Page images
PDF
EPUB

ARGUMENT.

THE term Childe (young knight--the Homeric Kópos) may fairly represent Lord Byron. Spenser, no doubt, was before the poet's mind, suggesting the metre, and the few archaisms in the language.

CANTO I.-Disgusted with himself and his mode of life, the noble pilgrim leaves his home, a large monastic pile (Newstead Abbey), accompanied by his page and yeoman. He visits Lisbon, describes the scenery at the mouth of the Tagus, ridicules the Convention of Cintra. He crosses the Guadiana, visits the field of Albuera, and Seville, describes the Maid of Saragoza, a bull-fight at Cadiz, introduces his song to Iñez, alludes to the death of Wingfield, and closes his first fytte.

CANTO II.-An invocation to Athene; a description of Athens, at that time a Turkish town, the Temple of Jupiter, the tomb of Ajax; attacks Lord Elgin; an account of a moonlight voyage past the Isle of Calypso; the Albanian coast; Santa Maura, or Leucadia; the rugged Suli; an account of Epirotic and Albanian scenery; a visit to Ali Pasha, the Turkish governor; a description of his palace; a wild Albanian song; a glance at Stamboul; bewails the helpless slavery of Greece; mourns the death of his parent, friend, and 'more than friend.'

CANTO III.-Continues the narrative after the lapse of more than six years. An address to his daughter Ada; a lovely description of Nature; the field of Waterloo; the night before the battle; the Rhine; an ode to a lady; Morat, the battle-field of Switzerland; the legend of Julia; Geneva and its lake; Rousseau; a night on the lake; an Alpine thunderstorm; Clarens; Lausanne and Ferney; Gibbon and Voltaire; Italy; an apostrophe to Ada.

CANTO IV.-Description of Venice with reference to Shakspeare, Otway, and Mrs. Radcliffe; the annual marriage of the Adriatic; Frederick Barbarossa; Arqua; the tomb of Petrarch; Ferrara and Tasso; a digression to Cicero

and Sulpicius; Florence; the Venus de' Medici; Dante and Boccaccio; Santa Croce; the Thrasimene Lake; Clitumnus; the Falls of Terni; Rome and its ruins; Sulla and Cromwell; Pompey's statue; Cæsar and Napoleon; the Holy Alliance; the French Revolution; the tomb of Cecilia Metella; the grotto of Egeria; the Coliseum; the Dying Gladiator; other ruins; St. Peter's; Apollo Belvedere; the death of the Princess Charlotte; the close.

TO IANTHE.1

Nor in those climes where I have late been straying,
Though Beauty long hath there been matchless deemed,
Not in those visions to the heart displaying
Forms which it sighs but to have only dreamed,
Hath aught like thee in truth or fancy seemed:
Nor, having seen thee, shall I vainly seek

To paint those charms which varied as they beamed-
To such as see thee not my words were weak;

To those who gaze on thee what language could they speak?

Ah! may'st thou ever be what now thou art,
Nor unbeseem the promise of thy spring,2
As fair in form, as warm yet pure in heart,
Love's image upon earth without his wing,
And guileless beyond Hope's imagining!
And surely she who now so fondly rears
Thy youth, in thee, thus hourly brightening,
Beholds the rainbow of her future years,
Before whose heavenly hues all sorrow disappears.

Young Peri of the West!-'tis well for me
My years already doubly number thine;
My loveless eye unmoved may gaze on thee,
And safely view thy ripening beauties shine;
Happy, I ne'er shall see them in decline;

1 Ianthe, name derived from tov, a lily. (See stanza iv. last line.)

2 Lady Charlotte Harley (afterwards Lady Charlotte Bacon), second daughter of the Earl of Oxford, had not completed her eleventh year when these lines were addressed to her, in the autumn of 1812. Her juvenile beauty has been preserved in a portrait which Mr. Westall painted at Lord Byron's request.

3 Peri.] A Persian word for 'fairy."

Happier, that while all younger hearts shall bleed,
Mine shall escape the doom thine eyes assign

To those whose admiration shall succeed,

But mixed with pangs to Love's even loveliest hours decreed.

Oh! let that eye, which, wild as the Gazelle's,1
Now brightly bold or beautifully shy,

Wins as it wanders, dazzles where it dwells,
Glance o'er this page, nor to my verse deny
That smile for which my breast might vainly sigh,
Could I to thee be ever more than friend :

This much, dear maid, accord; nor question why
To one so young my strain I would commend,
But bid me with my wreath one matchless lily blend.

Such is thy name with this my verse entwined;
And long as kinder eyes a look shall cast
On Harold's page, Ianthe's here enshrined
Shall thus be first beheld, forgotten last:

My days once numbered, should this homage past
Attract thy fairy fingers near the lyre

Of him who hailed thee, loveliest as thou wast,
Such is the most my memory may desire;

Though more than Hope can claim, could Friendship less require ?

1 A species of the antelope. You have the eyes of a gazelle, is considered all over the East as the greatest compliment that can be paid to a woman.

CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE.

FIRST CANTO.

I

OH, thou! in Hellas deemed of heavenly birth,
Muse! formed or fabled at the minstrel's will!
Since shamed full oft by later lyres on earth,
Mine dares not call thee from thy sacred hill:
Yet there I've wandered by thy vaunted rill
Yes! sighed o'er Delphi's long deserted shrine,
Where, save that feeble fountain, all is still ;
Nor mote1 my shell awake the weary Nine
To grace so plain a tale-this lowly lay of mine.

II

;

Whilome 2 in Albion's Isle there dwelt a youth,
Who ne3 in virtue's ways did take delight;
But spent his days in riot most uncouth,
And vexed with mirth the drowsy ear of Night.
Ah me! in sooth he was a shameless wight,5
Sore given to revel and ungodly glee;
Few earthly things found favour in his sight
Save concubines and carnal companie,

And flaunting wassailers of high and low degree.

1 Mote.] For mought, or must; in stanza viii. 9 for might. 2 Whilome.] See Glossary.

3 Ne.] The Celtic negative.

4 Uncouth. Glossary.

5 Wight.] Glossary.

« PreviousContinue »