Climes, fair withal as ever mortal head
Imagined in its little schemes of thought;
Or e'er in new Utopias were ared,

To teach man what he might be, or he ought;
If that corrupted thing could ever such be taught.

XXXVII.

Dear Nature is the kindest mother still,
Though always changing, in her aspect mild;
From her bare bosom let me take my fill,
Her never-weaned, though not her favored child.
Oh she is fairest in her features wild,
Where nothing polished dares pollute her path :
To me by day or night she ever smiled,

Though I have marked her when none other hath,

And sought her more and more, and loved her best in wrath.

XXXVIII.

Land of Albania! where Iskander rose,
Theme of the young, and beacon of the wise,
And he his namesake, whose oft-baffled foes
Shrunk from his deeds of chivalrous emprise :
Land of Albania! let me bend mine eyes
On thee, thou rugged nurse of savage men!
The cross descends, thy minarets arise,

And the pale crescent sparkles in the glen,
Through many a cypress grove within each city's ken.

XXXIX.

Childe Harold sailed, and passed the barren spot,

Where sad Penelope o'erlooked the wave;
And onward viewed the mount, not yet forgot,
The lover's refuge, and the Lesbian's grave.
Dark Sappho could not verse immortal save
That breast imbued with such immortal fire?
Could she not live who life eternal gave?

If life eternal may await the lyre,

That only Heaven to which Earth's children may aspire.

XL.

'Twas on a Grecian autumn's gentle eve
Childe Harold hailed Leucadia's cape afar;
A spot he longed to see, nor cared to leave:
Oft did he mark the scenes of vanished war,
Actium, Lepanto, fatal Trafalgar;

Mark them unmoved, for he would not delight
(Born beneath some remote inglorious star)

In themes of bloody fray, or gallant fight,

But loathed the bravo's trade, and laughed at martial wight.

Trafalgar.-Death of Nelson.

(From painting by Turner.)

"Fatal Trafalgar."