A spot he longed to see, nor cared to leave:
Oft did he mark the scenes of vanished war,
Actium—Lepanto—fatal TrafalgarN13
Mark them unmoved, for he would not delight
(Born beneath some remote inglorious star)[1]
In themes of bloody fray, or gallant fight,
But loathed the bravo's trade, and laughed at martial wight.[2]
XLI.
But when he saw the Evening star above
Leucadia's far-projecting rock of woe,
And hailed the last resort of fruitless love,N14
He felt, or deemed he felt, no common glow:
And as the stately vessel glided slow[3]
Beneath the shadow of that ancient mount,
He watched the billows' melancholy flow,
And, sunk albeit in thought as he was wont,[4]
More placid seemed his eye, and smooth his pallid front.
XLII.
Morn dawns; and with it stern Albania's hills,
- ↑ [For Byron's "star" similes, see Canto III. stanza lxxxviii. line 9.]
- ↑ —— and looked askance on Mars.—[MS. erased.]
- ↑ [Compare the line in Tennyson's song, Break, break, break, "And the stately ships go on."]
- ↑
And roused him more from thought than he was wont
While Pleasure almost seemed to smooth his pallid front.—[MS. D.]
While Pleasure almost smiled along ——.—[MS. erased.] - ↑ [By "Suli's rocks" Byron means the mountainous
