&c., and tell us what they seem to describe. You will find yourself in a pretty puzzle. A ship? a fleet? myriads of ships lost? or one drowning man? Surely one drowning man. His own phrase,
"the bubbling cry
Of some strong swimmer in his agony,"
here pre-appears. But he had bound himself quite otherwise. By his pledge he should, in contrast with man's wreck active upon shore, have given man's wreck passive upon the flood,—the earth strewn with ruin by man's hand, the sea strewn with ruin of man himself,—magnis excidit ausis.
The words "remain" and "man" have played the part here of juggling fiends,—
"They palter with us in a double sense,
They keep the word of promise to the ear,
And break it to our hope."
For lend us your ear for a few minutes. The word "remain" is originally and essentially a word of time, and means to "continue" in some assigned condition through a certain duration of time; as, for example, he "remained in command for a year." In this clause of Byron's, it has become essentially a word that has regard to space without regard to time. To see that it is so, you must begin with possessing the picture that has been set before you, and which is here the basis and outset of the thinking. This picture is—"man marks the earth with ruin." Realise the picture at the height of the words without flinching. For example, from the Atlantic eastward to the Pacific, man ravages. Here Napoleon—a little farther on Mahomet the Second—farther, the Crusaders—beyond these Khuli Khan or Timour Leng—lastly, the Mogul conquerors of the Celestial Empire,—a chain of desolation from Estremadura to Corea. Had land extended around the globe, it had been a belt of desolation encircling the globe. Corn fields, vineyards, trampled under foot of man and horse,—villages, towns, and great cities, reeking with conflagration, like the smoke ascending from some enormous altar of abomination to offend the nostrils of heaven—armed hosts lying trampled in their blood—the unarmed lying scattered every where in theirs; for man has trodden the earth in his rage, and before him was as the garden of Eden, behind him is the desolate wilderness. This is a translation of the hemistich,—"Man marks the earth with ruin,"—into prose. It is a faithful, a literal translation—Byron meant as much: and you, neophyte, in an instantaneous image receive as much—perhaps with more faith or persuasion, because leaden-pacing, tardy-gaited exposition goes against such faith; but some belief will remain if we, who have put ourselves in the place of the poet, have used colours that seize upon your imagination.
Well, then, if your imagination has done that which the summary word-picture of the poet required of you, you have swept the earth, or one of its continents, with instantaneous flight from shore to shore, and seen this horrible devastation—this widely-spread ravage. You have not staid your wing at the shore, but have swept on, driven by your horror, till you have hung, and first breathed at ease, over the Mid Pacific, over the wide OCEAN OF PEACE—over the unpolluted, everlasting ocean, murmuring under your feet—the unpolluted, everlasting heavens over your head. Here is no ravage of man's: no! nor the shadow of it—
—"Nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage."
But how "nor doth remain?" The ravage has gone along with you from sea-marge to sea-marge. At sea it is no longer with you. Traversing the land it remained your companion. It remained the continual and loathed object of your eyes. Now no shadow of it is to be seen—it haunts your flight no longer. No shadow of it any longer accompanies your aerial voyage—any longer stays, abides, remains with you. If the word has not this meaning, it has no meaning here in this clause. In this clause it cannot mean this—"upon the ocean, the ravage made by man appears like a flash of lightning, seen and gone,—upon the ocean this ravage, or some shadow of this ravage, has a momentary duration, but no more than momentary, no abiding, no remaining." This cannot be the meaning, since of man it has been expressly said 'his control stops with the shore'—that is, ends there, is not on the ocean at all. Manifestly the question at issue is, not whether destruction effected by man lasts upon the waters, but whether it is at all upon the waters; and Byron's decision is plainly that it is not at all. For he has already said "upon the watery plain the wrecks are all thy deed." That is to say, any sort of wreck effected by man upon the flood at all has been twice rejected in express words; and this word "remain" must imperatively be understood consonantly to this rejection.
Byron, then, we see, in denying that wrecks made by man "remain" upon the "watery plain," takes a word which properly sets before you an extending in time, and uses it for setting before you an extending in space. The ravage of which man is the agent does not extend over the "watery plain"—no, not a shadow of it.