XX. Then slowly climb the many-winding way, દ And rest ye at our « Lady's house of woe;» XXI. And here and there, as up the crags you spring, These are memorials frail of murderous wrath: For wheresoe'er the shrieking victim hath Pour'd forth his blood beneath the assassin's knife Some hand erects a cross of mouldering lath; And grove and glen with thousand such are rife Throughout this purple land, where law secures not life.3 XXII. On sloping mounds, or in the vale beneath, Are domes where whilome kings did make repair; When wanton wealth her mightiest deeds hath done, Meek peace voluptuous lures was ever wont to shun. XXIII. Here didst thou dwell, here schemes of pleasure plan, But now, as if a thing unblest by man, XXIV. Behold the hall where chiefs were late convened! 4 With diadem hight foolscap, lo! a fiend, A little fiend that scoffs incessantly, There sits in parchment robe array'd, and by His side is hung a seal and sable scroll, Where blazon'd glare names known to chivalry, And sundry signatures adorn the roll, Whereat the urchin points and laughs with all his soul. XXV. Convention is the dwarfish demon styled XXVI. And ever since that martial synod met, And fain would blush, if blush they could, for shame. How will posterity the deed proclaim! Will not our own and fellow-nations sneer, To view these champions cheated of their fame, By foes in fight o'erthrown, yet victors here, Where scorn her finger points through many a coming year? XXVII. So deem'd the Childe, as o'er the mountains he Did take his way in solitary guise : Sweet was the scene, yet soon he thought to flee, And conscious reason whisper'd to despise XXVIII. To horse! to horse! he quits, for ever quits But seeks not now the harlot and the bowl. Or he shall calm his breast, or learn experience sage. XXIX. Yet Mafra shall one moment claim delay,5 XXX. O'er vales that teem with fruits, romantic hills, (Oh, that such hills upheld a freeborn race!) Whereon to gaze the eye with joyaunce fills, Childe Harold wends through many a pleasant place. Though sluggards deem it but a foolish chase, And marvel men should quit their easy chair, The toilsome way, and long, long league to trace, Oh! there is sweetness in the mountain air, And life, that bloated ease can never hope to share. XXXI. More bleak to view the hills at length recede, Spain's realms appear whereon her shepherds tend And all must shield their all, or share subjection's woes. XXXII. Where Lusitania and her sister meet, Deem ye what bounds the rival realms divide? Or ere the jealous queens of nations greet, Doth Tayo interpose his mighty tide? Or dark Sierras rise in craggy pride? Or fence of art, like China's vasty wall?Ne barrier wall, ne river deep and wide, Ne horrid crags, nor mountains dark and tall, Rise like the rocks that part Hispania's land from Gaul: XXXIII. But these between a silver streamlet glides, XXXIV. But ere the mingling bounds have far been pass'd, In sullen billows, murmuring and vast, Whilome upon his banks did legions throng Of Moor and knight, in mailed splendour drest: Mix'd on the bleeding stream, by floating hosts oppress'd. |