LXXI. To the broad column which rolls on, and shows Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes Of a new world, than only thus to be Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly, With many windings, through the vale:-Look back! As if to sweep down all things in its track, Charming the eye with dread,-a matchless cataract, LXXII. 635 Horribly beautiful! but on the verge, 640 From side to side, beneath the glittering morn, An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge, Like Hope upon a deathbed, and, unworn Its steady dyes, while all around is torn By the distracted waters, bears serene 645 Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn: Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene, Love watching Madness with unalterable mien.1 LXXIII. Once more upon the woody Apennine, The infant Alps, which—had I not before 650 Gazed on their mightier parents, where the pine Sits on more shaggy summits, and where roar The thundering lauwine 2-might be worshiped more; 1 The description of the waterfall of Terni, on the Velino River, deserves a very careful reading. 2❝ 'Byron did not know German. Had he done so he would not have used Lauwine, or Lawine, the ordinary German word for an avalanche,' as plural" (TOZER). 655 1 Her never-trodden 1 snow, and seen the hoar Glaciers of bleak Mont Blanc both far and near, And in Chimari heard the thunder hills of fear, LXXIV. Th' Acroceraunian mountains of old name; All, save the lone Soracte's height, displayed Not now 3 in snow, which asks the lyric Roman's aid LXXV. 660 665 For our remembrance, and from out the plain And on the curl hangs pausing: not in vain 670 Too much, to conquer for the poet's sake, The drilled dull lesson, forced down word by word In my repugnant youth, with pleasure to record 675 LXXVI. Aught that recalls the daily drug which turned My sickening memory; and, though Time hath taught 1 The Jungfrau has often been climbed. 2 Mount Ida is above Troy. 3 Horace mentions snow on Mount Soracte, a high hill near Rome. 4 This should interest teachers and students of poetry, especially of classic My mind to meditate what then it learned, By the impatience of my early thought, 680 My mind could relish what it might have sought, LXXVII. Then farewell, Horace; whom I hated so, Yet fare thee well-upon Soracte's ridge we part. LXXVIII. 685 690 O Rome! my country! city of the soul! 695 verse. Mr. Rolfe says: "It is remarkable that this passage has not been quoted in the recent attacks upon the study of Latin and Greek in our schools. It might well be used in the criticism of the methods of study." Byron himself said: "I wish to express that we become tired of the task before we can comprehend the beauty; that we learn by rote before we can get by heart; that the freshness is worn away, and the future pleasure and advantage deadened and destroyed, by the didactic anticipation at an age when we can neither feel nor understand the power of compositions which it requires an acquaintance with life, as well as Latin and Greek, to relish or to reason upon. For the same reason we never can be aware of the fullness of some of the finest passages of Shakespeare." What are our woes and sufferance? Come and see The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. LXXIX. The Niobe1 of nations! there she stands, Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow, 700 705 710 Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress. LXXX. The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire, She saw her glories star by star expire, And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride, 715 Where the car climbed the Capitol; far and wide Temple and tower went down, nor left a site: O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light, And say, "here was, or is," where all is doubly night? LXXXI. The double night of ages, and of her, Night's daughter, Ignorance, hath wrapt and wrap 720 1 The Greek goddess who mourned her twelve children, slain by Apollo and Artemis. (See mythology for this and many other classic allusions.) 2 With the aid of some text-book on history, recount briefly the great events suggested in this and other following stanzas. All round us: we but feel our way to err : The ocean hath its chart, the stars their map, And Knowledge spreads them on her ample lap; 725 When but some false mirage of ruin rises near. LXXXII. Alas! the lofty city! and alas! 730 The trebly hundred triumphs!1 and the day And Livy's pictured page! -but these shall be 735 Alas, for Earth, for never shall we see, That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was free! LXXXIII. O thou, whose chariot rolled on Fortune's wheel, 740 745 With all thy vices, for thou didst lay down With an atoning smile a more than earthly crown— 1 "Orosius gives three hundred and twenty for the number of triumphs " (BYRON). 4 Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Roman statesman and general, who conquered Asia Minor. |