The crowd's loud shout and ladies' lovely glance,
Best prize of better acts, they bear away,

And all that kings or chiefs e'er gain their toils repay.

LXXIV

In costly sheen and gaudy cloak arrayed,
But all afoot, the light-limbed Matadore1
Stands in the centre, eager to invade

The lord of lowing herds: but not before

The ground, with cautious tread, is traversed o'er, Lest aught unseen should lurk to thwart his speed : His arms a dart, he fights aloof, nor more

Can man achieve without the friendly steedAlas! too oft condemned for him to bear and bleed.

LXXV

Thrice sounds the clarion: lo! the signal falls,
The den expands, and Expectation mute
Gapes round the silent circle's peopled walls.
Bounds with one lashing spring the mighty brute,
And, wildly staring, spurns, with sounding foot,
The sand, nor blindly rushes on his foe :

Here, there, he points his threatening front, to suit
His first attack, wide waving to and fro
His angry tail; red rolls his eye's dilated glow.

LXXVI

Sudden he stops; his eye is fixed away,
Away, thou heedless boy! prepare the spear:
Now is thy time to perish, or display

The skill that yet may check his mad career.

With well-timed croupe2 the nimble coursers veer ; On foams the bull, but not unscathed he goes ; Streams from his flank the crimson torrent clear: He flies, he wheels, distracted with his throes ; Dart follows dart; lance, lance; loud bellowings speak his woes.

1 Matadore.] From the Latin mactator, the waver of the red flag in the arena of the bull-fight, who takes off the bull's attention. 2 Croupe.] See Glossary.

LXXVII

;

Again he comes; nor dart nor lance avail, Nor the wild plunging of the tortured horse Though man and man's avenging arms assail, Vain are his weapons, vainer is his force. One gallant steed is stretched a mangled corse; Another, hideous sight! unseamed appears, His gory chest unveils life's panting source; Though death-struck, still his feeble frame he rears; Staggering, but stemming all, his lord unharmed he bears.

LXXVIII

Foiled, bleeding, breathless, furious to the last,
Full in the centre stands the bull at bay,
'Mid wounds, and clinging darts, and lances brast,1
And foes disabled in the brutal fray :

And now the Matadores around him play,

Shake the red cloak, and poise the ready brand: Once more through all he bursts his thundering way— Vain rage! the mantle quits the conynge 2 hand, Wraps his fierce eye--'tis past-he sinks upon the sand!

LXXIX

Where his vast neck just mingles with the spine,
Sheathed in his form the deadly weapon lies.
He stops he starts-disdaining to decline:
Slowly he falls, amidst triumphant cries,
Without a groan, without a struggle dies.
The decorated car appears-on high

The corse is piled-sweet sight for vulgar eyes-
Four steeds that spurn the rein, as swift as shy,
Hurl the dark bulk along, scarce seen in dashing by.

LXXX

Such the ungentle sport that oft invites
The Spanish maid, and cheers the Spanish swain.
Nurtured in blood betimes, his heart delights
In vengeance, gloating on another's pain.

1 Brast.] By Metathesis for 'burst.'

2 Conynge.] See Glossary,

What private feuds the troubled village stain! Though now one phalanxed host should meet the foe. Enough, alas! in humble homes remain,

To meditate 'gainst friends the secret blow,

For some slight cause of wrath, whence life's warm stream must flow.1

LXXXI

But Jealousy has fled his bars, his bolts,
His withered centinel,2 Duenna sage !3
And all whereat the generous soul revolts,

Which the stern dotard deemed he could encage, Have passed to darkness with the vanished age. Who late so free as Spanish girls were seen (Ere War uprose in his volcanic rage), With braided tresses bounding o'er the green, While on the gay dance shone Night's lover-loving Queen ?

4

LXXXII

Oh! many a time and oft, had Harold loved,
Or dreamed he loved, since rapture is a dream;
But now his wayward bosom was unmoved,
For not yet had he drunk of Lethe's 5 stream;
And lately had he learned with truth to deem
Love has no gift so grateful as his wings :6
How fair, how young, how soft soe'er he seem,
Full from the fount of Joy's delicious springs
Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings.

1 One of the few instances in the poem in which Byron moralises practically from his own experience. Conf.

'One breast laid open were a school

Which would unteach mankind the lust to shine and rule.'

2 Centinel.] From the French sentinelle, is wrongly spelt by Byron. Several of his words have little authority for their support. Scott spells the verb centinel.

3 Duenna.] See Glossary.

4 Loved, or dreamed he loved.] Conf. Canto ii. s. xli.-' He felt, or deemed he felt.' Not an uncommon expression in Byron. 5 Lethe.] The river of Oblivion' in the ancient Hell.

6 It is unsafe to interpret all these cynical passages as personally true. Byron is often led by the facilitas scribendi. His description of the Paphian joys of Harold's home is drawn much from his imagination. I rattle on exactly as I talk.'-See 'Don Juan,' cxv.

LXXXIII

Yet to the beauteous form he was not blind,
Though now it moved him as it moves the wise ;
Not that Philosophy on such a mind

E'er deigned to bend her chastely-awful eyes:
But Passion raves itself to rest, or flies;
And Vice, that digs her own voluptuous tomb,
Had buried long his hopes, no more to rise:
Pleasure's palled victim! life-abhorring gloom
Wrote on his faded brow curst Cain's unresting doom.

LXXXIV

Still he beheld, nor mingled with the throng;
But viewed them not with misanthropic hate :
Fain would he now have joined the dance, the song;
But who may smile that sinks beneath his fate?
Nought that he saw his sadness could abate :
Yet once he struggled 'gainst the demon's sway,
And as in Beauty's bower he pensive sate,
Poured forth this unpremeditated lay,1

To charms as fair as those that soothed his happier day.

TO INEZ.

1

NAY, smile not at my sullen brow ;

Alas! I cannot smile again:
Yet Heaven avert that ever thou
Shouldst weep, and haply weep in vain.

2

And dost thou ask what secret woe
I bear, corroding joy and youth?
And wilt thou vainly seek to know

A pang, even thou must fail to soothe ?

1 Unpremeditated lay.] Quoted from Scott (Lay of the Last Minstrel'):

'He poured to lords and ladies gay His unpremeditated lay.' When to Scott he again refers, in Canto iv. s. xl., he amply retracts the fierceness of his onslaught upon him in his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.' His quotations from other poems are not numerous, though his references to them are abundant in' Childe Harold.'

3

It is not love, it is not hate,

Nor low Ambition's honours lost,
That bids me loathe my present state,
And fly from all I prized the most :

4

It is that weariness which springs
From all I meet, or hear, or see:
To me no pleasure Beauty brings ;
Thine eyes have scarce a charm for me.

1

It is that settled, ceaseless gloom
The fabled Hebrew wanderer 1 bore,
That will not look beyond the tomb,

But cannot hope for rest before.

What Exile from himself can flee ?

To zones though more and more remote,

Still, still pursues where'er I be,

The blight of life-the demon Thought.

7

Yet others rapt in pleasure seem,
And taste of all that I forsake;
Oh! may they still of transport dream,
And ne'er, at least like me, awake!

8

Through many a clime 'tis mine to go,
With many a retrospection curst ;
And all my solace is to know,

Whate'er betides, I 've known the worst.

9

What is that worst? Nay do not ask

In pity from the search forbear:

Smile on-nor venture to unmask

Man's heart, and view the Hell that's there.

1 The fabled Hebrew wanderer.] The wandering Jew. Ahasu erus, a Jew refusing to assist our Lord when bearing His cross, was doomed to wander for ever.