Volume 2 — CHILDE HAROLD, CANTO IV.

Original Draft. [MS. M.]

[June 26—July 19. 1817.]

Stanza i. "I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs,"—

Stanza iii.-xi. "In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more,"—"The spouseless Adriatic mourns her Lord,"—

Stanza xv. "Statues of glass—all shivered—the long file,"—

Stanza xviii.-xxvi. "I loved her from my boyhood—she to me,"—"The Commonwealth of Kings—the Men of Rome!"—

Stanza xxx.-xxxix. "There is a tomb in Arquà;—reared in air,"—"Peace to Torquato's injured shade! 'twas his,"—

Stanza xlii.-xlvi. "Italia! oh, Italia! thou who hast,"—"That page is now before me, and on mine,"—

Stanza xlviii.-l. "But Arno wins us to the fair white walls,"—"We gaze and turn away, and know not where,"—

Stanza liii. "I leave to learnéd fingers, and wise hands,"—

Stanza lxi.-lxxix. "There be more things to greet the heart and eyes,"—"The Niobe of nations! there she stands,"—

Stanza lxxxiii. "Oh, thou, whose chariot rolled on Fortune's wheel,"—

Stanza lxxxiv. "The dictatorial wreath—couldst thou divine,"—

Stanza lxxxvii.-xcii. "And thou, dread Statue! yet existent in,"—"And would be all or nothing—nor could wait,"—

Stanza xcix.-cviii. "There is a stern round tower of other days,"—"There is the moral of all human tales,"—

Stanza cx. "Tully was not so eloquent as thou,"—

Stanza cxi. "Buried in air, the deep blue sky of Rome,"—

Stanza cxv.-cxix. "Egeria! sweet creation of some heart,"—"And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying,"—

Stanza cxxviii.-cxxxiv. "Arches on arches! as it were that Rome,"—"And if my voice break forth, 'tis not that now,"—

Stanza cxxxviii.-cli. "The seal is set.—Now welcome, thou dread Power!"—"The starry fable of the Milky Way,"—

Stanza cliii.-clxvi. "But lo! the Dome—the vast and wondrous Dome,"—"And send us prying into the abyss,"—

Stanza clxxv. "But I forget.—My Pilgrim's shrine is won,"—

Stanza clxxvi. "Upon the blue Symplegades: long years,"—

Stanza clxxix. "Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean—roll!"—

Stanza clxxx. "His steps are not upon thy paths,—thy fields,"—

Stanza clxxxiii.-clxxxvi. "Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form,"—"Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been,"—

Additional Stanza.

Stanza xl. "Great as thou art, yet paralleled by those,"—

(127 stanzas.)

Additions bound up with MS. M.

Stanza ii. "She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from Ocean,"—

Stanza xii.-xiv. "The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns,"—(November 10, 1817.)—"In youth She was all glory,—a new Tyre,"—

Stanza xvi. "When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse,"—

Stanza xvii. "Thus, Venice! if no stronger claim were thine,"—

Stanza xxvii.-xxix. "The Moon is up, and yet it is not night,"—"Filled with the face of heaven, which, from afar,"—

Stanza xlvii. "Yet, Italy! through every other land,"—

Stanza li. "Appear'dst thou not to Paris in this guise?"—

Stanza lii. "Glowing, and circumfused in speechless love,"—

Stanza liv.-lx. "In Santa Croce's holy precincts lie,"—"What is her Pyramid of precious stones?"—

Stanza lxxx.-lxxxii. "The Goth, the Christian—Time—War—Flood, and Fire,"—"Alas! the lofty city! and alas!"—

Stanza lxxxv. "Sylla was first of victors; but our own,"—

Stanza lxxxvi. "The third of the same Moon whose former course,"—

Stanza xciii.-xcvi. "What from this barren being do we reap?"—"Can tyrants but by tyrants conquered be,"—

Stanza cix. "Admire—exult—despise—laugh—weep,—for here,"—

Stanza cxii.-cxiv. "Where is the rock of Triumph, the high place,"—"Then turn we to her latest Tribune's name,"—

Stanza cxxiii. "Who loves, raves—'tis youth's frenzy—but the cure,"—

Stanza cxxv.-cxxvii. "Few—none—find what they love or could have loved,"—"Yet let us ponder boldly—'tis a base,"—

Stanza cxxxv.-cxxxvii. "That curse shall be Forgiveness,—Have I not,"—"But I have lived, and have not lived in vain,"—

Stanza clii. "Turn to the Mole which Hadrian reared on high,"—

Stanza clxvii.-clxxii. "Hark! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds,"—(On the death of the Princess Charlotte, November 6, 1817.)—"These might have been her destiny—but no,"—

Stanza clxxiii. "Lo, Nemi! navelled in the woody hills,"—

Stanza clxxiv. "And near, Albano's scarce divided waves,"—

Stanza clxxvii. "Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling-place,"—(1818.)

Stanza clxxviii. "There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,"—(1818.)

Stanza clxxxi. "The armaments which thunderstrike the walls,"—

Stanza clxxxii. "Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee,"—

(52 stanzas.)

Additions included in MS. D.,[363] but not among MSS. M.

Stanza xli. "The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust,"—

Stanza xcvii. "But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime,"—

Stanza xcviii. "Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying,"—

Stanza cxx. "Alas! our young affections run to waste,"—

Stanza cxxi. "Oh, Love! no habitant of earth thou art,"—

Stanza cxxii. "Of its own beauty is the mind diseased,"—

Stanza cxxiv. "We wither from our youth, we gasp away,"—

(Seven stanzas.)

to JOHN HOBHOUSE, ESQ., A.M., F.R.S., &c., &c., &c.

Venice, January 2, 1818.

My dear Hobhouse, After an interval of eight years between the composition of the first and last cantos of Childe Harold, the conclusion of the poem is about to be submitted to the public. In parting with so old a friend,[364] it is not extraordinary that I should recur to one still older and better,—to one who has beheld the birth and death of the other, and to whom I am far more indebted for the social advantages of an enlightened friendship, than—though not ungrateful—I can, or could be, to Childe Harold, for any public favour reflected through the poem on the poet,—to one, whom I have known long, and accompanied far, whom I have found wakeful over my sickness and kind in my sorrow, glad in my prosperity and firm in my adversity, true in counsel and trusty in peril,—to a friend often tried and never found wanting;—to yourself.

In so doing, I recur from fiction to truth; and in dedicating to you in its complete, or at least concluded state, a poetical work which is the longest, the most thoughtful and comprehensive of my compositions, I wish to do honour to myself by the record of many years' intimacy with a man of learning, of talent, of steadiness, and of honour. It is not for minds like ours to give or to receive flattery; yet the praises of sincerity have ever been permitted to the voice of friendship; and it is not for you, nor even for others, but to relieve a heart which has not elsewhere, or lately, been so much accustomed to the encounter of good-will as to withstand the shock firmly, that I thus attempt to commemorate your good qualities, or rather the advantages which I have derived from their exertion. Even the recurrence of the date of this letter, the anniversary of the most unfortunate day of my past existence,[365] but which cannot poison my future while I retain the resource of your friendship, and of my own faculties, will henceforth have a more agreeable recollection for both, inasmuch as it will remind us of this my attempt to thank you for an indefatigable regard, such as few men have experienced, and no one could experience without thinking better of his species and of himself.

It has been our fortune to traverse together, at various periods, the countries of chivalry, history, and fable—Spain, Greece, Asia Minor, and Italy; and what Athens and Constantinople were to us a few years ago, Venice and Rome have been more recently. The poem also, or the pilgrim, or both, have accompanied me from first to last; and perhaps it may be a pardonable vanity which induces me to reflect with complacency on a composition which in some degree connects me with the spot where it was produced, and the objects it would fain describe; and however unworthy it may be deemed of those magical and memorable abodes, however short it may fall of our distant conceptions and immediate impressions, yet as a mark of respect for what is venerable, and of feeling for what is glorious, it has been to me a source of pleasure in the production, and I part with it with a kind of regret, which I hardly suspected that events could have left me for imaginary objects.

With regard to the conduct of the last canto, there will be found less of the pilgrim than in any of the preceding, and that little slightly, if at all, separated from the author speaking in his own person. The fact is, that I had become weary of drawing a line which every one seemed determined not to perceive: like the Chinese in Goldsmith's Citizen of the World,[366] whom nobody would believe to be a Chinese, it was in vain that I asserted, and imagined that I had drawn, a distinction between the author and the pilgrim; and the very anxiety to preserve this difference, and disappointment at finding it unavailing, so far crushed my efforts in the composition, that I determined to abandon it altogether—and have done so. The opinions which have been, or may be, formed on that subject are now a matter of indifference: the work is to depend on itself, and not on the writer; and the author, who has no resources in his own mind beyond the reputation, transient or permanent, which is to arise from his literary efforts, deserves the fate of authors.

In the course of the following canto it was my intention, either in the text or in the notes, to have touched upon the present state of Italian literature, and perhaps of manners. But the text, within the limits I proposed, I soon found hardly sufficient for the labyrinth of external objects, and the consequent reflections: and for the whole of the notes, excepting a few of the shortest, I am indebted to yourself,[367] and these were necessarily limited to the elucidation of the text.

It is also a delicate, and no very grateful task, to dissert upon the literature and manners of a nation so dissimilar; and requires an attention and impartiality which would induce us,—though perhaps no inattentive observers, nor ignorant of the language or customs of the people amongst whom we have recently abode—to distrust, or at least defer our judgment, and more narrowly examine our information. The state of literary, as well as political party, appears to run, or to have run, so high, that for a stranger to steer impartially between them is next to impossible. It may be enough, then, at least for my purpose, to quote from their own beautiful language—"Mi pare che in un paese tutto poetico, che vanta la lingua la più nobile ed insieme la più dolce, tutte tutte le vie diverse si possono tentare, e che sinche la patria di Alfieri e di Monti non ha perduto l'antico valore, in tutte essa dovrebbe essere la prima." Italy has great names still—Canova,[368] Monti, Ugo Foscolo, Pindemonte, Visconti, Morelli, Cicognara, Albrizzi, Mezzofanti, Mai, Mustoxidi, Aglietti, and Vacca, will secure to the present generation an honourable place in most of the departments of Art, Science, and Belles Lettres; and in some the very highest—Europe—the World—has but one Canova.

It has been somewhere said by Alfieri, that "La pianta uomo nasce più robusta in Italia che in qualunque altra terra—e che gli stessi atroci delitti che vi si commettono ne sono una prova." Without subscribing to the latter part of his proposition, a dangerous doctrine, the truth of which may be disputed on better grounds, namely, that the Italians are in no respect more ferocious than their neighbours, that man must be wilfully blind, or ignorantly heedless, who is not struck with the extraordinary capacity of this people, or, if such a word be admissible, their capabilities,[369] the facility of their acquisitions, the rapidity of their conceptions, the fire of their genius, their sense of beauty, and, amidst all the disadvantages of repeated revolutions, the desolation of battles, and the despair of ages, their still unquenched "longing after immortality,"[370]—the immortality of independence. And when we ourselves, in riding round the walls of Rome, heard the simple lament of the labourers' chorus, "Roma! Roma! Roma! Roma non è più come era prima!"[371] it was difficult not to contrast this melancholy dirge with the bacchanal roar of the songs of exultation still yelled from the London taverns, over the carnage of Mont St. Jean,[372] and the betrayal of Genoa, of Italy, of France, and of the world, by men whose conduct you yourself have exposed in a work worthy of the better days of our history.[373] For me,—

What Italy has gained by the late transfer of nations, it were useless for Englishmen to enquire, till it becomes ascertained that England has acquired something more than a permanent army and a suspended Habeas Corpus;[374] it is enough for them to look at home. For what they have done abroad, and especially in the South, "Verily they will have their reward," and at no very distant period.

Wishing you, my dear Hobhouse, a safe and agreeable return to that country whose real welfare can be dearer to none than to yourself, I dedicate to you this poem in its completed state; and repeat once more how truly I am ever