Yes! sigh'd o'er Delphi's long-deserted shrine, Where, save that feeble fountain, all is still; Nor mote? my shell awake the weary Nine2 may To grace so plain a tale?this lowly lay? of mine. song 2 Whilome3 in Albion's' isle there dwelt a youth, England's Who ne in virtue's ways did take delight; But spent his days in riot most uncouth, And vex'd with mirth the drowsy ear of Night. Ah, me! in sooth he was a shameless wight,0 creature Sore given to revel and ungodly glee; Few earthly things found favour in his sight Save concubines and carnal companie, And flaunting wassailers4 of high and low degree. 3 Childe Harold was he hight:??but whence his name called And lineage long, it suits me not to say; Suffice it, that perchance they were of fame, And had been glorious in another day: But one sad losel5 soils a name for aye, However mighty in the olden time; Nor all that heralds rake from coffin'd clay, Nor florid prose, nor honied lies of rhyme Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime. 4 Childe Harold bask'd him in the noon-tide sun, Disporting there like any other fly; Nor deem'd before his little day was done One blast might chill him into misery. But long ere scarce a third of his pass'd by, Worse than adversity the Childe befell; He felt the fulness of satiety: Then loath'd he in his native land to dwell, Which seem'd to him more lone than Eremite's6 sad cell. 5 For he through Sin's long labyrinth had run, Nor made atonement when he did amiss, Had sigh'd to many though he lov'd but one, And that lov'd one, alas! could ne'er be his. Ah, happy she! to 'scape from him whose kiss Had been pollution unto aught so chaste; Who soon had left her charms for vulgar bliss, And spoil'd her goodly lands to gild his waste, Nor calm domestic peace had ever deign'd to taste.
2. The Muses, whose 'vaunted rill' (line 5) was 4. Noisy, insolent drinkers (Byron is thought to the Castalian spring. 'Shell': lyre. Hermes isfahled refer to his own youthful carousing with friends at to have invented the lyre by stretching strings over Newstead Abbey).
the hollow of a tortoise shell. 5. Rascal. Byron's great-uncle, the fifth Lord
3. Once upon a time; one of the many archaisms Byron, had killed a kinsman in a drunken duel. that Byron borrowed from Spenser. 6. A religious hermit.
.
CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE, CANTO 3 / 61 9
6
And now Childe Harold was sore sick at heart,
And from his fellow bacchanals would flee;
'Tis said, at times the sullen tear would start,
But Pride congeal'd the drop within his ee:? eye
so Apart he stalk'd in joyless reverie,
And from his native land resolv'd to go,
And visit scorching climes beyond the sea;
With pleasure drugg'd he almost long'd for woe,
And e'en for change of scene would seek the shades below.
From Canto 3
['ONCE MORE UPON THE WATERS']
1
Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child!
Ada!' sole daughter of my house and heart?
When last I saw thy young blue eyes they smiled,
And then we parted,?not as now we part,
But with a hope.?
5 Awaking with a start,
The waters heave around me; and on high
The winds lift up their voices: I depart,
Whither I know not; but the hour's gone by,
When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye.
2
io Once more upon the waters! yet once more!
And the waves bound beneath me as a steed
That knows his rider. Welcome, to their roar!
Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead!
Though the strain'd mast should quiver as a reed, 15 And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale, Still must I on; for I am as a weed, Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam, to sail
Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail.
3 In my youth's summer2 I did sing of One, 20 The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind; Again I seize the theme then but begun, And bear it with me, as the rushing wind Bears the cloud onwards: in that Tale I find The furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears, 25 Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track behind, O'er which all heavily the journeying years Plod the last sands of life,?where not a flower appears.
1. Byron's daughter Augusta Ada, born in Decem-tion, but he was never to see Ada again. ber 1815, a month before her parents separated. 2. Byron wrote canto 1 at age twenty-one; he is
