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, His shrunken ashes, raise this dome: How smiles The gazer's eye with philosophic mirth, Thou movest-but increasing with the advance, Rich marbles-rieher painting-shrines where Sits on the firm-set ground-and this the clouds must claim. CLVII. Thou seest not all; but piecemeal thou must break The glory which at once upon thee did not dart, CLVIII. Not by its fault-but thine: Our outward sense 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. birth! 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, CLXIX. Peasants bring forth in safety.-Can it be, Oh thou that wert so happy, so adored! Those who weep not for kings shall weep for thee, And Freedom's heart, grown heavy, cease to hoard Her many griefs for ONE; for she had pour'd Her orisons for thee, and o'er thy head Beheld her Iris.-Thou, too, lonely lord, And desolate consort-vainly wert thou wed! The husband of a year! the father of the dead! 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, Hark! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds, 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 monarchy 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 [fung Within the opposing scale, which crushes soon or late, CLXXII. These might have been her destiny; but no, Our hearts deny it: and so young, so fair, Good without effort, great without a foe; But now a bride and mother-and now there! How many ties did that stern moment tear! From thy Sire's to his humblest subject's breast Is link'd the electric chain of that despair, Whose shock was as an earthquake's, and oppress The land which loved thee so that none could love thee best. CLXXIII. 70 Lo, Nemi! navell'd in the woody hills She clasps a babe to whom her breast yields no relief. All coil'd into itself and round, as sleeps the snake 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 mentione by Pausahias From this part descend the fountai and the "Dews of Castalie." 2. And rest ye at our "Lady's house of wo." ssassination is not confined to Portugal; in and Malta we are knocked on the head at a dsome average nightly, and not a Sicilian or Maltese is ever punished!" 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. The Convention of Cintra was signed in the Below, at some distance, is the Cork Convent, palace of the Marchese Marialva. The late exploits 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 Cintra. He has, indeed, done wonders; he has of the view. Since the publication of this poem, I have been informed of the misappre hension of the term Nossa Senora de Pena. It was owing to the want of the filde, or mark over the n, which alters the signification of the word: with k, Pens significa a rock; without it, Pena has the sense 1 adopted. I do not think it necessary to alter the passage, as, though the common acceptation affixed to it in "Our Lady of the Rock," I Lany well assume the other sense from the severities practised there. ciled rival superstitions,nd baffled an enemy who never retreated before his predecessors. 5. Yet Mafra shall one moment claim delay. Stanza xxix. line 1. The extent of Mafra is prodigious; it contains a palace, convent, and most superb church. The six | organs are the most beautiful I ever beheld, in point of decorations; we did not hear them, but were told that their tones were correspondent to their splendor. Mafra is termed the Escurial of Portugal. 6. Well doth the Spanish hind the difference know As I found the Portuguese, so I have characterized them. That they are since improved, at least in courage, is evident. 7. 14. Fair is proud Seville; let her country boast Seville was the Hispalis of the Romans. 15. Ask ye, Baotian shades, the reason why? 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. Luc. A traitor only fell beneath the feud. the Governor of Cadiz. 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 Stanza lxxxvi. line iast. old king Charles, the Queen, and the Prince of "War to the knife." Palafox's answer to the Peace. I have heard many of them; some of 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. 9. Bears in his cap the badge of crimson hue, 10. The ball-piled pyramid, the ever-blazing match. All who have seen a battery will recollect the pyramidal form in which shot and shells are piled. The Sierra Morena was fortified in every defile through which I passed in my way to Seville. 11. 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. In the short space of one month I had lost her who gave me being, and most of those who had 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 te 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. |