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CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE.
[CANTO IV.
CLXXXII.
Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee—
Assyria—Greece—Rome—Carthage—what are they?[1]
Thy waters washed[2] them power while they were free,[3]
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts:—not so thou,
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play,[4]
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow—
Such as Creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.
CLXXXIII.
Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,
Calm or convulsed—in breeze, or gale, or storm—
- ↑ ["When Lord Byron wrote this stanza, he had, no doubt, the following passage in Boswell's Johnson floating in his mind.... 'The grand object of all travelling is to see the shores of the Mediterranean. On those shores were the four great empires of the world—the Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman' (Life of Johnson, 1876, p. 505)."—Note to Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza clxxxii. ed. 1891.]
- ↑ [See letter to Murray, September 24, 1818: "What does 'thy waters wasted them' mean (in the Canto)? That is not me. Consult the MS. always." Nevertheless, the misreading appeared in several editions. (For a correspondence on the subject, see Notes and Queries, first series, vol. i. pp. 182, 278, 324, 508; vol. ix. p. 481; vol. x. pp. 314, 434.)]
- ↑ Thy waters wasted them while they were free.—[Editions 1818, 1819, 1823, and Galignani, 1825.]
- ↑ Unchangeable save calm thy tempests ply.—[MS. M., D.]
