Wav'ed o'er thy sons, victorious to the gale, Red gleam'd the cross, and waned the crescent pale, XXXVI. Teems not each ditty with the glorious tale? Pride! bend thine eye from heaven to thine estate; Can Volume, Pillar, Pile preserve thee great? Or must thou trust Tradition's simple tongue, When Flattery sleeps with thee, and History does thee wrong? Awake, ye sons of Spain! awake! advance! When her war-song was heard on Andalusia's shore? XXXVIII. Hark! heard you not those hoofs of dreadful note? Red Battle stamps his foot, and nations feel the shock. In the two following stanzas how admirably contrasted are the thoughtless inhabitants of a voluptuous city and the anxious countrymen, in a seat of war! XLVI. But all unconscious of the coming doom, Strange modes of merriment the hours consume, Nor bleed these patriots with their country's wounds; Here Folly still his votaries enthrals; And young-eyed Lewdness walks her midnight rounds, Still to the last kind Vice clings to the tott'ring walls. XLVII. Not so the rustic-with his trembling mate Ah, monarchs! could ye taste the mirth ye mar, Not in the toils of Glory would ye fret: The hoarse dull drum would sleep, and Man be happy yet. We cannot refrain from extracting the stanzas devoted to the maid of Saragoza: LIV. Is it for this the Spanish maid, arous'd, Stalks with Minerva's step where Mars might quake to tread. LV. Ye who shall marvel when you hear her tale, Oh! had you know her in her softer hour, Mark'd her black eye that mocks her coal-black veil, Heard her light lively tones in Lady's bower, Seen her long locks that foil the painter's power, Thin the clos'd ranks, and lead in Glory's fearful chase. LVI. Her lover sinks-she sheds no ill-tim'd tear; What maid retrieve when man's flush'd hope is lost? Who hang so fiercely on the flying Gaul, Foil'd by a woman's hand, before a batter'd wall?* Such were the exploits of the Maid of Saragoza. When the author was at Seville she walked daily on the Prado, decorated with medals and orders, by command of the Junta. Here follow some highly wrought stanzas on the beauty of the Spanish women; in the midst of which there occurs a fine apostrophe to Mount Parnassus. During the remainder of the first canto, Harold is in Cadiz, a city for various reasons not likely to decrease the interest of the poem. The dissipation of the place, and a bull-fight furnish the chief topics. The bull-fight is exquisitely painted. Towards the conclusion, there is a mournful stanza on the state of Spain, which, for the harmony of the verse, and for the sympathy excited by every line, deserves particular attention : XC. Not all the blood at Talavera shed, Not all the marvels of Barossa's fight, Have won for Spain her well asserted right. When shall her Olive Branch be free from blight? And Freedom's stranger tree grow native of the soil! The scenes of the second canto are, at sea; they shift to Albania, the territory of Ali Pacha's government; and to Greece. It opens with an invocation to Minerva, and after a few stanzas, relative to a diversity of religion tending to scepticism,-and therefore not to be distinguished by our cominendation,-the poet, viewing the ruins of Athens, is inflamed with anger against the plunderers,-the peaceful, not the warlike plunderers, of Greece; concluding the burst of his indignation thus: XV. Cold is the heart, fair Greece! that looks on thee, Dull is the eye that will not weep to see Thy walls defac'd, thy mouldering shrines remov'd By British hands, which it had best behov'd To guard those relics ne'er to be restor❜d. Curst be the hour when from their isle they rov'd, And once again thy hapless bosom gor'd, And snatch'd thy shrinking Gods to northern climes abhorr'd! This opening is written in the character of the poet himself, under the fervour of excited feelings, while contemplating this favourite classical spot. He now returns to Harold, who has left Spain. The images presented to the mind from sailing out of harbour with a convoy are well painted; as it is the interior of a ship of war at sea, and the lagging of the dull sailors under her protection. The moon-light scene in the passage through the Straits, with the reflections it suggests, the arrival at Calypso's Island, the new Calypso Harold finds there, and the invulnerable state of his heart, afford subjects for stanzas sweetly harmonious. The following may be taken as a specimen : 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; XXV. To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, Converse with Nature's charms, and see her stores unroll'd. XXVI. But 'midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, And roam along, the world's tir'd denizen, With none who bless us, none whom we can bless; Of all that flatter'd, follow'd, sought, and sued: This is to be alone; this, this is solitude! Also one stanza from those that contain reflections at Calypso's island: XXX. Thus Harold deem'd, as on that lady's eye Who knew his votary often lost and caught, Harold passes by Ithaca, the promontory of Leucadia, and Actium: he travels through a great part of Continental Greece to visit the Albanian Chief (Ali Pacha): these are described, together with the feelings they excite, and the reflections they give birth to. The palace of the Pacha at Ioanina is magnificently drawn: we have seldom seen so masterly a picture, and though of considerable length, we shall present it to our readers: LIV. The sun had sunk behind vast Tomerit,* Whose walls o'erlook the stream: and drawing nigh, Swelling the breeze that sigh'd along the lengthening glen. LV. He pass'd the sacred Haram's silent tower, Here men of every clime, appear to make resort. LVI. Richly caparison'd, a ready row Of armed horse, and many a warlike store The Turk, the Greek, the Albanian, and the Moor While the deep war-drum's sound announc'd the close of day. LVII. The wild Albanian kirtled to his knee, With shawl-girt head and ornamented gun, Anciently Mount Tomarus. |