Canto III LXI
Adieu to thee, fair Rhine! How long, delighted,The stranger fain would linger on his way;Thine is a scene alike where souls unitedOr lonely Contemplation thus might stray;And could the ceaseless vultures cease to preyOn self-condemning bosoms, it were here,Where Nature, not too sombre nor too gay,Wild but not rude, awful yet not austere,Is to the mellow earth as autumn to the year.
Adieu to thee again! a vain adieu!There can be no farewell to scene like thine;The mind is coloured by thy every hue;And if reluctantly the eyes resignTheir cherished gaze upon thee, lovely Rhine!'Tis with the thankful glance of parting praise;More mighty spots may rise--more glaring shine,But none unite in one attaching mazeThe brilliant, fair, and soft;--the glories of old days.
The negligently grand, the fruitful bloomOf coming ripeness, the white city's sheen,The rolling stream, the precipice's gloom,The forest's growth, and Gothic walls between,The wild rocks shaped as they had turrets beenIn mockery of man's art; and these withalA race of faces happy as the scene,Whose fertile bounties here extend to all,Still springing o'er thy banks, though empires near them fall.
Words in this poem
- delighted a.
- Endowed with delight.
- fain v. t.
- To be glad ; to wish or desire.
- ceaseless a.
- Without pause or end; incessant.
- sombre n.
- Gloom; obscurity; duskiness; somberness.
- coloured a.
- Having color; tinged; dyed; painted; stained.
- reluctantly adv.
- In a reluctant manner.
- thankful a.
- Obtaining or deserving thanks; thankworthy. [AS. Þancfull.]
- glaring a.
- Clear; notorious; open and bold; barefaced; as, a glaring crime.
- maze n.
- A wild fancy; a confused notion. [OE. mase; cf. OE. masen to confuse, puzzle, Norweg. masast to fall into a slumber, masa to be continually busy, prate, chatter, Icel. masa to chatter, dial. Sw.]
- negligently adv.
- In a negligent manner.
- sheen v. i.
- To shine; to glisten.
- withal adv.
- With this; with that. [With + all.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Canto III 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 III LXI, in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–1818), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #5131, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/byron-childe-harold/canto-iii-lxi.html, id L06559.
Form and metre
Canto III 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 91%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.3 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 26% 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 delightedA · wayB · unitedA · strayB · preyB · hereC · gayB · austereC · yearC
- 2 ABABBCBCC adieuA · thineB · hueA · resignB · rhineB · praiseC · shineB · mazeC · daysC
- 3 ABABBCBCC bloomA · sheenB · gloomA · betweenB · beenB · withalC · sceneB · allC · fallC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Adieu to thee, fair Rhine! How long, delighted, | 11 | ˘/······˘/˘ |
| The stranger fain would linger on his way; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Thine is a scene alike where souls united | 11 | ····˘/··˘/˘ |
| Or lonely Contemplation thus might stray; | 10 | ·/˘·˘/˘··· |
| And could the ceaseless vultures cease to prey | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| On self-condemning bosoms, it were here, | 10 | ··˘/˘/˘··· |
| Where Nature, not too sombre nor too gay, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Wild but not rude, awful yet not austere, | 10 | ····/˘··˘/ |
| Is to the mellow earth as autumn to the year. | 12 | ···/˘··/˘··· |
| Adieu to thee again! a vain adieu! | 10 | ˘/··˘/··˘/ |
| There can be no farewell to scene like thine; | 10 | ·····/···· |
| The mind is coloured by thy every hue; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| And if reluctantly the eyes resign | 10 | ··˘/˘˘··˘/ |
| Their cherished gaze upon thee, lovely Rhine! | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| 'Tis with the thankful glance of parting praise; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| More mighty spots may rise--more glaring shine, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| But none unite in one attaching maze | 10 | ··/···˘/˘· |
| The brilliant, fair, and soft;--the glories of old days. | 12 | ·/˘····/˘··· |
| The negligently grand, the fruitful bloom | 10 | ·/˘˘˘··/˘· |
| Of coming ripeness, the white city's sheen, | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| The rolling stream, the precipice's gloom, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘˘˘· |
| The forest's growth, and Gothic walls between, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| The wild rocks shaped as they had turrets been | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| In mockery of man's art; and these withal | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| A race of faces happy as the scene, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Whose fertile bounties here extend to all, | 10 | ·/˘/˘·˘/·· |
| Still springing o'er thy banks, though empires near them fall. | 12 | ·/˘····/˘··· |
Notes from the edition 2
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 9 [Lines 8 and 9 may be cited as a crying instance of Byron's faulty technique. The collocation of "awful" with "austere," followed by "autumn" in the next line, recalls the afflictive assonance of "high Hymettus," which occurs in the beautiful passage which he stole from The Curse of Minerva and prefixed to the third canto of The Corsair. The sense of the passage is that, as in autumn, the golden mean between summer and winter, the year is at its full, so in the varied scenery of the Rhine there is a harmony of opposites, a consummation of beauty.]
- Stanza 3, line 1 [The "negligently grand" may, perhaps, refer to the glories of old days, now in a state of neglect, not to the unstudied grandeur of the scene taken as a whole; but the phrase is loosely thrown out in order to convey a general impression, "an attaching maze," an engaging attractive combination of images, and must not be interrogated too closely.]
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