Childe Harold: Canto the Fourth, The Prisoner of Chillon and Mazepa |
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Page 68
60 With some new hope or legend old , Or song heroically bold ; But even these at length grew cold . Our voices took a dreary tone , An echo of the dungeon stone , A grating sound — not full and free As they of yore were wont to be ...
60 With some new hope or legend old , Or song heroically bold ; But even these at length grew cold . Our voices took a dreary tone , An echo of the dungeon stone , A grating sound — not full and free As they of yore were wont to be ...
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Common terms and phrases
15 cents beauty beneath blood born bound breath brow Byron called cantos cents Childe Harold Crown dark dead death deep died dust earth effect England English express eyes face fall feel felt gaze glory gray hand hath head heart heaven History hope hour human Italy King lake leaves less light limbs Literature lived look Lord Mazeppa mind mother mountains nature never night Note o'er ocean once pain poem poet prison rock Roman Rome round ruin scene School seems seen shore sight soul spirit stand Stanza star statue story strange Study tears tell thee thine things thou thought thousand tomb tree turn Venice wall waters waves wild wind woes youth
Popular passages
Page 63 - The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, And monarchs tremble in their capitals, The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Their clay creator the vain title take Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war ; These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.
Page 63 - Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since: their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts; — not so thou. Unchangeable save to thy wild waves
Page 74 - But knowing well captivity, Sweet bird, I could not wish for thine! Or if it were, in winged guise, A visitant from Paradise; For — Heaven forgive that thought! the while...
Page 64 - And I have loved thee, Ocean ! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward : from a boy I wanton'd with thy breakers — they to me Were a delight ; and if the freshening sea Made them a terror — 'twas a pleasing fear, For I was as it were a child of thee, And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane — as I do here.
Page 62 - There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore. There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.
Page 49 - I see before me the Gladiator lie : He leans upon his hand ; his manly brow Consents to death, but conquers agony, And his drooped head sinks gradually low : And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, Like the first of a thunder-shower ; and now The arena swims around him ; he is gone, Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.
Page 49 - Were with his heart, and that was far away ; He reck'd not of the life he lost nor prize, But where his rude hut by the Danube lay, There were his young barbarians all at play, There was their Dacian mother — he, their sire, Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday — All this rush'd with his blood — Shall he expire And unavenged? Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!
Page 28 - But Rome is as the desert, where we steer Stumbling o'er recollections: now we clap Our hands, and cry, " Eureka ! it is clear — " When but some false mirage of ruin rises near.
Page 74 - Ran over with the glad surprise, And they that moment could not see I was the mate of misery: But then by dull degrees came back My senses to their wonted track, I saw the dungeon walls and floor Close slowly round me as before...
Page 2 - In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, And silent rows the songless gondolier; Her palaces are crumbling to the shore, And music meets not always now the ear: Those days are gone — but Beauty still is here. States fall, arts fade — but Nature doth not die, Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear, The pleasant place of all festivity, The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy!
Bibliographic information
| Title | Childe Harold: Canto the Fourth, The Prisoner of Chillon and Mazepa Riverside literature series |
| Author | George Gordon Byron Baron Byron |
| Editor | Charles Swain Thomas |
| Publisher | Houghton Mifflin Company, 1909 |
| Original from | Harvard University |
| Digitized | 27 Mar 2008 |
| Length | 136 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |