200 BYRON’S

XXI

The moon is up: by Heaven a lovely eveLong streams of light o’er dancing waves ex-pand ;

Now lads on shore may sigh, and maids believe;Such be our fate when we return to land!Meantime some rude Arion’s restless handWakes the brisk harmony that sailors love;

A circle there of merry listeners stand,

Or to some well-known measure featly move,Thoughtless, as if on shore they still were free torove.

XXII..

Through Calpe’s straits survey the steepy shoreEurope and Afric on each other gaze 1Lands of the dark-eyed Maid and dusky MoorAlike beheld beneath pale Hecate's blaze:

How softly on the Spanish shore she plays,Disclosing rock, aud slope, and forest brown.Distinct, though darkening with her waningphase;

But Mauritania ’s giant-shadows frown,

From mountain-cliff to coast descending sombredown.

XXIII-

'Tis nigh\ when Meditation bids us feelWe once have loved, though love is at an end:The heart, lone mourner of its baffled zeal,Though friendless now, will dream it had a friend.Who with the weight of years would wish to bend,When Youth itself survives young Love and joy ?Alas! when mingling souIb forget to blend,

Death hath but little left him to destroy!

Ah! happy years! once more who would not bo aboy ?

XXIV.

Thus bending o’er the vessel’s laving side,

To gaze on Iran 's wave-reflected sphere,

The soul forgets her schemes of Hope and Pride,And flies unconscious o’er each backward year.None are so desolate but something dear,

Dearer than self, possesses or possess'dA thought, and claims the homage of a tear;

A flashing pang! of which the weary breastWould still, albeit in vain, the heavy heart divest

xxv.

To sit on rocks, to muse o’er flood and fell,

To slowly trace the forest’s shady scene.

Where things that own not man’s dominiondwell,

And mortal foot hath ne’er or rarely been;

To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,

With the wild flock that never needs a fold;Alone o’er steeps and foaming falls to lean;

This is not solitude; ’tis but to holdConverse with Nature's charms, and view herstores unroll’d.

XXVI.

But ’midst the crowd, the hum, the shock ofmen,

To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,

And roam along, the world's tired denizen,

With none who bless us, none whom wo canbless;

WORKS.

Minions of splendour shrinking from distress!None that, with kindred consciousness endued,

If we were not, would seem to smile the lessOf all that flatter’d, follow’d, sought, and sued;This is to be alone; this, this is Bolitude l

XXYII.

More blest the life of godly Eremite,

Such as on lonely Athos may be seen,

Watching at eve upon the giant height,

Which, looks o’er waves so blue, skies so serene,That he who there at such an hour hath beenWill wistful linger on that hallow’d spot;

Then slowly tear him from the ’witching scene;Sigh forth one wish that such had been his lot,Then turn to hate a world he had almost forgot.

xxvrir.

Pass we the long, unvarying coarse, the trackOft trod, that never leaves a trace behind;

Pass we the calm, the gale, the change, the tack.And each well-known caprice of wave and wind;Pass we the joys and sorrows sailors find.

Coop’d in their wingfed sea-girt citadel,

The foul, the fair, the contrary, the kind.

As breezes rise and fall and billows swell,

Till on some jocund morn—lo, land, and all is well*

XXIX.

But not in silence pass Calypso’s isles,*

The sister tenants of the middle deep;

There for the weary still a haven smiles,

Though the fair goddess long hath ceased toweep,

And o’er her cliffs a fruitless watch to keepFor him who dared prefer a mortal bride :

Here, too, his boy essay'd the dreadful leapStern Mentor urged from high to yonder tide:While thus of both bereft, the nymph-queen doublysigh’d.

XXX.

Her reign is past, her gentle glories rone:

But trust not this; too easy youth, beware!

A mortal sovereign holds her dangerous throne.And thou mayst find a new Calypso there.

Sweet Florence, could another ever sbaroThis wayward, loveless heart, it would be thine:But check’d by every tie, I may not dareTo cast a worthless offering at thy shrine,

Nor ask so dear a breast to feel one pang for min°’

XXXT.

ThuB Harold deem’d, as on that lady’s eyeHe look’d, and met its beam without a thought,Save admiration glancing harmless by:

Love kept aloof, albeit not far remote,

Who knew his votary often lost and caught,

But knew him as his worshipper no more,

And ne’er again the. boy his bosom sought:

Since now he vainly urged him to adore.

Well deem’d the little God his ancient swaiy wa 9o’er,

XXXII.

Fair Florence, found, in sooth with some amaz®»One who, ’twas said, still sigh’d to all he saw.Withstand, unmoved, the lustre of her gaze.Which others hail’d with real or mimic awe,

* Goza is said to have been the island of Calypso-