LXXXVIII.1

Flows there a tear of Pity for the dead?

Look o'er the ravage of the reeking plain;
Look on the hands with female slaughter red;
Then to the dogs resign the unburied slain,
Then to the vulture let each corse remain,

Albeit unworthy of the prey-bird's maw;

Let their bleached bones, and blood's unbleaching stain, Long mark the battle-field with hideous awe :

Thus only may our sons conceive the scenes we saw !

LXXXIX.

Nor yet, alas! the dreadful work is done;
Fresh legions pour adown the Pyrenees:
It deepens still, the work is scarce begun,
Nor mortal eye the distant end foresees.
Fall'n nations gaze on Spain; if freed, she frees
More than her fell Pizarros once enchained :
Strange retribution! now Columbia's ease

Repairs the wrongs that Quito's sons sustained,2 While o'er the parent clime prowls Murder unrestrained.

1. [Stanzas lxxxviii.-xciii., which record the battles of Barossa (March 5, 1811) and Albuera (May 16, 1811), and the death of Byron's school-friend Wingfield (May 14, 1811), were written at Newstead in August, 1811, and take the place of four omitted stanzas (q.v. supra).]

2. [Francisco Pizarro (1480-1541), with his brothers, Hernando, Juan Gonzalo, and his half-brother Martin de Alcantara, having revisited Spain, set sail for Panama in 1530. During his progress southward from Panama, he took the island of Puna, which formed part of the province of Quito. His defeat and treacherous capture of Atuahalpa,

VOL. II.

G

XC.

Not all the blood at Talavera shed,

Not all the marvels of Barossa's fight,

Not Albuera lavish of the dead,

Have won for Spain her well asserted right.

When shall her Olive-Branch be free from blight?

When shall she breathe her from the blushing toil?
How many a doubtful day shall sink in night,

Ere the Frank robber turn him from his spoil,
And Freedom's stranger-tree grow native of the soil! 1

XCI.

And thou, my friend!-since unavailing woe i 2 19.B.

1

Bursts from my heart, and mingles with the strain—

i. And thou, my friend! since thus my selfish woe

Bursts from my heart,

to weaken in
however light my strain,
for ever light the-
with the mighty, low

Had the sword laid thee,
Pride had forbade me of thy fall to plain.—[MS. D.]

King of Quito, younger brother of Huascar the Supreme Inca, took place in 1532, near the town of Caxamarca, in Peno (Mod. Univ. History, 1763, xxxviii. 295, seq.). Spain's weakness during the Napoleonic invasion was the opportunity of her colonies. Quito, the capital of Ecuador, rose in rebellion, August 10, 1810, and during the same year Mexico and La Plata began their long struggle for independence.]

1. [During the American War of Independence (1775-83), and afterwards during the French Revolution, it was the custom to plant trees as "symbols of growing freedom." The French trees were decorated with "caps of Liberty." No such trees had ever been planted in Spain. (See note by the Rev. E. C. Everard Owen, Childe Harold, 1897, p. 158.)] 2. [Compare the In Memoriam stanzas at the end of Beattie's Minstrel

"And am I left to unavailing woe?"

II. 63, line 2.]

Had the sword laid thee with the mighty low,
Pride might forbid e'en Friendship to complain :
But thus unlaurelled to descend in vain,

By all forgotten, save the lonely breast,
And mix unbleeding with the boasted slain,

While Glory crowns so many a meaner crest!

What hadst thou done to sink so peacefully to rest?

XCII.

i. 1

Oh, known the earliest, and esteemed the most!
Dear to a heart where nought was left so dear!".
Though to my hopeless days for ever lost,
In dreams deny me not to see thee here!
And Morn in secret shall renew the tear
Of Consciousness awaking to her woes,
And Fancy hover o'er thy bloodless bier,
frail frame return to whence it rose,
And mourned and mourner lie united in repose.

Till my

XCIII.

Here is one fytte 2 of Harold's pilgrimage:

Ye who of him may further seek to know,

i.

ii.

belov'd the most.-[MS. D.]

where none so long was dear.—[MS. D.]

iii. And fancy follow to —.—[MS. D.]

1. [With reference to this stanza, Byron wrote to Dallas, October 25, 1811 (Letters, 1898, ii. 58, 59), “I send you a conclusion to the whole. In a stanza towards the end of Canto I. in the line,

"Oh, known the earliest and beloved the most, I shall alter the epithet to 'esteemed the most.""] 2. "Fytte" means "part."-[Note erased.]

Shall find some tidings in a future page,

If he that rhymeth now may scribble moe.
Is this too much? stern Critic! say not so:
Patience! and ye shall hear what he beheld
In other lands, where he was doomed to go:
Lands that contain the monuments of Eld,

Ere Greece and Grecian arts by barbarous hands were quelled.

NOTES

ΤΟ

CHILDE HAROLD'S

PILGRIMAGE.

CANTO I.

I.

Yes! sighed o'er Delphi's long deserted shrine.

Stanza i. line 6.

THE little village of Castri stands partially on the site of Delphi. Along the path of the mountain, from Chrysso, are the remains of sepulchres hewn in and from the rock :One," said the guide, "of a king who broke his neck hunting." His majesty had certainly chosen the fittest spot for such an achievement.

66

A little above Castri is a cave, supposed the Pythian, of immense depth; the upper part of it is paved, and now a cowhouse.

On the other side of Castri stands a Greek monastery; some way above which is the cleft in the rock, with a range of caverns difficult of ascent, and apparently leading to the interior of the mountain; probably to the Corycian Cavern mentioned by Pausanias. From this part descend the fountain and the "Dews of Castalie."

[Byron and Hobhouse slept at Crissa December 15, and visited Delphi December 16, 1809.-Travels in Albania, i. 199-209.]

2.

And rest ye at "Our Lady's house of Woe."

Stanza xx. line 4.

The convent of "Our Lady of Punishment," Nossa Señora de Pena, on the summit of the rock. Below, at some