CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE.

CANTO III.

"Afin que cette application vous forçât de penser à autre chose; il n'y a en vérité de remède que celui-là et le temps." Lettre du Roi de Prusse à d'Alembert, Sept. 7, 1776.

VOL. III.

I.

CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE.

A ROMAUNT.

CANTO III.

I.

thy face like thy mother's, my fair child!

Ada! sole daughter of my house and heart? When last I saw thy young blue eyes they smiled, And then we parted,-not as now we part,

But with a hope.

Awaking with a start,

The waters heave around me; and on high

The winds lift up their voices: I depart,
Whither I know not; but the hour's gone by,

When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or glad

mine eye.

II.

Once more upon the waters! yet once more!
And the waves bound beneath me as a steed
That knows his rider.

Welcome, to their roar!

Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead!

Though the strain'd mast should quiver as a reed,
And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale,
Still must I on; for I am as a weed,

Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam, to sail Where-e'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail.

III.

In my youth's summer I did sing of One,
The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind;
Again I seize the theme then but begun,
And bear it with me, as the rushing wind

Bears the cloud onwards: in that Tale I find
The furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears,
Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track behind,

O'er which all heavily the journeying years

Plod the last sands of life,-where not a flower appears.