CANTO IV.]
CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE.
381
Thy current's calmness; oft from out it leaps
The finny darter with the glittering scales,[1]
Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps;
While, chance, some scattered water-lily sails[2]
Down where the shallower wave still tells its bubbling tales.
LXVIII.
Pass not unblest the Genius of the place!
If through the air a Zephyr more serene
Win to the brow, 'tis his; and if ye trace
Along his margin a more eloquent green,
If on the heart the freshness of the scene
Sprinkle its coolness, and from the dry dust
Of weary life a moment lave it clean
With Nature's baptism,—'tis to him ye must
Pay orisons for this suspension of disgust.[3]
- ↑ ["On my way back [from Rome], close to the temple by its banks, I got some famous trout out of the river Clitumnus, the prettiest little stream in all poesy."—Letter to Murray, June 4, 1817.]
- ↑ There is a course where Lovers' evening tales.—[MS. M. erased.]
- ↑ [By "disgust," a prosaic word which seems to mar a fine stanza, Byron does not mean "distaste," aversion from the nauseous, but "tastelessness," the inability to enjoy taste. Compare the French "Avoir du dégout pour la vie," "To be out of conceit with life." Byron was "a lover of Nature," but it was seldom that he felt her "healing power," or was able to lose himself in his surroundings. But now, for the moment, he experiences that sudden uplifting of the spirit in the presence of natural beauty which brings back "the splendour in the grass, the glory in the flower!"]
