Childe Harolds Pilgrimage | Page 3

above.
'My father blessed me fervently,
Yet did not much complain;
But sorely will my mother sigh
Till I come back again.' -
'Enough, enough, my little lad!
Such tears become thine eye;
If I thy guileless bosom had,
Mine own would not be dry.
'Come hither, hither, my staunch yeoman,
Why dost thou look so pale?
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
Will blanch a faithful cheek.
'My spouse and boys dwell near thy hall,
Along the bordering lake;
And when they on their father call,
What answer shall she make?' -
'Enough, enough, my yeoman good,
Thy grief let none gainsay;
But I, who am of lighter mood,
Will laugh to flee away.'
For who would trust the seeming sighs
Of wife or paramour?
Fresh feeres will dry the bright blue eyes
We late saw streaming o'er.
For pleasures past I do not grieve,

Nor perils gathering near;
My greatest grief is that I leave
No thing that claims a tear.
And now I'm in the world alone,
Upon the wide, wide sea;
But why should I for others groan,
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.
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!
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.
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;
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!
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
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
Of mighty strength, since Albion
was allied,
And to the Lusians did her aid afford
A nation swoll'n
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.
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 e'e;
For hut and palace show like filthily;

The dingy denizens are reared in dirt;
No personage of high or
mean degree
Doth care for cleanness of surtout or shirt,
Though
shent with Egypt's plague, unkempt, unwashed, unhurt.
XVIII.
Poor, paltry slaves! yet born midst noblest scenes -
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

Through views more dazzling unto mortal ken
Than those whereof
such things the bard relates,
Who to the awe-struck world unlocked
Elysium's gates?
XIX.

The horrid crags, by toppling convent crowned,
The cork-trees hoar
that clothe the shaggy steep,
The mountain moss by scorching skies
imbrowned,
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,
The vine
on high, the willow branch below,
Mixed 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,
And rest
ye at 'Our Lady's House of Woe;'
Where frugal monks their little
relics show,
And sundry legends to the stranger tell:
Here impious
men have punished been; and lo,
Deep in yon cave Honorius long did
dwell,
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;
For
wheresoe'er the shrieking victim hath
Poured 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.
On sloping mounds, or in the vale beneath,
Are domes where whilom
kings did make repair;
But now the wild flowers round them only
breathe:
Yet ruined splendour still is lingering there.
And yonder
towers