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(From The Giaour)
NO breath of air to break the wave | |
| That rolls below the Athenian’s grave, | |
| That tomb which, gleaming o’er the cliff, | |
| First greets the homeward-veering skiff, | |
| High o’er the land he saved in vain; | 5 |
| When shall such hero live again? * * * * * | |
| Fair clime! where every season smiles | |
| Benignant o’er those blessed isles, | |
| Which, seen from far Colonna’s height, | |
| Make glad the heart that hails the sight, | 10 |
| And lend to loneliness delight. | |
| There, mildly dimpling, Ocean’s cheek | |
| Reflects the tints of many a peak | |
| Caught by the laughing tides that lave | |
| These Edens of the Eastern wave: | 15 |
| And if at times a transient breeze | |
| Break the blue crystal of the seas, | |
| Or sweep one blossom from the trees, | |
| How welcome is each gentle air | |
| That wakes and wafts the odors there! | 20 |
| For there—the rose o’er crag or vale, | |
| Sultana of the nightingale, | |
| The maid for whom his melody, | |
| His thousand songs are heard on high, | |
| Blooms blushing to her lover’s tale: | 25 |
| His queen, the garden queen, his rose, | |
| Unbent by winds, unchilled by snows, | |
| Far from the winters of the West, | |
| By every breeze and season blest, | |
| Returns the sweets by nature given | 30 |
| In softest incense back to heaven; | |
| And grateful yields that smiling sky | |
| Her fairest hue and fragrant sigh. | |
| And many a summer flower is there, | |
| And many a shade that love might share, | 35 |
| And many a grotto meant for rest, | |
| That holds the pirate for a guest; | |
| Whose bark in sheltering cove below | |
| Lurks for the passing peaceful prow, | |
| Till the gay mariner’s guitar | 40 |
| Is heard, and seen the evening star; | |
| Then stealing with the muffled oar, | |
| Far shaded by the rocky shore, | |
| Rush the night-prowlers on the prey, | |
| And turn to groans his roundelay. | 45 |
| Strange, that where Nature loved to trace, | |
| As if for gods, a dwelling-place, | |
| And every charm and grace hath mixed | |
| Within the paradise she fixed, | |
| There man, enamored of distress, | 50 |
| Should mar it into wilderness, | |
| And trample, brute-like, o’er each flower | |
| That tasks not one laborious hour; | |
| Nor claims the culture of his hand | |
| To bloom along the fairy land, | 55 |
| But springs as to preclude his care, | |
| And sweetly wooes him—but to spare. | |
| Strange, that where all is peace beside, | |
| There passion riots in her pride, | |
| And lust and rapine wildly reign | 60 |
| To darken o’er the fair domain. | |
| It is as though the fiends prevailed | |
| Against the seraphs they assailed, | |
| And, fixed on heavenly thrones, should dwell | |
| The freed inheritors of hell; | 65 |
| So soft the scene, so formed for joy, | |
| So curst the tyrants that destroy! | |
| He who hath bent him o’er the dead | |
| Ere the first day of death is fled, | |
| The first dark day of nothingness, | 70 |
| The last of danger and distress | |
| (Before Decay’s effacing fingers | |
| Have swept the lines where beauty lingers), | |
| And marked the mild, angelic air, | |
| The rapture of repose that ’s there, | 75 |
| The fixed yet tender traits that streak | |
| The languor of the placid cheek, | |
| And—but for that sad shrouded eye, | |
| That fires not, wins not, weeps not now, | |
| And but for that chill, changeless brow, | 80 |
| Where cold Obstruction’s apathy | |
| Appalls the gazing mourner’s heart, | |
| As if to him it could impart | |
| The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon; | |
| Yes, but for these and these alone, | 85 |
| Some moments, ay, one treacherous hour, | |
| He still might doubt the tyrant’s power; | |
| So fair, so calm, so softly sealed, | |
| The first, last look by death revealed! | |
| Such is the aspect of this shore; | 90 |
| ’T is Greece, but living Greece no more! | |
| So coldly sweet, so deadly fair, | |
| We start, for soul is wanting there. | |
| Hers is the loveliness in death, | |
| That parts not quite with parting breath; | 95 |
| But beauty with that fearful bloom, | |
| That hue which haunts it to the tomb, | |
| Expression’s last receding ray, | |
| A gilded halo hovering round decay, | |
| The farewell beam of Feeling passed away! | 100 |
| Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly birth, | |
| Which gleams, but warms no more its cherished earth! | |
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