Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Part 24

CLXI.

Or view the Lord of the unerring bow, The G.o.d of life, and poesy, and light-- The Sun in human limbs arrayed, and brow All radiant from his triumph in the fight; The shaft hath just been shot--the arrow bright With an immortal's vengeance; in his eye And nostril beautiful disdain, and might And majesty, flash their full lightnings by, Developing in that one glance the Deity.

CLXII.

But in his delicate form--a dream of Love, Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose breast Longed for a deathless lover from above, And maddened in that vision--are expressed All that ideal beauty ever blessed The mind within its most unearthly mood, When each conception was a heavenly guest-- A ray of immortality--and stood Starlike, around, until they gathered to a G.o.d?

CLXIII.

And if it be Prometheus stole from heaven The fire which we endure, it was repaid By him to whom the energy was given Which this poetic marble hath arrayed With an eternal glory--which, if made By human hands, is not of human thought And Time himself hath hallowed it, nor laid One ringlet in the dust--nor hath it caught A tinge of years, but breathes the flame with which 'twas wrought.

CLXIV.

But where is he, the pilgrim of my song, The being who upheld it through the past?

Methinks he cometh late and tarries long.

He is no more--these breathings are his last; His wanderings done, his visions ebbing fast, And he himself as nothing:--if he was Aught but a phantasy, and could be cla.s.sed With forms which live and suffer--let that pa.s.s-- His shadow fades away into Destruction's ma.s.s,

CLXV.

Which gathers shadow, substance, life, and all That we inherit in its mortal shroud, And spreads the dim and universal pall Thro' which all things grow phantoms; and the cloud Between us sinks and all which ever glowed, Till Glory's self is twilight, and displays A melancholy halo scarce allowed To hover on the verge of darkness; rays Sadder than saddest night, for they distract the gaze,

CLXVI.

And send us prying into the abyss, To gather what we shall be when the frame Shall be resolved to something less than this Its wretched essence; and to dream of fame, And wipe the dust from off the idle name We never more shall hear,--but never more, Oh, happier thought! can we be made the same: It is enough, in sooth, that ONCE we bore These fardels of the heart--the heart whose sweat was gore.

CLXVII.

Hark! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds, A long, low distant murmur of dread sound, Such as arises when a nation bleeds With some deep and immedicable wound; Through storm and darkness yawns the rending ground.

The gulf is thick with phantoms, but the chief Seems royal still, though with her head discrowned, And pale, but lovely, with maternal grief She clasps a babe, to whom her breast yields no relief.

CLXVIII.

Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou?

Fond hope of many nations, art thou dead?

Could not the grave forget thee, and lay low Some less majestic, less beloved head?

In the sad midnight, while thy heart still bled, The mother of a moment, o'er thy boy, Death hushed that pang for ever: with thee fled The present happiness and promised joy Which filled the imperial isles so full it seemed to cloy.

CLXIX.

Peasants bring forth in safety.--Can it be, O thou that wert so happy, so adored!

Those who weep not for kings shall weep for thee, And Freedom's heart, grown heavy, cease to h.o.a.rd Her many griefs for One; for she had poured Her orisons for thee, and o'er thy head Beheld her Iris.--Thou, too, lonely lord, And desolate consort--vainly wert thou wed!

The husband of a year! the father of the dead!

CLXX.

Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made: Thy bridal's fruit is ashes; in the dust The fair-haired Daughter of the Isles is laid, The love of millions! How we did entrust Futurity to her! and, though it must Darken above our bones, yet fondly deemed Our children should obey her child, and blessed Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seemed Like star to shepherd's eyes; 'twas but a meteor beamed.

CLXXI.

Woe unto us, not her; for she sleeps well: The fickle reek of popular breath, the tongue Of hollow counsel, the false oracle, Which from the birth of monarchy hath rung Its knell in princely ears, till the o'erstrung Nations have armed in madness, the strange fate Which tumbles mightiest sovereigns, and hath flung Against their blind omnipotence a weight Within the opposing scale, which crushes soon or late,--

CLXXII.

These might have been her destiny; but no, Our hearts deny it: and so young, so fair, Good without effort, great without a foe; But now a bride and mother--and now THERE!

How many ties did that stern moment tear!

From thy Sire's to his humblest subject's breast Is linked the electric chain of that despair, Whose shock was as an earthquake's, and oppressed The land which loved thee so, that none could love thee best.

CLXXIII.

Lo, Nemi! navelled in the woody hills So far, that the uprooting wind which tears The oak from his foundation, and which spills The ocean o'er its boundary, and bears Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares The oval mirror of thy gla.s.sy lake; And, calm as cherished hate, its surface wears A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake, All coiled into itself and round, as sleeps the snake.

CLXXIV.

And near Albano's scarce divided waves Shine from a sister valley;--and afar The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves The Latian coast where sprung the Epic war, 'Arms and the Man,' whose reascending star Rose o'er an empire,--but beneath thy right Tully reposed from Rome;--and where yon bar Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight, The Sabine farm was tilled, the weary bard's delight.

CLXXV.

But I forget.--My pilgrim's shrine is won, And he and I must part,--so let it be,-- His task and mine alike are nearly done; Yet once more let us look upon the sea: The midland ocean breaks on him and me, And from the Alban mount we now behold Our friend of youth, that ocean, which when we Beheld it last by Calpe's rock unfold Those waves, we followed on till the dark Euxine rolled

CLXXVI.

Upon the blue Symplegades: long years-- Long, though not very many--since have done Their work on both; some suffering and some tears Have left us nearly where we had begun: Yet not in vain our mortal race hath run, We have had our reward--and it is here; That we can yet feel gladdened by the sun, And reap from earth, sea, joy almost as dear As if there were no man to trouble what is clear.

CLXXVII.

Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling-place, With one fair Spirit for my minister, That I might all forget the human race, And, hating no one, love but only her!

Ye Elements!--in whose enn.o.bling stir I feel myself exalted--can ye not Accord me such a being? Do I err In deeming such inhabit many a spot?

Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot.

CLXXVIII.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely sh.o.r.e, There is society where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

CLXXIX.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean--roll!

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin--his control Stops with the sh.o.r.e;--upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

CLx.x.x.

His steps are not upon thy paths,--thy fields Are not a spoil for him,--thou dost arise And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray And howling, to his G.o.ds, where haply lies His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to earth:--there let him lay.

CLx.x.xI.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, And monarchs tremble in their capitals.

The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Their clay creator the vain t.i.tle take Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war; These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

CLx.x.xII.