Lord Byron - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Byron

  Of your departing voices, is the knoll

  Of what in me is sleepless, – if I rest.

  But where of ye, O tempests! is the goal?

  Are ye like those within the human breast?

  Or do ye find at length, like eagles, some high nest?

  XCVII.

  Could I embody and unbosom now

  That which is most within me, – could I wreak

  My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw

  Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings, strong or weak,

  All that I would have sought, and all I seek,

  Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe – into one word,

  And that one word were lightning, I would speak;

  But as it is, I live and die unheard,

  With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword.

  XCVIII.

  The morn is up again, the dewy morn,

  With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom,

  Laughing the clouds away with playful scorn,

  And living as if earth contained no tomb, –

  And glowing into day: we may resume

  The march of our existence: and thus I,

  Still on thy shores, fair Leman! may find room

  And food for meditation, nor pass by

  Much, that may give us pause, if pondered fittingly.

  XCIX.

  Clarens! sweet Clarens! birthplace of deep Love!

  Thine air is the young breath of passionate thought;

  Thy trees take root in love; the snows above

  The very glaciers have his colours caught,

  And sunset into rose-hues sees them wrought

  By rays which sleep there lovingly: the rocks,

  The permanent crags, tell here of Love, who sought

  In them a refuge from the worldly shocks,

  Which stir and sting the soul with hope that woos, then mocks.

  C.

  Clarens! by heavenly feet thy paths are trod, –

  Undying Love’s, who here ascends a throne

  To which the steps are mountains; where the god

  Is a pervading life and light, – so shown

  Not on those summits solely, nor alone

  In the still cave and forest; o’er the flower

  His eye is sparkling, and his breath hath blown,

  His soft and summer breath, whose tender power

  Passes the strength of storms in their most desolate hour.

  CI.

  All things are here of him; from the black pines,

  Which are his shade on high, and the loud roar

  Of torrents, where he listeneth, to the vines

  Which slope his green path downward to the shore,

  Where the bowed waters meet him, and adore,

  Kissing his feet with murmurs; and the wood,

  The covert of old trees, with trunks all hoar,

  But light leaves, young as joy, stands where it stood,

  Offering to him, and his, a populous solitude.

  CII.

  A populous solitude of bees and birds,

  And fairy-formed and many coloured things,

  Who worship him with notes more sweet than words,

  And innocently open their glad wings,

  Fearless and full of life: the gush of springs,

  And fall of lofty fountains, and the bend

  Of stirring branches, and the bud which brings

  The swiftest thought of beauty, here extend,

  Mingling, and made by Love, unto one mighty end.

  CIII.

  He who hath loved not, here would learn that lore,

  And make his heart a spirit: he who knows

  That tender mystery, will love the more,

  For this is Love’s recess, where vain men’s woes,

  And the world’s waste, have driven him far from those,

  For ‘tis his nature to advance or die;

  He stands not still, but or decays, or grows

  Into a boundless blessing, which may vie

  With the immortal lights, in its eternity!

  CIV.

  ‘Twas not for fiction chose Rousseau this spot,

  Peopling it with affections; but he found

  It was the scene which passion must allot

  To the mind’s purified beings; ‘twas the ground

  Where early Love his Psyche’s zone unbound,

  And hallowed it with loveliness: ‘tis lone,

  And wonderful, and deep, and hath a sound,

  And sense, and sight of sweetness; here the Rhone

  Hath spread himself a couch, the Alps have reared a throne.

  CV.

  Lausanne! and Ferney! ye have been the abodes

  Of names which unto you bequeathed a name;

  Mortals, who sought and found, by dangerous roads,

  A path to perpetuity of fame:

  They were gigantic minds, and their steep aim

  Was, Titan-like, on daring doubts to pile

  Thoughts which should call down thunder, and the flame

  Of Heaven, again assailed, if Heaven the while

  On man and man’s research could deign do more than smile.

  CVI.

  The one was fire and fickleness, a child

  Most mutable in wishes, but in mind

  A wit as various, – gay, grave, sage, or wild, –

  Historian, bard, philosopher combined:

  He multiplied himself among mankind,

  The Proteus of their talents: But his own

  Breathed most in ridicule, – which, as the wind,

  Blew where it listed, laying all things prone, –

  Now to o’erthrow a fool, and now to shake a throne.

  CVII.

  The other, deep and slow, exhausting thought,

  And hiving wisdom with each studious year,

  In meditation dwelt, with learning wrought,

  And shaped his weapon with an edge severe,

  Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer;

  The lord of irony, – that master spell,

  Which stung his foes to wrath, which grew from fear,

  And doomed him to the zealot’s ready hell,

  Which answers to all doubts so eloquently well.

  CVIII.

  Yet, peace be with their ashes, – for by them,

  If merited, the penalty is paid;

  It is not ours to judge, far less condemn;

  The hour must come when such things shall be made

  Known unto all, – or hope and dread allayed

  By slumber on one pillow, in the dust,

  Which, thus much we are sure, must lie decayed;

  And when it shall revive, as is our trust,

  ‘Twill be to be forgiven, or suffer what is just.

  CIX.

  But let me quit man’s works, again to read

  His Maker’s spread around me, and suspend

  This page, which from my reveries I feed,

  Until it seems prolonging without end.

  The clouds above me to the white Alps tend,

  And I must pierce them, and survey whate’er

  May be permitted, as my steps I bend

  To their most great and growing region, where

  The earth to her embrace compels the powers of air.

  CX.

  Italia! too, Italia! looking on thee

  Full flashes on the soul the light of ages,

  Since the fierce Carthaginian almost won thee,

  To the last halo of the chiefs and sages

  Who glorify thy consecrated pages;

  Thou wert the throne and grave of empires; still,

  The fount at which the panting mind assuages

  Her thirst of knowledge, quaffing there her fill,

  Flows from the eternal source of Rome’s imperial hill.

&n
bsp; CXI.

  Thus far have I proceeded in a theme

  Renewed with no kind auspices: – to feel

  We are not what we have been, and to deem

  We are not what we should be, and to steel

  The heart against itself; and to conceal,

  With a proud caution, love or hate, or aught, –

  Passion or feeling, purpose, grief, or zeal, –

  Which is the tyrant spirit of our thought,

  Is a stern task of soul: – No matter, – it is taught.

  CXII.

  And for these words, thus woven into song,

  It may be that they are a harmless wile, –

  The colouring of the scenes which fleet along,

  Which I would seize, in passing, to beguile

  My breast, or that of others, for a while.

  Fame is the thirst of youth, – but I am not

  So young as to regard men’s frown or smile

  As loss or guerdon of a glorious lot;

  I stood and stand alone, – remembered or forgot.

  CXIII.

  I have not loved the world, nor the world me;

  I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bowed

  To its idolatries a patient knee, –

  Nor coined my cheek to smiles, nor cried aloud

  In worship of an echo; in the crowd

  They could not deem me one of such; I stood

  Among them, but not of them; in a shroud

  Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still could,

  Had I not filed my mind, which thus itself subdued.

  CXIV.

  I have not loved the world, nor the world me, –

  But let us part fair foes; I do believe,

  Though I have found them not, that there may be

  Words which are things, – hopes which will not deceive,

  And virtues which are merciful, nor weave

  Snares for the falling: I would also deem

  O’er others’ griefs that some sincerely grieve;

  That two, or one, are almost what they seem, –

  That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream.

  CXV.

  My daughter! with thy name this song begun –

  My daughter! with thy name this much shall end –

  I see thee not, I hear thee not, – but none

  Can be so wrapt in thee; thou art the friend

  To whom the shadows of far years extend:

  Albeit my brow thou never shouldst behold,

  My voice shall with thy future visions blend,

  And reach into thy heart, when mine is cold, –

  A token and a tone, even from thy father’s mould.

  CXVI.

  To aid thy mind’s development, – to watch

  Thy dawn of little joys, – to sit and see

  Almost thy very growth, – to view thee catch

  Knowledge of objects, wonders yet to thee!

  To hold thee lightly on a gentle knee,

  And print on thy soft cheek a parent’s kiss, –

  This, it should seem, was not reserved for me

  Yet this was in my nature: – As it is,

  I know not what is there, yet something like to this.

  CXVII.

  Yet, though dull Hate as duty should be taught,

  I know that thou wilt love me; though my name

  Should be shut from thee, as a spell still fraught

  With desolation, and a broken claim:

  Though the grave closed between us, – ‘twere the same,

  I know that thou wilt love me: though to drain

  My blood from out thy being were an aim,

  And an attainment, – all would be in vain, –

  Still thou wouldst love me, still that more than life retain.

  CXVIII.

  The child of love, – though born in bitterness,

  And nurtured in convulsion. Of thy sire

  These were the elements, and thine no less.

  As yet such are around thee; but thy fire

  Shall be more tempered, and thy hope far higher.

  Sweet be thy cradled slumbers! O’er the sea,

  And from the mountains where I now respire,

  Fain would I waft such blessing upon thee,

  As, with a sigh, I deem thou mightst have been to me!

  CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE: CANTO THE FOURTH.

  I.

  I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;

  A palace and a prison on each hand:

  I saw from out the wave her structures rise

  As from the stroke of the enchanter’s wand:

  A thousand years their cloudy wings expand

  Around me, and a dying glory smiles

  O’er the far times when many a subject land

  Looked to the wingèd Lion’s marble piles,

  Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles!

  II.

  She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean,

  Rising with her tiara of proud towers

  At airy distance, with majestic motion,

  A ruler of the waters and their powers:

  And such she was; her daughters had their dowers

  From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East

  Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.

  In purple was she robed, and of her feast

  Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased.

  III.

  In Venice, Tasso’s echoes are no more,

  And silent rows the songless gondolier;

  Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,

  And music meets not always now the ear:

  Those days are gone – but beauty still is here.

  States fall, arts fade – but Nature doth not die,

  Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear,

  The pleasant place of all festivity,

  The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy!

  IV.

  But unto us she hath a spell beyond

  Her name in story, and her long array

  Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond

  Above the dogeless city’s vanished sway;

  Ours is a trophy which will not decay

  With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor,

  And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn away –

  The keystones of the arch! though all were o’er,

  For us repeopled were the solitary shore.

  V.

  The beings of the mind are not of clay;

  Essentially immortal, they create

  And multiply in us a brighter ray

  And more beloved existence: that which Fate

  Prohibits to dull life, in this our state

  Of mortal bondage, by these spirits supplied,

  First exiles, then replaces what we hate;

  Watering the heart whose early flowers have died,

  And with a fresher growth replenishing the void.

  VI.

  Such is the refuge of our youth and age,

  The first from Hope, the last from Vacancy;

  And this worn feeling peoples many a page,

  And, may be, that which grows beneath mine eye:

  Yet there are things whose strong reality

  Outshines our fairy-land; in shape and hues

  More beautiful than our fantastic sky,

  And the strange constellations which the Muse

  O’er her wild universe is skilful to diffuse:

  VII.

  I saw or dreamed of such, – but let them go –

  They came like truth, and disappeared like dreams;

  And whatsoe’er they were – are now but so;

  I could replace them if I would: still teems

  My mind with many a form which aptly seems

  Such as I sought f
or, and at moments found;

  Let these too go – for waking reason deems

  Such overweening phantasies unsound,

  And other voices speak, and other sights surround.

  VIII.

  I’ve taught me other tongues, and in strange eyes

  Have made me not a stranger; to the mind

  Which is itself, no changes bring surprise;

  Nor is it harsh to make, nor hard to find

  A country with – ay, or without mankind;

  Yet was I born where men are proud to be,

  Not without cause; and should I leave behind

  The inviolate island of the sage and free,

  And seek me out a home by a remoter sea,

  IX.

  Perhaps I loved it well: and should I lay

  My ashes in a soil which is not mine,

  My spirit shall resume it – if we may

  Unbodied choose a sanctuary. I twine

  My hopes of being remembered in my line

  With my land’s language: if too fond and far

  These aspirations in their scope incline, –

  If my fame should be, as my fortunes are,

  Of hasty growth and blight, and dull Oblivion bar.

  X.

  My name from out the temple where the dead

  Are honoured by the nations – let it be –

  And light the laurels on a loftier head!

  And be the Spartan’s epitaph on me –

  ‘Sparta hath many a worthier son than he.’

  Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need;

  The thorns which I have reaped are of the tree

  I planted, – they have torn me, and I bleed:

  I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.

  XI.

  The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord;

  And, annual marriage now no more renewed,

  The Bucentaur lies rotting unrestored,

  Neglected garment of her widowhood!

  St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stood

  Stand, but in mockery of his withered power,

  Over the proud place where an Emperor sued,

  And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour

  When Venice was a queen with an unequalled dower.

  XII.

  The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns –

  An Emperor tramples where an Emperor knelt;

  Kingdoms are shrunk to provinces, and chains

  Clank over sceptred cities; nations melt

  From power’s high pinnacle, when they have felt

  The sunshine for a while, and downward go

  Like lauwine loosened from the mountain’s belt:

  Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo!

  The octogenarian chief, Byzantium’s conquering foe.

  XIII.

  Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of brass,

  Their gilded collars glittering in the sun;