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 loved, 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 possessed

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 unrolled.

XXVI.

But midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men,

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

And roam along, the world's tired denizen,

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 flattered, followed, 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,

Which looks o'er waves so blue, skies so serene,

That he who there at such an hour hath been
Will wistful linger on that hallowed 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,
Cooped 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 Calipso's isles,

The sister tenants of the middle deep;

There for the weary still a haven smiles,

Though the fair goddess long hath ceased to weep,

And o'er her cliffs a fruitless watch to keep

For him who dared prefer a mortal bride :

Here, too, his boy essayed the dreadful leap

Stern Mentor urged from high to yonder tide;

While thus of both bereft, the nymph-queen doubly sighed

XXX.

Her reign is past, her gentle glories gone.
But trust not this; too easy youth, beware!
A mortal sovereign holds her dangerous throne,
And thou may'st find a new Calypso there.
Sweet Florence! could another ever share

This wayward, loveless heart, it would be thine:
But checked by every tie, I may not dare

To cast a worthless offering at thy shrine,
Nor ask so dear a breast, to feel one pang for mine.
XXXI.

Thus Harold deemed, as on that lady's eye

He looked, and met its beam without a thought,
Save Admiration glancing harmless by:
Love kept aloof, albeit not far remote,
Who knew his votary often lost and caught,
But knew him as his worshipper no more,
And ne'er again the boy his bosom sought :

Since now he vainly urged him to adore,

Well deemed the little God, his ancient sway was o'er.
XXXII.

Fair Florence found, in sooth with some amaze,
One who, 'twas said, still sighed to all he saw,
Withstand, unmoved, the lustre of her gaze,
Which others hailed with real, or mimic awe,

Their hope, their doom, their punishment, their law;
All that gay Beauty from her bondsmen claims :

And much she marvelled that a youth so raw

Nor felt, nor feigned at least, the oft-told flames,

Which, though sometimes they frown, yet rarely anger dames.

XXXIII.

Little knew she that seeming marble-heart,

Now masked in silence or withheld by pride;
Was not unskiful in the spoiler's art,

And spread its snares licentious far and wide;
Nor from the base pursuit had turned aside,
As long as aught was worthy to pursue :
But Harold on such arts no more relied;

And had he doated on those eyes so blue,

Yet never would he join, the lover's whining crew.
XXXIV.

Not much he kens, I ween, of woman's breast,
Who thinks that wanton thing is won by sighs;
What careth she for hearts when once possessed?
Do proper homage to thine idol's eyes;

But not too humbly, or she will despise

Thee and thy suit, though told in moving tropes :

Disguise ev'n tenderness, if thou art wise;

Brisk Confidence still best with woman copes;

Pique her and soothe in turn, soon Passion crowns thy hopes,