With no distracting world to call her off
From love; with no society to scoff

At the new transient flame; no babbling crowd
Of coxcombry in admiration loud,

Or with adulterous whisper to alloy

Her duty, and her glory, and her joy;
With faith and feelings naked as her form,
She stood as stands a rainbow in a storm,
Changing its hues with bright variety,
But still expanding lovelier o'er the sky,
Howe'er its arch may swell, its colours move,
The cloud-compelling harbinger of Love.

Here, in this grotto of the wave-worn shore,
They passed the Tropic's red meridian o'er;
Nor long the hours-they never paused o'er time,
Unbroken by the clock's funereal chime,
Which deals the daily pittance of our span,
And points and mocks with iron laugh at man.
What deemed they of the future or the past?
The present, like a tyrant, held them fast:
Their hour-glass was the sea-sand, and the tide,
Like her smooth billow, saw their moments glide;
Their clock the sun, in his unbounded tower;
They reckoned not, whose day was but an hour;
The nightingale, their only vesper bell,
Sung sweetly to the rose the day's farewell;
The broad sun set, but not with lingering sweep,
As in the North he mellows o'er the deep,
But fiery, full and fierce, as if he left
The world for ever, earth of light bereft,
Plunged with red forehead down along the wave,
As dives a hero headlong to his grave.
Then rose they, looking first along the skies,
And then for light into each other's eyes,
Wondering that summer showed so brief a sun,
And asking if indeed the day were done?

The voluptuous indolence of the lovers is interrupted by the hoarse sound of a seaman's voice. This is Ben Bunting, one of the mountaineers, who comes to seek Torquil, to impart to him the ill news

that a ship has been seen in the offing. After a short apostrophe to tobacco, of which, after investigating its varied shapes, Lord Byron prefers its naked beauties—a cigar,' the figure of this sailor is described, and has given a subject to the very spirited engraving which is inserted here:

Our sailor's jacket, though in ragged trim,

His constant pipe, which never yet burned dim,
His foremast air, and somewhat rolling gait,
Like his dear vessel, spoke his former state;
But then a sort of kerchief round his head,
Not ever tightly bound, nor nicely spread :
And stead of trowsers (ah! too early torn!
For even the mildest woods will have their thorn)
A curious sort of somewhat scanty mat
Now served for inexpressibles and hat;
His naked feet and neck, and sun-burnt face,
Perchance might suit alike with either race.
His arms were all his own, our Europe's growth,
Which two worlds bless for civilizing both;
The musket swung behind his shoulders broad,
And somewhat stooped by his marine abode,
But brawny as the boar's; and hung beneath,
His cutlass drooped, unconscious of a sheath,
Or lost or worn away; his pistols were
Linked to his belt, a matrimonial pair-
(Let not this metaphor appear a scoff,
Though one missed fire, the other would go off)—
These, with a bayonet, not so free from rust
As when the arm-chest held its brighter trust,
Completed his accoutrements, as Night
Surveyed him in his garb heteroclite."

A

Torquil hears his news with dismay, not because he fears the fate which he may have to endure, but because it brings with it the necessity of being separated from his loved and loving Neuha.

The resistance which Christian and his comrades make against the pursuing crew of the ship is short and vain: the few who are not either killed or taken retreat to a rock, where they stand thus:

Stern, and aloof a little from the rest,

Stood Christian, with his arms across his chest.