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النشر الإلكتروني

18.

"War even to the knife!"

Stanza Ixxxvi. line last.

"War to the knife. Palafox's answer to the French general at the siege of Saragoza.

19.

And thou, my friend! etc.

Stanza xcI. line 1.

The Honourable I*. W**. of the Guards, who died of a fever at Coimbra. 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 have 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, And thrice ere thrice yon moon had fill'd her horn...

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 honours, 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.

CHILDE HAROLD'S

PILGRIMAGE.

CANTO II.

1.

Come, blue-eyed maid of heaven!—but thou, alas!
Didst never yet one mortal song inspire-
Goddess of Wisdom! here thy temple was,
And is, despite of war and wasting fire, 1)
And years, that bade thy worship to expire:
But worse than steel, and flame, and ages slow,
Is the dread sceptre and dominion dire

Of men who never felt the sacred glow

That thoughts of thee and thine on polish'd breasts bestow.2)

II.

Ancient of days! august Athena! where,
Where are thy men of might? thy grand in soul?
Gone-glimmering through the dream of things
that were:

First in the race that led to Glory's goal,
They won, and pass'd away-is this the whole?
A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour!
The warrior's weapon and the sophist's stole
Are sought in vain, and o'er each mouldering
tower,

Dim with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of power.

III.

Son of the morning, rise! approach you here! Come-but molest not yon defenceless urn: Look on this spot-a nation's sepulchre!

Abode of gods, whose shrines no longer burn. Even gods must yield-religions take their turn:

"Twas Jove's-'tis Mahomet's-and other creeds Will rise with other years, till man shall learn Vainly his incense soars, his victim bleeds; Poor child of Doubt and Death, whose hope is

built on reeds.

IV.

Bound to the earth, he lifts his eye to heavenIs't not enough, unhappy thing! to know Thou art? Is this a boon so kindly given, That being, thou would'st be again, and go, Thou know'st not, reck'st not to what region, so On earth no more, but mingled with the skies? Still wilt thou dream on future joy and woe? Regard and weigh yon dust before it flies: That little urn saith more than thousand homilies.

v.

Or burst the vanish'd Hero's lofty mound; Far on the solitary shore he sleeps: 3) He fell, and falling nations mourn'd around; But now not one of saddening thousands weeps, Nor warlike-whorshipper his vigil keeps Where demi-gods appear'd, as records tell. Remove yon skull from out the scatter'd heaps: Is that a temple where a God may dwell? Why ev'n the worm at last disdains her shatter'd cell?

VI.

Look on its broken arch, its ruin'd wall,
Its chambers desolate, and portals foul:
Yes, this was once Ambition's airy hall,
The dome of Thought, the palace of the Soul:
Behold through each lack-lustre, eyeless hole,
The gay recess of Wisdom and of Wit

And Passion's host, that never brook'd control: Can all saint, sage, or sophist ever writ, People this lonely tower, this tenement refit?

VII.

Well didst thou speak, Athena's wisest son! "All that we know is, nothing can be known.» Why should we shrink from what we cannot shun?

Each has his pang, but feeble sufferers groan
With brain-born dreams of evil all their own.
Pursue what Chance or Fate proclaimeth best;
Peace waits us on the shores of Acheron :

There no forced banquet claims the sated guest, But Silence spreads the couch of ever welcome rest.

VIII.

Yet if, as holiest men have deem'd, there be
A land of souls beyond that sable shore,
To shame the doctrine of the Sadducee
And sophists, madly vain of dubious lore;
How sweet it were in concert to adore

With those who made our mortal labours light!
To hear each voice we fear'd to hear no more!
Behold each mighty shade reveal'd to sight,
The Bactrian, Samian age, and all who taught
the right!

IX.

There, thou!-whose love and life together fled,
Have left me here to love and live in vain-
Twined with my heart, and can I deem the dead,
When busy Memory flashes on my brain?
Well-1 will dream that we may meet again,
And woo the vision to my vacant breast:
If aught of young Remembrance then remain,
Be as it may Futurity's behest,

For me 'twere bliss enough to know thy spirit blest!

X.

Here let me sit upon this massy stone. The marble column's yet unshaken base; Here, son of Saturn! was thy fav'rite throne: 4) Mightiest of many such! Hence let me trace The latent grandeur of thy dwelling place. It may not be nor ev'n can Fancy's eye Restore what Time hath labour'd to deface. Yet these proud pillars claim no passing sigh; Unmoved the Moslem sits, the light Greek carols by.

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But who, of all the plunderers of yon fane
On high, where Pallas linger'd, loth to flee

The latest relic of her ancient reign;

The last, the worst, dull spoiler, who was he? Blush, Caledonia! such thy son could be! England! I joy no child he was of thine:

Thy free-born men should spare what once was free;

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Yet they could violate each saddening shrine, And bear these altars o'er the long-reluctant brine.5)

XII.

But most the modern Pict's ignoble boast,
To rive what Goth, and Turk, and Time hath
spared:6)

Cold as the crags upon his native coast,
His mind as barren and his heart as hard,
Is he whose head conceived, whose hand prepared,
Aught to displace Athena's poor remains:

Her sons too weak the sacred shrine to guard, Yet felt some portion of their mother's pains,7) And never knew, till then, the weight of Despot's chains.

XIII.

What! shall it e'er be said by British tongue, Albion was happy in Athena's tears?

Though in thy name the slaves her bosom wrung, Tell not the deed to blushing Europe's ears; The ocean queen, the free Britannia, bears The last poor plunder from a bleeding land: Yes, she, whose gen'rous aid her name endears, Tore down those remnants with a harpy's hand, Which envious Eld forbore, and tyrants left to stand.

XIV.

Where was thine Aegis, Pallas! that appall'd
Stern Alaric and Havoc on their way?8)
Where Peleus' son? whom Hell in vain enthrall'd,
His shade from Hades upon that dread day
Bursting to light in terrible array!

What! could not Pluto spare the chief once more,
To scare a second robber from his prey ?
Idly he wander'd on the Stygian shore,

Nor now preserved the walls he loved to shield before.

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