Spirit. Mortal! thine hour is come-Away! I say. Man. I knew, and know my hour is come, but not To render up my soul to such as thee: Away! I'll die as I have lived-alone. Spirit. Then I must summon up my brethren.-Rise! [Other Spirits rise up. Abbot. Avaunt! ye evil ones! Avaunt! I say; Ye have no power where piety hath power, And I do charge ye in the name--- Waste not thy holy words on idle uses, Man. I do defy ye,-though I feel my soul Is ebbing from me, yet I do defy ye; Nor will I hence, while I have earthly breath To breathe my scorn upon ye-earthly strength To wrestle, though with spirits; what ye take Shall be ta'en limb by limb. Spirit. Reluctant mortal! Is this the Magian who would so pervade The world invisible, and make himself Almost our equal? Can it be that thou Art thus in love with life? the very life Which made thee wretched! Man. Thou false fiend, thou liest! My life is in its last hour.-that I know, Nor would redeem a moment of that hour; I do not combat against death, but thee And thy surrounding angels; my past power, Was purchased by no compact with thy crew, But by superior science-penance, daring, And length of watching, strength of mind, and skill In knowledge of our fathers-when the earth Saw men and spirits walking side by side, And gave ye no supremacy: I stand Upon my strength-I do defy-deny— Spurn back, and scorn ye!— Man. What are they to such as thee? Must crimes be punish'd but by other crimes, [hell! And greater criminals?-Back to thy Thou hast no power upon me, that I feel; [know: Thou never shalt possess me, that I What I have done is done; I bear within A torture which could nothing gain from thine: The mind which is immortal makes itself Requital for its good or evil thoughts,Is its own origin of ill and end And its own place and time: its innate sense, When stripp'd of this mortality, derives No color from the fleeting things without, But is absorb'd in sufferance or in joy, Born from the knowledge of its own desert. Thou didst not tempt me, and thou couldst not tempt me; I have not been thy dupe, nor am thy prey But was my own destroyer and will be My own hereafter.-Back, ye baffled fiends! The hand of death is on me-but not yours! [The Demons disappear. Abbot. Alas! how pale thou art-thy lips are white And thy breast heaves-and in thy gasping throat The accents rattle: Give thy prayers to heaven Pray-albeit but in thought,--but die not thus. Man. Tis over-my dull eyes can fix thee not; But all things swim around me, and the earth Heaves as it were beneath me. Fare thee well! TO THOMAS MOORE My boat is on the shore, And my bark is on the sea; But, before I go, Tom Moore, Here's a double health to thee! Here's a sigh to those who love me, Though the ocean roar around me, "Tis to thee that I would drink. With that water, as this wine, FROM CHILDE HAROLD. CANTO IV 1821. In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, 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, But unto us she hath a spell beyond Above the dogeless city's vanish'd sway; Although I found her thus, we did not part, Perchance even dearer in her day of woe, Than when she was a boast, a marvel and a show. I can repeople with the past-and of The present there is still for eye and thought, And meditation chasten'd down,enough; And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought; 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. But my soul wanders; I demand it back To meditate amongst decay, and stand [St. 25 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-mould of Nature's heavenly hand; Wherein were cast the heroic and the free, The beautiful, the brave, the lords of earth and sea, The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instil The odorous purple of a new-born rose. Which streams upon her stream, and glass'd within it glows, Fill'd 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, In their shut breast their petty misery. What are our woes and sufferance? Come and see The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, Ye! Whose agonies are evils of a dayA world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. The Niobe of nations! there she stands, Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe; An empty urn within her wither'd hands, Whose holy dust was scatter'd long ago; The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now; The very sepulchres lie tenantless Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow, Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness? Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress. |