XX.

Blow! swiftly blow, thou keel-compelling gale! Till the broad sun withdraws his lessening ray; Then must the pennant-bearer slacken sail, That lagging barks may make their lazy way. Ah, grievance sore, and listless dull delay, To waste on sluggish hulks the sweetest breeze! What leagues are lost before the dawn of day, Thus loitering pensive on the willing seas, The flapping sail haul'd down to halt for logs like these!

XXI.

The moon is up; by Heaven a lovely eve!

Long streams of light o'er dancing waves expand;
Now lads on shore may sigh, and maids believe:

Such be our fate when we return to land!
Meantime some rude Arion's restless hand

Wakes the brisk harmony that sailors love;
A circle there of merry listeners stand,

Or to some well-known measure featly move,

Thoughtless, as if on shore they still were free to rove.

XXII.

Through Calpe's straits survey the steepy shore;
Europe and Afric on each other gaze!

Lands of the dark-ey'd Maid and dusky Moor
Alike beheld beneath pale Hecate's blaze:·

How softly on the Spanish shore she plays,

Disclosing rock, and slope, and forest brown,
Distinct, though darkening with her waning phase;
But Mauritania's giant-shadows frown,

From mountain-cliff to coast descending sombre down.

XXIII.

'Tis night, when Meditation bids us feel

We once have lov'd, though love is at an end:
The heart, lone mourner of its baffled zeal,
Though friendless now, will dream it had a friend.
Who with the weight of years would wish to bend,
When Youth itself survives young Love and Joy?
Alas! when mingling souls forget to blend,

Death hath but little left him to destroy!

Ah! happy years! once more who would not be a boy?

XXIV.

Thus bending o'er the vessel's laving side,
To gaze on Dian's wave-reflected sphere;

The soul forgets her schemes of Hope and Pride,
And flies unconscious o'er each backward year.
None are so desolate but something dear,
Dearer than self, possesses or possess'd

A thought, and claims the homage of a tear;
A flashing pang! of which the weary breast
Would still, albeit in vain, the heavy heart divest.

XXV.

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

Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unroll'd.

XXVI.

But midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of

To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,

And roam along, the world's tir'd denizen,

men,

With none who bless us, none whom we can bless; Minions of splendour 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,
Such as on lonely Athos may be seen,
Watching at Eve upon the giant height,
That looks o'er waves so blue,-skies so serene,
That he who there at such an hour hath been
Will wistful linger on that hallow'd spot,
Then slowly tear him from the 'witching scene,
Sigh forth one wish that such had been his lot,
Then turn to hate a world he had almost forgot.

XXVIII.

Pass we the long, unvarying course, the track
Oft trod, that never leaves a trace behind;

Pass we the calm, the gale, the change, the tack,
And each well known caprice of wave and wind;
Pass we the joys and sorrows sailors find,
Coop'd in their winged sea-girt citadel;
The foul, the fair, the contrary, the kind,

As breezes rise and fall and billows swell,

Till on some jocund morn-lo, land! and all is well.

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 ceas'd to weep,
And o'er her cliffs a fruitless watch to keep
For him who dar'd prefer a mortal bride:

Here, too, his boy essay'd the dreadful leap
Stern Mentor urg'd from high to yonder tide;

While thus of both bereft, the nymph-queen doubly sigh'd.