| |
(From Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage)
O THOU Parnassus! whom I now survey, | |
| Not in the frenzy of a dreamer’s eye, | |
| Not in the fabled landscape of a lay, | |
| But soaring snow-clad through thy native sky, | |
| In the wild pomp of mountain majesty! | 5 |
| What marvel if I thus essay to sing! | |
| The humblest of thy pilgrims passing by | |
| Would gladly woo thine echoes with his string, | |
| Though from thy heights no more one Muse will wave her wing. | |
| |
| Oft have I dreamed of thee! whose glorious name | 10 |
| Who knows not, knows not man’s divinest lore: | |
| And now I view thee, ’t is, alas! with shame | |
| That I in feeblest accents must adore. | |
| When I recount thy worshippers of yore | |
| I tremble, and can only bend the knee; | 15 |
| Nor raise my voice, nor vainly dare to soar, | |
| But gaze beneath thy cloudy canopy | |
| In silent joy to think at last I look on thee! | |
| |
| Happier in this than mightiest bards have been, | |
| Whose fate to distant homes confined their lot, | 20 |
| Shall I unmoved behold the hallowed scene, | |
| Which others rave of, though they know it not? | |
| Though here no more Apollo haunts his grot, | |
| And thou, the Muses’ seat, art now their grave, | |
| Some gentle spirit still pervades the spot, | 25 |
| Sighs in the gale, keeps silence in the cave, | |
| And glides with glassy foot o’er yon melodious wave. | |
| |
