from Canto III

51

He enter’d in the house no more his home,
     A thing to human feelings the most trying,
And harder for the heart to overcome,
     Perhaps, than even the mental pangs of dying;
To find our hearthstone turn’d into a tomb,
    And round its once warm precincts palely lying
The ashes of our hopes, is a deep grief,
Beyond a single gentleman’s belief.

52

He enter’d in the house—his home no more,
     For without hearts there is no home;—and felt
The solitude of passing his own door
     Without a welcome; there he long had dwelt,
There his few peaceful days Time had swept o’er,
     There his worn bosom and keen eye would melt
Over the innocence of that sweet child,
His only shrine of feelings undefiled.

53

He was a man of a strange temperament,
    Of mild demeanour though of savage mood,
Moderate in all his habits, and content
     With temperance in pleasure, as in food,
Quick to perceive, and strong to bear, and meant
     For something better, if not wholly good;
His country’s wrongs and his despair to save her
Had stung him from a slave to an enslaver.

54

The love of power, and rapid gain of gold,
    The hardness by long habitude produced,
The dangerous life in which he had grown old,
     The mercy he had granted oft abused,
The sights he was accustom’d to behold,
     The wild seas, and wild men with whom he cruised,
Had cost his enemies a long repentance,
And made him a good friend, but bad acquaintance.

55

But something of the spirit of old Greece
     Flash’d o’er his soul a few heroic rays,
Such as lit onward to the Golden Fleece
    His predecessors in the Colchian days;
‘Tis true he had no ardent love for peace—
     Alas! his country show’d no path to praise:
Hate to the world and war with every nation
He waged, in vengeance of her degradation.

56

Still o’er his mind the influence of the clime
    Shed its Ionian elegance, which show’d
Its power unconsciously full many a time,—
     A taste seen in the choice of his abode,
A love of music and of scenes sublime,
     A pleasure in the gentle stream that flow’d
Past him in crystal, and a joy in flowers,
Bedew’d his spirit in his calmer hours.

57

But whatsoe’er he had of love reposed
     On that beloved daughter; she had been
The only thing which kept his heart unclosed
     Amidst the savage deeds he had done and seen;
A lonely pure affection unopposed:
     There wanted but the loss of this to wean
His feelings from all milk of human kindness,
And turn him like the Cyclops mad with blindness.

58

The cubless tigress in her jungle raging
     Is dreadful to the shepherd and the flock;
The ocean when its yeasty war is waging
     Is awful to the vessel near the rock;
But violent things will sooner bear assuaging,
     Their fury being spent by its own shock,
Than the stern, single, deep, and wordless ire
Of a strong human heart, and in a sire.

59

It is a hard although a common case
     To find our children running restive—they
In whom our brightest days we would retrace,
     Our little selves re-form’d in finer clay,
Just as old age is creeping on apace,
     And clouds come o’er the sunset of our day,
They kindly leave us, though not quite alone,
But in good company—the gout or stone.

60

Yet a fine family is a fine thing
     (Provided they don’t come in after dinner);
‘Tis beautiful to see a matron bring
     Her children up (if nursing them don’t thin her);
Like cherubs round an altar-piece they cling
     To the fire-side (a sight to touch a sinner).
A lady with her daughters or her nieces
Shine like a guinea and seven shilling pieces.