XVIII.

I loved her from my boyhood; she to me
Was as a fairy city of the heart,

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Rising like water columns from the sea,

Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart;

And Otway, Radcliffe,1 Schiller,1 Shakespeare's art,
Had stamped her image in me, and even so,
Although I found her thus, we did not part;
Perchance even dearer in her day of woe,

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Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show.

XIX.

I can repeople with the past-and of

The present there is still for eye and thought,
And meditation chastened down, enough;

And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought;

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And of the happiest moments which were wrought
Within the web of my existence, some

From thee, fair Venice! have their colors caught:

There are some feelings Time cannot benumb,

Nor Torture shake, or mine would now be cold and dumb.

XX.

But from their nature will the tannen grow
Loftiest on loftiest and least sheltered rocks,
Rooted in barrenness, where naught below
Of soil supports them 'gainst the Alpine shocks

Of eddying storms; yet springs the trunk, and mocks
The howling tempest, till its height and frame

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1 Ann Radcliffe wrote The Mysteries of Udolpho. J. C. F. Schiller wrote

The Ghost Seer. These books relate to Italy.

2 The plural of the German Tanne, a fir tree.

Are worthy of the mountains from whose blocks

Of bleak, gray granite into life it came,

And grew a giant tree; -the mind may grow the same.

XXI.

Existence may be borne, and the deep root
Of life and sufferance make its firm abode
The bare and desolated bosoms: mute
The camel labors with the heaviest load,
And the wolf dies in silence,—not bestowed
In vain should such example be; if they,
Things of ignoble or of savage mood,
Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay
May temper it to bear,-it is but for a day.

XXII.

All suffering doth destroy, or is destroyed,
Even by the sufferer; and, in each event,

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185

190

Ends: Some, with hope replenished and rebuoyed,
Return to whence they came-with like intent,
And weave their web again; some, bowed and bent,
Wax gray and ghastly, withering ere their time,
And perish with the reed on which they leant;
Some seek devotion, toil, war, good or crime,
According as their souls were formed to sink or climb.

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XXIII.

But ever and anon of griefs subdued

There comes a token like a scorpion's sting,

Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued;

And slight withal may be the things which bring
Back on the heart the weight which it would fling
Aside forever: it may be a sound—

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A tone of music-summer's eve-or spring

A flower-the wind-the ocean-which shall wound, Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound;

XXIV.

And how and why we know not, nor can trace
Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind,
But feel the shock renewed, nor can efface
The blight and blackening which it leaves behind,
Which out of things familiar, undesigned,
When least we deem of such, calls up to view

The specters whom no exorcism can bind,—

The cold, the changed, perchance the dead-anew,

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210

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The mourned, the loved, the lost-too many! yet how few!

XXV.1

But

my

soul wanders; I demand it back

To meditate amongst decay, and stand
A ruin amidst ruins; there to track
Fall'n states and buried greatness, o'er a land
Which was the mightiest in its old command,
And is the loveliest, and must ever be

The master mold of Nature's heavenly hand;
Wherein were cast the heroic and the free,
The beautiful, the brave, the lords of earth and sea,

XXVI.2

The commonwealth of kings, the men of Rome!

And even since, and now, fair Italy!

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225

1 Byron here begins the poetical record of a six weeks' tour through northern Italy. He left Venice in April, 1817, and returned late in May.

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2 Professor Keene singles out this stanza as a passage of high feeling couched in faultless language."

Thou art the garden of the world, the home
Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree;
Even in thy desert, what is like to thee?
Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste
More rich than other climes' fertility;

Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced

With an immaculate charm which cannot be defaced.

XXVII.1

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

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Of blue Friuli's 2 mountains. Heaven is free

From clouds, but of all colors seems to be,

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Melted to one vast Iris of the West,-
Where the Day joins the past Eternity,

While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest3
Floats through the azure air—an island of the blest!

XXVIII.

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

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1 Professor Tozer says: "This description of sunset is the nearest approach to word painting that can be found in the poem."

2 The Julian Alps.

3 The crescent moon.

4 "The horned moon, with one bright star

Within the nether tip."

COLERIDGE's Ancient Mariner,

The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instill

The odorous purple of a new-born rose,

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

XXIX.

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 color as it gasps away,

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

XXX.

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260

There is a tomb in Arqua ;1-reared in air,
Pillared in their sarcophagus, repose

The bones of Laura's 2 lover: here repair
Many familiar with his well-sung woes,
The pilgrims of his genius. He arose
To raise a language, and his land reclaim
From the dull yoke of her barbaric foes:
Watering the tree which bears his lady's name

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With his melodious tears, he gave himself to fame.

270

XXXI.

They keep his dust in Arqua, where he died;

The mountain village where his latter days

1 A village in which the Italian poet Petrarch died, July 18, 1374. His house still stands, and his tomb, a sarcophagus resting on pillars of red marble, is visited by many tourists.

2 Laura, a lady of Avignon, whom Petrarch loved and to whom he addressed many of his sonnets.