THE OCEAN CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE O THAT the Desert were my dwelling-place, With one fair Spirit for my minister, That I might all forget the human race, And, hating no one, love but only her! Ye elements!--in whose ennobling stir I feel myself exalted-Can ye not Accord me such a Being? Do I err In deeming such inhabit many a spot? Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot. There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar : I love not Man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal. Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Oceanroll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and And monarchs tremble in their capitals, mar Alike the Armada's pride or spoils of Trafalgar. Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters washed them power while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts:-not so thou; Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves' play, Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow: Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest 4 5 60 70 For the blackness of ashes shall mark where it stood, And a wild mother scream o'er her famishing brood. Lochiel. False wizard, avaunt! I have marshalled my clan, Their swords are a thousand, their bosoms are one! They are true to the last of their blood and their breath, And like reapers descend to the harvest of death. Then welcome be Cumberland's steed to the shock! Let him dash his proud foam like a wave on the rock! But woe to his kindred, and woe to his cause, When Albin her claymore indignantly draws; When her bonneted chieftains to victory crowd, Clanranald the dauntless, and Moray the proud, All plaided and plumed in their tartan array— the moors: Culloden is lost, and my country deplores. For the red eye of battle is shut in despair. Like a limb from his country cast bleeding and torn? Ah no! for a darker departure is near; His death-bell is tolling: oh! mercy, dispel Accursed be the fagots, that blaze at his feet, Where his heart shall be thrown, ere it ceases to beat, With the smoke of its ashes to poison the gale Lochiel.-Down, soothless insulter! I trust not the tale: For never shall Albin a destiny meet So black with dishonour, so foul with retreat! Though my perishing ranks should be strewed in their gore, Like ocean-weeds heaped on the surf-beaten shore, Lochiël, untainted by flight or by chains, While the kindling of life in his bosom re mains, Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low, With his back to the field, and his feet to the foe! And leaving in battle no blot on his name, Look proudly to Heaven from the death-bed of fame. 50 60 As death withdrew his shades from the day, O'er a wide and woeful sight, Now joy, old England, raise! While the wine-cup shines in light; Brave hearts! to Briton's pride Soft sigh the winds of Heaven o'er their grave! While the billow mournful rolls כ1 20 |