Canto IV LXIX
And on thy happy shore a temple still,Of small and delicate proportion, keeps,Upon a mild declivity of hill,Its memory of thee; beneath it sweepsThy current's calmness; oft from out it leapsThe finny darter with the glittering scales,Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps;While, chance, some scattered water-lily sailsDown where the shallower wave still tells its bubbling tales.
Pass not unblest the genius of the place!If through the air a zephyr more sereneWin to the brow, 'tis his; and if ye traceAlong his margin a more eloquent green,If on the heart the freshness of the sceneSprinkle its coolness, and from the dry dustOf weary life a moment lave it cleanWith Nature's baptism,--'tis to him ye mustPay orisons for this suspension of disgust.
The roar of waters!--from the headlong heightVelino cleaves the wave-worn precipice;The fall of waters! rapid as the lightThe flashing mass foams shaking the abyss;The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss,And boil in endless torture; while the sweatOf their great agony, wrung out from thisTheir Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jetThat gird the gulf around, in pitiless horror set,
Words in this poem
- finny a.
- Having, or abounding in, fins, as fishes; pertaining to fishes.
- darter n.
- One who darts, or who throw darts; that which darts.
- unblest a.
- Not blest; excluded from benediction; hence, accursed; wretched. [Pref. un- not + blessed, blest.]
- zephyr n.
- The west wind; poetically, any soft, gentle breeze. [L. zephyrus, Gr. zéphyr.]
- lave v. t.
- To lade, dip, or pour out. [OE. laven. See Lavish.]
- precipice n.
- A sudden or headlong fall. Fuller. [F. précipice, L. praecipitium, fr. praeceps, - cipitis, headlong; prae before + caput, capitis, the head. See Pre-, and Chief.]
- phlegethon n.
- One of the principal rivers of Hades, in the channel of which fire flowed instead of water.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Canto IV LXIX 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 LXIX, in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–1818), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #5131, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/byron-childe-harold/canto-iv-lxix.html, id L06601.
Form and metre
Canto IV LXIX 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 10.2 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 52% 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 stillA · keepsB · hillA · sweepsB · leapsB · scalesC · deepsB · sailsC · talesC
- 2 ABABBCBCC placeA · sereneB · traceA · greenB · sceneB · dustC · cleanB · mustC · disgustC
- 3 ABABBCBCC heightA · precipiceB · lightA · abyssB · hissB · sweatC · thisB · jetC · setC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| And on thy happy shore a temple still, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Of small and delicate proportion, keeps, | 10 | ···/˘˘˘/˘· |
| Upon a mild declivity of hill, | 10 | ····˘/˘˘·· |
| Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps | 10 | ·/˘˘······ |
| Thy current's calmness; oft from out it leaps | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| The finny darter with the glittering scales, | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| While, chance, some scattered water-lily sails | 10 | ···/˘/˘/˘· |
| Down where the shallower wave still tells its bubbling tales. | 12 | ···/˘····/˘· |
| Pass not unblest the genius of the place! | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| If through the air a zephyr more serene | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Win to the brow, 'tis his; and if ye trace | 10 | ·········· |
| Along his margin a more eloquent green, | 10 | ˘/·/˘··/˘· |
| If on the heart the freshness of the scene | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Sprinkle its coolness, and from the dry dust | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| Of weary life a moment lave it clean | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| With Nature's baptism,--'tis to him ye must | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| Pay orisons for this suspension of disgust. | 12 | ······˘/˘·˘/ |
| The roar of waters!--from the headlong height | 10 | ···/˘··/·· |
| Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice; | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
| The fall of waters! rapid as the light | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘·˘/ |
| The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| And boil in endless torture; while the sweat | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Of their great agony, wrung out from this | 10 | ···/˘˘···· |
| Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet | 10 | ·/˘˘······ |
| That gird the gulf around, in pitiless horror set, | 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 1, line 1 [The existing temple, now used as a chapel (St. Salvatore), can hardly be Pliny's templum priscum. Hobhouse, in his Historical Illustrations, pp. 37-41, defends the antiquity of the "facade, which consists of a pediment supported by four columns and two Corinthian piers, two of the columns with spiral fluting, the others covered with fish-scaled carvings" (Handbook for Central Italy, p. 289); but in the opinion of modern archaeologists the whole of the structure belongs to the fourth or fifth century of the Christian era. It is, of course, possible, indeed probable, that ancient materials were used when the building was reconstructed. Pliny says the "numerous chapels" dedicated to other deities were scattered round the shrine of Clitumnus.]
- Stanza 1, line 6 ["On my way back [from Rome], close to the temple by its banks, I got some famous trout out of the river Clitumnus, the prettiest little stream in all poesy."--Letter to Murray, June 4, 1817.]
- Stanza 2, line 9 [By "disgust," a prosaic word which seems to mar a fine stanza, Byron does not mean "distaste," aversion from the nauseous, but "tastelessness," the inability to enjoy taste. Compare the French "Avoir du degout pour la vie," "To be out of conceit with life." Byron was "a lover of Nature," but it was seldom that he felt her "healing power," or was able to lose himself in his surroundings. But now, for the moment, he experiences that sudden uplifting of the spirit in the presence of natural beauty which brings back "the splendour in the grass, the glory in the flower!"]
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