Of bare distress hath ta'en from me the show
Of smooth civility: yet am I inland bred,
And know some nurture. But forbear, I say;
He dies that touches any of this fruit
Till I and my affairs are answered.
Faq. An* you will not be answer'd with reason,
Duke S. What would you have? Your gentleness shall force More than your force move us to gentleness.
Orl. I almost die for food; and let me have it.
Duke S. Sit down and feed, and welcome to our table.
Orl. Speak you so gently? Pardon me, I
I thought that all things had been savage here;
And therefore put I on the countenance
Of stern commandment.
That in this desert inaccessible,
Under the shade of melancholy boughs,
Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time;
If ever you have look'd on better days;
If ever been where bells have knoll'd to church;
If ever sat at any good man's feast;
If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear,
And know what 'tis to pity and be pitied,
Let gentleness my strong enforcement be:
In the which hope I blush, and hide my sword.
Duke S. True is it that we have seen better days;
And have with holy bell been knoll'd to church ;
And sat at good men's feasts; and wiped our eyes
Of drops that sacred pity hath engender'd :
And therefore sit you down in gentleness,
And take upon command what help we have,
That to your wanting may be minister'd.
Orl. Then but forbear your food a little while,
Whiles,† like a doe, I go to find my fawn,
And give it food. There is an old poor man,
Who after me hath many a weary step
Limp'd in pure love; till he be first sufficed,
The genitive of the noun while (A. S. hwil = = time) used as an adverb. A got added early in the 13th century. Cp. amidst = amides.
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist * views
At evening from the top of Fesole,t
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers, or mountains in her spotty globe.
His spear, to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
Of some great ammiral,‡ were but a wand,
He walked with to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marl, not like those steps
On Heaven's azure; and the torrid clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire :
Nathless he so endured, till on the beach
Of that inflamèd sea, he stood and called
His legions, angel forms, who lay entranced
Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where th' Etrurian shades
High over-arched imbower; or scattered sedge
Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion || armed
Hath vexed the Red Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew
Busiris ¶ and his Memphian chivalry,**
While with perfidious hatred they pursued
The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
From the same shore their floating carcases
And broken chariot-wheels; so thick bestrown
Abject ++ and lost lay these, covering the flood,
Under amazement of their hideous change.
He called so loud, that all the hollow deep
Of Hell resounded: "Princes, potentates,
Warriors, the flower of Heaven, once yours, now lost,
If such astonishment as this can seize
Eternal spirits; or have ye chosen this place
After the toil of battle to repose
Your wearied virtue,‡‡ for the ease you find
To slumber here, as in the vales of Heaven?
* Galileo, who greatly improved, if not invented, the telescope. A hill near Florence.
At the setting of the constellation of Orion violent storms
** Cavalry.
Valour; manhood.
++ Cast away.
Latin, virtus.
§ Nevertheless. are wont to arise.
Or in this abject posture have ye sworn
To adore the Conqueror? who now beholds
Cherub and seraph rolling in the flood
With scattered arms and ensigns, till anon
His swift pursuers from Heaven's gates discern
The advantage; and descending tread us down
Thus drooping, or with linkèd thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf.
Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen.”
They heard, and were abashed, and up they sprung
Upon the wing; as when men wont to watch
On duty, sleeping found by whom they dread,
Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake.
Nor did they not perceive the evil plight
In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel;
Yet to their general's voice they soon obeyed
Innumerable. As when the potent rod
Of Amram's son in Egypt's evil day
Waved round the coast, up called a pitchy cloud
Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,*
That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung
Like night, and darkened all the land of Nile :
So numberless were those bad angels seen
Hovering on wing under the cope † of Hell
'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires;
Till, at a signal given, the uplifted spear
Of their great sultan waving to direct
Their course, in even balance down they light
On the firm brimstone, and fill all the plain;
A multitude, like which the populous North
Poured never from her frozen loins to pass,
Rhene or the Danaw; § when her barbarous sons
Came like a deluge on the South, and spread
Beneath || Gibraltar to the Libyan sands.
* Moving indirectly against the wind; or perhaps it may mean, moving in
LORD EYRON: 1-33-1324
The Night before Waterso. Frim Childe Harit
Carp Corta Byron bon in London, a spoilt tid and a spoilt man. yet witha! wherax and a tree singer was one of the strangest spirits that the age of wuchten glach. Reken in his writing as n his life, he has left behind him attle of faisheh quod with With a wonderfix gift of language, and a good ear for wvic, he wrote just what the whim of the moment dictated-a cynical sneer, a Witticium, or & Vent vong careless of men's approval, yet eagerly desirous of their is his noblest and most sustained poem, but, after all, is most incomplete in itself, consisting only of a series of splendidly coloured pictures, of which the following is one of the choicest.
THERE was a sound of revelry by night,*
And Belgium's capital had gather'd then
Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright
The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men ;
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage-bell;
But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell !
Did you not hear it?-No; 'twas but the wind,
Or the car rattling o'er the stony street;
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;
No sleep till morn, when youth and pleasure meet
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.
But hark-that heavy sound breaks in once more,
As if the clouds its echo would repeat;
And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!
Arm arm! It is it is-the cannon's opening roar !
Within a window'd niche of that high hall
Sate Brunswick's fated chieftain; he did hear
That sound the first amidst the festival,
And caught its tone with Death's prophetic ear;
And when they smiled because he deem'd it near,
His heart more truly knew that peal too well,
Which stretch'd his father on a bloody bier,
And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell:
He rush'd into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell.
The ball mentioned was given by the Duchess of Richmond at Brussels.
Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago
Blush'd at the praise of their own loveliness;
And there were sudden partings, such as press
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs
Which ne'er might be repeated: who could guess
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes,
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise!
And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed,
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war ;
And the deep thunder peal on peal afar ;
And near, the beat of the alarming drum
Roused up the soldier ere the morning star;
While throng'd the citizens with terror dumb,
Or whispering, with white lips-" The foe! They come ! they come !" And wild and high the "Cameron's gathering" rose !
The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills
Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes :-
How in the noon of night that pibroch * thrills
Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills
Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers
With the fierce native daring which instils
The stirring memory of a thousand years,
And Evan's, Donald's + fame rings in each clansman's ears!
And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves,
Dewy with Nature's tear-drops, as they pass,
Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves,
Over the unreturning brave,—alas !
Ere evening to be trodden like the grass
Which now beneath them, but above shall grow
In its next verdure, when this fiery mass
Of living valour, rolling on the foe,
And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low.
+ Sir Evan Cameron, and his descendant Donald, the "gentle Lochiel" of the "forty-five."
The wood of Soignies, supposed to be the remnant of the forest of Ardennes.
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