CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE,
COME, blue-eyed maid of heaven !—but thou, alas ! Didst never yet one mortal song inspire- Goddess of Wisdom! here thy temple was, And is, despite of war and wasting fire,1 And years, that bade thy worship to expire : But worse than steel, and flame, and ages slow, Is the dread sceptre and dominion dire
Of men who never felt the sacred glow
That thoughts of thee and thine on polish'd breasts bestow.2
Ancient of days! august Athena ! where, Where are thy men of might? thy grand in soul? Gone-glimmering through the dream of things that
First in the race that led to Glory's goal, They won, and pass'd away-is this the whole ? A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour! The warrior's weapon and the sophist's stole Are sought in vain, and o'er each mouldering tower, Dim with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of power.
Son of the morning, rise! approach you here Come-but molest not yon defenceless urn Look on this spot-a nation's sepulchre ! Abode of gods, whose shrines no longer burn. Even gods must yield-religions take their turn: "Twas Jove's-'tis Mahomet's-and other creeds Will rise with other years, till man shall learn Vainly his incense soars, his victim bleeds;
Poor child of Doubt and Death, whose hope is built on reeds.3
Bound to the earth, he lifts his eye to heaven— Is 't not enough, unhappy thing! to know Thou art? Is this a boon so kindly given, That being, thou would'st be again, and go, Thou know'st not, reck'st not to what region, so On earth no more, but mingled with the skies? Still wilt thou dream1 on future joy and woe? Regard and weigh yon dust before it flies: That little urn saith more than thousand homilies.
Or burst the vanish'd Hero's lofty mound; Far on the solitary shore he sleeps :5 He fell, and falling nations mourn'd around; But now not one of saddening thousands weeps, Nor warlike worshipper his vigil keeps Where demi-gods appear'd, as records tell. Remove yon skull from out the scatter'd heaps: Is that a temple where a God may dwell?
Why ev'n the worm at last disdains her shatter'd cell!
Look on its broken arch, its ruin'd wall, Its chambers desolate, and portals foul : Yes, this was once Ambition's airy hall, The dome of Thought, the palace of the Soul: Behold through each lack-lustre, eyeless hole, The gay recess of Wisdom and of Wit
And Passion's host, that never brook'd control: Can all saint, sage, or sophist ever writ, People this lonely tower, this tenement refit ?
Well didst thou speak, Athena's wisest son! "All that we know is, nothing can be known." Why should we shrink from what we cannot shun? Each hath his pang, but feeble sufferers groan With brain-born dreams of evil all their own. Pursue what Chance or Fate proclaimeth best ; Peace waits us on the shores of Acheron :
There no forced banquet claims the sated guest, But Silence spreads the couch of ever welcome rest.
Yet if, as holiest men have deem'd, there be A land of souls beyond that sable shore, To shame the doctrine of the Sadducee And sophists, madly vain of dubious lore; How sweet it were in concert to adore With those who made our mortal labours light! To hear each voice we fear'd to hear no more! Behold each mighty shade reveal'd to sight,
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