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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=396213" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Island: Canto III.</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I.<br>The fight was o'er; the flashing through the gloom,<br>Which robes the cannon as he wings a tomb,<br>Had ceased; and sulphury vapours upward driven<br>Had left the Earth, and but polluted Heaven:<br>The rattling roar which rung in every volley<br>Had left the echoes to their melancholy;<br>No more they shrieked their horror, boom for boom;<br>The strife was done, the vanquished had their doom;<br>The mutineers were crushed, dispersed, or ta'en,<br>Or lived to deem the happiest were the slain.<br>Few, few escaped, and these were hunted o'er<br>The isle they loved beyond their native shore.<br>No further home was theirs, it seemed, on earth,<br>Once renegades to that which gave them birth;<br>Tracked like wild beasts, like them they sought the wild,<br>As to a Mother's bosom flies the child;<br>But vainly wolves and lions seek their den,<br>And still more vainly men escape from men,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">II.<br>Beneath a rock whose jutting base protrudes<br>Far over Ocean in its fiercest moods,<br>When scaling his enormous crag the wave<br>Is hurled down headlong, like the foremost brave,<br>And falls back on the foaming crowd behind,<br>Which fight beneath the banners of the wind,<br>But now at rest, a little remnant drew<br>Together, bleeding, thirsty, faint, and few;<br>But still their weapons in their hands, and still<br>With something of the pride of former will,<br>As men not all unused to meditate,<br>And strive much more than wonder at their fate.<br>Their present lot was what they had foreseen,<br>And dared as what was likely to have been;<br>Yet still the lingering hope, which deemed their lot<br>Not pardoned, but unsought for or forgot,<br>Or trusted that, if sought, their distant caves<br>Might still be missed amidst the world of waves,<br>Had weaned their thoughts in part from what they saw<br>And felt, the vengeance of their country's law.<br>Their sea-green isle, their guilt-won Paradise,<br>No more could shield their Virtue or their Vice:<br>Their better feelings, if such were, were thrown<br>Back on themselves,- their sins remained alone.<br>Proscribed even in their second country, they<br>Were lost; in vain the World before them lay;<br>All outlets seemed secured. Their new allies<br>Had fought and bled in mutual sacrifice;<br>But what availed the club and spear, and arm<br>Of Hercules, against the sulphury charm,<br>The magic of the thunder, which destroyed<br>The warrior ere his strength could be employed? <br>Dug, like a spreading pestilence, the grave<br>No less of human bravery than the brave!<br>Their own scant numbers acted all the few<br>Against the many oft will dare and do;<br>But though the choice seems native to die free,<br>Even Greece can boast but one Thermopylae,<br>Till now, when she has forged her broken chain<br>Back to a sword, and dies and lives again!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">III.<br>Beside the jutting rock the few appeared,<br>Like the last remnant of the red-deer's herd;<br>Their eyes were feverish, and their aspect worn,<br>But still the hunter's blood was on their horn.<br>A little stream came tumbling from the height,<br>And straggling into ocean as it might,<br>Its bounding crystal frolicked in the ray,<br>And gushed from cliff to crag with saltless spray;<br>Close on the wild, wide ocean, yet as pure<br>And fresh as Innocettce, and more secure,<br>Its silver torrent glittered o'er the deep,<br>As the shy chamois' eye o'erlooks the steep,<br>While far below the vast and sullen swell<br>Of Ocean's alpine azure rose and fell.<br>To this young spring they rushed,-all feelings first<br>Absorbed in Passion's and in Nature's thirst,- <br>Drank as they do who drink their last, and threw<br>Their arms aside to revel in its dew;<br>Cooled their scorched throats, and washed the gory stains<br>From wounds whose only bandage might be chains;<br>Then,when their drought was quenched, looked sadly round,<br>As wondering how so many still were found<br>Alive and fetterless:-but silent all,<br>Each sought his fellow's eyes, as if to call<br>On him for language which his lips denied,<br>As though their voices with their cause had died.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV.<br>Stern, and aloof a little from the rest,<br>Stood Christian, with his arms across his chest.<br>The ruddy, reckless, dauntless hue once spread<br>Along his cheek was livid now as lead;<br>His light-brown locks, so graceful in their flow,<br>Now rose like startled vipers o'er his brow.<br>Still as a statue, with his lips coinprest<br>To stifle even the breath within his breast,<br>Fast by the rock, all menacing, but mute,<br>He stood; and, save a slight beat of his foot,<br>Which deepened now and then the sandy dint<br>Beneath his heel, his form seemed turned to flint.<br>Some paces further Torquil leaned his head<br>Against a bank, and spoke not, but he bled,-<br>Not mortally:-his worst wound was within;<br>His brow was pale, his blue eyes sunken in,too<br>And blood-drops, sprinkled o'er his yellow hair,<br>Showed that his faintness came not from despair,<br>But Nature's ebb. Beside him was another,<br>Rough as a bear, but willing as a brother,-<br>Ben Bunting, who essayed to wash, and wipe,<br>And bind his wound-then calmly lit his pipe,<br>A trophy which survived a hundred fights,<br>A beacon which had cheered ten thousand nights.<br>The fourth and last of this deserted group<br>Walked up and down-at times would stand, then stoop<br>To pick a pebble up-then let it drop-<br>Then hurry as in haste-then quickly stop-<br>Then cast his eyes on his companions-then<br>Half whistle half a tune, and pause again-<br>And then his former movements would redouble,<br>With something between carelessness and trouble.<br>This is a long description, but applies<br>To scarce five minutes passed before the eyes;<br>But yet what minutes! Moments like to these<br>Rend men's lives into immortalities.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">V.<br>At length Jack Skyscrape, a mercurial man,<br>Who fluttered over all things like a fan,<br>More brave than firm, and more disposed to dare<br>And die at once than wrestle with despair,<br>Exclaimed, 'G-d damn I'-those syllables intense,-<br>Nucleus of England's native eloquence,<br>As the Turk's 'Allah!' or the Roman's more<br>Pagan 'Proh Jupiter!' was wont of yore<br>To give their first impressions such a vent,<br>By way of echo to embarrassment.<br>Jack was embarrassed,-never hero more,<br>Till on the surf their skimming paddles play,<br>Buoyant as wings, and flitting through the spray;-<br>Now perching on the wave's high curl, and now<br>Dashed downward in the thundering foam below,<br>Which flings it broad and boiling sheet on sheet,<br>And slings its high flakes, shivered into sleet:<br>But floating still through surf and swell, drew nigh<br>The barks, like small birds through a lowering sky.<br>Their art seemed nature-such the skill to sweep<br>The wave of these born playmates of the deep.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VIII.<br>And who the first that, springing on the strand,<br>Leaped like a Nereid from her shell to land,<br>With dark but brilliant skin, and dewy eye<br>Shining with love, and, hope, and constancy?<br>Neuha-the fond, the faithful, the adored- <br>Her heart on Torquil's like a torrent poured;<br>And smiled, and wept, and near, and nearer clasped,<br>As if to be assured 'twas him she grasped;<br>Shuddered to see his yet warm wound, and then,<br>To find it trivial, smiled and wept again.<br>She was a warrior's daughter, and could bear<br>Such sights, and feel, and mourn, but not despair.<br>Her lover lived,-nor foes nor fears could blight<br>That full-blown moment in its all delight:<br>Joy trickled in her tears, joy filled the sob<br>That rocked her heart till almost HEARD to throb;<br>And Paradise was breathing in the sigh<br>Of Nature's child in Nature's ecstasy.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IX.<br>The sterner spirits who beheld that meeting<br>Were not unmoved; who are, when hearts are greeting?<br>Even Christian gazed upon the maid and boy<br>With tearless eye, but yet a gloomy joy<br>Mixed with those bitter thoughts the soul arrays<br>In hopeless visions of our better days,<br>When all 's gone-to the rainbow's latest ray.<br>'And but for me!' he said, and turned away;<br>Then gazed upon the pair, as in his den<br>A lion looks upon his cubs again;<br>And then relapsed into his sullen guise,<br>As heedless of his further destinies.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">X.<br>But brief their time for good or evil thought;<br>The billows round the promontory brought<br>The plash of hostile oars.-Alas! who made<br>That sound a dread? All around them seemed arrayed<br>Against them, save the bride of Toobonai<br>She, as she caught the first glimpse o'er the bay<br>Of the armed boats, which hurried to complete<br>The remnant's ruin with their flying feet,<br>Beckoned the natives round her to their prows,<br>Embarked their guests and launched their light canoes;<br>In one placed Christian and his comrades twain-<br>But she and Torquil must not part again.<br>She fixed him in her own.-Away! away!<br>They cleared the breakers, dart along the bay,<br>And towards a group of islets, such as bear<br>The sea-bird's nest and seal's surf-hollowed lair,<br>They skim the blue tops of the billows; fast<br>They flew, and fast their fierce pursuers chased.<br>They gain upon them-now they lose again,-<br>Again make way and menace o'er the main;<br>And now the two canoes in chase divide,<br>Arid follow different courses o'er the tide,<br>To baffle the pursuit.-Away! away!<br>As Life is on each paddle's flight to-day,<br>And more than Life or lives to Neuha: Love<br>Freights the frail bark and urges to the cove;<br>And now the refuge and the foe are nigh-<br>Yet, yet a moment! Fly, thou light ark, fly!</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=396213" data-title="The Island: Canto III. de Byron" data-description="I.
The fight was o'er; the flashing through the gloom,
Which robes the cannon as he wings a tomb,
Had ceased; and sulphury vapours upward driven
Had left the Earth, and but polluted Heaven:
The rattling roar which rung in every volley
Had left the..."></div>
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