Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (196 page)

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 the prince’s palace fair:
 
There thou, too, Vathek! England’s wealthiest son,
 
Once formed 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.
 
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;
 
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!
 
With diadem hight foolscap, lo! a fiend,
 
A little fiend that scoffs incessantly,
 
There sits in parchment robe arrayed, and by
 
His side is hung a seal and sable scroll,
 
Where blazoned glare names known to chivalry,
 
And sundry signatures adorn the roll,
Whereat the urchin points, and laughs with all his soul.

XXV.

 
Convention is the dwarfish demon styled
 
That foiled the knights in Marialva’s dome:
 
Of brains (if brains they had) he them beguiled,
 
And turned a nation’s shallow joy to gloom.
 
Here Folly dashed to earth the victor’s plume,
 
And Policy regained what Arms had lost:
 
For chiefs like ours in vain may laurels bloom!
 
Woe to the conquering, not the conquered host,
Since baffled Triumph droops on Lusitania’s coast.

XXVI.

 
And ever since that martial synod met,
 
Britannia sickens, Cintra, at thy name;
 
And folks in office at the mention fret,
 
And fain would blush, if blush they could, for shame.
 
How will posterity the deed proclaim!
 
Will not our own and fellow-nations sneer,
 
To view these champions cheated of their fame,
 
By foes in fight o’erthrown, yet victors here,
Where Scorn her finger points through many a coming year?

XXVII.

 
So deemed the Childe, as o’er the mountains he
 
Did take his way in solitary guise:
 
Sweet was the scene, yet soon he thought to flee,
 
More restless than the swallow in the skies:
 
Though here awhile he learned to moralise,
 
For Meditation fixed at times on him,
 
And conscious Reason whispered to despise
 
His early youth misspent in maddest whim;
But as he gazed on Truth, his aching eyes grew dim.

XXVIII.

 
To horse! to horse! he quits, for ever quits
 
A scene of peace, though soothing to his soul:
 
Again he rouses from his moping fits,
 
But seeks not now the harlot and the bowl.
 
Onward he flies, nor fixed as yet the goal
 
Where he shall rest him on his pilgrimage;
 
And o’er him many changing scenes must roll,
 
Ere toil his thirst for travel can assuage,
Or he shall calm his breast, or learn experience sage.

XXIX.

 
Yet Mafra shall one moment claim delay,
 
Where dwelt of yore the Lusians’ luckless queen;
 
And church and court did mingle their array,
 
And mass and revel were alternate seen;
 
Lordlings and freres - ill-sorted fry, I ween!
 
But here the Babylonian whore had built
 
A dome, where flaunts she in such glorious sheen,
 
That men forget the blood which she hath spilt,
And bow the knee to Pomp that loves to garnish guilt.

XXX.

 
O’er vales that teem with fruits, romantic hills,
 
(Oh that such hills upheld a free-born race!)
 
Whereon to gaze the eye with joyaunce fills,
 
Childe Harold wends through many a pleasant place.
 
Though sluggards deem it but a foolish chase,
 
And marvel men should quit their easy chair,
 
The toilsome way, and long, long league to trace.
 
Oh, there is sweetness in the mountain air
And life, that bloated Ease can never hope to share.

XXXI.

 
More bleak to view the hills at length recede,
 
And, less luxuriant, smoother vales extend:
 
Immense horizon-bounded plains succeed!
 
Far as the eye discerns, withouten end,
 
Spain’s realms appear, whereon her shepherds tend
 
Flocks, whose rich fleece right well the trader knows -
 
Now must the pastor’s arm his lambs defend:
 
For Spain is compassed by unyielding foes,
And all must shield their all, or share Subjection’s woes.

XXXII.

 
Where Lusitania and her Sister meet,
 
Deem ye what bounds the rival realms divide?
 
Or e’er the jealous queens of nations greet,
 
Doth Tayo interpose his mighty tide?
 
Or dark sierras rise in craggy pride?
 
Or fence of art, like China’s vasty wall? -
 
Ne barrier wall, ne river deep and wide,
 
Ne horrid crags, nor mountains dark and tall
Rise like the rocks that part Hispania’s land from Gaul

XXXIII.

 
But these between a silver streamlet glides,
 
And scarce a name distinguisheth the brook,
 
Though rival kingdoms press its verdant sides.
 
Here leans the idle shepherd on his crook,
 
And vacant on the rippling waves doth look,
 
That peaceful still ‘twixt bitterest foemen flow:
 
For proud each peasant as the noblest duke:
 
Well doth the Spanish hind the difference know
‘Twixt him and Lusian slave, the lowest of the low.

XXXIV.

 
But ere the mingling bounds have far been passed,
 
Dark Guadiana rolls his power along
 
In sullen billows, murmuring and vast,
 
So noted ancient roundelays among.
 
Whilome upon his banks did legions throng
 
Of Moor and Knight, in mailèd splendour drest;
 
Here ceased the swift their race, here sunk the strong;
 
The Paynim turban and the Christian crest
Mixed on the bleeding stream, by floating hosts oppressed.

XXXV.

 
Oh, lovely Spain! renowned, romantic land!
 
Where is that standard which Pelagio bore,
 
When Cava’s traitor-sire first called the band
 
That dyed thy mountain-streams with Gothic gore?
 
Where are those bloody banners which of yore
 
Waved o’er thy sons, victorious to the gale,
 
And drove at last the spoilers to their shore?
 
Red gleamed the cross, and waned the crescent pale,
While Afric’s echoes thrilled with Moorish matrons’ wail.

XXXVI.

 
Teems not each ditty with the glorious tale?
 
Ah! such, alas, the hero’s amplest fate!
 
When granite moulders and when records fail,
 
A peasant’s plaint prolongs his dubious date.
 
Pride! bend thine eye from heaven to thine estate,
 
See how the mighty shrink into a song!
 
Can volume, pillar, pile, preserve thee great?
 
Or must thou trust Tradition’s simple tongue,
When Flattery sleeps with thee, and History does thee wrong?

XXXVII.

 
Awake, ye sons of Spain! awake! advance
 
Lo! Chivalry, your ancient goddess, cries,
 
But wields not, as of old, her thirsty lance,
 
Nor shakes her crimson plumage in the skies:
 
Now on the smoke of blazing bolts she flies,
 
And speaks in thunder through yon engine’s roar!
 
In every peal she calls - ‘Awake! arise!’
 
Say, is her voice more feeble than of yore,
When her war-song was heard on Andalusia’s shore?

XXXVIII.

 
Hark! heard you not those hoofs of dreadful note?
 
Sounds not the clang of conflict on the heath?
 
Saw ye not whom the reeking sabre smote;
 
Nor saved your brethren ere they sank beneath
 
Tyrants and tyrants’ slaves? - the fires of death,
 
The bale-fires flash on high: - from rock to rock
 
Each volley tells that thousands cease to breathe:
 
Death rides upon the sulphury Siroc,
Red Battle stamps his foot, and nations feel the shock.