The tender azure of the unruffled deep, The orange tints that gild the greenest bough, The vine on high, the willow branch below, XX. Then slowly climb the many-winding way, XXI. 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 Pour'd forth his blood beneath the assassin's knife, Some hand erects a cross of mouldering lath; And grove and glen with thousand such are rife Throughout this purple land, where law secures not life. XXII. On sloping mounds, or in the vale beneath, Are domes where whilome kings did make repair; When wanton Wealth her mightiest deeds hath done, Meek Peace voluptuous lures was ever wont to shun. G. Barret. XXIII. Here didst thou dwell, here schemes of pleasure plan, But now, as if a thing unblest by Man, XXIV. Behold the hall where chiefs were late convened! Oh! dome displeasing unto British eye! A little fiend that scoffs incessantly, There sits in parchment robe array'd, and by Where blazon'd glare names known to chivalry, Whereat the Urchin points, and laughs with all his soul. XXV. Convention is the dwarfish demon styled XXVI. And ever since that martial synod met, And fain would blush, if blush they could, for shame. How will posterity the deed proclaim! Will not our own and fellow-nations sneer, To view these champions cheated of their fame,' Where scorn her finger points through many a coming year? XXVII. So deem'd the Childe, as o'er the mountains he Sweet was the scene, yet soon he thought to flee, XXVIII. To horse! to horse! he quits, for ever quits But seeks not now the harlot and the bowl. XXIX. Yet Mafra shall one moment claim delay, A dome, where flaunts she in such glorious sheen XXX O'er vales that teem with fruits, romantic hills, (Oh that such hills upheld a free-born race!) Whereon to gaze the eye with joyaunce fills, Childe Harold wends through many a pleasant place. Though sluggards deem it but a foolish chase, And marvel men should quit their easy chair, The toilsome way, and long, long league to trace, Oh! there is sweetness in the mountain air, And life, that bloated Ease can never hope to share. XXXI. More bleak to view the hills at length recede, Spain's realms appear, whereon her shepherds tend Flocks, whose rich fleece right well the trader knows— Now must the pastor's arm his lambs defend: For Spain is compass'd by unyielding foes, And all must shield their all, or share subjection's woes. XXXII. Where Lusitania and her Sister meet, Deem ye what bounds the rival realms divide? Or ere the jealous queens of nations greet, Or fence of art, like China's vasty wall?— Ne horrid crags, nor mountain's dark and tall, XXXIII. But these between a silver streamlet glides, XXXIV. But ere the mingling bounds have far been pass'd, In sullen billows, murmuring and vast, Whilome upon his banks did legions throng Of Moor and Knight, in mailèd splendour dress'd: Here ceased the swift their race, here sunk the strong; The Paynim turban and the Christian crest Mix'd on the bleeding stream, by floating hosts oppress'd. |