CANTO III.

"Atm que cette application vous forgât de penser à autre chose; il n'y a en erité de remede que celui-là et le tempa."-Lettre du Roi de Prusse a ** Alembert, Sept. 7, 1776.

I.

Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child!
Ada! sole daughter of my house and heart?
When last I saw thy young blue eyes they smiled,
And then we parted,-not as now we part,
But with a hope.-

Awaking with a start,

The waters heave around me; and on high The winds lift up their voices: I depart, Whither I know not; but the hour's gone by, When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or glad

mine eye.

II.

Ouce more upon the waters! yet once more! And the waves bound beneath me as a steed That knows his rider. Welcome, to their roar! Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead! Though the strain'd mast should quiver as a reed, And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale, Still must I on; for I am as a weed, Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam to sail Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail.

III.

In my youth's summer I did sing of One, The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind; Again I seize the them.e then but begun, And bear it with me, as the rushing wind Bears the cloud onwards: in that Tale I find The furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears, Which, ebbing, leave a steril track behind, O'er which all heavily the journeying years Plod the last sands of life,-where not a flower appears.

IV.

Since my young days of passion-joy, or pain, Perchance my heart and harp have lost a string, And both may jar; it may be, that in vain I would essay as I have sung to sing. Yet, though a dreary strain, to this I cling, So that it ween me from the weary dream Of selfish grief or gladness-so it fling Forgetfulness around me-it shall seem To me, though to none else, a not ungrateful theme.

V.

He, who grown aged in this world of wo,
In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life,
So that no wonder waits him; nor below
Can love, or sorrow, fame, ambition, strife,
Cut to his heart again with the keen knife
Of silent, sharp endurance: he can tell
Why thought seeks refuge in lone caves, yet rife
With airy images, and shapes which dwell

But who can view the ripen'd rose, nor seek

To wear it? who can curiously behold
The smoothness and the sheen of beauty's cheek,
Nor feel the heart can never all grow old?
Who can contemplate Fame through clouds unfold
The star which rises o'er her steep, nor climb ?
Harold, once more within the vortex, roll'd
On with the giddy circle, chasing Time,

a

Even as a broken mirror, which the glass
In every fragment multiplies; and makes
A thousand images of one that was,

The same, and still the more, the more it breaks.
And thus the heart will do which not forsakes,
Living in shatter'd guise, and still, and cold,
And bloodless, with its sleepless sorrow acher
Yet withers on till all without is old,

and low.

XXXVI.

There sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men,
Whose spirit antithetically mixt

One moment of the mightiest, and again
On little objects with like firmness fixt,
Extreme in all things! hadst thou been betwixt,
Thy throne had still been thine, or never been;
For daring made thy rise as fall: thou seek'st
Even now to reassume the imperial mien,

XLII.

But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell,
And there hath been thy bane; there is a fire
And motion of the soul which will not dwell
In its own narrow being, but aspire
Beyong the fitting medium of desire;
And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore
Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire
Of aught but rest; a fever at the core,

scene!

XXXVII.

Conqueror and captive of the earth art thou!
She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name
Was ne'er more bruited in men's minds than now
That thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame,,
Who woo'd thee once, thy vassal, and became
The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert
A god unto thyself; nor less the same
To the astounded kingdoms all inert,

XLIII.

This makes the madmen who have made men m
By their contagion; Conquerors and Kings,
Founders of sects and systems, to whom add
Sophists, Bards, Statesmen, all unquiet things
Which stir too strongly the soul's secret spring
And are themselves the fools to those they fool
Envied, yet how unenviable! what stings
Are theirs! One breast laid open were a school

assert.

XXXVIII.

Oh, more or less than man-in high or low, Battling with nations, flying from the field; Now making monarchs' necks thy footstool, now More than thy meanest soldier taught to yield; An empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild, But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor, However deeply in men's spirits skill'd, Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of war, Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the loftiest

star.

XXXIX.

Yet well thy soul hath brook'd the turning tide, With that untaught innate philosophy, Which, be it wisdom, coldness, or deep pride, Is gall and wormwood to an enemy. When the whole host of hatred stood hard by, To watch and mock thee shrinking, thou hast With a sedate and all-enduring eye;- [smiled When Fortune fled her spoil'd and favorite child, He stood unbow'd beneath the ills upon him piled.

XL.

Sager than in thy fortunes; for in them
Ambition steel'd thee on too far to show
That just habitual scorn which could contemn
Men and their thoughts; 'twas wise to feel, not so
To wear it ever on thy lip and brow,
And spurn the instruments thou wert to use,
Till they were turn'd unto thine overthrow:

'Tis but a worthless world to win or lose;

rule;

XLIV.

Their breath is agitation, and their life A storm whereon they ride, to sink at last, And yet so nursed and bigoted to strife, That should their days, surviving perils past, Melt to calm twilight, they feel overcast With sorrow aud supineness, and so die; Even as a flame unfed, which runs to waste which eats into itself, and rusts ingloriously. With its own flickering, or a sword laid by,

XLV.

He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and sno He who surpasses or subdues mankind, Must look down on the hate of those below. Though high above the sun of glory glow, And far beneath the earth and ocean spread, Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow Contending tempests on his naked head, And thus reward the toils which to those summ

led.

XLVI.

Away with these! true Wisdom's world will be
Within its own creation, or in thine,
Maternal Nature! for who teems like thee,
Thus on the banks of thy majestic Rhine?
There Haroid gazes on a work divine,

A blending of all beauties; streams and dells,
Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mounta

vine,

And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells

But History's purchased page to call them great? A wider space, an ornamented grave?

LIV.

And he had learned to love,-I know not why,
For this in such as him seems strange of mood.-
The helpless looks of blooming infancy,
Even in its earliest nurture; what subdued,
To change like this, a mind so far imbued
With scorn of man, it little boots to know;
But thus it was; and though in solitude
Small power the nipp'd affections have to grow,

XLIX.

In their baronial feuds and single fields, What deeds of prowess unrecorded died! And love, which lent a blazon to their shields, With emblems well devised by amorous pride, Through all the mail of iron hearts would glide; But still their flame was fierceness, and drew on Keen contest and destruction near allied, And many a tower for some fair mischief won, Faw the discolor'd Rhine beneath its ruin run.

L.

But Thou, exultiag and unbounding river! Making thy waves a blessing as they flow Through banks whose beauty would endure for ever Could man but leave thy bright creation so, Nor its fair promise from the surface mow With the sharp scythe of conflict, then to see Thy valley of sweet waters, were to know Earth paved like Heaven; and to seem such to me, Even now what wants thy stream?-that it should Lethe be.

LI.

A thousand battles have assail'd thy banks, But these and half their fame have pass'd away, And Slaughter heap'd on high his weltering ranks; Their very graves are gone, and what are they r Thy tide wasn'd down the blood of yesterday, And all was stainless, and on thy clear stream Glass'd with its dancing light the sunny ray; Bat o'er the blacken'd memory's blighting dream Thy waves would vainly roll, all sweeping as they

seem.

LII.

Thus Harold inly said, and pass'd along,
Yet not insensibly to all which here
Awoke the jocund birds to early song

In glens which might have made even exile dear;
Though on his brow were graven lines austere,
And tranquil sternness which had ta'en the place
Of feelings fierier far but less severe,
Joy was not always absent from his face,

Bat c'er it in such scenes would steal with transient

trace.

LIII.

Nor was all love shut from him, though his days Of passion had consumed themselves to dust. It is in vain that we would coldly gaze On such as smile upon us; the heart must Leap kindly back to kindness, though disgust Hath wenn'd it from all worldlings: thus he felt, For there was soft remembrance, and sweet trust In one fond breast, to which his own would melt, And in its tenderer hour on that his bosom dwelt.

glow.

LV.

And there was one soft breast, as hath been said,
Which unto his was bound by stronger ties
Than the church links withal; and, though unwed
That love was pure, and, far above disguse,
Had stood the test of mortal enmities
Still undivided, and cemented more
By peril, dreaded most in female eyes;

But this was firm, and from a foreign shore Well to that heart might his these absent greetings pour.

1.

The castled crag of Drachenfels "

Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine. Whose breast of waters broadly swells Between the banks which bear the vine. And hills all rich with blossom'd trees, And fields which promise corn and wine, And scatter'd cities crowning these, Whose far white walls along them shine, Have strew'd a scene which I should see With double joy wert thou with me.

2.

And peasant girls, with deep blue eyes
And hands which offer early flowers,
Walk smiling o'er this paradise;
Above, the frequent feudal towers
Through green leaves lift their walls of gray,
And many a rock which steeply lowers,
And noble arch in proud decay,

Look o'er this vale of vintage-bowers;
But one thing want these banks of Rhine,--
Thy gentle hand to clasp in mine!

3.

I send the lilies given to me;
Though long before thy hand they tourn
I know that they must wither'd be,
But yet reject them not as such;
For I have cherish'd them as dear,
Because they yet may meet thine eye,
And guide thy soul to mine even here,
When thou behold'st them drooping nigh,
And know'st them gather'd by the Rhine,
And offer'd from my heart to thine!

4.

The river nobly foams and flows,
The charm of this enchanted ground,
And all its thousand turns disclose
Some fresher beauty varying round:
The haughtiest breast its wish might bound
Through life to dwell delighted here;
Nor could on earth a spot be found
To nature and to me so dear,

Could thy dear eyes in following mine
Still sweeten more these banks of Rhine!