Ave Maria! 'tis the hour of love!
915 Ave Maria! may our spirits dare
Look up to thine and to thy Son's above!
Ave Maria! oh that face so fair!
Those downcast eyes beneath the Almighty dove?
What though 'tis but a pictured image strike?7
920 That painting is no idol, 'tis too like.
104
Some kinder casuists0 are pleased to say, moralists
In nameless print?that I have no devotion;
But set those persons down with me to pray,
And you shall see who has the properest notion
925 Of getting into Heaven the shortest way;
My altars are the mountains and the ocean,
Earth, air, stars,?all that springs from the great Whole,
Who hath produced, and will receive the soul.
* ? *
From Canto 4
[jUAN AND HAIDEE]
3
As boy, I thought myself a clever fellow,
And wish'd that others held the same opinion;
6. Hail, Mary (Latin); the opening words of a prayer is part of the service at these times. Roman Catholic prayer. Ave Maria is sometimes 7. I.e., 'those downcast eyes' seize the attention.
used to refer to evening (or morning), because the
.
726 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON
They took it up when my days grew more mellow,
20
And other minds acknowledged my dominion:
Now my sere fancy 'falls into the yellow Leaf,'1 and imagination droops her pinion,0 wing
And the sad truth which hovers o'er my desk
Turns what was once romantic to burlesque. 4
25 And if I laugh at any mortal thing,
'Tis that I may not weep; and if I weep,
'Tis that our nature cannot always bring
Itself to apathy, for we must steep
Our hearts first in the depths of Lethe's2 spring
30 Ere what we least wish to behold will sleep:
Thetis baptized her mortal son in Styx;3
A mortal mother would on Lethe fix. 5
Some have accused me of a strange design
Against the creed and morals of the land,
35 And trace it in this poem every line:
I don't pretend that I quite understand
My own meaning when I would be very fine,
But the fact is that I have nothing plann'd,
Unless it were to be a moment merry,
40 A novel word in my vocabulary.
6
