The tender azure of the unruffled deep,
The orange tints that gild the greenest bough,
The torrents that from cliff to valley leap,
The vine on high, the willow branch below,
Mixed in one mighty scene, with varied beauty glow.
Then slowly climb the many-winding way,
And frequent turn to linger as you go,
From loftier rocks new loveliness survey,
And rest ye at our Lady's house of woe;'
Where frugal monks their little relics show,
And sundry legends to the stranger tell:

Here impious men have punished been, and, lo!
Deep in yon cave Honorious long did dwell,
In hope to merit Heaven by making earth a Hell.
And here and there, as up the crags you spring,
Mark many rude-carved crosses near the path;
Yet deem not these Devotion's offering-

These are memorials frail of murderous wrath:
For, wheresoe'er the shrieking victim hath
Poured forth his blood beneath the assassin's knife,
Some hand erects a cross of mouldering lath;
And grove and glen with thousands such are rife
Throughout this purple land, where law secures not life.*

The note which is subjoined to the last line was somewhat exaggerated at the time it was written, and is certainly untrue at the present moment.

The allegorical description of the Spirit of Battle is among the finest things which the poem contains, and is perhaps the first attempt Lord

* It is a well-known fact that, in the year 1809, the assassinations in the streets of Lisbon and its vicinity were not confined by the Portuguese to their countrymen ; but that Englishmen were daily butchered: and, so far from redress being obtained, we were requested not to interfere if we perceived any compatriot defending himself against his allies. I was once stopped in the way to the theatre, at eight o'clock in the evening, when the streets were not more empty than they generally are at that hour, opposite to an open shop, and in a carriage with a friend. Had we not fortunately been armed, I have not the least doubt that we should have adorned a tale instead of telling one. The crime of assassination is not confined to Portugal: in Sicily and Malta we are knocked on the head at a handsome average nightly, and not a Sicilian or Maltese is ever punished!

Y

Byron ever made to reach the sublime. The whole of the extract is full of power:

Hark! heard you not those hoofs of dreadful note?
Sounds not the clang of conflict on the heath?
Saw ye not whom the reeking sabre smote;

Nor saved your brethren ere they sank beneath
Tyrants and tyrants' slaves?—The fires of death,
The bale-fires, flash on high-from rock to rock

Each volley tells that thousands cease to breathe;
Death rides upon the sulphury Siroc,

Red Battte stamps his foot, and natious feel the shock.

Lo! where the Giant on the mountain stands,

His blood-red tresses deepening in the sun,
With death-shot glowing in his fiery hands,
And eye that scorcheth all it glares upon!
Restless it rolls, now fixed, and now, anon,
Flashing afar, and at his iron feet

Destruction cowers to mark what deeds are done;
For on this morn three potent nations meet,

To shed before his shrine the blood he deems most sweet.

By Heaven! it is a splendid sight to see

(For one who hath no friend, no brother, there) Their rival scarfs of mixed embroidery,

Their various arms that glitter in the air!

What gallant war-hounds rouse them from their lair,
And gnash their fangs, loud yelling for the prey!
All join the chase, but few the triumph share;
The Grave shall bear the chiefest prize away,
And Havoc scarce for joy can number their array.
Three hosts combine to offer sacrifice;

Three tongues prefer strange orisons on high;
Three gaudy standards flout the pale blue skies;
The shouts are France, Spain, Albion, Victory!
The foe, the victim, and the fond ally

That fights for all, but ever fights in vain,

Are met—as if at home they could not die—
To feed the crow on Talavera's plain,

And fertilize the field that each pretends to gain.

There shall they rot-Ambition's honoured fools!
Yes, Honour decks the turf that wraps their clay!
Vain sophistry! in these behold the tools,

The broken tools, that tyrants cast away

By myriads, when they dare to pave their way
With human hearts-to what ?-a dream alone.

Can despots compass aught that hails their sway,
Or call with truth one span of earth their own,
Save that wherein at last they crumble bone by bone?

Among the many instances of romantic heroism, to which the patriotic war in Spain gave birth, none was more remarkable than that of the young Amazon, who was called the Maid of Saragoza. When Lord Byron was at Seville she was daily walking on the Prado there, decorated with the medals which the Junta had bestowed on her for her exploits. Those exploits have been shortly, but correctly, enumerated by the poet in one of the stanzas which he devoted to this subject. After moralizing, perhaps at too great length, upon the vanity of wars in general, and predicting (falsely enough, as subsequent events have proved) that Buonaparte would subdue Spain, he says:

Is it for this the Spanish maid, aroused,
Hangs on the willow her unstrung guitar,
And, all unsexed, the Anlace hath espoused,
Sung the loud song, and dared the deed of war?
And she, whom once the semblance of a scar
Appalled, an owlet's larum chilled with dread,

Now views the column-scattering bay'net jar,
The falchion flash, and o'er the yet warm dead
Stalks with Minerva's step where Mars might quake to tread.

Ye who shall marvel when you hear her tale,

Oh! had you known her in her softer hour,

Marked her black eye that mocks her coal-black veil,
Heard her light lively tones in Lady's bower,
Seen her long locks that foil the painter's power,

Her fairy form, with more than female grace,
Scarce would you deem that Saragoza's tower
Beheld her smile in Danger's Gorgon face,

Thin the closed ranks, and lead in Glory's fearful chase.

Her lover sinks-she sheds no ill-timed tear;
Her chief is slain-she fills his fatal post;
Her fellows flee-she checks their base career;
The foe retires-she heads the sallying host:
Who can appease like her a lover's ghost?
Who can avenge so well a leader's fall?

What maid retrieve when man's flushed hope is lost?
Who hang so fiercely on the flying Gaul,

Foiled by a woman's hand, before a battered wall?

Interesting and delightful as are the sketches which Lord Byron gives of his journey through Spain, those relating to Greece are infinitely more so. If he had been less of a poet he would have been better qualified than any other man to give a description of this classic land, which has so many claims to the sympathy and veneration of all the free and enlightened nations of the earth. The reflections which the sight of Athens inspired in the poet's breast are expressed in strains entirely worthy of them:

Ancient of days! august Athena! where,

Where are thy men of might-thy grand in soul?

Gone glimmering through the dream of things that were,
First in the race that led to Glory's goal,

They won, and passed away-is this the whole?

A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour!

power.

The warrior's weapon and the sophist's stole
Are sought in vain, and o'er each mouldering tower,
Dim with the mist of years, grey flits the shade of
Son of the morning, rise! approach you here!
Come-but molest not yon defenceless urn:
Look on this spot-a nation's sepulchre!

Abode of gods, whose shrines no longer burn.
E'en gods must yield-religions take their turn:
'Twas Jove's-'tis Mahomet's-and other creeds
Will rise with other years, till man shall learn
Vainly his incense soars, his victim bleeds;

Poor child of Doubt and Death, whose hope is built on reeds!
Bound to the earth, he lifts his eye to Heaven-

Is't not enough, unhappy thing! to know

Thou art? Is this a boon so kindly given,

That, being, thou wouldst be again, and go,

Thou knowest not, reck'st not, to what region, so
On earth no more, but mingled with the skies?

Still wilt thou dream on future joy and woe?
Regard and weigh yon dust before it flies:
That little urn saith more than thousand homilies.

Or burst the vanished Hero's lofty mound;
Far on the solitary shore he sleeps :*
He fell, and falling nations mourned around;
But now not one of saddening thousands weeps,
Nor warlike worshipper his vigil keeps
Where demi-gods appeared, as records tell.

Remove yon skull from out the scattered heaps :
Is that a temple where a god may dwell?

Why e'en the worm at last disdains her shattered cell!

Look on its broken arch, its ruined wall,
Its chambers desolate, and portals foul:
Yes, this was once Ambition's airy hall,

The dome of Thought, the palace of the Soul:
Behold, through each lack-lustre eyeless hole,
The gay recess of Wisdom and of Wit,

And Passion's host, that never brooked control:
Can all saint, sage, or sophist ever writ,
People this lonely tower, this tenement refit ?

Well didst thou speak, Athena's wisest son!
'All that we know is, nothing can be known.'
Why should we shrink from what we cannot shun?
Each has his pang, but feeble sufferers groan
With brain-born dreams of evil all their own.
Pursue what Chance or Fate proclaimeth best;

Peace waits us on the shores of Acheron:
There no forced banquet claims the sated guest,
But Silence spreads the couch of ever-welcome rest.

It was not always the custom of the Greeks to burn their dead; the greater Ajax in particular was interred entire. Almost all the chiefs became gods after their decease, and he was indeed neglected, who had not annual games near his tomb, or festivals in honour of his memory by his countrymen, as Achilles, Brasidas, &c. and at last even Antinous, whose death was as heroic as his life was infamous.