Читать книгу Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (With Byron's Biography) - Lord Byron - Страница 250

LXXXVIII.194

Where'er we tread 'tis haunted, holy ground;

No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould,

But one vast realm of Wonder spreads around,

And all the Muse's tales seem truly told,

Till the sense aches with gazing to behold

The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon;

Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold

Defies the power which crushed thy temples gone:

Age shakes Athenæ's tower, but spares gray Marathon.195

LXXXIX.

The Sun, the soil—but not the slave, the same;—

Unchanged in all except its foreign Lord,

Preserves alike its bounds and boundless famefw The Battle-field, where Persia's victim horde First bowed beneath the brunt of Hellas' sword, As on the morn to distant Glory dear, When Marathon became a magic word; 39.B. Which uttered, to the hearer's eye appearfx The camp, the host, the fight, the Conqueror's career,fy

XC.

The flying Mede, his shaftless broken bow—fz196 The fiery Greek, his red pursuing spear; Mountains above—Earth's, Ocean's plain below— Death in the front, Destruction in the rear! Such was the scene—what now remaineth here? What sacred Trophy marks the hallowed ground, Recording Freedom's smile and Asia's tear?ga The rifled urn, the violated mound,197 The dust thy courser's hoof, rude stranger! spurns around.

XCI.

Yet to the remnants of thy Splendour pastgb Shall pilgrims, pensive, but unwearied, throng; Long shall the voyager, with th' Ionian blast,198 Hail the bright clime of Battle and of Song: Long shall thine annals and immortal tongue Fill with thy fame the youth of many a shore; Boast of the agéd! lesson of the young! Which Sages venerate and Bards adore, As Pallas and the Muse unveil their awful lore.

XCII.

The parted bosom clings to wonted home,

If aught that's kindred cheer the welcome hearth;

He that is lonely—hither let him roam,

And gaze complacent on congenial earth.

Greece is no lightsome land of social mirth:

But he whom Sadness sootheth may abide,

And scarce regret the region of his birth,

When wandering slow by Delphi's sacred side,

Or gazing o'er the plains where Greek and Persian died.199

XCIII.

Let such approach this consecrated Land,

And pass in peace along the magic waste;

But spare its relics—let no busy hand

Deface the scenes, already how defaced!

Not for such purpose were these altars placed:

Revere the remnants Nations once revered:

So may our Country's name be undisgraced,

So may'st thou prosper where thy youth was reared,

By every honest joy of Love and Life endeared!

XCIV.

For thee, who thus in too protracted song

Hast soothed thine Idlesse with inglorious lays,

Soon shall thy voice be lost amid the throng

Of louder Minstrels in these later days:

To such resign the strife for fading Bays—

Ill may such contest now the spirit move

Which heeds nor keen Reproach nor partial Praise,gc Since cold each kinder heart that might approve— And none are left to please when none are left to love.

XCV.

Thou too art gone, thou loved and lovely one!

Whom Youth and Youth's affections bound to me;

Who did for me what none beside have done,

Nor shrank from one albeit unworthy thee.

What is my Being! thou hast ceased to be!

Nor staid to welcome here thy wanderer home,

Who mourns o'er hours which we no more shall see—

Would they had never been, or were to come!

Would he had ne'er returned to find fresh cause to roam!gd200

XCVI.

Oh! ever loving, lovely, and beloved!

How selfish Sorrow ponders on the past,

And clings to thoughts now better far removed!

But Time shall tear thy shadow from me last.ge All thou couldst have of mine, stern Death! thou hast; The Parent, Friend, and now the more than Friend: Ne'er yet for one thine arrows flew so fast,201 And grief with grief continuing still to blend, Hath snatched the little joy that Life had yet to lend.

XCVII.

Then must I plunge again into the crowd,

And follow all that Peace disdains to seek?

Where Revel calls, and Laughter, vainly loud,

False to the heart, distorts the hollow cheek,

To leave the flagging spirit doubly weak;

Still o'er the features, which perforce they cheer,

To feign the pleasure or conceal the pique:

Smiles form the channel of a future tear,

Or raise the writhing lip with ill-dissembled sneer.

XCVIII.

What is the worst of woes that wait on Age?

What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?

To view each loved one blotted from Life's page,

And be alone on earth, as I am now.

Before the Chastener humbly let me bow,

O'er Hearts divided and o'er Hopes destroyed:

Roll on, vain days! full reckless may ye flow,

Since Time hath reft whate'er my soul enjoyed,gf And with the ills of Eld mine earlier years alloyed.

Note.—The MS. closes with stanza xcii. Stanzas xciii.-xcviii. were added after Childe Harold was in the press. Byron sent them to Dallas, October 11, 1811, and, apparently, on the same day composed the Epistle to a Friend (F. Hodgson) in answer to some lines exhorting the Author to be cheerful, and to "Banish Care," and the first poem To Thyrza ("Without a stone to mark the Spot"). "I have sent," he writes, "two or three additional stanzas for both 'Fyttes.' I have been again shocked with a death, and have lost one very dear to me in happier times; but 'I have almost forgot the taste of grief,' and 'supped full of horrors' till I have become callous, nor have I a tear left for an event which, five years ago, would have bowed down my head to the earth. It seems as though I were to experience in my youth the greatest misery of age. My friends fall around me, and I shall be left a lonely tree before I am withered." In one respect he would no longer disclaim identity with Childe Harold. "Death had deprived him of his nearest connections." He had seen his friends "around him fall like leaves in wintry weather." He felt "like one deserted;" and in the "dusky shadow" of that early desolation he was destined to walk till his life's end. It is not without cause when "a man of great spirit grows melancholy."

In connection with this subject, it may be noted that lines 6 and 7 of stanza xcv. do not bear out Byron's contention to Dallas (Letters, October 14 and 31, 1811), that in these three in memoriam stanzas (ix., xcv., xcvi.) he is bewailing an event which took place after he returned to Newstead. The "more than friend" had "ceased to be" before the "wanderer" returned. It is evident that Byron did not take Dallas into his confidence.]