LXXXVI | |
Such be the sons of Spain, and strange her fate! | |
They fight for freedom who were never free, | |
A Kingless people for a nerveless state, | |
885 | Her vassals combat when their chieftains flee, |
True to the veriest slaves of Treachery: | |
Fond of a land which gave them nought but life, | |
Pride points the path that leads to Liberty; | |
Back to the struggle, baffled in the strife, | |
890 | War, war is still the cry, ‘War even to the knife!’ |
LXXXVII | |
Ye, who would more of Spain and Spaniards know, | |
Go, read whate’er is writ of bloodiest strife: | |
Whate’er keen Vengeance urged on foreign foe | |
Can act, is acting there against man’s life: | |
895 | From flashing scimitar to secret knife, |
War mouldeth there each weapon to his need – | |
So may he guard the sister and the wife, | |
So may he make each curst oppressor bleed, | |
So may such foes deserve the most remorseless deed! | |
LXXXVIII | |
900 | Flows there a tear of pity for the dead? |
Look o’er the ravage of the reeking plain; | |
Look on the hands with female slaughter red; | |
Then to the dogs resign the unburied slain, | |
Then to the vulture let each corse remain; | |
905 | Albeit unworthy of the prey-bird’s maw, |
Let their bleach’d bones, and blood’s unbleaching stain, | |
Long mark the battle-field with hideous awe: | |
Thus only may our sons conceive the scenes we saw! | |
LXXXIX | |
Nor yet, alas! the dreadful work is done; | |
910 | Fresh legions pour adown the Pyrenees: |
It deepens still, the work is scarce begun, | |
Nor mortal eye the distant end foresees. | |
Fall’n nations gaze on Spain; if freed, she frees | |
More than her fell Pizarros once enchain’d: | |
915 | Strange retribution! now Columbia’s ease |
Repairs the wrongs that Quito’s sons sustain’d, | |
While o’er the parent clime prowls Murder unrestrain’d. | |
XC | |
Not all the blood at Talavera shed, | |
Not all the marvels of Barossa’s fight, | |
920 | Not Albuera lavish of the dead, |
Have won for Spain her well asserted right. | |
When shall her Olive-Branch be free from blight? | |
When shall she breathe her from the blushing toil? | |
How many a doubtful day shall sink in night, | |
925 | Ere the Frank robber turn him from his spoil, |
And Freedom’s stranger-tree grow native of the soil! | |
XCI | |
And thou, my friend! | |
Bursts from my heart, and mingles with the strain – | |
Had the sword laid thee with the mighty low, | |
930 | Pride might forbid e’en Friendship to complain: |
But thus unlaurel’d to descend in vain, | |
By all forgotten, save the lonely breast, | |
And mix unbleeding with the boasted slain, | |
While Glory crowns so many a meaner crest! | |
935 | What hadst thou done to sink so peacefully to rest? |
XCII | |
Oh, known the earliest, and esteem’d the most! | |
Dear to a heart where nought was left so dear! | |
Though to my hopeless days for ever lost, | |
In dreams deny me not to see thee here! | |
940 | And Morn in secret shall renew the tear |
Of Consciousness awaking to her woes, | |
And Fancy hover o’er thy bloodless bier, | |
Till my frail frame return to whence it rose, | |
And mourn’d and mourner lie united in repose. | |
XCIII | |
945 | Here is one fytte of Harold’s pilgrimage: |
Ye who of him may further seek to know, | |
Shall find some tidings in a future page, | |
If he that rhymeth now may scribble moe. | |
Is this too much? stern Critic! say not so: | |
950 | Patience! and ye shall hear what he beheld |
In other lands, where he was doom’d to go: | |
Lands that contain the monuments of Eld, | |
Ere Greece and Grecian arts by barbarous hands were quell’d. |
Canto the Second | |
I | |
Come, blue-eyed maid of heaven! – but thou, alas! | |
Didst never yet one mortal song inspire – | |
Goddess of Wisdom! here thy temple was, | |
And is, despite of war and wasting fire,1 | |
5 | And years, that bade thy worship to expire: |
But worse than steel, and flame, and ages slow, | |
Is the dread sceptre and dominion dire | |
Of men who never felt the sacred glow | |
That thoughts of thee and thine on polish’d breasts bestow. | |
II | |
10 | Ancient of days! august Athena! |
Where are thy men of might? thy grand in soul? | |
Gone – glimmering through the dream of things that were: | |
First in the race that led to Glory’s goal, | |
They won, and pass’d away – is this the whole? | |
15 | A schoolboy’s tale, the wonder of an hour! |
The warrior’s weapon and the sophist’s stole | |
Are sought in vain, and o’er each mouldering tower, | |
Dim with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of power. | |
III | |
Sun of the morning, rise! approach you here! | |
20 | Come – but molest not yon defenceless urn: |
Look on this spot – a nation’s sepulchre! | |
Abode of gods, whose shrines no longer burn. | |
Even gods must yield – religions take their turn: | |
‘Twas Jove’s – ’tis Mahomet’s – and other creeds | |
25 | Will rise with other years, till man shall learn |
Vainly his incense soars, his victim bleeds; | |
Poor child of Doubt and Death, whose hope is built on reeds. | |
IV | |
Bound to the earth, he lifts his eye to heaven – | |
Is’t not enough, unhappy thing! to know | |
30 | Thou art? Is this a boon so kindly given, |
That being, thou woulds’t be again, and go, | |
Thou know’st not, reck’st not to what region, so | |
On earth no more, but mingled with the skies? | |
Still wilt thou dream on future joy and woe? | |
35 | Regard and weigh yon dust before it flies: |
That little urn saith more than thousand homilies. | |
V | |
Or burst the vanish’d Hero’s lofty mound; | |
Far on the solitary shore he sleeps:1 | |
He fell, and falling nations mourn’d around; | |
40 | But now not one of saddening thousands weeps, |
Nor warlike-worshipper his vigil keeps | |
Where demi-gods appear’d, as records tell. | |
Remove yon skull from out the scatter’d heaps: | |
Is that a temple where a God may dwell? | |
45 | Why ev’n the worm at last disdains her shatter’d cell! |
VI | |
Look on its broken arch, its ruin’d wall, | |
Its chambers desolate, and portals foul: | |
Yes, this was once Ambition’s airy hall, | |
The dome of Thought, the palace of the Soul: | |
50 | Behold through each lack-lustre, eyeless hole, |
The gay recess of Wisdom and of Wit | |
And Passion’s host, that never brook’d control: | |
Can all saint, sage, or sophist ever writ, | |
People this lonely tower, this tenement refit? | |
VII | |
55 | Well didst thou speak, Athena’s wisest son! |
‘All that we know is, nothing can be known.’ | |
Why should we shrink from what we cannot shun? | |
Each hath his pang, but feeble sufferers groan | |
With brain-born dreams of evil all their own. | |
60 | Pursue what Chance or Fate proclaimeth best; |
Peace waits us on the shores of Acheron: | |
There no forced banquet claims the sated guest, | |
But Silence spreads the couch of ever welcome rest. | |
VIII | |
Yet if, as holiest men have deem’d, there be | |
65 | A land of souls beyond that sable shore, |
To shame the doctrine of the Sadducee | |
And sophists, madly vain of dubious lore; | |
How sweet it were in concert to adore | |
With those who made our mortal labours light! | |
70 | To hear each voice we fear’d to hear no more! |
Behold each mighty shade reveal’d to sight, | |
The Bactrian, Samian sage, and all who taught the right! | |
IX | |
There, thou! – whose love and life together fled, | |
Have left me here to love and live in vain – | |
75 | Twined with my heart, and can I deem thee dead |
When busy Memory flashes on my brain? | |
Well – I will dream that we may meet again, | |
And woo the vision to my vacant breast: | |
If aught of young Remembrance then remain, | |
80 | Be as it may Futurity’s behest, |
For me ’twere bliss enough to know thy spirit blest! | |
X | |
Here let me sit upon this massy stone, | |
The marble column’s yet unshaken base; | |
Here, son of Saturn! was thy fav’rite throne:1 | |
85 | Mightiest of many such! Hence let me trace |
The latent grandeur of thy dwelling-place. | |
It may not be: nor ev’n can Fancy’s eye | |
Restore what Time hath labour’d to deface. | |
Yet these proud pillars claim no passing sigh; | |
90 | Unmoved the Moslem sits, the light Greek carols by. |
XI | |
But who, of all the plunderers of yon fane | |
On high, where Pallas linger’d, loth to flee | |
The latest relic of her ancient reign; | |
The last, the worst, dull spoiler, who was he? | |
95 | Blush, Caledonia! such thy son could be! |
England! I joy no child he was of thine: | |
Thy free-born men should spare what once was free; | |
Yet they could violate each saddening shrine, | |
And bear these altars o’er the long-reluctant brine. | |
XII | |
100 | But most the modern Pict’s ignoble boast, |
To rive what Goth, and Turk, and Time hath spared:3 | |
Cold as the crags upon his native coast, | |
His mind as barren and his heart as hard, | |
Is he whose head conceived, whose hand prepared, | |
105Aught to displace Athena’s poor remains: | |
Her sons too weak the sacred shrine to guard, | |
Yet felt some portion of their mother’s pains, | |
And never knew, till then, the weight of Despot’s chains. | |
XIII | |
What! shall it e’er be said by British tongue, | |
110 | Albion was happy in Athena’s tears? |
Though in thy name the slaves her bosom wrung, | |
Tell not the deed to blushing Europe’s ears; | |
The ocean queen, the free Britannia, bears | |
The last poor plunder from a bleeding land: | |
115 | Yes, she, whose gen’rous aid her name endears, |
Tore down those remnants with a harpy’s hand, | |
Which envious Eld forbore, and tyrants left to stand. | |
XIV | |
Where was thine Ægis, Pallas! that appall’d | |
Stern Alaric and Havoc on their way? | |
120 | Where Peleus’ son? whom Hell in vain enthrall’d |
His shade from Hades upon that dread day | |
Bursting to light in terrible array! | |
What! could not Pluto spare the chief once more, | |
To scare a second robber from his prey? | |
125 | Idly he wander’d on the Stygian shore, |
Nor now preserved the walls he loved to shield before. | |
XV | |
Cold is the heart, fair Greece! that looks on thee, | |
Nor feels as lovers o’er the dust they loved; | |
Dull is the eye that will not weep to see | |
130 | Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed |
By British hands, which it had best behoved | |
To guard those relics ne’er to be restored. | |
Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved, | |
And once again thy hapless bosom gored, | |
135 | And snatch’d thy shrinking Gods to northern climes abhorr’d! |
XVI | |
But where is Harold? shall I then forget | |
To urge the gloomy wanderer o’er the wave? | |
Little reck’d he of all that men regret; | |
No loved-one now in feign’d lament could rave; | |
140 | No friend the parting hand extended gave, |
Ere the cold stranger pass’d to other climes: | |
Hard is his heart whom charms may not enslave; | |
But Harold felt not as in other times, | |
And left without a sigh the land of war and crimes. | |
XVII |