XXIV. Thus bending o'er the vessel's laving side, A thought, and claims the homage of a tear; 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; 't is but to hold [unroll'd. Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores 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 flatter'd, follow'd, 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, 1 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 hallow'd 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, Coop'd 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. [One of Lord Byron's chief delights was, as he himself states in one of his journals, after bathing in some retired spot, to seat himself on a high rock above the sea, and there remain for hours, gazing upon the sky and the waters. "He led the life," says Sir Egerton Brydges, "as he wrote the strains, of a true poet. He could sleep, and very frequently did sleep, wrapped up in his rough great coat, on the hard boards of a deck, while the winds and the waves were roaring round him on every side, and could subsist on a crust and a glass of water. It would be difficult to persuade me, that he who is a coxcomb in his manners, and artificial in his habits of life, could write good poetry."] * Goza is said to have been the island of Calypso.-[" The identity of the habitation assigned by poets to the nymph Calypso, has occasioned much discussion and variety of opinion. Some place it at Malta, and some at Goza."Hoare's Classical Tour.] 3 [For an account of this accomplished but eccentric lady, XXIX. But not in silence pass Calypso's isles, 2 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 essay'd 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 check'd 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 deem'd, as on that lady's eye He look'd, 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 deem'd the little God his ancient sway was o'er. XXXII. Fair Florence found, in sooth with some amaze, One who, 't was said, still sigh'd to all he saw, Withstand, unmoved, the lustre of her gaze, Which others hail'd with real or mimic awe, [law; Their hope, their doom, their punishment, their All that gay Beauty from her bondsmen claims: And much she marvell'd that a youth so raw Nor felt, nor feign'd at least, the oft-told flames, Which, though sometimes they frown, yet rarely anger dames. whose acquaintance the poet formed at Malta, see Miscellaneous Poems, September, 1809, "To Florence." "In one so imaginative as Lord Byron, who, while he infused so much of his life into his poetry, mingled also not a little of poetry with his life, it is difficult," says Moore, "in unravelling the texture of his feelings, to distinguish at all times between the fanciful and the real. His description here, for instance, of the unmoved and loveless heart,' with which he contemplated even the charms of this attractive person, is wholly at variance with the statements in many of his letters; and, above all, with one of the most graceful of his lesser poems, addressed to this same lady, during a thunder-storm on his road to Zitza."] 4 [Against this line it is sufficient to set the poet's own declaration, in 1821: -"I am not a Joseph, nor a Scipio, but I can safely affirm, that I never in my life seduced any woman."] 5 We have here another instance of his propensity to Land of Albania! where Iskander rose, Theme of the young, and beacon of the wise, And he his namesake, whose oft-baffled foes Shrunk from his deeds of chivalrous emprize: Land of Albania 2! let me bend mine eyes On thee, thou rugged nurse of savage men ! The cross descends, thy minarets arise, And the pale crescent sparkles in the glen, Through many a cypress grove within each city's ken. self-misrepresentation. However great might have been the irregularities of his college life, such phrases as 'the spoiler's art,' and spreading snares,' were in no wise applicable to them."- MOORE.] 1 ["Brisk Impudence," &c. - MS.] 2 See Appendix to this Canto, Note [B]. 3 Ithaca -[" Sept. 24th," says Mr. Hobhouse, "we were in the channel, with Ithaca, then in the hands of the French, to the west of us. We were close to it, and saw a few shrubs on a brown heathy land, two little towns in the hills, scat. tered amongst trees, and a windmill or two, with a tower on the heights. That Ithaca was not very strongly garrisoned, you will easily believe, when I tell, that a month afterwards, when the Ionian Islands were invested by a British squadron, it was surrendered into the hands of a sergeant and seven XXXIX. Childe Harold sail'd, and pass'd the barren spot That only Heaven to which Earth's children may aspire. XL. 'Twas on a Grecian autumn's gentle eve Childe Harold hail'd Leucadia's cape afar; 4 A spot he long'd to see, nor cared to leave: Oft did he mark the scenes of vanish'd war, Actium, Lepanto, fatal Trafalgar ; 5 Mark them unmoved, for he would not delight (Born beneath some remote inglorious star) In themes of bloody fray, or gallant fight, [wight. But loathed the bravo's trade, and laughed at martial XLI. But when he saw the evening star above Leucadia's far-projecting rock of woe, And hail'd the last resort of fruitless love, He felt, or deem'd he felt, no common glow: And as the stately vessel glided slow Beneath the shadow of that ancient mount, He watch'd the billows' melancholy flow, And, sunk albeit in thought as he was wont, More placid seem'd his eye, and smooth his pallid front. 6 XLII. Morn dawns: and with it stern Albania's hills, Dark Suli's rocks, and Pindus' inland peak, Robed half in mist, bedew'd with snowy rills, Array'd in many a dun and purple streak, Arise; and, as the clouds along them break, Disclose the dwelling of the mountaineer; Here roams the wolf, the eagle whets his beak, Birds, beasts of prey, and wilder men appear, [year. And gathering storms around convulse the closing XLIII. Now Harold felt himself at length alone, And bade to Christian tongues a long adieu; Now he adventured on a shore unknown, Which all admire, but many dread to view: His breast was arm'd 'gainst fate, his wants were few; Peril he sought not, but ne'er shrank to meet : The scene was savage, but the scene was new; This made the ceaseless toil of travel sweet, [heat. Beat back keen winter's blast, and welcomed summer's men. "For a very curious account of the state of the kingdom of Ulysses in 1816, see Williams's Travels, vol. ii. p. 427.] 4 Leucadia, now Santa Maura. From the promontory (the Lover's Leap) Sappho is said to have thrown herself. ["Sept. 28th, we doubled the promontory of Santa Maura. and saw the precipice which the fate of Sappho, the poetry of Ovid, and the rocks so formidable to the ancient mariners, have made for ever memorable."- HOBHOUSE.] XLIV. Here the red cross, for still the cross is here, Who from true worship's gold can separate thy dross? XLV. Ambracia's gulf behold, where once was lost A world for woman, lovely, harmless thing! In yonder rippling bay, their naval host Did many a Roman chief and Asian king 1 To doubtful conflict, certain slaughter bring: Look where the second Cæsar's trophies rose :" Now, like the hands that rear'd them, withering: Imperial anarchs, doubling human woes! GOD! was thy globe ordain'd for such to win and lose? XLVI. From the dark barriers of that rugged clime, Childe Harold pass'd o'er many a mount sublime, A charm they know not; loved Parnassus fails, XLVII. He pass'd bleak Pindus, Acherusia's lake, 3 To greet Albania's chief +, whose dread command It is said, that, on the day previous to the battle of Actium, Antony had thirteen kings at his levee. -[" Today" (Nov. 12)," I saw the remains of the town of Actium, Dear which Antony lost the world, in a small bay, where two frigates could hardly manoeuvre: a broken wall is the sole remnant. On another part of the gulf stand the ruins of Nicopolis, built by Augustus, in honour of his victory."— Lord Byron to his Mother, 1809.] Nicopolis, whose ruins are most extensive, is at some distance from Actium, where the wall of the Hippodrome survives in a few fragments. These ruins are large masses of brickwork, the bricks of which are joined by interstices of mortar, as large as the bricks themselves, and equally durable. According to Pouqueville, the lake of Yanina: but Pouqueville is always out. * The celebrated Ali Pacha. Of this extraordinary man there is an incorrect account in Pouqueville's Travels. -["I left Malta in the Spider brig-of-war, on the 21st of September, and arrived in eight days at Prevesa. I thence have traversed the interior of the province of Albania, on a visit to the Pacha, as far as Tepaleen, his highness's country palace, where I stayed three days. The name of the Pacha is Ali, and he is considered a man of the first abilities: he governs the whole of Albania (the ancient Illyricum), Epirus, and part of Macedonia"- B. to his Mother.] Five thousand Suliotes, among the rocks and in the castle of Suli, withstood thirty thousand Albanians for eighteen years; the castle at last was taken by bribery. In this contest there were several acts performed not unworthy of the better days of Greece. The convent and village of Zitza are four hours' journey from Joannina, or Yanina, the capital of the Pachalick. In the valley the river Kalamas (once the Acheron) flows, and, not far from Zitza, forms a fine cataract. The situation is perhaps the finest in Greece, though the approach to Delvinachi and parts of Acarnania and Etolia may contest the palm. Delphi, Parnassus, and, in Attica, even Cape Colonna and Port Raphti, are very inferior; as also every scene in Ionia, or the Troad I am almost inclined to add the approach to Constantinople; but, from the different features of the last, a comparison can hardly be made. "Zitza," says the poet's companion," is a village inhabited by Greek peasants. Perhaps there is not in the world a more romantic prospect than that which is viewed from the summit of the hill. The foreground is a gentle declivity, terminating on every side in an extensive landscape of green hills and dale, enriched with vineyards, and dotted with frequent flocks."] The Greek monks are so called. [“ We went into the monastery," says Mr. Hobhouse, "after some parley with one of the monks, through a small door plated with iron, on which the marks of violence were very apparent, and which, before the country had been tranquillised under the powerful government of Ali, had been battered in vain by the troops of robbers then, by turns, infesting every district. The prior, a humble, meek-mannered man, entertained us in a warm chamber with grapes, and a pleasant white wine, not trodden out, as he told us, by the feet, but pressed from the grape by the hand; and we were so well pleased with every thing about us, that we agreed to lodge with him on our return from the Vizier."] 8 The Chimariot mountains appear to have been volcanic. 9 Now called Kalamas. 10" Keep heaven for better souls, my shade," &c. — MS.] 1 Albanese cloak. 2 Anciently Mount Tomarus. 3 The river Laos was full at the time the author passed it; and, immediately above Tepaleen, was to the eye as wide as the Thames at Westminster; at least in the opinion of the author and his fellow-traveller. In the summer it must be much narrower. It certainly is the finest river in the Levant; neither Achelous, Alpheus, Acheron, Scamander,nor Cayster, approached it in breadth or beauty. ["Ali Pacha, hearing that an Englishman of rank was in his dominions, left orders, in Yanina, with the commandant, to provide a house, and supply me with every kind of neces sary gratis. I rode out on the vizier's horses, and saw the palaces of himself and grandsons. I shall never forget the singular scene on entering Tepaleen, at five in the afternoon (Oct. 11.), as the sun was going down. It brought to my mind (with some change of dress, however,) Scott's description of Branksome Castle in his Lay, and the feudal system. The Albanians in their dresses (the most magnificent in the world, consisting of a long white kilt, gold-worked cloak, crimson velvet gold-laced jacket and waistcoat, silver-mounted pistols and daggers); the Tartars, with their high caps; the Turks in their vast pelisses and turbans; the soldiers and black slaves with the horses, the former in groups, in an immense Amidst no common pomp the despot sate, Here men of every clime appear to make resort. LVII. Richly caparison'd, a ready row Of armed horse, and many a warlike store, Circled the wide-extending court below; Above, strange groups adorn'd the corridore; And oft-times through the area's echoing door, Some high-capp'd Tartar spurr'd his steed away : The Turk, the Greek, the Albanian, and the Moor, Here mingled in their many-hued array, [of day While the deep war-drum's sound announced the close LVIII. The wild Albanian kirtled to his knee, And crooked glaive; the lively, supple Greek; LIX. Are mix'd conspicuous: some recline in groups, Scanning the motley scene that varies round; There some grave Moslem to devotion stoops, And some that smoke, and some that play, are found; Here the Albanian proudly treads the ground; Half-whispering there the Greek is heard to prate; Hark! from the mosque the nightly solemn sound, The Muezzin's call doth shake the minaret, "There is no god but God! - to prayer-lo! God is great !" 5 LX. Just at this season Ramazani's fast 6 Through the long day its penance did maintain : But when the lingering twilight hour was past, Revel and feast assumed the rule again: Now all was bustle, and the menial train Prepared and spread the plenteous board within; The vacant gallery now seem'd made in vain, But from the chambers came the mingling din, As page and slave anon were passing out and in. 5 large open gallery in front of the palace, the latter placed in a kind of cloister below it; two hundred steeds ready capa. risoned to move in a moment; couriers entering or passing out with despatches; the kettle-drums beating; boys calling the hour from the minaret of the mosque; altogether, with the singular appearance of the building itself, formed a new and delightful spectacle to a stranger. I was conducted to a very handsome apartment, and my health inquired after by the vizier's secretary, à la mode Turque."" - B. Letters.] ["On our arrival at Tepaleen, we were lodged in the palace. During the night, we were disturbed by the perpetual carousal which seemed to be kept up in the gallery, and by the drum, and the voice of the Muezzin,' or chanter, calling the Turks to prayers from the minaret or the mosck attached to the palace. The chanter was a boy, and he sang out his hymn in a sort of loud melancholy recitative. was a long time repeating the purport of these few words: God most high! I bear witness, that there is no god but God, and Mahomet is his prophet: come to prayer; come to the asylum of salvation; great God! there is no god but God!"-HOBHOUSE] He 6 ["We were a little unfortunate in the time we chose for travelling, for it was during the Ramazan, or Turkish Lent, which fell this year in October, and was hailed at the rising |