Enough, alas! in humble homes remain,

To meditate 'gainst friends the secret blow, For some slight cause of wrath, whence life's warm stream must flow.

LXXXI.

But Jealousy has fled: his bars, his bolts,
His withered centinel, Duenna sage!
And all whereat the generous soul revolts,
Which the stern dotard deemed he could encage
Have passed to darkness with the vanished age.
Who late so free as Spanish girls were seen,
(Ere War uprose in his volcanic rage,)

With braided tresses bounding o'er the green, While on the gay dance shone Night's lover-loving Queen?

LXXXII.

Oh! many a time, and oft, had Harold loved, Or dreamed he loved, since Rapture is a dream; But now his wayward bosom was unmoved, For not yet had he drunk of Lethe's stream; And lately had he learned with truth to deem Love has no gift so grateful as his wings: How fair, how young, how soft soe'er he seem, Full from the fount of Joy's delicious springs Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings.*

"Medio de fonte leporum," etc. - LUCRET.

LXXXIII.

;

Yet to the beauteous form he was not blind, Though now it moved him as it moves the wise Not that Philosophy on such a mind E'er deigned to bend her chastely-awful eyes: But Passion raves itself to rest, or flies; And Vice, that digs her own voluptuous tomb, Had buried long his hopes, no more to rise: Pleasure's palled victim! life-abhorring gloom Wrote on his faded brow curst Cain's unresting doom.

LXXXIV.

Still he beheld, nor mingled with the throng;
But viewed them not with misanthropic hate:
Fain would he now have joined the dance, the song;
But who may smile that sinks beneath his fate?
Nought that he saw his sadness could abate:
Yet once he struggled 'gainst the demon's sway,
And as in Beauty's bower he pensive sate,
Poured forth this unpremeditated lay,

To charms as fair as those that soothed his happier day.

TO INEZ.

1.

NAY, smile not at my sullen brow;

Alas! I cannot smile again:
Yet Heaven avert that ever thou

Shouldst weep, and haply weep in vain.

2.

And dost thou ask, what secret woe
I bear, corroding joy and youth?
And wilt thou vainly seek to know

A pang, even thou must fail to soothe?

3.

It is not love, it is not hate,

Nor low Ambition's honors lost, That bids me loathe my present state, And fly from all I prized the most:

4.

It is that weariness which springs
From all I meet, or hear, or see:
To me no pleasure Beauty brings;
Thine eyes have scarce a charm for me.

5.

It is that settled, ceaseless gloom

The fabled Hebrew wanderer bore; That will not look beyond the tomb, But cannot hope for rest before.

6.

What Exile from himself can flee?

To zones, though more and more remote, Still, still pursues, where'er I be,

The blight of life — the demon Thought.

7.

Yet others rapt in pleasure seem,
And taste of all that I forsake;

Oh! may they still of transport dream,
And ne'er, at least like me, awake!

8.

Through many a clime 'tis mine to go,
With many a retrospection curst;
And all my solace is to know,

Whate'er betides, I've known the worst.

9.

What is that worst? Nay do not ask

In pity from the search forbear;

Smile on nor venture to unmask

Man's heart, and view the Hell that's there.*

*In place of this song, which was written at Athens, January 25, 1810, and which contains, as Moore says, "some of the dreariest touches of sadness that ever Byron's pen let fall," we find, in the first draught of the Canto, the following:

1.

Oh never talk again to me

Of northern climes and British ladies;

It has not been your lot to see,

Like me, the lovely girl of Cadiz.

Although her eye be not of blue,

Nor fair her locks, like English lasses,

How far its own expressive hue

The languid azure eye surpasses!

2.

Prometheus-like, from heaven she stole

The fire, that through those silken lashes
In darkest glances seems to roll,

From eyes that cannot hide their flashes:

LXXXV.

Adieu, fair Cadiz! yea, a long adieu!

Who may forget how well thy walls have stood?
When all wert changing thou alone wert true,
First to be free and last to be subdued:

And if amidst a scene, a shock so rude,
Some native blood was seen thy streets to dye;
A traitor only fell beneath the feud:
Here all were noble, save Nobility;

*

[alry! None hugged a conquerer's chain, save fallen Chiv

And as along her bosom steal

In lengthened flow her raven tresses,

You'd swear each clustering lock could feel,
And curled to give her neck caresses.

8.

Our English maids are long to woo,

And frigid even in possession;
And if their charms be fair to view,

Their lips are slow at Love's confession:

But born beneath a brighter sun,

For love ordained the Spanish maid is,
And who, ,-when fondly, fairly won,—
Enchants you like the Girl of Cadiz?

4.

The Spanish maid is no coquette,

Nor joys to see a lover tremble,

And if she love, or if she hate,

Alike she knows not to dissemble.
Her heart can ne'er be bought or sold-
Howe'er it beats, it beats sincerely;

And, though it will not bend to gold,

"T will love you long and love you dearly.

* Alluding to the conduct and death of Solano, the governor of Cadiz, in May, 1809.