Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 3.djvu/271

CANTO I.] Aye, let them slumber—peaceful be their dreams!

Morn ne'er awoke them with such brilliant beams

As kindle high to-night (but blow, thou breeze!)

To warm these slow avengers of the seas.

Now to Medora—Oh! my sinking heart,

Long may her own be lighter than thou art!

Yet was I brave—mean boast where all are brave!

Ev'n insects sting for aught they seek to save.

This common courage which with brutes we share,

That owes its deadliest efforts to Despair,

Small merit claims—but 'twas my nobler hope

To teach my few with numbers still to cope;

Long have I led them—not to vainly bleed:

No medium now—we perish or succeed!

So let it be—it irks not me to die;

But thus to urge them whence they cannot fly.

My lot hath long had little of my care,

But chafes my pride thus baffled in the snare:

Is this my skill? my craft? to set at last

Hope, Power and Life upon a single cast?

Oh, Fate!—accuse thy folly—not thy fate;

She may redeem thee still—nor yet too late."

XIV.

Thus with himself communion held he, till

He reached the summit of his tower-crowned hill:

There at the portal paused—for wild and soft

He heard those accents never heard too oft!

Through the high lattice far yet sweet they rung,

And these the notes his Bird of Beauty sung: