Poems on Travel Part 9

For me the torrent ever poured And glistened--here and there alone The broad-limbed G.o.ds at random thrown 15 By fountain-urns;--and Naiads oared

A glimmering shoulder under gloom Of cavern pillars; on the swell The silver lily heaved and fell; And many a slope was rich in bloom 20

From him that on the mountain lea By dancing rivulets fed his flocks, To him who sat upon the rocks, And fluted to the morning sea.

LORD TENNYSON.

h.e.l.lAS

It is not only that the sun Loves best these southern lands, It is not for the trophies won Of old by hero hands, That nature wreathed in softer smiles 5 Was here the bride of art; A closer kins.h.i.+p claims these isles, The love-land of the heart.

It is because the poet's dream Still haunts each happy vale, 10 That peopled every grove and stream To fit his fairy tale.

There may be greener vales and hills Less bare to shelter man; But still they want the naiad rills, 15 And miss the pipe of Pan.

There may be other isles as fair And summer seas as blue, But then Odysseus touched not there Nor Argo beached her crew. 20 The Nereid-haunted river sh.o.r.e, The Faun-frequented dell, Possess me with their magic more Than sites where Caesars fell: And where the blooms of Zante blow 25 Their incense to the waves; Where Ithaca's dark headlands show The legendary caves; Where in the deep of olive groves The summer hardly dies; 30 Where fair Phaeacia's sun-brown maids Still keep their siren eyes; Where Chalcis strains with loving lips Towards the little bay, The strand that held the thousand s.h.i.+ps, 35 The Aulis of delay; Where Oeta's ridge of granite bars The gate Thermopylae, Where huge Orion crowned with stars Looks down on Rhodope; 40 Where once Apollo tended flocks On Phera's lofty plain, Where Peneus cleaves the stubborn rocks To find the outer main; Where Argos and Mycenae sleep 45 With all the buried wrong, And where Arcadian uplands keep The antique shepherd song, There is a spirit haunts the place All other lands must lack, 50 A speaking voice, a living grace, That beckons fancy back.

Dear isles and sea-indented sh.o.r.e, Till songs be no more sung, The singers that have gone before 55 Will keep your lovers young: And men will hymn your haunted skies, And seek your holy streams, Until the soul of music dies, And earth has done with dreams. 60

SIR RENNELL RODD.

THE VIOLET CROWN

'Wherefore the "city of the violet crown"?'

One asked me, as the April sun went down Behind the shadows of the Persian's mound, The fretted crags of Salamis.

'Look round, And see the question answered!'

For we were Upon the summit of that battled square, 6 The rock of ruin, in whose fallen shrine The world still wors.h.i.+ps what man made divine, The maiden fane, that yet may boast the birth Of half the immortalities of earth. 10

The last rays light the portal, a gold wave Runs up the columns to the architrave, Lingers about the gable and is gone:-- Parnes, Hymettus, and Pentelicon Show shadowy violet in the after-rose, 15 Cithaeron's ridge and all the islands close The mountain ring, like sapphires o'er the sea, And from this circle's heart aetherially Springs the white altar of the land's renown, A marble lily in a violet crown. 20

And fairer crown had never queen than this That girds thee round, far-famed Acropolis!

So of these isles, these mountains, and this sea, I wove a crown of song to dedicate to thee.

SIR RENNELL RODD.

ATHENS

The nodding promontories and blue isles, And cloud-like mountains, and dividuous waves Of Greece, basked glorious in the open smiles Of favouring heaven: from their enchanted caves Prophetic echoes flung dim melody 5 On the unapprehensive wild.

The vine, the corn, the olive wild, Grew, savage yet, to human use unreconciled; And like unfolded flowers beneath the sea, Like the man's thought dark in the infant's brain, 10 Like aught that is which wraps what is to be, Art's deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein Of Parian stone; and yet a speechless child, Verse murmured, and Philosophy did strain Her lidless eyes for thee; when o'er the Aegean main 15 Athens arose: a city such as vision Builds from the purple crags and silver towers Of battlemented cloud, as in derision Of kingliest masonry: the ocean-floors Pave it; the evening sky pavilions it; 20 Its portals are inhabited By thunder-zoned winds, each head Within its cloudy wings with sun-fire garlanded,-- A divine work! Athens, diviner yet, Gleamed with its crest of columns, on the will Of man, as on a mount of diamond, set; 26 For thou wert, and thine all-creative skill Peopled, with forms that mock the eternal dead In marble immortality, that hill Which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle.

Within the surface of Time's fleeting river 31 Its wrinkled image lies, as then it lay Immovably unquiet, and for ever It trembles, but it cannot pa.s.s away!

P. B. Sh.e.l.lEY.

PARNa.s.sUS

Oh, thou Parna.s.sus! whom I now survey, Not in the frenzy of a dreamer's eye, Not in the fabled landscape of a lay, But soaring snow-clad through thy native sky, In the wild pomp of mountain majesty! 5 What marvel if I thus essay to sing?

The humblest of thy pilgrims pa.s.sing by Would gladly woo thine Echoes with his string, Though from thy heights no more one Muse will wave her wing.

Oft have I dreamed of Thee! whose glorious name Who knows not, knows not man's divinest lore: 11 And now I view thee, 'tis, alas! with shame That I in feeblest accents must adore.

When I recount thy wors.h.i.+ppers of yore I tremble, and can only bend the knee; 15 Nor raise my voice, nor vainly dare to soar, But gaze beneath thy cloudy canopy In silent joy to think at last I look on Thee!

LORD BYRON.

CORINTH

Many a vanished year and age, And tempest's breath, and battle's rage, Have swept o'er Corinth; yet she stands, A fortress formed to Freedom's hands.

The whirlwind's wrath, the earthquake's shock, 5 Have left untouched her h.o.a.ry rock, The keystone of a land, which still, Though fallen, looks proudly on that hill, The landmark to the double tide That purpling rolls on either side, 10 As if their waters chafed to meet, Yet pause and crouch beneath her feet.

But could the blood before her shed, Since first Timoleon's brother bled, Or baffled Persia's despot fled, 15 Arise from out the earth which drank The stream of slaughter as it sank, That sanguine ocean would o'erflow Her isthmus idly spread below: Or could the bones of all the slain, 20 Who perished there, be piled again, That rival pyramid would rise More mountain-like, through those clear skies, Than yon tower-capped Acropolis, Which seems the very clouds to kiss. 25

LORD BYRON.

CORINNA TO TANAGRA

FROM ATHENS

Tanagra! think not I forget Thy beautifully-storied streets; Be sure my memory bathes yet In clear Thermodon, and yet greets The blithe and liberal shepherd-boy, 5 Whose sunny bosom swells with joy When we accept his matted rushes Upheaved with sylvan fruit; away he bounds and blushes.

A gift I promise: one I see Which thou with transport wilt receive, 10 The only proper gift for thee, Of which no mortal shall bereave In later times thy mouldering walls, Until the last old turret falls; A crown, a crown from Athens won, 15 A crown no G.o.d can wear, beside Latona's son.

There may be cities who refuse To their own child the honours due, And look ungently on the Muse; But ever shall those cities rue 20 The dry, unyielding, n.i.g.g.ard breast, Offering no nourishment, no rest, To that young head which soon shall rise Disdainfully, in might and glory, to the skies.

Sweetly where caverned Dirce flows 25 Do white-armed maidens chant my lay, Flapping the while with laurel-rose The honey-gathering tribes away; And sweetly, sweetly Attic tongues Lisp your Corinna's early songs; 30 To her with feet more graceful come The verses that have dwelt in kindred b.r.e.a.s.t.s at home.

O let thy children lean aslant Against the tender mother's knee, And gaze into her face, and want 35 To know what magic there can be In words that urge some eyes to dance, While others as in holy trance Look up to heaven: be such my praise!

Why linger? I must haste, or lose the Delphic bays.

W. S. LANDOR.

WARING

What's become of Waring Since he gave us all the slip, Chose land-travel or seafaring, Boots and chest or staff and scrip, Rather than pace up and down 5 Any longer London-town?

Ichabod, Ichabod, The glory is departed!

Travels Waring East away?

Who, of knowledge, by hearsay, 10 Reports a man upstarted Somewhere as a G.o.d, Hordes grown European-hearted, Millions of the wild made tame On a sudden at his fame? 15 In Vishnu-land what Avatar?

Or who, in Moscow, toward the Czar, With the demurest of footfalls Over the Kremlin's pavement, bright With serpentine and syenite, 20 Steps, with five other Generals That simultaneously take snuff, For each to have pretext enough To kerchiefwise unfold his sash Which, softness' self, is yet the stuff 25 To hold fast where a steel chain snaps, And leave the grand white neck no gash?

Waring, in Moscow, to those rough Cold northern natures borne, perhaps, Like the lambwhite maiden dear 30 From the circle of mute kings Unable to repress the tear, Each as his sceptre down he flings, To Dian's fane at Taurica, Where now a captive priestess, she alway 35 Mingles her tender grave h.e.l.lenic speech With theirs, tuned to the hailstone-beaten beach, As pours some pigeon, from the myrrhy lands Rapt by the whirlblast to fierce Scythian strands Where breed the swallows, her melodious cry 40 Amid their barbarous twitter?

In Russia? Never! Spain were fitter!

Ay, most likely 'tis in Spain That we and Waring meet again Now, while he turns down that cool narrow lane Into the blackness, out of grave Madrid 45 All fire and s.h.i.+ne, abrupt as when there's slid Its stiff gold blazing pall From some black coffin-lid.

'When I last saw Waring....' 50 (How all turned to him who spoke-- You saw Waring? Truth or joke?

In land-travel, or sea-faring?) 'We were sailing by Triest, Where a day or two we harboured: 55 A sunset was in the West, When, looking over the vessel's side, One of our company espied A sudden speck to larboard.

And, as a sea-duck flies and swims 60 At once, so came the light craft up, With its sole lateen sail that trims And turns (the water round its rims Dancing, as round a sinking cup) And by us like a fish it curled, 65 And drew itself up close beside, Its great sail on the instant furled, And o'er its planks, a shrill voice cried (A neck as bronzed as a Lascar's), "Buy wine of us, you English brig? 70 Or fruit, tobacco and cigars?

A pilot for you to Triest?

Without one, look you ne'er so big, They'll never let you up the bay!