Childe Harolds Pilgrimage | Page 9

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.
And dost thou ask what secret woe
I bear, corroding joy and youth?
And wilt thou vainly seek to know
A pang even 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:
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.
It is that settled, ceaseless gloom
The fabled Hebrew wanderer bore,
That will not look beyond the
tomb,
But cannot hope for rest before.
What exile from himself can flee?
To zones, though more and more remote,
Still, still pursues, where'er

I be,
The blight of life--the demon Thought.
Yet others rapt in pleasure seem,
And taste of all that I forsake:
Oh! may they still of transport dream,
And ne'er, at least like me, awake!
Through many a clime 'tis mine to go,
With many a retrospection curst;
And all my solace is to know,
Whate'er betides, I've known the worst.
What is that worst? Nay, do not ask -
In pity from the search forbear:
Smile on--nor venture to unmask
Man's heart, and view the hell that's there.
LXXXV.
Adieu, fair Cadiz! yea, a long adieu!
Who may forget how well thy
walls have stood?
When all were changing, thou alone wert true,

First to be free, and last to be subdued.
And if amidst a scene, a shock
so rude,
Some native blood was seen thy streets to dye,
A traitor
only fell beneath the feud:
Here all were noble, save nobility;
None
hugged a conqueror's chain save fallen Chivalry!
LXXXVI.
Such be the sons of Spain, and strange her fate!
They fight for
freedom, who were never free;
A kingless people for a nerveless state,

Her vassals combat when their chieftains flee,
True to the veriest
slaves of Treachery;
Fond of a land which gave them nought but life,


Pride points the path that leads to liberty;
Back to the struggle,
baffled in the strife,
War, war is still the cry, 'War even to the knife!'
LXXXVII.
Ye, who would more of Spain and Spaniards know,
Go, read whate'er
is writ of bloodiest strife:
Whate'er keen Vengeance urged on foreign
foe
Can act, is acting there against man's life:
From flashing
scimitar to secret knife,
War mouldeth there each weapon to his need
-
So may he guard the sister and the wife,
So may he make each
curst oppressor bleed,
So may such foes deserve the most remorseless
deed!
LXXXVIII.
Flows there a tear of pity for the dead?
Look o'er the ravage of the
reeking plain:
Look on the hands with female slaughter red;
Then to
the dogs resign the unburied slain,
Then to the vulture let each corse
remain;
Albeit unworthy of the prey-bird's maw,
Let their bleached
bones, and blood's unbleaching stain, Long mark the battle-field with
hideous awe:
Thus only may our sons conceive the scenes we saw!
LXXXIX.
Nor yet, alas, the dreadful work is done;
Fresh legions pour adown
the Pyrenees:
It deepens still, the work is scarce begun,
Nor mortal
eye the distant end foresees.
Fall'n nations gaze on Spain: if freed, she
frees
More than her fell Pizarros once enchained.
Strange
retribution! now Columbia's ease
Repairs the wrongs that Quito's
sons sustained,
While o'er the parent clime prowls Murder
unrestrained.
XC.
Not all the blood at Talavera shed,
Not all the marvels of Barossa's

fight,
Not Albuera lavish of the dead,
Have won for Spain her
well-asserted right.
When shall her Olive-Branch be free from blight?

When shall she breathe her from the blushing toil?
How many a
doubtful day shall sink in night,
Ere the Frank robber turn him from
his spoil,
And Freedom's stranger-tree grow native of the soil?
XCI.
And thou, my friend! since unavailing woe
Bursts from my heart, and
mingles with the strain -
Had the sword laid thee with the mighty low,

Pride might forbid e'en Friendship to complain:
But thus
unlaurelled to descend in vain,
By all forgotten, save the lonely breast,

And mix unbleeding with the boasted slain,
While glory crowns so
many a meaner crest!
What hadst thou done, to sink so peacefully to
rest?
XCII.
Oh, known the earliest, and esteemed the most!
Dear to a heart where
nought was left so dear!
Though to my hopeless days for ever lost,

In dreams deny me not to see thee here!
And Morn in secret shall
renew the tear
Of Consciousness awaking to her woes,
And Fancy
hover o'er thy bloodless bier,
Till my frail frame return to whence it
rose,
And mourned and mourner lie united in repose.
XCIII.
Here is one fytte of Harold's pilgrimage.
Ye who of him may further
seek to know,
Shall find some tidings in a future page,
If he that
rhymeth now may scribble moe.
Is this too much? Stern critic, say
not so:
Patience! and ye shall hear what he beheld
In other lands,
where he was doomed to go:
Lands that