The Works of Lord Byron

If thus ne perish'd, Heaven receive his soul!
His undiscover'd limbs to ocean roll;
And charity upon the hope would dwell
It was not Lara's hand by which he fell.
XXV.

And Kaled-Lara-Ezzein, are gone,
Alike without their monumental stone!
The first, all efforts vainly strove to wean
From lingering where her chieftain's blood had been;
Grief had so tamed a spirit once too proud,
Her tears were few, her wailing never loud;
But furious would you tear her from the spot
Where yet she scarce believed that he was not,
Her eye shot forth with all the living fire
That haunts the tigress in her whelpless ire:
But, left to waste her weary moments there,
She talk'd all idly unto shapes of air,
Such as the busy brain of sorrow paints,
And woos to listen to her fond complaints
And she would sit beneath the very tree
Where lay his drooping head upon her knee;
And in that posture where she saw him fall,
His words, his looks, his dying grasp recall;
And she had shorn, but saved her raven hair,
And oft would snatch it from her bosom there,
And fold, and press it gently to the ground,
As if she staunch'd anew some phantom's wound.
Herself would question, and for him reply;
Then rising, start, and beckon him to fly
From some imagined spectre in pursuit ;
Then seat her down upon some linden's root,
And hide her visage with her meagre hand,
Or trace strange characters along the sand-
This could not last-she lies by him she loved;
Her tale untold-her truth too dearly proved.

The duke then seated the person in the mask behinɑ him, and rode, I know not whither; but in that night he was assassinated, and thrown into the river. The servant, after having been dismissed, was also assaulted and mortally wounded; and although he was attended. with great care, yet such was his situation, that he could give no intelligible account of what had befallen his master. In the morning, the duke not having returned to the palace, his servants began to be alarmed; and one of them informed the pontiff of the evening excursion of his sons, and that the duke had not yet made his appearance. This gave the Pope no small anxiety; but he conjectured that the duke had been attracted by some courtesan to pass the night with her, and, not choosing to quit the house in open day, had waited till the following evening to return home. When, however, the evening arrived, and he found himself disappointed in his expectations, he became deeply afflicted, and began to make inquiries from different persons, whom he ordered to attend him for that purpose. Amongst these was a man named Giorgio Schiavoni, who, having discharged some timber from a bark in the river, had remained on board the vessel, to watch it, and being interrogated whether he had seen any one thrown into the river, on the night preceding, he replied, that he saw two men on foot, who came down the street, and looked diligently about, to observe whether any person was passing. That seeing no one, they returned, and a short time afterwards two others came, and looked around in the same manner as the former; no person still appearing, they gave a sign to their companions, when a man came, mounted on a white horse, having behind him a dead body, the head and arms of which hung on one side, and the feet on the other side of the horse; the two persons on foot supporting the body, to prevent its falling. They thus proceeded towards that part, where the filth of the city is usually discharged into the river, and, turning the horse with his tail towards the water, the two persons took the dead body by the arms and feet, and with all their strength flung it into the river. The person on horseback then asked if they had thrown The most interesting and particular account of this it in, to which they replied, Signor, si, (yes, Sir). He mysterious event, is given by Burchard; and is in sub- then looked towards the river, and seeing a mantle stance as follows: "On the eighth day of June, the floating on the stream, he inquired what it was that cardinal of Valenza, and the Duke of Gandia, sons of appeared black; to which they answered, it was a the Pope, supped with their mother, Vanozza, near the mantle; and one of them threw stones upon it, in church of S. Pietro ad vincula; several other persons consequence of which it sunk. The attendants of the being present at the entertainment. A late hour ap- pontiff then inquired from Giorgio, why he had not proaching, and the cardinal having reminded his brother, revealed this to the governor of the city; to which he that it was time to return to the apostolic palace, they replied, that he had seen in his time a hundred dead mounted their horses or mules, with only a few attend- bodies thrown into the river at the same place, without ants, and proceeded together as far as the palace of any inquiry being made respecting them, and that he cardinal Ascanio Sforza, when the duke informed the had not, therefore, considered it as a matter of any cardinal, that before he returned home, he had to pay importance. The fishermen and seamen were then a visit of pleasure. Dismissing, therefore, all his at-collected, and ordered to search the river; where, on tendants, excepting his staffiero, or footman, and a the following evening, they found the body of the person in a mask, who had paid him a visit whilst at duke, with his habit entire, and thirty ducats in his supper, and who, during the space of a month, or there- purse. He was pierced with nine wounds, one of abouts, previous to this time, had called upon him which was in his throat, the others in his head, body, almost daily, at the apostolic palace; he took this per- and limbs. No sooner was the pontiff informed of son behind him on his mule, and proceeded to the the death of his son, and that he had been throwII, street of the Jews, where he quitted his servant, direct-like filth, into the river, than, giving way to his grief, ing hun to remain there until a certain hour; when, he shut himself up in a chamber, and wept bitterly. ✔ he did not return, he might repair to the palace. The cardinal of Segovia, and other attendants on the

NOTE.

THE event in section 24, Canto II, was suggested by the description of the death, or rather burial, of the Duke of Gandia.

Pope went to the door, and after many hours spent in ensuing day. At length, however, giving way to the persuasions and exhortations, prevailed upon him to entreaties of his attendants, he began to restram his admit them. From the evening of Wednesday, till the sorrow, and to consider the injury which his own following Saturday, the Pope took no food; nor did he health might sustain, by the further indulgence of his sleep from Thursday morning till the same hour on the grief."-Roscoe's Leo Tenth, vol. i. page 265.

The Curse of Minerva.

A POEM.

-Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas

Immolat, et poenam scelerato ex sanguine sumit.

SLOW sinks, more lovely ere his race be run,
Along Morea's hills the setting sun;
Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light!

O'er the hush'd deep the yellow beam he throws,
Gilds the green wave, that trembles as it glows.
On old Ægina's rock, and Idra's isle,
The god of gladness sheds his parting smile;
O'er his own regions lingering loves to shine,
Though there his altars are no more divine.
Descending fast the mountain shadows kiss
Thy glorious gulf, unconquer'd Salamis!
Their azure arches through the long expanse,
More deeply purpled, met his mellowing glance,
And tenderest tints, along their summits driven,
Mark his gay course and own the hues of heaven;
Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep,
Behind his Delphian cliff he sinks to sleep.

On such an eve, his palest beam he cast,
When, Athens! here thy wisest look'd his last.
How watch'd thy better sons his farewell ray,
That closed their murder'd sage's latest day!!
Not yet-not yet-Sol pauses on the hill-
The precious hour of parting lingers still;
But sad his light to agonizing eyes,
And dark the mountain's once delightful dyes;
Gloom o'er the lovely land he seem'd to pour,
The land where Phœbus never frown'd before;
But ere he sunk below Citharon's head,
The cup of woe was quaff'd-the spirit fled;
The soil of him that scorn'd to fear or fly-
Who Lived and died as none can live or die!

But, lo! from high Hymettus to the plain,
l'he queen of night asserts her silent reign.2
No murky vapour, herald of the storm,
Hides her fair face, nor girds her glowing form;
With cornice glimmering as the moon-beams play,
There the white column greets her grateful ray,
And bright around, with quivering beams beset,
Her emblem sparkles o'er the minaret:
The groves of olive scatter'd dark ard wide
Where meek Cephisus sheds his scanty tide,
The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque,
The gleaming turret of the gay Kiosk,3
And, dụn and sombre 'mid the holy calm,
Near Theseus' fane yon solitary palm,
All tinged with varied hues, arrest the eye-
And dull were his that pass'd them heedless by.
U

Again the Ægean, heard no more afar,
Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war;
Again his waves in milder tints unfold
Their long array of sapphire and of gold,
Mix'd with the shades of many a distant isle,
That frown-where gentler ocean seems to smile.
As thus within the walls of Pallas' fane

I mark'd the beauties of the land and main,
Alone and friendless, on the magic shore
Whose arts and arms but live in poet's lore,
Oft as the matchless dome I turn'd to scan,
Sacred to gods, but not secure from man,
The past return'd, the present seem'd to cease,
And glory knew nò clime beyond her Greece.
Hours roll'd along, and Dian's orb on high
Had gain'd the centre of her softest sky,
And yet unwearied still my footsteps trod
O'er the vain shrine of many a vanish'd god ;
But chiefly, Pallas! thine, when Hecate's glare,
Check'd by thy columns, fell more sadly fair
O'er the chill marble, where the startling tread
Thrills the lone heart like echoes from the dead.
Long had I mused, and measured every trace
The wreck of Greece recorded of her race,
When, lo! a giant form before me strode,
And Pallas hail'd me in her own abode.
Yes, 't was Minerva's self, but, ah! how changed
Since o'er the Dardan field in arms she ranged'
Not such as erst, by her divine command,
Her form appear'd from Phidias' plastic hand;
Gone were the terrors of her awful brow,
Her idle Ægis bore no gorgon now;
Her helm was deep indented, and her lance
Seem'd weak and shaftless, e'en to mortal glance;
The olive branch, which still she deign'd to clasp,
Shrunk from her touch and wither'd in her grasp:
And, ah! though still the brightest of the sky,
Celestial tears bedimm'd her large blue eye;
Round the rent casque her owlet circled slow,
And mourn'd his mistress with a shriek of woe
"Mortal! ('twas thus she spake) that blush of shatë*
Proclaims thee Briton-once a noble name-
First of the mighty, foremost of the free,
Now honour'd less by all-and least by me:
Chief of thy foes shall Pallas still be found:-
Seek'st thou the cause? O mortal, look around!
Lo! here, despite of war and wasting fire,

I saw successive tyrannies expire;

'Scaped from the ravage of the Turk and Goth,
Thy country sends a spoiler worse than both.!
Survey this vacant violated fane:

Recount the relics torn that yet remain ;
These Cecrops placed--this Pericles adorn'd 4—
That Hadrian rear'd when drooping science mourn'd:
What more I owe let gratitude attest—

Know, Alaric and Elgin did the rest.

That all may learn from whence the plunder came,
The insulted wall sustains his hated name. 5
For Elgin's fame thus grateful Pallas pleads:
Below, his name-above, behold his deeds!
Be ever hail'd with equal honour here
The Gothic monarch and the Pictish peer.
Arms gave the first his right-the last had none,
But basely stole what less barbarians won!
So when the lion quits his fell repast,
Next prowls the wolf-the filthy jackal last:
Flesh, limbs, and blood, the former make their own;
The last base brute securely gnaws the bone.
Yet still the gods are just, and crimes are crost—
See here what Elgin won, and what he lost!
Another name with his pollutes my shrine,
Behold where Dian's beams disdain to shine!
Some retribution still might Pallas claim,
When Venus half avenged Minerva's shame."

She ceased awhile, and thus I dared reply, To soothe the vengeance kindling in her eye:"Daughter of Jove! in Britain's injured name, A true-born Briton may the deed disclaim! Frown not on England-England owns him not— Athena, no! the plunderer was a Scot!"

Ask thou the difference? From fair Phyle's towers
Survey Boeotia-Caledonia's ours.

And well I know within that bastard land ®
Hath wisdom's goddess never held command:
A barren soil, where nature's germs, confined,
To stern sterility can stint the mind;
Whose thistle well betrays the niggard earth,
Emblem of all to whom the land gives birth.
Each genial influence nurtured to resist,
A land of meanness, sophistry, and mist:
Each breeze from foggy mount and marshy plain
Dilutes with drivel every drizzling brain,
Till, burst at length, each watery head o'erflows,
Foul as their soil, and frigid as their snows:
Ten thousand schemes of petulance and pride
Despatch her scheming children far and wide;
Some east, some west, some every where but north!
In quest of lawless gain they issue forth;
And thus, accursed be the day and year,
She sent a Pict to play the felon here.
Yet, Caledonia claims some native worth,
As dull Boeotia gave a Pindar birth-
So may her few, the letter'd and the brave,
Bound to no clime, and victors o'er the grave,
Snake off the sordid dust of such a land,
And shine like cnilaren of a happier strand:
As once of yore, in some obnoxious place,

Ten names (if found) had saved a wretched race!”

Hear then in silence Pallas' stern behest;
Hear and believe, for time shall tell the rest.
First on the head of him who did the deed
My curse shall light,-on him and all his seed:
Without one spark of intellectual fire,

Be all the sons as senseless as the sire:
If one with wit the parent brood disgrace,
Believe him bastard of a brighter race;
Still with his hireling artists let him praté,
And folly's praise repay for wisdom's hate!
Long of their patron's gusto let them tell,
Whose noblest native gusto—is to sell:
To sell, and make (may shame record the day!)
The state receiver of his pilfer'd prey !
Meantime, the flattering feeble dotard, West,
Europe's worst dauber, and poor Britain's best,
With palsied hand shall turn each model o'er,
And own himself an infant of fourscore:9
Be all the bruisers call'd from all St. Giles,
That art and nature may compare their styles ;
While brawny brutes in stupid wonder stare,
And marvel at his lordship's stone-shop there. 10
Round the throng'd gate shall sauntering coxcombs creep,
To lounge and lucubrate, to prate and peep,
While many a languid maid, with longing sigh,
On giant statues casts the curious eye;
The room with transient glance appears to skim,
Yet marks the mighty back and length of limb,
Mourns o'er the difference of now and then ;
Exclaims, these Greeks indeed were proper men ;'
Draws slight comparisons of these with those,

And envies Lais all her Attic beaux:

When shall a modern maid have swains like these?
Alas! Sir Harry is no Hercules!

And, last of all, amidst the gaping crew,
Some calm spectator, as he takes his view,11

In silent indignation, mix'd with grief,
Admires the plunder, but abhors the thief.
Loathed throughout life-scarce pardon'd in the dust,
May hate pursue his sacrilegious lust!

Link'd with the fool who fired the Ephesian dome,
Shall vengeance follow far beyond the tomb;
Erostratus and Elgin e'er shall shine
In many a branding page and burning line!
Alike condemn'd for aye to stand accursed-
Perchance the second viler than the first:
So let him stand through ages yet unborn,
Fix'd statue on the pedestal of scorn!
Though not for him alone revenge shall wait,
But fits thy country for her coming fate:
Hers were the deeds that taught her lawless son
To do what oft Britannia's self had done.
Look to the Baltic blazing from afar-
Your old ally yet mourns perfidious war:
Not to such deeds did Pallas lend her aid,
Or break the compact which herself had made;
Far from such councils, from the faithless field,
She fled-but left behind her gorgon shield;
A fatal gift, that turn'd friends to stone,

your

And left lost Albion hated and alone.
Look to the east, where Ganges' swarthy race
Shall shake your usurpation to its base;

"Mortal," the blue-eyed maid resumed, "once more, Lo! there Rebellion rears her ghastly head,

Bear back my mandate to thy native shore; Though fallen, alas! this vengeance still is mine,

To turn my councils far from lands like thine.

And glares the Nemesis of native dead,
Till Indus rolls a deep purpureal flood,

And claims his long arrear of northern blood,

So may ye perish! Pallas, when she gave
Your free-born rights, forbade ye to euslave.
Look on your Spain, she clasps the hand she hates,
But coldly clasps, and thrusts you from her gates.
Bear witness, bright Barrossa, thou canst tell
Whose were the sons that bravely fought and fell.
While Lusitania, kind and dear ally,
Can spare a few to fight and sometimes fly.
Oh glorious field! by famine fiercely won;
The Gaul retires for once, and all is done!
But when did Pallas teach that one retreat
Retrieved three long olympiads of defeat?
Look last at home-ye love not to look there,
On the grim smile of comfortless despair;
Your city saddens, loud though revel howls,
Here famine faints, and yonder rapine prowls:^
See all alike of more or less bereft-

No misers tremble when there's nothing left.
'Blest paper credit' 12 who shall dare to sing?
It clogs like lead corruption's weary wing:
Yet Pallas plucked each Premier by the ear,
Who gods and men alike disdain'd to hear
But one, repentant o'er a bankrupt state,
On Pallas calls, but calls, alas! too late!
Then raves for ***; 13 to that Mentor bends,
Though he and Pallas never yet were friends:
Him senates hear whom never yet they heard,
Contemptuous once, and now no less absurd:
So once of yore each reasonable frog

Swore faith and fealty to his sovereign log;
Thus hail'd your rulers their patrician clod,
As Egypt chose an onion for a god.

"Now fare ye well, enjoy your little hour;
Go, grasp the shadow of your vanish'd power;

.14

Gloss o'er the failure of each fondest scheme,
Your strength a name, your bloated wealth a dream.
Gone is that gold, the marvel of mankind,
And pirates barter all that's left behind;
No more the hirelings, purchased near and far,
Crowd to the ranks of mercenary war;
The idle merchant on the useless quay
Droops o'er the bales no bark may bear away,
Or, back returning, sees rejected stores
Rot piecemeal on his own encumber'd shores;
The starved mechanic breaks his rustic loom,
And, desperate, mans him 'gainst the common doom.
Then in the senate of your sinking state,
Show me the man whose counsels may have weight.
Vain is each voice whose tones could once command;
Even factions cease to charm a factious land;
While jarring sects convulse a sister isle,
And light with maddening hands the mutual pile.

"'Tis done, 'tis past, since Pallas warns in vain,

The Furies seize her abdicated reign;

Swell the young
heart with visionary charms,
And bid it antedate the joys of arms.
But know, a lesson you may yet be taught-
With death alone are laurels cheaply bought:
Not in the conflict havoc seeks delight-
His day of mercy is the day of fight;
But when the field is fought, the battle won,
Though drench'd with gore, his woes are but begun.
His deeper deeds ye yet know but by name,-
The slaughter'd peasant and the ravish'd dame,
The rifled mansion and the foe-reap'd field,
Ill suit with souls at home untaught to yield.
Say with what eye, along the distant down,
Would flying burghers mark the blazing town?
How view the column of ascending flames
Shake his red shadow o'er the startled Thames?
Nay, frown not, Albion! for the torch was thine
That lit such pyres from Tagus to the Rhine:
Now should they burst on thy devoted coast,
Go, ask thy bosom, who deserves them most?
The law of heaven and earth is life for life ;
And she who raised in vain regrets the strife."

NOTES.

Note 1. Page 189, line 22.

How watch'd thy better sons his farewell ray, That closed their murder'd sage's latest day! Socrates drank the hemlock a short time before sun set (the hour of execution), notwithstanding the en treaties of his disciples to wait till the sun went down. Note 2. Page 189, line 34.

The queen of night asserts her silent reign. The twilight in Greece is much shorter than in our country; the days in winter are longer, but in summer of less duration.

Note 3. Page 189, line 44.

The gleaming turret of the gay Kiosk. The Kiosk is a Turkish summer-house; the palm is without the present walls of Athens, not far from the temple of Thescus, between which and the tree the wall intervenes. Cephisus' stream is indeed scanty, and Ilissus has no stream at all.

Note 4. Page 190, line 5.

These Cecrops placed-this Pericles adorn'd. This is spoken of the city in general, and not of the Acropolis in particular. The temple of Jupiter Olympius, by some supposed the Pantheon, was finished by Hadrian: sixteen columns are standing, of the most beautiful marble and style of architecture.

Note 5. Page 190, line 10.

The insulted wall sustains his hated name.

It is stated by a late oriental traveller, that when the

Wide o'er the realm they wave their kindling brands, wholesale spoliator visited Athens, he caused his own
And wring her vitals with their fiery hands.
But one convulsive struggle still remains,
And Gaul shall weep ere Albion wear her chains,
The banner'd pomp of war, the glittering files,
O'er whose gay trappings stern Bellona smiles;
The brazen trump, the spirit-stirring drum,
That bid the foe defiance e'er they come ;
The hero bounding at his country's call,
The glorious death that decorates his fall,

name, with that of his wife, to be inscribed on a pillaı of one of the principal temples. This inscription was executed in a very conspicuous manner, and deeply engraved in the marble, at a very considerable elevation. Notwithstanding which precautions, some person (dount less inspired by the Patron Goddess), has been at the pains to get himself raised up to the requisite heigh.. and has obliterated the name of the aird, but left that of the lady untouched. The traveller in question

companied this story by a remark, that it must have cost some labour and contrivance to get at the place, and could only have been effected by much zeal and determination.

Note 6. Page 190, line 21.

When Venus half avenged Minerva's shame.

His lordship's name, and that of one who no longer bears it, are carved conspicuously on the Parthenon above; in a part not far distant are the torn remnants of the basso-relievos, destroyed in a vain attempt to

remove them.

Note 7. Page 190, line 27.

Frown not on England-England owns him notAthena, no! the plunderer was a Scot! The plaster wall on the west side of the temple of Minerva Polias bears the following inscription, cut in very deep characters:

Quod non fecerunt Goti
Hoc fecerunt Scoti.

Hobhouse's Travels in Greece, etc., p. 345.

Note 8. Page 190, line 30.

And well I know within that bastard land.

Is a new palace to be erected (at Rome) for an upstart family? the Coliseum is stripped to furnish materials. Does a foreign minister wish to adorn the bleak walls of a northern castle with antiques? the temples of Theseus or Minerva must be dismantled, and the works of Phidias or Praxiteles be torn from the shattered frieze. That a decrepit uncle, wrapped up in the religious duties of his age and station, should listen to the suggestions of an interested nephew, is natural; and that an oriental despot should undervalue the masterpieces of Grecian art, is to be expected; though in both cases the consequences of such weakness are much to be lamented-but that the minister of a nation, famed for its knowledge of the language, and its veneration for the monuments of ancient Greece, should have been the prompter and the instrument of these destructions, is almost incredible. Such rapacity is a crime against all ages and all generations: it deprives the past of the trophies of their genius and the title-deeds of their fame; the present, of the strongest inducements to exertion, the noblest exhibitions that curiosity can

Irish bastards, according to Sir Callaghan O'Bral- contemplate; the future, of the masterpieces of art, the aghan.

Note 9. Page 190, line 77.

With palsied hand shall turn each model o'er,
And own himself an infant of fourscore.

Mr. West, on seeing "the Elgin collection" (I suppose we shall hear of the Abershaw's and Jack Shepherd's collection next), declared himself a mere Tyro in Art.

Note 10. Page 190, line 80.

While brawny brutes in stupid wonder stare, And marvel at his lordship's stone-shop there. Poor Crib was sadly puzzled when exhibited at Elginhouse; he asked if it was not "a stone-shop: " he was right,-it is a shop.

Note 11. Page 190, line 94.

And, last of all, amidst the gaping crew, Some calm spectator, as he takes his view, "Alas! all the monuments of Roman magnificence, all the remains of Grecian taste, so dear to the artist, the historian, the antiquary, all depend on the will of an arbitrary sovereign; and that will is influenced too often by interest or vanity, by a nephew or a sycophant.

models of imitation. To guard against the repetition of such depredations is the wish of every man of genius, the duty of every man in power, and the common interest of every civilized nation."Eustace's Classical Tour through Italy, p. 269.

"This attempt to transplant the temple of Vesta from Italy to England, may, perhaps, do honour to the late Lord Bristol's patriotism or to his magnificence; but it cannot be considered as an indication of either taste or

judgment."—Ibid. p. 419.

Note 12. Page 191, line 19.
'Blest paper credit' who shall dare to sing?
Blest paper credit, last and best supply,
That lends corruption lighter wings to fly.-Pope

Note 13. Page 191, line 25.
Then raves for * * *

The Deal and Dover traffickers in specie.

Note 14. Page 191, line 38.
Gone is that gold, the marvel of mankind,
And pirates barter all that's left behind.

See the preceding note.

"The grand army of the Turks (in 1715), under the Prime Vizier, to open to themselves a way into the heart of the Morea, and to form the siege of Napoli u Komania, the most considerable place in all that country,1 thought it best in the first place to attack

1 Napoli di Romania is no. now the most considerable place in the Morea, but Tripolitza, where the Pacha resides, and mainwins his government. Napoli is near Argos. I visited all three in

Corinth, upon which they made several storms. The garrison being weakened, and the governor seeing it

1810-11 and in the course of journeyimg through the country in my way from Attica to the Morea, over the mountains, from my first arrival in 1809, 1 crossed the Isthmus eight times or in the other direction, when passing from the Gulf of Athens to that of Lepanto. Both the routes are picturesque and beat tiful, though very different: that by sea has more sameness, but the voyage being always in sight of land, and often very near it, presents many attractive views of the islands Salamis, Ægina, Poro, etc., and the coast of the continent.

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Livros

The Works of Lord Byron: Including the Suppressed Poems. Also a Sketch of ...