Canto III XXX
Last noon beheld them full of lusty life,Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay,The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife,The morn the marshalling in arms,--the dayBattle's magnificently stern array!The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rentThe earth is covered thick with other clay,Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent,Rider and horse,--friend, foe,--in one red burial blent!
Their praise is hymned by loftier harps than mine;Yet one I would select from that proud throng,Partly because they blend me with his line,And partly that I did his sire some wrong,And partly that bright names will hallow song;And his was of the bravest, and when showeredThe death-bolts deadliest the thinned files along,Even where the thickest of war's tempest lowered,They reached no nobler breast than thine, young, gallant Howard!
There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee,And mine were nothing, had I such to give;But when I stood beneath the fresh green tree,Which living waves where thou didst cease to live,And saw around me the wild field reviveWith fruits and fertile promise, and the SpringCome forth her work of gladness to contrive,With all her reckless birds upon the wing,I turned from all she brought to those she could not bring.
Words in this poem
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
- 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.]
- magnificently adv.
- In a Magnificent manner.
- 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,]
- pent p. p.
- Penned or shut up; confined; -- often with up. [From Pen, v. t.]
- burial n.
- A grave; a tomb; a place of sepulture. [OE. buriel, buriels, grave, tomb, AS. byrgels, fr. byrgan to bury, and akin to OS. burgisli sepulcher.]
- blent p. p.
- Blinded. Also (Chaucer), 3d sing. pres. Blindeth.
- sire n.
- A lord, master, or other person in authority. See Sir. [F. sire, originally, an older person. See Sir.]
- hallow v. t.
- To make holy; to set apart for holy or religious use; to consecrate; to treat or keep as sacred; to reverence. [OE. halowen, halwien, halgien, AS. halgian, fr. halig holy. See Holy.]
- didst
- , the 2d pers. sing. imp. of Do.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Canto III XXX 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 XXX, in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–1818), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #5131, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/byron-childe-harold/canto-iii-xxx.html, id L06548.
Form and metre
Canto III XXX 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 85%). 97% 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. 18% 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 lifeA · gayB · strifeA · dayB · arrayB · rentC · clayB · pentC · blentC
- 2 ABABBCBCC mineA · throngB · lineA · wrongB · songB · showeredC · alongB · loweredC · howardC
- 3 ABABBCBCC theeA · giveB · treeA · liveB · reviveB · springC · contriveB · wingC · bringC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, | 10 | ··˘/···/˘· |
| Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay, | 10 | ···/˘/˘/˘· |
| The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife, | 10 | ·/···/˘··· |
| The morn the marshalling in arms,--the day | 10 | ···/˘˘···· |
| Battle's magnificently stern array! | 10 | /˘˘/˘˘˘·˘/ |
| The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| The earth is covered thick with other clay, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Rider and horse,--friend, foe,--in one red burial blent! | 11 | /·······/˘· |
| Their praise is hymned by loftier harps than mine; | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Yet one I would select from that proud throng, | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| Partly because they blend me with his line, | 10 | /˘········ |
| And partly that I did his sire some wrong, | 10 | ·/˘····/·· |
| And partly that bright names will hallow song; | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| And his was of the bravest, and when showered | 11 | ·····/˘··/˘ |
| The death-bolts deadliest the thinned files along, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| Even where the thickest of war's tempest lowered, | 11 | /··/˘··/˘/˘ |
| They reached no nobler breast than thine, young, gallant Howard! | 12 | ···/˘····/˘/ |
| There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And mine were nothing, had I such to give; | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| But when I stood beneath the fresh green tree, | 10 | ·········· |
| Which living waves where thou didst cease to live, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| And saw around me the wild field revive | 10 | ········˘/ |
| With fruits and fertile promise, and the Spring | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Come forth her work of gladness to contrive, | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| With all her reckless birds upon the wing, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| I turned from all she brought to those she could not bring. | 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 2, line 4 [Vide ante, English Bards, etc., line 726, note: Poetical Works, 1898, i. 354.]
- Stanza 2, line 9 [The Hon. Frederick Howard (1785-1815), third son of Frederick, fifth Earl of Carlisle, fell late in the evening of the 18th of June, in a final charge of the left square of the French Guard, in which Vivian brought up Howard's hussars against the French. Neither French infantry nor cavalry gave way, and as the Hanoverians fired but did not charge, a desperate combat ensued, in which Howard fell and many of the 10th were killed.--Waterloo: The Downfall of the First Napoleon, G. Hooper, 1861, p. 236.
Southey, who had visited the field of Waterloo, September, 1815, in his Poet's Pilgrimage (iii. 49), dedicates a pedestrian stanza to his memory--
"Here from the heaps who strewed the fatal plain Was Howard's corse by faithful hands conveyed; And not to be confounded with the slain, Here in a grave apart with reverence laid, Till hence his honoured relics o'er the seas Were borne to England, where they rest in peace."] - Stanza 3, line 6 [Autumn had been beforehand with spring in the work of renovation.
"Yet Nature everywhere resumed her course; Low pansies to the sun their purple gave, And the soft poppy blossomed on the grave." Poet's Pilgrimage, iii. 36.
But the contrast between the continuous action of nature and the doom of the unreturning dead, which does not greatly concern Southey, fills Byron with a fierce desire to sum the price of victory. He flings in the face of the vain-glorious mourners the bitter reality of their abiding loss. It was this prophetic note, "the voice of one crying in the wilderness," which sounded in and through Byron's rhetoric to the men of his own generation.] - Stanza 3, line 9 My guide from Mount St. Jean over the field seemed intelligent and accurate. The place where Major Howard fell was not far from two tall and solitary trees (there was a third cut down, or shivered in the battle), which stand a few yards from each other at a pathway's side. Beneath these he died and was buried. The body has since been removed to England. A small hollow for the present marks where it lay, but will probably soon be effaced; the plough has been upon it, and the grain is. After pointing out the different spots where Picton and other gallant men had perished; the guide said, "Here Major Howard lay: I was near him when wounded." I told him my relationship, and he seemed then still more anxious to point out the particular spot and circumstances. The place is one of the most marked in the field, from the peculiarity of the two trees above mentioned. I went on horseback twice over the field, comparing it with my recollection of similar scenes. As a plain, Waterloo seems marked out for the scene of some great action, though this may be mere imagination: I have viewed with attention those of Platea, Troy, Mantinea, Leuctra, Chaeronea, and Marathon; and the field around Mount St. Jean and Hougoumont appears to want little but a better cause, and that undefinable but impressive halo which the lapse of ages throws around a celebrated spot, to vie in interest with any or all of these, except, perhaps, the last mentioned.
[For particulars of the death of Major Howard, see Personal Memoirs, etc., by Pryse Lockhart Gordon, 1830, ii. 322, 323.]
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