Canto III
1. BL article on the Canto III of the Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
"Lord Byron wrote his third canto of Childe Harold as he travelled through Belgium and up the Rhine to Switzerland, having left England under a cloud of public disapproval. The theme of rejection and failure, and the poet¡¯s reactions to these, are a strong theme running through the work: Byron/Harold (the distinction between them is blurred in this canto) leaves England keenly feeling his separation from his muse and daughter. A visit to Waterloo inspires thoughts of frustration at the vanity of Napoleon¡¯s military ambition, contrasted with praise for an English officer, but these ultimately lead to despair at the futility of war. Yet Byron feels moved to praise two battles that supported political independence (Morat and Marathon), and a young French soldier killed in the defence of his homeland. As the poet¡¯s journey terminates in Switzerland he is led to praise Rousseau. Through the course of the poem Nature reflects the poet¡¯s turmoil, the mountains, avalanches, glaciers and storms being seen as a realisation of the sublime."
2. An agonizing expression of inner turmoil(the separation scandal etc)
3. Byron's own comment:"[I]t is a fine indistinct piece of poetic desolation, and my favourite. I was half mad during the time its composition, between metaphysics, mountains, lakes, love inextinguishable, thoughts unutterable, and the nightmare of my own delinquencies."
4. His comparison of Napoleon(at Waterloo), Rousseau(in front of the Swiss landscape) with himself: "the artist as a suffering hero."
5. His intense but vain desire to condense into one word with all the force of lightning all the contradictory elements of his selfhood: "Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings, strong or weak.' But Byron's lightning is not self-consuming passion, but weapon made of language he wishes he could wield against his enemy.
I. Harold in Canto III
5.
He, who grown aged in this world of woe,
In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life,
So that no wonder waits him; nor below
Can Love – or Sorrow – Fame – Ambition – Strife, 40
Cut to his heart again with the keen knife
Of silent, sharp endurance – he can tell
Why Thought seeks refuge in lone caves, yet rife
With airy images, and shapes which dwell
Still unimpaired, though old, in the Soul¡¯s haunted cell. 45
6.
¡¯Tis to create, and in creating live
A being more intense, that we endow
With form our fancy,23 gaining as we give
The life we image, even as I do now.
What am I? Nothing – but not so art thou, 50
Soul of my thought! with whom I traverse earth,
Invisible but gazing, as I glow
Mixed with thy Spirit, blended with thy birth,
And feeling still with thee in my crushed feelings¡¯ dearth.
7.
Yet must I think less wildly; I have thought 55
Too long and darkly, till my brain became,
In its own eddy boiling and o¡¯erwrought,
A whirling gulph of phantasy and flame:
And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame,
My Springs of life were poisoned. ¡¯Tis too late, 60
Yet am I changed; though still enough the same
In strength to bear what Time cannot abate,
And feed on bitter fruits without accusing Fate.
II. Byronic Hero
14.
Like the Chaldean, he could watch the Stars,
Till he had peopled them with beings bright
As their own beams; and Earth, and earth-born jars, 120
And human frailties, were forgotten quite:
Could he have kept his Spirit to that flight
He had been happy; but this Clay will sink
Its spark immortal, envying it the light
To which it mounts, as if to break the link 125
That keeps us from yon heaven which woos us to its brink.
15.
But in Man¡¯s dwellings he became a thing
Restless and worn, and stern and wearisome,
Drooped as a wild-born Falcon with clipped wing,
To whom the boundless air alone were home: 130
Then came his fit again,27 which to o¡¯ercome,
As eagerly the barred-up bird will beat
His breast and beak against his wiry dome
Till the blood tinge his plumage, so the heat
Of his impeded Soul would through his bosom eat. 135
III. Waterloo
17.
Stop! – for thy tread is on an Empire¡¯s dust! 145
An Earthquake¡¯s spoil is sepulchred below!
Is the spot marked with no Colossal bust?
Nor Column trophied for triumphal show?
None; but the moral¡¯s truth tells simpler so:
As the ground was before, thus let it be; – 150
How that red rain hath made the harvest grow!
And is this all the world has gained by thee,
Thou first and last of fields! King-making Victory?
18.
And Harold stands upon this place of skulls,
The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo; 155
How in an hour the Power which gave annulls
Its gifts, transferring fame as fleeting too!
In ¡°pride of place¡± here last the Eagle flew, *
Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain,
Pierced by the shaft of banded nations through; 160
Ambition¡¯s life and labours all were vain;
He wears the shattered links of the world¡¯s broken chain.
19.
Fit retribution – Gaul may champ the bit
And foam in fetters – but is Earth more free?
Did nations combat to make One submit; 165
Or league to teach all kings true Sovereignty?
What! shall reviving Thraldom again be
The patched-up Idol of enlightened days?
Shall we, who struck the Lion down, shall we
Pay the wolf homage?31 proffering lowly gaze 170
And servile knees to thrones? No; prove before ye praise!
20.
If not, o¡¯er one fallen despot boast no more!
In vain fair cheeks were furrowed with hot tears
For Europe¡¯s flowers long rooted up before
The trampler of her vineyards; in vain years 175
Of death – depopulation – bondage – fears,
Have all been borne, and broken by the accord
Of roused-up millions; all that most endears
Glory, is when the Myrtle wreathes a Sword
Such as Harmodius drew on Athens¡¯ tyrant Lord. * 180
IV. Napoleon
36.
There sunk the greatest – nor the worst of men,43
Whose Spirit, antithetically mixt,44
One moment of the mightiest, and again
On little objects with like firmness fixed;
Extreme in all things! hadst thou been betwixt, 320
Thy throne had still been thine, or never been;
For Daring made thy rise as fall: thou seek¡¯st
Even now to re-assume the imperial mien,
And shake again the world, the Thunderer of the Scene.
37.
Conqueror and Captive of the Earth art thou! 325
She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name
Was ne¡¯er more bruited in men¡¯s minds than now
That thou art Nothing, save the Jest of Fame,
Who wooed thee once, thy Vassal, and became
The Flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert 330
A God unto thyself; nor less the same
To the astounded kingdoms all inert,
Who deemed thee for a time whate¡¯er thou didst assert.
41.
If, like a tower upon a headland rock,
Thou hadst been made to stand or fall alone,
Such scorn of Man had helped to brave the Shock;
But Men¡¯s thoughts were the steps which paved thy throne,
Their Admiration thy best weapon shone; 365
The part of Philip¡¯s Son46 was thine, not then
(unless aside thy Purple had been thrown)
Like stern Diogenes to mock at men;
For sceptred Cynics Earth were far too wide a den! *
42.
But Quiet to quick bosoms is a Hell, 370
And there hath been thy bane; there is a fire
And Motion of the Soul which will not dwell
In its own narrow being, but aspire
Beyond the fitting medium of desire;
And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore, 375
Preys upon high Adventure, nor can tire
Of aught but rest; a fever at the Core,
Fatal to him who bears, to all who ever bore.
V. Wordsworth
72.
I live not in myself, but I become 680
Portion of that around me;74 and to me
High mountains are a feeling, but the hum
Of human cities – torture – I can see
Nothing to loathe in Nature, save to be
A link reluctant in a fleshly chain, 685
Classed among creatures, when the Soul can flee,
And with the sky – the peak – the heaving plain
Of Ocean, or the Stars, mingle – and not in vain.
73.
And thus I am absorbed, and this is life:
I look upon the peopled desart past, 690
As on a place of agony and strife,
Where, for some sin, to sorrow I was cast,
To act and suffer, but remount at last
With a fresh pinion; which I feel to spring,
Though young, yet waxing vigorous as the Blast 695
Which it would cope with, on delighted wing,
Spurning the clay-cold bonds which round our being cling.
74.
And when, at length, the Mind shall be all free
From what it hates in this degraded form,
Reft of its carnal life, save what shall be 700
Existent happier in the fly and worm,
When elements to elements conform,
And dust is as it should be, shall I not
Feel all I see – less dazzling – but more warm?
The bodiless thought? the Spirit of each Spot? 705
Of which, even now, I share at times the immortal lot?
VI. Rousseau and the French Revolution
81.
For then he was inspired, and from him came,
As from the Pythian¡¯s mystic cave of yore,
Those oracles which set the world in flame,
Nor ceased to burn till kingdoms were no more:
Did he not this for France? which lay before 765
Bowed to the inborn tyranny of years?
Broken and trembling to the yoke she bore,
Till by the voice of him and his Compeers
Roused up to too much wrath, which follows o¡¯ergrown fears?
82.
They made themselves a fearful Monument! 770
The Wreck of old opinions – things which grew,
Breathed from the birth of Time: the Veil they rent,
And what behind it lay, all Earth shall view.
But Good with Ill they also overthrew,
Leaving but ruins, wherewith to rebuild 775
Upon the same foundation, and renew
Dungeons and thrones, which the same hour refilled *
As heretofore, because Ambition was self-willed.
83.
But this will not endure, nor be endured!
Mankind have felt their strength and made it felt. 780
They might have used it better, but, allured
By their new vigour, sternly have they dealt
On one another; Pity ceased to melt
With her once natural Charities. But they,
Who in Oppression¡¯s darkness caved had dwelt, 785
They were not Eagles, nourished with the day;
What marvel then, at times, if they mistook their prey?
84.
What deep wounds ever closed without a scar?
The Heart¡¯s bleed longest, and but heal to wear
That which disfigures it; and they who war 790
With their own Hopes, and have been vanquished, bear
Silence, but not submission: in his lair
Fixed Passion holds his breath, until the hour
Which shall atone for years; none need despair:
It came – it cometh – and will come – the Power 795
To punish or forgive – in One we shall be slower.
VII. Byron on his poetry and himself
97.
Could I embody and unbosom now 905
That which is most within me, – could I wreak
My thoughts upon Expression – and thus throw
Soul – heart – mind – passions – feelings – strong or weak,
All that I would have sought, and all I seek,
Bear – know – feel – and yet breath – into one word, 910
And that one Word were Lightning, I would speak;
But as it is, I live and die unheard,
With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword.
113.
I have not loved the World, nor the World me;
I have not flattered its rank breath, nor bowed 1050
To its Idolatries a patient knee;
Nor coined my cheek to smiles – nor cried aloud
In worship of an Echo; in the crowd
They could not deem me one of such; I stood
Among them, but not of them; in a shroud 1055
Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still could,
Had I not filed my Mind, which thus itself subdued. *
114.
I have not loved the world, nor the world me –
But let us part fair foes; I do believe,
Though I have found them not, that there may be 1060
Words which are things – hopes which will not deceive,
And virtues which are merciful, nor weave
Snares for the failing: I would also deem
O¡¯er others¡¯ griefs that some sincerely grieve; *
That two, or one, are almost what they seem – 1065
That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream.