The ground, with cautious tread, is traversed o'er, Can man achieve without the friendly steed, LXXV. Thrice sounds the clarion; lo! the signal falls, The den expands, and expectation mute, Here, there, he points his threatening front, to suit LXXVI. Sudden he stops; his eye is fixed: away, Dart follows dart; lance, lance; loud bellowings speak his woes. LXXVII. Again he comes; nor dart nor lance avail, gory Though death-struck still his feeble frame he rears, Staggering, but stemming all, his lord unharmed he bears, LXXVIII. Foiled, bleeding, breathlees, furious to the last, Full in the centre stand the bull at bay, 75 Mid wounds, and clinging darts, and lances brast, And foes disabled in the brutal fray: And now the Matadores around him play, Shake the red cloak, and poise the ready brand: Once more through all he bursts his thundering way Vain rage! the mantle quits the conynge hand, Wraps his fierce eye-'tis past-he sinks upon the sand! LXXIX. Where his vast neck just mingles with the spine, He stops he starts-disdaining to decline: Without a groan, without a struggle dies. The corse is piled-sweet sight for vulgar eyes— LXXX. Such the ungentle sport that oft invites The Spanish maid, and cheers the Spanish swain, In vengeance, gloating on another's pain, What private feuds the troubled village stain! Though now one phalanx'd host should meet the foe, Enough, alas! in humble homes remain, To meditate 'gainst friends the secret blow, For some slight cause of wrath, whence life's warm stream must flow. LXXXI, But Jealousy has fled: his bars, his bolts, His withered centinel, Duenna sage! And all whereat the generous soul revolts, Which the stern dotard deemed he could encage, Have passed to darkness with the vanished age (Ere War uprose in his volcanic rage), With braided tresses bounding o'er the green, While on the gay dance shone Night's lover-loving Queen? LXXXII. Oh! many a time, and oft, had Harold loved, How fair, how young, how soft soe'er he seem, Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings. 16 LXXXIII. Yet to the beauteous form he was not blind, Though now it moved him as it moves the wise; Not that Philosophy on such a mind F'er deigned to bend her chastely-awful eyes: But Passion raves herself to rest, or flies; And Vice, that digs her own voluptuous tomb, Had buried long his hopes, no more to rise: Pleasure's palled victim! life-abhorring gloom Wrote on his faded brow curst Cain's unresting doom. LXXXIV. Still he beheld, nor mingled with the throng; But viewed them not with misanthropic hate: But who may smile that sinks beneath his fate? Nought that he saw his sadness could abate: To charms as fair as those, that soothed his happier day. TO INEZ. I. NAY; smile not at my sullen brow, Alas! I cannot smile again; Yet heaven avert that ever thou Shouldst weep, and haply weep in vain. 2. And dost thou ask, what secret woe A pang, ev'n thou must fail to soothe? It is not love, it is not hate, Nor low Ambition's honours lost, That bids me loathe my present state, And fly from all I prized the most: 4. It is that weariness which springs From all I meet, or hear, or see: To me no pleasure Beauty brings; Thine eyes have scarce a charm for me. |