labourers' chorus, Roma! Roma! Roma! Roma non è più come era prima,» it was difficult not to contrast this melancholy dirge with the bacchanal roar of the songs of exultation still yelled from the London taverns, over the carnage of Mont St. Jean, and the betrayal of Genoa, of Italy, of France, and of the world, by men whose conduct you yourself have exposed in a work worthy of the better days of our history. For me,

Non movero mai corda

Ove la turba di sue ciance assorda. »

What Italy has gained by the late transfer of nations, it were useless for Englishmen to inquire, till it becomes ascertained that England has ac quired something more than a permanent army and a suspended Habeas Corpus; it is enough for them to look at home. For what they have done abroad, and especially in the South, "Verily they will have their reward,» and at no very distan period.

Wishing you, my dear Hobhouse, a safe and agreeable return to that country whose real welfare can be dearer to none than to yourself, I dedicate to you this poem in its completed state; and re peat once more how truly I am ever

Your obliged

And affectionate friend.

BYRON.

CHILDE HAROLD'S

PILGRIMAGE.

CANTO I.

I.

I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs 1); A palace and a prison on each hand:

I saw from out the wave her structures rise As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand: A thousand years their cloudy wings expand Around me, and a dying Glory smiles

O'er the far times, when many a subject land Look'd to the winged Lion's marble piles, Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles!

11.

She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean 2),
Rising with her tiara of proud towers
At airy distance, with majestic motion,
A ruler of the waters and their powers:
And such she was;- her daughters had their

dowers

From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East Pour'd in her lap all gems in sparkling showers. In purple was she robed, and of her feast Monarchs partook, and deem'd their dignity increased.

In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more 3),
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!

IV.

But unto us she hath a spell beyond Her name in story, and her long array Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond Above the dogeless city's vanish'd sway; Ours is a trophy which will not decay With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor, And Pierre, can not be swept or worn awayThe keystones of the arch! though all were o'er, For us repeopled were the solitary shore.

V.

The beings of the mind are not of clay;
Essentially immortal, they create
And multiply in us a brighter ray

And more beloved existence: that which Fate
Prohibits to dull life, in this our state

Of mortal bondage, by these spirits supplied First exiles, then replaces what we hate; Watering the heart whose early flowers have died, And with a fresher growth replenishing the void.

VI.

Such is the refuge of our youth and age,
The first from Hope, the last from Vacancy;
And this worn feeling peoples many a page,
And may be, that which grows beneath mine eye:
Yet there are things whose strong reality
Outshines our fairy-land; in shape and hues
More beautiful than our fantastic sky,

And the strange constellations which the Muse O'er her wild universe is skilful to diffuse:

VII.

I saw or dream'd of such, but let them go-
They came like truth, and disappear'd like dreams;
And whatsoe'er they were are now but so:
I could replace them if I would; still teems

My mind with many a form which aptly seems Such as I sought for, and at moments found; Let these too go-for waking Reason deems. Such over-weening phantasies unsound, And other voices speak, and other sights surround.

VIII.

I've taught me other tongues-and in strange eyes Have made me not a stranger; to the mind Which is itself, no changes bring surprise; Nor is it harsh to make, nor hard to find A country with-ay, or without mankind; Yet was I born where men are proud to be, Not without cause; and should I leave behind The inviolate island of the sage and free, And seek me out a home by a remoter sea,

IX.

Perhaps I loved it well; and should I lay
My ashes in a soil which is not mine,
My spirit shall resume it-if we may
Unbodied choose a sanctuary. I twine
My hopes of being remember'd in my line
With my land's language: if too fond and far
These aspirations in their scope incline,

If my fame should be, as my fortunes are,
Of hasty growth and blight, and dull Oblivion bar

X.

My name from out the temple where the dead
Are honour'd by the nations-let it be--
And light the laurels on a loftier head!
And be the Spartan's epitaph on me-

Sparta had many a worthier son than he.. 4)
Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need;
The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree.
1 planted, they have torn me, and I bleed:
I should have known what fruit would spring from

such a seed.

XI.

The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord; And, annual marriage now no more renew'd, The Bucentaur lies rotting unrestored,

Neglected garment of her widowhood!

St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stood 5) Stand, but in mockery of his wither'd power, Over the proud Place where an Emperor sued, And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour When Venice was a queen with an unequall'd dower.

The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns-6) An Emperor tramples where an Emperor knelt; Kingdoms are shrunk to provinces, and chains Clank over sceptred cities; nations melt

From power's high pinnacle, when they have felt The sunshine for a while, and downward go Like lauwine loosen'd from the mountain's belt; Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo! 7) Th' octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe.

Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of brass, Their gilded collars glittering in the sun; But is not Doria's menace come to pass Are they not bridled? Venice, lost and won, Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done, Sinks, like a sea-weed, into whence she rose! Better be whelm'd beneath the waves, and shua, Even in destruction's depth, her foreign foes, From whom submission wrings an infamous repose.

In youth she was all glory, - a new Tyre,— Her very by word sprung from victory, The "Planter of the Lion, 9) which through fire And blood she bore o'er subject earth and sea; Though making many slaves, herself still free, And Europe's bulwark 'gainst the Ottomite; Witness Troy's rival, Candia! Vouch it, ye Immortal waves that saw Lepanto's fight!" For ye are names no time nor tyranny can blight.

XV.

Statues of glass-all shiver'd-the long file Of her dead Doges are declined to dust!