Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not Who would be free themselves must strike the blow?* Oh Love! young Love! bound in thy rosy band, These hours, and only these, redeem life's years of ill! Stanza 81. Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child! But with a hope. Canto III. Stanza I. I am as a weed, Flung from the rock, on ocean's foam to sail, Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail. Years steal Stanza 2. Fire from the mind as vigour from the limb; Stanza 8. *These lines will be remembered by many readers as having been frequently used in the oratorical displays of the late Mr. Daniel O'Connell. But who can view the ripen'd rose, nor seek Canto III. Stanza II. There was a sound of revelry by night,* The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men ; Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again, But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell ! Stanza 21. I have not loved the world, nor the world me ; I have not flatter'd its rank breath, nor bow'd Nor coin'd my cheek to smiles, nor cried aloud They could not deem me one of such; I stood *The ball given at Brussels on the evening preceding the conflict was attended by a number of the officers in the Duke of Wellington's army; it has been said, that so hasty was the summons from Brussels, that some of them appeared on the field of Waterloo in their ball dresses. The child of love, though born in bitterness, As, with a sigh, I deem thou might'st have been to me!* And be the Spartan's epitaph on me— 66 Sparta hath many a worthier son than he." + Perchance she died in youth; it may be, bow'd Heaven gives its favourites-early death. Stanza 102. * These, the concluding lines of the third canto, are addressed by the noble poet to his daughter, whom he apostrophizes at the commencement of the canto, "Ada! sole daughter of my house and heart," as previously quoted. The reply of the Spartan mother to those who spoke in eulogy of her dead son. This is a reference to Cecilia Metella, "the wealthiest Roman's wife," whose tomb Lord Byron has been describing. Then turn we to her latest tribune's name, The forum's champion, and the people's chief— Canto IV. I see before me the Gladiator lie ; He leans upon his hand-his manly brow And his droop'd head sinks gradually low- Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail'd the wretch who won. Stanza 140. Hark! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds, * The reader is referred to the pages of Gibbon for a narrative of the chequered career of Rienzi, the great Roman tribune. With some deep and immedicable wound; Through storm and darkness yawns the rending ground, She clasps a babe, to whom her breast yields no relief.* There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal. Stanza 178. And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy *These touching lines refer to the death of the Princess Charlotte, who expired in 1817, to the heartfelt grief of the nation. |