1 CLXVIII Scion of chiefs 1 and monarchs, where art thou? In the sad midnight, while thy heart still bled, Death hushed that pang for ever: with thee fled Which filled the imperial isles so full it seemed to cloy. CLXIX Peasants bring forth in safety.—Can it be, CLXX Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made; Our children should obey her child, and blessed Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seemed Like stars to shepherd's eyes :-'twas but a meteor beamed. CLXXI Woe unto us, not her; for she sleeps well : Which from the birth of monarchy hath rung 1 Scion of chiefs.] Byron alludes to the death of the Princess Charlotte, the daughter of George IV., and wife of Leopold, subsequently King of the Belgians, She died in 1817, Its knell in princely ears, till the o'erstung Within the opposing scale, which crushes soon or late,— 1 CLXXII These might have been her destiny; but no, 1 Whose shock was as an earthquake's, and opprest The land which loved thee so that none could love thee best. CLXXIII Lo, Nemi! navelled in the woody hills So far, that the uprooting wind which tears Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares ; And calm as cherished hate, its surface wears A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake, CLXXIV And near, Albano's scarce divided waves 4 1 His sympathy with the Princess does not cause him to abandon the anti-monarchical sentiments by which he was so strongly imbued. 2 Nemi.] A little village near the Arician retreat of Egeria, and within a ride of Albano. 3 Navelled.] From the Greek oμpadòs. 4 The Epic war.] The great Epic poem of Virgil, who sang of Eneas, whose reputed descendants became emperors. M Tully reposed1 from Rome ;—and where yon bar Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight The Sabine farm was tilled, the weary bard's' delight. CLXXV But I forget.-My Pilgrim's shrine is won, Our friend of youth, that Ocean, which when we Those waves, we followed on till the dark Euxine rolled CLXXVI 3 Upon the blue Symplegades: long years— Long, though not very many-since have done CLXXVII Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling-place, 1 Tully reposed.] Cicero reposed at his Tusculan villa, the scene of the Tusculan disputations, and Horace was the weary bard whose Sabine farm is so frequently alluded to by himself. 2 The midland ocean.] A translation of the word Mediterranean. 3 Symplegades.] A cluster of islands near the Bosphorus, spoken of by Eschylus and Juvenal, who translates the name Concurrentia Saxa. CLXXVIII There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, CLXXIX Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean-roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ; Man marks the earth with ruin-his control Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.1 CLXXX His steps are not upon thy paths,-thy fields And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And sendest him, shivering in thy playful spray And dashest him again to earth :-there let him lay,2 CLXXXI The armaments which thunderstrike the walls 1 Unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.] Conf. And 'Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung.'-Scott, Unhouselled, disappointed, unaneled.'-Hamlet, and in Homer, ἀφρήτωρ, ἀθέμιστος, ἀνέστιος, 2 Let him lay.] Lie; jacio used for jace. The grammar of 'Childe Harold' is generally correct, though in other works Byron is careless. See Like he 'Marino Faliero;''save I'-' Heaven and Earth,' 1 And monarchs tremble in their capitals, 2 CLXXXII Thy shores are empires, changed in all save theeAssyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters washed them power while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage! their decay Has dried up realms to deserts :-not so thou ;Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves' play, Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. CLXXXIII - Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime CLXXXIV And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy 1 Lord of thee, and arbiter of war.] Alludes to the pretensions of -England as Queen of the Sea, to the right of search and declaration of blockades. See the Proclamation of 1801 with regard to Russian, Danish, and Swedish vessels. See D. J.' x. 65, And make the very billows pay them toll. Assyria.] Seems to stand for Syria. All the commerce of the ancient and medieval world was Mediterranean, till from the New World and its discovery, power moved westward, first to the Peninsula, and then to England. |