And on thy happy shore a temple still, Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps p. 35, 36. This gentle scene is again suddenly disturbed by a description of the Cataract of Velino, which absolutely thunders in our ears like a reality. The passion with which the whole description is imbued, is peculiarly characteristic of Byron. The roar of waters!-from the headlong height Is an eternal April to the ground, Making it all one emerald:-how profound From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound, Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly, With many windings, through the vale:-Look back! As if to sweep down all things in its track, Charming the eye with dread,-a matchless cataract, Horribly beautiful! but on the verge, From side to side, beneath the glittering morn, Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn: Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene, Love watching Madness with unalterable mien. p. 37–39. There immediately follows this a passage, which produces a powerful effect on our imagination, as it would seem almost entirely by the mere enumeration of the names of famous mountains. We feel as if we, as well as the poet, had been eyewitnesses of all the sublimity. Once more upon the woody Apennine, The infant Alps, which-had I not before Gazed on their mightier parents, where the pine He These hills seem things of lesser dignity,' &c. p. 39, 40. But the Pilgrim now approaches-and enters that place whither all his visions were tending, and which surpasses in grandeur all that even his eyes had before witnessed on earth. has not disappointed us in his poetical commemoration of the Eternal City. Souls the most untouched with that inspiration of which he has drunk so deeply, cannot gaze upon that most affecting of all earthly scenes, without being wrapt for a season into something of that high ecstasy which is the privileged element of genius,-without catching a Roman grandeur in the midst of the crumbled palaces of Rome. The Seven Hills themselves have mouldered into one mass of ruin. The concussions of war, time, and barbarism, have levelled the old land-marks with which we are familiar in the pages of Livy, Tacitus and Virgil,-they have bereaved not only the Palatine of its splendour, but the Tarpeian of its height. We descend, not ascend, to the Pantheon; and in a few damp, dreary, and subterranean dungeons, we survey the only relics of the gigantic palace of the Caesars, the Domus Aurea,' the wonder of the world. In the midst of this chaos and this desert-throned on the pathless labyrinth of her ruin, sits the Genius of the place-a personification which is not dreamlike or imaginary, but which rivets and rules the soul of the most prosaic observer,—the ma jestic image or memory of the fallen city. Here indeed the sombre spirit of Harold must have found a fitting resting-place. Here, indeed, there was no occasion for the exercise of that fearful power, with which it has been his delight to throw a veil over gladness, and make us despise ourselves for being happy even under the fairest influences of the bloom of Nature. The darkest soul might here revel in images of grief, without fearing any want of sympathy for its terrible creations. But Byron has wisely forborne to carry the impression further than was necessary; or rather, with the genuine submission and reverence natural to a truly great mind, he disdains to be other than passive on such an arena; and taking, as it were, the troubled fingers of his Pilgrim from the lyre, he sets up the trembling strings to answer, only as it may be spoken to them by the mournful breezes of the surrounding desolation. Oh Rome! my country! city of the soul! Come and see A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. The Niobe of nations! there she stands, Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow, Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress! The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire, She saw her glories star by star expire, : Temple and tower went down, nor left a site :- And "here was, or is," where all is doubly night? Night's daughter, Ignorance, hath wrapt and wrap. And Knowledge spreads them on her ample lap; The trebly hundred triumphs! and the day Alas, for Earth, for never shall we see That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome was free! With all thy vices, for thou didst lay down By aught than Romans Rome should thus be laid? Her warriors but to conquer--she who veil'd Her rushing wings-Oh! she who was Almighty hail'd! p. 42-45. Here his mind reverts, in its passion, to the great ruling spirits of his own country or age, in whom he discerns a dark and shadowy resemblance to the Syllas and Cæsars of Rome; and, passing from Cromwell to Napoleon, he glances at the French Revolution, and fills several confused and turbid stanzas with political retrospects and prophecies. From these lucubrations, however, we confess we are not unwillingly brought back to the scene before him, by a very beautiful passage, which ends, like so many others, with the powerful expression of his own gloom and misanthropy. This strain, however, is soon discontinued. Among the ruins of Rome there is no stedfast resting-place for the indulgence of individual sorrow; and the pilgrim, rising into a loftier mood, thus blends his spirit with the glorious decay. Then let the winds howl on! their harmony With their large eyes, all glistening grey and bright, What are our petty griefs?--let me not number mine. On what were chambers, arch crush'd, column strown 'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past, Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask-Away with words! draw near, Admire, exuit-despise-laugh, weep,-for here There is such matter for all feeling :-Man! Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear, Ages and realms are crowded in this span, Of Glory's gewgaws shining in the van Till the sun's rays with added flame were fill'd! Where are its golden roofs ? where those who dared to build? Tully was not so eloquent as thou, Thou nameless column with the buried base! To crush the imperial urn, whose ashes slept sublime, |