshine for a while, and downward go Like lauwine loosened from the mountain's belt: Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo!

The octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe.

XIII.

Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of bra.s.s, Their gilded collars glittering in the sun; But is not Doria's menace come to pa.s.s?

Are they not BRIDLED?--Venice, lost and won, Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done, Sinks, like a seaweed, into whence she rose!

Better be whelmed beneath the waves, and shun, Even in Destruction's depth, her foreign foes, From whom submission wrings an infamous repose.

XIV.

In youth she was all glory,--a new Tyre,-- Her very byword sprung from victory, The 'Planter of the Lion,' which through fire And blood she bore o'er subject earth and sea; Though making many slaves, herself still free And Europe's bulwark 'gainst the Ottomite: Witness Troy's rival, Candia! Vouch it, ye Immortal waves that saw Lepanto's fight!

For ye are names no time nor tyranny can blight.

XV.

Statues of gla.s.s--all shivered--the long file Of her dead doges are declined to dust; But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust; Their sceptre broken, and their sword in rust, Have yielded to the stranger: empty halls, Thin streets, and foreign aspects, such as must Too oft remind her who and what enthrals, Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice' lovely walls.

XVI.

When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse, And fettered thousands bore the yoke of war, Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse, Her voice their only ransom from afar: See! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car Of the o'ermastered victor stops, the reins Fall from his hands--his idle scimitar Starts from its belt--he rends his captive's chains, And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his strains.

XVII.

Thus, Venice, if no stronger claim were thine, Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot, Thy choral memory of the bard divine, Thy love of Ta.s.so, should have cut the knot Which ties thee to thy tyrants; and thy lot Is shameful to the nations,--most of all, Albion! to thee: the Ocean Queen should not Abandon Ocean's children; in the fall Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall.

XVIII.

I loved her from my boyhood: she to me Was as a fairy city of the heart, Rising like water-columns from the sea, Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakspeare's art, Had stamped her image in me, and e'en so, Although I found her thus, we did not part, Perchance e'en dearer in her day of woe, Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show.

XIX.

I can repeople with the past--and of The present there is still for eye and thought, And meditation chastened down, enough; And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought; And of the happiest moments which were wrought Within the web of my existence, some From thee, fair Venice! have their colours caught: There are some feelings Time cannot benumb, Nor torture shake, or mine would now be cold and dumb.

XX.

But from their nature will the tannen grow Loftiest on loftiest and least sheltered rocks, Rooted in barrenness, where nought below Of soil supports them 'gainst the Alpine shocks Of eddying storms; yet springs the trunk, and mocks The howling tempest, till its height and frame Are worthy of the mountains from whose blocks Of bleak, grey granite, into life it came, And grew a giant tree;--the mind may grow the same.

XXI.

Existence may be borne, and the deep root Of life and sufferance make its firm abode In bare and desolate bosoms: mute The camel labours with the heaviest load, And the wolf dies in silence. Not bestowed In vain should such examples be; if they, Things of ign.o.ble or of savage mood, Endure and shrink not, we of n.o.bler clay May temper it to bear,--it is but for a day.

XXII.

All suffering doth destroy, or is destroyed, Even by the sufferer; and, in each event, Ends:--Some, with hope replenished and rebuoyed, Return to whence they came--with like intent, And weave their web again; some, bowed and bent, Wax grey and ghastly, withering ere their time, And perish with the reed on which they leant; Some seek devotion, toil, war, good or crime, According as their souls were formed to sink or climb.

XXIII.

But ever and anon of griefs subdued There comes a token like a scorpion's sting, Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued; And slight withal may be the things which bring Back on the heart the weight which it would fling Aside for ever: it may be a sound-- A tone of music--summer's eve--or spring-- A flower--the wind--the ocean--which shall wound, Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound.

XXIV.

And how and why we know not, nor can trace Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind, But feel the shock renewed, nor can efface The blight and blackening which it leaves behind, Which out of things familiar, undesigned, When least we deem of such, calls up to view The spectres whom no exorcism can bind,-- The cold--the changed--perchance the dead--anew, The mourned, the loved, the lost--too many!--yet how few!

XXV.

But my soul wanders; I demand it back To meditate amongst decay, and stand A ruin amidst ruins; there to track Fall'n states and buried greatness, o'er a land Which WAS the mightiest in its old command, And IS the loveliest, and must ever be The master-mould of Nature's heavenly hand, Wherein were cast the heroic and the free, The beautiful, the brave--the lords of earth and sea.

XXVI.

The commonwealth of kings, the men of Rome!

And even since, and now, fair Italy!

Thou art the garden of the world, the home Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree; Even in thy desert, what is like to thee?

Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste More rich than other climes' fertility; Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced With an immaculate charm which cannot be defaced.

XXVII.

The moon is up, and yet it is not night-- Sunset divides the sky with her--a sea Of glory streams along the Alpine height Of blue Friuli's mountains; Heaven is free From clouds, but of all colours seems to be-- Melted to one vast Iris of the West, Where the day joins the past eternity; While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest Floats through the azure air--an island of the blest!

XXVIII.

A single star is at her side, and reigns With her o'er half the lovely heaven; but still Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains Rolled o'er the peak of the far Rhaetian hill, As Day and Night contending were, until Nature reclaimed her order:--gently flows The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instil The odorous purple of a new-born rose, Which streams upon her stream, and gla.s.sed within it glows,

XXIX.