For beautiful in death are they,
Who proudly fall in thy array ;

And soon, oh Goddess! may we be
Forevermore with them or thee.

We come now to the serious narrative poems, at the head of which stands Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, the work which first established the author's reputation, and upon which, more than any other single one, it will ultimately rest. This poem, although narrative in form, belongs in reality to the moral and descriptive class. It professes to relate the adventures of an imaginary hero; but consists, in fact, of a series of reflections and observations made by the writer himself in the course of his own travels, and delivered a great part of the time in his own person. As a narrative poem, therefore, it has no merit, and hardly pretends to any. The character of the Childe is drawn with force and truth; but he seems to be a useless excrescence in the work that bears his name. The author probably supposed, in the first instance, that it would be more poetical and graceful to give an account of his travels under the guise of a fictitious personage, than to appear by name himself, as the hero of his work. It may be doubted, however, whether by closely adhering to this plan, he would not have lost in vivacity and spirit, more than he would have gained in any other quality. Be that as it may, he soon grows impatient of the disguise, shakes off the Childe and exhibits himself in his own dress. After this poor Harold becomes gradually more and more insignificant; and in the two last cantos we lose sight of him almost entirely.

The merit of the poem lies, therefore, wholly in the substance and not in the form. Considered as a series of descriptions and of moral and philosophical reflections, it deserves all the praise that has been bestowed upon it; and to pretend to criticise it in detail would only bring us back again to the pulchre, bene, optime. There is a power and freshness in the thoughts, and a vigor and elegance in the style, that belong only to first rate poetry. We mean not to intimate that the thoughts are always just. On the contrary they are often incorrect, and sometimes wholly false. Indeed the tendency of the whole work philosophically viewed, is far from being of a favorable kind, as we shall have ocVOL. XX.No. 46.

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casion to state in touching on the moral value of Lord Byron's productions. We now refer merely to its literary qualities; and these are in every respect of the highest order. The two first and the two last cantos differ a little in their character, a considerable interval of time having elapsed between the publication of them, during which the author's taste and habits of thought had undergone some change. The two first are perhaps rather more spirited and vigorous, the two last more elaborate and finished. The substantial merit of all is about the same. One of the most successful passages is the apostrophe to Greece. The poet little thought, when he was writing it, that his own bones would rest and that so shortly-in the bosom of the land to which he was addressing these enchanting stanzas.

Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth!

Immortal, though no more; though fallen, great!
Who now, shall lead thy scattere: children forth,
And long accustomed bondage uncreate ?
Not such thy sons who whilome did await,
The hopeless warriors of a willing doom,
In bleak Thermopyla's sepulchral strait-
Oh! who that gallant spirit shall resume,

Leap from Eurotas' banks, and call thee from the tomb.

Spirit of freedom! when on Phyle's brow
Thou sat'st with Thrasybulus and his train,

Could'st thou forebode the dismal hour, which now

Dims the green beauties of thine Attic plain ?

Not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain,

But every carl can lord it o'er thy land;

Nor rise thy sons, but idly rail in vain,

Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish hand,
From birth till death enslav'd; in word, in deed, un-

In all save form alone, how changed! and who
That marks the fire still sparkling in each eye,
Who would but deem their bosoms burned anew
With thy unquenched beam, lost Liberty!
And many dream withal the hour is nigh
That gives them back their father's heritage :
For foreign arms and aid they fondly sigh,
Nor solely dare encounter hostile rage,

Or tear their name defil'd from Slavery's mournful page.

Hereditary Bondsmen ! know ye not

Who would be free themselves must strike the blow?
By their right arms the conquest must be wrought;
Will Gaul or Muscovite redress ye? no!
True, they may lay your proud despoilers low,
But not for you will Freedom's altars flame,
Shades of the Helots! triumph o'er your foe!
Greece! change thy lords, thy state is still the same;
Thy glorious day is o'er, but not thy years of shame.

When riseth Lacedæmon's hardihood,
When Thebes Epaminondas rears again,
When Athens' children are with arts endued,
When Grecian mothers shall give birth to men,
Then may'st thou be restor'd; but not till then
A thousand years scarce serve to form a state!
An hour may lay it in the dust; and when
Can man its shattered splendor renovate,
Recall its virtues back, and vanquish time and fate?

And yet how lovely in thine age

of wo,

Land of lost gods, and godlike men! art thou!
Thy vales of evergreen, thy hills of snow
Proclaim thee Nature's varied favorite now.
Thy fanes, thy temples to thy surface bow,
Commingling slowly with heroic earth,
Broke with the share of every rustic plough;
So perish monuments of mortal birth,

So perish all in turn, save well-recorded Worth.

Save where some solitary column mourns
Above its prostrate brethren of the cave;
Save where Tritonia's airy shrine adorns
Colonna's cliff, and gleams along the wave;
Save o'er some warrior's half forgotten grave,
Where the grey stones and unmolested grass
Ages, but not oblivion, feebly brave,
While strangers only not regardless pass,

Lingering like me, perchance, to gaze, and sigh Alas.'

Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild;
Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields,
Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smil❜d;

And still his honied wealth Hymettus yields;

There the blythe bee his fragrant fortress builds,
The freeborn wanderer of the mountain air;
Apollo still, thy long, long summer gilds,
Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare;
Art, Glory, Freedom fails, but Nature still is fair.

Where'er we tread 'tis haunted, holy ground,
No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould;
But one vast realm of wonder spreads around,
And all the Muses' tales seem truly told.
Till the sense aches with gazing, to behold
The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon;
Each hill and dale, each deep'ning glen and wold
Defies the power which crush'd thy temples gone;
Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares grey Marathon.

Long to the remnants of thy splendor past
Shall pilgrims, pensive, but unwearied throng;
Long shall the voyager, with th' Ionian blast,
Hail the bright clime of battle and of song ;
Long shall thy annals and immortal tongue
Fill with thy fame the youth of many a shore;
Boast of the aged! lesson of the young!
Which sages venerate and bards adore,

As Pallas and the Muse unveil their awful lore.

The parted bosom clings to wonted home,
If aught that's kindred cheer the welcome hearth;
He that is lonely hither let him roam,

And gaze complacent on congenial earth.
Greece is no lightsome land of social mirth;
But he whom sadness sootheth may abide,

And scarce regret the region of his birth,
When wandering slow by Delphi's sacred side,

Or gazing o'er the plains where Greek and Persian died.

Let such approach this consecrated land
And pass in peace along the magic waste;
But spare its relics-let no busy hand
Deface the scenes, already how defac'd!
Not for such purpose were these altars plac'd;
Revere the remnants nations once rever'd ;
So may our country's name be undisgrac❜d,
So may'st thou prosper where thy youth was rear'd,
By every honest joy of love and life endear'd!

There is a wonderful degree of spirit and beauty in the

opening of the reflections on the Field of Waterloo. Some

of the subsequent stanzas on the battle are a little too mystical; and the poet's delineation of the character of Bonaparte is not among his happiest efforts. His Ode to Napoleon is also one of the feeblest of his lyric productions; and in general, whenever he approaches this personage, he seems to fall below what we expect and below his own best manHis genius, great as it was, appears to quail beneath his subject; or perhaps no extent of power could realise what we look for from Lord Byron writing upon Bonaparte. There was a sound of revelry by night,

ner.

And Belgium's capital had gathered then
Her Beauty in her Chivalry; and bright

The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men;
A thousand hearts beat happily: and when

Music arose with its voluptuous swell,

Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again,

And all went merry as a marriage bell:

But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell.

Did ye not hear it ?—No, 'twas but the wind
Or the car rattling o'er the stony street;
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;
No sleep till morn when youth and pleasure meet
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet-
But hark! what heavy sound breaks in once more
As if the clouds its echo would repeat;
And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!

Arm! arm! it is-it is-the cannon's opening roar !

And there was mounting in hot haste the steed,
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war:
And the deep thunder peal of peal afar;
And near, the beat of the alarming drum,
Roused up the soldier ere the morning star;
While thronged the citizens with terror dumb,
Or whispering, with white lips-The foe! they come !
they come !"

And wild and high the 'Cameron's gathering' rose!
The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills
Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes :-
How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills,
Savage and shrill! But with the breath that fills
Their mountain pipe, so fill the mountaineers
With the fierce native daring which instils