Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 2.djvu/156

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122
CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE.
[CANTO II.

And many a varied shore to sail along,
By pensive Sadness, not by Fiction, led—
Climes, fair withal as ever mortal head[1]
Imagined in its little schemes of thought;[2]
Or e'er in new Utopias were ared,[3]
To teach Man what he might be, or he ought—
If that corrupted thing could ever such be taught.


XXXVII.

Dear Nature is the kindest mother still!
Though always changing, in her aspect mild;
From her bare bosom let me take my fill,
Her never-weaned, though not her favoured child.[4]
Oh! she is fairest in her features wild,
Where nothing polished dares pollute her path:
To me by day or night she ever smiled,
Though I have marked her when none other hath,
And sought her more and more, and loved her best in wrath.[5]


  1. Climes strange withal as ever mortal head.—[MS.]
  2. Suspected in its little pride of thought.—[MS. erased.]
  3. ["Were counselled or advised." The passive "were ared" seems to lack authority. (See N. Eng. Dict., art. "Aread.")]
  4. Her not unconscious though her weakly child.
    or, —— her rudest child.—[MS. erased.]

  5. [Compare the description of the thunderstorm in the Alps (Canto III. stanzas xcii.-xcvi., pp. 273-275); and Manfred., act ii. sc. 2— {{block center|"My joy was in the wilderness; to breathe
    The difficult air of the iced mountain-top— ····· In them my early strength exulted; or