Her glance how wildly beautiful! how much Hath Phoebus wooed in vain to spoil her cheek, Which glows yet smoother from his amorous clutch! Who round the North for paler dames would seek? How poor their forms appear! how languid, wan, and weak!

LIX

Match me, ye climes! which poets love to laud;
Match me, ye harems of the land where now
I strike my strain, far distant, to applaud
Beauties that even a cynic must avow;

Match me those Houries,1 whom ye scarce allow
To taste the gale lest Love should ride the wind,
With Spain's dark-glancing daughters-deign to know,
There your wise Prophet's paradise we find,
His black-eyed maids of Heaven, angelically kind.

LX

Oh, thou Parnassus ! 2 whom I now survey,
Not in the phrensy of a dreamer's eye,
Not in the fabled landscape of a lay,

But soaring snow-clad through thy native sky,
In the wild pomp of mountain-majesty !
What marvel if I thus essay to sing?

The humblest of thy pilgrims passing by

Would gladly woo thine Echoes with his string, Though from thy heights no more one Muse will wave her wing.

LXI

Oft have I dreamed of Thee! whose glorious name
Who knows not, knows not man's divinest lore :
And now I view thee, 'tis, alas, with shame

That I in feeblest accents must adore.

1 Ye harems of the land.] Harem and Houri imply that this stanza was written in Turkey.

Harem-derived from Arabic 'charam,' an 'inviolable' spot. Houri-from Arabic hour' and 'ain,' a celestial beauty, the white and black in whose eyes are clearly marked.

2 Parnassus.] 'Mons Bifidus,' the sacred mount of Delphi, famed for Apollo's oracle and the Castalian fount, from which to drink was to gain inspiration.

When I recount thy worshippers of yore
I tremble, and can only bend the knee ;
Nor raise my voice, nor vainly dare to soar,
But gaze beneath thy cloudy canopy

In silent joy to think at last I look on Thee!

LXII

Happier in this than mightiest bards have been,
Whose fate to distant homes confined their lot,
Shall I unmoved behold the hallowed scene,
Which others rave of, though they know it not?
Though here no more Apollo haunts his grot,
And thou, the Muses' seat, art now their grave,
Some gentle spirit still pervades the spot,
Sighs in the gale, keeps silence in the cave,
And glides with glassy foot o'er yon melodious wave.1

LXIII

Of thee hereafter.2-Even amidst my strain
I turned aside to pay my homage here;
Forgot the land, the sons, the maids of Spain;
Her fate, to every freeborn bosom dear;
And hailed thee, not perchance without a tear.
Now to my theme-but from thy holy haunt
Let me some remnant, some memorial bear
Yield me one leaf of Daphne's deathless plant,3
Nor let thy votary's hope be deemed an idle vaunt.

LXIV

But ne'er didst thou, fair Mount! when Greece was young,

See round thy giant base a brighter choir,

Nor e'er did Delphi, when her priestess sung

The Pythian hymn with more than mortal fire,
Behold a train more fitting to inspire

The song of love, than Andalusia's maids,
Nurst in the glowing lap of soft desire :

Ah! that to these were given such peaceful shades
As Greece can still bestow, though Glory fly her glades.

1 O'er yon melodious wave.] The Castalian fount. The Pythian priestess, as the legend runs, derived her inspiration from copious draughts of its waters.

2 Of thee hereafter.] See Canto iii.

3 Daphne's deathless plant.] The hallowed bay, the poet's prize.

LXV

Fair is proud Seville; let her country boast
Her strength, her wealth, her site of ancient days;
But Cadiz,' rising on the distant coast,

Calls forth a sweeter, though ignoble praise.
Ah, Vice! how soft are thy voluptuous ways!
While boyish blood is mantling, who can 'scape
The fascination of thy magic gaze?

A Cherub-hydra round us dost thou gape,
And mould to every taste thy dear delusive shape.

LXVI

When Paphos 2 fell by Time-accursed Time!
The Queen who conquers all must yield to thee-
The Pleasures fled, but sought as warm a clime;
And Venus, constant to her native sea,3

3

To nought else constant, hither deigned to flee,
And fixed her shrine within these walls of white;
Though not to one dome circumscribeth she
Her worship, but, devoted to her rite,

A thousand altars rise, for ever blazing bright.

4

LXVII

From morn till night, from night till startled Morn
Peeps blushing on the revel's laughing crew,

The song is heard, the rosy garland worn ;
Devices quaint, and frolics ever new,
Tread on each other's kibes."

A long adieu

He bids to sober joy that here sojourns :

1 Cadiz.] Cadiz, a Phoenician town, the seat of the Spanish Junta, besieged to no purpose by the French under General Sebastiani. Its vicious character is noted in this and the following stanzas.

2 Paphos.] In the island of Cyprus-also a Phoenician settlement-and partook of that immoral character which is connected with Phoenician places and legends. (See Gladstone's 'Juventus Mundi.')

3 Constant to her native sea.] Hence her name 'Appodíтn, from which sprung Anadyomena-emerging from the sea. 4 From morn till night.] Conf. Milton

'From morn till noon, from noon till dewy eve.'

5 Quaint.] See Glossary.

6 Kibes.] See Glossary,

Nought interrupts the riot, though in lieu
Of true devotion monkish incense burns,

And love and prayer unite, or rule the hour by turns.

LXVIII

The Sabbath comes, a day of blessed rest:
What hallows it upon this Christian shore?
Lo! it is sacred to a solemn feast:

Hark! heard you not the forest-monarch's roar? 1
Crashing the lance, he snuffs the spouting gore
Of man and steed, o'erthrown beneath his horn;
The thronged arena shakes with shouts for more;
Yells the mad crowd o'er entrails freshly torn,
Nor shrinks the female eye, nor ev'n affects to mourn.

LXIX

The seventh day this; the jubilee of man.

London! right well thou know'st the day of prayer: Then thy spruce citizen, washed artisan,

3

4

And smug apprentice gulp their weekly air:
Thy coach of Hackney, whiskey, one-horse chair,
And humblest gig through sundry suburbs whirl;
To Hampstead, Brentford, Harrow make repair;
Till the tired jade the wheel forgets to hurl,
Provoking envious gibe from each pedestrian churl.

LXX

Some o'er thy Thamis row the ribboned fair,
Others along the safer turnpike fly,

Some Richmond-hill ascend, some scud to Ware,
And many to the steep of Highgate hie.
Ask ye, Boeotian shades! the reason why?
'Tis to the worship of the solemn Horn,

1 Description of a bull-fight on the Spanish Sunday.
2 Smug.] See Glossary.

Coach of Hackney.] Conf. 'The chair of Bath,' or 'The chair of Sedan.'

6

4 Whiskey.] One-horse chaise, sometimes called a Timwhiskey.'

5 Baotian shades.] Written in Greece.

6 The solemn Horn has a double reference to the carouses of Sunday revellers, and to the Phallic rites of the old mysteries, in which adoration is offered to the Earth Mother, the great producer

Grasped in the holy hand of Mystery,

In whose dread name both men and maids are sworn, And consecrate the oath with draught, and dance till

morn.

LXXI

All have their fooleries—not alike are thine,
Fair Cadiz, rising o'er the dark blue sea!
Soon as the matin bell proclaimeth nine,
Thy saint adorers count the rosary :

Much is the VIRGIN teased to shrive them free

1

From crimes as numerous as her beadsmen 1 be ;
Then to the crowded circus forth they fare :

Young, old, high, low, at once the same diversion share.

LXXII

The lists are oped, the spacious area cleared,
Thousands on thousands piled are seated round;
Long ere the first loud trumpet's note is heard,
Ne vacant space for lated wight is found :
Here dons, grandees,2 but chiefly dames abound,
Skilled in the ogle3 of a roguish eye,

Yet ever well inclined to heal the wound;

None through their cold disdain are doomed to die, As moon-struck bards complain, by Love's sad archery.

LXXIII

Hushed is the din of tongues-on gallant steeds,
With milk-white crest, gold spur, and light-poised lance,
Four cavaliers prepare for venturous deeds,
And lowly bending to the lists advance

4

Rich are their scarfs, their chargers featly prance :
If in the dangerous game they shine to-day,

1 Beadsmen.] See Keats

'Numb were the beadsman's fingers while he told
His rosary.'

2 Dons, grandees.] The Spanish Hidalgo, the son of somebody'

in Spanish.

3 Ogle.] See Glossary.

4 Featly.] Cf. Spenser's 'fetisly.' The root of the word is from

fa-cio, faire,' to do."