that England has acquired something more than a pe army and a suspended Habeas Corpus; it is enough for look at home. For what they have done abroad, and es in the South, "Verily they will have their reward," a very distant period.

Wishing you, my dear Hobhouse, a safe and agreeabl to that country whose real welfare can be dearer to none yourself, I dedicate to you this poem in its completed stat repea' once more how truly I am ever, Your obliged

And affectionate frien
BYR

CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE.

CANTO THE FOURTH.

I.

I STOOD in Venice, on the Bridge of sighs; (')
A palace and a prison on each hand:

I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand:
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying glory smiles

O'er the fa...nies, when many a subject land
Look'd to the winged Lion's marble piles,

Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles!

II.

She looks a sea-Cybele, fresh from ocean, (2)

Rising with her tiara of proud towers

At airy distance, with majestic motion,

A ruler of the waters and their powers:

And such she was; - her daughters had their dowers
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East
Pour'd in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.
In purole was she robed, and of her feast

Monarchs partook, and deem'd their dignity increased.

III.

In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, (3)
And silent rows the songless gondolier;
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
And music meets not always now the ear:
Those days are gone — but beauty still is here.
States fall, arts fade - but Nature doth not die :
Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear,

The pleasant place of all festivity,

The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy!

(1) See "Historical Notes" at the end of this Canto, No. I.

(2) An old writer, describing the appearance of Venice, has made use of the above image, which would not be poetical were it not true.

Quo fit ut qui superne urbem contempletur, turritam telluris imagınem medio Oceano figuratam se putet inspicere."

(3) See" Historical Notes" at the end of this Canto, No. II.

* Marci Antonii Sabelli de Veneta Urbis situ narratio, edit. Taurin. 1527, lib. ifol. 202.

IV.

But unto us she hath a spell beyond Her name in story, and her long array Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despon Above the dogeless city's vanish'd sway; Ours is a trophy which will not decay With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor, And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn away The keystones of the arch! though all were o'er For us repeopled were the solitary shore.

V.

The beings of the mind are not of clay,
Essentially immortal, they create

And multiply in us a brighter ray

And more beloved existence; that which fate
Prohibits to dull life, in this our state

Of mortal bondage, by these spirits supplied
First exiles, then replaces what we hate;

Watering the heart whose early flowers have died, And with a fresher growth replenishing the void.

VI.

Such is the refuge of our youth and age,
The first from Hope, the last from Vacancy;
And this worn feeling peoples many a page,
And, may be, that which grows beneath mine eye:
Yet there are things whose strong reality
Outshines our fairy-land; in shape and hues
More beautiful than our fantastic sky,

And the strange constellations which the Muse
O'er her wild universe is skilful to diffuse :

VII.

I saw or dream'd of such, - but let them goThey came like truth, and disappear'd like dreams And whatsoe'er they were are now but so: I could replace them if I would; still teems; My mind with many a form which aptly seems Such as I sought for, and at moments found; Let these too go for waking Reason deems Such over-weening phantasies unsound, And other voices speak, and other sighs surround.

VIII.

I've taught me other tongues
and in strange eyes
Have made me not a stranger; to the mind
Which is itself, no changes bring surprise;
Nor is it harsh to make, nor hard to find
A country with—ay, or without mankind;
Yet was I born where men are proud to be,
Not without cause; and should I leave behind
The inviolate islands of the sage and free,
And seek me out a home by a remoter sea,

IX.

Perhaps I loved it well; and should I lay
My ashes in a soil which is not mine,
My spirit shall resume it — if we may
Unbodied choose a sanctuary. I twine
My hopes of being remember'd in my line
With my land's language: if too fond and far
These aspirations in their scope incline,

If my fame should be, as my fortunes are,
Of hasty growth and blight, and dull Oblivion bar

X.

My name from out the temple where the dead
Are honour'd by the nations - let it be
And light the laurels on a loftier head!
And be the Spartan's epitaph on me -
"Sparta hath many a worthier son than he."'~j
Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need;
The thorus which I have reap'd are of the tree
I planted, they have torn me, and I breed:

、

I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.

XI.

The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord;
And, annual marriage, now no more renew'd,
The Bucentaur lies rotting unrestored,
Neglected garment of her widowhood!
St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stood, (*)
Stand, but in mockery of his wither'd power,
Over the proud Place where an Emperor sued,
And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour
When Venice was a queen with an unequall'd dower.

(1) The answer of the mother of Brasidas to the strangers who praised tne memory

of her son

(2) See "Historical Notes," No. III.

XII.

The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns An Emperor tramples where an Emperor knelt; Kingdoms are shrunk to provinces, and chains Clank over sceptred cities; nations melt From power's high pinnacle, when they have felt The sunshine for a while, and downward go Like lauwine loosen'd from the mountain's belt; Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo ! (2) Th' octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe.

XIII.

Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of brass, Their gilded collars glittering in the sun; But is not Doria's menace come to pass? (3) Are they not bridled? - Venice, lost and won, Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done, Sinks, like a sea-weed, into whence she rose! Better be whelm'd beneath the waves, and shun, Even in aestruction's depth, her foreign foes, From whom submission wrings an infamous repose.

XIV.

In youth she was all glory, -a new Tyre, Her very by-word sprung from victory, The Pianter of the Lion," (") which through fire And blood she bore o'er subject earth and sea; Though making many slaves, herself still free, And Eurore's bulwark 'gainst the Ottomite; Witness Trov's rival, Candia! Vouch it, ye Immortal waves that saw Lepanto's fight! For ye are names no time nor tyranny can blight.

XV.

Statues of glass all shiver'd

the long file

Of her dead Doges are declined to dust; But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust; Their sceptre broken, and their sword in rust, Have yielded to the stranger: empty halls, Thin streets, and foreign aspects, such as must Too oft remind her who and what enthrals, (5) Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice' lovely wall

(1, 2, 3, 5) See "Historical Notes." Nos. IV. V. VI. VII. (4) Plant the Lion—that is, the Lion of St. Mark the standard of which is the origin of the word Pantaloon-Piantaleone, Pantaleon, Pant