Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 2.djvu/499

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CANTO IV.]
CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE.
455

Tully reposed from Rome;—and where yon bar
Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight[1]
The Sabine farm was tilled, the weary Bard's delight.


CLXXV.

But I forget.—My Pilgrim's shrine is won,
And he and I must part,—so let it be,—
His task and mine alike are nearly done;
Yet once more let us look upon the Sea;
The Midland Ocean breaks on him and me,
And from the Alban Mount we now behold
Our friend of youth, that Ocean, which when we
Beheld it last by Calpe's rock[2] unfold
Those waves, we followed on till the dark Euxine rolled


    where "Tully reposed," lies to the north of the Alban Hills, on the right; but, as Byron points to a spot "beneath thy right," he probably refers to the traditional site of the Villa Ciceronis at Grotta Ferrata, and not to an alternative site at the Villa Ruffinella, between Frascati and the ruins of Tusculum. Horace's Sabine farm, on the bank of Digentia's "ice-cold rivulet," is more than twenty miles to the north-east of the Alban Hills. The mountains to the south and east of Tusculum intercept the view of the valley of the Licenza (Digentia), where the "farm was tilled." Childe Harold had bidden farewell to Horace, once for all, "upon Soracte's ridge," but recalls him to keep company with Virgil and Cicero.]

  1. Of girdling mountains circle on the sight
    The Sabine farm was tilled, the wearied Bard's delight.—[MS. M.]

  2. ["Calpe's rock" is Gibraltar (compare Childe Harold, Canto II. stanza xxii. line 1). "Last" may be the last time that Byron and Childe Harold saw the Mediterranean together. Byron had last seen it—"the Midland Ocean"—by "Calpe's rock," on his return journey to England in 1811. Or by "last" he may mean the last time that it burst upon