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 IV. [reeds. 1 Bound to the earth, he lifts his eye to heaven - 1 [In the original MS. we find the following note to this and the five succeeding stanzas, which had been prepared for publication, but was afterwards withdrawn, "from a fear," says the poet, "that it might be considered rather as an attack, than a defence of religion; " "In this age of bigotry, when the puritan and priest have changed places, and the wretched Catholic is visited with the 'sins of his fathers,' even unto generations far beyond the pale of the commandment, the cast of opinion in these stanzas will, doubtless, meet with many a contemptuous anathema. But let it be remembered, that the spirit they breathe is desponding, not sneering, scepticism; that he who has seen the Greek and Moslem superstitions contending for mastery over the former shrines of Polytheism - who has left in his own 'Pharisees, thanking. God that they are not like publicans and sinners,' and Spaniards in theirs, abhorring the heretics, who have holpen them in their need, - will be not a little bewildered, and begin to think, that as only one of them can be right, they may, most of them, be wrong. With regard to morals, and the effect of religion on mankind, it appears, from all historical testimony, to have had less effect in making them love their neighbours, than inducing that cordial Christian abhorrence between sectaries and schismatics. The Turks and Quakers are the most tolerant: if an Infidel pays his heratch to the former, he may pray how, when, and where he pleases; and the mild tenets and devout demeanour of the latter, make their lives the truest commentary on the Sermon on the Mount."] Thou know'st not, reck'st not to what region, so That little urn saith more than thousand homilies. V. Or burst the banish'd Hero's lofty mound; Far on the solitary shore he sleeps : 2 He fell, and falling nations mourn'd around; But now not one of saddening thousands weeps, Nor warlike-worshipper 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, People this lonely tower, this tenement refit ? 1 [" Still wilt thou harp." - MS.] 2 It was not always the custom of the Greeks to burn their dead; the greater Ajax, in particular, was interred entire. Almost all the chiefs became gods after their decease; and he was indeed neglected, who had not annual games near his tomb, or festivals in honour of his memory by his countrymen, as Achilles, Brasidas, &c., and at last even Antinous, whose death was as heroic as his life was infamous. VII. Well didst thou speak, Athena's wisest son! There no forced banquet claims the sated guest, 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 sage, and all who taught the right! 1 IX. There, thou! - whose love and life together fled, Twined with my heart, and can I deem thee dead When busy Memory flashes on my brain? 1 [In the original MS., for this magnificent stanza, we find what follows: "Frown not upon me, churlish Priest! that I Still dream of Paradise, thou knows't not where, But lov'st too well to bid thine erring brother share."] Well-I will dream that we may meet again, For me 'twere bliss enough to know thy spirit blest!1 x. Here let me sit upon this massy stone, 2 The marble column's yet unshaken base; Here, son of Saturn! was thy fav'rite throne : 3 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; Unmov'd the Moslem sits, the light Greek carols by. ΧΙ. But who, of all the plunderers of yon fane 1 [Lord Byron wrote this stanza at Newstead, in October, 1811, on hearing of the death of his Cambridge friend, young Eddlestone; "making," he says, "the sixth, within four months, of friends and relations that I have lost between May and the end of August."] 2 [" The thought and the expression," says Professor Clarke, in a letter to the poet, "are here so truly Petrarch's, that I would ask you whether you ever read, Poi quando 'l vero sgombra Quel dolce error pur li medesmo assido, "Thus rendered by Wilmot, 'But when rude truth destroys The loved illusion of the dreamed sweets, Less cold, less dead than I, and think and weep alone.'"] 3 The temple of Jupiter Olympius, of which sixteen columns, entirely of marble, yet survive: originally there were one hundred and fifty. These columns, however, are by many supposed to have belonged to the Pantheon. The latest relic of her ancient reign; Thy free-born men should spare what once was free; Yet they could violate each saddening shrine, And bear these altars o'er the long-reluctant brine. 1 XII. But most the modern Pict's ignoble boast, To rive what Goth, and Turk, and Time hath spared: 2 Cold as the crags upon his native coast, 3 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, 4 And never knew, till then, the weight of Despot's chains. XIII. What! shall it e'er be said by British tongue, Though in thy name the slave her bosom wrung, 1 The ship was wrecked in the Archipelago. 2 See Appendix, Note A, for some strictures on the removal of the works of art from Athens. 3 [" Cold and accursed as his native coast."-MS.] 4 I cannot resist availing myself of the permission of my friend Dr. Clarke, whose name requires no comment with the public, but whose sanction will add tenfold weight to my testimony, to insert the following extract from a very obliging letter of his to me, as a note to the above lines: - "When the last of the Metopes was taken from the Parthenon, and, in moving of it, great part of the superstructure with one of the triglyphs was thrown down by the workmen whom Lord Elgin employed, the Disdar, who beheld the mischief done to the building, took his pipe from his mouth, dropped a tear, and, in a supplicating tone of voice, said to Lusieri, Τέλος ! - I was present." The Disdar alluded to was the father of the present Disdar. |