Turn to the Mole which Hadrian rear'd on high,67 Whose travell'd phantasy from the far Nile's To build for giants, and for his vain earth, Thou movest-but increasing with the advance, Sits on the firm-set ground-and this the clouds must claim. CLVII. Thou seest not all; but piecemeal thou must break To seperate contemplation, the great whole; And as the ocean many bays will make, That ask the eye-so here condense thy soul To more immediate objects, and control Thy thoughts until thy mind hath got by heart Its eloquent proportions, and unroll In mighty graduations, part by part, The glory which at once upon thee did not dart, CLVIII. Not by its fault-but thine: Our outward sense That what we have of feeling most intense Fools our fond gaze, and greatest of the great To view the huge design which sprung from such a Our spirits to the size of what they contemplate. 62 CLXII. But in his delicate form-a dream of Love, The mind with in its most unearthly mood, Starlike, around, until they gather'd to a god! 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 array'd With an eternal glory-which, if made By human hands, is not of human thought; And Time himself hath hallow'd 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, CLXVIII. Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou? In the sad midnight, while thy heart still bled, Death hush'd that pang for ever; with thee fled CLXIX. Peasants bring forth in safety. Can it be, CLXX. Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made; With forms which live and suffer let that pass-Like stars to shepherd's eyes:-'twas but a meteor His shadow fades away into Destruction's mass, And send us prying into the abyss To gather what we shall be when the frame beam'd. CLXXI. Wo 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 manarchy hath rung Its knell in princely ears, till the o'erstung Nations have arm'd in madness, the strange fate Which stumbles mightiest sovereigns, and hath Against thair blind omnipotence a weight [flung Within the opposing scale, which crushes soon or late, CLXXII. These might have been her destiny; but no, These fardels of the heart-the heart whose sweat The land which loved thee so that none could lov CLXXXV. My task is done-my song hath ceased-my theme The spell should break of this protracted dream. CLXXXVI. Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been- He wore his sandal-shoon and scallop-shell; Which in my spirit dwelt is fluttering, faint, and low. If such there were-with you, the moral of his strair NOTES TO CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. CANTO I. 3. Yes! sigh'd o'er Delphi's long deserted shrine. Stanza i. line 6. Throughout this purple land, where law secures not life. Stanza xxi. line last. THE little village of Castri stands partly on the It is a well known fact, that in the year 1809 the site of Delphi. Along the path of the mountain, assassinations in the streets of Lisbon and its from Chrysso, are the remains of sepulchres hewn vicinity were not confined by the Portuguese to in and from the rock. "One," said the guide, "of their countrymen; but that Englishmen were daily a king who broke his neck hunting." His majesty butchered: and so far from redress being obtained, had certainly chosen the fittest spot for such an we were requested not to interfere if we perceived any compatriot defending himself against his allies. achievement. A little above Castri is a cave, supposed the I was once stopped in the way to the theatre at Pythian, of immense depth; the upper part of it is eight o'clock in the evening, when the streets were paved, and now a cow-house. not more empty than they generally are at that On the other side of Castri stands a Greek hour, opposite to an open shop and in a carriage monastery; some way above which is the cleft in with a friend; had we not fortunately been armed, the rock, with a range of caverns difficult of ascent, I have not the least doubt that we should have and apparently leading to the interior of the moun-adorned a tale instead of telling one. The crime tain; probably to the Corycian Cavern mentioned of assassination is not confined to Portugal; in by Pausahias From this part descend the fountain Sicily and Malta we are knocked on the head at a and the "Dews of Castalie." handsome average nightly, and not a Sicilian or Maltese is ever punished!" 2. And rest ye at our "Lady's house of wo." Stanza xx. line 4. 4. Behold the hall where chiefs were late convened! Stanza xxiv. line 1. The Convent of "Our Lady of Punishment," Nossa Senora de Pena, on the summit of the rock. palace of the Marchese Marialva. The late exploits The Convention of Cintra was signed in the Below, at some distance, is the Cork Convent, where St. Honorius dug his den, over which is his of Lord Wellington have effaced the follies of epitaph. From the hills, the sea adds to the beauty perhaps changed the character of a nation, recon He has, indeed, done wonders; he has ciled rival superstitions, and baffled an enemy who never retreated before his predecessors. of the view. • Since the publication of this poemn, I have been informed of the misapprehension of the term Nossa Senora de Pena. It was owing to the want of the tilde, or mark over the n, which alters the signification of the word: with it, Pena signifies a rock; without it, Pena has the sense I adepted. I do not think it necessary to alter the passage, as, though the common acceptation| cffixed to it is "Our Lady of the Rock," 1 may well assume the other sense from the severities practised there. Cintra. 5. Yet Mafra shall one moment claim delay. Stanza xxix. line 1. The extent of Mafra is prodigious; it contains a Ask ye, Baotian shades, the reason why? Stanza lxx. line 5. This was written at Thebes, and consequently in the best situation for asking and answering such a question: not as the birthplace of Pindar, but as the capital of Boeotia, where the first riddle was propounded and solved. 16. Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings. When Cava's traitor sire first call'd the band That dyed thy mountain streams with Gothic gore. Stanza xxxv. lines 3 and 4. Count Julian's daughter, the Helen of Spain. Pelagius preserved his independence in the fastnesses of the Asturias, and the descendants of his Surgit amari aliquid quod in ipsis floribus angat.” followers, after some centuries, completed their struggle by the conquest of Grenada 8. 17. Lua. A traitor only fell beneath the feud. 18. "War even to the knife!" No! as he speeds, he chants, "Viva el Rey!" Stanza xlviii. line 5. "Viva el Rey Fernando!" Long live King Ferdinand is the chorus of most of the Spanish) patriotic songs: they are chiefly in dispraise of the ld king Charles, the Queen, and the Prince of Stanza lxxxvi. line last. Peace. I have heard many of them; some of the "War to the knife." Palafox's answer to the airs are beautiful. Godoy, the Principe de la Paz, French general at the siege of Saragoza. was born at Badajoz, on the frontiers of Portugal, and was originally in the ranks of the Spanish Guards, till his person attracted the queen's eyes, and raised him to the dukedom of Alcudia, &c. &c. It is to this man that the Spaniards universally impute the ruin of their country. 19. And thou, my friend! &c. Stanza xci. line 1. The Honorable I*. W**. of the Guards, who died of a fever at Coinbra. I had known him ten years, the better half of his life, and the happiest part of mine. who gave me being, and most of those who had In the short space of one month I had lost her made that being tolerable. To me the lines of Young are no fiction: "Insatiate archer! could not one suffice? Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain, I should have ventured a verse to the memory of the late Charles Skinner Matthews, Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge, were he not too much above all praise of mine. His powers of mind, shown in the attainment of greater honors, against the ablest candidates, than those of any graduate on record at Cambridge, have sufficiently established his fame on the spot where it was acquired: while his softer qualities live in the recollection of friends who loved him too well to envy his superiority. CANTO II. 1. -despite of war and wasting fire Stanza i. line 4. PART of the Acropolis was destroyed by the explosion of a magazine during the Venetian siege. |