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Fresh feeres 1 will dry the bright blue eyes
We late saw streaming o'er.

For pleasures past I do not grieve,

Nor perils gathering near;
My greatest grief is that I leave
No thing that claims a tear.

9

And now I'm in the world alone,
Upon the wide, wide sea:
But why should I for others groan,
When none will sigh for me?
Perchance my dog will whine in vain,
Till fed by stranger hands;
But long ere I come back again
He'd tear me where he stands.

10

With thee, my bark, I'll swiftly go
Athwart the foaming brine;

Nor care what land thou bear'st me to,
So not again to mine.

Welcome, welcome, ye dark-blue waves!
And when you fail my sight,
Welcome, ye deserts, and ye caves!
My native Land-Good Night!

XIV

On, on the vessel flies, the land is gone,
And winds are rude in Biscay's sleepless bay.
Four days are sped, but with the fifth, anon,
New shores descried make every bosom gay,
And Cintra's mountain greets them on their way,
And Tagus dashing onward to the deep,

2

3

His fabled golden tribute bent to pay;

And soon on board the Lusian pilots leap,

And steer 'twixt fertile shores where yet few rustics reap.

1 Feeres.] Glossary.

2 Tagus. Spanish, Tajo; Portuguese, Tejo—the river of Lusitania-Portugal and Spain.

3 His fabled golden tribute.

According to ancient legend,

flowed over sands of gold and precious stones.

XV

Oh, Christ! it is a goodly sight to see

What Heaven hath done for this delicious land! What fruits of fragrance blush on every tree! What goodly prospects o'er the hills expand! But man would mar them with an impious hand : And when the Almighty lifts his fiercest scourge 'Gainst those who most transgress his high command, With treble vengeance will his hot shafts urge Gaul's locust host, and earth from fellest foemen purge.

XVI

What beauties doth Lisboa first unfold?
Her image floating on that noble tide,
Which poets vainly pave with sands of gold,
But now whereon a thousand keels did ride
Of mighty strength, since Albion was allied,1
And to the Lusians did her aid afford:

A nation swoln with ignorance and pride,

Who lick yet loathe the hand that waves the sword To save them from the wrath of Gaul's unsparing lord.

XVII

But whoso entereth within this town,
That, sheening far, celestial seems to be,
Disconsolate will wander up and down,
'Mid many things unsightly to strange ee;
For hut and palace show like filthily:
The dingy denizens are reared in dirt ;
Ne personage of high or mean degree

2

Doth care for cleanliness of surtout or shirt, Though shent with Egypt's plague, unkempt, unwashed, unhurt.

XVIII

Poor, paltry slaves! yet born 'midst noblest scenesWhy, Nature, waste thy wonders on such men?

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1 The ancient alliance between England and Portugal at this time against the French invasion under Napoleon. This alliance was the ostensible reason for the French invasion of Portugal, 1807. 2 Though shent.] Though struck' by the plague of Egypt, i.e. leprosy, still retained, in 1811, all their reputed uncleanliness. For Egyptian leprosy (elephantiasis), see Bibl. Dict. and Horace, Od. 1, 87, 10

Lo! Cintra's glorious Eden intervenes
In variegated maze of mount and glen.
Ah me! what hand can pencil guide, or pen,
To follow half on which the eye dilates

Through views more dazzling unto mortal ken Than those whereof such things the bard relates, Who to the awe-struck world unlocked Elysium's gates ?1

XIX

The horrid crags, by toppling convent crowned,
The cork-trees hoar that clothe the shaggy steep,
The mountain-moss by scorching skies imbrowned,
The sunken glen, whose sunless shrubs must weep,
The tender azure of the unruffled deep,

The orange tints that gild the greenest bough,
The torrents that from cliff to valley leap,
The vine on high, the willow branch below,
Mixed in one mighty scene, with varied beauty glow.

XX

73

Then slowly climb the many-winding way,
And frequent turn to linger as you go,
From loftier rocks new loveliness survey,
And rest ye at 'Our Lady's house of woe;
Where frugal monks their little relics show,
And sundry legends to the stranger tell :
Here impious men have punished been, and lo!
Deep in yon cave Honorius long did dwell,
In hope to merit Heaven by making earth a Hell.

XXI

And here and there, as up the crags you spring,
Mark many rude-carved crosses near the path:
Yet deem not these devotion's offering-
These are memorials frail of murderous wrath :

1 Refers to Dante, to whom reference will be made in Canto iv. 2 The sunken glen. Compare with sunless as a case of alliteration. Notice also the recurrence of the initial 'The.'

3 Our Lady's house of woe.] A mistranslation of the words 'de la penha 'Our Lady's House of the Rock-which Byron at first took to be pena, punishment or woe. Though conscious of his mistake, he never corrected it.

1

For wheresoe'er the shrieking victim hath
Poured forth his blood beneath the assassin's knife,
Some hand erects a cross of mouldering lath;

And grove and glen with thousand such are rife Throughout this purple land, where law secures not life.

XXII

On sloping mounds, or in the vale beneath,
Are domes where whilome kings did make repair;
But now the wild flowers round them only breathe;
Yet ruined splendour still is lingering there.
And yonder towers the Prince's palace fair :
There thou too, Vathek !1 England's wealthiest son,
Once formed thy Paradise, as not aware

When wanton Wealth her mightiest deeds hath done, Meek Peace voluptuous lures was ever wont to shun.

XXIII

Here didst thou dwell, here schemes of pleasure plan, Beneath yon mountain's ever beauteous brow : But now, as if a thing unblest by Man, Thy fairy dwelling is as lone as thou! Here giant weeds a passage scarce allow To halls deserted, portals gaping wide : Fresh lessons to the thinking bosom, how Vain are the pleasaunces on earth supplied; Swept into wrecks anon by Time's ungentle tide!

XXIV

Behold the hall where chiefs were late convened! 2
Oh! dome displeasing unto British eye!

1 Vathek.] The Eastern Romance,' written in French, in 1784, by William Beckford, the son of Lord Chatham's friend, the Lord Mayor. Vathek is an Eastern caliph 'sullied with a thousand crimes.'

2 Allusion to the Convention of Cintra, 1808, which allowed too favourable terms to the French in their evacuation of Portugal. Sir Arthur Wellesley refers to it in a letter to Lord Castlereagh : Although my name is affixed to this instrument, I beg that you will not believe I negotiated it, that I approve of it, or that I had any hand in wording it.' The people of England were indignant that a defeated army of 26,000 French soldiers should, by the terms of the convention, have been landed on the French coast at the expense of the English.

With diadem hight foolscap, lo! a fiend,
A little fiend that scoffs incessantly,

There sits in parchment robe arrayed, and by
His side is hung a seal and sable scroll,

Where blazoned glare names known to chivalry,

And sundry signatures adorn the roll,

Whereat the Urchin points and laughs with all his soul.

XXV

Convention is the dwarfish demon styled
That foiled the knights in Marialva's1 dome :
Of brains (if brains they had) he them beguiled,
And turned a nation's shallow joy to gloom.
Here Folly dashed to earth the victor's plume,
And Policy regained what arms had lost:

For chiefs like ours in vain may laurels bloom!
Woe to the conqu'ring, not the conquered host,
Since baffled Triumph droops on Lusitania's coast.

XXVI

And ever since that martial synod met,
Britannia sickens, Cintra! at thy name;
And folks in office at the mention fret,

And fain would blush, if blush they could, for shame.
How will posterity the deed proclaim!

Will not our own and fellow-nations sneer,

To view these champions cheated of their fame,

By foes in fight o'erthrown, yet victors here,

Where Scorn her finger points through many a coming year?

2

XXVII

So deemed the Childe, as o'er the mountains he
Did take his way in solitary guise:

Sweet was the scene, yet soon he thought to flee,
More restless than the swallow in the skies:

1 The convention was held in the house of the Marchese Marialva.

2 A court of general officers was directed to inquire into the conditions of the armistice, and as a result the king expressed his disapprobation to Sir Hew Dalrymple at those conditions which affected the Portuguese interests.

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