Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 5.djvu/650

610 Mixed Celtic memories with the Phrygian mount,

And Highland linns with Castalie's clear fount.

Forgive me, Homer's universal shade!

Forgive me, Phœbus! that my fancy strayed;

The North and Nature taught me to adore

Your scenes sublime, from those beloved before.

XIII.

The love which maketh all things fond and fair,

The youth which makes one rainbow of the air,

The dangers past, that make even Man enjoy

The pause in which he ceases to destroy,

The mutual beauty, which the sternest feel

Strike to their hearts like lightning to the steel,

United the half savage and the whole,

The maid and boy, in one absorbing soul.

No more the thundering memory of the fight

Wrapped his weaned bosom in its dark delight;

No more the irksome restlessness of Rest

Disturbed him like the eagle in her nest,

Whose whetted beak and far-pervading eye

Darts for a victim over all the sky:

His heart was tamed to that voluptuous state,

At once Elysian and effeminate,

Which leaves no laurels o'er the Hero's urn;—

These wither when for aught save blood they burn;

Yet when their ashes in their nook are laid,

Doth not the myrtle leave as sweet a shade?

Had Cæsar known but Cleopatra's kiss,

Rome had been free, the world had not been his.

And what have Cæsar's deeds and Cæsar's fame

Done for the earth? We feel them in our shame.

The gory sanction of his Glory stains

The rust which tyrants cherish on our chains.

Though Glory—Nature—Reason—Freedom, bid