Canto IV CVIII
Then let the winds howl on! their harmonyShall henceforth be my music, and the nightThe sound shall temper with the owlet's cry,As I now hear them, in the fading lightDim o'er the bird of darkness' native site,Answer each other on the Palatine,With their large eyes, all glistening grey and bright,And sailing pinions.--Upon such a shrineWhat are our petty griefs?--let me not number mine.
Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower grownMatted and massed together, hillocks heapedOn what were chambers, arch crushed, column strownIn fragments, choked-up vaults, and frescoes steepedIn subterranean damps, where the owl peeped,Deeming it midnight:--Temples, baths, or halls?Pronounce who can; for all that Learning reapedFrom her research hath been, that these are walls--Behold the Imperial Mount! 'tis thus the mighty falls.
There is the moral of all human tales:'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past,First Freedom, and then Glory--when that fails,Wealth, vice, corruption--barbarism at last.And History, with all her volumes vast,Hath but ONE page,--'tis better written here,Where gorgeous Tyranny hath thus amassedAll treasures, all delights, that eye or ear,Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask--Away with words! draw near,
Words in this poem
- 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,]
- henceforth adv.
- From this time forward; henceforward.
- fading n.
- An Irish dance; also, the burden of a song.
- wallflower n.
- A perennial, cruciferous plant (Cheiranthus Cheiri), with sweet-scented flowers varying in color from yellow to orange and deep red. In Europe it very common on old walls.
- wealth n.
- Weal; welfare; prosperity; good. [OE. welthe, from wele; cf. D. weelde luxury. See Weal prosperity.]
- gorgeous a.
- Imposing through splendid or various colors; showy; fine; magnificent. [OF. gorgias beautiful, glorious, vain, luxurious; cf. OF. gorgias ruff, neck handkerchief, and F. gorge throat, and se pengorger to assume airs. Cf. Gorge, n.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Canto IV CVIII 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 IV CVIII, in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–1818), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #5131, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/byron-childe-harold/canto-iv-cviii.html, id L06614.
Form and metre
Canto IV CVIII 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%). 89% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.3 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 37% 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 harmonyA · nightB · cryA · lightB · siteB · palatineC · brightB · shrineC · mineC
- 2 ABABBCBCC grownA · heapedB · strownA · steepedB · peepedB · hallsC · reapedB · wallsC · fallsC
- 3 ABABBCBCC talesA · pastB · failsA · lastB · vastB · hereC · amassedB · earC · nearC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Then let the winds howl on! their harmony | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
| Shall henceforth be my music, and the night | 10 | ·//··/˘··· |
| The sound shall temper with the owlet's cry, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| As I now hear them, in the fading light | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Dim o'er the bird of darkness' native site, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Answer each other on the Palatine, | 10 | /˘·/˘··/˘· |
| With their large eyes, all glistening grey and bright, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And sailing pinions.--Upon such a shrine | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| What are our petty griefs?--let me not number mine. | 12 | ··//˘····/˘· |
| Cypress and ivy, weed and wallflower grown | 10 | /˘·/˘··/˘· |
| Matted and massed together, hillocks heaped | 10 | /˘··˘/˘/˘· |
| On what were chambers, arch crushed, column strown | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| In fragments, choked-up vaults, and frescoes steeped | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| In subterranean damps, where the owl peeped, | 10 | ·˘˘/˘····· |
| Deeming it midnight:--Temples, baths, or halls? | 10 | /˘·/·/˘··· |
| Pronounce who can; for all that Learning reaped | 10 | ˘/·····/˘· |
| From her research hath been, that these are walls-- | 10 | ··˘/······ |
| Behold the Imperial Mount! 'tis thus the mighty falls. | 13 | ˘/·˘/˘····/˘· |
| There is the moral of all human tales: | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| 'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past, | 10 | ····˘/˘··· |
| First Freedom, and then Glory--when that fails, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Wealth, vice, corruption--barbarism at last. | 11 | ··˘/˘/˘·˘·· |
| And History, with all her volumes vast, | 10 | ·/˘˘···/˘· |
| Hath but ONE page,--'tis better written here, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Where gorgeous Tyranny hath thus amassed | 10 | ·/˘/˘˘··˘/ |
| All treasures, all delights, that eye or ear, | 10 | ·/˘·˘/···· |
| Heart, soul could seek, tongue ask--Away with words! draw near, | 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 [Compare Rogers's Italy: "Rome" (Poems, 1852), ii. 169--
"Or climb the Palatine, * * * * * Long while the seat of Rome, hereafter found Less than enough (so monstrous was the brood Engendered there, so Titan-like) to lodge One in his madness; and inscribe my name-- My name and date, on some broad aloe-leaf That shoots and spreads within those very walls Where Virgil read aloud his tale divine, When his voice faltered and a mother wept Tears of delight!"[Sec.]
And compare Shelley's Poetical Works, 1895, iii. 276--
"Rome has fallen; ye see it lying Heaped in undistinguished ruin: Nature is alone undying."]
[Sec.] [At the words Tu Marcellus eris, etc. (vide Tib. Cl. Donatus, Life of Virgil (Virg., Opera), Leeuwarden, 1627, vol. i.).] - Stanza 2, line 9 The Palatine is one mass of ruins, particularly on the side towards the Circus Maximus. The very soil is formed of crumbled brickwork. Nothing has been told--nothing can be told--to satisfy the belief of any but the Roman antiquary. [The Palatine was the site of the successive "Domus" of Augustus, Tiberius, and Caligula, and of the Domus Transitoria of Nero, which perished when Rome was burnt. Later emperors--Vespasian, Domitian, Septimius Severus--added to the splendour of the name-giving Palatine. "The troops of Genseric," says Hobhouse (Hist. Illust., p. 206), "occupied the Palatine, and despoiled it of all its riches... and when it again rises, it rises in ruins." Systematic excavations during the last fifty years have laid bare much that was hidden, and "learning and research" have in parts revealed the "obliterated plan;" but, in 1817, the "shapeless mass of ruins" defied the guesses of antiquarians. "Your walks in the Palatine ruins ... will be undisturbed, unless you startle a fox in breaking through the brambles in the corridors, or burst unawares through the hole of some shivered fragments into one of the half-buried chambers, which the peasants have blocked up to serve as stalls for their jackasses, or as huts for those who watch the gardens" (Hist. Illust., p. 212).]
- Stanza 3, line 1 The author of the Life of Cicero, speaking of the opinion entertained of Britain by that orator and his contemporary Romans, has the following eloquent passage:--"From their railleries of this kind, on the barbarity and misery of our island, one cannot help reflecting on the surprising fate and revolutions of kingdoms; how Rome, once the mistress of the world, the seat of arts, empire, and glory, now lies sunk in sloth, ignorance, and poverty; enslaved to the most cruel as well as to the most contemptible of tyrants, superstition and religious imposture; while this remote country, anciently the jest and contempt of the polite Romans, is become the happy seat of liberty, plenty, and letters; flourishing in all the arts and refinements of civil life; yet running, perhaps, the same course which Rome itself had run before it, from virtuous industry to wealth; from wealth to luxury; from luxury to an impatience of discipline and corruption of morals: till, by a total degeneracy and loss of virtue, being grown ripe for destruction, it fall a prey at last to some hardy oppressor, and, with the loss of liberty, losing everything that is valuable, sinks gradually again into its original barbarism." (See Life of M. Tullius Cicero, by Conyers Middleton, D.D., 1823, sect. vi. vol. i. pp. 399, 400.)
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