[277] {549} Guesclin died during the siege of a city; it surrendered, and the keys were brought and laid upon his bier, so that the place might appear rendered to his ashes. [Bertrand du Guesclin, born 1320, first distinguished himself in the service of King John II. of France, in defending Rennes against Henry Duke of Lancaster, 1356-57. He was made Constable of France in 1370, and died before the walls of Chateauneuf-de-Randon (Lozere). July 13, 1380. He was buried by the order of Charles V. in Saint-Denis, hard by the tomb which the king had built for himself. In La Vie vaillant Bertran du Guesclin [Chronique, etc. (par E. Charriere), 1839, tom. ii. p. 321, lines 22716, sq.], the English do not place the keys of the castle on Du Guesclin's bier, but present them to him as he lies tossing on his death-bed ("a son lit agite"). So, too, Histoire de Messire Bertrand du Guesclin, par Claude Menard, 1618, 540: "Et Engloiz se accorderent a ce faire. Lors issirent dudit Chastel, et vindrent a Bertran, et lui presenterent les clefs. Et ne demora gueres, qu'il getta le souppir de la mort."]

[278] [John of Trocnow, surnamed Zizka, or the "One-eyed," was born circ. 1360, and died while he was besieging a town on the Moravian border, October 11, 1424. He was the hero of the Hussite or Taborite crusade (1419-1422), the malleus Catholicorum. The story is that on his death-bed he was asked where he wished to be buried, and replied, "that it mattered not, that his flesh might be thrown to the vulture and eagles; but his skin was to be carefully preserved and made into a drum, to be carried in the front of the battle, that the very sound might disperse their enemies." Voltaire, in his Essai sur Les M[oe]urs et L'Esprit des Nations (cap. lxxiii. s.f. [OE]uvres Completes, etc., 1836, iii. 256), mentions the legend as a fact, "Il ordonna qu' apres sa mort on fit un tambour de sa peau." Compare Werner, act i. sc. I, lines 693, 694.]

[279] {550}["Au moment de la bataille Napoleon avait dit a ses troupes, en leur montrant les Pyramides: 'Soldats, quarante siecles vous regardent.'"—Campagnes d'Egypte et de Syrie, 1798-9, par le General Bertrand, 1847, i. 160.]

[280] [Madrid was taken by the French, first in March, 1808, and again December 2, 1808.]

[281] [Vienna was taken by the French under Murat, November 14, 1805, evacuated January 12, 1806, captured by Napoleon, May, 1809, and restored at the conclusion of peace, October 14, 1809. Her treachery consisted in her hospitality to the sovereigns at the Congress of Vienna, November, 1814, and her share in the Treaty of Vienna, March 25, 1815, which ratified the Treaties of Chaumont, March 1, and of Paris, April 11, 1814.]

[282] [At Jena Napoleon defeated Prince Hohenlohe, and at Auerstadt General Davoust defeated the King of Prussia, October 14, 1806. Napoleon then advanced to Berlin, October 27, from which he issued his famous decree against British commerce, November 20, 1806.]

[283] [The partition of Poland. "Henry [of Prussia] arrived at St. Petersburg, December 9, 1770; and it seems now to be certain that the first open proposal of a dismemberment of Poland arose in his conversations with the Empress.... Catherine said to the Prince, 'I will frighten Turkey and flatter England. It is your business to gain Austria, that she may lull France to sleep;' and she became at length so eager, that ... she dipt her finger into ink, and drew with it the lines of partition on a map of Poland which lay before them."—Edinburgh Review, November, 1822 (art. x. on Histoire des Trois Demembremens de la Pologne, par M. Ferrand, 1820, etc., vol. 37, pp. 479, 480.)]

[284] {551} [Napoleon promised much, but did little for the Poles. "In speaking of the business of Poland he ... said it was a whim (c'etait un caprice)."—Narrative of an Embassy to Warsaw, by M. Dufour de Pradt, 1816, p. 51. "The Polish question," says Lord Wolseley (Decline and Fall of Napoleon, 1893, p. 19), "thrust itself most inconveniently before him. In early life all his sympathies ... were with the Poles, and he had regarded the partition of their country as a crime.... As a very young man liberty was his only religion; but he had now learned to hate and to fear that term.... He had no desire ... to be the Don Quixote of Poland by reconstituting it as a kingdom. To fight Russia by the re-establishment of Polish independence was not, therefore, to be thought of."]

[285] [The final partition of Poland took place after the Battle of Maciejowice, October 12, 1794, when "Freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell." Tyrants, e.g. Napoleon in 1806, and Alexander in 1814 and again in 1815, approached Kosciusko with respect, and loaded him with flattery and promises, and then "passed by on the other side."]

[286] [The reference is to Charles's chagrin when the Grand Vizier allowed the Russians to retire in safety from the banks of the Pruth, and assented to the Treaty of Jassy, July 21, 1711. Charles, "impatient for the fight, and to behold the enemy in his power," had ridden above fifty leagues from Bender to Jassy, swam the Pruth at the risk of his life, and found that the Czar had marched off in triumph. He contrived to rip up the Vizier's robe with his spur, "remonta a cheval, et retourna a Bender le desespoir dans le c[oe]ur" (Histoire de Charles XII., Livre v. s.f.).]

[287] {552}["Naples, October 29, 1822. Le Vesuve continue a lancer des pierres et des cendres."—From Le Moniteur Universel, November 21, 1822.]

[dz] For staring tourists——.—[MS.]

[288] [The material for this description of Napoleon on his return from Moscow is drawn from De Pradt's Narrative of an Embassy to Warsaw and Wilna, published in 1816, pp. 133-141. "I hurried out, and arrived at the Hotel d'Angleterre.... [Warsaw, December 10, 1812]. I saw a small carriage body placed on a sledge made of four pieces of fir: it had stood some crashes, and was much damaged.... The ministers joined me in addressing to him ... wishes for the preservation of his health and the prosperity of his journey. He replied, 'I never was better; if I carried the devil with me, I should be all the better for that (Quand j'aurai le diable je ne m'en porterai que mieux).' These were his last words. He then mounted the humble sledge, which bore Caesar and his fortune, and disappeared." The passage is quoted in the Quarterly Review, October, 1815, vol. xiv. pp. 64-68.]

[289] {553}

["Soldats Francais! Serrez vos rangs! Intendez Roland qui vous crie! Armez vous contre vos tyrans! Brisez les fers de la patrie."

"L'Ombre de Roland," Morning Chronicle, October 10, 1822.]

[290] [Gustavus Adolphus fell at the great battle of Lutzen, in November, 1632. Napoleon defeated the allied Russian and Prussian armies at Lutzen, May 2, 1813.]

[291] [On June 26, 1813, Napoleon re-entered Dresden, and on the 27th repulsed the allied sovereigns, the Emperors of Russia and Prussia, with tremendous loss. Thousands of prisoners and a great quantity of cannon were taken.]

[ea]

Dresden beholds three nations fly once more Before the lash they oft had felt before.—[MS. erased.]

[292] [At the battle of Leipzig, October 18, 1813, on the appearance of Bernadotte, the Saxon soldiers under Regnier deserted and went over to the Allies. Napoleon, whose army was already weakened, lost 30,000 men at Leipzig.]

[293] [Joseph Buonaparte, who had been stationed on the heights of Montmartre, March 30, 1814, to witness if not direct the defence of Paris against the Allies under Bluecher, authorized Marmont to capitulate. His action was, unjustly, regarded as a betrayal of his brother's capital.]

[294] {554} I refer the reader to the first address of Prometheus in AEschylus, when he is left alone by his attendants, and before the arrival of the chorus of Sea-nymphs.—Prometheus Vinctus, line 88, sq.

[295] [Franklin published his Opinions and Conjectures concerning the Properties and Effects of the Electrical Matter and the Means of preserving Buildings, Ships, etc., from Lightning, in 1751, and in June, 1752, "the immortal kite was flown." It was in 1781, when he was minister plenipotentiary at the Court of France, that the Latin hexameter, "Eripuit c[oe]lo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis," first applied to him by Turgot, was affixed to his portrait by Fragonard. The line, said to be an adaptation of a line in the Astronomicon of Manilius (lib. i. 104), descriptive of the Reason, "Eripuitque Jovi fulmen viresque tonandi," was turned into French by Nogaret, d'Alembert, and other wits and scholars. It appears on the reverse of a medal by F. Dupre, dated 1786. (See Works of Benjamin Franklin, edited by Jared Sparks, 1840, viii. 537-539; Life and Times, etc., by James Parton, 1864, i. 285-291.)]

[296] {555}["To be the first man—not the Dictator, not the Sylla, but the Washington, or the Aristides, the leader in talent and truth—is next to the Divinity."—Journal, November 24, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 340.]

[297] [Simon Bolivar (El Libertador), 1783-1830, was at the height of his power and fame at the beginning of 1823. In 1821 he had united New Grenada to Venezuela under the name of the Republic of Columbia, and on the 1st of September he made a solemn entry into Lima. He was greeted with acclaim, but in accepting the honours which his fellow-citizens showered upon him, he warned them against the dangers of tyranny. "Beware," he said, "of a Napoleon or an Iturbide." Byron, at one time, had a mind to settle in "Bolivar's country" (letter to Ellice, June 12, 1821, Letters, 1901, vi. 89); and he christened his yacht The Bolivar.]

[298] [A proclamation of Bolivar's, dated June 8, 1822, runs thus: "Columbians, now all your delightful country is free.... From the banks of the Orinoco to the Andes of Peru, the ... army marching in triumph has covered with its protecting arms the entire extent of Columbia."—"Jamaica Papers," Morning Chronicle, September 28, 1822.]

[299] {556}[The capitulation of Athens was signed June 21, 1822. "Three days after the Greeks had sworn to observe the capitulation, they commenced murdering their helpless prisoners.... The streets of Athens were stained with the blood of four hundred men, women, and children."—History of Greece, by George Finlay, 1877, vi. 283. The sword was hid in the myrtle bough. Hence the allusion. (Compare Childe Harold, Canto III. stanza xx. line 9, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 228, and 291, note 2.)]

[300] [The independence of Chili dated from April 5, 1818, when General Jose de San Martin routed the Spanish army on the plains of Maypo. On the 28th of July, 1821, the Independence of Peru was proclaimed. General San Martin assumed the title of Protector, and, August 3, 4, 1821, issued proclamations, in which he announced the independence of Peru, and bade the Spaniards tremble if they "abused his indulgence." Extracts from a Journal written on the Coast of Chili, etc., by Captain Basil Hall, 1824, i. 266-272.]

[301] [On the 8th of August, 1822, Niketas and Hypsilantes defeated the Turks under Dramali, near Lerna. The Moreotes attributed their good fortune to the generalship of Kolokotrones, a Messenian. Compare with the whole of section vi. the following quotations from an article on the "Numbers of the Greeks," which appeared in the Morning Chronicle, September 13, 1822—

"'Trust not for freedom to the Franks, They have a king who buys and sells; In native swords and native ranks The only hope of courage dwells.'

Byron.

"As Russia has now removed her warlike projects, and the Greeks are engaged single-handed with the whole force of the Ottoman Empire, etc.... Byron's Grecian bard can no longer exclaim—

'My country! on thy voiceless shore The heroic lay is tuneless now— The heroic bosom beats no more.'

"Greece is no longer a 'nation's sepulchre,' the foul abode of slaves, but the living theatre of the patriot's toils and the hero's achievements. Her banners once more float on the mountains, and the battles she has already won show that in every glen and valley, as well as on

'Suli's rock and Parga's shore Exists the remnant of a line Such as the Doric mothers bore.'"]

[302] {557}[An account of these Russian intrigues in Greece is contained in Thomas Gordon's History of the Greek Revolution, 1832, i. 194-204.]

[eb] {558} Of Incas known but as a cloud.—[MS. erased.]

[ec] Not now the Roman or the Punic horde.—[MS.]

[ed] ——abhorrent of them both.—[MS.]

[303] [Pelayo, said to be the son of Favila, Duke of Cantabria, was elected king by the Christians of the Asturias in 718, and defeated the Arab generals Suleyman and Manurza. He died A.D. 737.]

[304] [For the "fabulous sketches" of the Zegri and Abencerrages, rival Moorish tribes, whose quarrels, at the close of the fifteenth century, deluged Granada with blood, see the Civil Wars of Granada, a prose fiction, interspersed with ballads, by Gines Perez de Hita, published in 1595. An opera, Les Abencerages, by Cherubini, was performed in Paris in 1813. Chateaubriand's Les Aventures du dernier Abencerrage was not published till 1826.]

[ee] And yet have left worse enemies than they.—[MS. erased.]

[305] [Ferdinand VII. returned to Madrid in March, 1814. "No sooner was he established on his throne ... than he set himself to restore the old absolutism with its worst abuses. The nobles recovered their privileges ... the Inquisition resumed its activity; and the Jesuits returned to Spain.... A camarilla of worthless courtiers and priests conducted the government, and urged the king to fresh acts of revolutionary violence. For six years Spain groaned under a royalist 'reign of terror.'"—Encycl. Brit., art. "Spain," vol. 22, p. 345.]

[ef] As rose on his remorseless ear the cry.—[MS. erased.]

[eg] {559} The re-awakened virtue——.—[MS. erased.]

[eh] ——is on the shore.—[MS. erased.]

[306] "'St. Jago and close Spain!' the old Spanish war-cry." ["Santiago y serra Espana."]

[ei] The wild Guerilla on Morena——.—[MS. erased]

[ej] Of eagle-eyed——.—[MS. erased.]

[307] [Compare Childe Harold, Canto I. stanzas liv.-lvi., Poetical Works, i. 57, 58, 91, 92 (note II). The "man" was Tio Jorge (Jorge Ibort), vide ibid., p. 94.]

[308] {560} The Arragonians are peculiarly dexterous in the use of this weapon, and displayed it particularly in former French wars.

[309] [Vide ante, the Introduction to the Age of Bronze, pp, 537-540.]

[310] [Patrick Henry, born May 29, 1736, died June 6, 1799, was one of the leading spirits of the American Revolution. His father, John Henry, a Scotchman, a cousin of the historian, William Robertson, had acquired a small property in Virginia. Patrick was not exactly "forest born," but, as a child, loved to play truant "in the forest with his gun or over his angle-rod." He first came into notice as an orator in the "Parson's Cause," a suit brought by a minister of the Established Church to recover his salary, which had been fixed at 16,000 lbs. of tobacco. In his speech he is said to have struck the key-note of the Revolution by arguing that "a king, by disallowing acts of a salutary nature, from being the father of his people, degenerates into a tyrant, and forfeits all right to his subjects' obedience." His famous speech against the "Stamps Act" was delivered in the House of Burgesses of Virginia, May 29, 1765. One passage, with which, no doubt, Byron was familiar, has passed into history. "Caesar had his Brutus—Charles the First had his Cromwell—and George the Third—" Henry was interrupted with a shout of "Treason! treason!!" but finished the sentence with, and "George the Third may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it."

Henry was delegate to the first Continental Congress, five times Governor of Virginia, and was appointed U.S. Senator in 1794.

His contemporaries said that he was "the greatest orator that ever lived." He seems to have exercised a kind of magical influence over his hearers, which they could not explain, which charmed and overwhelmed them, and "has left behind a tradition of bewitching persuasiveness and almost prophetic sublimity."—See Life of Patrick Henry, by William Wirt, 1845, passim.]

[ek] {561} ——to one Napoleon.—[MS. erased.]

[el] ——thy poor old wall forgets.—[MS. erased.]

[311] ["I have been over Verona. The amphitheatre is wonderful—beats even Greece. Of the truth of Juliet's story they seem tenacious to a degree, insisting on the fact, giving a date (1303), and showing a tomb. It is a plain, open, and partly decayed sarcophagus, with withered leaves in it, in a wild and desolate conventual garden, once a cemetery, now ruined to the very graves. The situation struck me as very appropriate to the legend, being blighted as their love.... The Gothic monuments of the Scaliger princes pleased me, but 'a poor virtuoso am I.'"—Letter to Moore, November 7, 1816, Letters, 1899, iii. 386, 387. The tombs of the Scaligers are close to the Church of Santa Maria l'Antica. Juliet's tomb, "of red Verona marble," is in the garden of the Orfanotrofio, between the Via Cappucini and the Adige. It is not "that ancient vault where all the kindred of the Capulets lie," which has long since been destroyed. Since 1814 Verona had been under Austria's sway, and had "treacherously" forgotten her republican traditions.]

[312] {562}[Francesco Can Grande della Scala died in 1329. It was under his roof that Dante learned

"... how salt his food who fares Upon another's bread—how steep his path Who treadeth up and down another's stairs."

For anecdotes of Can Grande, see Commedia, etc., by E. H. Plumptre, D.D., 1886, I. cxx., cxxi.; and compare Dante at Verona, by D. G. Rossetti, Works, 1886, i. 1-17.]

[313] [Ippolito Pindemonte, the modern Tibullus (1753-1828). (See Letters, 1900, iv. 127, note 4.)]

[314] [Claudian's famous old man of Verona, "qui suburbium numquam egressus est."

"Indocilis rerum, vicinae nescius urbis, Adspectu fruitur liberiore poli."

C. Claudiani Opera, lii., Epigrammata, ii. lines 9, 10 (ed. 1821, iii. 427).]

[315] ["In the amphitheatre ... crowds collected after the sittings of the Congress, to witness dramatic representations.... But for the costumes, a spectator might have imagined he was witnessing a resurrection of the ancient Romans."—Congress, etc., by M. de Chateaubriand, 1838, i. 76. This was on the 24th of November. Catalani sang. Rossini's cantata was performed with tremendous applause. On the next day the august visitors witnessed an illumination of the city. "Leur attention s'est principalement arrete sur le superbe portail de l'eglise Sainte-Agnes, qui brillait de mille feux, au milieu desquels se lisait l'inscription suivante en lettres de grandeur colossale:

'A Cesare Augusta Verona esultante.'"

—Le Moniteur, December 14, 1822.]

[316] {563}[Alexander I. (Paulowitsch), 1777-1825, succeeded his father in 1801. He began his reign well. Taxation was diminished, judicial penalties were remitted, universities were founded and reorganized, personal servitude was abolished or restricted throughout the empire. At the height of his power and influence, when he was regarded as the Liberator of Europe, he granted a Constitution to Poland, based on liberal if not democratic principles (June 21, 1815). But after a time he reverted to absolutism. Autocracy at home, a mystical and sentimental alliance with autocrats abroad, were incompatible with the indulgence of liberal proclivities. "After the Congresses of Aix-la-Chapelle and Troppau," writes M. Rambaud (History of Russia, 1888, ii. 384), "he was no longer the same man.... From that time he considered himself the dupe of his generous ideas ... at Carlsbad, at Laybach, and at Verona, Alexander was already the leader of the European reaction." But even to the last he believed that he could run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. "They may say of me," he exclaimed, "what they will; but I have lived and shall die republican" (ibid., p. 398).

Alexander was a man of ideas, a sentimentalist, and a poseur, but he had an eye to the main chance. Whatever cause or dynasty suffered, the Emperor Alexander was still triumphant. Byron's special grudge against him at this time was due to his vacillation with regard to the cause of Greek Independence. But he is too contemptuous. There were points in common between the "Coxcomb Czar" and his satirist; and it is far from certain that if the twain had changed places Byron might not have proved just "such an Alexander." In one respect their destiny was alike. The greatest sorrow of their lives was the death of a natural daughter.]

[317] [For Alexander's waltzing, see Personal Reminiscences, by Cornelia Knight and Thomas Raikes, 1875, p. 286. See, too, Moore's Fables for the Holy Alliance, Fable I., "A Dream."]

[em] Now half inclining——.—[MS.]

[318] {564} ["Pulk" is Polish for "regiment." The allusion must be to the military colonies planted by "the corporal of Gatchina," Araktcheef, in the governments of Novgorod, Kharkof, and elsewhere.]

[319] [Frederic Cesar La Harpe (1754-1838) was appointed by Catherine II. Governor to the Grand-Dukes Alexander and Constantine. It was from La Harpe's teaching that Alexander imbibed his liberal ideas. In 1816, when Byron passed the summer in Switzerland, La Harpe was domiciled at Lausanne, and it is possible that a meeting took place.]

[320] [Alexander's platonic attachment to the Baronne de Kruedener (Barbe Julie de Wietenhoff), beauty, novelist, illuminee, was the source of amusement rather than scandal. The Baronne, then in her fiftieth year, was the channel through which Franz Bader's theory or doctrine of the "Holy Alliance" was conveyed to the enthusiastic and receptive Czar. It was only a passing whim. Alexander's mysticism was for ornament, not for use, and, before very long, Egeria and her Muscovite Numa parted company.]

[321] The dexterity of Catherine extricated Peter (called the Great by courtesy), when surrounded by the Mussulmans on the banks of the river Pruth. [Catherine, who had long been Peter's mistress, had at length been acknowledged as his wife. Her "dexterity" took the form of a bribe of money and jewels, conveyed to the Turkish grand-vizier Baltazhi-Mahomet, who was induced to accede to the Treaty of Pruth, July 20, 1711.]

[322] {565}

["Eight thousand men had to Asturias march'd Beneath Count Julian's banner.... To revenge His quarrel, twice that number left their bones, Slain in unnatural battle, on the field Of Xeres, where the sceptre from the Goths By righteous Heaven was reft."

Southey's Roderick, Canto XXV. lines 1, 2, 7-11.]

[323] [The Bashkirs are a Turco-Mongolian tribe inhabiting the slopes of the Ural Mountains. They supply a body of irregular cavalry to the Russian army.]

[324] [The Austrian and Russian armies stood between the Greeks and other peoples, and their independence, as Alexander the Great stood between Diogenes and the sunshine.]

[en]

Still will I roll my tub at Sinope Be slaves who may——.—[MS.]

[325] [Lines 482, 483, are not in the MS.]

[326] {566} [Constant (Henri Benjamin de Rebecque, 1767-1830) was the "stormy petrel" of debate in the French Chamber. For instance, in a discussion on secret service money for the police (July 27, 1822), he exclaimed, "Vous les representez-vous payant d'une main le salaire du vol, et tenant peut-etre un crucifix de l'autre?" No wonder that there were "violens murmures, cris d'indignation a droite." The duel, however, did not arise out of a speech in the Chamber, but from a letter of June 5, 1822, in La Quotidienne, in which the Marquis de Forbin des Issarts replied to some letters of Constant, which had appeared in the Courrier and Constitutionnel. Constant was lame, and accordingly both combatants "out ete places a dix petits pas sur des chaises." Both fired twice, but neither "was a penny the worse." (See La Grande Encyclopedie, art. "Constant;" and, for details, La Quotidienne, June 8, 1822. See, too, for "session de 1822," Opinions el Discours de M. Casimir Perrier, 1838, ii. 5-47.)]

[327] [Louis XVIII. (Louis Stanislas Xavier, 1755-1824) passed several years of exile in England, at Goswell, Wanstead, and latterly at Hartwell, near Aylesbury, in Buckinghamshire. When he entered Paris as king, in May, 1814, he was in his fifty-ninth year, inordinately bulky and unwieldy—a king pour rire. "C'est ce gros goutteux," explained an ouvrier to a bystander, who had asked, "Which is the king?" Fifteen mutton cutlets, "sautees au jus," for breakfast; fifteen mutton cutlets served with a "sauce a la champagne," for dinner; to say nothing of strawberries, and sweet apple-puffs between meals, made digestion and locomotion difficult. It was no wonder that he was a martyr to the gout. But he cared for nature and for books as well as for eating. His Lettres d'Artwell (Paris, 1830), which profess to be selections from his correspondence with a friend, give a pleasant picture of the roi en exil. His wife, Louise de Savoie, died November, 1810, and in the following April he writes (Lettres, pp. 70, 71), "Mars a maintenu le bien d'un hiver fort doux; point encore de goutte; a brebis tondue, Dieu measure le vent. Helas! je l'eprouve bien qu'elle est tondue cette pauvre brebis!... je me promene dans le jardin, je vois mes rosiers qui poussent bien; a qui offrirai-je les roses?... Eh bien! je ne voudrais pas que cette goutte d'absinthe cessat, car pour cela il faudrait l'oublier. L'oublier! Ah Dieu! Je suis comme les enfans d'Israel qui disaient: Super flumina Babylonis ... Sion. Mais ajoutons tout de suite: Si oblitus fuero hit, Jerusalem, oblivioni detur dextera mea." In another letter, June 8, 1811, he criticizes some translations of Horace, and laments that the good Pere Sanadon has confined himself to the Opera Expurgata. Not, he adds, that he would not have excluded one or two odes, "mais on a impitoyablement sabre des choses delicieuses" (Lettres, p. 98).

To his wit, Chateaubriand testifies (The Congress, etc., 1838, i. 262). At the council, when affairs of state were being discussed, the king "would say in his clear shrill voice, 'I am going to make you laugh, M. de Chateaubriand.' The other ministers fumed with impatience, but Chateaubriand laughed, not as a courtier, but as a human being."]

[328] {567}[Louvel, who assassinated the Due de Berri, and who was executed June 7, 1820, was supposed to have been an agent of the carbonari. La Fayette, Constant, Lafitte, and others were also suspected of being connected with secret societies.—The Court of the Tuileries, 1815-1848, by Lady Jackson, 1883, ii. 19.]

[eo] {568}

Immortal Wellington with beak so curled. That foremost Corporal of all the World— Immortal Wellington—and flags unfurled.—[MS. erased.]

[329] "Naso suspendis adunco."—HORACE [Sat. i. 6, 5]. The Roman applies it to one who merely was imperious to his acquaintance.

[330] [Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, afterwards Marquis of Londonderry (1769-1822), who had been labouring under a "mental delirium" (Letter of Duke of Wellington, August 9, 1822), committed suicide by cutting his throat with a penknife (August 12, 1822). He was the uncompromising and successful opponent of popular causes in Ireland, Italy, and elsewhere, and, as such, Byron assailed him, alive and dead, with the bitterest invective. (See, for instance, the "Dedication" to Don Juan, stanzas xi.-xvi., sundry epigrams, and an "Epitaph.") In the Preface to Cantos VI., VII., VIII., of Don Juan, he justifies the inclusion of a stanza or two on Castlereagh, which had been written "before his decease," and, again, alludes to his suicide. (For an estimate of his career and character, see Letters, 1900, iv. 108, 109, note 1; and for a full report of the inquest, The Annual Biography, 1823, pp. 56-62.)]

[ep]

Whose penknife saved some nations t'other day. Who shaved his throat by chance the other day.—[MS. erased.]

[331] ["The Pilot that weathered the Storm" was written by Canning, to be recited at a dinner given on Pitt's birthday, May 28, 1802.]

[eq] {569} With reason—whate'er it may with rhyme.—[MS. erased.]

[332] [George Canning (1770-1827) succeeded Lord Londonderry as Foreign Secretary, September 8, 1822. He was not a persona grata to George IV., who had been offended by Canning's neutral attitude, as a minister, on the question of the Queen's message (June 7, 1820), and by his avowal "of an unaltered regard and affection" for that "illustrious personage" herself. There was, too, the prospect of Catholic Emancipation. In 1821 he had spoken in favour of Plunket's bills, and, the next year (April 30, 1822), he had brought in a bill to remove the disabilities of Roman Catholic peers from sitting in the House of Lords. If Canning persisted in his advocacy of Catholic claims, the king's conscience might turn restive, and urge him to effectual resistance. Hence the warning in lines 563-567.]

[333] {570} [Demeter gave Triptolemus a chariot drawn by serpents, and bade him scatter wheat throughout the world. (See Ovid, Met., lib. v. lines 642-661.)]

[er] The mighty monosyllable high Rent!—[MS.]

[es] ——upon the audit day.—[MS. M.]

[334] ["Lord Londonderry proposed (April 29, 1822) that whenever wheat should be under 60 shillings a quarter, Government should be authorized to issue L1,000,000 in Exchequer bills to landed proprietors on the security of their crops; that importation of foreign corn should be permitted whenever the price of wheat should be at or above 70 shillings a quarter ... that a sliding-scale should be fixed, that for wheat being under 80s. a quarter at 12 shillings; above 80s. and below 85s., at 5 shillings; and above 85s., only one shilling."—Allison's History of Europe, 1815-1852, and 1854, ii. 506. The first clause was thrown out, but the rest of the bill passed May 13, 1822.]

[et] {571} For fear that riches——.—[MS. M.]

[eu] Will sell the harvest at a market price.—[MS. M.]

[ev] Are gone—their fields untilled.—[MS. M.]

[335] {572}[Peel's bill for the resumption of cash payments (Act 59 Geo. III. cap. 49) was passed June 14, 1819. The "landed interest" attributed the fall of prices and the consequent fall of rent to this measure, and hinted more or less plainly that the fund-holders should share the loss. They had lent their money when the currency was inflated, and should not now be paid off in gold.

"But you," exclaims Cobbett [Letter to Mr. Western (Weekly Register, November 23, 1822)], "what can induce you to stickle for the Pitt system [i.e. paper-money]? I will tell you what it is: you loved the high prices, and the domination that they gave you.... Besides this, you think that the boroughs can be preserved by a return to paper-money, and along with them the hare-and-pheasant law and justice. You loved the glorious times of paper-money, and you want them back again. You think that they could go on for ever.... The bill of 1819 was really a great relaxation of the Pitt system, and when you are crying out spoliation and confiscation, when you are bawling out so lustily about the robbery committed on you by the fund-holders and the placemen, and are praising the infernal Pitt system at the same time, ... you say they are receiving, the fund-vagabonds in particular, more than they ought." It is evident that Byron's verse is a reverberation of Cobbett's prose.]

[336] [Petitions were presented by the inhabitants of St. Andrew, Holborn; St. Botolf, Bishopsgate; and St. Gregory by St. Paul, to the Court of Common Council, against a tithe-charge of 2s, 9d. in the pound on their annual rents.—Morning Chronicle, November 1, 1822.]

[337] Lines 614-657 are not in the MS.

[338] {573}[The Symplegades, or "justling rocks," Ovid's instabiles Cyaneae, were supposed to crush the ships which sailed between them.]

[339] [Alcina, the personification of carnal pleasure in the Orlando Furioso, is the counterpart of Homer's Circe. "She enjoyed her lovers for a time, and then changed them into trees, stones, fountains, or beasts, as her fancy dictated." (See Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, vi. 35, seq.)]

[340] [There were five brothers Rothschild: Anselm, of Frankfort, 1773-1855; Salomon, of Vienna, 1774-1855; Nathan Mayer, of London, 1777-1836; Charles, of Naples, 1788-1855; and James, of Paris, 1792-1868. In 1821 Austria raised 37-1/2 million guldens through the firm, and, as an acknowledgment of their services, the Emperor raised the brothers to the rank of baron, and appointed Baron Nathan Mayer Consul-General in London, and Baron James to the same post in Paris. In 1822 both Russia (see line 684) and England raised 3-1/2 millions sterling through the Rothschilds. The "two Jews" (line 686, etc.) are, probably, the two Consuls-General. In 1822 their honours were new, and some mocked. There is the story that Talleyrand once presented the Parisian brother to Montmorenci as M. le premier Juif to M. le premier Baron Chretien; while another tale, parent or offspring of the preceding, which appeared in La Quotidienne, December 21, 1822, testifies to the fact, not recorded, that a Rothschild was at Verona during the Congress: "M. de Rotschild, baron et banquier general des gouvernemens absolus, s'est, dit-on, rendu an congres, il a ete presente a l'empereur d'Autriche, et S.M., en lui remettant une decoration, a daigne lui dire: 'Vous pouvez etre assure, Monsieur, que la maison d'Autriche sera toujours disposee a reconnaitre vos services et a vous accorder ce qui pourra vous etre agreable,'—'Votre Majeste,' a repondu le baron financier, 'pourra toujours egalement compter sur la maison Rotschild.'"—See The Rothschilds, by John Reeves, 1886.]

[341] {574}[In 1822 the Neapolitan Government raised 22,000,000 ducats through the Rothschilds.]

[342] {575} Monsieur Chateaubriand, who has not forgotten the author in the minister, received a handsome compliment at Verona from a literary sovereign: "Ah! Monsieur C., are you related to that Chateaubriand who—who—who has written something?" (ecrit quelque chose!) It is said that the author of Atala repented him for a moment of his legitimacy. [Francois Rene Vicomte de Chateaubriand (1768-1848) published Les Martyrs ou le Triomphe de la religion chretienne in 1809.]

[343] [Count Capo d'Istria (b. 1776)—afterwards President of Greece. The count was murdered, in September, 1831, by the brother and son of a Mainote chief whom he had imprisoned (note to ed. 1832). Byron may have believed that Capo d'Istria was still in the service of the Czar, but, according to Allison, his advocacy of his compatriots the Greeks had led to his withdrawal from the Russian Foreign Office, and prevented his taking part in the Congress. It was, however, stated in the papers that he had been summoned, and was on his way to Verona.]

[344] [Jean Mathieu Felicite, Duc de Montmorenci (1766-1826), was, in his youth, a Jacobin. He proposed, August 4, 1789, to abrogate feudal rights, and June 15, 1790, to abolish the nobility. He was superseded as plenipotentiary by Chateaubriand, and on his return to Paris created a duke. Before the end of the year he was called upon to resign his portfolio as Minister of Foreign Affairs. The king disliked him, and there were personal disagreements between him and the Prime Minister, M. de Villele.

The following "gazette" appeared in the Moniteur:—

"Ordonnance du Roi. Signe Louis. Art 1^er^ Le Vicomte de Chateaubriand, pair de France, est nomme ministre secretaire d'etat au departement des affaires etrangeres. Louis par la grace de Dieu Roi de France et de Navarre.

"Art. 1^er^ Le Duc Mathieu de Montmorenci, pair de France, est nomme ministre d'Etat, et membre de notre Conseil prive.

"Dimanche, 29 Decembre, 1822."

"On Tuesday, January 1, 1823," writes Chateaubriand, Congress, 1838, i. 258, "we crossed the bridges, and went to sleep in that minister's bed, which was not made for us,—a bed in which one sleeps but little, and in which one remains only for a short time."]

[345] {576}[From Pope's line on Lord Peterborough, Imitations of Horace, Sat. i. 132.]

[346] [Marie Louise, daughter of Francis I. of Austria, was born December 12, 1791, and died December 18, 1849. She was married to Napoleon, April 2, 1810, and gave birth to a son, March 29, 1811. In accordance with the Treaty of Paris, she left France April 26, 1814, renounced the title of Empress, and was created Duchess of Parma, Placentia, and Guastalla. After Napoleon's death (May 5, 1821). "Proud Austria's mournful flower" did not long remain a widow, but speedily and secretly married her chamberlain and gentleman of honour, Count Adam de Neipperg (ce polisson Neipperg, as Napoleon called him), to whom she had long been attached. It was supposed that she attended the Congress of Verona in the interest of her son, the ex-King of Rome, to whom Napoleon had bequeathed money and heirlooms. She was a solemn stately personage, tant soit peu declassee, and the other potentates whispered and joked at her expense. Chateaubriand says that when the Duke of Wellington was bored with the meetings of the Congress, he would while away the time in the company of the Orsini, who scribbled on the margin of intercepted French despatches, "Pas pour Mariee." Not for Madame de Neipperg.]

[347] [Napoleon Francois Charles Joseph, Duke of Reichstadt, died at the palace of Schoenbrunn, July 22, 1832, having just attained his twenty-first year.]

[348] [Count Adam Albrecht de Neipperg had lost an eye from a wound in battle.]

[349] {577}[La Quotidienne of December 4, 1822, has a satirical reference to a passage in the Courrier, which attached a diplomatic importance to the "galanterie respectueuse que le duc de Wellington aurait faite a cette jeune Princesse." We read, too, of another victorious foe, the King of Prussia, giving "la main a l'archduchesse Marie-Louise jusqu'a son carrosse" (Le Constitutionnel, November 19, 1822). "All the world wondered" what Andromache did, and how she would fare—dans ce galere. It is difficult to explain the allusion to Pyrrhus. Andromache was the unwilling bride of Pyrrhus or Neoptolemus, whose father had slain her husband, Hector; Marie Louise the willing bride of Neipperg, who had certainly fought at Leipsic, but who could not be said to have given the final blow to Napoleon at Waterloo. Pyrrhus must stand for the victorious foe, and the right arm on which the too-forgiving Andromache leant, must have been offered by "the respectful gallantry" of the Duke of Wellington.]

[ew]

She comes the Andromache of Europe's Queens, And led by Pyrrhus arm on which she leans.—[MS. M.]

[350] {578}[Sir William Curtis (1752-1805), maker of sea-biscuits at Wapping, was M.P. for the City of London 1790-1818, Lord Mayor 1795-6. George IV. affected his society, visited him at Ramsgate, and sailed with him in his gorgeously appointed yacht. When the king visited Scotland in August, 1822, Curtis followed in his train. On first landing at Leith, "Sir William Curtis, who had celtified himself on the occasion, marched joyously in his scanty longitude of kilt." At the Levee, August 17, "Sir William Curtis again appeared in the Royal tartan, but he had forsaken the philabeg and addicted himself to the trews" (Morning Chronicle, August 19, 20, 1822). "The Fat Knight" was seventy years of age, and there was much joking at his expense. See, for instance, some lines in "Hudibrastic measure," Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 92, Part II. p. 606—

"And who is he, that sleek and smart one Pot-bellied pyramid of Tartan?

So mountainous in pinguitude, Ponderibus librata SUIS, He stands like pig of lead, so true is, That his abdomen throws alone A Body-guard around the Throne!"]

[351] [Lines 771, 772 are not in the MS.]



THE ISLAND

OR,

CHRISTIAN AND HIS COMRADES.



INTRODUCTION TO THE ISLAND

The first canto of The Island was finished January 10, 1823. We know that Byron was still at work on "the poeshie," January 25 (Letters, 1901, vi. 164), and may reasonably conjecture that a somewhat illegible date affixed to the fourth canto, stands for February 14, 1823. The MS. had been received in London before April 9 (ibid., p. 192); and on June 26, 1823, The Island; or, The Adventures of Christian and his Comrades, was published by John Hunt.

Byron's "Advertisement," or note, prefixed to The Island contains all that need be said with regard to the "sources" of the poem.

Two separate works were consulted: (1) A Narrative of the Mutiny on board His Majesty's Ship Bounty, and the subsequent Voyage of ... the Ship's Boat from Tafoa, one of the Friendly Islands, to Timor, a Dutch Settlement in the East Indies, written by Lieutenant William Bligh, 1790; and (2) An Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands, Compiled and Arranged from the Extensive Communications of Mr. William Mariner, by John Martin, M.D., 1817.

According to George Clinton (Life and Writings of Lord Byron, 1824, p. 656), Byron was profoundly impressed by Mariner's report of the scenery and folklore of the Friendly Islands, was "never tired of talking of it to his friends," and, in order to turn this poetic material to account, finally bethought him that Bligh's Narrative of the mutiny of the Bounty would serve as a framework or structure "for an embroidery of rare device"—the figures and foliage of a tropical pattern. That, at least, is the substance of Clinton's analysis of the "sources" of The Island, and whether he spoke, or only feigned to speak, with authority, his criticism is sound and to the point. The story of the mutiny of the Bounty, which is faithfully related in the first canto, is not, as the second title implies, a prelude to the "Adventures of Christian and his Comrades," but to a description of "The Island," an Ogygia of the South Seas.

It must be borne in mind that Byron's acquaintance with the details of the mutiny of the Bounty was derived exclusively from Bligh's Narrative; that he does not seem to have studied the minutes of the court-martial on Peter Heywood and the other prisoners (September, 1792), or to have possessed the information that in 1809, and, again, in 1815, the Admiralty received authentic information with regard to the final settlement of Christian and his comrades on Pitcairn Island. Articles, however, had appeared in the Quarterly Review, February, 1810, vol. iii. pp. 23, 24, and July, 1815, vol. xiii. pp. 376-378, which contained an extract from the log-book of Captain Mayhew Folger, of the American ship Topaz, dated September 29, 1808, and letters from Folger (March 1, 1813), and Sir Thomas Staines, October 18, 1814, which solved the mystery. Moreover, the article of February, 1810, is quoted in the notes (pp. 313-318) affixed to Miss Mitford's Christina, the Maid of the South Seas, 1811, a poem founded on Bligh's Narrative, of which neither Byron or his reviewers seem to have heard.

But whatever may have been his opportunities of ascertaining the facts of the case, it is certain (see his note to Canto IV. section vi. line 122) that he did not know what became of Christian, and that whereas in the first canto he follows the text of Bligh's Narrative, in the three last cantos he draws upon his imagination, turning Tahiti into Toobonai (Tubuai), and transporting Toobonai from one archipelago to another—from the Society to the Friendly Islands.

Another and still more surprising feature of The Island is that Byron accepts, without qualification or reserve, the guilt of the mutineers and the innocence and worth of Lieutenant Bligh. It is true that by inheritance he was imbued with the traditions of the service, and from personal experience understood the necessity of discipline on board ship; but it may be taken for granted that if he had known that the sympathy, if not the esteem, of the public had been transferred from Bligh to Christian, that in the opinion of grave and competent writers, the guilt of mutiny on the high seas had been almost condoned by the violence and brutality of the commanding officer, he would have sided with the oppressed rather than the oppressor. As it is, he takes Bligh at his own valuation, and carefully abstains from "eulogizing mutiny." (Letter to L. Hunt, January 25, 1823.)

The story of the "mutiny of the Bounty" happened in this wise. In 1787 it occurred to certain West India planters and merchants, resident in London, that it would benefit the natives, and perhaps themselves, if the bread-fruit tree, which flourished in Tahiti (the Otaheite of Captain Cook and Sir Joseph Banks, see Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 7, note 2) and other islands of the South Seas, could be acclimatized in the West Indies. A petition was addressed to the king, with the result that a vessel, with a burden of 215 tons, which Banks christened the Bounty, sailed from Spithead December 23, 1787. Lieutenant William Bligh, who had sailed with Cook in the Resolution, acted as commanding officer, and under him were five midshipmen, a master, two master's mates, etc.—forty-four persons all told. The Bounty arrived at Tahiti October 26, 1788, and there for six delightful months the ship's company tarried, "fleeting the time carelessly, as in the elder world." But "Scripture saith an ending to all fine things must be," and on April 4, 1789, the Bounty, with a cargo of over a thousand bread-fruit trees, planted in pots, tubs, and boxes (see for plate of the pots, etc., A Voyage, etc., 1792, p. 1), sailed away westward for the Cape of Good Hope, and the West Indies. All went well at first, but "just before sun-rising" on Tuesday, April 28, 1789, "the north-westernmost of the Friendly Islands, called Tofoa, bearing north-east," Fletcher Christian, who was mate of the watch, assisted by Charles Churchill, master-at-arms, Alexander Smith (the John Adams of Pitcairn Island), and Thomas Burkitt, able seamen, seized the captain, tied his hands behind his back, hauled him out of his berth, and forced him on deck. The boatswain, William Cole, was ordered to hoist out the ship's launch, which measured twenty-three feet from stem to stern, and into this open boat Bligh, together with eighteen of the crew, who were or were supposed to be on his side, were thrust, on pain of instant death. When they were in the boat they were "veered round with a rope, and finally cast adrift." Bligh and his eighteen innocent companions sailed westward, and, after a voyage of "twelve hundred leagues," during which they were preserved from death and destruction by the wise ordering and patient heroism of the commander, safely anchored in K[oe]pang Bay, on the north-west coast of the Isle of Timor, June 14, 1789. (See Bligh's Narrative, etc., 1790, pp. 11-88; and The Island, Canto I. section ix. lines 169-201.)

The Bounty, with the remainder of the crew, twenty-five in number, "the most able of the ship's company," sailed eastward, first to Toobooai, or Tubuai, an island to the south of the Society Islands, thence to Tahiti (June 6), back to Tubuai (June 26), and yet again, to Tahiti (September 20), where sixteen of the mutineers, including the midshipman George Stewart (the "Torquil" of The Island), were put on shore. Finally, September 21, 1789, Fletcher Christian, with the Bounty and eight of her crew, six Tahitian men, and twelve women, sailed away still further east to unknown shores, and, so it was believed, disappeared for good and all. Long afterwards it was known that they had landed on Pitcairn Island, broken up the Bounty, and founded a permanent settlement.

When Bligh returned to England (March 14, 1790), and acquainted the Government "with the atrocious act of piracy and mutiny" which had been committed on the high seas, the Pandora frigate, with Captain Edwards, was despatched to apprehend the mutineers, and bring them back to England for trial and punishment. The Pandora reached Tahiti March 23, 1791, set sail, with fourteen prisoners, May 8, and was wrecked on the "Great Barrier Reef" north-east of Queensland, August 29, 1791. Four of the prisoners, including George Stewart, who had been manacled, and were confined in "Pandora's box," perished in the wreck, and the remaining ten were brought back to England, and tried by court-martial. (See The Eventful History of the Mutiny, etc. (by Sir John Barrow), 1831, pp. 205-244.)

The story, which runs through the second, third, and fourth cantos, may possibly owe some of its details to a vague recollection of incidents which happened, or were supposed to happen, at Tahiti, in the interval between the final departure of the Bounty, September 21, 1789, and the arrival of the Pandora, March 23, 1791; but, as a whole, it is a work of fiction.

With the exception of the fifteenth and sixteenth cantos of Don Juan, The Island was the last poem of any importance which Byron lived to write, and the question naturally suggests itself—Is the new song as good as the old? Byron answers the question himself. He tells Leigh Hunt (January 25, 1823) that he hopes the "poem will be a little above the ordinary run of periodical poesy," and that, though portions of the Toobonai (sic) islanders are "pamby," he intends "to scatter some uncommon places here and there nevertheless." On the whole, in point of conception and execution, The Island is weaker and less coherent than the Corsair; but it contains lines and passages (e.g. Canto I. lines 107-124, 133-140; Canto II. lines 272-297; Canto IV. lines 94-188) which display a finer feeling and a more "exalted wit" than the "purple patches" of The Turkish Tales.

The poetic faculty is somewhat exhausted, but the poetic vision has been purged and heightened by suffering and self-knowledge.

The Island was reviewed in the Monthly Review, July, 1823, E.S., vol. 101, pp. 316-319; the New Monthly Magazine, N.S., 1823, vol. 8, pp. 136-141; the Atlantic Magazine, April, 1826, vol. 2, pp. 333-337; in the Literary Chronicle, June 21, 1823; and the Literary Gazette, June 21, 1823.



ADVERTISEMENT.

The foundation of the following story will be found partly in Lieutenant Bligh's "Narrative of the Mutiny and Seizure of the Bounty, in the South Seas (in 1789);" and partly in "Mariner's Account of the Tonga Islands."

GENOA, 1823.



THE ISLAND



CANTO THE FIRST.

I.

The morning watch was come; the vessel lay Her course, and gently made her liquid way;[ex] The cloven billow flashed from off her prow In furrows formed by that majestic plough; The waters with their world were all before; Behind, the South Sea's many an islet shore. The quiet night, now dappling, 'gan to wane, Dividing darkness from the dawning main; The dolphins, not unconscious of the day, Swam high, as eager of the coming ray; The stars from broader beams began to creep, And lift their shining eyelids from the deep;[ey] The sail resumed its lately shadowed white, And the wind fluttered with a freshening flight; The purpling Ocean owns the coming Sun, But ere he break—a deed is to be done.

II.

The gallant Chief[352] within his cabin slept, Secure in those by whom the watch was kept: His dreams were of Old England's welcome shore, Of toils rewarded, and of dangers o'er; 20 His name was added to the glorious roll Of those who search the storm-surrounded Pole. The worst was over, and the rest seemed sure,[353] And why should not his slumber be secure? Alas! his deck was trod by unwilling feet, And wilder hands would hold the vessel's sheet; Young hearts, which languished for some sunny isle, Where summer years and summer women smile; Men without country, who, too long estranged, Had found no native home, or found it changed, 30 And, half uncivilised, preferred the cave Of some soft savage to the uncertain wave— The gushing fruits that nature gave unfilled; The wood without a path—but where they willed; The field o'er which promiscuous Plenty poured Her horn; the equal land without a lord; The wish—which ages have not yet subdued In man—to have no master save his mood;[354] The earth, whose mine was on its face, unsold, The glowing sun and produce all its gold; 40 The Freedom which can call each grot a home; The general garden, where all steps may roam, Where Nature owns a nation as her child, Exulting in the enjoyment of the wild;[ez] Their shells, their fruits, the only wealth they know, Their unexploring navy, the canoe;[fa] Their sport, the dashing breakers and the chase; Their strangest sight, an European face:— Such was the country which these strangers yearned To see again—a sight they dearly earned. 50

III.

Awake, bold Bligh! the foe is at the gate! Awake! awake!——Alas! it is too late! Fiercely beside thy cot the mutineer Stands, and proclaims the reign of rage and fear. Thy limbs are bound, the bayonet at thy breast; The hands, which trembled at thy voice, arrest; Dragged o'er the deck, no more at thy command The obedient helm shall veer, the sail expand; That savage Spirit, which would lull by wrath Its desperate escape from Duty's path, 60 Glares round thee, in the scarce believing eyes Of those who fear the Chief they sacrifice: For ne'er can Man his conscience all assuage, Unless he drain the wine of Passion—Rage.

IV.

In vain, not silenced by the eye of Death, Thou call'st the loyal with thy menaced breath:— They come not; they are few, and, overawed, Must acquiesce, while sterner hearts applaud. In vain thou dost demand the cause: a curse Is all the answer, with the threat of worse. 70 Full in thine eyes is waved the glittering blade, Close to thy throat the pointed bayonet laid. The levelled muskets circle round thy breast In hands as steeled to do the deadly rest. Thou dar'st them to their worst, exclaiming—"Fire!" But they who pitied not could yet admire; Some lurking remnant of their former awe Restrained them longer than their broken law; They would not dip their souls at once in blood, But left thee to the mercies of the flood.[355] 80

V.

"Hoist out the boat!" was now the leader's cry; And who dare answer "No!" to Mutiny, In the first dawning of the drunken hour, The Saturnalia of unhoped-for power? The boat is lowered with all the haste of hate, With its slight plank between thee and thy fate; Her only cargo such a scant supply As promises the death their hands deny; And just enough of water and of bread To keep, some days, the dying from the dead: 90 Some cordage, canvass, sails, and lines, and twine, But treasures all to hermits of the brine, Were added after, to the earnest prayer Of those who saw no hope, save sea and air; And last, that trembling vassal of the Pole— The feeling compass—Navigation's soul.[356]

VI.

And now the self-elected Chief finds time To stun the first sensation of his crime, And raise it in his followers—"Ho! the bowl!"[357] Lest passion should return to reason's shoal.[fb] 100 "Brandy for heroes!"[358] Burke could once exclaim— No doubt a liquid path to Epic fame; And such the new-born heroes found it here, And drained the draught with an applauding cheer. "Huzza! for Otaheite!"[359] was the cry. How strange such shouts from sons of Mutiny! The gentle island, and the genial soil, The friendly hearts, the feasts without a toil, The courteous manners but from nature caught, The wealth unhoarded, and the love unbought; 110 Could these have charms for rudest sea-boys, driven Before the mast by every wind of heaven? And now, even now prepared with others' woes To earn mild Virtue's vain desire, repose? Alas! such is our nature! all but aim At the same end by pathways not the same; Our means—our birth—our nation, and our name, Our fortune—temper—even our outward frame, Are far more potent o'er our yielding clay Than aught we know beyond our little day. 120 Yet still there whispers the small voice within, Heard through Gain's silence, and o'er Glory's din: Whatever creed be taught, or land be trod, Man's conscience is the Oracle of God.[360]

VII.

The launch is crowded with the faithful few Who wait their Chief, a melancholy crew: But some remained reluctant on the deck Of that proud vessel—now a moral wreck— And viewed their Captain's fate with piteous eyes; While others scoffed his augured miseries, 130 Sneered at the prospect of his pigmy sail, And the slight bark so laden and so frail. The tender nautilus, who steers his prow, The sea-born sailor of his shell canoe, The ocean Mab, the fairy of the sea, Seems far less fragile, and, alas! more free. He, when the lightning-winged Tornados sweep The surge, is safe—his port is in the deep— And triumphs o'er the armadas of Mankind, Which shake the World, yet crumble in the wind. 140

VIII.

When all was now prepared, the vessel clear Which hailed her master in the mutineer, A seaman, less obdurate than his mates, Showed the vain pity which but irritates; Watched his late Chieftain with exploring eye, And told, in signs, repentant sympathy; Held the moist shaddock to his parched mouth, Which felt Exhaustion's deep and bitter drouth. But soon observed, this guardian was withdrawn, Nor further Mercy clouds Rebellion's dawn.[361] 150 Then forward stepped the bold and froward boy His Chief had cherished only to destroy, And, pointing to the helpless prow beneath, Exclaimed, "Depart at once! delay is death!" Yet then, even then, his feelings ceased not all: In that last moment could a word recall Remorse for the black deed as yet half done, And what he hid from many showed to one: When Bligh in stern reproach demanded where Was now his grateful sense of former care? 160 Where all his hopes to see his name aspire, And blazon Britain's thousand glories higher? His feverish lips thus broke their gloomy spell, "Tis that! 'tis that! I am in hell! in hell!"[362] No more he said; but urging to the bark His Chief, commits him to his fragile ark; These the sole accents from his tongue that fell, But volumes lurked below his fierce farewell.



IX.

The arctic[363] Sun rose broad above the wave; The breeze now sank, now whispered from his cave; 170 As on the AEolian harp, his fitful wings Now swelled, now fluttered o'er his Ocean strings.[fc] With slow, despairing oar, the abandoned skiff Ploughs its drear progress to the scarce seen cliff, Which lifts its peak a cloud above the main: That boat and ship shall never meet again!

But 'tis not mine to tell their tale of grief, Their constant peril, and their scant relief; Their days of danger, and their nights of pain; Their manly courage even when deemed in vain; 180 The sapping famine, rendering scarce a son Known to his mother in the skeleton;[364] The ills that lessened still their little store, And starved even Hunger till he wrung no more; The varying frowns and favours of the deep, That now almost ingulfs, then leaves to creep With crazy oar and shattered strength along The tide that yields reluctant to the strong; The incessant fever of that arid thirst[365] Which welcomes, as a well, the clouds that burst 190 Above their naked bones, and feels delight In the cold drenching of the stormy night, And from the outspread canvass gladly wrings A drop to moisten Life's all-gasping springs; The savage foe escaped, to seek again More hospitable shelter from the main; The ghastly Spectres which were doomed at last To tell as true a tale of dangers past, As ever the dark annals of the deep Disclosed for man to dread or woman weep. 200

X.

We leave them to their fate, but not unknown Nor unredressed. Revenge may have her own:[fd] Roused Discipline aloud proclaims their cause, And injured Navies urge their broken laws. Pursue we on his track the mutineer, Whom distant vengeance had not taught to fear. Wide o'er the wave—away! away! away! Once more his eyes shall hail the welcome bay; Once more the happy shores without a law Receive the outlaws whom they lately saw; 210 Nature, and Nature's goddess—Woman—woos To lands where, save their conscience, none accuse; Where all partake the earth without dispute,[fe] And bread itself is gathered as a fruit;[366] Where none contest the fields, the woods, the streams:— The goldless Age, where Gold disturbs no dreams, Inhabits or inhabited the shore, Till Europe taught them better than before; Bestowed her customs, and amended theirs, But left her vices also to their heirs.[367] 220 Away with this! behold them as they were, Do good with Nature, or with Nature err. "Huzza! for Otaheite!" was the cry, As stately swept the gallant vessel by. The breeze springs up; the lately flapping sail Extends its arch before the growing gale; In swifter ripples stream aside the seas, Which her bold bow flings off with dashing ease. Thus Argo ploughed the Euxine's virgin foam,[ff] But those she wafted still looked back to home; 230 These spurn their country with their rebel bark, And fly her as the raven fled the Ark; And yet they seek to nestle with the dove, And tame their fiery spirits down to Love.

End of Canto 1^st^, J^n 14.



CANTO THE SECOND.

I.

How pleasant were the songs of Toobonai,[368] When Summer's Sun went down the coral bay! Come, let us to the islet's softest shade, And hear the warbling birds! the damsels said: The wood-dove from the forest depth shall coo, Like voices of the Gods from Bolotoo;[369] We'll cull the flowers that grow above the dead, For these most bloom where rests the warrior's head; And we will sit in Twilight's face, and see The sweet Moon glancing through the Tooa[370] tree, 10 The lofty accents of whose sighing bough Shall sadly please us as we lean below; Or climb the steep, and view the surf in vain Wrestle with rocky giants o'er the main, Which spurn in columns back the baffled spray. How beautiful are these! how happy they, Who, from the toil and tumult of their lives, Steal to look down where nought but Ocean strives! Even He too loves at times the blue lagoon, And smooths his ruffled mane beneath the Moon. 20

II.

Yes—from the sepulchre we'll gather flowers, Then feast like spirits in their promised bowers, Then plunge and revel in the rolling surf, Then lay our limbs along the tender turf, And, wet and shining from the sportive toil, Anoint our bodies with the fragrant oil, And plait our garlands gathered from the grave, And wear the wreaths that sprung from out the brave. But lo! night comes, the Mooa[371] woos us back, The sound of mats[372] are heard along our track; 30 Anon the torchlight dance shall fling its sheen In flashing mazes o'er the Marly's[373] green; And we too will be there; we too recall The memory bright with many a festival, Ere Fiji blew the shell of war, when foes For the first time were wafted in canoes.[fg] Alas! for them the flower of manhood bleeds; Alas! for them our fields are rank with weeds: Forgotten is the rapture, or unknown,[fh] Of wandering with the Moon and Love alone. 40 But be it so:—they taught us how to wield The club, and rain our arrows o'er the field: Now let them reap the harvest of their art! But feast to-night! to-morrow we depart. Strike up the dance! the Cava bowl[374] fill high! Drain every drop!—to-morrow we may die. In summer garments be our limbs arrayed; Around our waists the Tappa's white displayed; Thick wreaths shall form our coronal,[375] like Spring's, And round our necks shall glance the Hooni strings; 50 So shall their brighter hues contrast the glow Of the dusk bosoms that beat high below.

III.

But now the dance is o'er—yet stay awhile; Ah, pause! nor yet put out the social smile. To-morrow for the Mooa we depart, But not to-night—to-night is for the heart. Again bestow the wreaths we gently woo, Ye young Enchantresses of gay Licoo![376] How lovely are your forms! how every sense Bows to your beauties, softened, but intense,[fi] 60 Like to the flowers on Mataloco's steep, Which fling their fragrance far athwart the deep!— We too will see Licoo; but—oh! my heart!— What do I say?—to-morrow we depart!

IV.

Thus rose a song—the harmony of times Before the winds blew Europe o'er these climes. True, they had vices—such are Nature's growth— But only the barbarian's—we have both; The sordor of civilisation, mixed With all the savage which Man's fall hath fixed. 70 Who hath not seen Dissimulation's reign, The prayers of Abel linked to deeds of Cain? Who such would see may from his lattice view The Old World more degraded than the New,— Now new no more, save where Columbia rears Twin giants, born by Freedom to her spheres, Where Chimborazo, over air,—earth,—wave,— Glares with his Titan eye, and sees no slave.[fj][377]

V.

Such was this ditty of Tradition's days, Which to the dead a lingering fame conveys 80 In song, where Fame as yet hath left no sign Beyond the sound whose charm is half divine; Which leaves no record to the sceptic eye, But yields young History all to Harmony; A boy Achilles, with the Centaur's lyre In hand, to teach him to surpass his sire. For one long-cherished ballad's[378] simple stave, Rung from the rock, or mingled with the wave, Or from the bubbling streamlet's grassy side, Or gathering mountain echoes as they glide, 90 Hath greater power o'er each true heart and ear, Than all the columns Conquest's minions rear;[fk] Invites, when Hieroglyphics[379] are a theme For sages' labours, or the student's dream; Attracts, when History's volumes are a toil,— The first, the freshest bud of Feeling's soil. Such was this rude rhyme—rhyme is of the rude— But such inspired the Norseman's solitude, Who came and conquered; such, wherever rise Lands which no foes destroy or civilise, 100 Exist: and what can our accomplished art Of verse do more than reach the awakened heart?[380]

VI.

And sweetly now those untaught melodies Broke the luxurious silence of the skies, The sweet siesta of a summer day, The tropic afternoon of Toobonai, When every flower was bloom, and air was balm, And the first breath began to stir the palm, The first yet voiceless wind to urge the wave All gently to refresh the thirsty cave, 110 Where sat the Songstress with the stranger boy, Who taught her Passion's desolating joy, Too powerful over every heart, but most O'er those who know not how it may be lost; O'er those who, burning in the new-born fire, Like martyrs revel in their funeral pyre, With such devotion to their ecstacy, That Life knows no such rapture as to die: And die they do; for earthly life has nought Matched with that burst of Nature, even in thought; 120 And all our dreams of better life above But close in one eternal gush of Love.

VII.

There sat the gentle savage of the wild, In growth a woman, though in years a child, As childhood dates within our colder clime, Where nought is ripened rapidly save crime; The infant of an infant world, as pure From Nature—lovely, warm, and premature; Dusky like night, but night with all her stars; Or cavern sparkling with its native spars; 130 With eyes that were a language and a spell, A form like Aphrodite's in her shell, With all her loves around her on the deep, Voluptuous as the first approach of sleep; Yet full of life—for through her tropic cheek The blush would make its way, and all but speak; The sun-born blood suffused her neck, and threw O'er her clear nut-brown skin a lucid hue, Like coral reddening through the darkened wave, Which draws the diver to the crimson cave. 140 Such was this daughter of the southern seas, Herself a billow in her energies,[fl] To bear the bark of others' happiness, Nor feel a sorrow till their joy grew less: Her wild and warm yet faithful bosom knew No joy like what it gave; her hopes ne'er drew Aught from Experience, that chill touchstone, whose Sad proof reduces all things from their hues: She feared no ill, because she knew it not, Or what she knew was soon—too soon—forgot: 150 Her smiles and tears had passed, as light winds pass O'er lakes to ruffle, not destroy, their glass, Whose depths unsearched, and fountains from the hill, Restore their surface, in itself so still, Until the Earthquake tear the Naiad's cave, Root up the spring, and trample on the wave, And crush the living waters to a mass, The amphibious desert of the dank morass! And must their fate be hers? The eternal change But grasps Humanity with quicker range; 160 And they who fall but fall as worlds will fall, To rise, if just, a Spirit o'er them all.

VIII.

And who is he? the blue-eyed northern child[381] Of isles more known to man, but scarce less wild; The fair-haired offspring of the Hebrides, Where roars the Pentland with its whirling seas; Rocked in his cradle by the roaring wind, The tempest-born in body and in mind, His young eyes opening on the ocean-foam, Had from that moment deemed the deep his home, 170 The giant comrade of his pensive moods, The sharer of his craggy solitudes, The only Mentor of his youth, where'er His bark was borne; the sport of wave and air; A careless thing, who placed his choice in chance, Nursed by the legends of his land's romance; Eager to hope, but not less firm to bear, Acquainted with all feelings save despair. Placed in the Arab's clime he would have been As bold a rover as the sands have seen, 180 And braved their thirst with as enduring lip As Ishmael, wafted on his Desert-Ship;[382] Fixed upon Chili's shore, a proud cacique: On Hellas' mountains, a rebellious Greek;[383] Born in a tent, perhaps a Tamerlane; Bred to a throne, perhaps unfit to reign. For the same soul that rends its path to sway, If reared to such, can find no further prey Beyond itself, and must retrace its way,[384] Plunging for pleasure into pain: the same 190 Spirit which made a Nero, Rome's worst shame, A humbler state and discipline of heart, Had formed his glorious namesake's counterpart;[385] But grant his vices, grant them all his own, How small their theatre without a throne!

IX.

Thou smilest:—these comparisons seem high To those who scan all things with dazzled eye; Linked with the unknown name of one whose doom Has nought to do with glory or with Rome, With Chili, Hellas, or with Araby;— 200 Thou smilest?—Smile; 'tis better thus than sigh; Yet such he might have been; he was a man, A soaring spirit, ever in the van, A patriot hero or despotic chief,[fm] To form a nation's glory or its grief, Born under auspices which make us more Or less than we delight to ponder o'er. But these are visions; say, what was he here? A blooming boy, a truant mutineer. The fair-haired Torquil, free as Ocean's spray, 210 The husband of the bride of Toobonai.

X.

By Neuha's side he sate, and watched the waters,— Neuha, the sun-flower of the island daughters, Highborn, (a birth at which the herald smiles, Without a scutcheon for these secret isles,) Of a long race, the valiant and the free, The naked knights of savage chivalry, Whose grassy cairns ascend along the shore; And thine—I've seen—Achilles! do no more.[386] She, when the thunder-bearing strangers came, 220 In vast canoes, begirt with bolts of flame, Topped with tall trees, which, loftier than the palm, Seemed rooted in the deep amidst its calm: But when the winds awakened, shot forth wings Broad as the cloud along the horizon flings, And swayed the waves, like cities of the sea, Making the very billows look less free;— She, with her paddling oar and dancing prow, Shot through the surf, like reindeer through the snow, Swift-gliding o'er the breaker's whitening edge, 230 Light as a Nereid in her ocean sledge, And gazed and wondered at the giant hulk, Which heaved from wave to wave its trampling bulk. The anchor dropped; it lay along the deep, Like a huge lion in the sun asleep, While round it swarmed the Proas' flitting chain, Like summer bees that hum around his mane.

XI.

The white man landed!—need the rest be told? The New World stretched its dusk hand to the Old; Each was to each a marvel, and the tie 240 Of wonder warmed to better sympathy. Kind was the welcome of the sun-born sires, And kinder still their daughters' gentler fires. Their union grew: the children of the storm Found beauty linked with many a dusky form; While these in turn admired the paler glow, Which seemed so white in climes that knew no snow. The chace, the race, the liberty to roam, The soil where every cottage showed a home; The sea-spread net, the lightly launched canoe, 250 Which stemmed the studded archipelago, O'er whose blue bosom rose the starry isles; The healthy slumber, earned by sportive toils; The palm, the loftiest Dryad of the woods, Within whose bosom infant Bacchus broods, While eagles scarce build higher than the crest Which shadows o'er the vineyard in her breast; The Cava feast, the Yam, the Cocoa's root, Which bears at once the cup, and milk, and fruit; The Bread-tree, which, without the ploughshare, yields 260 The unreaped harvest of unfurrowed fields, And bakes its unadulterated loaves Without a furnace in unpurchased groves, And flings off famine from its fertile breast, A priceless market for the gathering guest;— These, with the luxuries of seas and woods, The airy joys of social solitudes, Tamed each rude wanderer to the sympathies Of those who were more happy, if less wise, Did more than Europe's discipline had done, 270 And civilised Civilisation's son!

XII.

Of these, and there was many a willing pair, Neuha[387] and Torquil were not the least fair: Both children of the isles, though distant far; Both born beneath a sea-presiding star; Both nourished amidst Nature's native scenes, Loved to the last, whatever intervenes Between us and our Childhood's sympathy, Which still reverts to what first caught the eye. He who first met the Highlands' swelling blue 280 Will love each peak that shows a kindred hue, Hail in each crag a friend's familiar face, And clasp the mountain in his Mind's embrace. Long have I roamed through lands which are not mine, Adored the Alp, and loved the Apennine, Revered Parnassus, and beheld the steep Jove's Ida and Olympus crown the deep: But 'twas not all long ages' lore, nor all Their nature held me in their thrilling thrall; The infant rapture still survived the boy, 290 And Loch-na-gar with Ida looked o'er Troy,[388] Mixed Celtic memories with the Phrygian mount, And Highland linns with Castalie's clear fount. Forgive me, Homer's universal shade! Forgive me, Ph[oe]bus! that my fancy strayed; The North and Nature taught me to adore Your scenes sublime, from those beloved before.

XIII.

The love which maketh all things fond and fair, The youth which makes one rainbow of the air, The dangers past, that make even Man enjoy 300 The pause in which he ceases to destroy, The mutual beauty, which the sternest feel Strike to their hearts like lightning to the steel, United the half savage and the whole, The maid and boy, in one absorbing soul. No more the thundering memory of the fight Wrapped his weaned bosom in its dark delight; No more the irksome restlessness of Rest Disturbed him like the eagle in her nest, Whose whetted beak[389] and far-pervading eye 310 Darts for a victim over all the sky: His heart was tamed to that voluptuous state, At once Elysian and effeminate, Which leaves no laurels o'er the Hero's urn;— These wither when for aught save blood they burn; Yet when their ashes in their nook are laid, Doth not the myrtle leave as sweet a shade? Had Caesar known but Cleopatra's kiss, Rome had been free, the world had not been his. And what have Caesar's deeds and Caesar's fame 320 Done for the earth? We feel them in our shame. The gory sanction of his Glory stains The rust which tyrants cherish on our chains. Though Glory—Nature—Reason—Freedom, bid Roused millions do what single Brutus did— Sweep these mere mock-birds of the Despot's song From the tall bough where they have perched so long,— Still are we hawked at by such mousing owls,[390] And take for falcons those ignoble fowls, When but a word of freedom would dispel 330 These bugbears, as their terrors show too well.

XIV.

Rapt in the fond forgetfulness of life, Neuha, the South Sea girl, was all a wife, With no distracting world to call her off From Love; with no Society to scoff At the new transient flame; no babbling crowd Of coxcombry in admiration loud, Or with adulterous whisper to alloy Her duty, and her glory, and her joy: With faith and feelings naked as her form, 340 She stood as stands a rainbow in a storm, Changing its hues with bright variety, But still expanding lovelier o'er the sky, Howe'er its arch may swell, its colours move, The cloud-compelling harbinger of Love.

XV.

Here, in this grotto of the wave-worn shore, They passed the Tropic's red meridian o'er; Nor long the hours—they never paused o'er time, Unbroken by the clock's funereal chime,[391] Which deals the daily pittance of our span, 350 And points and mocks with iron laugh at man.[fn] What deemed they of the future or the past? The present, like a tyrant, held them fast: Their hour-glass was the sea-sand, and the tide, Like her smooth billow, saw their moments glide Their clock the Sun, in his unbounded tower They reckoned not, whose day was but an hour; The nightingale, their only vesper-bell, Sung sweetly to the rose the day's farewell;[392] The broad Sun set, but not with lingering sweep, 360 As in the North he mellows o'er the deep; But fiery, full, and fierce, as if he left The World for ever, earth of light bereft, Plunged with red forehead down along the wave, As dives a hero headlong to his grave. Then rose they, looking first along the skies, And then for light into each other's eyes, Wondering that Summer showed so brief a sun, And asking if indeed the day were done.

XVI.

And let not this seem strange: the devotee 370 Lives not in earth, but in his ecstasy; Around him days and worlds are heedless driven, His Soul is gone before his dust to Heaven. Is Love less potent? No—his path is trod, Alike uplifted gloriously to God; Or linked to all we know of Heaven below, The other better self, whose joy or woe Is more than ours; the all-absorbing flame Which, kindled by another, grows the same,[fo] Wrapt in one blaze; the pure, yet funeral pile, 380 Where gentle hearts, like Bramins, sit and smile. How often we forget all time, when lone, Admiring Nature's universal throne, Her woods—her wilds—her waters—the intense Reply of hers to our intelligence! Live not the Stars and Mountains? Are the Waves Without a spirit? Are the dropping caves Without a feeling in their silent tears?[393] No, no;—they woo and clasp us to their spheres, Dissolve this clog and clod of clay before 390 Its hour, and merge our soul in the great shore. Strip off this fond and false identity!— Who thinks of self when gazing on the sky? And who, though gazing lower, ever thought, In the young moments ere the heart is taught Time's lesson, of Man's baseness or his own? All Nature is his realm, and Love his throne.

XVII.

Neuha arose, and Torquil: Twilight's hour Came sad and softly to their rocky bower, Which, kindling by degrees its dewy spars, 400 Echoed their dim light to the mustering stars. Slowly the pair, partaking Nature's calm, Sought out their cottage, built beneath the palm; Now smiling and now silent, as the scene; Lovely as Love—the Spirit!—when serene. The Ocean scarce spoke louder with his swell, Than breathes his mimic murmurer in the shell,[394] As, far divided from his parent deep, The sea-born infant cries, and will not sleep, Raising his little plaint in vain, to rave 410 For the broad bosom of his nursing wave: The woods drooped darkly, as inclined to rest, The tropic bird wheeled rockward to his nest, And the blue sky spread round them like a lake Of peace, where Piety her thirst might slake.

XVIII.

But through the palm and plantain, hark, a Voice! Not such as would have been a lover's choice, In such an hour, to break the air so still; No dying night-breeze, harping o'er the hill, Striking the strings of nature, rock and tree, 420 Those best and earliest lyres of Harmony, With Echo for their chorus; nor the alarm Of the loud war-whoop to dispel the charm; Nor the soliloquy of the hermit owl, Exhaling all his solitary soul, The dim though large-eyed winged anchorite, Who peals his dreary Paean o'er the night; But a loud, long, and naval whistle, shrill As ever started through a sea-bird's bill; And then a pause, and then a hoarse "Hillo! 430 Torquil, my boy! what cheer? Ho! brother, ho!" "Who hails?" cried Torquil, following with his eye The sound. "Here's one," was all the brief reply.



XIX.

But here the herald of the self-same mouth[395] Came breathing o'er the aromatic south, Not like a "bed of violets" on the gale, But such as wafts its cloud o'er grog or ale, Borne from a short frail pipe, which yet had blown Its gentle odours over either zone, And, puffed where'er winds rise or waters roll, 440 Had wafted smoke from Portsmouth to the Pole, Opposed its vapour as the lightning flashed, And reeked, 'midst mountain-billows, unabashed, To AEolus a constant sacrifice, Through every change of all the varying skies. And what was he who bore it?—I may err, But deem him sailor or philosopher.[396] Sublime Tobacco! which from East to West Cheers the tar's labour or the Turkman's rest; Which on the Moslem's ottoman divides 450 His hours, and rivals opium and his brides; Magnificent in Stamboul, but less grand, Though not less loved, in Wapping or the Strand; Divine in hookas, glorious in a pipe, When tipped with amber, mellow, rich, and ripe: Like other charmers, wooing the caress, More dazzlingly when daring in full dress; Yet thy true lovers more admire by far[fp] Thy naked beauties—Give me a cigar![397]



XX.

Through the approaching darkness of the wood 460 A human figure broke the solitude, Fantastically, it may be, arrayed, A seaman in a savage masquerade; Such as appears to rise out from the deep, When o'er the line the merry vessels sweep, And the rough Saturnalia of the tar Flock o'er the deck, in Neptune's borrowed car;[398] And, pleased, the God of Ocean sees his name Revive once more, though but in mimic game Of his true sons, who riot in the breeze 470 Undreamt of in his native Cyclades. Still the old God delights, from out the main, To snatch some glimpses of his ancient reign. Our sailor's jacket, though in ragged trim, His constant pipe, which never yet burned dim, His foremast air, and somewhat rolling gait, Like his dear vessel, spoke his former state; But then a sort of kerchief round his head, Not over tightly bound, nor nicely spread; And, 'stead of trowsers (ah! too early torn! 480 For even the mildest woods will have their thorn) A curious sort of somewhat scanty mat Now served for inexpressibles and hat; His naked feet and neck, and sunburnt face, Perchance might suit alike with either race. His arms were all his own, our Europe's growth, Which two worlds bless for civilising both; The musket swung behind his shoulders broad, And somewhat stooped by his marine abode, But brawny as the boar's; and hung beneath, 490 His cutlass drooped, unconscious of a sheath, Or lost or worn away; his pistols were Linked to his belt, a matrimonial pair— (Let not this metaphor appear a scoff, Though one missed fire, the other would go off); These, with a bayonet, not so free from rust As when the arm-chest held its brighter trust, Completed his accoutrements, as Night Surveyed him in his garb heteroclite.