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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=396211" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Island: Canto I.</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I. <br>The morning watch was come; the vessel lay <br>Her course, and gently made her liquid way;<br>The cloven billow flashed from off her prow <br>In furrows formed by that majestic plough; <br>The waters with their world were all before; <br>Behind, the South Sea's many an islet shore. <br>The quiet night, now dappling, 'gan to wane, <br>Dividing darkness from the dawning main; <br>The dolphins, not unconscious of the day, <br>Swam high, as eager of the coming ray; <br>The stars from broader beams began to creep, <br>And lift their shining eyelids from the deep;<br>The sail resumed its lately shadowed white,<br>And the wind fluttered with a freshening flight; <br>The purpling Ocean owns the coming Sun, <br>But ere he break- a deed is to be done. <br>e<br>II. <br>The gallant Chief within his cabin slept, <br>Secure in those by whom the watch was kept: <br>His dreams were of Old England's welcome shore, <br>Of toils rewarded, and of dangers o'er; <br>His name was added to the glorious roll <br>Of those who search the storm-surrounded Pole. <br>The worst was over, and the rest seemed sure,<br>And why should not his slumber be secure? <br>Alas! his deck was trod by unwilling feet, <br>And wilder hands would hold the vessel's sheet; <br>Young hearts, which languished for some sunny isle, <br>Where summer years and summer women smile; <br>Men without country, who, too long estranged, <br>Had found no native home, or found it changed, <br>And, half uncivilised, preferred the cave <br>Of some soft savage to the uncertain wave- <br>The gushing fruits that nature gave untilled; <br>The wood without a path- but where they willed; <br>The field o'er which promiscuous Plenty poured <br>Her horn; the equal land without a lord; <br>The wish- which ages have not yet subdued <br>In man- to have no master save his mood<br>The earth, whose mine was on its face, unsold, <br>The glowing sun and produce all its gold; <br>The Freedom which can call each grot a home; <br>The general garden, where all steps may roam, <br>Where Nature owns a nation as her child, <br>Exulting in the enjoyment of the wild<br>Their shells, their fruits, the only wealth they know, <br>Their unexploring navy, the canoe <br>Their sport, the dashing breakers and the chase; <br>Their strangest sight, an European face <br>Such was the country which these strangers yearned <br>To see again- a sight they dearly earned. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">III. <br>Awake, bold Bligh! the foe is at the gate! <br>Awake! awake!- Alas! it is too late! <br>Fiercely beside thy cot the mutineer <br>Stands, and proclaims the reign of rage and fear. <br>Thy limbs are bound, the bayonet at thy breast; <br>The hands, which trembled at thy voice, arrest; <br>Dragged o'er the deck, no more at thy command <br>The obedient helm shall veer, the sail expand; <br>That savage Spirit, which would lull by wrath <br>Its desperate escape from Duty's path, <br>Glares round thee, in the scarce believing eyes <br>Of those who fear the Chief they sacrifice: <br>For ne'er can Man his conscience all assuage, <br>Unless he drain the wine of Passion- Rage. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV. <br>In vain, not silenced by the eye of Death, <br>Thou call'st the loyal with thy menaced breath <br>They come not; they are few, and, overawed, <br>Must acquiesce, while sterner hearts applaud. <br>In vain thou dost demand the cause: a curse <br>Is all the answer, with the threat of worse. <br>Full in thine eyes is waved the glittering blade, <br>Close to thy throat the pointed bayonet laid. <br>The levelled muskets circle round thy breast <br>In hands as steeled to do the deadly rest. <br>Thou dar'st them to their worst, exclaiming- 'Fire!' <br>But they who pitied not could yet admire; <br>Some lurking remnant of their former awe <br>Restrained them longer than their broken law; <br>They would not dip their souls at once in blood, <br>But left thee to the mercies of the flood.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">V. <br>'Hoist out the boat!' was now the leader's cry; <br>And who dare answer 'No!' to Mutiny, <br>In the first dawning of the drunken hour, <br>The Saturnalia of unhoped-for power? <br>The boat is lowered with all the haste of hate, <br>With its slight plank between thee and thy fate; <br>Her only cargo such a scant supply <br>As promises the death their hands deny; <br>And just enough of water and of bread <br>To keep, some days, the dying from the dead: <br>Some cordage, canvass, sails, and lines, and twine, <br>But treasures all to hermits of the brine, <br>Were added after, to the earnest prayer <br>Of those who saw no hope, save sea and air; <br>And last, that trembling vassal of the Pole- <br>The feeling compass- Navigation's soul.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VI. <br>And now the self-elected Chief finds time <br>To stun the first sensation of his crime, <br>And raise it in his followers- ' Ho! the bowl!'<br>Lest passion should return to reason's shoal.<br>'Brandy for heroes!' Burke could once exclaim- <br>No doubt a liquid path to Epic fame; <br>And such the new-born heroes found it here, <br>And drained the draught with an applauding cheer, <br>'Huzza! for Otaheite!' was the cry. <br>How strange such shouts from sons of Mutiny! <br>The gentle island, and the genial soil, <br>The friendly hearts, the feasts without a toil, <br>The courteous manners but from nature caught, <br>The wealth unhoarded, and the love unbought; sic <br>Could these have charms for rudest sea-boys, driven <br>Before the mast by every wind of heaven? <br>And now, even now prepared with others' woes <br>To earn mild Virtue's vain desire, repose? <br>Alas! such is our nature! all but aim <br>At the same end by pathways not the same; <br>Our means- our birth- our nation, and our name, <br>Our fortune- temper- even our outward frame, <br>Are far more potent o'er our yielding clay <br>Than aught we know beyond our little day. <br>Yet still there whispers the small voice within, <br>Heard through Gain's silence, and o'er Glory's din: <br>Whatever creed be taught, or land be trod, <br>Man's conscience is the Oracle of God.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VII. <br>The launch is crowded with the faithful few <br>Who wait their Chief, a melancholy crew: <br>But some remained reluctant on the deck <br>Of that proud vessel- now a moral wreck- <br>And viewed their Captain's fate with piteous eyes; <br>While others scoffed his augured miseries, <br>Sneered at the prospect of his pigmy sail, <br>And the slight bark so laden and so frail. <br>The tender nautilus, who steers his prow, <br>The sea-born sailor of his shell canoe, <br>The ocean Mab, the fairy of the sea, <br>Seems far less fragile, and, alas! more free. <br>He, when the lightning-winged Tornados sweep <br>The surge, is safe- his port is in the deep- <br>And triumphs o'er the armadas of Mankind, <br>Which shake the World, yet crumble in the wind. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">VIII. <br>When all was now prepared, the vessel clear <br>Which hailed her master in the mutineer, <br>A seaman, less obdurate than his mates, <br>Showed the vain pity which but irritates; <br>Watched his late Chieftain with exploring eye, <br>And told, in signs, repentant sympathy; <br>Held the moist shaddock to his parchéd mouth, <br>Which felt Exhaustion's deep and bitter drouth. <br>But soon observed, this guardian was withdrawn, <br>Nor further Mercy clouds Rebellion's dawn.<br>Then forward stepped the bold and froward boy <br>His Chief had cherished only to destroy, <br>And, pointing to the helpless prow beneath, <br>Exclaimed, 'Depart at once! delay is death!' <br>Yet then, even then, his feelings ceased not all: <br>In that last moment could a word recall <br>Remorse for the black deed as yet half done, <br>And what he hid from many showed to one: <br>When Bligh in stern reproach demanded where <br>Was now his grateful sense of former care? <br>Where all his hopes to see his name aspire, <br>And blazon Britain's thousand glories higher? <br>His feverish lips thus broke their gloomy spell, <br>''Tis that! 'Tis that! I am in hell! in hell!'<br>No more he said; but urging to the bark <br>His Chief, commits him to his fragile ark; <br>These the sole accents from his tongue that fell, <br>But volumes lurked below his fierce farewell. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">IX. <br>The arctic Sun rose broad above the wave; <br>The breeze now sank, now whispered from his cave; <br>As on the Aeolian harp, his fitful wings <br>Now swelled, now fluttered o'er his Ocean strings.<br>With slow, despairing oar, the abandoned skiff <br>Ploughs its drear progress to the scarce seen cliff, <br>Which lifts its peak a cloud above the main: <br>That boat and ship shall never meet again! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But 'tis not mine to tell their tale of grief, <br>Their constant peril, and their scant relief; <br>Their days of danger, and their nights of pain; <br>Their manly courage even when deemed in vain; <br>The sapping famine, rendering scarce a son <br>Known to his mother in the skeleton;<br>The ills that lessened still their little store, <br>And starved even Hunger till he wrung no more; <br>The varying frowns and favours of the deep, <br>That now almost ingulfs, then leaves to creep <br>With crazy oar and shattered strength along <br>The tide that yields reluctant to the strong; <br>The incessant fever of that arid thirst <br>Which welcomes, as a well, the clouds that burst <br>Above their naked bones, and feels delight <br>In the cold drenching of the stormy night, <br>And from the outspread canvass gladly wrings <br>A drop to moisten Life's all-gasping springs; <br>The savage foe escaped, to seek again <br>More hospitable shelter from the main; <br>The ghastly Spectres which were doomed at last<br>To tell as true a tale of dangers past, <br>As ever the dark annals of the deep<br>Disclosed for man to dread or woman weep. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">X.<br>We leave them to their fate, but not unknown<br>Nor unredressed. Revenge may have her own: <br>Roused Discipline aloud proclaims their cause,<br>And injured Navies urge their broken laws.<br>Pursue we on his track the mutineer,<br>Whom distant vengeance had not taught to fear.<br>Wide o'er the wave-away! away! away!<br>Once more his eyes shall hail the welcome bay;<br>Once more the happy shores without a law<br>Receive the outlaws whom they lately saw; <br>Nature, and Nature's goddess-Woman-woos<br>To lands where, save their conscience, none accuse;<br>Where all partake the earth without dispute,<br>And bread itself is gathered as a fruit;<br>Where none contest the fields, the woods, the streams<br>The goldless Age, where Gold disturbs no dreams,<br>Inhabits or inhabited the shore,<br>Till Europe taught them better than before;<br>Bestowed her customs, and amended theirs,<br>But left her vices also to their heirs.<br>Away with this! behold them as they were,<br>Do good with Nature, or with Nature err.<br>'Huzza! for Otaheite!' was the cry,<br>As stately swept the gallant vessel by.<br>The breeze springs up; the lately flapping sail<br>Extends its arch before the growing gale;<br>In swifter ripples stream aside the seas,<br>Which her bold bow flings off with dashing ease.<br>Thus Argo ploughed the Euxine's virgin foam,<br>But those she wafted still looked back to home; <br>These spurn their country with their rebel bark,<br>And fly her as the raven fled the Ark;<br>And yet they seek to nestle with the dove,<br>And tame their fiery spirits down to Love.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Byron">Byron</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=396211" data-title="The Island: Canto I. de Byron" data-description="I. 
The morning watch was come; the vessel lay 
Her course, and gently made her liquid way;
The cloven billow flashed from off her prow 
In furrows formed by that majestic plough; 
The waters with their world were all before; 
Behind, the South Se..."></div>
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