I had not left my recent chain; It might be months, or years, or days, I had no hope my eyes to raise, And clear them of their dreary mote; At last men came to set me free, I ask'd not why, and reck'd not where; It was at length the same to me, Fetter'd or fetterless to be, I learn'd to love despair. And thus, when they appear'd at last, ODE I 360 370 380 390 Oh Venice! Venice! when thy marble walls A loud lament along the sweeping sea! weep: And yet they only murmur in their sleep. In contrast with their fathers as the slime, The dull green ooze of the receding deep, that centuries should reap No mellower harvest! Thirteen hundred years Of wealth and glory turn'd to dust and tears; And every monument the stranger meets, Church, palace, pillar, as a mourner greets; And even the Lion all subdued appears, And the harsh sound of the barbarian drum, With dull and daily dissonance, repeats The echo of thy tyrant's voice along The soft waves, once all musical to song, That heaved beneath the moonlight with the throng Of gondolas and to the busy hum 21 30 Of cheerful creatures, whose most sinful deeds And mirth is madness, and but smiles to slay; When faintness, the last mortal birth of pain, And then he talks of life, and how again Chamber swims round and round-and shadows busy, At which he vainly catches, flit and gleam, 12 Of many thousand years Search the page the daily scene, O'er which you stumble in a false ordeal, Admire and sigh, and then succumb and bleed! Save the few spirits, who, despite of all, So And worse than all, the sudden crimes engender'd By the down-thundering of the prison-wall, And thirst to swallow the sweet waters tender'd, Gushing from freedom's fountains — when the crowd, Madden'd with centuries of drought, are loud, The sand, or if there sprung the yellow grain, 'Twas not for them, their necks were too much bow'd, 90 The name of commonwealth is past and gone O'er the three fractions of the groaning globe; Venice is crush'd, and Holland deigns to own As if his senseless sceptre were a wand Rights cheaply earn'd with blood. Still, still, forever Better, though each man's life-blood were a river, 149 That it should flow, and overflow, than creep And moving, as a sick man in his sleep, Fly, and one current to the ocean add, KNOW YE THE LAND? 160 Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime? Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle,2 Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime? Know ye the land of the cedar and vine, Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine; Where the light wings of Zephyr, oppress'd with perfume, Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gúl3 in her bloom; 1 Those who have sold their birth-right, Liberty. 2 dove 3 the rose 95 Of pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite. To love and wonder; he would linger long 105 His wandering step, Obedient to high thoughts, has visited The awful ruins of the days of old: Athens, and Tyre, and Balbec,' and the waste Where stood Jerusalem, the fallen towers 110 Of Babylon, the eternal pyramids, Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe'er of Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate? Byron Ask why the sunlight not forever Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain river, Why aught should fail and fade that once is Such gloom, why man has such a scope For love and hate, despondency and hope? No voice from so.ne sublimer world hath ever To sage or poe these responses given 26 Therefore the names of Dæmon, Ghost, and Heaven, Remain the records of their vain endeavour, Frail spells whose uttered charm might not avail to sever, From all we hear and all we see, 1 Observe that "shower" is a verb. 30 |