Selected Poems (18 page)

Yet did not much complain;

But sorely will my mother sigh

Till I come back again.’ –

‘Enough, enough, my little lad!

155

Such tears become thine eye;

If I thy guileless bosom had,

Mine own would not be dry.

6

‘Come hither, hither, my staunch yeoman,

Why dost thou look so pale?

160

Or dost thou dread a French foeman?

Or shiver at the gale?’

‘Deem’st thou I tremble for my life?

Sir Childe, I’m not so weak;

But thinking on an absent wife

165

Will blanch a faithful cheek.

7

‘My spouse and boys dwell near thy hall,

Along the bordering lake,

And when they on their father call,

What answer shall she make?’

170

‘Enough, enough, my yeoman good,

Thy grief let none gainsay;

But I, who am of lighter mood,

Will laugh to flee away.

8

‘For who would trust the seeming sighs

175

Of wife or paramour?

Fresh feres will dry the bright blue eyes

We late saw streaming o’er.

For pleasures past I do not grieve,

Nor perils gathering near;

180

My greatest grief is that I leave

No thing that claims a tear.

9

‘And now I’m in the world alone,

Upon the wide, wide sea:

But why should I for others groan,

185

When none will sigh for me?

Perchance my dog will whine in vain,

Till fed by stranger hands;

But long ere I come back again,

He’d tear me where he stands.

10

190

‘With thee, my bark, I’ll swiftly go

Athwart the foaming brine;

Nor care what land thou bear’st me to,

So not again to mine.

Welcome, welcome, ye dark-blue waves!

195

And when you fail my sight,

Welcome, ye deserts, and ye caves!

My native Land – Good Night!’

XIV

On, on the vessel flies, the land is gone,

And winds are rude in Biscay’s sleepless bay.

200

Four days are sped, but with the fifth, anon,

New shores descried make every bosom gay;

And Cintra’s mountain greets them on their way,

And Tagus dashing onward to the deep,

His fabled golden tribute bent to pay;

205

And soon on board the Lusian pilots leap,

And steer ’twixt fertile shores where yet few rustics reap.

XV

Oh, Christ! it is a goodly sight to see

What Heaven hath done for this delicious land!

What fruits of fragrance blush on every tree!

210

What goodly prospects o’er the hills expand!

But man would mar them with an impious hand:

And when the Almighty lifts his fiercest scourge

‘Gainst those who most transgress his high command,

With treble vengeance will his hot shafts urge

215

Gaul’s locust host, and earth from fellest foemen purge.

XVI

What beauties doth Lisboa first unfold!

Her image floating on that noble tide,

Which poets vainly pave with sands of gold,

But now whereon a thousand keels did ride

220

Of mighty strength, since Albion was allied,

And to the Lusians did her aid afford:

A nation swoln with ignorance and pride,

Who lick yet loathe the hand that waves the sword

To save them from the wrath of Gaul’s unsparing lord.

XVII

225

But whoso entereth within this town,

That, sheening far, celestial seems to be,

Disconsolate will wander up and down,

‘Mid many things unsightly to strange ee;

For hut and palace show like filthily:

230

The dingy denizens are rear’d in dirt;

Ne personage of high or mean degree

Doth care for cleanness of surtout or shirt,

Though shent with Egypt’s plague, unkempt, unwash’d; unhurt.

XVIII

Poor, paltry slaves! yet born ‘midst noblest scenes –

235

Why, Nature, waste thy wonders on such men?

Lo! Cintra’s glorious Eden intervenes

In variegated maze of mount and glen.

Ah, me! what hand can pencil guide, or pen,

To follow half on which the eye dilates

240

Through views more dazzling unto mortal ken

Than those whereof such things the bard relates,

Who to the awe-struck world unlock’d Elysium’s gates?

XIX

The horrid crags, by toppling convent crown’d,

The cork-trees hoar that clothe the shaggy steep,

245

The mountain-moss by scorching skies imbrown’d,

The sunken glen, whose sunless shrubs must weep,

The tender azure of the unruffled deep,

The orange tints that gild the greenest bough,

The torrents that from cliff to valley leap,

250

The vine on high, the willow branch below,

Mix’d in one mighty scene, with varied beauty glow.

XX

Then slowly climb the many-winding way,

And frequent turn to linger as you go,

From loftier rocks new loveliness survey,

255

And rest ye at ‘Our Lady’s house of woe;’1

Where frugal monks their little relics show,

And sundry legends to the stranger tell:

Here impious men have punish’d been, and lo!

Deep in yon cave Honorius long did dwell,

260

In hope to merit Heaven by making earth a Hell.

XXI

And here and there, as up the crags you spring,

Mark many rude-carved crosses near the path:

Yet deem not these devotion’s offering –

These are memorials frail of murderous wrath:

265

For wheresoe’er the shrieking victim hath

Pour’d forth his blood beneath the assassin’s knife,

Some hand erects a cross of mouldering lath;

And grove and glen with thousand such are rife

Throughout this purple land, where law secures not life.
¹

XXII

270

On sloping mounds, or in the vale beneath,

Are domes where whilome kings did make repair;

But now the wild flowers round them only breathe;

Yet ruin’d splendour still is lingering there.

And yonder towers the Prince’s palace fair:

275

There thou too, Vathek! England’s wealthiest son,

Once form’d thy Paradise, as not aware

When wanton Wealth her mightiest deeds hath done,

Meek Peace voluptuous lures was ever wont to shun.

XXIII

Here didst thou dwell here schemes of pleasure plan

280

Beneath yon mountain’s ever beauteous brow:

But now, as if a thing unblest by Man,

Thy fairy dwelling is as lone as thou!

Here giant weeds a passage scarce allow

To halls deserted, portals gaping wide;

285

Fresh lessons to the thinking bosom, how

Vain are the pleasaunces on earth supplied;

Swept into wrecks anon by Time’s ungentle tide!

XXIV

Behold the hall where chiefs were late convened!
¹

Oh! dome displeasing unto British eye!

290

With diadem hight foolscap, lo! a fiend,

A little fiend that scoffs incessantly,

There sits in parchment robe array’d, and by

His side is hung a seal and sable scroll,

Where blazon’d glare names known to chivalry,

295

And sundry signatures adorn the roll,

Whereat the Urchin points and laughs with all his soul.

XXV

Convention is the dwarfish demon styled

That foil’d the knights in Marialva’s dome:

Of brains (if brains they had) he them beguiled,

300

And turn’d a nation’s shallow joy to gloom.

Here Folly dash’d to earth the victor’s plume,

And Policy regain’d what arms had lost: