Yet did not much complain; | |
But sorely will my mother sigh | |
Till I come back again.’ – | |
‘Enough, enough, my little lad! | |
155 | Such tears become thine eye; |
If I thy guileless bosom had, | |
Mine own would not be dry. | |
6 | |
‘Come hither, hither, my staunch yeoman, | |
Why dost thou look so pale? | |
160 | Or dost thou dread a French foeman? |
Or shiver at the gale?’ | |
‘Deem’st thou I tremble for my life? | |
Sir Childe, I’m not so weak; | |
But thinking on an absent wife | |
165 | Will blanch a faithful cheek. |
7 | |
‘My spouse and boys dwell near thy hall, | |
Along the bordering lake, | |
And when they on their father call, | |
What answer shall she make?’ | |
170 | ‘Enough, enough, my yeoman good, |
Thy grief let none gainsay; | |
But I, who am of lighter mood, | |
Will laugh to flee away. | |
8 | |
‘For who would trust the seeming sighs | |
175 | Of wife or paramour? |
Fresh feres will dry the bright blue eyes | |
We late saw streaming o’er. | |
For pleasures past I do not grieve, | |
Nor perils gathering near; | |
180 | My greatest grief is that I leave |
No thing that claims a tear. | |
9 | |
‘And now I’m in the world alone, | |
Upon the wide, wide sea: | |
But why should I for others groan, | |
185 | When none will sigh for me? |
Perchance my dog will whine in vain, | |
Till fed by stranger hands; | |
But long ere I come back again, | |
He’d tear me where he stands. | |
10 | |
190 | ‘With thee, my bark, I’ll swiftly go |
Athwart the foaming brine; | |
Nor care what land thou bear’st me to, | |
So not again to mine. | |
Welcome, welcome, ye dark-blue waves! | |
195 | And when you fail my sight, |
Welcome, ye deserts, and ye caves! | |
My native Land – Good Night!’ | |
XIV | |
On, on the vessel flies, the land is gone, | |
And winds are rude in Biscay’s sleepless bay. | |
200 | Four days are sped, but with the fifth, anon, |
New shores descried make every bosom gay; | |
And Cintra’s mountain greets them on their way, | |
And Tagus dashing onward to the deep, | |
His fabled golden tribute bent to pay; | |
205 | And soon on board the Lusian pilots leap, |
And steer ’twixt fertile shores where yet few rustics reap. | |
XV | |
Oh, Christ! it is a goodly sight to see | |
What Heaven hath done for this delicious land! | |
What fruits of fragrance blush on every tree! | |
210 | What goodly prospects o’er the hills expand! |
But man would mar them with an impious hand: | |
And when the Almighty lifts his fiercest scourge | |
‘Gainst those who most transgress his high command, | |
With treble vengeance will his hot shafts urge | |
215 | Gaul’s locust host, and earth from fellest foemen purge. |
XVI | |
What beauties doth Lisboa first unfold! | |
Her image floating on that noble tide, | |
Which poets vainly pave with sands of gold, | |
But now whereon a thousand keels did ride | |
220 | Of mighty strength, since Albion was allied, |
And to the Lusians did her aid afford: | |
A nation swoln with ignorance and pride, | |
Who lick yet loathe the hand that waves the sword | |
To save them from the wrath of Gaul’s unsparing lord. | |
XVII | |
225 | But whoso entereth within this town, |
That, sheening far, celestial seems to be, | |
Disconsolate will wander up and down, | |
‘Mid many things unsightly to strange ee; | |
For hut and palace show like filthily: | |
230 | The dingy denizens are rear’d in dirt; |
Ne personage of high or mean degree | |
Doth care for cleanness of surtout or shirt, | |
Though shent with Egypt’s plague, unkempt, unwash’d; unhurt. | |
XVIII | |
Poor, paltry slaves! yet born ‘midst noblest scenes – | |
235 | Why, Nature, waste thy wonders on such men? |
Lo! Cintra’s glorious Eden intervenes | |
In variegated maze of mount and glen. | |
Ah, me! what hand can pencil guide, or pen, | |
To follow half on which the eye dilates | |
240 | Through views more dazzling unto mortal ken |
Than those whereof such things the bard relates, | |
Who to the awe-struck world unlock’d Elysium’s gates? | |
XIX | |
The horrid crags, by toppling convent crown’d, | |
The cork-trees hoar that clothe the shaggy steep, | |
245 | The mountain-moss by scorching skies imbrown’d, |
The sunken glen, whose sunless shrubs must weep, | |
The tender azure of the unruffled deep, | |
The orange tints that gild the greenest bough, | |
The torrents that from cliff to valley leap, | |
250 | The vine on high, the willow branch below, |
Mix’d in one mighty scene, with varied beauty glow. | |
XX | |
Then slowly climb the many-winding way, | |
And frequent turn to linger as you go, | |
From loftier rocks new loveliness survey, | |
255 | And rest ye at ‘Our Lady’s house of woe;’1 |
Where frugal monks their little relics show, | |
And sundry legends to the stranger tell: | |
Here impious men have punish’d been, and lo! | |
Deep in yon cave Honorius long did dwell, | |
260 | In hope to merit Heaven by making earth a Hell. |
XXI | |
And here and there, as up the crags you spring, | |
Mark many rude-carved crosses near the path: | |
Yet deem not these devotion’s offering – | |
These are memorials frail of murderous wrath: | |
265 | For wheresoe’er the shrieking victim hath |
Pour’d forth his blood beneath the assassin’s knife, | |
Some hand erects a cross of mouldering lath; | |
And grove and glen with thousand such are rife | |
Throughout this purple land, where law secures not life. | |
XXII | |
270 | On sloping mounds, or in the vale beneath, |
Are domes where whilome kings did make repair; | |
But now the wild flowers round them only breathe; | |
Yet ruin’d splendour still is lingering there. | |
And yonder towers the Prince’s palace fair: | |
275 | There thou too, Vathek! England’s wealthiest son, |
Once form’d thy Paradise, as not aware | |
When wanton Wealth her mightiest deeds hath done, | |
Meek Peace voluptuous lures was ever wont to shun. | |
XXIII | |
Here didst thou dwell here schemes of pleasure plan | |
280 | Beneath yon mountain’s ever beauteous brow: |
But now, as if a thing unblest by Man, | |
Thy fairy dwelling is as lone as thou! | |
Here giant weeds a passage scarce allow | |
To halls deserted, portals gaping wide; | |
285 | Fresh lessons to the thinking bosom, how |
Vain are the pleasaunces on earth supplied; | |
Swept into wrecks anon by Time’s ungentle tide! | |
XXIV | |
Behold the hall where chiefs were late convened! | |
Oh! dome displeasing unto British eye! | |
290 | With diadem hight foolscap, lo! a fiend, |
A little fiend that scoffs incessantly, | |
There sits in parchment robe array’d, and by | |
His side is hung a seal and sable scroll, | |
Where blazon’d glare names known to chivalry, | |
295 | And sundry signatures adorn the roll, |
Whereat the Urchin points and laughs with all his soul. | |
XXV | |
Convention is the dwarfish demon styled | |
That foil’d the knights in Marialva’s dome: | |
Of brains (if brains they had) he them beguiled, | |
300 | And turn’d a nation’s shallow joy to gloom. |
Here Folly dash’d to earth the victor’s plume, | |
And Policy regain’d what arms had lost: |