112 And she, proud Austria's mournful flower, Thy still imperial bride; Still clings she to thy side? 116 If still she loves thee, hoard that gem, But thou forsooth must be a King The star, the string, the crest? Where may the wearied eye repose When gazing on the Great; 160 164 the last the best 168 The Cincinnatus of the West, Whom Envy dared not hate, Bequeathed the name of Washington, To make man blush there was but one! in in head PROMETHEUS. [Diodati, July, 1816] Titan! to whose immortal eyes The sufferings of mortality, Seen in their sad reality, Were not as things that gods despise; 5 What was thy pity's recompense? A silent suffering, and intense; The rock, the vulture, and the chain, 8 12 16 The sum of human wretchedness, 40 45 50 A mighty lesson we inherit: From CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. I. Canto III, St. 85–97 (1816): The Lake of Geneva. Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake, That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved. It is the hush of night, and all between Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, There breathes a living fragrance from the shore, Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more; 20 24 28 He is an evening reveller, who makes Weeping themselves away, till they infuse Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven! 82 Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state, In us such love and reverence from afar, 36 That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star. 40 44 48 All heaven and earth are still though not in sleep, All is concentered in a life intense, Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, Of that which is of all Creator and defence. Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt A truth, which through our being then doth melt, The soul and source of music, which makes known 52 Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone, 56 60 Binding all things with beauty; 'twould disarm The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm. Not vainly did the early Persian make His altar the high places and the peak With Nature's realms of worship, earth and air, 64 68 The sky is changed! - and such a change! Oh night, Of a dark eye in woman! Far along, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among 76 80 84 And this is in the night: -Most glorious night! A sharer in thy fierce and far delight, A portion of the tempest and of thee! How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea, And the big rain comes dancing to the earth! And now again 'tis black, and now, the glee Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth, As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth. Now, where the swift Rhone cleaves his way between That they can meet no more, though broken-hearted; 88 Which blighted their life's bloom, and then departed: Itself expired, but leaving them an age 92 96 100 104 Of years all winters, war within themselves to wage: Now, where the quick Rhone thus hath cleft his way, And fling their thunder-bolts from hand to hand, The brightest through these parted hills hath fork'd That in such gaps as desolation work'd, There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurk'd. Sky, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings! ye! Of what in me is sleepless, if I rest. 108 Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest? 112 116 Could I embody and unbosom now That which is most within me, could I wreak 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. 4 8 12 II. Canto IV, St. 78–82 (1818): Rome. Oh Rome! my country! city of the soul! In their shut breasts their petty misery. What are our woes and sufferance? Come and see O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, Ye! A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. The Niobe of nations! there she stands, 16 Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow, 20 24 28 Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness? Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress. The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire, She saw her glories star by star expire, And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride, Where the car clim'd the Capitol; far and wide O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light, And say, 'here was, or is,' where all is doubly night? The double night of ages, and of her, Night's daughter, Ignorance, hath wrapt and wrap The ocean hath his chart, the stars their map, |