Canto IV CXXIX
Yet let us ponder boldly--'tis a baseAbandonment of reason to resignOur right of thought--our last and only placeOf refuge; this, at least, shall still be mine:Though from our birth the faculty divineIs chained and tortured--cabined, cribbed, confined,And bred in darkness, lest the truth should shineToo brightly on the unprepared mind,The beam pours in, for time and skill will couch the blind.
Arches on arches! as it were that Rome,Collecting the chief trophies of her line,Would build up all her triumphs in one dome,Her Coliseum stands; the moonbeams shineAs 'twere its natural torches, for divineShould be the light which streams here, to illumeThis long explored but still exhaustless mineOf contemplation; and the azure gloomOf an Italian night, where the deep skies assume
Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven,Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument,And shadows forth its glory. There is givenUnto the things of earth, which Time hath bent,A spirit's feeling, and where he hath leantHis hand, but broke his scythe, there is a powerAnd magic in the ruined battlement,For which the palace of the present hourMust yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower.
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,]
- coliseum n.
- The amphitheater of Vespasian at Rome, the largest in the world. [Written also Colosseum.] [NL. (cf. It. coliseo, colosseo), fr. L. colosseus colossal, fr. colossus a colossus. See Colossus, and cf. Colosseum.]
- illume v. t.
- To throw or spread light upon; to make light or bright; to illuminate; to illumine. [Cf. F. illuminer. See Illuminate.]
- exhaustless a.
- Not be exhausted; inexhaustible; as, an exhaustless fund or store.
- wondrous adv.
- In a wonderful or surprising manner or degree; wonderfully. [OE. wonders, adv. (later also adj.). See Wonder, n., and cf. -wards.]
- broke v. i.
- To transact business for another. Brome. [See Broker, and cf. Brook.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Canto IV CXXIX 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 CXXIX, in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–1818), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #5131, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/byron-childe-harold/canto-iv-cxxix.html, id L06621.
Form and metre
Canto IV CXXIX 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%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.4 syllables. 7 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 56% 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 baseA · resignB · placeA · mineB · divineB · confinedC · shineB · mindC · blindC
- 2 ABABBCBCC romeA · lineB · domeA · shineB · divineB · illumeC · mineB · gloomC · assumeC
- 3 ABABBCBCC heavenA · monumentB · givenA · bentB · leantB · powerC · battlementB · hourC · dowerC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Yet let us ponder boldly--'tis a base | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Abandonment of reason to resign | 10 | ˘/˘˘·/˘·˘/ |
| Our right of thought--our last and only place | 10 | /···/··/˘· |
| Of refuge; this, at least, shall still be mine: | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Though from our birth the faculty divine | 10 | ··/··/˘˘˘/ |
| Is chained and tortured--cabined, cribbed, confined, | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| And bred in darkness, lest the truth should shine | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Too brightly on the unprepared mind, | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘· |
| The beam pours in, for time and skill will couch the blind. | 12 | ············ |
| Arches on arches! as it were that Rome, | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| Collecting the chief trophies of her line, | 10 | ˘/˘··/˘··· |
| Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Her Coliseum stands; the moonbeams shine | 10 | ··˘/˘··/·· |
| As 'twere its natural torches, for divine | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| Should be the light which streams here, to illume | 10 | ········˘/ |
| This long explored but still exhaustless mine | 10 | ··˘/··˘/˘· |
| Of contemplation; and the azure gloom | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘· |
| Of an Italian night, where the deep skies assume | 12 | ··˘/˘·····˘/ |
| Hues which have words, and speak to ye of heaven, | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| Floats o'er this vast and wondrous monument, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘˘ |
| And shadows forth its glory. There is given | 11 | ·/···/˘··/˘ |
| Unto the things of earth, which Time hath bent, | 10 | ·········· |
| A spirit's feeling, and where he hath leant | 11 | ·/˘/˘····/˘ |
| His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| And magic in the ruined battlement, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘˘ |
| For which the palace of the present hour | 11 | ···/˘··/˘/˘ |
| Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower. | 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 2 "At all events," says the author of the Academical Questions [Sir William Drummond], "I trust, whatever may be the fate of my own speculations, that philosophy will regain that estimation which it ought to possess. The free and philosophic spirit of our nation has been the theme of admiration to the world. This was the proud distinction of Englishmen, and the luminous source of all their glory. Shall we then forget the manly and dignified sentiments of our ancestors, to prate in the language of the mother or the nurse about our good old prejudices? This is not the way to defend the cause of truth. It was not thus that our fathers maintained it in the brilliant periods of our history. Prejudice may be trusted to guard the outworks for a short space of time, while reason slumbers in the citadel; but if the latter sink into a lethargy, the former will quickly erect a standard for herself. Philosophy, wisdom, and liberty support each other: he, who will not reason, is a bigot; he, who cannot, is a fool; and he, who dares not, is a slave."--Vol. i. pp. xiv., xv.
[For Sir William Drummond (1770-1828), see Letters, 1898, ii. 79, note 3. Byron advised Lady Blessington to read Academical Questions (1805), and instanced the last sentence of this passage "as one of the best in our language" (Conversations, pp. 238, 239).] - Stanza 1, line 7 [Compare Macbeth, act iii. sc. 4, lines 24, 25--
"But now I am cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd, bound in To saucy doubts and fears."] - Stanza 2, line 1 [Compare The Deformed Transformed, act i. sc. 2, lines 49, 50--
"Those scarce mortal arches, Pile above pile of everlasting wall."
The first, second, and third stories of the Flavian amphitheatre or Colosseum were built upon arches. Between the arches, eighty to each story or tier, stood three-quarter columns. "Each tier is of a different order of architecture, the lowest being a plain Roman Doric, or perhaps, rather, Tuscan, the next Ionic, and the third Corinthian." The fourth story, which was built by the Emperor Gordianus III., A.D. 244, to take the place of the original wooden gallery (manianum summum in ligneis), which was destroyed by lightning, A.D. 217, was a solid wall faced with Corinthian pilasters, and pierced by forty square windows or openings. It has been conjectured that the alternate spaces between the pilasters were decorated with ornamental metal shields. The openings of the outer arches of the second and third stories were probably decorated with statues. The reverse of an aureus of the reign of Titus represents the Colosseum with these statues and a quadriga in the centre. About one-third of the original structure remains in situ. The prime agent of destruction was probably the earthquake ("Petrarch's earthquake") of September, 1349, when the whole of the western side fell towards the Caelian, and gave rise to a hill or rather to a chain of hills of loose blocks of travertine and tufa, which supplied Rome with building materials for subsequent centuries. As an instance of wholesale spoliation or appropriation, Professor Lanciani refers to "a document published by Muentz, in the Revue Arch., September, 1876," which "certifies that one contractor alone, in the space of only nine months, in 1452, could carry off 2522 cartloads" of travertine (Smith's Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Ant., art. "Amphitheatrum;" Ruins and Excavations of Ancient Rome, by R. Lanciani, 1897, p. 375).] - Stanza 2, line 4 [For a description of the Colosseum by moonlight, see Goethe's letter from Rome, February 2, 1787 (Travels in Italy, 1883, p. 159): "Of the beauty of a walk through Rome by moonlight, it is impossible to form a conception ... Peculiarly beautiful at such a time is the Coliseum." See, too, Corinne, ou L'Italie, xv. 4, 1819, iii. 32--
"Ce n'est pas connaitre l'impression du Colisee que de ne l'avoir vu que de jour ... la lune est l'astre des ruines. Quelque fois, a travers les ouvertures de l'amphitheatre, qui semble s'elever jusqu'aux nues, une partie de la voute du ciel parait comme un rideau d'un bleu sombre place derriere l'edifice."
For a fine description of the Colosseum by starlight, see Manfred, act iii. sc. 4, lines 8-13.]
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