He had

The third canto of Childe Harold is more deeply imbued with a love of nature than any of his previous productions. A new power had been imparted to him on the shores of the 'Leman lake.' just escaped from the strife of London and his own domestic unhappiness, and his conversations with Shelley might have turned him more strongly to this pure poetical source. The poetry of Wordsworth had also unconsciously lent its influence. An evening scene by the side of the lake is thus exquisitely described:

It is the hush of night; and all between

Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seenSave darkened Jura, whose capped heights appear Precipitously steep; and drawing near, There breathes a living fragrance from the shore, Of flowers yet fresh with childhood: on the ear Drops the light drip of the suspended oar, Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more;

He is an evening reveller, who makes
His life an infancy, and sings his fill !
At intervals, some bird from out the brakes,
Starts into voice a moment-then is still.
There seems a floating whisper on the hill-
But that is fancy, for the star-light dews
All silently their tears of love instil,
Weeping themselves away, till they infuse
Deep into nature's breast the spirit of her hues.

A forcible contrast to this still scene is then given in a brief description of the same landscape during a thunder-storm:

The sky is changed!-and such a change! O night, And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light Of a dark eye in woman! Far along From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, Leaps the live thunder! not from one lone cloud, But every mountain now hath found a tongue, And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud! And this is in the night: most glorious night! Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be A sharer in thy fierce and far delightA portion of the tempest and of thee! How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea, And the big rain comes dancing to the earth! And now again 'tis black-and now the glee Of the loud hill shakes with its mountain-mirth, As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth.

In the fourth canto there is a greater throng of

images and objects. The poet opens with a sketch of the peculiar beauty and departed greatness of Venice, rising from the sea, 'with her tiara of proud towers' in airy distance. He then resumes his pilgrimage-moralises on the scenes of Petrarch and Tasso, Dante and Boccaccio-and visits the lake of Thrasimene and the temple of Clitumnus.

[Temple of Clitumnus.]

But thou, Clitumnus! in thy sweetest wave Of the most living crystal that was e'er The haunt of river-nymph, to gaze and lave Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou dost rear Thy grassy banks whereon the milk-white steer Grazes; the purest god of gentle waters! And most serene of aspect and most clear! Surely that stream was unprofaned by slaughters, A mirror and a bath for Beauty's youngest daughters!

And on thy happy shore a temple still,
Of small and delicate proportion, keeps,
Upon a mild declivity of hill,

Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps
Thy current's calmness; oft from out it leaps
The finny darter with the glittering scales,
Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps;
While, chance, some scattered water-lily sails
Down where the shallower wave still tells its bubbling
tales.

The Greek statues at Florence are then inimitably described, after which the poet visits Rome, and revels in the ruins of the Palatine and Coliseum, and the glorious remains of ancient art. His dreams of love and beauty, of intellectual power and majesty, are here realised. The lustre of the classic age seems reflected back in his glowing pages, and we feel that in this intense appreciation of ideal beauty and sculptured grace-in passionate energy and ecstasy-Byron outstrips all his contemporaries. The poem concludes abruptly with an apostrophe to the sea, his joy of youthful sports,' and a source of lofty enthusiasm and pleasure in his solitary wanderings on the shores of Italy and Greece. The greatness of Byron's genius is seen in Childe Haroldits tenderness in the tales and smaller poems-its rich variety in Don Juan. A brighter garland few poets can hope to wear-yet it wants the unfading flowers of hope and virtue.

[The Gladiator.]

I see before me the gladiator lie:

He leans upon his hand; his manly brow Consents to death, but conquers agony, And his drooped head sinks gradually low: And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one, Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now The arena swims around him; he is gone, Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.

He heard it, but he heeded not; his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away:
He recked not of the life he lost nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay;
There were his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother-he, their sire,
Butchered to make a Roman holiday.

All this rushed with his blood. Shall he expire, And unavenged? Arise, ye Goths, and glut your ire!

[Apostrophe to the Ocean.]

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not man the less, but nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Roll on, thou deep and dark-blue Ocean-roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin-his control Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groanWithout a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

His steps are not upon thy paths-thy fields
Are not a spoil for him-thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he
wields

For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray,
And howling to his gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth: there let him lay.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, And monarchs tremble in their capitals, The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Their clay creator the vain title take Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war: These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save theeAssyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thou; Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play. Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow: Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,
Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving; boundless, endless, and sublime-
The image of Eternity-the throne

Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward from a boy I wantoned with thy breakers-they to me Were a delight; and if the freshening sea Made them a terror-'twas a pleasing fear; For I was as it were a child of thee, And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane-as I do here.

[An Italian Evening on the Banks of the Brenta.] [From Childe Harold.]

The moon is up, and yet it is not night— Sunset divides the sky with her a sea Of glory streams along the alpine height Of blue Friuli's mountains: heaven is free From clouds, but of all colours seems to be Melted to one vast Iris of the west, Where the day joins the past eternity; While on the other hand, meek Dian's crest Floats through the azure air—an island of the blest.

A single star is at her side, and reigns
With her o'er half the lovely heaven; but still
Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains
Rolled o'er the peak of the far Rhætian hill,
As day and night contending were, until
Nature reclaimed her order: gently flows
The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instil
The odorous purple of a new-born rose,

Which streams upon her stream, and glassed within it glows.

Filled with the face of heaven, which, from afar,
Comes down upon the waters; all its hues,
From the rich sunset to the rising star,
Their magical variety diffuse:

And now they change; a paler shadow strews
Its mantle o'er the mountains; parting day
Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues
With a new colour as it gasps away,

The last still loveliest, till-'tis gone-and all is gray.

[Midnight Scene in Rome-the Coliseum.]
[From Manfred.]

The stars are forth, the moon above the tops
Of the snow-shining mountains. Beautiful!
I linger yet with Nature, for the night
Hath been to me a more familiar face
Than that of man; and in her starry shade
Of dim and solitary loveliness,

I learned the language of another world.

I do remember me, that in my youth,
When I was wandering, upon such a night
I stood within the Coliseum's wall,
'Midst the chief relics of all-mighty Rome:
The trees which grew along the broken arches
Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars
Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar
The watch-dog bayed beyond the Tiber; and
More near, from out the Cæsars' palace came
The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly,
Of distant sentinels the fitful song
Begun and died upon the gentle wind.
Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach
Appeared to skirt the horizon, yet they stood
Within a bowshot. Where the Caesars dwelt,
And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst
A grove which springs through levelled battlements,
And twines its roots with the imperial hearths,
Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth;
But the gladiator's bloody circus stands
A noble wreck in ruinous perfection!
While Caesar's chambers and the Augustan halls
Grovel on earth in indistinct decay.
And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon
All this, and cast a wide and tender light,
Which softened down the hoar austerity
Of rugged desolation, and filled up,
As 'twere anew, the gaps of centuries;
Leaving that beautiful which still was so,

And making that which was not, till the place
Became religion, and the heart ran o'er
With silent worship of the great of old-
The dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns!

[The Shipwreck.]

[From Don Juan.]

'Twas twilight, and the sunless day went down
Over the waste of waters; like a veil
Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the frown
Of one whose hate is masked but to assail.
Thus to their hopeless eyes the night was shewn,
And grimly darkled o'er the faces pale,
And the dim desolate deep: twelve days had Fear.
Been their familiar, and now Death was here.

Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell-
Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave-
Then some leaped overboard with dreadful yell,
As eager to anticipate their grave;
And the sea yawned around her like a hell,

And down she sucked with her the whirling wave, Like one who grapples with his enemy,

And strives to strangle him before he die.

And first one universal shriek there rushed,
Louder than the loud ocean, like a crash
Of echoing thunder; and then all was hushed,
Save the wild wind and the remorseless dash
Of billows; but at intervals there gushed,

Accompanied with a convulsive splash,

A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry
Of some strong swimmer in his agony.

*

There were two fathers in this ghastly crew,
And with them their two sons, of whom the one
Was more robust and hardy to the view;

But he died early; and when he was gone,
His nearest messmate told his sire, who threw
One glance on him, and said: 'Heaven's will be
done!

I can do nothing;' and he saw him thrown
Into the deep without a tear or groan.

The other father had a weaklier child,

Of a soft cheek, and aspect delicate; But the boy bore up long, and with a mild And patient spirit held aloof his fate; Little he said, and now and then he smiled, As if to win a part from off the weight He saw increasing on his father's heart, With the deep deadly thought that they must part.

And o'er him bent his sire, and never raised

His eyes from off his face, but wiped the foam From his pale lips, and ever on him gazed:

And when the wished-for shower at length was come, And the boy's eyes, which the dull film half glazed, Brightened, and for a moment seemed to roam, He squeezed from out a rag some drops of rain Into his dying child's mouth; but in vain!

The boy expired-the father held the clay,

And looked upon it long; and when at last Death left no doubt, and the dead burden lay Stiff on his heart, and pulse and hope were past, He watched it wistfully, until away

'Twas borne by the rude wave wherein 'twas cast; Then he himself sunk down all dumb and shivering, And gave no sign of life, save his limbs quivering.

[Description of Haidee.] [From the same.]

Her brow was overhung with coins of gold
That sparkled o'er the auburn of her hair;
Her clustering hair, whose longer locks were rolled
In braids behind; and though her stature were
Even of the highest for a female mould,

They nearly reached her heels; and in her air There was a something which bespoke command, As one who was a lady in the land.

Her hair, I said, was auburn; but her eyes

Were black as death, their lashes the same hue, Of downcast length, in whose silk shadow lies Deepest attraction; for when to the view Forth from its raven fringe the full glance flies,

Ne'er with such force the swiftest arrow flew : 'Tis as the snake late coiled, who pours his length, And hurls at once his venom and his strength.

Her brow was white and low; her cheek's pure dye,
Like twilight, rosy still with the set sun;
Short upper lip-sweet lips! that make us sigh
Ever to have seen such; for she was one
Fit for the model of a statuary

(A race of mere impostors when all's doneI've seen much finer women, ripe and real, Than all the nonsense of their stone ideal).

[Haidee visits the shipwrecked Don Juan.]

And down the cliff the island virgin came,
And near the cave her quick light footsteps drew,
While the sun smiled on her with his first flame,
And young Aurora kissed her lips with dew,
Taking her for her sister; just the same

Mistake you would have made on seeing the two,
Although the mortal, quite as fresh and fair,
Had all the advantage too of not being air.

And when into the cavern Haidee stepped
All timidly, yet rapidly, she saw
That, like an infant, Juan sweetly slept :
And then she stopped and stood as if in awe
(For sleep is awful), and on tiptoe crept

And wrapt him closer, lest the air, too raw,
Should reach his blood; then o'er him, still as death,
Bent, with hushed lips, that drank his scarce-drawn
breath.

A lesson in her tongue; but by surmise,
No doubt, less of her language than her look:
As he who studies fervently the skies,

Turns oftener to the stars than to his book:
Thus Juan learned his alpha beta better
From Haidee's glance than any graven letter.

'Tis pleasing to be schooled in a strange tongue
By female lips and eyes-that is, I mean
When both the teacher and the taught are young;
As was the case, at least, where I have been;
They smile so when one's right, and when one's wrong,
They smile still more, and then there intervene

Pressure of hands, perhaps even a chaste kiss ;I learned the little that I know by this.

[Haidee and Juan at the Feast.]

Haidee and Juan carpeted their feet

On crimson satin, bordered with pale blue; Their sofa occupied three parts complete

Of the apartment-and appeared quite new; The velvet cushions-for a throne more meetWere scarlet, from whose glowing centre grew A sun embossed in gold, whose rays of tissue, Meridian-like, were seen all light to issue.

Crystal and marble, plate and porcelain,

Had done their work of splendour; Indian mats And Persian carpets, which the heart bled to stain, Over the floors were spread; gazelles and cats, And dwarfs and blacks, and such-like things, that gain Their bread as ministers and favourites-that's To say, by degradation-mingled there As plentiful as in a court or fair.

There was no want of lofty mirrors, and
The tables, most of ebony inlaid
With mother-of-pearl or ivory, stood at hand,
Or were of tortoise-shell or rare woods made,
Fretted with gold or silver-by command,

The greater part of these were ready spread With viands and sherbets in ice-and wineKept for all comers, at all hours to dine.

Of all the dresses, I select Haidee's:

She wore two jelicks-one was of pale yellow; Of azure, pink, and white, was her chemise'Neath which her breast heaved like a little billow; With buttons formed of pearls as large as peas,

All gold and crimson shone her jelick's fellow, And the striped white gauze baracan that bound her, Like fleecy clouds about the moon flowed round her.

One large gold bracelet clasped each lovely arm,
Lockless-so pliable from the pure gold

That the hand stretched and shut it without harm,
The limb which it adorned its only mould;
So beautiful-its very shape would charm,

And clinging as if loath to lose its hold:
The purest ore enclosed the whitest skin
That e'er by precious metal was held in.

Around, as princess of her father's land,

A light gold bar above her instep rolled Announced her rank; twelve rings were on her hand; Her hair was starred with gems; her veil's fine fold Below her breast was fastened with a band

Of lavish pearls, whose worth could scarce be told; Her orange-silk full Turkish trousers furled About the prettiest ankle in the world.

Her hair's long auburn waves, down to her heel
Flowed like an alpine torrent, which the sun
Dyes with his morning light-and would conceal
Her person if allowed at large to run,
And still they seemed resentfully to feel

The silken fillet's curb, and sought to shun Their bonds whene'er some Zephyr caught began To offer his young pinion as her fan.

Round her she made an atmosphere of life;

The very air seemed lighter from her eyes, They were so soft, and beautiful, and rife, With all we can imagine of the skies, And pure as Psyche ere she grew a wifeToo pure even for the purest human ties; Her overpowering presence made you feel It would not be idolatry to kneel.

Her eyelashes, though dark as night, were tinged-
It is the country's custom-but in vain;
For those large black eyes were so blackly fringed,
The glossy rebels mocked the jetty stain,
And in her native beauty stood avenged:

Her nails were touched with henna; but again
The power of art was turned to nothing, for
They could not look more rosy than before.

Juan had on a shawl of black and gold,

But a white baracan, and so transparent The sparkling gems beneath you might behold, Like small stars through the Milky-way apparent; His turban, furled in many a graceful fold,

An emerald aigrette with Haidee's hair in 't Surmounted as its clasp-a glowing crescent, ⚫ Whose rays shone ever trembling, but incessant.

And now they were diverted by their suite,

Dwarfs, dancing-girls, black eunuchs, and a poet; Which made their new establishment complete;

The last was of great fame, and liked to shew it: His verses rarely wanted their due feet

And for his theme-he seldom sung below it, He being paid to satirise or flatter,

As the Psalms say, 'inditing a good matter.'

[The Death of Haidee.]

Afric is all the sun's, and as her earth,
Her human clay is kindled; full of power
For good or evil, burning from its birth,

The Moorish blood partakes the planet's hour, And, like the soil beneath it, will bring forth:

Beauty and love were Haidee's mother's dower; But her large dark eye shewed deep Passion's force, Though sleeping like a lion near a source.

Her daughter, tempered with a milder ray,

Like summer clouds all silvery, smooth, and fair, Till slowly charged with thunder, they display Terror to earth and tempest to the air, Had held till now her soft and milky way;

But, overwrought with passion and despair, The fire burst forth from her Numidian veins, Even as the simoom sweeps the blasted plains.

The last sight which she saw was Juan's gore,
And he himself o'ermastered and cut down;
His blood was running on the very floor

Where late he trod her beautiful, her own; Thus much she viewed an instant and no more

Her struggles ceased with one convulsive groan; On her sire's arm, which until now scarce held Her writhing, fell she like a cedar felled.

A vein had burst, and her sweet lips' pure dyes
Were dabbled with the deep blood which ran o'er,
And her head drooped as when the lily lies
O'ercharged with rain: her summoned handmaids
bore

Their lady to her couch with gushing eyes;

Of herbs and cordials they produced their store: But she defied all means they could employ, Like one life could not hold nor death destroy.

Days lay she in that state unchanged, though chill-
With nothing livid, still her lips were red;
She had no pulse, but death seemed absent still;
No hideous sign proclaimed her surely dead:
Corruption came not, in each mind to kill

All hope to look upon her sweet face bred
New thoughts of life, for it seemed full of soul-
She had so much, earth could not claim the whole.

Anon her thin wan fingers beat the wall

In time to his old tune; he changed the theme,

Her recollection; on her flashed the dream Of what she was, and is, if ye could call To be so being: in a gushing stream The tears rushed forth from her o'erclouded brain, Like mountain mists at length dissolved in rain.

Twelve days and nights she withered thus; at last,
Without a groan, or sigh, or glance, to shew
A parting pang, the spirit from her passed:
And they who watched her nearest could not know
The very instant, till the change that cast

Her sweet face into shadow, dull and slow,
Glazed o'er her eyes-the beautiful, the black-
Oh to possess such lustre, and then lack!

Thus lived-thus died she; never more on her

Shall sorrow light or shame. She was not made Through years or moons the inner weight to bear, Which colder hearts endure till they are laid By age in earth: her days and pleasures were

Brief, but delightful-such as had not stayed Long with her destiny; but she sleeps well By the sea-shore whereon she loved to dwell.

fore surpassed most of his tuneful brethren; yet this only served to render his unhappy and strange destiny the more conspicuously wretched. When ten years of age, he was put to a public school, Sion House, where he was harshly treated both by his instructors and by tyrannical school-fellows. He was fond of reading, especially wild romances and tales of diablerie; and when very young he wrote two novels, Zastrozzi, and St Irvyne, or the Rosicrucian. From Sion House, Shelley was removed to Eton, where his sensitive spirit was again wounded by ill-usage and by the system of fagging tolerated at Eton. His resistance to all established authority and opinion displayed itself while at school, and in the introduction to his Revolt of Islam, he has portrayed his early impressions in some sweet and touching stanzas:

Thoughts of great deeds were mine, dear friend, when first

The clouds which wrap this world from youth did pass.

I do remember well the hour which burst

My spirit's sleep: a fresh May-dawn it was,