Canto I XCIII
And thou, my friend! since unavailing woeBursts from my heart, and mingles with the strain--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?
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 tearOf Consciousness awaking to her woes,And Fancy hover o'er thy bloodless bier,Till my frail frame return to whence it rose,And mourned and mourner lie united in repose.
Here is one fytte of Harold's pilgrimage.Ye who of him may further seek to know,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 beheldIn 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.
Words in this poem
- morn n.
- The first part of the day; the morning; -- used chiefly in poetry. [OE. morwen, morgen, AS. morgen; akin to D. morgen, OS. morgan, G. morgen, Icel. morginn, morgunn, Sw. morgon, Dan. morgen, Goth. maúrgins. Cf. Morrow, Morning.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- hover n.
- A cover; a shelter; a protection. Carew. C. Kingsley. [Etymol. doubtful.]
- bier n.
- A handbarrow or portable frame on which a corpse is placed or borne to the grave. [OE. bæe, beere, AS. b, b; akin to D. baar, OHG. bara, G. bahre, Icel barar, Dbaare, L. feretrum, Gr. , from the same bear to produce. See 1st Bear, and cf. Barr]
- mourner n.
- One who mourns or is grieved at any misfortune, as the death of a friend.
- pilgrimage n.
- The journey of a pilgrim; a long journey; especially, a journey to a shrine or other sacred place. Fig., the journey of human life. [OE. pilgrimage, pelgrinage; cf. F. pèlerinage.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Canto I XCIII 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 XCIII, in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–1818), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #5131, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/byron-childe-harold/canto-i-xciii.html, id L26204.
Form and metre
Canto I XCIII 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 89%).
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 woeA · strainB · lowA · complainB · vainB · breastC · slainB · crestC · restC
- 2 ABABBCBCC mostA · dearB · lostA · hereB · tearB · woesC · bierB · roseC · reposeC
- 3 ABABBCBCC pilgrimageA · knowB · pageA · moeB · soB · beheldC · goB · eldC · quelledC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| And thou, my friend! since unavailing woe | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| Bursts from my heart, and mingles with the strain-- | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Had the sword laid thee with the mighty low, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Pride might forbid e'en Friendship to complain: | 10 | ··˘/·/˘·˘/ |
| But thus unlaurelled to descend in vain, | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| By all forgotten, save the lonely breast, | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘· |
| And mix unbleeding with the boasted slain, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| While glory crowns so many a meaner crest! | 10 | ·/˘··/·/˘· |
| What hadst thou done, to sink so peacefully to rest? | 11 | ·······/˘·· |
| Oh, known the earliest, and esteemed the most! | 10 | ···/˘·˘/·· |
| Dear to a heart where nought was left so dear! | 10 | ·········· |
| Though to my hopeless days for ever lost, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| In dreams deny me not to see thee here! | 10 | ··˘/······ |
| And Morn in secret shall renew the tear | 10 | ···/˘·˘/·· |
| Of Consciousness awaking to her woes, | 10 | ·/˘˘˘/˘··· |
| And Fancy hover o'er thy bloodless bier, | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| Till my frail frame return to whence it rose, | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| And mourned and mourner lie united in repose. | 12 | ···/˘·˘/˘·˘/ |
| Here is one fytte of Harold's pilgrimage. | 10 | ·····/˘/˘˘ |
| Ye who of him may further seek to know, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Shall find some tidings in a future page, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| If he that rhymeth now may scribble moe. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Is this too much? Stern critic, say not so: | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Patience! and ye shall hear what he beheld | 10 | /˘······˘/ |
| In other lands, where he was doomed to go: | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Lands that contain the monuments of eld, | 10 | ··˘/·/˘˘·· |
| Ere Greece and Grecian arts by barbarous hands were quelled. | 12 | ···/˘··/˘··· |
Notes from the edition 4
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 1, line 1 [Compare the In Memoriam stanzas at the end of Beattie's Minstrel--"And am I left to unavailing woe?" II. 63, line 2.]
- Stanza 1, line 1 The Honourable John Wingfield, of the Guards, who died of a fever at Coimbra (May 14, 1811). I had known him ten years, the better half of his life, and the happiest part of mine. In the short space of one month I have lost her who gave me being, and most of those who had made that being tolerable. To me the lines of Young are no fiction--
"Insatiate archer! could not one suffice? Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain, And thrice ere thrice yon moon had fill'd her horn." Night Thoughts: The Complaint, Night i. (London, 1825, p. 5).
I should have ventured a verse to the memory of the late Charles Skinner Matthews, Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge, were he not too much above all praise of mine. His powers of mind, shown in the attainment of greater honours, against the ablest candidates, than those of any graduate on record at Cambridge, have sufficiently established his fame on the spot where it was acquired; while his softer qualities live in the recollection of friends who loved him too well to envy his superiority. [To an objection made by Dallas to this note, Byron replied, "I was so sincere in my note on the late Charles Matthews, and do feel myself so totally unable to do justice to his talents, that the passage must stand for the very reason you bring against it. To him all the men I ever knew were pigmies. He was an intellectual giant. It is true I loved Wingfield better; he was the earliest and the dearest, and one of the few one could never repent of having loved: but in ability--ah! you did not know Matthews,!"--Letters, 1898, ii. 8. [For Charles Skinner Matthews, and the Honourable John Wingfield, see Letters, 1898, i. 150 note, 180 note. See, too, "Childish Recollections," Poems, 1898, i. 96, note.] - Stanza 2, line 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.'"] - Stanza 3, line 1 "Fytte" means "part."--[Note erased.]
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