In horrid climes, where Chiloe's tempests sweep
Tumultuous murmurs o'er the troubled deep,
Twas his to mourn Misfortune's rudest shock,
Scourged by the winds, and cradled on the rock,
To wake each joyless morn and search again
The famish'd haunts of solitary men;

Whose race, unyielding as their native storm,
Know not a trace of Nature but the form;
Yet, at thy call, the hardy tar pursued,
Pale, but intrepid, sad, but unsubdued,
Pierced the deep woods, and hailing from afar
The moon's pale planet and the northern star,
Paused at each dreary cry unheard before,
Hyænas in the wild, and mermaids on the shore;
Till, led by thee o'er many a cliff sublime,
He found a warmer world, a milder clime,
A home to rest, a shelter to defend,
Peace and repose, a Briton and a friend!1

Congenial HOPE! thy passion-kindling power, How bright, how strong, in youth's untroubled

hour!

On yon proud height, with Genius hand-in-hand, I see thee light, and wave thy golden wand.

"Go, child of Heaven! (thy winged words proclaim)

Tis thine to search the boundless fields of fame!
Lo! Newton, priest of Nature, shines afar,
Seans the wide world, and numbers every star!
Wilt thou, with him, mysterious rites apply,
And watch the shrine with wonder-beaming eye!
Yes, thou shalt mark, with magic art profound,
The speed of light, the circling march of sound;
With Franklin grasp the lightning's fiery wing,
Or yield the lyre of Heaven another string.2

"The Swedish sage3 admires, in yonder bowers, His winged insects, and his rosy flowers; Calls from their woodland haunts the savage train, With sounding horn, and counts them on the plain

So once, at Heaven's command, the wanderers

came

To Eden's shade, and heard their various name.

"Far from the world, in yon sequester'd clime, Slow pass the sons of Wisdom, more sublime;

root above mentioned. I had no shirt, for it had rotted off by bits. All my clothes consisted of a short grieko (something like a bear-skin), a piece of red cloth which had once been a waistcoat, and a ragged pair of trousers, without shoes or stockings."

1 Don Patricio Gedd, a Scotch physician in one of the Spanish settlements, hospitably relieved Byron and his wretched associates, of which the commodore speaks in the warmest terms of gratitude.

The seven strings of Apollo's harp were the symbolical representation of the seven planets. Herschel, by discovering an eighth, might be said to add another string to the instrument.

* Linnæus.

Calm as the fields of Heaven, his sapient eye
The loved Athenian lifts to realms on high,
Admiring Plato, on his spotless page,
Stamps the bright dictates of the Father sage:
'Shall Nature bound to Earth's diurnal span
The fire of God, th' immortal soul of man?'

"Turn, child of Heaven, thy rapture-lighten'd

eye

To Wisdom's walks, the sacred Nine are nigh: Hark! from bright spires that gild the Delphian height,

From streams that wander in eternal light,
The mingling tones of horn, and harp, and shell;
Ranged on their hill, Harmonia's daughters swell
Deep from his vaults the Loxian murmurs flow,
And Pythia's awful organ peals below.

"Beloved of Heaven! the smiling Muse shall shed

Her moonlight halo on thy beauteous head;
Shall swell thy heart to rapture unconfined,
And breathe a holy madness o'er thy mind.
I see thee roam her guardian power beneath,
And talk with spirits on the midnight heath;
Inquire of guilty wanderers whence they came,
And ask each blood-stain'd form his earthly name;
Then weave in rapid verse the deeds they tell,
And read the trembling world the tales of hell.

"When Venus, throned in clouds of rosy hue,
Flings from her golden urn the vesper dew,
And bids fond man her glimmering noon employ,
Sacred to love, and walks of tender joy;
A milder mood the goddess shall recall,
And soft as dew thy tones of music fall;
While Beauty's deeply-pictured smiles impart
A pang more dear than pleasure to the heart-
Warm as thy sighs shall flow the Lesbian strain,
And plead in Beauty's ear, nor plead in vain.

"Or wilt thou Orphean hymns more sacred deem,

And steep thy song in Mercy's mellow stream;
To pensive drops the radiant eye beguile-
For Beauty's tears are lovelier than her smile;-
On Nature's throbbing anguish pour relief,
And teach impassion'd souls the joy of grief?

"Yes; to thy tongue shall seraph words be

given,

And power on earth to plead the cause of Heaven;
The proud, the cold untroubled heart of stone,
That never mused on sorrow but its own,
Unlocks a generous store at thy command,
Like Horeb's rocks beneath the prophet's hand."
The living lumber of his kindred earth,
Charm'd into soul, receives a second birth,

4 Loxias is the name frequently given to Apollo by Greek writers; it is met with more than once in the Choephora of Eschylus.

5 See Ex. xvii, 3, 5, 6.

Feels thy dread power another heart afford, Whose passion-touch'd harmonious strings accord True as the circling spheres to Nature's plan; And man, the brother, lives the friend of man.

"Bright as the pillar rose at Heaven's command, When Israel march'd along the desert land, Blazed through the night on lonely wilds afar, And told the path,- -a never-setting star: So, Heavenly Genius, in thy course divine, HOPE is thy star, her light is ever thine."

Propitious Power! when rankling cares annoy The sacred home of Hymenean joy; When doom'd to Poverty's sequester'd dell, The wedded pair of love and virtue dwell, Unpitied by the world, unknown to fame, Their woes, their wishes, and their hearts the

same

Oh, there, prophetic HOPE! thy smile bestow, And chase the pangs that worth should never

know

There, as the parent deals his scanty store
To friendless babes, and weeps to give no more,
Tell, that his manly race shall yet assuage
Their father's wrongs, and shield his latter age.
What though for him no Hybla sweets distil,
Nor bloomy vines wave purple on the hill;
Tell, that when silent years have pass'd away,
That when his eye grows dim, his tresses gray,
These busy hands a lovelier cot shall build,
And deck with fairer flowers his little field,
And call from Heaven propitious dews to breathe
Arcadian beauty on the barren heath;
Tell, that while Love's spontaneous smile endears
The days of peace, the sabbath of his years,
Health shall prolong to many a festive hour
The social pleasures of his humble bower.

Lo! at the couch where infant beauty sleeps,
Her silent watch the mournful mother keeps;
She, while the lovely babe unconscious lies,
Smiles on her slumbering child with pensive eyes,
And weaves a song of melancholy joy—
"Sleep, image of thy father, sleep, my boy;
No lingering hour of sorrow shall be thine;
No sigh that rends thy father's heart and mine;
Bright as his manly sire the son shall be
In form and soul; but, ah! more blest than he!
Thy fame, thy worth, thy filial love at last,
Shall soothe his aching heart for all the past-
With many a smile my solitude repay,
And chase the world's ungenerous scorn away.

"And say, when summon'd from the world and thee,

I lay my head beneath the willow tree,
Wilt thou, sweet mourner! at my stone appear,
And soothe my parted spirit lingering near?
Oh, wilt thou come at evening hour to shed
The tears of Memory o'er my narrow bed;
With aching temples on thy hand reclined,

Muse on the last farewell I leave behind, Breathe a deep sigh to winds that murmur low, And think on all my love, and all my woe?"

So speaks Affection, ere the infant eye
Can look regard, or brighten in reply;
But when the cherub lip hath learned to claim
A mother's ear by that endearing name;
Soon as the playful innocent can prove
A tear of pity, or a smile of love,

Or cons his murmuring task beneath her care,
Or lisps with holy look his evening prayer,
Or gazing, mutely pensive sits to hear
The mournful ballad warbled in his ear;
How fondly looks admiring HOPE the while,
At every artless tear, and every smile;
How glows the joyous parent to descry
A guileless bosom, true to sympathy!

Where is the troubled heart consign'd to share
Tumultuous toils, or solitary care,
Unblest by visionary thoughts that stray
To count the joys of Fortune's better day!
Lo! nature, life, and liberty relume
The dim-eyed tenant of the dungeon gloom,
A long-lost friend, or hapless child restored,
Smiles at his blazing hearth and social board;
Warm from his heart the tears of rapture flow,
And virtue triumphs o'er remember'd woe.

Till Memory fled her agonizing brain;-
But Mercy gave to charm the sense of woe,
Ideal peace, that truth could ne'er bestow;
Warm on her heart the joys of Fancy beam,
And aimless HOPE delights her darkest dream.

Oft when yon moon has climb'd the midnight sky,

And the lone sea-bird wakes its wildest cry,
Piled on the steep, her blazing faggots burn
To hail the bark that never can return;
And still she waits, but scarce forbears to weep
That constant love can linger on the deep.

And, mark the wretch, whose wanderings never knew

The world's regard, that soothes, though half untrue;

Whose erring heart the lash of sorrow bore, But found not pity when it err'd no more. Yon friendless man, at whose dejected eye Th' unfeeling proud one looks-and passes by, Condemn'd on Penury's barren path to roam, Scorn'd by the world, and left without a homeEven he at evening, should he chance to stray Down by the hamlet's hawthorn-scented way, Where, round the cot's romantic glade, are seen The blossom'd bean-field, and the sloping green, Leans o'er its humble gate, and thinks the whileOh! that for me some home like this would smile, Some hamlet shade, to yield my sickly form Health in the breeze, and shelter in the storm! There should my hand no stinted boon assign To wretched hearts with sorrow such as mine!That generous wish can soothe unpitied care, And HOPE half mingles with the poor man's prayer.

HOPE! when I mourn, with sympathizing mind, The wrongs of fate, the woes of human kind, Thy blissful omens bid my spirit see The boundless fields of rapture yet to be; I watch the wheels of Nature's mazy plan, And learn the future by the past of man.

Come, bright Improvement! on the car of Time, And rule the spacious world from clime to clime! Thy handmaid arts shall every wild explore, Trace every wave, and culture every shore. On Erie's banks, where tigers steal along, And the dread Indian chants a dismal song, Where human fiends on midnight errands walk, And bathe in brains the murderous tomahawk, There shall the flocks on thymy pasture stray, And shepherds dance at Summer's opening day; Each wandering genius of the lovely glen Shall start to view the glittering haunts of men, And silent watch, on woodland heights around, The village curfew as it tolls profound.

In Libyan groves, where damned rites are done, That bathe the rocks in blood, and veil the sun, Truth shall arrest the murderous arm profane, Wild Obi flies-the veil is rent in twain.

Where barbarous hordes on Scythian mountains

roam,

Truth, Mercy, Freedom, yet shall find a home; Where'er degraded Nature bleeds and pines,

Among the negroes of the West Indies, Obi, or Orbiah, is the name of a magical power, which is believed by them to affect the object of its malignity with dismal calamities. Such a belief must undoubtedly have been deduced from the superstitious mythology of their kinsmen on the coast of Africa. I have, therefore, personified Obi as the evil spirit of the African, although the history of the African tribes mentions the evil spirit of their religious creed by a different appellation.

From Guinea's coast to Sibir's dreary mines," Truth shall pervade th' unfathom'd darkness there,

And light the dreadful features of despair.-
Hark! the stern captive spurns his heavy load,
And asks the image back that Heaven bestow'd!
Fierce in his eye the fire of valour burns,
And as the slave departs, the man returns.

Oh! sacred Truth! thy triumph ceased awhile, And HOPE, thy sister, ceased with thee to smile, When leagued Oppression pour'd to Northern

wars

Her whisker'd pandoors and her fierce hussars,
Waved her dread standard to the breeze of morn,
Peal'd her loud drum, and twang'd her trumpet
horn

Tumultuous horror brooded o'er her van,
Presaging wrath to Poland-and to man!3

Warsaw's last champion from her height survey'd,

Wide o'er the fields, a waste of ruin laid,— "O Heaven!" he cried, "my bleeding country

save!

Is there no hand on high to shield the brave?
Yet, though destruction sweep those lovely plains,
Rise, fellow-men! our country yet remains!
By that dread name, we wave the sword on high!

And swear for her to live!-with her to die!"

He said, and on the rampart-heights array'd His trusty warriors, few, but undismay'd; Firm-paced and slow, a horrid front they form, Still as the breeze, but dreadful as the storm; Low murmuring sounds along their banners fly, Revenge, or death,-the watch-word and reply; Then peal'd the notes, omnipotent to charm, And the loud tocsin toll'd their last alarm!—

In vain, alas! in vain, ye gallant few! From rank to rank your volley'd thunder flew:Oh, bloodiest picture in the book of Time, Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime; Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe, Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her woe! Dropp'd from her nerveless grasp the shatter'd spear,

Closed her bright cye, and curb'd her high

career;

2 Mr. Bell of Antermony, in his Travels through Siberia, informs us that the name of the country is universally pronounced Sibir by the Russians.

3 The history of the partition of Poland, of the massacre in the suburbs of Warsaw and on the bridge of Prague, the triumphant entry of Suwarrow into the Polish capital, and the insult offered to human nature, by the blasphemous thanks offered up to Heaven for victories obtained over men fighting in the sacred cause of liberty, by murderers and oppressors, are events generally known.

HOPE, for a season, bade the world farewell,
And Freedom shriek'd-as KOSCIUSKO fell!

The sun went down, nor ceased the carnage there,

Tumultuous Murder shook the midnight air-
On Prague's proud arch the fires of ruin glow,
His blood-dyed waters murmuring far below;
The storm prevails, the rampart yields a way,
Bursts the wild cry of horror and dismay!
Hark, as the smouldering piles with thunder fall,
A thousand shrieks for hopeless mercy call!
Earth shook-red meteors flash'd along the sky,
And conscious Nature shudder'd at the cry!

Arrest the rolling world, or chain the deep?
No!-the wild wave contemns your sceptred hand:
It roll'd not back when Canute gave command!

grave,

Why slept the sword omnipotent to save?

rod,

That smote the foes of Zion and of God;

That crush'd proud Ammon, when his iron car
Was yoked in wrath, and thunder'd from afar?
Where was the storm that slumber'd till the host
Of blood-stain'd Pharaoh left their trembling
coast,

Then bade the deep in wild commotion flow,
And heaved an ocean on their march below?

Departed spirits of the mighty dead!

Ye that at Marathon and Leuctra bled!
Friends of the world! restore your swords to man,
Fight in his sacred cause, and lead the van!
Yet for Sarmatia's tears of blood atone,
And make her arm puissant as your own!
Oh! once again to Freedom's cause return
The patriot TELL-the BRUCE OF BANNOCKBURN!

Yes! thy proud lords, unpitied land! shall see
That man hath yet a soul-and dare be free!
A little while, along thy saddening plains,
The starless night of Desolation reigns;
Truth shall restore the light by Nature given,
And, like Prometheus, bring the fire of Heaven!
Prone to the dust Oppression shall be hurl'd,
Her name, her nature, wither'd from the world!

Ye that the rising morn invidious mark, And hate the light-because your deeds are dark; Ye that expanding truth invidious view, And think, or wish, the song of HOPE untrue; Perhaps your little hands presume to span The march of Genius and the powers of man; Perhaps ye watch, at Pride's unhallow'd shrine, Her victims, newly slain, and thus divine:"Here shall thy triumph, Genius, cease,-and here

Truth, Science, Virtue, close your short career."

Tyrants! in vain ye trace the wizard ring; In vain ye limit Mind's unwearied spring: What! can ye lull the winged winds asleep,

Or, wandering thence, behold the later charms
Of England's glory, and Helvetia's arms!
See Roman fire in Hampden's bosom swell,
And fate and freedom in the shaft of Tell!
Say, ye fond zealots to the worth of yore,
Hath valour left the world-to live no more?
No more shall Brutus bid a tyrant die,
And sternly smile with vengeance in his eye?
Hampden no more, when suffering Freedom calls,
Encounter Fate, and triumph as he falls?
Nor Tell disclose, through peril and alarm,
The might that slumbers in a peasant's arm?

Yes! in that generous cause, for ever strong,
The patriot's virtue and the poet's song,
Still, as the tide of ages rolls away,
Shall charm the world, unconscious of decay!

Yes! there are hearts, prophetic HOPE may trust,

That slumber yet in uncreated dust,
Ordain'd to fire th' adoring sons of earth
With every charm of wisdom and of worth;
Ordain'd to light, with intellectual day,
The mazy wheels of Nature as they play,
Or, warm with Fancy's energy, to glow,
And rival all but Shakspeare's name below.

And say, supernal Powers! who deeply scan Heaven's dark decrees, unfathom'd yet by man, When shall the world call down, to cleanse her

shame,

That embryo spirit, yet without a name,--
That friend of Nature, whose avenging hands
Shall burst the Libyan's adamantine bands?
Who, sternly marking on his native soil
The blood, the tears, the anguish, and the toil,
Shall bid each righteous heart exult to see
Peace to the slave, and vengeance on the free!

Yet, yet, degraded men, th' expected day
That breaks your bitter cup, is far away;
Trade, wealth, and fashion, ask you still to bleed,

And holy men give Scripture for the deed; Scourged, and debased, no Briton stoops to save A wretch, a coward; yes, because a slave!

Eternal Nature! when thy giant hand

Had heaved the floods, and fix'd the trembling land,

When life sprang startling at thy plastic call,
Endless her forms, and man the lord of all!
Say, was that lordly form inspired by thee,
To wear eternal chains and bow the knee?
Was man ordain'd the slave of man to toil,
Yoked with the brutes, and fetter'd to the soil;
Weigh'd in a tyrant's balance with his gold?
No! Nature stamp'd us in a heavenly mould!
She bade no wretch his thankless labour urge,
Nor, trembling, take the pittance and the scourge!
No homeless Libyan, on the stormy deep,
To call upon his country's name, and weep!-

Lo! once in triumph, on his boundless plain,
The quiver'd chief of Congo loved to reign;
With fires proportion'd to his native sky,
Strength in his arm, and lightning in his eye;
Scour'd with wild feet his sun-illumined zone,
The spear, the lion, and the woods, his own!
Or led the combat, bold without a plan,
An artless savage, but a fearless man!

The plunderer came!-alas! no glory smiles
For Congo's chief, on yonder Indian Isles;
For ever fall'n! no son of Nature now,
With freedom charter'd on his manly brow;
Faint, bleeding, bound, he weeps the night away,
And when the sea-wind wafts the dewless day,
Starts, with a bursting heart, for evermore
To curse the sun that lights their guilty shore!

The shrill horn blew; at that alarum knell
His guardian angel took a last farewell!
That funeral dirge to darkness hath resign'd
The fiery grandeur of a generous mind!
Poor fetter'd man! I hear thee whispering low
Unhallow'd vows to Guilt, the child of Woe,

1 The negroes in the West Indies are summoned to their morning work by a shell or horn.

* To elucidate this passage I shall subjoin a quotation from the preface to Letters from a Hindoo Rajah, a work of elegance and celebrity. "The impostor of Mecca had established, as one of the principles of his doctrine, the merit of extending it, either by persuasion or the sword, to all parts of the earth. How steadily this injunction was adhered to by his followers, and with what success it was pursued, is well known to all who are in the least conversant in history. The same overwhelming torrent which had inundated the greater part of Africa burst its way into the very heart of Europe, and covering many kingdoms of Asia with unbounded desolation, directed its baneful course to the flourishing provinces of Hindostan. Here these fierce and hardy adventurers, whose only improvement had been in the science of destruction, who added the fury of fanaticism to the

Friendless thy heart; and canst thou harbour

there

A wish but death-a passion but despair?

The widow'd Indian, when her lord expires, Mounts the dread pile, and braves the funeral fires!

So falls the heart at Thraldom's bitter sigh!
So Virtue dies, the spouse of Liberty!

But not to Libya's barren climes alone,
To Chili, or the wild Siberian zone,
Belong the wretched heart and haggard eye,
Degraded worth, and poor misfortune's sigh!--
Ye orient realms, where Ganges' waters run!
Prolific fields! dominions of the sun!
How long your tribes have trembled and obey'd!
How long was Timour's iron sceptre sway'd,
Whose marshall'd hosts, the lions of the plain,
From Scythia's northern mountains to the main,
Raged o'er your plunder'd shrines and altars
bare,

With blazing torch and gory scimitar,—
Stunn'd with the cries of death each gentle gale,
And bathed in blood the verdure of the vale!
Yet could no pangs the immortal spirit tame,
When Brama's children perish'd for his name;
The martyr smiled beneath avenging power,
And braved the tyrant in his torturing hour!

When Europe sought your subject realms to gain,

And stretch'd her giant sceptre o'er the main;
Taught her proud barks the winding way to shape,
And braved the stormy Spirit of the Cape;3
Children of Brama! then was Mercy nigh
To wash the stain of blood's eternal dye?
Did Peace descend to triumph and to save,
When freeborn Britons cross'd the Indian wave?
Ah, no! to more than Rome's ambition true,
The Nurse of Freedom gave it not to you!
She the bold route of Europe's guilt began,
And, in the march of nations, led the van!

ravages of war, found the great end of their conquest opposed by objects which neither the ardour of their persevering zeal, nor savage barbarity, could surmount. Multitudes were sacrificed by the cruel hand of religious persecution, and whole countries were deluged in blood, in the vain hope that by the destruction of a part the remainder might be persuaded or terrified into the profession of Mahomedism. But all these sanguinary efforts were ineffectual; and at length, being fully convinced that, though they might extirpate, they could never hope to convert any number of the Hindoos, they relinquished the impracticable idea with which they had entered upon their career of conquest, and contented themselves with the acquirement of the civil dominion and almost universal empire of Hindostan" (Letters from a Hindoo Rajah, by Eliza Hamilton).

3 See the description of the Cape of Good Hope, translated from Camoens, by Mickle.