Canto I LXI
Match me, ye climes! which poets love to laud;Match me, ye harems! of the land where nowI strike my strain, far distant, to applaudBeauties that even a cynic must avow!Match me those houris, whom ye scarce allowTo taste the gale lest Love should ride the wind,With Spain's dark-glancing daughters--deign to know,There your wise Prophet's paradise we find,His black-eyed maids of Heaven, angelically kind.
O thou, Parnassus! 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!What marvel if I thus essay to sing?The humblest of thy pilgrims passing byWould 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 nameWho knows not, knows not man's divinest lore:And now I view thee, 'tis, alas, with shameThat I in feeblest accents must adore.When I recount thy worshippers of yoreI tremble, and can only bend the knee;Nor raise my voice, nor vainly dare to soar,But gaze beneath thy cloudy canopyIn silent joy to think at last I look on thee!
Words in this poem
- cynic a.
- Having the qualities of a surly dog; snarling; captious; currish. [L. cynicus of the sect of Cynics, fr. Gr. Hound.]
- avow v. t.
- To bind, or to devote, by a vow. Wyclif. [OF. avouer, fr. LL. votare to vow, fr. L. votun. See Vote, n.]
- scarce a.
- Not plentiful or abundant; in small quantity in proportion to the demand; not easily to be procured; rare; uncommon. [OE. scars, OF. escars, eschars, LL. scarpsus, for L. excerptus, p. p. of excerpere to pick out, and hence to contract, to shorten; ex (see Ex-) + carpere. See C]
- glancing a.
- Shooting, as light.
- deign v. t.
- To esteem worthy; to consider worth notice; -- opposed to disdain. [OE. deinen, deignen, OF. degner, deigner, daigner, F. daigner, fr. L. dignari to deem worthy, deign, fr. dignus worthy; akin to decere to be fitting. See Decent]
- parnassus n.
- A mountain in Greece, sacred to Apollo and the Muses, and famous for a temple of Apollo and for the Castalian spring. Grass of Parnassus. (Bot.) See under Grass, and Parnassia.
- gladly adv.
- Preferably; by choice. [From Glad, a.]
- glorious a.
- Exhibiting attributes, qualities, or acts that are worthy of or receive glory; noble; praiseworthy; excellent; splendid; illustrious; inspiring admiration; as, glorious deeds. [OF. glorios, glorious, F. glorieux, fr. L. gloriosus. See Glory, n.]
- adore v. t.
- To worship with profound reverence; to pay divine honors to; to honor as deity or as divine. [OE. aouren, anouren, adoren, OF. aorer, adorer, F. adorer, fr. L. adorare; ad + orare to speak, pray, os, oris, mouth. In OE. confused with honor, the French pr]
- yore adv.
- In time long past; in old time; long since. [OE. , yare, , AS. geára;akin to geár a year, E. year. Year.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Canto I LXI is in the public domain. This text is taken from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Project Gutenberg ebook #5131; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Lord Byron, Canto I LXI, in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–1818), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #5131, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/byron-childe-harold/canto-i-lxi.html, id L06496.
Form and metre
Canto I LXI is 27 lines in 3 stanzas of 9 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABABBCBCC, the Spenserian stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.2 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 30% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in the Spenserian stanza, other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABABBCBCC laudA · nowB · applaudA · avowB · allowB · windC · knowB · findC · kindC
- 2 ABABBCBCC surveyA · eyeB · layA · skyB · majestyB · singC · byB · stringC · wingC
- 3 ABABBCBCC nameA · loreB · shameA · adoreB · yoreB · kneeC · soarB · canopyC · theeC
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Match me, ye climes! which poets love to laud; | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Match me, ye harems! of the land where now | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| I strike my strain, far distant, to applaud | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Beauties that even a cynic must avow! | 10 | /˘·/·/˘·˘/ |
| Match me those houris, whom ye scarce allow | 10 | ········˘/ |
| To taste the gale lest Love should ride the wind, | 10 | ·········· |
| With Spain's dark-glancing daughters--deign to know, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| There your wise Prophet's paradise we find, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| His black-eyed maids of Heaven, angelically kind. | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| O thou, Parnassus! whom I now survey, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| Not in the frenzy of a dreamer's eye, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Not in the fabled landscape of a lay, | 10 | ···/˘/···· |
| But soaring snow-clad through thy native sky, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| In the wild pomp of mountain majesty! | 10 | ·····/˘/˘˘ |
| What marvel if I thus essay to sing? | 10 | ·/˘···˘/·· |
| The humblest of thy pilgrims passing by | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| Would gladly woo thine echoes with his string, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Though from thy heights no more one muse will wave her wing. | 12 | ············ |
| Oft have I dreamed of thee! whose glorious name | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Who knows not, knows not man's divinest lore: | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| And now I view thee, 'tis, alas, with shame | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| That I in feeblest accents must adore. | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| When I recount thy worshippers of yore | 10 | ··˘/·/˘˘·· |
| I tremble, and can only bend the knee; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Nor raise my voice, nor vainly dare to soar, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| But gaze beneath thy cloudy canopy | 10 | ·····/˘/˘˘ |
| In silent joy to think at last I look on thee! | 12 | ·/˘········· |
Notes from the edition 3
E. H. Coleridge's notes to Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, The Works of Lord Byron, Poetry vol. II (John Murray, 1899; Project Gutenberg #25340). Bracketed passages are the editor's; unbracketed are Byron's own (Cantos I-III) or John Cam Hobhouse's (Canto IV, his 'Historical Notes'). Digit footnotes ('[17]') are informational and numbered continuously through the whole book; end-notes keyed '[n.B.]' (Byron) or '[n.H.]' (Hobhouse) follow each canto and are numbered afresh from 1 there. Both kinds are placed here by matching each note's own quoted words against the site's text, not by the number or stanza the note states, because the site's text (Gutenberg #5131) and this edition (#25340) are different editions with different stanza counts in Canto I. Lettered footnotes ('[h]', '[dn]') are manuscript and edition variant readings and are not harvested, matching the treatment of Don Juan's and byron-works-3's lettered notes.
- Stanza 2, line 1 [The summit of Parnassus is not visible from Delphi or the neighbourhood. Before he composed "these stanzas" (December 16), (see note 13.B.) at the foot of Parnassus, Byron had first surveyed its "snow-clad" majesty as he sailed towards Vostizza (on the southern shore of the Gulf of Corinth), which he reached on the 5th, and quitted on the 14th of December. "The Echoes" (line 8) which were celebrated by the ancients (Justin, Hist., lib. xxiv. cap. 6), are those made by the Phaedriades, or "gleaming peaks," a "lofty precipitous escarpment of red and grey limestone" at the head of the valley of the Pleistus, facing southwards.--Travels in Albania, i. 188, 199; Geography of Greece, by H. F. Tozer, 1873, p. 230.]
- Stanza 2, line 1 These stanzas were written in Castri (Delphos), at the foot of Parnassus, now called [Greek: Liakyra] (Liakura), Dec. [16], 1809.
- Stanza 3, line 9 ["Upon Parnassus, going to the fountain of Delphi (Castri) in 1809, I saw a flight of twelve eagles (Hobhouse said they were vultures--at least in conversation), and I seized the omen. On the day before, I composed the lines to Parnassus [in Childe Harold] and, on beholding the birds, had a hope that Apollo had accepted my homage. I have, at least, had the name and fame of a poet during the poetical period of life (from twenty to thirty). Whether it will last is another matter; but I have been a votary of the deity and the place, and am grateful for what he has done in my behalf, leaving the future in his hands, as I left the past" (B. Diary, 1821).]
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.