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(From Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage)
POOR, paltry slaves! yet born midst noblest scenes,— | |
| Why, Nature, waste thy wonders on such men? | |
| Lo! Cintra’s glorious Eden intervenes | |
| In variegated maze of mount and glen. | |
| Ah me! what hand can pencil guide, or pen, | 5 |
| To follow half on which the eye dilates | |
| Through views more dazzling unto mortal ken | |
| Than those whereof such things the bard relates, | |
| Who to the awestruck world unlocked Elysium’s gates? | |
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| The horrid crags, by toppling convent crowned, | 10 |
| The cork-trees hoar that clothe the shaggy steep, | |
| The mountain moss by scorching skies imbrowned, | |
| The sunken glen, whose sunless shrubs must weep, | |
| The tender azure of the unruffled deep, | |
| The orange tints that gild the greenest bough, | 15 |
| The torrents that from cliff to valley leap, | |
| The vine on high, the willow branch below, | |
| Mixed in one mighty scene, with varied beauty glow. | |
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| Then slowly climb the many-winding way, | |
| And frequent turn to linger as you go, | 20 |
| From loftier rocks new loveliness survey, | |
| And rest ye at “Our Lady’s House of Woe”; | |
| Where frugal monks their little relics show, | |
| And sundry legends to the stranger tell: | |
| Here impious men have punished been; and lo, | 25 |
| Deep in yon cave Honorius long did dwell, | |
| In hope to merit heaven by making earth a hell. | |
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| And here and there, as up the crags you spring, | |
| Mark many rude-carved crosses near the path; | |
| Yet deem not these devotion’s offering,— | 30 |
| These are memorials frail of murderous wrath: | |
| For wheresoe’er the shrieking victim hath | |
| Poured forth his blood beneath the assassin’s knife, | |
| Some hand erects a cross of mouldering lath; | |
| And grove and glen with thousand such are rife | 35 |
| Throughout this purple land, where law secures not life! | |
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| On sloping mounds, or in the vale beneath, | |
| Are domes where whilome kings did make repair; | |
| But now the wild-flowers round them only breathe: | |
| Yet ruined splendor still is lingering there, | 40 |
| And yonder towers the Prince’s palace fair: | |
| There thou, too, Vathek! England’s wealthiest son, | |
| Once formed thy Paradise, as not aware, | |
| When wanton Wealth her mightiest deeds hath done, | |
| Meek Peace voluptuous lures was ever wont to shun. | 45 |
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| Here didst thou dwell, here schemes of pleasure plan, | |
| Beneath yon mountain’s ever beauteous brow; | |
| But now, as if a thing unblest by man, | |
| Thy fairy dwelling is as lone as thou! | |
| Here giant weeds a passage scarce allow | 50 |
| To halls deserted, portals gaping wide: | |
| Fresh lessons to the thinking bosom, how | |
| Vain are the pleasaunces on earth supplied; | |
| Swept into wrecks anon by Time’s ungentle tide. | |
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