<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=396214" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Island: Canto IV.</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I.<br>White as a white sail on a dusky sea,<br>When half the horizon 's clouded and half free,<br>Fluttering between the dun wave and the sky,<br>Is Hope's last gleam in Man's extremity.<br>Her anchor parts; but still her snowy sail<br>Attracts our eye amidst the rudest gale:<br>Though every wave she climbs divides us more,<br>The heart still follows from the loneliest shore.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">II.<br>Not distant from the isle of Toobonai,<br>A black rock rears its bosom o'er the spray,<br>The haunt of birds, a desert to mankind,<br>Where the rough seal reposes from the wind,<br>And sleeps unwieldy in his cavern dun,<br>Or gambols with huge frolic in the sun:<br>There shrilly to the passing oar is heard<br>The startled echo of the Ocean bird,<br>Who rears on its bare breast her callow brood,<br>The feathered fishers of the solitude.<br>A narrow segment of the yellow sand<br>On one side forms the outline of a strand;<br>Here the young turtle, crawling from his shell,<br>Steals to the deep wherein his parents dwell;<br>Chipped by the beam, a nursling of the day,<br>But hatched for ocean by the fostering ray;<br>The rest was one bleak precipice, as e'er<br>Gave mariners a shelter and despair;<br>A spot to make the saved regret the deck<br>Which late went down, and envy the lost wreck.<br>Such was the stern asylum Neuha chose<br>To shield her lover from his following foes;<br>But all its secret was not told; she knew<br>In this a treasure hidden from the view.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">III.<br>Ere the canoes divided, near the spot,<br>The men that manned what held her Torquil's lot,<br>By her command removed, to strengthen more<br>The skiff which wafted Christian from the shore.<br>This he would have opposed; but with a smile<br>She pointed calmly to the craggy isle,<br>And bade him 'speed and prosper.' She would take<br>The rest upon herself for Torquil's sake.<br>They parted with this added aid; afar,<br>The Proa darted like a shooting star,<br>And gained on the pursuers, who now steered<br>Right on the rock which she and Torquil neared.<br>They pulled; her arm, though delicate, was free<br>And firm as ever grappled with the sea,<br>And yielded scarce to Torquil's manlier strength.<br>The prow now almost lay within its length<br>Of the crag's steep inexorable face,<br>With nought but soundless waters for its base;<br>Within a hundred boats' length was the foe,<br>And now what refuge but their frail canoe?<br>This Torquil asked with half upbraiding eye,<br>Which said-'Has Neuha brought me here to die?<br>Is this a place of safety, or a grave,<br>And yon huge rock the tombstone of the wave?'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV.<br>They rested on their paddles, and uprose<br>Neuha, and pointing to the approaching foes,<br>Cried, 'Torquil, follow me, and fearless follow!'<br>Then plunged at once into the Ocean's hollow.<br>There was no time to pause-the foes were near-<br>Chains in his eye, and menace in his ear;<br>With vigour they pulled on, and as they came,<br>Hailed him to yield, and by his forfeit name.<br>Headlong he leapt-to him the swimmer's skill<br>Was native, and now all his hope from ill:<br>But how, or where? He dived, and rose no more;<br>The boat's crew looked amazed o'er sea and shore.<br>There was no landing on that precipice,<br>Steep, harsh, and slippery as a berg of ice.<br>They watched awhile to see him float again,<br>But not a trace rebubbled from the main:<br>The wave rolled on, no ripple on its face,<br>Since their first plunge recalled a single trace;<br>The little whirl which eddied, and slight foam,<br>That whitened o'er what seemed their latest home,<br>White as a sepulchre above the pair<br>Who left no marble (mournful as an heir)<br>The quiet Proa wavering o'er the tide<br>Was all that told of Torquil and his bride;<br>And but for this alone the whole might seem<br>The vanished phantom of a seaman's dream.<br>They paused and searched in vain, then pulled away;<br>Even Superstition now forbade their stay.<br>Some said he had not plunged into the wave,<br>But vanished like a corpse-light from a grave;<br>Others, that something supernatural<br>Glared in his figure, more than mortal tall;<br>While all agreed that in his cheek and eye<br>There was a dead hue of Eternity.<br>Still as their oars receded from the crag,<br>Round every weed a moment would they lag,<br>Expectant of some token of their prey;<br>But no-he had melted from them like the spray.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">V.<br>And where was he the Pilgrim of the Deep,<br>Following the Nereid? Had they ceased to weep<br>For ever? or, received in coral caves,<br>Wrung life and pity from the softening waves?<br>Did they with Ocean's hidden sovereigns dwell,<br>And sound with Mermen the fantastic shell?<br>Did Neuha with the mermaids comb her hair<br>Flowing o'er ocean as it streamed in air?<br>Or had they perished, and in silence slept<br>Beneath the gulf wherein they boldly leapt?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VI.<br>Young Neuha plunged into the deep, and he<br>Followed: her track beneath her native sea<br>Was as a native's of the element,<br>So smoothly-bravely-brilliantly she went,<br>Leaving a streak of light behind her heel,<br>Which struck and flashed like an amphibious steel.<br>Closely, and scarcely less expert to trace<br>The depths where divers hold the pearl in chase,<br>Torquil, the nursling of the northern seas,<br>Pursued her liquid steps with heart and ease.<br>Deep-deeper for an instant Neuha led<br>The way-then upward soared-and as she spread<br>Her arms, and flung the foam from off her locks,<br>Laughed, and the sound was answered by the rocks.<br>They had gained a central realm of earth again,<br>But looked for tree, and field, and sky, in vain.<br>Around she pointed to a spacious cave,<br>Whose only portal was the keyless wave,<br>(A hollow archway by the sun unseen,<br>Save through the billows' glassy veil of green,<br>In some transparent ocean holiday,<br>When all the finny people are at play,)<br>Wiped with her hair the brine from Torquil's eyes,<br>And clapped her hands with joy at his surprise;<br>Led him to where the rock appeared to jut,<br>And form a something like a Triton's hut;<br>For all was darkness for a space, till day,<br>Through clefts above let in a sobered ray;<br>As in some old cathedral's glimmering aisle<br>The dusty monuments from light recoil,<br>Thus sadly in their refuge submarine<br>The vault drew half her shadow from the scene.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VII.<br>Forth from her bosom the young savage drew<br>A pine torch, strongly girded with gnatoo;<br>A plantain-leaf o'er all, the more to keep<br>Its latent sparkle from the sapping deep.<br>This mantle kept it dry; then from a nook<br>Of the same plantain-leaf a flint she took,<br>A few shrunk withered twigs, and from the blade<br>Of Torquil's knife struck fire, and thus arrayed<br>The grot with torchlight. Wide it was and high,<br>And showed a self-born Gothic canopy;<br>The arch upreared by Nature's architect,<br>The architrave some Earthquake might erect;<br>The buttress from some mountain's bosom hurled,<br>When the Poles crashed, and water was the world;<br>Or hardened from some earth-absorbing fire,<br>While yet the globe reeked from its funeral pyre;<br>The fretted pinnacle, the aisle, the nave,<br>Were there, all scooped by Darkness from her cave.<br>There, with a little tinge of phantasy,<br>Fantastic faces moped and mowed on high,<br>And then a mitre or a shrine would fix<br>The eye upon its seeming crucifix,<br>Thus Nature played with the stalactites<br>And built herself a Chapel of the Seas.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VIII.<br>And Neuha took her Torquil by the hand,<br>And waved along the vault her kindled brand,<br>And led him into each recess, and showed<br>The secret places of their new abode,<br>Nor these alone, for all had been prepared<br>Before, to soothe the lover's lot she shared:<br>The mat for rest; for dress the fresh gnatoo,<br>And sandal oil to fence against the dew;<br>For food the cocoa-nut, the yarn, the bread<br>Born of the fruit; for board the plantain spread<br>With its broad leaf, or turtle-shell which bore<br>A banquet in the flesh it covered o'er;<br>The gourd with water recent from the rill,<br>The ripe banana from the mellow hill;<br>A pine-torch pile to keep undying light,<br>And she herself, as beautiful as night,<br>To fling her shadowy spirit o'er the scene,<br>And make their subterranean world serene.<br>She had foreseen, since first the stranger's sail<br>Drew to their isle, that force or flight might fail,<br>And formed a refuge of the rocky den<br>For Torquil's safety from his countrymen.<br>Each dawn had wafted there her light canoe,<br>Laden with all the golden fruits that grew;<br>Each eve had seen her gliding through the hour<br>With all could cheer or deck their sparry bower;<br>And now she spread her little store with smiles,<br>The happiest daughter of the loving isles.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IX.<br>She, as he gazed with gratefal wonder, pressed<br>Her sheltered love to her impassioned breast;<br>And suited to her soft caresses, told<br>An olden tale of Love,-for Love is old,<br>Old as eternity, but not outworn<br>With each new being born or to be born:<br>How a young Chief, a thousand moons ago,<br>Diving for turtle in the depths below,<br>Had risen, in tracking fast his ocean prey,<br>Into the cave which round and o'er them lay;<br>How, in some desperate feud of after-time,<br>He sheltered there a daughter of the clime,<br>A foe beloved, and offspring of a foe,<br>Saved by his tribe but for a captive's woe;<br>How, when the storm of war was stilled, he led<br>His island clan to where the waters spread<br>Their deep-green shadow o'er the rocky door,<br>Then dived-it seemed as if to rise no more:<br>His wondering mates, amazed within their bark,<br>Or deemed him mad, or prey to the blue shark;<br>Rowed round in sorrow the sea-girded rock,<br>Then paused upon their paddles from the shock;<br>When, fresh and springing from the deep, they saw<br>A Goddess rise-so deemed they in their awe;<br>And their companion, glorious by her side,<br>Proud and exulting in his Mermaid bride;<br>And how, when undeceived, the pair they bore<br>With sounding conchs and joyous shouts to shore;<br>How they had gladly lived and calmly died,- <br>And why not also Torquil and his bride?<br>Not mine to tell the rapturous caress<br>Which followed wildly in that wild recess<br>This tale; enough that all within that cave<br>Was love, though buried strong as in the grave,<br>Where Abelard, through twenty years of death,<br>When Eloisa's form was lowered beneath<br>Their nuptial vault, his arms outstretched, and pressed<br>The kindling ashes to his kindled breast.<br>The waves without sang round their couch, their roar<br>As much unheeded as if life were o'er;<br>Within, their hearts made all their harmony,<br>Love's broken murmur and more broken sigh.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">X.<br>And they, the cause and sharers of the shock<br>Which left them exiles of the hollow rock,<br>Where were they? O'er the sea for life they plied,<br>To seek from Heaven the shelter men denied.<br>Another course had been their choice-but where?<br>The wave which bore them still their foes would bear,<br>Who, disappointed of their former chase,<br>In search of Christian now renewed their race.<br>Eager with anger, their strong arms made way,<br>Like vultures baffled of thir previous prey.<br>They gained upon them, all whose safety lay<br>In some bleak crag or deeply-hidden bay:<br>No further chance or choice remained; and right<br>For the first further rock which met their sight<br>They steered, to take their latest view of land,<br>And yield as victims, or die sword in hand;<br>Dismissed the natives and their shallop, who<br>Would still have battled for that scanty crew;<br>But Christian bade them seek their shore again,<br>Nor add a sacrifice which were in vain;<br>For what were simple bow and savage spear<br>Against the arms which must be wielded here?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XI.<br>They landed on a wild but narrow scene,<br>Where few but Nature's footsteps yet had been;<br>Prepared their arms, and with that gloomy eye,<br>Stern and sustained, of man's extremity,<br>When Hope is gone, nor Glory's self remains<br>To cheer resistance against death or chains,-<br>They stood, the three, as the three hundred stood<br>Who dyed Thermopylae with holy blood.<br>But, ah! how different! 'tis the cause makes all,<br>Degrades or hallows courage in its fall.<br>O'er them no fame, eternal and intense,<br>Blazed through the clouds of Death and beckoned hence;<br>No grateful country, smiling through her tears,<br>Begun the praises of a thousand years;<br>No nation's eyes would on their tomb be bent,<br>No heroes envy them their monument;<br>However boldly their warm blood was spilt,<br>Their Life was shame, their Epitaph was guilt.<br>And this they knew and felt, at least the one,<br>The leader of the band he had undone;<br>Who, born perchance for better things, had set<br>His life upon a cast which lingered yet:<br>But now the die was to be thrown, and all<br>The chances were in favour of his fall:<br>And such a fall! But still he faced the shock,<br>Obdurate as a portion of the rock<br>Whereon he stood, and fixed his levelled gun,<br>Dark as a sullen cloud before the sun.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XII.<br>The boat drew nigh, well armed, and firm the crew<br>To act whatever Duty bade them do<br>Careless of danger, as the onward wind<br>Is of the leaves it strews, nor looks behind.<br>And, yet, perhaps, they rather wished to go<br>Against a nation's than a native foe,<br>And felt that this poor victim of self-will,<br>Briton no more, had once been Britain's still.<br>They hailed him to surrender-no reply;<br>Their arms were poised, and glittered in the sky.<br>They hailed again-no answer; yet once more<br>They offered quarter louder than before.<br>The echoes only, from the rock's rebound,<br>Took their last farewell of the dying sound.<br>Then flashed the flint, and blazed the volleying flame,<br>And the smoke rose between them and their aim,<br>While the rock rattled with the bullets' knell,<br>Which pealed in vain, and flattened as they fell;<br>Then flew the only answer to be given<br>By those who had lost all hope in earth or heaven.<br>After the first fierce peal as they pulled nigher,<br>They heard the voice of Christian shout, 'Now, fire!'<br>And ere the word upon the echo died,<br>Two fell; the rest assailed the rock's rough side,<br>And, furious at the madness of their foes,<br>Disdained all further efforts, save to close.<br>But steep the crag, and all without a path,<br>Each step opposed a bastion to their wrath,<br>While, placed 'midst clefts the least accessible,<br>Which Christian's eye was trained to mark full well,<br>The three maintained a strife which must not yield,<br>In spots where eagles might have chosen to build.<br>Their every shot told; while the assailant fell,<br>Dashed on the shingles like the limpet shell;<br>But still enough survived, and mounted still,<br>Scattering their numbers here and there, until<br>Surrounded and commanded, though not nigh<br>Enough for seizure, near enough to die,<br>The desperate trio held aloof their fate<br>But by a thread, like sharks who have gorged the bait;<br>Yet to the very last they battled well,<br>And not a groan informed their foes who fell.<br>Christian died last-twice wounded; and once more<br>Mercy was offered when they saw his gore;<br>Too late for life, but not too late to die,<br>With, though a hostile band, to close his eye.<br>A limb was broken, and he drooped along<br>The crag, as doth a falcon reft of young.<br>The sound revived him, or appeared to wake<br>Some passion which a weakly gesture spake:<br>He beckoned to the foremost, who drew nigh,<br>But, as they neared, he reared his weapon high-<br>His last ball had been aimed, but from his breast<br>He tore the topmost button from his vest,<br>Down the tube dashed it-levelled-fired, and smiled<br>As his foe fell; then, like a serpent, coiled<br>His wounded, weary form, to where the steep<br>Looked desperate as himself along the deep;<br>Cast one glance back, and clenched his hand, and shook<br>His last rage 'gainst the earth which he forsook;<br>Then plunged: the rock below received like glass<br>His body crushed into one gory mass,<br>With scarce a shred to tell of human form,<br>Or fragment for the sea-bird or the worm;<br>A fair-haired scalp, besmeared with blood and weeds,<br>Yet reeked, the remnant of himself and deeds;<br>Some splinters of his weapons (to the last,<br>As long as hand could hold, he held them fast)<br>Yet glittered, but at distance-hurled away<br>To rust beneath the dew and dashing spray.<br>The rest was nothing-save a life mis-spent,<br>And soul-but who shall answer where it went?<br>'Tis ours to bear, not judge the dead; and they<br>Who doom to Hell, themselves are on the way,<br>Unless these bullies of eternal pains<br>Are pardoned their bad hearts for their worse brains.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIII.<br>The deed was over! All were gone or ta'en,<br>The fugitive, the captive, or the slain.<br>Chained on the deck, where once, a gallant crew,<br>They stood with honour, were the wretched few<br>Survivors of the skirmish on the isle;<br>But the last rock left no surviving spoil.<br>Cold lay they where they fell, and weltering,<br>While o'er them flapped the sea-birds' dewy wing,<br>Now wheeling nearer from the neighbouring surge,<br>And screaming high their harsh and hungry dirge:<br>But calm and careless heaved the wave below,<br>Eternal with unsympathetic flow;<br>Far o'er its face the Dolphins sported on,<br>And sprung the flying fish against the sun,<br>Till its dried wing relapsed from its brief height,<br>To gather moisture for another flight.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XIV.<br>'Twas morn; and Neuha, who by dawn of day<br>Swam smoothly forth to catch the rising ray,<br>And watch if aught approached the amphibious lair<br>Where lay her lover, saw a sail in air:<br>It flapped, it filled, and to the growing gale<br>Bent its broad arch: her breath began to fail<br>With fluttering fear, her heart beat thick and high,<br>While yet a doubt sprung where its course might lie.<br>But no! it came not; fast and far away<br>The shadow lessened as it cleared the bay.<br>She gazed, and flung the sea-foam from her eyes,<br>To watch as for a rainbow in the skies.<br>On the horizon verged the distant deck,<br>Diminished, dwindled to a very speck-<br>Then vanished. All was Ocean, all was Joy!<br>Down plunged she through the cave to rouse her boy;<br>Told all she had seen, and all she hoped, and all<br>That happy love could augur or recall;<br>Sprung forth again, with Torquil following free<br>His bounding Nereid over the broad sea;<br>Swam round the rock, to where a shallow cleft<br>Hid the canoe that Neuha there had left<br>Drifting along the tide, without an oar,<br>That eve the strangers chased them from the shore;<br>But when these vanished, she pursued her prow,<br>Regained, and urged to where they found it now:<br>Nor ever did more love and joy embark,<br>Than now were wafted in that slender ark.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">XV.<br>Again their own shore rises on the view,<br>No more polluted with a hostile hue;<br>No sullen ship lay bristling o'er the foam,<br>A floating dungeon:-all was Hope and Home!<br>A thousand Proas darted o'er the bay,<br>With sounding shells, and heralded their way;<br>The chiefs came down, around the people poured,<br>And welcomed Torquil as a son restored;<br>The women thronged, embracing and embraced<br>By Neuha, asking where they had been chased,<br>And how escaped? The tale was told; and then<br>One acclamation rent the sky again;<br>And from that hour a new tradition gave<br>Their sanctuary the name of 'Neuha's Cave.'<br>A hundred fires, far flickering from the height,<br>Blazed o'er the general revel of the night,<br>The feast in honour of the guest, returned<br>To Peace and Pleasure, perilously earned;<br>A night succeeded by such happy days<br>As only the yet infant world displays.</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> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <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=396214" data-title="The Island: Canto IV. de Byron" data-description="I. White as a white sail on a dusky sea, When half the horizon 's clouded and half free, Fluttering between the dun wave and the sky, Is Hope's last gleam in Man's extremity. Her anchor parts; but still her snowy sail Attracts our eye amidst the r..."></div> </div> </div>

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