XXIV. Thus bending o'er the vessel's laving side, The soul forgets her schemes of Hope and Pride, A thought, and claims the homage of a tear; To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, To slowly trace the forest's shady scene, Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been; To climb the trackless mountain all unseen, With the wild flock that never needs a fold; Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean; This is not solitude; 'tis but to hold [unroll'd. Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores XXVI. But 'midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, And roam along, the world's tired denizen, With none who bless us, none whom we can bless; Minions of splendor shrinking from distress! None that, with kindred consciousness endued, If we were not, would seem to smile the less Of all that flatter'd, follow'd, sought, and sued; This is to be alone; this, this is solitude! XXVII. More blest the life of godly eremite, Which looks o'er waves so blue, skies so serene, XXVIII. Pass we the long, unvarying course, the track Till on some jocund morn-lo, land! and all is well. One of Lord Byron's chief delights was, as he himself states in one of his journals, after bathing in some retired spot, to seat himself on a high rock above the sea, and there remain for hours, gazing upon the sky and the waters. "He led the life," says Sir Egerton Brydges, "as he wrote the strains, of a true poet. He could sleep, and very frequently sleep, wrapped up in his rough great-coat, on the hard boards of a deck, while the winds and the waves were roaring round han on every side, and could subsist on a crust and a glass of water. It would be difficult to persuade me, that he who is a coxcomb in his manners, and artificial in his habits of life, could write good poetry."] Goza is said to have been the island of Calypso. ["The Kentity of the habitation assigned by poets to the nymph Caypso, has occasioned much discussion and variety of opinion. Some place it at Malta, and some at Goza.”— Hoare's Classical Tour.] For an account of this accomplished but eccentric lady, XXIX. But not in silence pass Calypso's isles,' The sister tenants of the middle deep; There for the weary still a haven smiles, Though the fair goddess long hath ceased to weep, And o'er her cliffs a fruitless watch to keep For him who dared prefer a mortal bride: Here, too, his boy essay'd the dreadful leap Stern Mentor urged from high to yonder tide; While thus of both bereft, the nymph-queen doubly sigh'd. XXX. Her reign is past, her gentle glories gone: But trust not this; too easy youth, beware! A mortal sovereign holds her dangerous throne, And thou mayst find a new Calypso there. Sweet Florence! could another ever share This wayward, loveless heart, it would be thine : But check'd by every tie, I may not dare To cast a worthless offering at thy shrine, Nor ask so dear a breast to feel one pang for mine. XXXI. Thus Harold deem'd, as on that lady's eye He look'd, and met its beam without a thought, Save Admiration glancing harmless by: Love kept aloof, albeit not far remote, Who knew his votary often lost and caught, But knew him as his worshipper no more, And ne'er again the boy his bosom sought: Since now he vainly urged him to adore, Well deem'd the little God his ancient sway was o'er. XXXII. Fair Florence found, in sooth with some amaze, One who, 'twas said, still sigh'd to all he saw, Withstand, unmoved, the lustre of her gaze, Which others hail'd with real or mimic awe, Their hope, their doom, their punishment, their law; All that gay Beauty from her bondsmen claims: And much she marvell'd that a youth so raw Nor felt, nor feign'd at least, the oft-told flames, Which, though sometimes they frown, yet rarely anger dames. XXXIII. Little knew she that seeming marble heart, Now mask'd in silence or withheld by pride, Was not unskilful in the spoiler's art,* And spread its snares licentious far and wide; Nor from the base pursuit had turn'd aside, As long as aught was worthy to pursue: But Harold on such arts no more relied; And had he doted on those eyes so blue, Yet never would he join the lover's whining crew. whose acquaintance the poet formed at Malta, see Miscellaneous Poems, September, 1809, "To Florence." "In one so imaginative as Lord Byron, who, while he infused so much of his life into his poetry, mingled also not a little of poetry with his life, it is difficult," says Moore," in unravelling the texture of his feelings, to distinguish at all times between the fanciful and the real. His description here, for instance, of the unmoved and loveless heart,' with which he contemplated even the charms of this attractive person, is wholly at variance with the statements in many of his letters; and, above all, with one of the most graceful of his lesser poems, addressed to this same lady, during a thunderstorm on his road to Zitza."] 4 [Against this line it is sufficient to set the poet's own declaration, in 1821 :-"I am not a Joseph, nor a Scipio, but I can safely affirm, that I never in my life seduced any woman."] ["We have here another instance of his propensity to XXXIV. Not much he kens, I ween, of woman's breast, Who thinks that wanton thing is won by sighs; What careth she for hearts when once possess'd? Do proper homage to thine idol's eyes; But not too humbly, or she will despise Thee and thy suit, though told in moving tropes; Disguise ev'n tenderness, if thou art wise; Brisk Confidence' still best with woman copes; Pique her and sooth in turn, soon Passion crowns thy hopes. XXXV. "Tis an old lesson; Time approves it true, Not to be cured when Love itself forgets to please. XXXVI. Away! nor let me loiter in my song, For we have many a mountain-path to tread, To teach man what he might be, or he ought: If that corrupted thing could ever such be taught. XXXVII. Dear Nature is the kindest mother still, Though alway changing, in her aspect mild; From her bare bosom let me take my fill, Her never-wean'd, though not her favor'd child. Oh! she is fairest in her features wild, Where nothing polish'd dares pollute her path: To me by day or night she ever smiled, Though I have mark'd her when none other hath, And sought her more and more, and loved her best in wrath. XXXVIII. Land of Albania! where Iskander rose, XXXIX. Childe Harold sail'd, and pass'd the barren spot, Where sad Penelope o'erlook'd the wave;3 And onward view'd the mount, not yet forgot, The lover's refuge, and the Lesbian's grave. Dark Sappho could not verse immortal save That breast imbued with such immortal fire? Could she not live who life eternal gave? If life eternal may await the lyre, That only Heaven to which Earth's children may aspire. XL. "Twas on a Grecian autumn's gentle eve Mark them unmoved, for he would not delight In themes of bloody fray, or gallant fight, [wight. But loathed the bravo's trade, and laugh'd at martial XLI. But when he saw the evening star above And hail'd the last resort of fruitless love, XLII. Morn dawns; and with it stern Albania's hills, Here roams the wolf, the eagle whets his beak, Birds, beasts of prey, and wilder men appear, [year. And gathering storms around convulse the closing XLIII. Now Harold felt himself at length alone, Through many a cypress grove within each city's ken. Beat back keen winter's blast, and welcomed summer's self-misrepresentation. However great might have been the irregularities of his college life, such phrases as the spoiler's art,' and 'spreading snares,' were in no wise applicable to them."-MOORE.] 1["Brisk Impudence," &c.-MS.] 2 See Appendix to this Canto, Note [B.] 3 Ithaca.-[ Sept. 24th," says Mr. Hobhouse, "we were in the channel, with Ithaca, then in the hands of the French, to the west of us. We were close to it, and saw a few shrubs on a brown heathy land, two little towns in the hills, scattered among trees, and a windmill or two, with a tower on the heights. That Ithaca was not very strongly garrisoned, you will easily believe, when I tell, that a month afterwards, when the Ionian Islands were invested by a British squadron, it was surrendered into the hands of a sergeant and seven men." For a very curious account of the state of the kingdom of Ulysses in 1816, see Williams's Travels, vol. ii. p. 427.] 4 Leucadia, now Santa Maura. From the promontory (the Lover's Leap) Sappho is said to have thrown herself. ["Sept. 28th, we doubled the promontory of Santa Maura, and saw the precipice which the fate of Sappho, the poetry of Ovid, and the rocks so formidable to the ancient mariners, have made forever memorable."-HOвHOUSE.] Who from true worship's gold can separate thy dross? Between those hanging rocks, that shock yet please XLV. Ambracia's gulf behold, where once was lost GOD! was thy globe ordain'd for such to win and lose? From the dark barriers of that rugged clime, Childe Harold pass'd o'er many a mount sublime, A charm they know not; loved Parnassus fails, coast. XLVII. He pass'd bleak Pindus, Acherusia's lake," To greet Albania's chief, whose dread command Yet here and there some daring mountain-band Disdain his power, and from their rocky hold Hurl their defiance far, nor yield, unless to gold." 1 It is said, that, on the day previous to the battle of Actum, Antony had thirteen kings at his levee.-["Today," (Nov. 12.) “I saw the remains of the town of Actium, hear which Antony lost the world, in a small bay, where two frigates could hardly manoeuvre: a broken wall is the Sove remnant, On another part of the gulf stand the ruins of Neopolis, built by Augustus, in honor of his victory."Lend Byron to his Mother, 1809.) Nicopolis, whose ruins are most extensive, is at some Estance from Actium, where the wall of the Hippodrome rvives in a few fragments. These ruins are large masses of brickwork, the bricks of which are joined by interstices of mortar, as large as the bricks themselves, and equally durable. › According to Pouqueville, the lake of Yanina: but Pouqueville is always out. The celebrated Ali Pacha. Of this extraordinary man there is an incorrect account in Pouqueville's Travels.-["I lef Malta in the Spider brig-of-war, on the 21st of September, and arrived in eight days at Prevesa. I thence have traversed the interior of the province of Albania, on a visit to the Pacha, as far as Tepaleen, his highness's country palace, where I stayed three days. The name of the Pacha All, and he is considered a man of the first abilities: he governs the whole of Albania, (the ancient Illyricum,) Eprus, and part of Macedonia."-B. to his Mother.) Five thousand Suliotes, among the rocks and in the castle of Suli, withstood thirty thousand Albanians for eighteen years, the castle at last was taken by bribery. In ths coriest there were several acts performed not unworthy of the better days of Greece. Tas convent and village of Zitza are four hours' journey from Joannina, or Yanina, the capital of the Pachalick. In the valley the river Kalamas (once the Acheron) flows, and, not far from Zitza, forms a fine cataract. The situation is perhaps the finest in Greece, though the approach to Delvinachi and parts of Acarnania and Etolia inay contest the palm. Delphi, Parnassus, and, in Attica, even Cape Colonna and Port Raphti, are very inferior; as also every scene in Ionia, or the Troad: I am almost inclined to add the approach to Constantinople; but, from the different features of the last, a comparison can hardly be made. Zitza," says the poet's companion, "is a village inhabited by Greek peasants. Perhaps there is not in the world a more romantic prospect than that which is viewed from the summit of the hill. The foreground is a gentle declivity, terminating on every side in an extensive landscape of green hills and dale, enriched with vineyards, and dotted with frequent flocks."] The Greek monks are so called.--[" We went into the monastery," says Mr. Hobhouse, "after some parley with one of the monks, through a small door plated with iron, on which the marks of violence were very apparent, and which, before the country had been tranquillized under the powerful government of Ali, had been battered in vain by the troops of robbers then, by turns, infesting every district. The prior, an humble, meek-mannered man, entertained us in a warm chamber with grapes, and a pleasant white wine, not trodden out, as he told us, by the feet, but pressed from the grape by the hand; and we were so well pleased with every thing about us, that we agreed to lodge with him on our return from the Vizier."] The Chimariot mountains appear to have been volcanic. 9 Now called Kalamas. 10 ["Keep heaven for better souls, my shade," &c.-MS.] LII. Ne city's towers pollute the lovely view; Or in his cave awaits the tempest's short-lived shock. Oh! where, Dodona! is thine aged grove, Prophetic fount, and oracle divine? What valley echoed the response of Jove? What trace remaineth of the Thunderer's shrine? All, all forgotten-and shall man repine That his frail bonds to fleeting life are broke? Cease, fool! the fate of gods may well be thine: Wouldst thou survive the marble or the oak? When nations, tongues, and worlds must sink beneath the stroke! LIV. Epirus' bounds recede, and mountains fail; Tired of up-gazing still, the wearied eye Reposes gladly on as smooth a vale As ever Spring yclad in grassy die: Ev'n on a plain no humble beauties lie, Where some bold river breaks the long expanse, And woods along the banks are waving high, Whose shadows in the glassy waters dance, [trance. Or with the moonbeam sleep in midnight's solemn LV. The sun had sunk behind vast Tomerit,2 And Laos wide and fierce came roaring by ;3 The shades of wonted night were gathering yet, When, down the steep banks winding warily, Childe Harold saw, like meteors in the sky, The glittering minarets of Tepalen, Whose walls o'erlook the stream; and drawing nigh, He heard the busy hum of warrior-men [glen. Swelling the breeze that sigh'd along the lengthening LVI. He pass'd the sacred Harem's silent tower, And underneath the wide o'erarching gate Survey'd the dwelling of this chief of power, Where all around proclaim'd his high estate. 1 Albanese cloak. 2 Anciently Mount Tomarus. The river Laos was full at the time the author passed it; and, immediately above Tepaleen, was to the eye as wide as the Thames at Westminster; at least in the opinion of the author and his fellow-traveller. In the summer it must be much narrower. It certainly is the finest river in the Levant; neither Achelous, Alpheus, Acheron, Scamander, nor Cayster, approached it in breadth or beauty. 4["Ali Pacha, hearing that an Englishman of rank was in his dominions, left orders, in Yanina, with the commandant, to provide a house, and supply me with every kind of necessary gratis. I rode out on the vizier's horses, and saw the palaces of himself and grandsons. I shall never forget the singular scene on entering Tepaleen, at five in the afternoon, (Oct. 11,) as the sun was going down. It brought to my mind (with some change of dress, however) Scott's description of Branksome Castle in his Lay, and the feudal system. The Albanians in their dresses; (the most magnificent in the world, consisting of a long white kilt, gold-worked cloak, crimson velvet gold-laced jacket and waistcoat, silvermounted pistols and daggers) the Tartars, with their high caps; the Turks in their vast pelisses and turbans; the soldiers and black slaves with the horses, the former in Amidst no common pomp the despot sate, Here men of every clime appear to make resort. LVII. Richly caparison'd, a ready row Of armed horse, and many a warlike store, Circled the wide-extending court below; Above, strange groups adorn'd the corridore; And ofttimes through the area's echoing door, Some high-capp'd Tartar spurr'd his steed away: The Turk, the Greek, the Albanian, and the Moor, Here mingled in their many-hued array, [of day. While the deep war-drum's sound announced the close LVIII. The wild Albanian kirtled to his knee, With shawl-girt head and ornamented gun, And gold-embroider'd garments, fair to see: The crimson-scarfed men of Macedon n; The Delhi with his cap of terror on, And crooked glaive; the lively, supple Greek; And swarthy Nubia's mutilated son; The bearded Turk, that rarely deigns to speak, Master of all around, too potent to be meek, LIX. Are mix'd conspicuous: some recline in groups, Scanning the motley scene that varies round; There some grave Moslem to devotion stoops, And some that smoke, and some that play, are found; Here the Albanian proudly treads the ground; Half-whispering there the Greek is heard to prate; Hark! from the mosque the nightly solemn sound, The Muezzin's call doth shake the minaret, "There is no god but God!-to prayer-lo! God is great!" LX. Just at this season Ramazani's fast Through the long day its penance did maintain : But when the lingering twilight hour was past, Revel and feast assumed the rule again: Now all was bustle, and the menial train Prepared and spread the plenteous board within; The vacant gallery now seem'd made in vain, But from the chambers came the mingling din, As page and slave anon were passing out and in. groups, in an immense large open gallery in front of the palace, the latter placed in a kind of cloister below it; two hundred steeds ready caparisoned to move in a moment, couriers entering or passing out with dispatches; the kettledrums beating; boys calling the hour from the minaret of the mosque ;-altogether, with the singular appearance of the building itself, formed a new and delightful spectacle to a stranger. I was conducted to a very handsome apartment, and my health inquired after by the vizier's secretary, 'à la mode Turque."-B. Letters.] 5 ["On our arrival at Tepaleen, we were lodged in the palace. During the night, we were disturbed by the perpetual carousal which seemed to be kept up in the gallery, and by the drum, and the voice of the Muezzin,' or chanter, calling the Turks to prayers from the minaret or the mosek attached to the palace. The chanter was a boy, and he sang out his hymn in a sort of loud melancholy recitative. He was a long time repeating the purport of these few words: God most high! I bear witness, that there is no god but God, and Mahomet is his prophet: come to prayer; come to the asylum of salvation; great God! there is no god but God!"--HOBHOUSE.] 6 ["We were a little unfortunate in the time we chose for travelling, for it was during the Ramazan, or Turkish Lent, which fell this year in October, and was hailed at the rising CANTO II. LXI. CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE. Here woman's voice is never heard: apart, And joyful in a mother's gentlest cares, Herself more sweetly rears the babe she bears, Who never quits the breast, no meaner passion shares. LXII. In marble-paved pavilion, where a spring Yet in his lineaments ye cannot trace, While Gentleness her milder radiance throws LXV. 33 Fierce are Albania's children, yet they lack LXVI. Childe Harold saw them in their chieftain's tower, That saddening hour when bad men hotlier press: The deeds that lurk beneath, and stain him with In aught that tries the heart how few withstand the disgrace. 'Mid many things most new to ear and eye | And Pleasure, leagued with Pomp, the zest of both of the new moon, on the evening of the 8th, by every demonstration of joy: but although, during this month, the strictest abstinence is observed in the daytime, yet with the settng of the sun the feasting commences; then is the time for paying and receiving visits, and for the amusements of Turkey, puppet-shows, jugglers, dancers, and story-tellers." -HOBHOUSE On the 12th, I was introduced to Ali Pacha. I was I dressed in a full suit of staff uniform, with a very magnifiThe vizier received me in a large room cent sabre, &c. paved with marble; a fountain was playing in the centre; the apartment was surrounded by scarlet ottomans. He recervell me standing, a wonderful compliment from a Musvelinan, and made me sit down on his right hand. His first question was, why, at so early an age, I left my country? He then said, the English minister, Captain Leake, had dham I was of a great family, and desired his respects to my mother; which I now, in the name of Ali Pacha, pre sest to you. He said he was certain I was a man of birth, because I had small ears, curling hair, and little white InHe told me to consider him as a father whilst I was kanda. Turkey, and said he looked on me as his own son. died, he treated me like a child, sending me almonds and mares! sherbet, fruit, and sweetmeats, twenty times a day. I then, after coffee and pipes, retired."-B. to his Mother.] * Delights to mingle with the lip of youth.”—MS.] Mr. Hobhouse describes the vizier as "a short man, about Ire feet five inches in height, and very fat; possessing a very pleasing face, fair and round, with blue quick eyes, not aaf settled into a Turkish gravity." Dr. Holland happily compares the spirit which lurked under Ali's usual exterior, 5 proof! LXVII. It chanced that adverse winds once drove his bark to "the fire of a stove, burning fiercely under a smooth and polished surface." When the doctor returned from Albania, in 1813, he brought a letter from the Pacha to Lord Byron. "It is," says the poet, "in Latin, and begins Excellentissime, necnon Carissime,' and ends about a gun he wants made for him. He tells me that, last spring, he took a town, a hostile town, where, forty-two years ago, his mother and sisters were treated as Miss Cunegunde was by the Bulgarian cavalry. He takes the town, selects all the survivors of the exploit-children, grand-children, &c., to the tune of six hundred, and has them shot before his face. So much for dearest friend." "] 3 [The fate of Ali was precisely such as the poet anticipated. For a circumstantial account of his assassination, in February, 1822, see Walsh's Journey. His head was sent to Constantinople, and exhibited at the gates of the seraglio. As the name of Ali had made a considerable noise in England, in consequence of his negotiations with Sir Thomas Maitland, and still more, perhaps, these stanzas of Lord Byron, a merchant of Constantinople thought it would be no bad speculation to purchase the head and consign it to a London showman; but this scheme was defeated by the piety of an old servant of the Pacha, who bribed the execu tioner with a higher price, and bestowed decent sepuiture on the relic.] ["Childe Harold with the chief held colloquy, |