Canto IV CXXIII
O Love! no habitant of earth thou art--An unseen seraph, we believe in thee,--A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart,But never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see,The naked eye, thy form, as it should be;The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaven,Even with its own desiring phantasy,And to a thought such shape and image given,As haunts the unquenched soul--parched--wearied--wrung--and riven.
Of its own beauty is the mind diseased,And fevers into false creation;--where,Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seized?In him alone. Can Nature show so fair?Where are the charms and virtues which we dareConceive in boyhood and pursue as men,The unreached Paradise of our despair,Which o'er-informs the pencil and the pen,And overpowers the page where it would bloom again.
Who loves, raves--'tis youth's frenzy--but the cureIs bitterer still; as charm by charm unwindsWhich robed our idols, and we see too sureNor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind'sIdeal shape of such; yet still it bindsThe fatal spell, and still it draws us on,Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds;The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun,Seems ever near the prize--wealthiest when most undone.
Words in this poem
- habitant n.
- An inhabitant; a dweller. Milton. [F. habitant. See Habit, v.t]
- unseen a.
- Not seen or discovered.
- 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,]
- peopled a.
- Stocked with, or as with, people; inhabited.
- boyhood n.
- The state of being a boy; the time during which one is a boy. [Boy + -hood.]
- undone a.
- Not done or performed; neglected. [Pref. un- not + done.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Canto IV CXXIII 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 CXXIII, in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–1818), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #5131, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/byron-childe-harold/canto-iv-cxxiii.html, id L06619.
Form and metre
Canto IV CXXIII 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%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.3 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 22% 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 artA · theeB · heartA · seeB · beB · heavenC · phantasyB · givenC · rivenC
- 2 ABABBCBCC diseasedA · whereB · seizedA · fairB · dareB · menC · despairB · penC · againC
- 3 ABABBCBCC cureA · unwindsB · sureA · mind'sB · bindsB · onC · windsB · begunC · undoneC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| O Love! no habitant of earth thou art-- | 10 | ·········· |
| An unseen seraph, we believe in thee,-- | 10 | ·˘//˘·˘/·· |
| A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| But never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| The naked eye, thy form, as it should be; | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaven, | 11 | ·······/˘/˘ |
| Even with its own desiring phantasy, | 11 | /···˘/˘˘/˘˘ |
| And to a thought such shape and image given, | 11 | ·······/˘/˘ |
| As haunts the unquenched soul--parched--wearied--wrung--and riven. | 13 | ·······/˘··/˘ |
| Of its own beauty is the mind diseased, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| And fevers into false creation;--where, | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘· |
| Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seized? | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| In him alone. Can Nature show so fair? | 10 | ··˘/·/˘··· |
| Where are the charms and virtues which we dare | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men, | 10 | ˘/·/··˘/·· |
| The unreached Paradise of our despair, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘/ |
| Which o'er-informs the pencil and the pen, | 10 | ··˘/·/˘··· |
| And overpowers the page where it would bloom again. | 12 | ··˘/······˘/ |
| Who loves, raves--'tis youth's frenzy--but the cure | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Is bitterer still; as charm by charm unwinds | 11 | ·········˘/ |
| Which robed our idols, and we see too sure | 10 | ··//˘····· |
| Nor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind's | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Ideal shape of such; yet still it binds | 9 | ˘/······· |
| The fatal spell, and still it draws us on, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds; | 10 | /˘·/······ |
| The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘˘˘/ |
| Seems ever near the prize--wealthiest when most undone. | 11 | ·/···/˘··˘/ |
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 1, line 5 [M. Darmesteter traces the sentiment to a maxim (No. 76) of La Rochefoucauld: "Il est du veritable amour comme de l'apparition des esprits: tout le monde en parle, mais pen de gens en out vu."]
- Stanza 2, line 8 [Compare Dryden on Shaftesbury (Absalom and Achitophel, pt. i. lines 156-158)--
"A fiery soul which, working out its way, Fretted the pigmy-body to decay, And o'er-informed the tenement of clay."] - Stanza 3, line 1 [The Romans had more than one proverb to this effect; e.g. "Amantes Amentes sunt" (Adagia Veterum, 1643, p. 52); "Amare et sapere vix Deo conceditur" (Syri Sententiae. 1818, p. 5).]
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.