The Works of Lord Byron Volume VI Part 36

CI.

T' our tale.--The feast was over, the slaves gone, The dwarfs and dancing girls had all retired; The Arab lore and Poet's song were done, And every sound of revelry expired; The lady and her lover, left alone, The rosy flood of Twilight's sky admired;-- Ave Maria! o'er the earth and sea, That heavenliest hour of Heaven is worthiest thee!

CII.

Ave Maria! blessed be the hour!

The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft Have felt that moment in its fullest power Sink o'er the earth--so beautiful and soft-- While swung the deep bell in the distant tower,[de]

Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft, And not a breath crept through the rosy air, And yet the forest leaves seemed stirred with prayer.

CIII.

Ave Maria! 't is the hour of prayer!

Ave Maria! 't is the hour of Love!

Ave Maria! may our spirits dare Look up to thine and to thy Son's above!

Ave Maria! oh that face so fair!

Those downcast eyes beneath the Almighty Dove-- What though 't is but a pictured image?--strike-- That painting is no idol,--'t is too like.

CIV.

Some kinder casuists are pleased to say, In nameless print[df]--that I have no devotion; But set those persons down with me to pray, And you shall see who has the properest notion Of getting into Heaven the shortest way; My altars are the mountains and the Ocean, Earth--air--stars,[222]--all that springs from the great Whole, Who hath produced, and will receive the Soul.

CV.

Sweet Hour of Twilight!--in the solitude Of the pine forest, and the silent sh.o.r.e Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial wood, Rooted where once the Adrian wave flowed o'er, To where the last Caesarean fortress stood,[223]

Evergreen forest! which Boccaccio's lore And Dryden's lay made haunted ground to me, How have I loved the twilight hour and thee![224]

CVI.

The shrill cicalas, people of the pine, Making their summer lives one ceaseless song, Were the sole echoes, save my steed's and mine, And Vesper bell's that rose the boughs along; The spectre huntsman of Onesti's line, His h.e.l.l-dogs, and their chase, and the fair throng Which learned from this example not to fly From a true lover,--shadowed my mind's eye.[225]

CVII.

Oh, Hesperus! thou bringest all good things--[226]

Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer, To the young bird the parent's brooding wings, The welcome stall to the o'erlaboured steer; Whate'er of peace about our hearthstone clings, Whate'er our household G.o.ds protect of dear, Are gathered round us by thy look of rest; Thou bring'st the child, too, to the mother's breast.

CVIII.

Soft Hour! which wakes the wish and melts the heart Of those who sail the seas, on the first day When they from their sweet friends are torn apart; Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way As the far bell of Vesper makes him start, Seeming to weep the dying day's decay;[227]

Is this a fancy which our reason scorns?

Ah! surely Nothing dies but Something mourns!

CIX.

When Nero perished by the justest doom Which ever the Destroyer yet destroyed, Amidst the roar of liberated Rome, Of nations freed, and the world overjoyed, Some hands unseen strewed flowers upon his tomb:[228]

Perhaps the weakness of a heart not void Of feeling for some kindness done, when Power Had left the wretch an uncorrupted hour.

CX.

But I'm digressing; what on earth has Nero, Or any such like sovereign buffoons,[dg]

To do with the transactions of my hero, More than such madmen's fellow man--the moon's?

Sure my invention must be down at zero, And I grown one of many "Wooden Spoons"

Of verse, (the name with which we Cantabs please To dub the last of honours in degrees).

CXI.

I feel this tediousness will never do-- T' is being _too_ epic, and I must cut down (In copying) this long canto into two; They'll never find it out, unless I own The fact, excepting some experienced few; And then as an improvement 't will be shown: I'll prove that such the opinion of the critic is From Aristotle _pa.s.sim_.--See ????????S[Greek: POIAETIKAES].[229]

FOOTNOTES:

[169] [November 30, 1819. Copied in 1820 (MS.D.). Moore (_Life_, 421) says that Byron was at work on the third canto when he stayed with him at Venice, in October, 1819. "One day, before dinner, [he] read me two or three hundred lines of it; beginning with the stanzas "Oh Wellington," etc., which, at the time, formed the opening of the third canto, but were afterwards reserved for the commencement of the ninth."

The third canto, as it now stands, was completed by November 8, 1819; see _Letters_, 1900, iv. 375. The date on the MS. may refer to the first fair copy.]

{144}[ch] _And fits her like a stocking or a glove_.--[MS. D.]

[170] ["On peut trouver des femmes qui n'ont jamais eu de galanterie, mais il est rare d'en trouver qui n'en aient jamais eu qu'une."--_Reflexions_ ... du Duc de la Rochefoucauld, No. lxxiii.

Byron prefixed the maxim as a motto to his "Ode to a Lady whose Lover was killed by a Ball, which at the same time shivered a Portrait next his Heart."--_Poetical Works_, 1901, iv. 552.]

{145}[171] [_Merchant of Venice_, act iv. sc. 1, line 254.]

[ci]

_Had Petrarch's pa.s.sion led to Petrarch's wedding,_ _How many sonnets had ensued the bedding?_--[MS.]

[172] [The Ballad of "Death and the Lady" was printed in a small volume, ent.i.tled _A Guide to Heaven_, 1736, 12mo. It is mentioned in _The Vicar of Wakefield_ (chap. xvii.), _Works of Oliver Goldsmith_, 1854, i. 369.

See _Old English Popular Music_, by William Chappell, F.S.A., 1893, ii.

170, 171.]

{146}[173] [See _The Prophecy of Dante,_ Canto I. lines 172-174, _Poetical Works,_ 1901, iv. 253, note 1.]

[174] Milton's first wife ran away from him within the first month. If she had not, what would John Milton have done?

[Mary Powell did not "run away," but at the end of the honeymoon obtained her husband's consent to visit her family at Shotover, "upon a promise of returning at Michaelmas." "And in the mean while his studies went on very vigorously; and his chief diversion, after the business of the day, was now and then in an evening to visit the Lady Margaret Lee.... This lady, being a woman of excellent wit and understanding, had a particular honour for our author, and took great delight in his conversation; as likewise did her husband, Captain Hobson." See, too, his sonnet "To the Lady Margaret Ley."--_The Life of Milton_ (by Thomas Newton, D.D.), _Paradise Regained,_ ed. (Baskerville), 1758, pp. xvii., xviii.]

[175] ["Yesterday a very pretty letter from Annabella.... She is a poetess--a mathematician--a metaphysician."--_Journal_ November 30, 1813, _Letters_, 1898, ii. 357.]

{147}[cj]

_Displayed much more of nerve, perhaps, of wit,_ _Than any of the parodies of Pitt_.--[MS.]

{148}[ck] _---- toothpicks, a bidet_.--[MS. Alternative reading.]

"_Dr. Murray--As you are squeamish you may put 'teapot, tray,' in case the other piece of feminine furniture frightens you.--B._"

[176] [For Byron's menagerie, see _Werner_, act i. sc. 1, line 216, _Poetical Works_, 1902, v. 348, note 1.]

{149}[177] ["But as for canine recollections ... I had one (half a _wolf_ by the she-side) that doted on me at ten years old, and very nearly ate me at twenty. When I thought he was going to enact Argus, he bit away the backside of my breeches, and never would consent to any kind of recognition, in despite of all kinds of bones which I offered him."--Letter to Moore, January 19, 1815, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 171, 172. Compare, too, _Childe Harold_, Canto I. Song, stanza ix., _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 30.]

{150}[cl]