The Works of Lord Byron Complete in One Volume

And Juan, puzzled, but still curious,

thrust

His other arm forth---Wonder upon wonder! It press'd upon a hard but glowing bust, Which beat as if there was a warm heart under.

He found, as people on most trials must, That he had made at first a silly blunder,

And that in his confusion he had caught Only the wall instead of what he sought.

The ghost, if ghost it were,seem'd a sweet soul
As ever lurk'd beneath a holy hood:
A dimpled chin, a neck of ivory, stole
Forth into something much like flesh and
blood;

Back fell the sable frock and dreary cowl, And they reveal'd (alas! that e'er they should!)

In full, voluptuous, but not o'ergrown bulk, The phantom of her frolic Grace-FitzFulke!

THE ISLAND.

CANTO I

THE morningwatch was come; the vessel

lay

Her course, and gently made her liquid way; The cloven billow flash'd from off her prow In furrows form'd by that majestic plough; The waters with their world were all before; Behind, the South Sea's many an islet-shore. The quiet night, now dappling, 'gan to wane, Dividing darkness from the dawning main; The dolphins, not unconscious of the day, Swam high, as eager of the coming ray; The stars from broader beams began to creep, And lift their shining eyelids from the deep; The sail resumed its lately-shadow'd white, And the wind flutter'd with a freshening flight;

The purpling ocean owns the coming SunBut, ere he break, a deed is to be done.

The gallant Chief within his cabin slept, Secure in those by whom the watch was kept: His dreams were of Old England's welcome shore,

Of toils rewarded, and of dangers o'er; His name was added to the glorious roll Of those who search the storm-surrounded

Pole.

The worst was over, and the rest seem'd sure, And why should not his slumber be secure? Alas! his deck was trod by unwilling feet, And wilder hands would hold the vessel's

sheet;

And, half-uncivilized, preferr'd the cave Of some soft savage to the uncertain wave; The gushing fruits that Nature gave untill'd; The wood without a path but where they will'd;

The field o'er which promiscuous Plenty pour'd

Her horn; the equal land without a lord; The wish-which ages have not yet subdued In man-to have no master save his mood; The Earth, whose mine was on its face, unsold The glowing sun and produce all its gold; The freedom which can call each grot a home;

The general garden, where all steps may

roam,

Where Nature owns a nation as her child, Exulting in the enjoyment of the wild; Their shells, their fruits, the only wealth they know;

Their unexploring navy, the canoe; Their sport, the dashing breakers and the chase;

Their strangest sight, an European face: Such was the country which these strangers yearn'd

To see again-a sight they dearly earn'd.

Awake, bold Bligh! the foe is at the gate! Awake! awake!--Alas! it is too late! Fiercely beside thy cot the mutineer Stands, and proclaims the reign of rage

and fear. Thy limbs are bound, the bayonet at thy breast,

Young hearts, which languish'd for some The hands, which trembled at thy voice, sunny isle,

Where summer years and summer women | Dragg'd o'er the deck,

smile;

Men without country, who, too long The obedient helm

estranged,

Had found no native home, or found it That savage spirit,

changed,

arrest;

no more at thy command shall veer, the sail expand;

which would lull by wrath

Its desperate escape from duty's path, The friendly hearts, the feasts without a toil, Glares round thee, in the scarce-believing | The courteous manners but from Nature

eyes

Of those who fear the Chief they sacrifice; For ne'er can man his conscience all assuage, Unless he drain the wine of passion—rage.

In vain, not silenced by the eye of death, Thou call'st the loyal with thy menaced breath:

They come not; they are few,and,overawed, Must acquiesce while sterner hearts applaud. In vain thou dost demand the cause; a curse Is all the answer, with the threat of worse. Full in thine eyes is waved the glittering blade,

Close to thy throat the pointed bayonet laid, The levell'd muskets circle round thy breast In hands as steel'd to do the deadly rest. Thou dar'st them to their worst, exclaiming, "Fire!"

But they who pitied not could yet admire; Some lurking remnant of their former awe Restrain'd them longer than their broken law;

They would not dip their souls at once in blood,

But left thee to the mercies of the flood.

caught, The wealth unhoarded, and the love unbought;

Could these have charms for rudest sea-boys, driven

Before the mast by every wind of Heaven? And now, even now prepared with others'

few

Who wait their Chief, a melancholy crew:
But some remain'd reluctant on the deck

"Hoist out the boat!" was now the lead-Of that proud vessel-now a moral wreck

er's cry;

And who dare answer "No" to Mutiny,
In the first dawning of the drunken hour,
The Saturnalia of unhoped-for power?
The boat is lower'd with all the haste of hate,
With its slight plank between thee and thy
fate;

Her only cargo such a scant supply
As promises the death their hands deny;
And just enough of water and of bread
To keep, some days, the dying from the dead:
Some cordage, canvas, sails, and lines, and
twine,

But treasures all to Hermits of the brine,
Were added after, to the earnest prayer
Of those who saw no hope save sea and air;
And last, that trembling vassal of the Pole,
The feeling compass, Navigation's Soul.

And now the self-elected Chief finds time To stun the first sensation of his crime, And raise it in his followers-"Ho! the bowl!"

Lest passion should return to reason's shoal. "Brandy for heroes!" Burke could once exclaim

No doubt a liquid path to epic fame;
And such the new-born heroes found it here,
And drain❜d the draught with an applauding
cheer.

"Huzza! for Otaheite!" was the cry;
How strange such shouts from sons of Mutiny!
The gentle island, and the genial soil,

And view'd their Captain's fate with piteous eyes;

While others scoff'd his augur'd miseries, Sneer'd at the prospect of his pigmy sail, And the slight bark, so laden and so frail. The tender Nautilus who steers his prow, The sea-born sailor of his shell-canoe, The ocean Mab, the fairy of the sea, Seems far less fragile, and, alas! more free! He, when the lightning-wing'd Tornados sweep

The surge, is safe-his port is in the deepAnd triumphs o'er the Armadas of mankind, Which shake the world, yet crumble in the wind.

When all was now prepared, the vessel clear

Which hail'd her master in the mutineerA seaman, less obdurate than his mates, Show'd the vain pity which but irritates; Watch'd his lateChieftain with exploring eye, And told, in signs, repentant sympathy; Held the moist shaddock to his parched mouth,

Which felt exhaustion's deep and bitter drought.

But, soon observed, this guardian was withdrawn,

Nor further Mercy clouds Rebellion's dawn. Then forward stepp'd the bold and froward boy

His Chief had cherish'd only to destroy,

And, pointing to the helpless prow beneath,
Exclaim'd, "Depart at once! delay is death!"
Yet then, even then, his feelings ceased
not all:

In that last moment could a word recal
Remorse for the black deed as yet half done,
And, what he hid from many, shew'd to one:
When Bligh, in stern reproach, demanded
where

Was now his grateful sense of former care?
Where all his hopes to see his name aspire
And blazon Britain's thousand glories
higher?

His feverish lips thus broke their gloomy
spell,

""Tis that! 'tis that! I am in Hell! in Hell!" No more he said; but, urging to the bark His Chief, commits him to his fragile ark: These the sole accents from his tongue that fell,

But volumes lurk'd below his fierce farewell.

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Where all partake the earth without dispute,
And bread itself is gather'd as a fruit;
Where none contest the fields, the woods,
the streams :—

The Goldless Age, where Gold disturbs no
dreams,

The arctic sun rose broad above the wave;
The breeze now sunk, now whisper'd from | Inhabits or inhabited the shore,

his cave;

Till Europe taught them better than before,
Bestow'd her customs, and amended theirs,

As on the Æolian harp, his fitful wings
Now swell'd, now flutter'd o'er his ocean-But left her vices also to their heirs.

strings.

Away with this! behold them as they were,

With slow, despairing oar, the abandon'd | Do good with Nature, or with Nature err.

skiff

Ploughs its drear progress to the scarce-
seen cliff,
Which lifts its peak a cloud above the main:
That boat and ship shall never meet again!
But 'tis not mine to tell their tale of grief,
Their constant peril and their scant relief;
Their days of danger, and their nights of
pain;

Their manly courage, even when deem'd
in vain;
The sapping famine, rendering scarce a son
Known to his mother in the skeleton;
The ills that lessen'd still their little store,
And starved even Hunger till he wrung no

creep

With crazy oar and shatter'd strength along
The tide, that yields reluctant to the strong;
The incessant fever of that arid thirst
Which welcomes, as a well, the clouds
that burst

Above their naked bones, and feels delight
In the cold drenching of the stormy night,
And from the outspread canvas gladly wrings
A drop to moisten Life's all-gasping springs;
The savage foe escaped, to seek again
More hospitable shelter from the main;
The ghastly spectres which were doom'd
at last

To tell as true a tale of dangers past,
As ever the dark annals of the deep
Disclosed for man to dread or woman weep.

"Huzza! for Otaheite!" was the cry,
As stately swept the gallant vessel by.
The breeze springs up; the lately flapping
sail

Extends its arch before the growing gale;
In swifter ripples stream aside the seas,
Which her bold bow flings off with dashing

ease.

Thus Argo plough'd the Euxine's virgin foam;

But those she wafted still look'd back to home -

These spurn their country with their rebel
bark,

And fly her as the raven fled the ark;
And yet they seek to nestle with the dove,
And tame their fiery spirits down to love,

CANTO II.

How pleasant were the songs of Toobonai, When summer's sun went down the coral bay! Come, let us to the islet's softest shade, And hear the warbling birds! the damsels said:

The wood-dove from the forest depth shall

соо,

Like voices of the gods from Bolotoo: We'll cull the flowers that grow above the dead,

For these most bloom where rests the war-
rior's head;
And we will sit in twilight's face, and see
The sweet moon glancing through the tooa-Ye young enchantresses of gay Licoo!

To-morrow for the Mooa we depart,
But not to-night-to-night is for the heart.
Again bestow the wreaths we gently woo,

In flashing mazes o'er the Marly's green;
And we too will be there; we too recal
The memory bright with many a festival,
Ere Fiji blew the shell of war, when foes
For the first time were wafted in canoes.
Alas! for them the flower of mankind bleeds;
Alas! for them our fields are rank with
weeds:

Forgotten is the rapture, or unknown.
Of wandering with the moon and love alone.
But be it so they taught us how to wield
The club, and rain our arrows o'er the field;
Now let them reap the harvest of their art!
But feast to-night! to-morrow we depart.
Strike up the dance, the cava-bowl fill high,
Drain every drop!—to-morrow we may die.
In summer-garments be our limbs array'd;
Around our waists the Tappa's white dis-
play'd;

Thick wreaths shall form our Coronal, like
Spring's,
And round our necks shall glance the Hooni-
strings;
So shall their brighter hues contrast the
glow

Of the dusk bosoms that beat high below.

How lovely are your forms! how every sense Bows to your beauties, soften'd, but intense, Like to the flowers on Mataloco's steep, Which fling their fragrance far athwart the deep:

We too will see Licoo ; but—oh! my heart— What do I say? to-morrow we depart.

Lands which no foes destroy or civilize, Exist: and what can our accomplish'd art But now the dance is o'er – yet stay awhile; | Of verse do more than reach the awaken’d Ah, pause! nor yet put out the social smile.

heart?

And sweetly now those untaught melodies | Restore their surface, in itself so still,

Broke the luxurious silence of the skies,
The sweet siesta of a summer-day,
The tropic afternoon of Toobonai,
When every flower was bloom, and air was
balm,

And the first breath began to stir the palm,
The first yet voiceless wind to urge the wave
All gently to refresh the thirsty cave,
Where sat the songstress with the stranger
boy,

Who taught her passion's desolating joy,
Too powerful over every heart, but most
O'er those who know not how it may be lost;
O'er those who, burning in the new-born fire,
Like martyrs revel in their funeral pyre,
With such devotion to their ecstasy,
That life knows no such rapture as to die:
And die they do; for earthly life has nought
Match'd with that burst of nature, even in
thought;

And all our dreams of better life above
But close in one eternal gush of love.

O'er her clear nut-brown skin a lucid hue,

Like coral reddening through the darken'd

wave,

Which draws the diver to the crimson cave.

Until the earthquake tear the Naiad's cave,
Root up the spring and trample on the wave,
And crush the living waters to a mass,
The amphibious desart of the dank morass!
And must their fate be hers? The eternal
change

But grasps humanity with quicker range;
And they who fall,but fall as worlds will fall,
To rise, if just, a spirit o'er them all.

And who is he? the blue-eyed northern Of isles more known to man, but scarce child

less wild;

seas;

The fair-hair'd offspring of the Hebrides,
Where roars the Pentland with its whirling
Rock'd in his cradle by the roaring wind,
The tempest-born in body and in mind,
His young eyes opening on the ocean-foam,
Had from that moment deem'd the deep
his home,

The giant comrade of his pensive moods,
The only Mentor of his youth, where'er
The sharer of his craggy solitudes,
His bark was borne; the sport of wave and air;
A careless thing, who placed his choice in

chance,

Nursed by the legends of his land's romance,
Eager to hope, but not less firm to bear,
Acquainted with all feelings save despair.
Placed in the Arab's clime, he would have
As bold a rover as the sands have seen,
been
And braved their thirst with as enduring lip
As Ismael, wafted on his desart-ship;
Fix'd upon Chili's shore, a proud Cacique;
On Hellas' mountains, a rebellious Greek;

Born in a tent, perhaps a Tamerlane;
For the same soul that rends its path to
Bred to a throne, perhaps unfit to reign.

sway,

shame,

If rear'd to such, can find no further prey Beyond itself, and must retrace its way, Plunging for pleasure into pain; the same Such was this daughter of the Southern Seas, Spirit which made a Nero Rome's worst Herself a billow in her energies, To bear the bark of others' happiness, Nor feel a sorrow till their joy grew less: Her wild and warm yet faithful bosom knew No joy like what it gave; her hopes ne'er drew

Aught from experience, that chill touch-
stone, whose

Sad proof reduces all things from their hues:
She fear'd no ill, because she knew it not,
Or what she knew was soon-too soon-
forgot:

Her smiles and tears had pass'd, as light
winds pass
O'er lakes, to ruffle, not destroy, their glass,
Whose depths unsearch'd, and fountains
from the hill,

A humbler state and discipline of heart
Had form'd his glorious namesake's coun-
But grant his vices, grant them all his own,
terpart:

How small their theatre without a throne!

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