Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 5.djvu/643

CANTO II.] Or from the bubbling streamlet's grassy side,

Or gathering mountain echoes as they glide,

Hath greater power o'er each true heart and ear,

Than all the columns Conquest's minions rear;

Invites, when Hieroglyphics are a theme

For sages' labours, or the student's dream;

Attracts, when History's volumes are a toil,—

The first, the freshest bud of Feeling's soil.

Such was this rude rhyme—rhyme is of the rude—

But such inspired the Norseman's solitude,

Who came and conquered; such, wherever rise

Lands which no foes destroy or civilise,

Exist: and what can our accomplished art

Of verse do more than reach the awakened heart?

VI.

And sweetly now those untaught melodies

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 ecstacy,

That Life knows no such rapture as to die:

And die they do; for earthly life has nought

Matched with that burst of Nature, even in thought;