Canto I._The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 3

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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

This etext contains only characters from the Latin-1 set. The original

work contained a few phrases of Greek text. These are represented here

as Beta-code transliterations in brackets, e.g. [Greek: misêto\n].

The original text used a few other characters not found in the Latin-1

set. These have been represented using bracket notation, as follows:

[=a], [=i] for letters with a macron, and ['c] for c with accent. In a

few places superscript letters are shown by carets, as in Oct^r. 11.

An important feature of this edition is its copious footnotes. Footnotes

indexed with letters (e.g. [c], [bf]) show variant forms of Byron's text

from manuscripts and other sources. Footnotes indexed with arabic

numbers (e.g. [17], [221]) are informational. Text in notes and

elsewhere in square brackets is the work of Editor E. H. Coleridge. Note

text not in brackets is by Byron himself.

In the original, footnotes are printed at the foot of the page on which

they are referenced, and their indices start over on each page. In this

etext, footnotes have been collected at the end of each section, and

have been numbered consecutively throughout the book. Within each block

of footnotes are numbers in braces, e.g. {321}. These represent the page

number on which the following notes originally appeared. To find a note

that was originally printed on page 27, search for {27}.

In note [ci] to _The Giaour_ and in the section headed "NOTE TO _THE

BRIDE OF ABYDOS_" the editor showed deleted text struck through with

lines. The struck-through words are noted here with braces and dashes,

as in {-deleted words-}.

The Works

LORD BYRON.

A NEW, REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION,

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.

Poetry. Vol. III.

EDITED BY

ERNEST HARTLEY COLERIDGE, M.A., HON. F.R.S.L.

LONDON:

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.

NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.

1900.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD VOLUME.

The present volume contains the six metrical tales which were composed

within the years 1812 and 1815, the _Hebrew Melodies_, and the minor

poems of 1809-1816. With the exception of the first fifteen poems

(1809-1811)--_Chansons de Voyage_, as they might be called--the volume

as a whole was produced on English soil. Beginning with the _Giaour_;

which followed in the wake of _Childe Harold_ and shared its triumph,

and ending with the ill-omened _Domestic Pieces_, or _Poems of the

Separation_, the poems which Byron wrote in his own country synchronize

with his popularity as a poet by the acclaim and suffrages of his own

countrymen. His greatest work, by which his lasting fame has been

established, and by which his relative merits as a great poet will be

judged in the future, was yet to come; but the work which made his name,

which is stamped with his sign-manual, and which has come to be regarded

as distinctively and characteristically Byronic, preceded maturity and

achievement.

No poet of his own or other times, not Walter Scott, not Tennyson, not

Mr. Kipling, was ever in his own lifetime so widely, so amazingly

popular. Thousands of copies of the "Tales"--of the _Bride of Abydos_,

of the _Corsair_, of _Lara_--were sold in a day, and edition followed

edition month in and month out. Everywhere men talked about the "noble

author"--in the capitals of Europe, in literary circles in the United

States, in the East Indies. He was "the glass of fashion ... the

observ'd of all observers," the swayer of sentiment, the master and

creator of popular emotion. No other English poet before or since has

divided men's attention with generals and sea-captains and statesmen,

has attracted and fascinated and overcome the world so entirely and

potently as Lord Byron.

It was _Childe Harold_, the unfinished, immature _Childe Harold_, and

the Turkish and other "Tales," which raised this sudden and deafening

storm of applause when the century was young, and now, at its close (I

refer, of course, to the Tales, not to Byron's poetry as a whole, which,

in spite of the critics, has held and still holds its own), are ignored

if not forgotten, passed over if not despised--which but few know

thoroughly, and "very few" are found to admire or to love. _Ubi lapsus,

quid feci?_ might the questioning spirit of the author exclaim with

regard to his "Harrys and Larrys, Pilgrims and Pirates," who once held

the field, and now seem to have gone under in the struggle for poetical

existence!

To what, then, may we attribute the passing away of interest and

enthusiasm? To the caprice of fashion, to an insistence on a more

faultless _technique_, to a nicer taste in ethical sentiment, to a

preference for a subtler treatment of loftier themes? More certainly,

and more particularly, I think, to the blurring of outline and the

blotting out of detail due to lapse of time and the shifting of the

intellectual standpoint.

However much the charm of novelty and the contagion of enthusiasm may

have contributed to the success of the Turkish and other Tales, it is in

the last degree improbable that our grandfathers and great-grandfathers

were enamoured, not of a reality, but of an illusion born of ignorance

or of vulgar bewilderment. They were carried away because they breathed

the same atmosphere as the singer; and being undistracted by ethical, or

grammatical, or metrical offences, they not only read these poems with

avidity, but understood enough of what they read to be touched by their

vitality, to realize their verisimilitude.

_Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner._ Nay, more, the knowledge, the

comprehension of essential greatness in art, in nature, or in man is not

to know that there is aught to forgive. But that sufficing knowledge

which the reader of average intelligence brings with him for the

comprehension and appreciation of contemporary literature has to be

bought at the price of close attention and patient study when the

subject-matter of a poem and the modes and movements of the poet's

consciousness are alike unfamiliar.

Criticism, however subtle, however suggestive, however luminous, will

not bridge over the gap between the past and the present, will not

supply the sufficing knowledge. It is delightful and interesting and, in

a measure, instructive to know what great poets of his own time and of

ours have thought of Byron, how he "strikes" them; but unless we are

ourselves saturated with his thought and style, unless we learn to

breathe his atmosphere by reading the books which he read, picturing to

ourselves the scenes which he saw,--unless we aspire to his ideals and

suffer his limitations, we are in no way entitled to judge his poems,

whether they be good or bad.

Byron's metrical "Tales" come before us in the guise of light reading,

and may be "easily criticized" as melo-dramatic--the heroines

conventional puppets, the heroes reduplicated reflections of the

author's personality, the Oriental "properties" loosely arranged, and

somewhat stage-worn. A thorough and sympathetic study of these once

extravagantly lauded and now belittled poems will not, perhaps, reverse

the deliberate judgment of later generations, but it will display them

for what they are, bold and rapid and yet exact presentations of the

"gorgeous East," vivid and fresh from the hand of the great artist who

conceived them out of the abundance of memory and observation, and

wrought them into shape with the "pen of a ready writer." They will be

once more recognized as works of genius, an integral portion of our

literary inheritance, which has its proper value, and will repay a more

assiduous and a finer husbandry.

I have once more to acknowledge the generous assistance of the officials

of the British Museum, and, more especially, of Mr. A. G. Ellis, of the

Oriental Printed Books and MSS. Department, who has afforded me

invaluable instruction in the compilation of the notes to the _Giaour_

and _Bride of Abydos_.

I have also to thank Mr. R. L. Binyon, of the Department of Prints and

Drawings, for advice and assistance in the selection of illustrations.

I desire to express my cordial thanks to the Registrar of the Copyright

Office, Stationers' Hall; to Professor Jannaris, of the University of

St. Andrews; to Miss E. Dawes, M.A., D.L., of Heathfield Lodge,

Weybridge; to my cousin, Miss Edith Coleridge, of Goodrest, Torquay; and

to my friend, Mr. Frank E. Taylor, of Chertsey, for information kindly

supplied during the progress of the work.

For many of the "parallel passages" from the works of other poets, which

are to be found in the notes, I am indebted to a series of articles by

A. A. Watts, in the _Literary Gazette,_ February and March, 1821; and to

the notes to the late Professor E. Kolbing's _Siege of Corinth._

On behalf of the publisher, I beg to acknowledge the kindness of Lord

Glenesk, and of Sir Theodore Martin, K.C.B., who have permitted the

examination and collation of MSS. of the _Siege of Corinth_ and of the

"Thyrza" poems, in their possession.

The original of the miniature of H.R.H. the Princess Charlotte of Wales

(see p. 44) is in the Library of Windsor Castle. It has been reproduced

for this volume by the gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen.

ERNEST HARTLEY COLERIDGE.

_April_ 18, 1900.

CONTENTS OF VOL. III.

Preface to Vol. III. of the Poems v

Introduction to _Occasional Pieces_ (_Poems_ 1809-1813;

_Poems_ 1814-1816) xix

Poems 1809-1813.

The Girl of Cadiz. First published in _Works of Lord Byron,

1832_, viii. 56 1

Lines written in an Album, at Malta. First published,

_Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to) 4

To Florence. First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to) 5

Stanzas composed during a Thunderstorm. First published,

_Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to) 7

Stanzas written in passing the Ambracian Gulf. First

published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to) 11

The Spell is broke, the Charm is flown! First published,

_Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to) 12

Written after swimming from Sestos to Abydos. First

published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to) 13

Lines in the Travellers' Book at Orchomenus. First

published, _Travels in Italy, Greece, etc._, by H. W.

Williams, 1820, ii. 290 15

Maid of Athens, ere we part. First published, _Childe

Harold_, 1812 (4to) 15

Fragment from the "Monk of Athos." First published, _Life of

Lord Byron_, by the Hon. Roden Noel, 1890, pp. 206, 207 18

Lines written beneath a Picture. First published, _Childe

Harold_, 1812 (4to) 19

Translation of the famous Greek War Song,

[Greek: Deu~te pi~des, k.t.l.] First published,

_Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to) 20

Translation of the Romaic Song,

[Greek: Mne/pô mes' to\ peribo/li, k.t.l.]

First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to) 22

On Parting. First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to) 23

Farewell to Malta. First published, _Poems on his Domestic

Circumstances_, by W. Hone (Sixth Edition, 1816) 24

Newstead Abbey. First published, _Memoir_ of Rev. F.

Hodgson, 1878, i. 187 27

Epistle to a Friend, in answer to some Lines exhorting the

Author to be Cheerful, and to "banish Care." First

published, _Letters and Journals_, 1830, i. 301 28

To Thyrza ["Without a stone," etc.]. First published,

_Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to) 30

Stanzas ["Away, away," etc.]. First published, _Childe

Harold_, 1812 (4to) 35

Stanzas ["One struggle more," etc.]. First published,

_Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to) 36

Euthanasia. First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (Second

Edition) 39

Stanzas ["And thou art dead," etc.]. First published,

_Childe Harold_, 1812 (Second Edition) 41

Lines to a Lady weeping. First published, _Morning

Chronicle_, March 7, 1812 45

Stanzas ["If sometimes," etc.]. First published, _Childe

Harold_, 1812 (Second Edition) 46

On a Cornelian Heart which was broken. First published,

_Childe Harold_, 1812 (Second Edition) 48

The Chain I gave was Fair to view. From the Turkish. First

published, _Corsair_, 1814 (Second Edition) 49

Lines written on a Blank Leaf of _The Pleasures of Memory_.

First published, _Poems_, 1816 50

Address, spoken at the Opening of Drury-Lane Theatre,

Saturday, October 10, 1812. First published, _Morning

Chronicle_, October 12, 1812 51

Parenthetical Address. By Dr. Plagiary. First published,

_Morning Chronicle_, October 23, 1812 55

Verses found in a Summer-house at Hales-Owen. First

published, _Works of Lord Byron_, 1832, xvii. 244 59

Remember thee! Remember thee! First published,

_Conversations of Lord Byron_, 1824, p. 330 59

To Time. First published, _Childe Harold_, 1814 (Seventh

Edition) 60

Translation of a Romaic Love Song. First published, _Childe

Harold_, 1814 (Seventh Edition) 62

Stanzas ["Thou art not false," etc.]. First published,

_Childe Harold_, 1814 (Seventh Edition) 64

On being asked what was the "Origin of Love." First

published, _Childe Harold_, 1814 (Seventh Edition) 65

On the Quotation, "And my true faith," etc. _MS. M._ 65

Stanzas ["Remember him," etc.]. First published, _Childe

Harold_, 1814 (Seventh Edition) 69

Impromptu, in Reply to a Friend. First published, _Childe

Harold_, 1814 (Seventh Edition) 67

Sonnet. To Genevra ["Thine eyes' blue tenderness," etc.].

First published, _Corsair_, 1814 (Second Edition) 70

Sonnet. To Genevra ["Thy cheek is pale with thought," etc.].

First published, _Corsair_, 1814 (Second Edition) 71

From the Portuguese ["Tu mi chamas"]. First published,

_Childe Harold_, 1814 (Seventh Edition). "Another Version."

First published, 1831 71

The Giaour: A Fragment of a Turkish Tale.

Introduction to _The Giaour_ 75

Bibliographical Note on _The Giaour_ 78

Dedication 81

Advertisement 83

_The Giaour_ 85

The Bride of Abydos. A Turkish Tale.

Introduction to _The Bride of Abydos_ 149

Note to the MSS. of _The Bride of Abydos_ 151

Dedication 155

_The Bride of Abydos_. Canto the First 157

Canto the Second 178

Note to _The Bride of Abydos_ 211

The Corsair: A Tale.

Introduction to _The Corsair_ 217

Bibliographical Note on _The Corsair_ 220

Dedication 223

_The Corsair_. Canto the First 227

Canto the Second 249

Canto the Third 270

Introduction to the _Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte_ 303

_Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte_ 305

Lara: A Tale.

Introduction to _Lara_ 319

_Lara._ Canto the First 323

Canto the Second 348

Hebrew Melodies.

Introduction to the _Hebrew Melodies_ 375

Advertisement 379

She walks in Beauty 318

The Harp the Monarch Minstrel swept 382

If that High World 383

The Wild Gazelle 384

Oh! weep for those 385

On Jordan's Banks 386

Jephtha's Daughter 387

Oh! snatched away in Beauty's Bloom 388

My Soul is Dark 389

I saw thee weep 390

Thy Days are done 391

Saul 392

Song of Saul before his Last Battle 393

"All is Vanity, saith the Preacher" 394

When Coldness wraps this Suffering Clay 395

Vision of Belshazzar 397

Sun of the Sleepless! 399

Were my Bosom as False as thou deem'st it to be 399

Herod's Lament for Mariamne 400

On the Day of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus 401

By the Rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept 402

"By the Waters of Babylon" 404

The Destruction of Sennacherib 404

A Spirit passed before me 406

Poems 1814-1816.

Farewell! if ever Fondest Prayer. First published, _Corsair_

(Second Edition, 1814) 409

When we Two parted. First published, _Poems_, 1816 410

[Love and Gold.] _MS. M._ 411

Stanzas for Music ["I speak not, I trace not," etc.]. First

published, _Fugitive Pieces_, 1829 413

Address intended to be recited at the Caledonian Meeting.

First published, _Letters and Journals_, 1830, i. 559 415

Elegiac Stanzas on the Death of Sir Peter Parker, Bart.

First published, _Morning Chronicle_, October 7, 1814 417

Julian [a Fragment]. _MS. M._ 419

To Belshazzar. First published, 1831 421

Stanzas for Music ["There's not a joy," etc.]. First

published, _Poems_, 1816 423

On the Death of the Duke of Dorset. _MS. M_ 425

Stanzas for Music ["Bright be the place of thy soul"]. First

published, _Examiner_, June 4, 1815 426

Napoleon's Farewell. First published, _Examiner_, July 30,

1815 427

From the French ["Must thou go, my glorious Chief?"]. First

published, _Poems_, 1816 428

Ode from the French ["We do not curse thee, Waterloo!"].

First published, _Morning Chronicle_, March 15, 1816 431

Stanzas for Music ["There be none of Beauty's daughters"].

First published, _Poems_, 1816 435

On the Star of "the Legion of Honour." First published,

_Examiner_, April 7, 1816 436

Stanzas for Music ["They say that Hope is happiness"]. First

published, _Fugitive Pieces_, 1829 438

The Siege of Corinth.

Introduction to _The Siege of Corinth_ 441

Dedication 445

Advertisement 447

Note on the MS. of _The Siege of Corinth_ 448

_The Siege of Corinth_ 449

Parisina.

Introduction to _Parisina_ 499

Dedication 501

Advertisement 503

_Parisina_ 505

Poems of the Separation.

Introduction to _Poems of the Separation_ 531

Fare Thee Well 537

A Sketch 540

Stanzas to Augusta 544

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1. Lord Byron in Albanian Dress, from a Portrait in

Oils by T. Phillips, R.A., in the Possession of Mr.

John Murray _Frontispiece_

2. H.R.H. the Princess Charlotte of Wales, from the

Miniature in the Possession of H.M. the Queen, at

Windsor Castle _to face p._ 44

3. Lady Wilmot Horton, from a Sketch by Sir Thomas

Lawrence 380

4. Temple of Zeus Nemeus, from a Drawing by William

Pars, A.R.A., in the British Museum 470

5. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from a Portrait in Oils

by T. Phillips, R.A., in the Possession of Mr. John

Murray 472

6. The Hon. Mrs. Leigh, from a Sketch by Sir George

Hayter, in the British Museum 544

INTRODUCTION TO THE _OCCASIONAL PIECES_

(_POEMS_ 1809-1813; _POEMS_ 1814-1816).

The Poems afterwards entitled "Occasional Pieces," which were included

in the several editions of the Collected Works issued by Murray,

1819-1831, numbered fifty-seven in all. They may be described as the

aggregate of the shorter poems written between the years 1809-1818,

which the author thought worthy of a permanent place among his poetical

works. Of these the first twenty-nine appeared in successive editions of

_Childe Harold_ (Cantos I., II.) [viz. fourteen in the first edition,

twenty in the second, and twenty-nine in the seventh edition], while the

thirtieth, the _Ode on the Death of Sir Peter Parker_, was originally

attached to _Hebrew Melodies_. The remaining twenty-seven pieces consist

of six poems first published in the Second Edition of the _Corsair,_

1814; eleven which formed the collection entitled "Poems," 1816; six

which were appended to the _Prisoner of Chillon_, December, 1816; the

_Very Mournful Ballad_, and the _Sonnet by Vittorelli_, which

accompanied the Fourth Canto of _Childe Harold_, 1818; the _Sketch_,

first included by Murray in his edition of 1819; and the _Ode to

Venice_, which appeared in the same volume as _Mazeppa_.

Thus matters stood till 1831, when seventy new poems (sixty had been

published by Moore, in _Letters and Journals_, 1830, six were

republished from Hobhouse's _Imitations and Translations_, 1809, and

four derived from other sources) were included in a sixth volume of the

Collected Works.

In the edition of 1832-35, twenty-four new poems were added, but four

which had appeared in _Letters and Journals_, 1830, and in the sixth

volume of the edition of 1831 were omitted. In the one-volume edition

(first issued in 1837 and still in print), the four short pieces omitted

in 1832 once more found a place, and the lines on "John Keats," first

published in _Letters and Journals_, and the two stanzas to Lady

Caroline Lamb, "Remember thee! remember thee," first printed by Medwin,

in the _Conversations of Lord Byron_, 1824, were included in the

Collection.

The third volume of the present issue includes all minor poems (with the

exception of epigrams and _jeux d'esprit_ reserved for the sixth volume)

written after Byron's departure for the East in July, 1809, and before

he left England for good in April, 1816.

The "Separation" and its consequent exile afforded a pretext and an

opportunity for the publication of a crop of spurious verses. Of these

_Madame Lavalette_ (first published in the _Examiner_, January 21, 1816,

under the signature B. B., and immediately preceding a genuine sonnet by

Wordsworth, "How clear, how keen, how marvellously bright!") and _Oh

Shame to thee, Land of the Gaul!_ included by Hone, in _Poems on his

Domestic Circumstances_, 1816; and _Farewell to England_, _Ode to the

Isle of St. Helena_, _To the Lily of France_, _On the Morning of my

Daughter's Birth_, published by J. Johnston, 1816, were repudiated by

Byron, in a letter to Murray, dated July 22, 1816. A longer poem

entitled _The Tempest_, which was attached to the spurious _Pilgrimage

to the Holy Land_, published by Johnston, "the Cheapside impostor," in

1817, was also denounced by Byron as a forgery in a letter to Murray,

dated December 16, 1816.

The _Triumph of the Whale_, by Charles Lamb, and the _Enigma on the

Letter H_, by Harriet Fanshawe, were often included in piratical

editions of Byron's _Poetical Works_. Other attributed poems which found

their way into newspapers and foreign editions, viz. (i.) _To my dear

Mary Anne_, 1804, "Adieu to sweet Mary for ever;" and (ii.) _To Miss

Chaworth_, "Oh, memory, torture me no more," 1804, published in _Works

of Lord Byron_, Paris, 1828; (iii.) lines written _In the Bible_,

"Within this awful volume lies," quoted in _Life, Writings, Opinions,

etc_., 1825, iii. 414; (iv.) lines addressed to (?) George Anson Byron,

"And dost thou ask the reason of my sadness?" _Nicnac_, March 29, 1823;

(v.) _To Lady Caroline Lamb_, "And sayst thou that I have not felt,"

published in _Works, etc_., 1828; (vi.) lines _To her who can best

understand them_, "Be it so, we part for ever," published in the _Works

of Lord Byron, In Verse and Prose_, Hartford, 1847; (vii.) _Lines found

in the Travellers' Book at Chamouni_, "How many numbered are, how few

agreed!" published _Works, etc_., 1828; and (viii.) a second copy of

verses with the same title, "All hail, Mont Blanc! Mont-au-Vert, hail!"

_Life, Writings, etc_., 1825, ii. 384; (ix.) _Lines addressed by Lord

Byron to Mr. Hobhouse on his Election for Westminster_, "Would you get

to the house by the true gate?" _Works, etc_., 1828; and (x.) _Enigma on

the Letter I_, "I am not in youth, nor in manhood, nor age," _Works,

etc_., Paris, p. 720, together with sundry epigrams, must, failing the

production of the original MSS., be accounted forgeries, or, perhaps, in

one or two instances, of doubtful authenticity.

The following poems: _On the Quotation_, "_And my true faith_" etc.;

[_Love and Gold_]; _Julian_ [_a Fragment_]; and _On the Death of the

Duke of Dorset_, are now published for the first time from MSS. in the

possession of Mr. John Murray.

POEMS 1809-1813.

THE GIRL OF CADIZ.[1]

Oh never talk again to me

Of northern climes and British ladies;

It has not been your lot to see,[a]

Like me, the lovely Girl of Cadiz.

Although her eye be not of blue,

Nor fair her locks, like English lasses,

How far its own expressive hue

The languid azure eye surpasses!

Prometheus-like from heaven she stole

The fire that through those silken lashes

In darkest glances seems to roll,

From eyes that cannot hide their flashes:

And as along her bosom steal

In lengthened flow her raven tresses,

You'd swear each clustering lock could feel,

And curled to give her neck caresses.

Our English maids are long to woo,[b][2]

And frigid even in possession;

And if their charms be fair to view,

Their lips are slow at Love's confession;

But, born beneath a brighter sun,

For love ordained the Spanish maid is,

And who,--when fondly, fairly won,--

Enchants you like the Girl of Cadiz?

The Spanish maid is no coquette,

Nor joys to see a lover tremble,

And if she love, or if she hate,

Alike she knows not to dissemble.

Her heart can ne'er be bought or sold--

Howe'er it beats, it beats sincerely;

And, though it will not bend to gold,

'Twill love you long and love you dearly.

The Spanish girl that meets your love

Ne'er taunts you with a mock denial,

For every thought is bent to prove

Her passion in the hour of trial.

When thronging foemen menace Spain,

She dares the deed and shares the danger;

And should her lover press the plain,

She hurls the spear, her love's avenger.

And when, beneath the evening star,

She mingles in the gay Bolero,[3]

Or sings to her attuned guitar

Of Christian knight or Moorish hero,

Or counts her beads with fairy hand

Beneath the twinkling rays of Hesper,[c]

Or joins Devotion's choral band,

To chaunt the sweet and hallowed vesper;--

In each her charms the heart must move

Of all who venture to behold her;

Then let not maids less fair reprove

Because her bosom is not colder:

Through many a clime 'tis mine to roam

Where many a soft and melting maid is,

But none abroad, and few at home,

May match the dark-eyed Girl of Cadiz.[d]

1809.

[First published, 1832.]

LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM, AT MALTA.[e][4]

As o'er the cold sepulchral stone

Some _name_ arrests the passer-by;

Thus, when thou view'st this page alone,

May _mine_ attract thy pensive eye!

And when by thee that name is read,

Perchance in some succeeding year,

Reflect on _me_ as on the _dead_,

And think my _Heart_ is buried _here_.

Malta, _September_ 14, 1809.

[First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to).]

TO FLORENCE.[f]

Oh Lady! when I left the shore,

The distant shore which gave me birth,

I hardly thought to grieve once more,

To quit another spot on earth:

Yet here, amidst this barren isle,

Where panting Nature droops the head,

Where only thou art seen to smile,

I view my parting hour with dread.

Though far from Albin's craggy shore,

Divided by the dark-blue main;

A few, brief, rolling seasons o'er,

Perchance I view her cliffs again:

But wheresoe'er I now may roam,

Through scorching clime, and varied sea,

Though Time restore me to my home,

I ne'er shall bend mine eyes on thee:

On thee, in whom at once conspire

All charms which heedless hearts can move,

Whom but to see is to admire,

And, oh! forgive the word--to love.

Forgive the word, in one who ne'er

With such a word can more offend;

And since thy heart I cannot share,

Believe me, what I am, thy friend.

And who so cold as look on thee,

Thou lovely wand'rer, and be less?

Nor be, what man should ever be,

The friend of Beauty in distress?

Ah! who would think that form had past

Through Danger's most destructive path,[g]

Had braved the death-winged tempest's blast,

And 'scaped a Tyrant's fiercer wrath?

Lady! when I shall view the walls

Where free Byzantium once arose,

And Stamboul's Oriental halls

The Turkish tyrants now enclose;

10.

Though mightiest in the lists of fame,

That glorious city still shall be;

On me 'twill hold a dearer claim,

As spot of thy nativity:

11.

And though I bid thee now farewell,

When I behold that wondrous scene--

Since where thou art I may not dwell--

'Twill soothe to be where thou hast been.

_September_, 1809.

[First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to).]

STANZAS COMPOSED DURING A THUNDERSTORM.[h][5]

Chill and mirk is the nightly blast,

Where Pindus' mountains rise,

And angry clouds are pouring fast

The vengeance of the skies.

Our guides are gone, our hope is lost,

And lightnings, as they play,

But show where rocks our path have crost,

Or gild the torrent's spray.

Is yon a cot I saw, though low?

When lightning broke the gloom--

How welcome were its shade!--ah, no!

'Tis but a Turkish tomb.

Through sounds of foaming waterfalls,

I hear a voice exclaim--

My way-worn countryman, who calls

On distant England's name.

A shot is fired--by foe or friend?

Another--'tis to tell

The mountain-peasants to descend,

And lead us where they dwell.

Oh! who in such a night will dare

To tempt the wilderness?

And who 'mid thunder-peals can hear

Our signal of distress?

And who that heard our shouts would rise

To try the dubious road?

Nor rather deem from nightly cries

That outlaws were abroad.

Clouds burst, skies flash, oh, dreadful hour!

More fiercely pours the storm!

Yet here one thought has still the power

To keep my bosom warm.

While wandering through each broken path,

O'er brake and craggy brow;

While elements exhaust their wrath,

Sweet Florence, where art thou?

10.

Not on the sea, not on the sea--

Thy bark hath long been gone:

Oh, may the storm that pours on me,

Bow down my head alone!

11.

Full swiftly blew the swift Siroc,

When last I pressed thy lip;

And long ere now, with foaming shock,

Impelled thy gallant ship.

12.

Now thou art safe; nay, long ere now

Hast trod the shore of Spain;

'Twere hard if aught so fair as thou

Should linger on the main.

13.

And since I now remember thee

In darkness and in dread,

As in those hours of revelry

Which Mirth and Music sped;

14.

Do thou, amid the fair white walls,

If Cadiz yet be free,

At times from out her latticed halls

Look o'er the dark blue sea;

15.

Then think upon Calypso's isles,

Endeared by days gone by;

To others give a thousand smiles,

To me a single sigh.

16.

And when the admiring circle mark

The paleness of thy face,

A half-formed tear, a transient spark

Of melancholy grace,

17.

Again thou'lt smile, and blushing shun

Some coxcomb's raillery;

Nor own for once thou thought'st on one,

Who ever thinks on thee.

18.

Though smile and sigh alike are vain,

When severed hearts repine,

My spirit flies o'er Mount and Main,

And mourns in search of _thine_.

_October_ 11, 1809.

[MS. M. First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to).]

STANZAS WRITTEN IN PASSING THE AMBRACIAN GULF.[i]

Through cloudless skies, in silvery sheen,

Full beams the moon on Actium's coast:

And on these waves, for Egypt's queen,

The ancient world was won and lost.

And now upon the scene I look,

The azure grave of many a Roman;

Where stern Ambition once forsook

His wavering crown to follow _Woman_.

Florence! whom I will love as well

(As ever yet was said or sung,

Since Orpheus sang his spouse from Hell)

Whilst _thou_ art _fair_ and _I_ am _young_;

Sweet Florence! those were pleasant times,

When worlds were staked for Ladies' eyes:

Had bards as many realms as rhymes,[j]

Thy charms might raise new Antonies.[k]

Though Fate forbids such things to be,[l]

Yet, by thine eyes and ringlets curled!

I cannot _lose_ a _world_ for thee,

But would not lose _thee_ for a _World_.[6]

_November_ 14, 1809.

[MS. M. First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to).]

THE SPELL IS BROKE, THE CHARM IS FLOWN![m]

WRITTEN AT ATHENS, JANUARY 16, 1810.

The spell is broke, the charm is flown!

Thus is it with Life's fitful fever:

We madly smile when we should groan;

Delirium is our best deceiver.

Each lucid interval of thought

Recalls the woes of Nature's charter;

And _He_ that acts as _wise men ought_,

But _lives_--as Saints have died--a martyr.

[MS. M. First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to).]

WRITTEN AFTER SWIMMING FROM SESTOS TO ABYDOS.[7]

If, in the month of dark December,

Leander, who was nightly wont

(What maid will not the tale remember?)

To cross thy stream, broad Hellespont!

If, when the wintry tempest roared,

He sped to Hero, nothing loth,

And thus of old thy current poured,

Fair Venus! how I pity both!

For _me_, degenerate modern wretch,

Though in the genial month of May,

My dripping limbs I faintly stretch,

And think I've done a feat to-day.

But since he crossed the rapid tide,

According to the doubtful story,

To woo,--and--Lord knows what beside,

And swam for Love, as I for Glory;

'Twere hard to say who fared the best:

Sad mortals! thus the Gods still plague you!

He lost his labour, I my jest:

For he was drowned, and I've the ague.[8]

_May 9, 1810._

[First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to).]

LINES IN THE TRAVELLERS' BOOK AT ORCHOMENUS.[9]

IN THIS BOOK A TRAVELLER HAD WRITTEN:--

"Fair Albion, smiling, sees her son depart

To trace the birth and nursery of art:

Noble his object, glorious is his aim;

He comes to Athens, and he--writes his name."

BENEATH WHICH LORD BYRON INSERTED THE FOLLOWING:--

The modest bard, like many a bard unknown,

Rhymes on our names, but wisely hides his own;

But yet, whoe'er he be, to say no worse,

His name would bring more credit than his verse.

1810.

[First published, _Life_, 1830.]

MAID OF ATHENS, ERE WE PART.[n]

[Greek: Zôê/ mou, sa~s a)gapô~.]

Maid of Athens,[10] ere we part,

Give, oh give me back my heart!

Or, since that has left my breast,

Keep it now, and take the rest!

Hear my vow before I go,

[Greek: Zôê/ mou, sa~s a)gapô~.][11]

By those tresses unconfined,

Wooed by each Ægean wind;

By those lids whose jetty fringe

Kiss thy soft cheeks' blooming tinge;

By those wild eyes like the roe,

[Greek: Zôê/ mou, sa~s a)gapô~.]

By that lip I long to taste;

By that zone-encircled waist;

By all the token-flowers[12] that tell

What words can never speak so well;

By love's alternate joy and woe,

[Greek: Zôê/ mou, sa~s a)gapô~.]

Maid of Athens! I am gone:

Think of me, sweet! when alone.

Though I fly to Istambol,[13]

Athens holds my heart and soul:

Can I cease to love thee? No!

[Greek: Zôê/ mou, sa~s a)gapô~.]

_Athens_, 1810.

[First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to).]

FRAGMENT FROM THE "MONK OF ATHOS."[14]

Beside the confines of the Ægean main,

Where northward Macedonia bounds the flood,

And views opposed the Asiatic plain,

Where once the pride of lofty Ilion stood,

Like the great Father of the giant brood,

With lowering port majestic Athos stands,

Crowned with the verdure of eternal wood,

As yet unspoiled by sacrilegious hands,

And throws his mighty shade o'er seas and distant lands.

And deep embosomed in his shady groves

Full many a convent rears its glittering spire,

Mid scenes where Heavenly Contemplation loves

To kindle in her soul her hallowed fire,

Where air and sea with rocks and woods conspire

To breathe a sweet religious calm around,

Weaning the thoughts from every low desire,

And the wild waves that break with murmuring sound

Along the rocky shore proclaim it holy ground.

Sequestered shades where Piety has given

A quiet refuge from each earthly care,

Whence the rapt spirit may ascend to Heaven!

Oh, ye condemned the ills of life to bear!

As with advancing age your woes increase,

What bliss amidst these solitudes to share

The happy foretaste of eternal Peace,

Till Heaven in mercy bids your pain and sorrows cease.

[First published in the _Life of Lord Byron_,

by the Hon. Roden Noel, London, 1890, pp. 206, 207.]

LINES WRITTEN BENEATH A PICTURE.[15]

Dear object of defeated care!

Though now of Love and thee bereft,

To reconcile me with despair

Thine image and my tears are left.

'Tis said with Sorrow Time can cope;

But this I feel can ne'er be true:

For by the death-blow of my Hope

My Memory immortal grew.

_Athens, January_, 1811.

[First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to).]

TRANSLATION OF THE FAMOUS GREEK WAR SONG,

[Greek: "Deu~te pai~des tô~n E(llê/nôn."][16]

Sons of the Greeks, arise!

The glorious hour's gone forth,

And, worthy of such ties,

Display who gave us birth.

CHORUS.

Sons of Greeks! let us go

In arms against the foe,

Till their hated blood shall flow

In a river past our feet.

Then manfully despising

The Turkish tyrant's yoke,

Let your country see you rising,

And all her chains are broke.

Brave shades of chiefs and sages,

Behold the coming strife!

Hellénes of past ages,

Oh, start again to life!

At the sound of my trumpet, breaking

Your sleep, oh, join with me!

And the seven-hilled city[17] seeking,

Fight, conquer, till we're free.

Sons of Greeks, etc.

Sparta, Sparta, why in slumbers

Lethargic dost thou lie?

Awake, and join thy numbers

With Athens, old ally!

Leonidas recalling,

That chief of ancient song,

Who saved ye once from falling,

The terrible! the strong!

Who made that bold diversion

In old Thermopylæ,

And warring with the Persian

To keep his country free;

With his three hundred waging

The battle, long he stood,

And like a lion raging,

Expired in seas of blood.

Sons of Greeks, etc.

[First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to).]

TRANSLATION OF THE ROMAIC SONG,

[Greek: "Mpe/nô mes' to\ peribo/li,]

[Greek: Ô(raiota/tê Chaêdê/," k.t.l.][18]

I enter thy garden of roses,

Belovéd and fair Haidée,

Each morning where Flora reposes,

For surely I see her in thee.

Oh, Lovely! thus low I implore thee,

Receive this fond truth from my tongue,

Which utters its song to adore thee,

Yet trembles for what it has sung;

As the branch, at the bidding of Nature,

Adds fragrance and fruit to the tree,

Through her eyes, through her every feature,

Shines the soul of the young Haidée.

But the loveliest garden grows hateful

When Love has abandoned the bowers;

Bring me hemlock--since mine is ungrateful,

That herb is more fragrant than flowers.

The poison, when poured from the chalice,

Will deeply embitter the bowl;

But when drunk to escape from thy malice,

The draught shall be sweet to my soul.

Too cruel! in vain I implore thee

My heart from these horrors to save:

Will nought to my bosom restore thee?

Then open the gates of the grave.

As the chief who to combat advances

Secure of his conquest before,

Thus thou, with those eyes for thy lances,

Hast pierced through my heart to its core.

Ah, tell me, my soul! must I perish

By pangs which a smile would dispel?

Would the hope, which thou once bad'st me cherish,

For torture repay me too well?

Now sad is the garden of roses,

Belovéd but false Haidée!

There Flora all withered reposes,

And mourns o'er thine absence with me.

1811.

[First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to).]

ON PARTING.

The kiss, dear maid! thy lip has left

Shall never part from mine,

Till happier hours restore the gift

Untainted back to thine.

Thy parting glance, which fondly beams,

An equal love may see:[o]

The tear that from thine eyelid streams

Can weep no change in me.

I ask no pledge to make me blest

In gazing when alone;[p]

Nor one memorial for a breast,

Whose thoughts are all thine own.

Nor need I write--to tell the tale

My pen were doubly weak:

Oh! what can idle words avail,[q]

Unless the heart could speak?

By day or night, in weal or woe,

That heart, no longer free,

Must bear the love it cannot show,

And silent ache for thee.

_March_, 1811.

[First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812(4to).]

FAREWELL TO MALTA.[19]

Adieu, ye joys of La Valette!

Adieu, Sirocco, sun, and sweat!

Adieu, thou palace rarely entered!

Adieu, ye mansions where--I've ventured!

Adieu, ye curséd streets of stairs![20]

(How surely he who mounts them swears!)

Adieu, ye merchants often failing!

Adieu, thou mob for ever railing!

Adieu, ye packets--without letters!

Adieu, ye fools--who ape your betters! 10

Adieu, thou damned'st quarantine,

That gave me fever, and the spleen!

Adieu that stage which makes us yawn, Sirs,

Adieu his Excellency's dancers![21]

Adieu to Peter--whom no fault's in,

But could not teach a colonel waltzing;

Adieu, ye females fraught with graces!

Adieu red coats, and redder faces!

Adieu the supercilious air

Of all that strut _en militaire_![22] 20

I go--but God knows when, or why,

To smoky towns and cloudy sky,

To things (the honest truth to say)

As bad--but in a different way.

Farewell to these, but not adieu,

Triumphant sons of truest blue!

While either Adriatic shore,[23]

And fallen chiefs, and fleets no more,

And nightly smiles, and daily dinners,[24]

Proclaim you war and women's winners. 30

Pardon my Muse, who apt to prate is,

And take my rhyme--because 'tis "gratis."

And now I've got to Mrs. Fraser,[25]

Perhaps you think I mean to praise her--

And were I vain enough to think

My praise was worth this drop of ink,

A line--or two--were no hard matter,

As here, indeed, I need not flatter:

But she must be content to shine

In better praises than in mine, 40

With lively air, and open heart,

And fashion's ease, without its art;

Her hours can gaily glide along.

Nor ask the aid of idle song.

And now, O Malta! since thou'st got us,

Thou little military hot-house!

I'll not offend with words uncivil,

And wish thee rudely at the Devil,

But only stare from out my casement,

And ask, "for what is such a place meant?" 50

Then, in my solitary nook,

Return to scribbling, or a book,

Or take my physic while I'm able

(Two spoonfuls hourly, by this label),

Prefer my nightcap to my beaver,

And bless my stars I've got a fever.

_May_ 26, 1811.[26]

[First published, 1816.]

NEWSTEAD ABBEY.

In the dome of my Sires as the clear moonbeam falls

Through Silence and Shade o'er its desolate walls,

It shines from afar like the glories of old;

It gilds, but it warms not--'tis dazzling, but cold.

Let the Sunbeam be bright for the younger of days:

'Tis the light that should shine on a race that decays,

When the Stars are on high and the dews on the ground,

And the long shadow lingers the ruin around.

And the step that o'erechoes the gray floor of stone

Falls sullenly now, for 'tis only my own;

And sunk are the voices that sounded in mirth,

And empty the goblet, and dreary the hearth.

And vain was each effort to raise and recall

The brightness of old to illumine our Hall;

And vain was the hope to avert our decline,

And the fate of my fathers had faded to mine.

And theirs was the wealth and the fulness of Fame,

And mine to inherit too haughty a name;[r]

And theirs were the times and the triumphs of yore,

And mine to regret, but renew them no more.

And Ruin is fixed on my tower and my wall,

Too hoary to fade, and too massy to fall;

It tells not of Time's or the tempest's decay,[s]

But the wreck of the line that have held it in sway.

_August_ 26, 1811.

[First published in _Memoir_ of Rev. F. Hodgson, 1878, i. 187.]

EPISTLE TO A FRIEND,[27]

IN ANSWER TO SOME LINES EXHORTING THE AUTHOR

TO BE CHEERFUL, AND TO "BANISH CARE."

"Oh! banish care"--such ever be

The motto of _thy_ revelry!

Perchance of _mine,_ when wassail nights

Renew those riotous delights,

Wherewith the children of Despair

Lull the lone heart, and "banish care."

But not in Morn's reflecting hour,

When present, past, and future lower,

When all I loved is changed or gone,

Mock with such taunts the woes of one,

Whose every thought--but let them pass--

Thou know'st I am not what I was.

But, above all, if thou wouldst hold

Place in a heart that ne'er was cold,

By all the powers that men revere,

By all unto thy bosom dear,

Thy joys below, thy hopes above,

Speak--speak of anything but Love.

'Twere long to tell, and vain to hear,

The tale of one who scorns a tear;

And there is little in that tale

Which better bosoms would bewail.

But mine has suffered more than well

'Twould suit philosophy to tell.

I've seen my bride another's bride,--

Have seen her seated by his side,--

Have seen the infant, which she bore,

Wear the sweet smile the mother wore,

When she and I in youth have smiled,

As fond and faultless as her child;--

Have seen her eyes, in cold disdain,

Ask if I felt no secret pain;

And _I_ have acted well my part,

And made my cheek belie my heart,

Returned the freezing glance she gave,

Yet felt the while that _woman's_ slave;--

Have kissed, as if without design,

The babe which ought to have been mine,

And showed, alas! in each caress

Time had not made me love the less.

But let this pass--I'll whine no more,

Nor seek again an eastern shore;

The world befits a busy brain,--

I'll hie me to its haunts again.

But if, in some succeeding year,[28]

When Britain's "May is in the sere,"

Thou hear'st of one, whose deepening crimes

Suit with the sablest of the times,

Of one, whom love nor pity sways,

Nor hope of fame, nor good men's praise;

One, who in stern Ambition's pride,

Perchance not blood shall turn aside;

One ranked in some recording page

With the worst anarchs of the age,

Him wilt thou _know_--and _knowing_ pause,

Nor with the _effect_ forget the cause.

Newstead Abbey, Oct. 11, 1811.

[First published, _Life_, 1830.]

TO THYRZA.[t][29]

Without a stone to mark the spot,[30]

And say, what Truth might well have said,[u]

By all, save one, perchance forgot,

Ah! wherefore art thou lowly laid?

By many a shore and many a sea[v]

Divided, yet beloved in vain;

The Past, the Future fled to thee,

To bid us meet--no--ne'er again!

Could this have been--a word, a look,

That softly said, "We part in peace,"

Had taught my bosom how to brook,

With fainter sighs, thy soul's release.

And didst thou not, since Death for thee

Prepared a light and pangless dart,

Once long for him thou ne'er shalt see,

Who held, and holds thee in his heart?

Oh! who like him had watched thee here?

Or sadly marked thy glazing eye,

In that dread hour ere Death appear,

When silent Sorrow fears to sigh,

Till all was past? But when no more

'Twas thine to reck of human woe,

Affection's heart-drops, gushing o'er,

Had flowed as fast--as now they flow.

Shall they not flow, when many a day[w]

In these, to me, deserted towers,

Ere called but for a time away,

Affection's mingling tears were ours?

Ours too the glance none saw beside;

The smile none else might understand;

The whispered thought of hearts allied,[x]

The pressure of the thrilling hand;

The kiss, so guiltless and refined,

That Love each warmer wish forbore;

Those eyes proclaimed so pure a mind,

Ev'n Passion blushed to plead for more.[y]

The tone, that taught me to rejoice,

When prone, unlike thee, to repine;

The song, celestial from thy voice,

But sweet to me from none but thine;

The pledge we wore--_I_ wear it still,

But where is thine?--Ah! where art thou?

Oft have I borne the weight of ill,

But never bent beneath till now!

Well hast thou left in Life's best bloom[z]

The cup of Woe for me to drain.[aa]

If rest alone be in the tomb,

I would not wish thee here again:

But if in worlds more blest than this

Thy virtues seek a fitter sphere,

Impart some portion of thy bliss,

To wean me from mine anguish here.

Teach me--too early taught by thee!

To bear, forgiving and forgiven:

On earth thy love was such to me;

It fain would form my hope in Heaven![ab]

October 11, 1811.

[First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to).]

AWAY, AWAY, YE NOTES OF WOE![ac][31]

Away, away, ye notes of Woe!

Be silent, thou once soothing Strain,

Or I must flee from hence--for, oh!

I dare not trust those sounds again.[ad]

To me they speak of brighter days--

But lull the chords, for now, alas![ae]

I must not think, I may not gaze,[af]

On what I _am_--on what I _was_.

The voice that made those sounds more sweet[ag]

Is hushed, and all their charms are fled;

And now their softest notes repeat

A dirge, an anthem o'er the dead!

Yes, Thyrza! yes, they breathe of thee,

Belovéd dust! since dust thou art;

And all that once was Harmony

Is worse than discord to my heart!

'Tis silent all!--but on my ear[ah]

The well remembered Echoes thrill;

I hear a voice I would not hear,

A voice that now might well be still:

Yet oft my doubting Soul 'twill shake;

Ev'n Slumber owns its gentle tone,

Till Consciousness will vainly wake

To listen, though the dream be flown.

Sweet Thyrza! waking as in sleep,

Thou art but now a lovely dream;

A Star that trembled o'er the deep,

Then turned from earth its tender beam.

But he who through Life's dreary way

Must pass, when Heaven is veiled in wrath,

Will long lament the vanished ray

That scattered gladness o'er his path.

_December_ 8, 1811.

[First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (4to).]

ONE STRUGGLE MORE, AND I AM FREE.[ai]

One struggle more, and I am free

From pangs that rend my heart in twain;[aj]

One last long sigh to Love and thee,

Then back to busy life again.

It suits me well to mingle now

With things that never pleased before:[ak]

Though every joy is fled below,

What future grief can touch me more?[al]

Then bring me wine, the banquet bring;

Man was not formed to live alone:

I'll be that light unmeaning thing

That smiles with all, and weeps with none.

It was not thus in days more dear,

It never would have been, but thou[am]

Hast fled, and left me lonely here;

Thou'rt nothing,--all are nothing now.

In vain my lyre would lightly breathe!

The smile that Sorrow fain would wear

But mocks the woe that lurks beneath,

Like roses o'er a sepulchre.

Though gay companions o'er the bowl

Dispel awhile the sense of ill;

Though Pleasure fires the maddening soul,

The Heart,--the Heart is lonely still!

On many a lone and lovely night

It soothed to gaze upon the sky;

For then I deemed the heavenly light

Shone sweetly on thy pensive eye:

And oft I thought at Cynthia's noon,

When sailing o'er the Ægean wave,

"Now Thyrza gazes on that moon"--

Alas, it gleamed upon her grave!

When stretched on Fever's sleepless bed,

And sickness shrunk my throbbing veins,

"'Tis comfort still," I faintly said,[an]

"That Thyrza cannot know my pains:"

Like freedom to the time-worn slave--[ao]

A boon 'tis idle then to give--

Relenting Nature vainly gave[32]

My life, when Thyrza ceased to live!

My Thyrza's pledge in better days,[ap]

When Love and Life alike were new!

How different now thou meet'st my gaze!

How tinged by time with Sorrow's hue!

The heart that gave itself with thee

Is silent--ah, were mine as still!

Though cold as e'en the dead can be,

It feels, it sickens with the chill.

Thou bitter pledge! thou mournful token!

Though painful, welcome to my breast!

Still, still, preserve that love unbroken,

Or break the heart to which thou'rt pressed.

Time tempers Love, but not removes,

More hallowed when its Hope is fled:

Oh! what are thousand living loves

To that which cannot quit the dead?

[First published, _Childe Harold,_ 1812 (4to).]

EUTHANASIA.

When Time, or soon or late, shall bring

The dreamless sleep that lulls the dead,

Oblivion! may thy languid wing

Wave gently o'er my dying bed!

No band of friends or heirs be there,[33]

To weep, or wish, the coming blow:

No maiden, with dishevelled hair,

To feel, or feign, decorous woe.

But silent let me sink to Earth,

With no officious mourners near:

I would not mar one hour of mirth,

Nor startle Friendship with a fear.

Yet Love, if Love in such an hour

Could nobly check its useless sighs,

Might then exert its latest power

In her who lives, and him who dies.

'Twere sweet, my Psyche! to the last

Thy features still serene to see:

Forgetful of its struggles past,

E'en Pain itself should smile on thee.

But vain the wish--for Beauty still

Will shrink, as shrinks the ebbing breath;

And Woman's tears, produced at will,

Deceive in life, unman in death.

Then lonely be my latest hour,

Without regret, without a groan;

For thousands Death hath ceased to lower,

And pain been transient or unknown.

"Aye but to die, and go," alas!

Where all have gone, and all must go!

To be the nothing that I was

Ere born to life and living woe!

Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen,

Count o'er thy days from anguish free,

And know, whatever thou hast been,

'Tis something better not to be.

[First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (Second Edition).]

AND THOU ART DEAD, AS YOUNG AND FAIR.[aq]

"Heu, quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse!"[34]

And thou art dead, as young and fair

As aught of mortal birth;

And form so soft, and charms so rare,

Too soon returned to Earth![ar]

Though Earth received them in her bed,

And o'er the spot the crowd may tread[as]

In carelessness or mirth,

There is an eye which could not brook

A moment on that grave to look.

I will not ask where thou liest low,[at]

Nor gaze upon the spot;

There flowers or weeds at will may grow,

So I behold them not:[au]

It is enough for me to prove

That what I loved, and long must love,

Like common earth can rot;[av]

To me there needs no stone to tell,

'Tis Nothing that I loved so well[aw]

Yet did I love thee to the last

As fervently as thou,[ax]

Who didst not change through all the past,

And canst not alter now.

The love where Death has set his seal,

Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,[ay]

Nor falsehood disavow:[az]

And, what were worse, thou canst not see[ba]

Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.[bb]

The better days of life were ours;

The worst can be but mine:

The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,[bc]

Shall never more be thine.

The silence of that dreamless sleep[bd]

I envy now too much to weep;

Nor need I to repine,

That all those charms have passed away

I might have watched through long decay.

The flower in ripened bloom unmatched

Must fall the earliest prey;[be]

Though by no hand untimely snatched,

The leaves must drop away:

And yet it were a greater grief

To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,

Than see it plucked to-day;

Since earthly eye but ill can bear

To trace the change to foul from fair.

I know not if I could have borne[bf]

To see thy beauties fade;

The night that followed such a morn

Had worn a deeper shade:

Thy day without a cloud hath passed,[bg]

And thou wert lovely to the last;

Extinguished, not decayed;

As stars that shoot along the sky[bh]

Shine brightest as they fall from high.

As once I wept, if I could weep,

My tears might well be shed,

To think I was not near to keep

One vigil o'er thy bed;

To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,

To fold thee in a faint embrace,

Uphold thy drooping head;

And show that love, however vain,

Nor thou nor I can feel again.

Yet how much less it were to gain,

Though thou hast left me free,[bi]

The loveliest things that still remain,

Than thus remember thee!

The all of thine that cannot die

Through dark and dread Eternity[bj]

Returns again to me,

And more thy buried love endears

Than aught, except its living years.

_February_, 1812.

[First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (Second Edition).]

LINES TO A LADY WEEPING.[bk][35]

Weep, daughter of a royal line,

A Sire's disgrace, a realm's decay;

Ah! happy if each tear of thine

Could wash a Father's fault away!

Weep--for thy tears are Virtue's tears--

Auspicious to these suffering Isles;

And be each drop in future years

Repaid thee by thy People's smiles!

_March_, 1812.

[MS. M. First published, _Morning Chronicle_, March 7, 1812

(Corsair, 1814, Second Edition).]

IF SOMETIMES IN THE HAUNTS OF MEN.[bl]

If sometimes in the haunts of men

Thine image from my breast may fade,

The lonely hour presents again

The semblance of thy gentle shade:

And now that sad and silent hour

Thus much of thee can still restore,

And sorrow unobserved may pour

The plaint she dare not speak before.

Oh, pardon that in crowds awhile

I waste one thought I owe to thee,

And self-condemned, appear to smile,

Unfaithful to thy memory:

Nor deem that memory less dear,

That then I seem not to repine;

I would not fools should overhear

One sigh that should be wholly _thine_.

If not the Goblet pass unquaffed,

It is not drained to banish care;

The cup must hold a deadlier draught

That brings a Lethe for despair.

And could Oblivion set my soul

From all her troubled visions free,

I'd dash to earth the sweetest bowl

That drowned a single thought of thee.

For wert thou vanished from my mind,

Where could my vacant bosom turn?

And who would then remain behind

To honour thine abandoned Urn?

No, no--it is my sorrow's pride

That last dear duty to fulfil;

Though all the world forget beside,

'Tis meet that I remember still.

For well I know, that such had been

Thy gentle care for him, who now

Unmourned shall quit this mortal scene,

Where none regarded him, but thou:

And, oh! I feel in _that_ was given

A blessing never meant for me;

Thou wert too like a dream of Heaven,

For earthly Love to merit thee.

March 14, 1812.

[First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (Second Edition).]

ON A CORNELIAN HEART WHICH WAS BROKEN.[36]

Ill-fated Heart! and can it be,

That thou shouldst thus be rent in twain?

Have years of care for thine and thee

Alike been all employed in vain?

Yet precious seems each shattered part,

And every fragment dearer grown,

Since he who wears thee feels thou art

A fitter emblem of _his own_.

March 16, 1812.

[First published, _Childe Harold_, 1812 (Second Edition).]

THE CHAIN I GAVE.

FROM THE TURKISH.

The chain I gave was fair to view,

The lute I added sweet in sound;

The heart that offered both was true,

And ill deserved the fate it found.

These gifts were charmed by secret spell,

Thy truth in absence to divine;

And they have done their duty well,--

Alas! they could not teach thee thine.

That chain was firm in every link,

But not to bear a stranger's touch;

That lute was sweet--till thou couldst think

In other hands its notes were such.

Let him who from thy neck unbound

The chain which shivered in his grasp,

Who saw that lute refuse to sound,

Restring the chords, renew the clasp.

When thou wert changed, they altered too;

The chain is broke, the music mute,

'Tis past--to them and thee adieu--

False heart, frail chain, and silent lute.

[MS. M. First published, _Corsair_, 1814 (Second Edition).]

LINES WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF OF

_THE PLEASURES OF MEMORY_.[bm]

Absent or present, still to thee,

My friend, what magic spells belong!

As all can tell, who share, like me,

In turn thy converse,[37] and thy song.

But when the dreaded hour shall come

By Friendship ever deemed too nigh,

And "Memory" o'er her Druid's tomb[38]

Shall weep that aught of thee can die,

How fondly will she then repay

Thy homage offered at her shrine,

And blend, while ages roll away,

_Her_ name immortally with _thine_!

April 19, 1812.

[First published, _Poems_, 1816.]

ADDRESS, SPOKEN AT THE OPENING OF

DRURY-LANE THEATRE,

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1812.[39]

In one dread night our city saw, and sighed,

Bowed to the dust, the Drama's tower of pride;

In one short hour beheld the blazing fane,

Apollo sink, and Shakespeare cease to reign.

Ye who beheld, (oh! sight admired and mourned,

Whose radiance mocked the ruin it adorned!)

Through clouds of fire the massy fragments riven,

Like Israel's pillar, chase the night from heaven;

Saw the long column of revolving flames

Shake its red shadow o'er the startled Thames,[40] 10

While thousands, thronged around the burning dome,

Shrank back appalled, and trembled for their home,

As glared the volumed blaze, and ghastly shone[bn]

The skies, with lightnings awful as their own,

Till blackening ashes and the lonely wall[bo]

Usurped the Muse's realm, and marked her fall;

Say--shall this new, nor less aspiring pile,

Reared where once rose the mightiest in our isle,

Know the same favour which the former knew,

A shrine for Shakespeare--worthy him and _you_? 20

Yes--it shall be--the magic of that name

Defies the scythe of time, the torch of flame;[bp]

On the same spot still consecrates the scene,

And bids the Drama _be_ where she hath _been_:

This fabric's birth attests the potent spell----

Indulge our honest pride, and say, _How well_!

As soars this fane to emulate the last,

Oh! might we draw our omens from the past,

Some hour propitious to our prayers may boast

Names such as hallow still the dome we lost. 30

On Drury first your Siddons' thrilling art

O'erwhelmed the gentlest, stormed the sternest heart.

On Drury, Garrick's latest laurels grew;

Here your last tears retiring Roscius drew,

Sighed his last thanks, and wept his last adieu:

But still for living wit the wreaths may bloom,

That only waste their odours o'er the tomb.

Such Drury claimed and claims--nor you refuse

One tribute to revive his slumbering muse;

With garlands deck your own Menander's head, 40

Nor hoard your honours idly for the dead![bq]

Dear are the days which made our annals bright,

Ere Garrick fled, or Brinsley[41] ceased to write[br]

Heirs to their labours, like all high-born heirs,

Vain of _our_ ancestry as they of _theirs_;

While thus Remembrance borrows Banquo's glass

To claim the sceptred shadows as they pass,

And we the mirror hold, where imaged shine

Immortal names, emblazoned on our line,

Pause--ere their feebler offspring you condemn, 50

Reflect how hard the task to rival them!

Friends of the stage! to whom both Players and Plays

Must sue alike for pardon or for praise,

Whose judging voice and eye alone direct

The boundless power to cherish or reject;

If e'er frivolity has led to fame,

And made us blush that you forbore to blame--

If e'er the sinking stage could condescend

To soothe the sickly taste it dare not mend--

All past reproach may present scenes refute, 60

And censure, wisely loud, be justly mute![42]

Oh! since your fiat stamps the Drama's laws,

Forbear to mock us with misplaced applause;

So Pride shall doubly nerve the actor's powers,

And Reason's voice be echoed back by ours!

This greeting o'er--the ancient rule obeyed,[43]

The Drama's homage by her herald paid--

Receive _our welcome_ too--whose every tone

Springs from our hearts, and fain would win your own.

The curtain rises--may our stage unfold 70

Scenes not unworthy Drury's days of old!

Britons our judges, Nature for our guide,

Still may _we_ please--long, long may _you_ preside.

[First published, _Morning Chronicle_, Oct. 12, 1812.]

PARENTHETICAL ADDRESS.[44]

BY DR. PLAGIARY.

_Half stolen_, with acknowledgments, to be spoken in an

inarticulate voice by Master ---- at the opening of the next

new theatre. [Stolen parts marked with the inverted commas of

quotation--thus "----".]

"When energising objects men pursue,"

Then Lord knows what is writ by Lord knows who.

A modest Monologue you here survey,

Hissed from the theatre the "other day,"

As if Sir Fretful wrote "the slumberous" verse,

And gave his son "the rubbish" to rehearse.

"Yet at the thing you'd never be amazed,"

Knew you the rumpus which the Author raised;

"Nor even here your smiles would be represt,"

Knew you these lines--the badness of the best, 10

"Flame! fire! and flame!" (words borrowed from Lucretius.[45])

"Dread metaphors" which open wounds like issues!

"And sleeping pangs awake--and----But away"--

(Confound me if I know what next to say).

Lo "Hope reviving re-expands her wings,"

And Master G---- recites what Dr. Busby sings!--

"If mighty things with small we may compare,"

(Translated from the Grammar for the fair!)

Dramatic "spirit drives a conquering car,"

And burn'd poor Moscow like a tub of "tar." 20

"This spirit" "Wellington has shown in Spain,"

To furnish Melodrames for Drury Lane.

"Another Marlborough points to Blenheim's story,"

And George and I will dramatise it for ye.

"In Arts and Sciences our Isle hath shone"

(This deep discovery is mine alone).

Oh "British poesy, whose powers inspire"

My verse--or I'm a fool--and Fame's a liar,

"Thee we invoke, your Sister Arts implore"

With "smiles," and "lyres," and "pencils," and much more. 30

These, if we win the Graces, too, we gain

_Disgraces_, too! "inseparable train!"

"Three who have stolen their witching airs from Cupid"

(You all know what I mean, unless you're stupid):

"Harmonious throng" that I have kept _in petto_

Now to produce in a "divine _sestetto_"!!

"While Poesy," with these delightful doxies,

"Sustains her part" in all the "upper" boxes!

"Thus lifted gloriously, you'll sweep along,"

Borne in the vast balloon of Busby's song; 40

"Shine in your farce, masque, scenery, and play"

(For this last line George had a holiday).

"Old Drury never, never soar'd so high,"

So says the Manager, and so say I.

"But hold," you say, "this self-complacent boast;"

Is this the Poem which the public lost?

"True--true--that lowers at once our mounting pride;"

But lo;--the Papers print what you deride.

"'Tis ours to look on _you_--_you_ hold the prize,"

'Tis _twenty guineas_, as they advertise! 50

"A _double_ blessing your rewards impart"--

I wish I had them, then, with all my heart.

"Our _twofold_ feeling _owns_ its twofold cause,"

Why son and I both beg for your applause.

"When in your fostering beams you bid us live,"

My next subscription list shall say how much you give!

[First published, _Morning Chronicle_, October 23, 1812.]

VERSES FOUND IN A SUMMER-HOUSE AT HALES-OWEN.[46]

When Dryden's fool, "unknowing what he sought,"

His hours in whistling spent, "for want of thought,"[47]

This guiltless oaf his vacancy of sense

Supplied, and amply too, by innocence:

Did modern swains, possessed of Cymon's powers,

In Cymon's manner waste their leisure hours,

Th' offended guests would not, with blushing, see

These fair green walks disgraced by infamy.

Severe the fate of modern fools, alas!

When vice and folly mark them as they pass.

Like noxious reptiles o'er the whitened wall,

The filth they leave still points out where they crawl.

[First published, 1832, vol. xvii.]

REMEMBER THEE! REMEMBER THEE![48]

Remember thee! remember thee!

Till Lethe quench life's burning stream

Remorse and Shame shall cling to thee,

And haunt thee like a feverish dream!

Remember thee! Aye, doubt it not.

Thy husband too shall think of thee:

By neither shalt thou be forgot,

Thou _false_ to him, thou _fiend_ to me![49]

[First published, _Conversations of Lord Byron_, 1824.]

TO TIME.

Time! on whose arbitrary wing

The varying hours must flag or fly,

Whose tardy winter, fleeting spring,

But drag or drive us on to die--

Hail thou! who on my birth bestowed

Those boons to all that know thee known;

Yet better I sustain thy load,

For now I bear the weight alone.

I would not one fond heart should share

The bitter moments thou hast given;

And pardon thee--since thou couldst spare

All that I loved, to peace or Heaven.

To them be joy or rest--on me

Thy future ills shall press in vain;

I nothing owe but years to thee,

A debt already paid in pain.

Yet even that pain was some relief;

It felt, but still forgot thy power:[bs]

The active agony of grief

Retards, but never counts the hour.[bt]

In joy I've sighed to think thy flight

Would soon subside from swift to slow;

Thy cloud could overcast the light,

But could not add a night to Woe;

For then, however drear and dark,

My soul was suited to thy sky;

One star alone shot forth a spark

To prove thee--not Eternity.

That beam hath sunk--and now thou art

A blank--a thing to count and curse

Through each dull tedious trifling part,

Which all regret, yet all rehearse.

One scene even thou canst not deform--

The limit of thy sloth or speed

When future wanderers bear the storm

Which we shall sleep too sound to heed.

And I can smile to think how weak

Thine efforts shortly shall be shown,

When all the vengeance thou canst wreak

Must fall upon--a nameless stone.

[MS. M. First published, _Childe Harold_, 1814 (Seventh Edition).]

TRANSLATION OF A ROMAIC LOVE SONG.

Ah! Love was never yet without

The pang, the agony, the doubt,

Which rends my heart with ceaseless sigh,

While day and night roll darkling by.

Without one friend to hear my woe,

I faint, I die beneath the blow.

That Love had arrows, well I knew,

Alas! I find them poisoned too.

Birds, yet in freedom, shun the net

Which Love around your haunts hath set;

Or, circled by his fatal fire,

Your hearts shall burn, your hopes expire.

A bird of free and careless wing

Was I, through many a smiling spring;

But caught within the subtle snare,

I burn, and feebly flutter there.

Who ne'er have loved, and loved in vain,

Can neither feel nor pity pain,

The cold repulse, the look askance,

The lightning of Love's angry glance.

In flattering dreams I deemed thee mine;

Now hope, and he who hoped, decline;

Like melting wax, or withering flower,

I feel my passion, and thy power.

My light of Life! ah, tell me why

That pouting lip, and altered eye?

My bird of Love! my beauteous mate!

And art thou changed, and canst thou hate?

Mine eyes like wintry streams o'erflow:

What wretch with me would barter woe?

My bird! relent: one note could give

A charm to bid thy lover live.

My curdling blood, my madd'ning brain,

In silent anguish I sustain;

And still thy heart, without partaking

One pang, exults--while mine is breaking.

10.

Pour me the poison; fear not thou!

Thou canst not murder more than now:

I've lived to curse my natal day,

And Love, that thus can lingering slay.

11.

My wounded soul, my bleeding breast,

Can patience preach thee into rest?

Alas! too late, I dearly know

That Joy is harbinger of Woe.

[First published, _Childe Harold_, 1814 (Seventh Edition).]

THOU ART NOT FALSE, BUT THOU ART FICKLE.[bu][50]

Thou art not false, but thou art fickle,

To those thyself so fondly sought;

The tears that thou hast forced to trickle

Are doubly bitter from that thought:

'Tis this which breaks the heart thou grievest,

_Too well_ thou lov'st--_too soon_ thou leavest.

The wholly false the _heart_ despises,

And spurns deceiver and deceit;

But she who not a thought disguises,[bv]

Whose love is as sincere as sweet,--

When _she_ can change who loved so truly,

It _feels_ what mine has _felt_ so newly.

To dream of joy and wake to sorrow

Is doomed to all who love or live;

And if, when conscious on the morrow,

We scarce our Fancy can forgive,

That cheated us in slumber only,

To leave the waking soul more lonely,

What must they feel whom no false vision

But truest, tenderest Passion warmed?

Sincere, but swift in sad transition:

As if a dream alone had charmed?

Ah! sure such _grief_ is _Fancy's_ scheming,

And all thy _Change_ can be but _dreaming!_

[MS. M. First published, _Childe Harold_, 1814 (Seventh Edition).]

ON BEING ASKED WHAT WAS THE "ORIGIN OF LOVE."[bw]

The "Origin of Love!"--Ah, why

That cruel question ask of me,

When thou mayst read in many an eye

He starts to life on seeing thee?

And shouldst thou seek his _end_ to know:

My heart forebodes, my fears foresee,

He'll linger long in silent woe;

But live until--I cease to be.

[First published, _Childe Harold_, 1814 (Seventh Edition).]

ON THE QUOTATION,

"And my true faith can alter never,

Though thou art gone perhaps for ever."

And "thy true faith can alter never?"--

Indeed it lasted for a--week!

I know the length of Love's forever,

And just expected such a freak.

In peace we met, in peace we parted,

In peace we vowed to meet again,

And though I find thee fickle-hearted

No pang of mine shall make thee vain.

One gone--'twas time to seek a second;

In sooth 'twere hard to blame thy haste.

And whatsoe'er thy love be reckoned,

At least thou hast improved in taste:

Though one was young, the next was younger,

His love was new, mine too well known--

And what might make the charm still stronger,

The youth was present, I was flown.

Seven days and nights of single sorrow!

Too much for human constancy!

A fortnight past, why then to-morrow,

His turn is come to follow me:

And if each week you change a lover,

And so have acted heretofore,

Before a year or two is over

We'll form a very pretty _corps_.

Adieu, fair thing! without upbraiding

I fain would take a decent leave;

Thy beauty still survives unfading,

And undeceived may long deceive.

With him unto thy bosom dearer

Enjoy the moments as they flee;

I only wish his love sincerer

Than thy young heart has been to me.

1812.

[From a MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray,

now for the first time printed.]

REMEMBER HIM, WHOM PASSION'S POWER.[51]

Remember him, whom Passion's power

Severely--deeply--vainly proved:

Remember thou that dangerous hour,

When neither fell, though both were loved.[bx]

That yielding breast, that melting eye,[by]

Too much invited to be blessed:

That gentle prayer, that pleading sigh,

The wilder wish reproved, repressed.

Oh! let me feel that all I lost[bz]

But saved thee all that Conscience fears;

And blush for every pang it cost

To spare the vain remorse of years.

Yet think of this when many a tongue,

Whose busy accents whisper blame,

Would do the heart that loved thee wrong,

And brand a nearly blighted name.[ca]

Think that, whate'er to others, thou

Hast seen each selfish thought subdued:

I bless thy purer soul even now,

Even now, in midnight solitude.

Oh, God! that we had met in time,

Our hearts as fond, thy hand more free;

When thou hadst loved without a crime,

And I been less unworthy thee![cb]

Far may thy days, as heretofore,[cc]

From this our gaudy world be past!

And that too bitter moment o'er,

Oh! may such trial be thy last.

This heart, alas! perverted long,

Itself destroyed might there destroy;

To meet thee in the glittering throng,

Would wake Presumption's hope of joy.[cd]

Then to the things whose bliss or woe,

Like mine, is wild and worthless all,

That world resign--such scenes forego,

Where those who feel must surely fall.

10.

Thy youth, thy charms, thy tenderness--

Thy soul from long seclusion pure;

From what even here hath passed, may guess

What there thy bosom must endure.

11.

Oh! pardon that imploring tear,

Since not by Virtue shed in vain,

My frenzy drew from eyes so dear;

For me they shall not weep again.

12.

Though long and mournful must it be,

The thought that we no more may meet;

Yet I deserve the stern decree,

And almost deem the sentence sweet.

13.

Still--had I loved thee less--my heart

Had then less sacrificed to thine;

It felt not half so much to part

As if its guilt had made thee mine.

1813.

[MS. M. First published, _Childe Harold_, 1814 (Seventh Edition).]

IMPROMPTU, IN REPLY TO A FRIEND.[52]

When, from the heart where Sorrow sits,

Her dusky shadow mounts too high,

And o'er the changing aspect flits,

And clouds the brow, or fills the eye;

Heed not that gloom, which soon shall sink:

My Thoughts their dungeon know too well;

Back to my breast the Wanderers shrink,

And _droop_ within their silent cell.[ce]

_September_, 1813.

[MS. M. first published, _Childe Harold_, 1814 (Seventh Edition).]

SONNET.

TO GENEVRA.

Thine eyes' blue tenderness, thy long fair hair,

And the warm lustre of thy features--caught

From contemplation--where serenely wrought,

Seems Sorrow's softness charmed from its despair--

Have thrown such speaking sadness in thine air,

That--but I know thy blessed bosom fraught

With mines of unalloyed and stainless thought--

I should have deemed thee doomed to earthly care.

With such an aspect, by his colours blent,

When from his beauty-breathing pencil born,

(Except that _thou_ hast nothing to repent)

The Magdalen of Guido saw the morn--

Such seem'st thou--but how much more excellent!

With nought Remorse can claim--nor Virtue scorn.

_December_ 17, 1813.[53]

[MS. M. First published, _Corsair_, 1814 (Second Edition).]

SONNET.

TO GENEVRA.

Thy cheek is pale with thought, but not from woe,[cf]

And yet so lovely, that if Mirth could flush

Its rose of whiteness with the brightest blush,

My heart would wish away that ruder glow:

And dazzle not thy deep-blue eyes--but, oh!

While gazing on them sterner eyes will gush,

And into mine my mother's weakness rush,

Soft as the last drops round Heaven's airy bow.

For, through thy long dark lashes low depending,

The soul of melancholy Gentleness

Gleams like a Seraph from the sky descending,

Above all pain, yet pitying all distress;

At once such majesty with sweetness blending,

I worship more, but cannot love thee less.

_December_ 17, 1813.

[MS. M. First published, _Corsair_, 1814 (Second Edition).]

FROM THE PORTUGUESE.

"TU MI CHAMAS"

In moments to delight devoted,[54]

"My Life!" with tenderest tone, you cry;

Dear words! on which my heart had doted,

If Youth could neither fade nor die.

To Death even hours like these must roll,

Ah! then repeat those accents never;

Or change "my Life!" into "my Soul!"

Which, like my Love, exists for ever.

[MS. M.]

ANOTHER VERSION.

You call me still your _Life_.--Oh! change the word--

Life is as transient as the inconstant sigh:

Say rather I'm your Soul; more just that name,

For, like the soul, my Love can never die.

[Stanzas 1, 2 first published, _Childe Harold_, 1814

(Seventh Edition). "Another Version," first published, 1832.]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] [These stanzas were inserted in the first draft of the First Canto

of _Childe Harold_, after the eighty-sixth stanza. "The struggle 'gainst

the Demon's sway" (see stanza lxxxiv.) had, apparently, resulted in

victory, for the "unpremeditated lay" poured forth at the time betrays

the youth and high spirits of the singer. But the inconsistency was

detected in time, and the lines, _To Inez_, dated January 25, 1810, with

their "touches of dreariest sadness," were substituted for the simple

and cheerful strains of _The Girl of Cadiz_ (see _Poetical Works_, 1899,

ii. 75, note 1; _Life_, p. 151).]

[a] {1} _For thou hast never lived to see_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[b] {2} _The Saxon maids_----.--[MS. M.]

[2] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto I. stanza lviii. lines 8, 9,

_Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 59, note 1.]

[3] {3} [For "Bolero," see _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 492, note 1.]

[c]

_Or tells with light and fairy hand_

_Her beads beneath the rays of Hesper_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[d] ----_the lovely Girl of Cadiz_.--[MS. M.]

[e] {4} _Written in an Album_.--[Editions 1812-1831.]

_Written in Mrs. Spencer S.'s_----.--[MS. M. erased]

_Written at the request of a lady in her memorandum book_.--[MS. B. M.]

"_Mrs. S. S.'s request_."--[Erased. MS. B.M.]

[4] [The possessor of the album was, doubtless, Mrs. Spencer Smith, the

"Lady" of the lines _To Florence_, "the sweet Florence" of the _Stanzas

composed during a Thunderstorm_, and of the _Stanzas written in passing

through the Ambracian Gulf_, and, finally, when "The Spell is broke, the

Charm is flown," the "fair Florence" of stanzas xxxii., xxxiii. of the

Second Canto of _Childe Harold_. In a letter to his mother, dated

September 15, 1809, Byron writes, "This letter is committed to the

charge of a very extraordinary woman, whom you have doubtless heard of,

Mrs. Spencer Smith, of whose escape the Marquis de Salvo published a

narrative a few years ago (_Travels in the Year 1806, from Italy to

England through the Tyrol, etc., containing the particulars of the

liberation of Mrs. Spencer Smith from the hands of the French Police_,

London: 12mo, 1807). She has since been shipwrecked, and her life has

been from its commencement so fertile in remarkable incidents, that in a

romance they would appear improbable. She was born at Constantinople

[_circ._ 1785], where her father, Baron Herbert, was Austrian

Ambassador; married unhappily, yet has never been impeached in point of

character; excited the vengeance of Buonaparte by a part in some

conspiracy; several times risked her life; and is not yet twenty-five."

John Spencer Smith, the "Lady's" husband, was a younger brother of

Admiral Sir Sidney Smith, the hero of the siege of Acre. He began life

as a Page of Honour to Queen Charlotte, was, afterwards, attached to the

Turkish Embassy, and (May 4, 1798) appointed Minister Plenipotentiary.

On January 5, 1799, he concluded the treaty of defensive alliance with

the Porte; and, October 30, 1799, obtained the freedom of the Black Sea

for the English flag (see _Remains of the late John Tweddell_. London:

1815. See, too, for Mrs. Spencer Smith, _Letters_, 1898, i. 244, 245,

note 1).]

[f] {5} _To_----.--[Editions 1812-1832.]

[g] {6} _Through giant Danger's rugged path_.--[MS. M.]

[h] {7} _Stanzas_--[1812.]

[5] Composed Oct^r. 11, 1809, during the night in a thunderstorm, when

the guides had lost the road to Zitza, near the range of mountains

formerly called Pindus, in Albania. [Editions 1812-1831.]

[This thunderstorm occurred during the night of the 11th October, 1809,

when Lord Byron's guides had lost the road to Zitza, near the range of

mountains formerly called Pindus, in Albania. Hobhouse, who had ridden

on before the rest of the party, and arrived at Zitza just as the

evening set in, describes the thunder as rolling "without

intermission--the echoes of one peal had not ceased to roll in the

mountains, before another tremendous crash burst over our heads, whilst

the plains and the distant hills, visible through the cracks in the

cabin, appeared in a perpetual blaze. The tempest was altogether

terrific, and worthy of the Grecian Jove. Lord Byron, with the priest

and the servants, did not enter our hut before three (in the morning). I

now learnt from him that they had lost their way, ... and that after

wandering up and down in total ignorance of their position, had, at

last, stopped near some Turkish tombstones and a torrent, which they saw

by the flashes of lightning. They had been thus exposed for nine

hours.... It was long before we ceased to talk of the thunderstorm in the

plain of Zitza."--_Travels in Albania_, 1858, i. 70, 72; _Childe

Harold_, Canto II. stanza xlviii., _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 129, note

1.]

[i] {11} _Stanzas._--[1812.]

[j] {12} _Had Bards but realms along with rhymes_.--[MS. M.]

[k] _Again we'd see some Antonies_.--[MS. M.]

[l] _Though Jove_----.--[MS. M.]

[6] [Compare [_A Woman's Hair_] stanza 1, line 4, "I would not lose you

for a world."--_Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 233.]

[m] _Written at Athens_.--[1812.]

[7] {13} On the 3rd of May, 1810, while the _Salsette_ (Captain

Bathurst) was lying in the Dardanelles, Lieutenant Ekenhead, of that

frigate, and the writer of these rhymes, swam from the European shore to

the Asiatic--by the by, from Abydos to Sestos would have been more

correct. The whole distance, from the place whence we started to our

landing on the other side, including the length we were carried by the

current, was computed by those on board the frigate at upwards of four

English miles, though the actual breadth is barely one. The rapidity of

the current is such that no boat can row directly across, and it may, in

some measure, be estimated from the circumstance of the whole distance

being accomplished by one of the parties in an hour and five, and by the

other in an hour and ten minutes. The water was extremely cold, from the

melting of the mountain snows. About three weeks before, in April, we

had made an attempt; but having ridden all the way from the Troad the

same morning, and the water being of an icy chillness, we found it

necessary to postpone the completion till the frigate anchored below the

castles, when we swam the straits as just stated, entering a

considerable way above the European, and landing below the Asiatic,

fort. [Le] Chevalier says that a young Jew swam the same distance for

his mistress; and Olivier mentions its having been done by a Neapolitan;

but our consul, Tarragona, remembered neither of these circumstances,

and tried to dissuade us from the attempt. A number of the _Salsette's_

crew were known to have accomplished a greater distance; and the only

thing that surprised me was that, as doubts had been entertained of the

truth of Leander's story, no traveller had ever endeavoured to ascertain

its practicability. [See letter to Drury, dated May 3; to his mother,

May 24, 1810, etc. (_Letters_, 1898, i. 262, 275). Compare the

well-known lines in _Don Juan_, Canto II. stanza cv.--

"A better swimmer you could scarce see ever,

He could perhaps have passed the Hellespont,

As once (a feat on which ourselves we prided)

Leander, Mr. Ekenhead, and I did."

Compare, too, _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza clxxxiv. line 3, and the

_Bride of Abydos_, Canto II. stanza i.: _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 461,

note 2, _et post_, p. 178.]

[8] {14} [Hobhouse, who records the first attempt to cross the

Hellespont, on April 16, and the successful achievement of the feat, May

3, 1810, adds the following note: "In my journal, in my friend's

handwriting: 'The whole distance E. and myself swam was more than four

miles--the current very strong and cold--some large fish near us when

half across--we were not fatigued, but a little chilled--did it with

little difficulty.--May, 6, 1810. Byron.'"--_Travels in Albania_, ii.

195.]

[9] {15} ["At Orchomenus, where stood the Temple of the Graces, I was

tempted to exclaim, 'Whither have the Graces fled?' Little did I expect

to find them here. Yet here comes one of them with golden cups and

coffee, and another with a book. The book is a register of names....

Among these is Lord Byron's connected with some lines which I shall send

you: 'Fair Albion,' etc." (See _Travels in Italy, Greece, etc._, by H. W.

Williams, ii. 290, 291; _Life_, p. 101.)]

[n] _Song_.--[1812.]

[10] [The Maid of Athens was, it is supposed, the eldest of three

sisters, daughters of Theodora Macri, the widow of a former English

vice-consul. Byron and Hobhouse lodged at her house. The sisters were

sought out and described by the artist, Hugh W. Williams, who visited

Athens in May, 1817: "Theresa, the Maid of Athens, Catinco, and Mariana,

are of middle stature.... The two eldest have black, or dark hair and

eyes; their visage oval, and complexion somewhat pale, with teeth of

pearly whiteness. Their cheeks are rounded, their noses straight, rather

inclined to aquiline. The youngest, Mariana, is very fair, her face not

so finely rounded, but has a gayer expression than her sisters', whose

countenances, except when the conversation has something of mirth in it,

may be said to be rather pensive. Their persons are elegant, and their

manners pleasing and lady-like, such as would be fascinating in any

country. They possess very considerable powers of conversation, and

their minds seem to be more instructed than those of the Greek women in

general."--_Travels in Italy, Greece, etc._, ii. 291, 292.

Other travellers, Hughes, who visited Athens in 1813, and Walsh

(_Narrative of a Resident in Constantinople_, i. 122), who saw Theresa

in 1821, found her charming and interesting, but speak of her beauty as

a thing of the past. "She married an Englishman named Black, employed in

H.M. Consular Service at Mesolonghi. She survived her husband and fell

into great poverty.... Theresa Black died October 15, 1875, aged 80

years." (See _Letters_, 1898, i. 269, 270, note 1; and _Life_, p. 105,

note.)

"Maid of Athens" is possibly the best-known of Byron's short poems, all

over the English-speaking world. This is no doubt due in part to its

having been set to music by about half a dozen composers--the latest of

whom was Gounod.]

[11] {16} Romaic expression of tenderness. If I translate it, I shall

affront the gentlemen, as it may seem that I supposed they could not;

and if I do not, I may affront the ladies. For fear of any

misconstruction on the part of the latter, I shall do so, begging pardon

of the learned. It means, "My life, I love you!" which sounds very

prettily in all languages, and is as much in fashion in Greece at this

day as, Juvenal tells us, the two first words were amongst the Roman

ladies, whose erotic expressions were all Hellenised. [The reference is

to the [Greek: Zôê/ kai\ Psychê\] of Roman courtesans. _Vide_ Juvenal,

lib. ii., _Sat._ vi. line 195; Martial, _Epig._ x. 68. 5.]

[12] {17} In the East (where ladies are not taught to write, lest they

should scribble assignations), flowers, cinders, pebbles, etc., convey

the sentiments of the parties, by that universal deputy of Mercury--an

old woman. A cinder says, "I burn for thee;" a bunch of flowers tied

with hair, "Take me and fly;" but a pebble declares--what nothing else

can. [Compare _The Bride of Abydos_, line 295--

"What! not receive my foolish flower?"

See, too, Medwin's story of "one of the principal incidents in _The

Giaour_." "I was in despair, and could hardly contrive to get a cinder,

or a token-flower sent to express it."--_Conversations of Lord Byron_,

1824, p. 122.]

[13] Constantinople. [Compare--

"Tho' I am parted, yet my mind

That's more than self still stays behind."

_Poems_, by Thomas Carew, ed. 1640, p. 36.]

[14] {18} [Given to the Hon. Roden Noel by S. McCalmont Hill, who

inherited it from his great-grandfather, Robert Dallas. No date or

occasion of the piece has been recorded.--_Life of Lord Byron_, 1890, p.

5.]

[15] {19} [These lines are copied from a leaf of the original MS. of the

Second Canto of _Childe Harold_. They are headed, "Lines written beneath

the Picture of J.U.D."

In a curious work of doubtful authority, entitled, _The Life, Writings,

Opinions and Times of the Right Hon. G. G. Noel Byron_, London, 1825

(iii. 123-132), there is a long and circumstantial narrative of a

"defeated" attempt of Byron's to rescue a Georgian girl, whom he had

bought in the slave-market for 800 piastres, from a life of shame and

degradation. It is improbable that these verses suggested the story;

and, on the other hand, the story, if true, does afford some clue to the

verses.]

[16] {20} The son [Greek: Deu~te pai~des,] etc., was written by Riga,

who perished in the attempt to revolutionize Greece. This translation is

as literal as the author could make it in verse. It is of the same

measure as that of the original. [For the original, see _Poetical

Works_, 1891, Appendix, p. 792. For Constantine Rhigas, see _Poetical

Works_, 1899, ii. 199, note 2. Hobhouse (_Travels in Albania_, 1858, ii.

3) prints a version (Byron told Murray that it was "well enough,"

_Letters_, 1899, iii. 13) of [Greek: Deu~te pai~des,] of his own

composition. He explains in a footnote that the metre is "a mixed

trochaic, except the chorus." "This song," he adds, "the chorus

particularly, is sung to a tune very nearly the same as the Marseillois

Hymn. Strangely enough, Lord Byron, in his translation, has entirely

mistaken the metre." The first stanza runs as follows:--

"Greeks arise! the day of glory

Comes at last your swords to claim.

Let us all in future story

Rival our forefathers' fame.

Underfoot the yoke of tyrants

Let us now indignant trample,

Mindful of the great example,

And avenge our country's shame."]

[17] {21} Constantinople. "[Greek: Heptalophos]."

[18] {22} The song from which this is taken is a great favourite with

the young girls of Athens of all classes. Their manner of singing it is

by verses in rotation, the whole number present joining in the chorus. I

have heard it frequently at our [Greek: "cho/roi"] in the winter of

1810-11. The air is plaintive and pretty.

[o] {23} _Has bound my soul to thee_----[MS. M.]

[p] _When wandering forth alone_----[MS. M.]

[q] {24}

_Oh! what can tongue or pen avail_

_Unless my heart could speak_.--[MS. M.]

[19] [These lines, which are undoubtedly genuine, were published for the

first time in the sixth edition of _Poems on his Domestic Circumstances_

(W. Hone, 1816). They were first included by Murray in the collected

_Poetical Works_, in vol. xvii., 1832.]

[20] ["The principal streets of the city of Valetta are flights of

stairs."--_Gazetteer of the World_.]

[21] {25} [Major-General Hildebrand Oakes (1754-1822) succeeded Admiral

Sir Richard Goodwin Keates as "his Majesty's commissioner for the

affairs of Malta," April 27, 1810. There was an outbreak of plague

during his tenure of office (1810-13).--_Annual Register_, 1810, p. 320;

_Dict. Nat. Biog._, art. "Oakes."]

[22] ["Lord Byron ... was once _rather near_ fighting a duel--and that

was with an officer of the staff of General Oakes at Malta"

(1809).--_Westminster Review_, January, 1825, iii. 21 (by J. C.

Hobhouse). (See, too, _Life_ (First Edition, 1830, 4to), i. 202, 222.)]

[23] [On March 13, 1811, Captain (Sir William) Hoste (1780-1828)

defeated a combined French and Italian squadron off the island of Lissa,

on the Dalmatian coast. "The French commodore's ship _La Favorite_ was

burnt, himself (Dubourdieu) being killed." The four victorious frigates

with their prizes arrived at Malta, March 31, when the garrison "ran out

unarmed to receive and hail them." The _Volage_, in which Byron returned

to England, took part in the engagement. Captain Hoste had taken a prize

off Fiume in the preceding year.--_Annual Register_, 1811; _Memoirs and

Letters of Sir W. Hoste_, ii. 79.]

[24] {26} ["We have had balls and fetes given us by all classes here,

and it is impossible to convey to you the sensation our success has

given rise to."--_Memoirs and Letters of Sir W. Hoste_, ii. 82.]

[25] [Mrs. (Susan) Fraser published, in 1809, "_Camilla de Florian_ (the

scene is laid in Valetta) _and Other Poems._ By an Officer's Wife."

Byron was, no doubt, struck by her admiration for Macpherson's _Ossian_,

and had read with interest her version of "The Address to the Sun," in

_Carthon_, p. 31 (see _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 229). He may, too, have

regarded with favour some stanzas in honour of the _Bolero_ (p. 82),

which begin, "When, my Love, supinely _laying_."]

[26] {27} [Byron left Malta for England June 13, 1811. (See Letter to H.

Drury, July 17, 1811, _Letters_, 1898, i. 318.)]

[r] {28} _And mine was the pride and the worth of a name_--[MS. M.]

[s] _It tells not of time_----.--[MS. M.]

[27] Francis Hodgson.

[28] {30} [Hodgson stipulated that the last twelve lines should be

omitted, but Moore disregarded his wishes, and included the poem as it

stands in his _Life_. A marginal note ran thus: "N.B. The poor dear soul

meant nothing of this. F.H."--_Memoir of Rev. Francis Hodgson_, 1878, i.

212.]

[t] _On the death of----Thyrza_.--[MS.]

[29] [The following note on the identity of Thyrza has been communicated

to the Editor:--

"The identity of Thyrza and the question whether the person

addressed under this name really existed, or was an imaginary

being, have given rise to much speculation and discussion of a more

or less futile kind.

"This difficulty is now incapable of definite and authoritative

solution, and the allusions in the verses in some respects disagree

with things said by Lord Byron later. According to the poems,

Thyrza had met him

"' ... many a day

In these, to me, deserted towers.'

(Newstead, October 11, 1811.)

"'When stretched on fever's sleepless bed.'

(At Patras, about September, 1810.)

"'Death for thee

Prepared a light and pangless dart.'

"'And oft I thought at Cynthia's noon,

When sailing o'er the Ægean wave,

"Now Thyrza gazes on that moon"--

Alas, it gleam'd upon her grave!'

(_One struggle more, and I am free_.)

"Finally, in the verses of October 11, 1811--

"'The pledge we wore--_I_ wear it still,

But where is thine?--Ah! where art thou?'

"There can be no doubt that Lord Byron referred to Thyrza in

conversation with Lady Byron, and probably also with Mrs. Leigh, as

a young girl who had existed, and the date of whose death almost

coincided with Lord Byron's landing in England in 1811. On one

occasion he showed Lady Byron a beautiful tress of hair, which she

understood to be Thyrza's. He said he had never mentioned her name,

and that now she was gone his breast was the sole depository of

that secret. 'I took the name of Thyrza from Gesner. She was Abel's

wife.'

"Thyrza is mentioned in a letter from Elizabeth, Duchess of

Devonshire, to Augustus Foster (London, May 4, 1812): 'Your little

friend, Caro William (Lady Caroline Lamb), as usual, is doing all

sorts of imprudent things for him (Lord Byron) and with him; he

admires her very much, but is supposed by some to admire our

Caroline (the Hon. Mrs. George Lamb) more; he says she is like

Thyrsa, and her singing is enchantment to him.' From this extract

it is obvious that Thyrza is alluded to in the following lines,

which, with the above quotation, may be reproduced, by kind

permission of Mr. Vere Foster, from his most interesting book, _The

Two Duchesses_ (1898, pp. 362-374).

"'Verses Addressed by Lord Byron in the year 1812 to the Hon. Mrs.

George Lamb.

"'The sacred song that on my ear

Yet vibrates from that voice of thine

I heard before from one so dear,

'Tis strange it still appears divine.

But oh! so sweet that _look_ and _tone_

To her and thee alike is given;

It seemed as if for me alone

That _both_ had been recalled from Heaven.

And though I never can redeem

The vision thus endeared to me,

I scarcely can regret my dream

When realized again by thee.'"

(It may be noted that the name Thirza, or Thyrza, a variant of Theresa,

had been familiar to Byron in his childhood. In the Preface to _Cain_ he

writes, "Gesner's _Death of Abel!_ I have never read since I was eight

years of age at Aberdeen. The general impression of my recollection is

delight; but of the contents I remember only that Cain's wife was called

Mahala, and Abel's Thirza." Another and more immediate suggestion of the

name may be traced to the following translation of Meleager's Epitaphium

_In Heliodoram_, which one of the "associate bards," Bland, or Merivale,

or Hodgson, contributed to their _Translations chiefly from the Greek

Anthology_, 1806, p. 4, a work which Byron singles out for commendation

in _English Bards_, etc, (lines 881-890):--

"Tears o'er my parted Thyrza's grave I shed,

Affection's fondest tribute to the dead.

* * * * *

Break, break my heart, o'ercharged with bursting woe

An empty offering to the shades below!

Ah, plant regretted! Death's remorseless power,

With dust unfruitful checked thy full-blown flower.

Take, earth, the gentle inmate to thy breast,

And soft-embosomed let my Thyrza rest."

The MSS. of "To Thyrza," "Away, away, ye notes of Woe!" "One struggle

more, and I am free," and, "And thou art dead, as young and fair," which

belonged originally to Mrs. Leigh, are now in the possession of Sir

Theodore Martin, K.C.B.--Editor.)]

[30] [For the substitution in the present issue of continuous lines for

stanzas, Byron's own authority and mandate may be quoted. "In reading

the 4th vol.... I perceive that piece 12 ('Without a Stone') is made

nonsense of (that is, greater nonsense than usual) by dividing it into

stanzas 1, 2, etc."--Letter to John Murray, August 26, 1815, _Letters_,

1899, iii. 215.]

[u] _And soothe if such could soothe thy shade_.--[MS. erased.]

[v] {31} _By many a land_----.--[MS.]

[w] {33} _And shall they not_----.--[MS.]

[x] ----_the walk aside_.--[MS.]

[y]

(_a_) _The kiss that left no sting behind_

_So guiltless Passion thus forbore;_

_Those eyes bespoke so pure a mind,_

/ _plead_ \

_That Love forgot to_ { } _for more_.

\ _ask_ /

(_b_) _The kiss that left no sting behind,_

_So guiltless Love each wish forebore;_

_Those eyes proclaimed so pure a mind,_

_That Passion blushed to smile for more_.--

[Pencilled alternative stanzas.]

[z] {34} _Well hast thou fled_----.--[MS. erased.]

[aa]

_If judging from my present pain_

_That rest alone_----.--[MS. erased.]

_If rest alone is in the tomb_.--[MS.]

[ab] _So let it be my hope in Heaven_.--[MS. erased]

[ac] {35} _Stanzas_.--[MS. Editions 1812-1832.]

[31] ["I wrote it a day or two ago, on hearing a song of former

days."--Letter to Hodgson, December 8, 1811, _Letters_, 1898, ii. 82.]

[ad] _I dare not hear_----.--[MS. erased.]

[ae] _But hush the chords_----.--[MS. erased.]

[af] ----_I dare not gaze_.--[MS. erased.]

[ag] _The voice that made that song more sweet_.--[MS.]

[ah] _'Tis silent now_----.--[MS.]

[ai] {36} _To Thyrza_.--[Editions 1812-1831.]

[aj]

_From pangs that tear_----.--[MS.]

_Such pangs that tear_----.--[MS. erased.]

[ak] _With things that moved me not before_.--[MS. erased.]

[al] _What sorrow cannot_----.--[MS.]

[am]

_It would not be, so hadst not thou_

_Withdrawn so soon_----.--[MS. erased.]

[an] {38} _--how oft I said_.--[MS. erased.]

[ao]

_Like freedom to the worn-out slave_.--[MS.]

_But Health and life returned and gave_,

_A boon 'twas idle then to give_,

_Relenting Health in mocking gave_.--[MS. B. M. erased.]

[32] [Compare _My Epitaph:_ "Youth, Nature and relenting Jove."--Letter

to Hodgson, October 3, 1810, _Letters_, 1898, i. 298.]

[ap] _Dear simple gift_----.--[MS. erased.]

[33] {39} Compare _A Wish_, by Matthew Arnold, stanza 3, etc.--

"Spare me the whispering, crowded room,

The friends who come and gape and go," etc.

[aq] {41} _Stanzas_.--[Editions 1812-1831.]

[34] ["The Lovers' Walk is terminated with an ornamental urn, inscribed

to Miss Dolman, a beautiful and amiable relation of Mr. Shenstone's, who

died of the small-pox, about twenty-one years of age, in the following

words on one side:--

'Peramabili consobrinæ

M.D.'

On the other side--

'Ah! Maria!

pvellarvm elegantissima!

ah Flore venvstatis abrepta,

vale!

hev qvanto minvs est

cvm reliqvis versari

qvam tui

meminisse.'"

(From a _Description of the Leasowes_, by A. Dodsley; _Poetical Works_

of William Shenstone [1798], p. xxix.)]

[ar]

_Are mingled with the Earth_.--[MS.]

_Were never meant for Earth_.--[MS. erased.]

[as] _Unhonoured with the vulgar dread_.--[MS. erased.]

[at] {42}

_I will not ask where thou art laid,_

_Nor look upon the name_.--[MS. erased.]

[au] _So I shall know it not_.--[MS. erased.]

[av] _Like common dust can rot_.--[MS.]

[aw] _I would not wish to see nor touch_.--[MS. erased.]

[ax] _As well as warm as thou_.--[MS. erased.]

[ay] MS. transposes lines 5 and 6 of stanza 3.

[az] _Nor frailty disavow_.--[MS.]

[ba] _Nor canst thou fair and faultless see_.--[MS. erased.]

[bb] _Nor wrong, nor change, nor fault in me_.--[MS.]

[bc] {43} _The cloud that cheers_----.--[MS.]

[bd] _The sweetness of that silent deep_.--[MS.]

[be]

_The flower in beauty's bloom unmatched_

_Is still the earliest prey_.--[MS.]

_The rose by some rude fingers snatched_,

_Is earliest doomed to fade_.--[MS. erased.]

[bf] _I do not deem I could have borne_.--[MS.]

[bg]

_But night and day of thine are passed_,

_And thou wert lovely to the last;_

_Destroyed_----.--[MS. erased.]

[bh] {44} _As stars that seem to quit the sky_.--[MS.]

[bi]

_O how much less it were to gain,_

_All beauteous though they be_.--[MS.]

[bj] _Through dark and dull Eternity_.--[MS.]

[bk] {45} _Sympathetic Address to a Young Lady_.--[_Morning Chronicle_,

March 7, 1812.]

[35] [The scene which begat these memorable stanzas was enacted at a

banquet at Carlton House, February 22, 1812. On March 6 the following

quatrain, entitled, "Impromptu on a Recent Incident," appeared in the

_Morning Chronicle_:--

"Blest omens of a happy reign,

In swift succession hourly rise,

Forsaken friends, vows made in vain--

A daughter's tears, a nation's sighs."

Byron's lines, headed, "Sympathetic Address to a Young Lady," were

published anonymously in the _Morning Chronicle_ of March 7, but it was

not till March 10 that the _Courier_ ventured to insert a report of "The

Fracas at Carlton House on the 22nd ult.," which had already been

communicated to the _Caledonian Mercury_.

"The party consisted of the Princess Charlotte, the Duchess of

York, the Dukes of York and Cambridge, Lords Moira, Erskine,

Lauderdale, Messrs. Adams and Sheridan.

"The Prince Regent expressed 'his surprise and mortification' at

the conduct of Lords Grey and Grenville [who had replied

unfavourably to a letter addressed by the P.R. to the Duke of York,

suggesting an united administration]. Lord Lauderdale thereupon,

with a freedom unusual in courts, asserted that the reply did not

express the opinions of Lords Grey and Grenville only, but of every

political friend of that way of thinking, and that he had been

present at and assisted in the drawing-up, and that every sentence

had his cordial assent. The Prince was suddenly and deeply affected

by Lord Lauderdale's reply, so much so, that the Princess,

observing his agitation, dropt her head and burst into tears--upon

which the Prince turned round and begged the female part of the

company to withdraw."

In the following June, at a ball at Miss Johnson's, Byron was "presented

by order to our gracious Regent, who honoured me with some

conversation," and for a time he ignored and perhaps regretted his

anonymous _jeu d'esprit_. But early in 1814, either out of mere bravado

or in an access of political rancour, he determined to republish the

stanzas under his own name. The first edition of the _Corsair_ was

printed, if not published, but in accordance with a peremptory direction

(January 22, 1814), "eight lines on the little Royalty weeping in 1812,"

were included among the poems printed at the end of the second edition.

The "newspapers were in hysterics and town in an uproar on the avowal

and republication" of the stanzas (_Diary_, February 18), and during

Byron's absence from town "Murray omitted the Tears in several of the

copies"--that is, in the Third Edition--but yielding to _force majeure_,

replaced them in a Fourth Edition, which was issued early in February.

(See Letters of July 6, 1812, January 22, February 2, and February 10,

1814 (_Letters_, 1898, ii. 134, etc.); and for "Newspaper Attacks upon

Byron," see _Letters_, 1898, ii. Appendix VII. pp. 463-492.)]

[bl] _Stanzas_.--[1812.]

[36] {48} [For allusion to the "Cornelian" see "The Cornelian," ["Pignus

Amoris"], and "The Adieu," stanza 7, _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 66, 231,

240. See, too, _Letters_, 1898, i. 130, note 3.]

[bm] {50} _To Samuel Rogers, Esq_.--[_Poems_, 1816.]

[37] ["Rogers is silent,--and, it is said, severe. When he does talk, he

talks well; and, on all subjects of taste, his delicacy of expression is

pure as his poetry. If you enter his house--his drawing-room--his

library--you of yourself say, this is not the dwelling of a common mind.

There is not a gem, a coin, a book thrown aside on his chimney-piece,

his sofa, his table, that does not bespeak an almost fastidious elegance

in the possessor."--_Diary_, 1813; _Letters_, 1898, ii. 331.]

[38] [Compare Collins' _Ode on the Death of Mr. Thomson_--"In yonder

grave a Druid lies."]

[39] {51} ["Mr. Elliston then came forward and delivered the following

_Prize_ address. We cannot boast of the eloquence of the delivery. It

was neither gracefully nor correctly recited. The merits of the

production itself we submit to the criticism of our readers. We cannot

suppose that it was selected as the most poetical composition of all the

scores that were submitted to the committee. But perhaps by its tenor,

by its allusions to Garrick, to Siddons, and to Sheridan, it was thought

most applicable to the occasion, notwithstanding its being in part

unmusical, and in general tame."--_Morning Chronicle_, October 12,

1812.]

[40] ["By the by, the best view of the said fire [February 24, 1809]

(which I myself saw from a house-top in Covent-garden) was at

Westminster Bridge, from the reflection on the Thames."--Letter to Lord

Holland, September 25, 1812, _Letters_, 1898, ii. 148.]

[bn]

_As flashing far the new Volcano shone_

/ _meteors_ \

_And swept the skies with_ { } _not their own_.

\ _lightnings_ /

/ _sadly_ \

or, _As flashed the volumed blaze, and_ { } _shone_

\ _ghastly_ /

_The skies with lightnings awful as their own._--

[_Letter to Lord Holland, Sept_. 25, 1812.]

or, _As glared each rising flash, and ghastly shone_

_The skies with lightnings awful as their own_.--

[_Letter to Lord Holland, Sept_. 27, 1812.]

[bo] {52}

/ lava of the \

_Till slowly ebbed the_ { } _wave_.

\ _spent volcanic_ /

/ the burning \

or, _Till ebb'd the lava of_ { } _wave_,

\ _that molten_ /

_And blackening ashes mark'd the Muse's grave_.--

[_Letter to Lord Holland, Sept_. 28, 1812]

[bp] _That scorns the scythe of Time, the torch of Flame_.--[Letter to

Lord Holland, Sept, 28, 1812.]

[bq] {53}

_Far be from him that hour which asks in vain_

_Tears such as flow for Garrick in his strain;_

or, _Far be that hour that vainly asks in turn_

/ crowned his \

_Sad verse for him as_ { } _Garrick's urn_.--

\ _wept o'er_ /

[_Letter to Lord Holland, Sept_. 30, 1812.]

[41] [Originally, "Ere Garrick _died_," etc. "By the by, one of my

corrections in the fair copy sent yesterday has dived into the bathos

some sixty fathom--

'When Garrick died, and Brinsley ceased to write.'

Ceasing to _live_ is a much more serious concern, and ought not to be

first; therefore I will let the old couplet stand, with its half rhymes

'sought' and 'wrote' [_vide supra, variant_ ii.] Second thoughts in

every thing are best, but, in rhyme, third and fourth don't come

amiss.... I always scrawl in this way, and smooth as much as I can, but

never sufficiently."--Letter to Lord Holland, September 26, 1812,

_Letters_, 1898, ii. 150.]

[br]

_Such are the names that here your plaudits sought,_

_When Garrick acted, and when Brinsley wrote_.--[MS.]

[42] {54} [The following lines were omitted by the Committee:--

"_Nay, lower still, the Drama yet deplores_

_That late she deigned to crawl upon all-fours_.

_When Richard roars in Bosworth for a horse_,

_If you command, the steed must come in course_.

_If you decree, the Stage must condescend_

To soothe the sickly taste we dare not mend.

_Blame not our judgment should we acquiesce_,

_And gratify you more by showing less_.

Oh, since your Fiat stamps the Drama's laws,

Forbear to mock us with misplaced applause;

_That public praise be ne'er again disgraced_,

/ brutes to man recall \

_From_ { } _a nation's taste;_

\ _babes and brutes redeem_ /

Then pride shall doubly nerve the actor's powers,

When Reason's voice is echoed back with ours."

The last couplet but one was altered in a later copy, thus--

"_The past reproach let present scenes refute_,

_Nor shift from man to babe, from babe to brute._"

"Is Whitbread," wrote Lord Byron, "determined to castrate all my

_cavalry_ lines?... I do implore, for my _own_ gratification, one lash

on those accursed quadrupeds--'a long shot, Sir Lucius, if you love

me.'"--_Letter to Lord Holland_, September 28, 1812, _Letters_, 1898,

ii. 156. For "animal performers," vide ibid., note 1.]

[43] [Lines 66-69 were added on September 24, in a letter to Lord

Holland.]

[44] {55} [The original of Dr. Busby's address, entitled "Monologue

submitted to the Committee of Drury Lane Theatre," which was published

in the _Morning Chronicle_, October 17, 1812, "will be found in the

_Genuine Rejected Addresses_, as well as parodied in _Rejected

Addresses_ ('Architectural Atoms'). On October 14 young Busby forced his

way on to the stage of Drury Lane, attempted to recite his father's

address, and was taken into custody. On the next night, Dr. Busby,

speaking from one of the boxes, obtained a hearing for his son, who

could not, however, make his voice heard in the theatre.... To the

failure of the younger Busby (himself a competitor and the author of an

'Unalogue' ...) to make himself heard, Byron alludes in the stage

direction, 'to be spoken in an inarticulate voice.'" (See _Letters_,

1898, ii. 176; and for Dr. Busby, see _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 481,

485.) Busby's "Address" ran as follows:--

"When energising objects men pursue,

What are the prodigies they cannot do?

A magic edifice you here survey,

Shot from the ruins of the other day!

As Harlequin had smote the slumberous heap,

And bade the rubbish to a fabric leap.

Yet at that speed you'd never be amazed,

Knew you the _zeal_ with which the pile was raised;

Nor even here your smiles would be represt,

Knew you the rival flame that fires our breast, 10

Flame! fire and flame! sad heart-appalling sounds,

Dread metaphors that ope our healing wounds--

A sleeping pang awakes--and----But away

With all reflections that would cloud the day

That this triumphant, brilliant prospect brings,

Where Hope reviving re-expands her wings;

Where generous joy exults, where duteous ardour springs.

* * * * *

If mighty things with small we may compare,

This spirit drives Britannia's conquering car,

Burns in her ranks and kindles every tar.

Nelson displayed its power upon the main,

And Wellington exhibits it in Spain;

Another Marlborough points to Blenheim's story,

And with its lustre, blends his kindred glory. 40

In Arms and Science long our Isle hath shone,

And Shakespeare--wondrous Shakespeare--reared a throne

For British Poesy--whose powers inspire

The British pencil, and the British lyre--

Her we invoke--her Sister Arts implore:

Their smiles beseech whose charms yourselves adore,

These if we win, the Graces too we gain--

Their dear, beloved, inseparable train;

Three who their witching arts from Cupid stole

And three acknowledged sovereigns of the soul: 50

Harmonious throng! with nature blending art!

Divine Sestetto! warbling to the heart

For Poesy shall here sustain the upper part.

Thus lifted gloriously we'll sweep along,

Shine in our music, scenery and song;

Shine in our farce, masque, opera and play,

And prove old Drury has not had her day,

Nay more--so stretch the wing the world shall cry,

Old Drury never, never soared so high.

'But hold,' you'll say, 'this self-complacent boast; 60

Easy to reckon thus without your host.'

True, true--that lowers at once our mounting pride;

'Tis yours alone our merit to decide;

'Tis ours to look to you, you hold the prize

That bids our great, our best ambitions rise.

A _double_ blessing _your_ rewards impart,

Each good provide and elevate the heart.

Our twofold feeling owns its twofold cause,

Your bounty's _comfort_--_rapture_ your applause;

When in your fostering beam you bid us live, 70

You give the means of life, and gild the means you give."

_Morning Chronicle_, October 17, 1812.]

[45] {57} [Busby's translation of Lucretius (_The Nature of Things_, a

Didascalie Poem) was published in 1813. Byron was a subscriber, and is

mentioned in the preface as "one of the most distinguished poets of the

age." The passage in question is, perhaps, taken from the Second Book,

lines 880, 881, which Busby renders--

"Just as she quickens fuel into fire,

And bids it, flaming, to the skies aspire."]

[46] {59} [The Leasowes, the residence of the poet Shenstone, is near

the village of Halesowen, in Shropshire.]

[47] [See Dryden's _Cymon and Iphigenia_, lines 84, 85.]

[48] [The sequel of a temporary liaison formed by Lord Byron during his

career in London, occasioned this impromptu. On the cessation of the

connection, the fair one [Lady C. Lamb: see _Letters_, 1898, ii. 451]

called one morning at her quondam lover's apartments. His Lordship was

from home; but finding _Vathek_ on the table, the lady wrote in the

first page of the volume the words, "Remember me!" Byron immediately

wrote under the ominous warning these two stanzas.--_Conversations of

Lord Byron_, by Thomas Medwin, 1824, pp. 329, 330.

In Medwin's work the euphemisms _false_ and _fiend_ are represented by

asterisks.]

[49] {60} ["To Bd., Feb. 22, 1813.

"'Remember thee,' nay--doubt it not--

Thy Husband too may '_think_' of thee!

By neither canst thou be forgot,

Thou false to him--thou fiend to me!

"'Remember thee'? Yes--yes--till Fate

In Lethe quench the guilty dream.

Yet then--e'en then--Remorse and _Hate_

Shall vainly quaff the vanquished stream."

From a MS. (in the possession of Mr. Hallam Murray) not in Byron's

handwriting.]

[bs] {61} ----_not confessed thy power_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[bt] ----_still forgets the hour_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[bu] {64} _Song_.--[_Childe Harold_, 1814.]

[50] ["I send you some lines which may as well be called 'A Song' as

anything else, and will do for your new edition."--B.--(MS. M.)]

[bv] _But her who not_----.--[MS. M.]

[bw] {65} _To Ianthe_.--[MS. M. Compare "The Dedication" to _Childe

Harold_.]

[51] {67} [It is possible that these lines, as well as the Sonnets "To

Genevra," were addressed to Lady Frances Wedderburn Webster.--See

_Letters,_ 1898, ii. 2, note 1; and _Letters,_ 1899, iii. 8, note 1.]

[bx] _To him who loves and her who loved_.--[MS. M.]

[by] _That trembling form_----.--[MS. M.]

[bz]

_Resigning thee, alas! I lost_

_Joys bought too dear, if bright with tears,_

_Yet ne'er regret the pangs it cost_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[ca] _And crush_----.--[MS. M.]

[cb] _And I been not unworthy thee_.--[MS. M.]

[cc] _Long may thy days_----.--[MS. M.]

[cd] _Might make my hope of guilty joy_.--[MS.]

[52] [Byron forwarded these lines to Moore in a postscript to a letter

dated September 27, 1813. "Here's," he writes, "an impromptu for you by

a 'person of quality,' written last week, on being reproached for low

spirits."--_Letters_, 1898, ii. 268. They were written at Aston Hall,

Rotherham, where he "stayed a week ... and behaved very well--though the

lady of the house [Lady F. Wedderburn Webster] is young, and religious,

and pretty, and the master is my particular friend."--_Letters_, 1898,

ii. 267.]

[ce] {70} _And bleed_----.--[MS. M.]

[53] ["Redde some Italian, and wrote two Sonnets.... I never wrote but

one sonnet before, and that was not in earnest, and many years ago, as

an exercise--and I will never write another. They are the most puling,

petrifying, stupidly platonic compositions."--_Diary_, December 18,

1813; _Letters_, 1898, ii. 379.]

[cf] {71} ----_Hope whispers not from woe_.--[MS. M.]

[54]

["In moments to delight devoted

'My Life!' is still the name you give,

Dear words! on which my heart had doted

Had Man an endless term to live.

But, ah! so swift the seasons roll

That name must be repeated never,

For 'Life' in future say, 'My Soul,'

Which like my love exists for ever."

Byron wrote these lines in 1815, in Lady Lansdowne's album, at

Bowood.--Note by Mr. Richard Edgecombe, _Notes and Queries_, Sixth

Series, vii. 46.]

THE GIAOUR:

A FRAGMENT OF A TURKISH TALE.

"One fatal remembrance--one sorrow that throws

Its bleak shade alike o'er our joys and our woes--

To which Life nothing darker nor brighter can bring,

For which joy hath no balm--and affliction no sting."

MOORE.

["As a beam o'er the face," etc.--_Irish Melodies_.]

INTRODUCTION TO _THE GIAOUR_

In a letter to Murray, dated Pisa, December 12, 1821 (_Life_, p. 545),

Byron avows that the "Giaour Story" had actually "some foundation on

facts." Soon after the poem appeared (June 5, 1813), "a story was

circulated by some gentlewomen ... a little too close to the text"

(Letters to Moore, September 1, 1813, _Letters_, 1898, ii. 258), and in

order to put himself right with his friends or posterity, Byron wrote to

his friend Lord Sligo, who in July, 1810, was anchored off Athens in "a

twelve-gun brig, with a crew of fifty men" (see _Letters_, 1898, i. 289,

note 1), requesting him to put on paper not so much the narrative of an

actual event, but "what he had heard at Athens about the affair of that

girl who was so near being put an end to while you were there."

According to the letter which Moore published (_Life_, p. 178), and

which is reprinted in the present issue (_Letters_, 1898, ii. 257),

Byron interposed on behalf of a girl, who "in compliance with the strict

letter of the Mohammedan law," had been sewn in a sack and was about to

be thrown into the sea. "I was told," adds Lord Sligo, "that you then

conveyed her in safety to the convent, and despatched her off at night

to Thebes." The letter, which Byron characterizes as "curious," is by no

means conclusive, and to judge from the designedly mysterious references

in the Journal, dated November 16 and December 5, and in the second

postscript to a letter to Professor Clarke, dated December 15, 1813

(_Letters_, 1898, ii. 321, 361, 311), "the circumstances which were the

groundwork" are not before us. "An event," says John Wright (ed. 1832,

ix. 145), "in which Lord Byron was personally concerned, undoubtedly

supplied the groundwork of this tale; but for the story so

circumstantially set forth (see Medwin's _Conversations_, 1824, pp. 121,

124) of his having been the lover of this female slave, there is no

foundation. The girl whose life the poet saved at Athens was not, we are

assured by Sir John Hobhouse (_Westminster Review_, January, 1825, iii.

27), an object of his Lordship's attachment, but of that of his Turkish

servant." Nevertheless, whatever Byron may have told Hobhouse (who had

returned to England), and he distinctly says (_Letters_, 1898, ii. 393)

that he did not tell him everything, he avowed to Clarke that he had

been led "to the water's edge," and confided to his diary that to

"describe the _feelings_ of _that_ situation was impossible--it is _icy_

even to recollect them."

For the allusive and fragmentary style of the _Giaour_, _The Voyage of

Columbus_, which Rogers published in 1812, is in part responsible. "It

is sudden in its transitions," wrote the author, in the Preface to the

first edition, "... leaving much to be imagined by the reader." The

story or a part of it is told by a fellow-seaman of Columbus, who had

turned "eremite" in his old age, and though the narrative itself is in

heroic verse, the prologue and epilogue, as they may be termed, are in

"the romance or ballad-measure of the Spanish." The resemblance between

the two poems is certainly more than accidental. On the other hand, a

vivid and impassioned description of Oriental scenery and customs was,

as Gifford observed, new and original, and though, by his own admission,

Byron was indebted to _Vathek_ (or rather S. Henley's notes to _Vathek_)

and to D'Herbelot's _Bibliothèque Orientale_ for allusions and details,

the "atmosphere" could only have been reproduced by the creative fancy

of an observant and enthusiastic traveller who had lived under Eastern

skies, and had come within ken of Eastern life and sentiment.

In spite, however, of his love for the subject-matter of his poem, and

the facility, surprising even to himself, with which he spun his rhymes,

Byron could not persuade himself that a succession of fragments would

sort themselves and grow into a complete and connected whole. If his

thrice-repeated depreciation of the _Giaour_ is not entirely genuine, it

is plain that he misdoubted himself. Writing to Murray (August 26,

1813) he says, "I have, but with some difficulty, _not_ added any more

to this snake of a poem, which has been lengthening its rattles every

month;" to Moore (September 1), "The _Giaour_ I have added to a good

deal, but still in foolish fragments;" and, again, to Moore (September

8), "By the coach I send you a copy of that awful pamphlet the

_Giaour_."

But while the author doubted and apologized, or deprecated "his love's

excess In words of wrong and bitterness," the public read, and edition

followed edition with bewildering speed.

The _Giaour_ was reviewed by George Agar Ellis in the _Quarterly_ (No.

xxxi., January, 1813 [published February 11, 1813]) and in the

_Edinburgh Review_ by Jeffrey (No. 54, January, 1813 [published February

24, 1813]).

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ON _THE GIAOUR_

The bibliography of the _Giaour_ is beset with difficulties, and it is

doubtful if more than approximate accuracy can be secured. The

composition of the entire poem in its present shape was accomplished

within six months, May-November, 1813, but during that period it was

expanded by successive accretions from a first draft of 407 lines

(extant in MS.) to a seventh edition of 1334 lines. A proof is extant of

an edition of 28 pages containing 460 lines, itself an enlargement on

the MS.; but whether (as a note in the handwriting of the late Mr.

Murray affirms) this was or was not published is uncertain. A portion of

a second proof of 38 pages has been preserved, but of the publication of

the poem in this state there is no record. On June 5 a first edition of

41 pages, containing 685 lines, was issued, and of this numerous copies

are extant. At the end of June, or the beginning of July, 1813, a second

edition, entitled, a "New Edition with some Additions," appeared. This

consisted of 47 pages, and numbered 816 lines. Among the accretions is

to be found the famous passage beginning, "He that hath bent him o'er

the dead." Two MS. copies of this _pannus vere purpureus_ are in Mr.

Murray's possession. At the end of July, and during the first half of

August, two or more issues of a third edition were set up in type. The

first issue amounted to 53 pages, containing 950 lines, was certainly

published in this form, and possibly a second issue of 56 pages,

containing 1004 lines, may have followed at a brief interval. A revise

of this second issue, dated August 13, is extant. In the last fortnight

of August a fourth edition of 58 pages, containing 1048 lines,

undoubtedly saw the light. Scarcely more than a few days can have

elapsed before a fifth edition of 66 pages, containing 1215 lines, was

ready to supplant the fourth edition. A sixth edition, a reproduction of

the fifth, may have appeared in October. A seventh edition of 75 pages,

containing 1334 lines, which presented the poem in its final shape, was

issued subsequently to November 27, 1813 (a seventh edition was

advertised in the _Morning Chronicle_, December 22, 1813), the date of

the last revise, or of an advance copy of the issue. The ninth, tenth,

eleventh, and twelfth editions belong to 1814, while a fourteenth

edition is known to have been issued in 1815. In that year and

henceforward the _Giaour_ was included in the various collected editions

of Byron's works. The subjoined table assigns to their several editions

the successive accretions in their order as now published:--

Lines. _Giaour_. Edition of----

1--6. _MS. First edition of 28 pages._

7--20. Second edition. [47 pages, 816 lines.] Approximate date,

June 24, 1813.

21--45. Third edition. [53 pages, 950 lines.] July 30, 1813.

46--102. Second edition.

103--167. Fifth edition. [66 pages, 1215 lines.] August 25, 1813.

168--199. _MS. First edition of 28 pages._

200--250. Third edition.

251--252. Seventh edition. [75 pages, 1334 lines.] November 27, 1813.

253--276. Third edition.

277--287. _MS. First edition of 28 pages._

288--351. Third edition. (Second issue?) August 11, 1813.

[56 pages, 1004,? 1014 lines.]

352--503. _MS. First edition of 28 pages._

504--518. Third edition.

519--619. _MS. First edition of 28 pages._

620--654. Second edition.

655--688. _MS. First edition of 28 pages._

689--722. Fourth edition. [58 pages, 1048 lines.] August 19.

723--737. _MS. First edition of 28 pages._

733-4 not in the MS., but in

First edition of 28 pages.

738--745. _First edition of_ 41 _pages_. June 5, 1813.

746--786. First edition of 28 pages. Not in the MS.

787--831. _MS. First edition of 28 pages_.

832--915. Seventh edition.

916--998. _First edition of 41 pages_.

937-970 no MS.

999--1023. Second edition.

1024--1028. Seventh edition.

1029--1079. _First edition of 41 pages_.

1080--1098. Third edition.

1099--1125. _First edition of 41 pages_.

1126--1130. Seventh edition.

1131--1191. Fifth edition.

1192--1217. Seventh edition.

1218--1256. Fifth edition.

1257--1318. _First edition of 41 pages_.

1319--1334. _MS. First edition of 28 pages_.

NOTE.

The first edition is advertised in the _Morning Chronicle_, June 5; a

third edition on August 11, 13, 16, 31; a fifth edition, with

considerable additions, on September 11; on November 29 a "new edition;"

and on December 27, 1813, a seventh edition, together with a repeated

notice of the _Bride of Abydos_. These dates do not exactly correspond

with Murray's contemporary memoranda of the dates of the successive

issues.

SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ.

as a slight but most sincere token

of admiration of his genius,

respect for his character,

and gratitude for his friendship,

THIS PRODUCTION IS INSCRIBED

by his obliged

and affectionate servant,

BYRON.

London, _May_, 1813.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The tale which these disjointed fragments present, is founded upon

circumstances now less common in the East than formerly; either because

the ladies are more circumspect than in the "olden time," or because the

Christians have better fortune, or less enterprise. The story, when

entire, contained the adventures of a female slave, who was thrown, in

the Mussulman manner, into the sea for infidelity, and avenged by a

young Venetian, her lover, at the time the Seven Islands were possessed

by the Republic of Venice, and soon after the Arnauts were beaten back

from the Morea, which they had ravaged for some time subsequent to the

Russian invasion. The desertion of the Mainotes, on being refused the

plunder of Misitra, led to the abandonment of that enterprise, and to

the desolation of the Morea, during which the cruelty exercised on all

sides was unparalleled even in the annals of the faithful.

THE GIAOUR.

No breath of air to break the wave

That rolls below the Athenian's grave,

That tomb[55] which, gleaming o'er the cliff,

First greets the homeward-veering skiff

High o'er the land he saved in vain;

When shall such Hero live again?

* * * * *

Fair clime! where every season smiles[cg]

Benignant o'er those blessed isles,

Which, seen from far Colonna's height,

Make glad the heart that hails the sight, 10

And lend to loneliness delight.

There mildly dimpling, Ocean's cheek

Reflects the tints of many a peak

Caught by the laughing tides that lave

These Edens of the eastern wave:

And if at times a transient breeze

Break the blue crystal of the seas,

Or sweep one blossom from the trees,

How welcome is each gentle air

That wakes and wafts the odours there! 20

For there the Rose, o'er crag or vale,

Sultana of the Nightingale,[56]

The maid for whom his melody,

His thousand songs are heard on high,

Blooms blushing to her lover's tale:

His queen, the garden queen, his Rose,

Unbent by winds, unchilled by snows,

Far from the winters of the west,

By every breeze and season blest,

Returns the sweets by Nature given 30

In softest incense back to Heaven;

And grateful yields that smiling sky

Her fairest hue and fragrant sigh.

And many a summer flower is there,

And many a shade that Love might share,

And many a grotto, meant for rest,

That holds the pirate for a guest;

Whose bark in sheltering cove below

Lurks for the passing peaceful prow,

Till the gay mariner's guitar[57] 40

Is heard, and seen the Evening Star;

Then stealing with the muffled oar,

Far shaded by the rocky shore,

Rush the night-prowlers on the prey,

And turn to groans his roundelay.

Strange--that where Nature loved to trace,

As if for Gods, a dwelling place,

And every charm and grace hath mixed

Within the Paradise she fixed,

There man, enamoured of distress, 50

Should mar it into wilderness,[ch]

And trample, brute-like, o'er each flower

That tasks not one laborious hour;

Nor claims the culture of his hand

To bloom along the fairy land,

But springs as to preclude his care,

And sweetly woos him--but to spare!

Strange--that where all is Peace beside,

There Passion riots in her pride,

And Lust and Rapine wildly reign 60

To darken o'er the fair domain.

It is as though the Fiends prevailed

Against the Seraphs they assailed,

And, fixed on heavenly thrones, should dwell

The freed inheritors of Hell;

So soft the scene, so formed for joy,

So curst the tyrants that destroy!

He who hath bent him o'er the dead[ci][58]

Ere the first day of Death is fled,

The first dark day of Nothingness, 70

The last of Danger and Distress,

(Before Decay's effacing fingers

Have swept the lines where Beauty lingers,)

And marked the mild angelic air,

The rapture of Repose that's there,[cj]

The fixed yet tender traits that streak

The languor of the placid cheek,

And--but for that sad shrouded eye,

That fires not, wins not, weeps not, now,

And but for that chill, changeless brow, 80

Where cold Obstruction's apathy[59]

Appals the gazing mourner's heart,[ck]

As if to him it could impart

The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon;

Yes, but for these and these alone,

Some moments, aye, one treacherous hour,

He still might doubt the Tyrant's power;

So fair, so calm, so softly sealed,

The first, last look by Death revealed![60]

Such is the aspect of this shore; 90

'Tis Greece, but living Greece no more![61]

So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,

We start, for Soul is wanting there.

Hers is the loveliness in death,

That parts not quite with parting breath;

But beauty with that fearful bloom,

That hue which haunts it to the tomb,

Expression's last receding ray,

A gilded Halo hovering round decay,

The farewell beam of Feeling past away! 100

Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly birth,

Which gleams, but warms no more its cherished earth!

Clime of the unforgotten brave![62]

Whose land from plain to mountain-cave

Was Freedom's home or Glory's grave!

Shrine of the mighty! can it be,[cl]

That this is all remains of thee?

Approach, thou craven crouching slave:[63]

Say, is not this Thermopylæ?[cm]

These waters blue that round you lave,-- 110

Oh servile offspring of the free--

Pronounce what sea, what shore is this?

The gulf, the rock of Salamis!

These scenes, their story not unknown,

Arise, and make again your own;

Snatch from the ashes of your Sires

The embers of their former fires;

And he who in the strife expires[cn]

Will add to theirs a name of fear

That Tyranny shall quake to hear, 120

And leave his sons a hope, a fame,

They too will rather die than shame:

For Freedom's battle once begun,

Bequeathed by bleeding Sire to Son,[co]

Though baffled oft is ever won.

Bear witness, Greece, thy living page!

Attest it many a deathless age![cp]

While Kings, in dusty darkness hid,

Have left a nameless pyramid,

Thy Heroes, though the general doom 130

Hath swept the column from their tomb,

A mightier monument command,

The mountains of their native land!

There points thy Muse to stranger's eye[cq]

The graves of those that cannot die!

'Twere long to tell, and sad to trace,

Each step from Splendour to Disgrace;

Enough--no foreign foe could quell

Thy soul, till from itself it fell;

Yet! Self-abasement paved the way 140

To villain-bonds and despot sway.

What can he tell who treads thy shore?

No legend of thine olden time,

No theme on which the Muse might soar

High as thine own in days of yore,

When man was worthy of thy clime.

The hearts within thy valleys bred,[cr]

The fiery souls that might have led

Thy sons to deeds sublime,

Now crawl from cradle to the Grave, 150

Slaves--nay, the bondsmen of a Slave,[64]

And callous, save to crime;

Stained with each evil that pollutes

Mankind, where least above the brutes;

Without even savage virtue blest,

Without one free or valiant breast,

Still to the neighbouring ports they waft[cs]

Proverbial wiles, and ancient craft;

In this the subtle Greek is found,

For this, and this alone, renowned. 160

In vain might Liberty invoke

The spirit to its bondage broke

Or raise the neck that courts the yoke:

No more her sorrows I bewail,

Yet this will be a mournful tale,

And they who listen may believe,

Who heard it first had cause to grieve.

* * * * *

Far, dark, along the blue sea glancing,

The shadows of the rocks advancing

Start on the fisher's eye like boat 170

Of island-pirate or Mainote;

And fearful for his light caïque,

He shuns the near but doubtful creek:[ct]

Though worn and weary with his toil,

And cumbered with his scaly spoil,

Slowly, yet strongly, plies the oar,

Till Port Leone's safer shore

Receives him by the lovely light

That best becomes an Eastern night.

* * * * *

Who thundering comes on blackest steed,[65] 180

With slackened bit and hoof of speed?

Beneath the clattering iron's sound

The caverned Echoes wake around

In lash for lash, and bound for bound:

The foam that streaks the courser's side

Seems gathered from the Ocean-tide:

Though weary waves are sunk to rest,

There's none within his rider's breast;

And though to-morrow's tempest lower,

'Tis calmer than thy heart, young Giaour![66] 190

I know thee not, I loathe thy race,

But in thy lineaments I trace

What Time shall strengthen, not efface:

Though young and pale, that sallow front

Is scathed by fiery Passion's brunt;

Though bent on earth thine evil eye,[cu]

As meteor-like thou glidest by,

Right well I view and deem thee one

Whom Othman's sons should slay or shun.

On--on he hastened, and he drew 200

My gaze of wonder as he flew:[cv]

Though like a Demon of the night

He passed, and vanished from my sight,

His aspect and his air impressed

A troubled memory on my breast,

And long upon my startled ear

Rung his dark courser's hoofs of fear.

He spurs his steed; he nears the steep,

That, jutting, shadows o'er the deep;

He winds around; he hurries by; 210

The rock relieves him from mine eye;

For, well I ween, unwelcome he

Whose glance is fixed on those that flee;

And not a star but shines too bright

On him who takes such timeless flight.[cw]

He wound along; but ere he passed

One glance he snatched, as if his last,

A moment checked his wheeling steed,[67]

A moment breathed him from his speed,

A moment on his stirrup stood-- 220

Why looks he o'er the olive wood?[cx]

The Crescent glimmers on the hill,

The Mosque's high lamps are quivering still

Though too remote for sound to wake

In echoes of the far tophaike,[68]

The flashes of each joyous peal

Are seen to prove the Moslem's zeal.

To-night, set Rhamazani's sun;

To-night, the Bairam feast's begun;

To-night--but who and what art thou 230

Of foreign garb and fearful brow?

And what are these to thine or thee,

That thou shouldst either pause or flee?

He stood--some dread was on his face,

Soon Hatred settled in its place:

It rose not with the reddening flush

Of transient Anger's hasty blush,[cy][69]

But pale as marble o'er the tomb,

Whose ghastly whiteness aids its gloom.

His brow was bent, his eye was glazed; 240

He raised his arm, and fiercely raised,

And sternly shook his hand on high,

As doubting to return or fly;[cz]

Impatient of his flight delayed,

Here loud his raven charger neighed--

Down glanced that hand, and grasped his blade;

That sound had burst his waking dream,

As Slumber starts at owlet's scream.

The spur hath lanced his courser's sides;

Away--away--for life he rides: 250

Swift as the hurled on high jerreed[70]

Springs to the touch his startled steed;

The rock is doubled, and the shore

Shakes with the clattering tramp no more;

The crag is won, no more is seen

His Christian crest and haughty mien.

'Twas but an instant he restrained

That fiery barb so sternly reined;[da]

'Twas but a moment that he stood,

Then sped as if by Death pursued; 260

But in that instant o'er his soul

Winters of Memory seemed to roll,

And gather in that drop of time

A life of pain, an age of crime.

O'er him who loves, or hates, or fears,

Such moment pours the grief of years:[db]

What felt _he_ then, at once opprest

By all that most distracts the breast?

That pause, which pondered o'er his fate,

Oh, who its dreary length shall date! 270

Though in Time's record nearly nought,

It was Eternity to Thought![71]

For infinite as boundless space

The thought that Conscience must embrace,

Which in itself can comprehend

Woe without name, or hope, or end.[72]

The hour is past, the Giaour is gone:

And did he fly or fall alone?[dc]

Woe to that hour he came or went!

The curse for Hassan's sin was sent 280

To turn a palace to a tomb;

He came, he went, like the Simoom,[73]

That harbinger of Fate and gloom,

Beneath whose widely-wasting breath

The very cypress droops to death--

Dark tree, still sad when others' grief is fled,

The only constant mourner o'er the dead!

The steed is vanished from the stall;

No serf is seen in Hassan's hall;

The lonely Spider's thin gray pall[dd] 290

Waves slowly widening o'er the wall;

The Bat builds in his Haram bower,[74]

And in the fortress of his power

The Owl usurps the beacon-tower;

The wild-dog howls o'er the fountain's brim,

With baffled thirst, and famine, grim;

For the stream has shrunk from its marble bed,

Where the weeds and the desolate dust are spread.

'Twas sweet of yore to see it play

And chase the sultriness of day, 300

As springing high the silver dew[de]

In whirls fantastically flew,

And flung luxurious coolness round

The air, and verdure o'er the ground.

'Twas sweet, when cloudless stars were bright,

To view the wave of watery light,

And hear its melody by night.

And oft had Hassan's Childhood played

Around the verge of that cascade;

And oft upon his mother's breast 310

That sound had harmonized his rest;

And oft had Hassan's Youth along

Its bank been soothed by Beauty's song;

And softer seemed each melting tone

Of Music mingled with its own.

But ne'er shall Hassan's Age repose

Along the brink at Twilight's close:

The stream that filled that font is fled--

The blood that warmed his heart is shed![df]

And here no more shall human voice 320

Be heard to rage, regret, rejoice.

The last sad note that swelled the gale

Was woman's wildest funeral wail:

That quenched in silence, all is still,

But the lattice that flaps when the wind is shrill:

Though raves the gust, and floods the rain,

No hand shall close its clasp again.

On desert sands 'twere joy to scan

The rudest steps of fellow man,

So here the very voice of Grief 330

Might wake an Echo like relief--[dg]

At least 'twould say, "All are not gone;

There lingers Life, though but in one"--[dh]

For many a gilded chamber's there,

Which Solitude might well forbear;[75]

Within that dome as yet Decay

Hath slowly worked her cankering way--

But gloom is gathered o'er the gate,

Nor there the Fakir's self will wait;

Nor there will wandering Dervise stay, 340

For Bounty cheers not his delay;

Nor there will weary stranger halt

To bless the sacred "bread and salt."[di][76]

Alike must Wealth and Poverty

Pass heedless and unheeded by,

For Courtesy and Pity died

With Hassan on the mountain side.

His roof, that refuge unto men,

Is Desolation's hungry den.

The guest flies the hall, and the vassal from labour, 350

Since his turban was cleft by the infidel's sabre![dj][77]

* * * * *

I hear the sound of coming feet,

But not a voice mine ear to greet;

More near--each turban I can scan,

And silver-sheathèd ataghan;[78]

The foremost of the band is seen

An Emir by his garb of green:[79]

"Ho! who art thou?"--"This low salam[80]

Replies of Moslem faith I am.[dk]

The burthen ye so gently bear, 360

Seems one that claims your utmost care,

And, doubtless, holds some precious freight--

My humble bark would gladly wait."[dl]

"Thou speakest sooth: thy skiff unmoor,

And waft us from the silent shore;

Nay, leave the sail still furled, and ply

The nearest oar that's scattered by,

And midway to those rocks where sleep

The channelled waters dark and deep.

Rest from your task--so--bravely done, 370

Our course has been right swiftly run;

Yet 'tis the longest voyage, I trow,

That one of--[81] * * * "

* * * * *

Sullen it plunged, and slowly sank,

The calm wave rippled to the bank;

I watched it as it sank, methought

Some motion from the current caught

Bestirred it more,--'twas but the beam

That checkered o'er the living stream:

I gazed, till vanishing from view, 380

Like lessening pebble it withdrew;

Still less and less, a speck of white

That gemmed the tide, then mocked the sight;

And all its hidden secrets sleep,

Known but to Genii of the deep,

Which, trembling in their coral caves,

They dare not whisper to the waves.

* * * * *

As rising on its purple wing

The insect-queen[82] of Eastern spring,

O'er emerald meadows of Kashmeer 390

Invites the young pursuer near,

And leads him on from flower to flower

A weary chase and wasted hour,

Then leaves him, as it soars on high,

With panting heart and tearful eye:

So Beauty lures the full-grown child,

With hue as bright, and wing as wild:

A chase of idle hopes and fears,

Begun in folly, closed in tears.

If won, to equal ills betrayed,[dm] 400

Woe waits the insect and the maid;

A life of pain, the loss of peace;

From infant's play, and man's caprice:

The lovely toy so fiercely sought

Hath lost its charm by being caught,

For every touch that wooed its stay

Hath brushed its brightest hues away,

Till charm, and hue, and beauty gone,

'Tis left to fly or fall alone.

With wounded wing, or bleeding breast, 410

Ah! where shall either victim rest?

Can this with faded pinion soar

From rose to tulip as before?

Or Beauty, blighted in an hour,

Find joy within her broken bower?

No: gayer insects fluttering by

Ne'er droop the wing o'er those that die,

And lovelier things have mercy shown

To every failing but their own,

And every woe a tear can claim 420

Except an erring Sister's shame.

* * * * *

The Mind, that broods o'er guilty woes,

Is like the Scorpion girt by fire;

In circle narrowing as it glows,[dn]

The flames around their captive close,

Till inly searched by thousand throes,

And maddening in her ire,

One sad and sole relief she knows--

The sting she nourished for her foes,

Whose venom never yet was vain, 430

Gives but one pang, and cures all pain,

And darts into her desperate brain:

So do the dark in soul expire,

Or live like Scorpion girt by fire;[83]

So writhes the mind Remorse hath riven,[do]

Unfit for earth, undoomed for heaven,

Darkness above, despair beneath,

Around it flame, within it death!

* * * * *

Black Hassan from the Haram flies,

Nor bends on woman's form his eyes; 440

The unwonted chase each hour employs,

Yet shares he not the hunter's joys.

Not thus was Hassan wont to fly

When Leila dwelt in his Serai.

Doth Leila there no longer dwell?

That tale can only Hassan tell:

Strange rumours in our city say

Upon that eve she fled away

When Rhamazan's[84] last sun was set,

And flashing from each Minaret 450

Millions of lamps proclaimed the feast

Of Bairam through the boundless East.

'Twas then she went as to the bath,

Which Hassan vainly searched in wrath;

For she was flown her master's rage

In likeness of a Georgian page,

And far beyond the Moslem's power

Had wronged him with the faithless Giaour.

Somewhat of this had Hassan deemed;

But still so fond, so fair she seemed, 460

Too well he trusted to the slave

Whose treachery deserved a grave:

And on that eve had gone to Mosque,

And thence to feast in his Kiosk.

Such is the tale his Nubians tell,

Who did not watch their charge too well;

But others say, that on that night,

By pale Phingari's[85] trembling light,

The Giaour upon his jet-black steed

Was seen, but seen alone to speed 470

With bloody spur along the shore,

Nor maid nor page behind him bore.

* * * * *

Her eye's dark charm 'twere vain to tell,

But gaze on that of the Gazelle,

It will assist thy fancy well;

As large, as languishingly dark,

But Soul beamed forth in every spark

That darted from beneath the lid,

Bright as the jewel of Giamschid.[86]

Yea, _Soul_, and should our prophet say 480

That form was nought but breathing clay,

By Alla! I would answer nay;

Though on Al-Sirat's[87] arch I stood,

Which totters o'er the fiery flood,

With Paradise within my view,

And all his Houris beckoning through.

Oh! who young Leila's glance could read

And keep that portion of his creed

Which saith that woman is but dust,

A soulless toy for tyrant's lust?[88] 490

On her might Muftis gaze, and own

That through her eye the Immortal shone;

On her fair cheek's unfading hue

The young pomegranate's[89] blossoms strew

Their bloom in blushes ever new;

Her hair in hyacinthine flow,[90]

When left to roll its folds below,

As midst her handmaids in the hall

She stood superior to them all,

Hath swept the marble where her feet 500

Gleamed whiter than the mountain sleet

Ere from the cloud that gave it birth

It fell, and caught one stain of earth.

The cygnet nobly walks the water;

So moved on earth Circassia's daughter,

The loveliest bird of Franguestan![91]

As rears her crest the ruffled Swan,

And spurns the wave with wings of pride,

When pass the steps of stranger man

Along the banks that bound her tide; 510

Thus rose fair Leila's whiter neck:--

Thus armed with beauty would she check

Intrusion's glance, till Folly's gaze

Shrunk from the charms it meant to praise.

Thus high and graceful was her gait;

Her heart as tender to her mate;

Her mate--stern Hassan, who was he?

Alas! that name was not for thee![92]

* * * * *

Stern Hassan hath a journey ta'en

With twenty vassals in his train, 520

Each armed, as best becomes a man,

With arquebuss and ataghan;

The chief before, as decked for war,

Bears in his belt the scimitar

Stained with the best of Arnaut blood,

When in the pass the rebels stood,

And few returned to tell the tale

Of what befell in Parne's vale.

The pistols which his girdle bore

Were those that once a Pasha wore, 530

Which still, though gemmed and bossed with gold,

Even robbers tremble to behold.

'Tis said he goes to woo a bride

More true than her who left his side;

The faithless slave that broke her bower,

And--worse than faithless--for a Giaour!

* * * * *

The sun's last rays are on the hill,

And sparkle in the fountain rill,

Whose welcome waters, cool and clear,

Draw blessings from the mountaineer: 540

Here may the loitering merchant Greek

Find that repose 'twere vain to seek

In cities lodged too near his lord,

And trembling for his secret hoard--

Here may he rest where none can see,

In crowds a slave, in deserts free;

And with forbidden wine may stain

The bowl a Moslem must not drain

* * * * *

The foremost Tartar's in the gap

Conspicuous by his yellow cap; 550

The rest in lengthening line the while

Wind slowly through the long defile:

Above, the mountain rears a peak,

Where vultures whet the thirsty beak,

And theirs may be a feast to-night,

Shall tempt them down ere morrow's light;

Beneath, a river's wintry stream

Has shrunk before the summer beam,

And left a channel bleak and bare,

Save shrubs that spring to perish there: 560

Each side the midway path there lay

Small broken crags of granite gray,

By time, or mountain lightning, riven

From summits clad in mists of heaven;

For where is he that hath beheld

The peak of Liakura[93] unveiled?

* * * * *

They reach the grove of pine at last;

"Bismillah![94] now the peril's past;

For yonder view the opening plain,

And there we'll prick our steeds amain:" 570

The Chiaus[95] spake, and as he said,

A bullet whistled o'er his head;

The foremost Tartar bites the ground!

Scarce had they time to check the rein,

Swift from their steeds the riders bound;

But three shall never mount again:

Unseen the foes that gave the wound,

The dying ask revenge in vain.

With steel unsheathed, and carbine bent,

Some o'er their courser's harness leant, 580

Half sheltered by the steed;

Some fly beneath the nearest rock,

And there await the coming shock,

Nor tamely stand to bleed

Beneath the shaft of foes unseen,

Who dare not quit their craggy screen.

Stern Hassan only from his horse

Disdains to light, and keeps his course,

Till fiery flashes in the van

Proclaim too sure the robber-clan 590

Have well secured the only way

Could now avail the promised prey;

Then curled his very beard[96] with ire,

And glared his eye with fiercer fire;

"Though far and near the bullets hiss,

I've scaped a bloodier hour than this."

And now the foe their covert quit,

And call his vassals to submit;

But Hassan's frown and furious word

Are dreaded more than hostile sword, 600

Nor of his little band a man

Resigned carbine or ataghan,

Nor raised the craven cry, Amaun![97]

In fuller sight, more near and near,

The lately ambushed foes appear,

And, issuing from the grove, advance

Some who on battle-charger prance.

Who leads them on with foreign brand

Far flashing in his red right hand?

"'Tis he!'tis he! I know him now; 610

I know him by his pallid brow;

I know him by the evil eye[98]

That aids his envious treachery;

I know him by his jet-black barb;

Though now arrayed in Arnaut garb,

Apostate from his own vile faith,

It shall not save him from the death:

'Tis he! well met in any hour,

Lost Leila's love--accursed Giaour!"

As rolls the river into Ocean,[99] 620

In sable torrent wildly streaming;

As the sea-tide's opposing motion,

In azure column proudly gleaming,

Beats back the current many a rood,

In curling foam and mingling flood,

While eddying whirl, and breaking wave,

Roused by the blast of winter, rave;

Through sparkling spray, in thundering clash,

The lightnings of the waters flash

In awful whiteness o'er the shore, 630

That shines and shakes beneath the roar;

Thus--as the stream and Ocean greet,

With waves that madden as they meet--

Thus join the bands, whom mutual wrong,

And fate, and fury, drive along.

The bickering sabres' shivering jar;

And pealing wide or ringing near

Its echoes on the throbbing ear,

The deathshot hissing from afar;

The shock, the shout, the groan of war, 640

Reverberate along that vale,

More suited to the shepherd's tale:

Though few the numbers--theirs the strife,

That neither spares nor speaks for life![dp]

Ah! fondly youthful hearts can press,

To seize and share the dear caress;

But Love itself could never pant

For all that Beauty sighs to grant

With half the fervour Hate bestows

Upon the last embrace of foes, 650

When grappling in the fight they fold

Those arms that ne'er shall lose their hold:

Friends meet to part; Love laughs at faith;

True foes, once met, are joined till death!

* * * * *

With sabre shivered to the hilt,

Yet dripping with the blood he spilt;

Yet strained within the severed hand

Which quivers round that faithless brand;

His turban far behind him rolled,

And cleft in twain its firmest fold; 660

His flowing robe by falchion torn,

And crimson as those clouds of morn

That, streaked with dusky red, portend

The day shall have a stormy end;

A stain on every bush that bore

A fragment of his palampore;[100]

His breast with wounds unnumbered riven,

His back to earth, his face to Heaven,

Fall'n Hassan lies--his unclosed eye

Yet lowering on his enemy, 670

As if the hour that sealed his fate[101]

Surviving left his quenchless hate;

And o'er him bends that foe with brow

As dark as his that bled below.

* * * * *

"Yes, Leila sleeps beneath the wave,

But his shall be a redder grave;

Her spirit pointed well the steel

Which taught that felon heart to feel.

He called the Prophet, but his power

Was vain against the vengeful Giaour: 680

He called on Alla--but the word

Arose unheeded or unheard.

Thou Paynim fool! could Leila's prayer

Be passed, and thine accorded there?

I watched my time, I leagued with these,

The traitor in his turn to seize;

My wrath is wreaked, the deed is done,

And now I go--but go alone."

* * * * *

The browsing camels' bells are tinkling:[dq]

His mother looked from her lattice high--[102] 690

She saw the dews of eve besprinkling

The pasture green beneath her eye,

She saw the planets faintly twinkling:

"'Tis twilight--sure his train is nigh."

She could not rest in the garden-bower,

But gazed through the grate of his steepest tower.

"Why comes he not? his steeds are fleet,

Nor shrink they from the summer heat;

Why sends not the Bridegroom his promised gift?

Is his heart more cold, or his barb less swift? 700

Oh, false reproach! yon Tartar now

Has gained our nearest mountain's brow,

And warily the steep descends,

And now within the valley bends;[dr]

And he bears the gift at his saddle bow--

How could I deem his courser slow?[ds]

Right well my largess shall repay

His welcome speed, and weary way."

The Tartar lighted at the gate,

But scarce upheld his fainting weight![dt] 710

His swarthy visage spake distress,

But this might be from weariness;

His garb with sanguine spots was dyed,

But these might be from his courser's side;

He drew the token from his vest--

Angel of Death! 'tis Hassan's cloven crest!

His calpac[103] rent--his caftan red--

"Lady, a fearful bride thy Son hath wed:

Me, not from mercy, did they spare,

But this empurpled pledge to bear. 720

Peace to the brave! whose blood is spilt:

Woe to the Giaour! for his the guilt."

* * * * *

A Turban[104] carved in coarsest stone,

A Pillar with rank weeds o'ergrown,

Whereon can now be scarcely read

The Koran verse that mourns the dead,

Point out the spot where Hassan fell

A victim in that lonely dell.

There sleeps as true an Osmanlie

As e'er at Mecca bent the knee; 730

As ever scorned forbidden wine,

Or prayed with face towards the shrine,

In orisons resumed anew

At solemn sound of "Alla Hu!"[105]

Yet died he by a stranger's hand,

And stranger in his native land;

Yet died he as in arms he stood,

And unavenged, at least in blood.

But him the maids of Paradise

Impatient to their halls invite, 740

And the dark heaven of Houris' eyes

On him shall glance for ever bright;

They come--their kerchiefs green they wave,[106]

And welcome with a kiss the brave!

Who falls in battle 'gainst a Giaour

Is worthiest an immortal bower.

* * * * *

But thou, false Infidel! shall writhe

Beneath avenging Monkir's[107] scythe;

And from its torments 'scape alone

To wander round lost Eblis'[108] throne; 750

And fire unquenched, unquenchable,

Around, within, thy heart shall dwell;

Nor ear can hear nor tongue can tell

The tortures of that inward hell!

But first, on earth as Vampire[109] sent,

Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent:

Then ghastly haunt thy native place,

And suck the blood of all thy race;

There from thy daughter, sister, wife,

At midnight drain the stream of life; 760

Yet loathe the banquet which perforce

Must feed thy livid living corse:

Thy victims ere they yet expire

Shall know the demon for their sire,

As cursing thee, thou cursing them,

Thy flowers are withered on the stem.

But one that for thy crime must fall,

The youngest, most beloved of all,

Shall bless thee with a _father's_ name--

That word shall wrap thy heart in flame! 770

Yet must thou end thy task, and mark

Her cheek's last tinge, her eye's last spark,

And the last glassy glance must view

Which freezes o'er its lifeless blue;

Then with unhallowed hand shalt tear

The tresses of her yellow hair,

Of which in life a lock when shorn

Affection's fondest pledge was worn,

But now is borne away by thee,

Memorial of thine agony! 780

Wet with thine own best blood shall drip

Thy gnashing tooth and haggard lip;[110]

Then stalking to thy sullen grave,

Go--and with Gouls and Afrits rave;

Till these in horror shrink away

From Spectre more accursed than they!

* * * * *

"How name ye yon lone Caloyer?[111]

His features I have scanned before

In mine own land: 'tis many a year,

Since, dashing by the lonely shore, 790

I saw him urge as fleet a steed

As ever served a horseman's need.

But once I saw that face, yet then

It was so marked with inward pain,

I could not pass it by again;

It breathes the same dark spirit now,

As death were stamped upon his brow.[du]

"'Tis twice three years at summer tide

Since first among our freres he came;

And here it soothes him to abide 800

For some dark deed he will not name.

But never at our Vesper prayer,

Nor e'er before Confession chair

Kneels he, nor recks he when arise

Incense or anthem to the skies,

But broods within his cell alone,

His faith and race alike unknown.

The sea from Paynim land he crost,

And here ascended from the coast;

Yet seems he not of Othman race, 810

But only Christian in his face:

I'd judge him some stray renegade,

Repentant of the change he made,

Save that he shuns our holy shrine,

Nor tastes the sacred bread and wine.

Great largess to these walls he brought,

And thus our Abbot's favour bought;

But were I Prior, not a day

Should brook such stranger's further stay,

Or pent within our penance cell 820

Should doom him there for aye to dwell.

Much in his visions mutters he

Of maiden whelmed beneath the sea;[dv]

Of sabres clashing, foemen flying,

Wrongs avenged, and Moslem dying.

On cliff he hath been known to stand,

And rave as to some bloody hand

Fresh severed from its parent limb,

Invisible to all but him,

Which beckons onward to his grave, 830

And lures to leap into the wave."

* * * * *

Dark and unearthly is the scowl

That glares beneath his dusky cowl:

The flash of that dilating eye

Reveals too much of times gone by;

Though varying, indistinct its hue,

Oft with his glance the gazer rue,

For in it lurks that nameless spell,

Which speaks, itself unspeakable,

A spirit yet unquelled and high, 840

That claims and keeps ascendancy;

And like the bird whose pinions quake,

But cannot fly the gazing snake,

Will others quail beneath his look,

Nor 'scape the glance they scarce can brook.

From him the half-affrighted Friar

When met alone would fain retire,

As if that eye and bitter smile

Transferred to others fear and guile:

Not oft to smile descendeth he, 850

And when he doth 'tis sad to see

That he but mocks at Misery.

How that pale lip will curl and quiver!

Then fix once more as if for ever;

As if his sorrow or disdain

Forbade him e'er to smile again.

Well were it so--such ghastly mirth

From joyaunce ne'er derived its birth.

But sadder still it were to trace

What once were feelings in that face: 860

Time hath not yet the features fixed,

But brighter traits with evil mixed;

And there are hues not always faded,

Which speak a mind not all degraded

Even by the crimes through which it waded:

The common crowd but see the gloom

Of wayward deeds, and fitting doom;

The close observer can espy

A noble soul, and lineage high:

Alas! though both bestowed in vain, 870

Which Grief could change, and Guilt could stain,

It was no vulgar tenement

To which such lofty gifts were lent,

And still with little less than dread

On such the sight is riveted.

The roofless cot, decayed and rent,

Will scarce delay the passer-by;

The tower by war or tempest bent,

While yet may frown one battlement,

Demands and daunts the stranger's eye; 880

Each ivied arch, and pillar lone,

Pleads haughtily for glories gone!

"His floating robe around him folding,

Slow sweeps he through the columned aisle;

With dread beheld, with gloom beholding

The rites that sanctify the pile.

But when the anthem shakes the choir,

And kneel the monks, his steps retire;

By yonder lone and wavering torch

His aspect glares within the porch; 890

There will he pause till all is done--

And hear the prayer, but utter none.

See--by the half-illumined wall[dw]

His hood fly back, his dark hair fall,

That pale brow wildly wreathing round,

As if the Gorgon there had bound

The sablest of the serpent-braid

That o'er her fearful forehead strayed:

For he declines the convent oath,

And leaves those locks unhallowed growth, 900

But wears our garb in all beside;

And, not from piety but pride,

Gives wealth to walls that never heard

Of his one holy vow nor word.

Lo!--mark ye, as the harmony[dx]

Peals louder praises to the sky,

That livid cheek, that stony air

Of mixed defiance and despair!

Saint Francis, keep him from the shrine![dy]

Else may we dread the wrath divine 910

Made manifest by awful sign.

If ever evil angel bore

The form of mortal, such he wore;

By all my hope of sins forgiven,

Such looks are not of earth nor heaven!"

To Love the softest hearts are prone,

But such can ne'er be all his own;

Too timid in his woes to share,

Too meek to meet, or brave despair;

And sterner hearts alone may feel 920

The wound that Time can never heal.

The rugged metal of the mine

Must burn before its surface shine,[dz][112]

But plunged within the furnace-flame,

It bends and melts--though still the same;

Then tempered to thy want, or will,

'Twill serve thee to defend or kill--

A breast-plate for thine hour of need,

Or blade to bid thy foeman bleed;

But if a dagger's form it bear, 930

Let those who shape its edge, beware!

Thus Passion's fire, and Woman's art,

Can turn and tame the sterner heart;

From these its form and tone are ta'en,

And what they make it, must remain,

But break--before it bend again.

* * * * *

If solitude succeed to grief,

Release from pain is slight relief;

The vacant bosom's wilderness

Might thank the pang that made it less.[113] 940

We loathe what none are left to share:

Even bliss--'twere woe alone to bear;

The heart once left thus desolate

Must fly at last for ease--to hate.

It is as if the dead could feel[114]

The icy worm around them steal,

And shudder, as the reptiles creep

To revel o'er their rotting sleep,

Without the power to scare away

The cold consumers of their clay! 950

It is as if the desert bird,[115]

Whose beak unlocks her bosom's stream

To still her famished nestlings' scream,

Nor mourns a life to them transferred,

Should rend her rash devoted breast,

And find them flown her empty nest.

The keenest pangs the wretched find

Are rapture to the dreary void,

The leafless desert of the mind,

The waste of feelings unemployed. 960

Who would be doomed to gaze upon

A sky without a cloud or sun?

Less hideous far the tempest's roar,

Than ne'er to brave the billows more--[ea]

Thrown, when the war of winds is o'er,

A lonely wreck on Fortune's shore,

'Mid sullen calm, and silent bay,

Unseen to drop by dull decay;--

Better to sink beneath the shock

Than moulder piecemeal on the rock! 970

* * * * *

"Father! thy, days have passed in peace,

'Mid counted beads, and countless prayer;

To bid the sins of others cease,

Thyself without a crime or care,

Save transient ills that all must bear,

Has been thy lot from youth to age;

And thou wilt bless thee from the rage

Of passions fierce and uncontrolled,

Such as thy penitents unfold,

Whose secret sins and sorrows rest 980

Within thy pure and pitying breast.

My days, though few, have passed below

In much of Joy, but more of Woe;

Yet still in hours of love or strife,

I've 'scaped the weariness of Life:

Now leagued with friends, now girt by foes,

I loathed the languor of repose.

Now nothing left to love or hate,

No more with hope or pride elate,

I'd rather be the thing that crawls 990

Most noxious o'er a dungeon's walls,[116]

Than pass my dull, unvarying days,

Condemned to meditate and gaze.

Yet, lurks a wish within my breast

For rest--but not to feel 'tis rest.

Soon shall my Fate that wish fulfil;

And I shall sleep without the dream

Of what I was, and would be still

Dark as to thee my deeds may seem:[eb]

My memory now is but the tomb 1000

Of joys long dead; my hope, their doom:

'Though better to have died with those

Than bear a life of lingering woes.

My spirit shrunk not to sustain

The searching throes of ceaseless pain;

Nor sought the self-accorded grave

Of ancient fool and modern knave:

Yet death I have not feared to meet;

And in the field it had been sweet,

Had Danger wooed me on to move 1010

The slave of Glory, not of Love.

I've braved it--not for Honour's boast;

I smile at laurels won or lost;

To such let others carve their way,

For high renown, or hireling pay:

But place again before my eyes

Aught that I deem a worthy prize--

The maid I love, the man I hate--

And I will hunt the steps of fate,

To save or slay, as these require, 1020

Through rending steel, and rolling fire:[ec]

Nor needst thou doubt this speech from one

Who would but do--what he _hath_ done.

Death is but what the haughty brave,

The weak must bear, the wretch must crave;

Then let life go to Him who gave:

I have not quailed to Danger's brow

When high and happy--need I _now_?

* * * * *

"I loved her, Friar! nay, adored--

But these are words that all can use-- 1030

I proved it more in deed than word;

There's blood upon that dinted sword,

A stain its steel can never lose:

'Twas shed for her, who died for me,

It warmed the heart of one abhorred:

Nay, start not--no--nor bend thy knee,

Nor midst my sin such act record;

Thou wilt absolve me from the deed,

For he was hostile to thy creed!

The very name of Nazarene 1040

Was wormwood to his Paynim spleen.

Ungrateful fool! since but for brands

Well wielded in some hardy hands,

And wounds by Galileans given--

The surest pass to Turkish heaven--

For him his Houris still might wait

Impatient at the Prophet's gate.

I loved her--Love will find its way

Through paths where wolves would fear to prey;

And if it dares enough,'twere hard 1050

If Passion met not some reward--

No matter how, or where, or why,

I did not vainly seek, nor sigh:

Yet sometimes, with remorse, in vain

I wish she had not loved again.

She died--I dare not tell thee how;

But look--'tis written on my brow!

There read of Cain the curse and crime,

In characters unworn by Time:

Still, ere thou dost condemn me, pause; 1060

Not mine the act, though I the cause.

Yet did he but what I had done

Had she been false to more than one.

Faithless to him--he gave the blow;

But true to me--I laid him low:

Howe'er deserved her doom might be,

Her treachery was truth to me;

To me she gave her heart, that all

Which Tyranny can ne'er enthrall;

And I, alas! too late to save! 1070

Yet all I then could give, I gave--

'Twas some relief--our foe a grave.[ed]

His death sits lightly; but her fate

Has made me--what thou well mayst hate.

His doom was sealed--he knew it well,

Warned by the voice of stern Taheer,

Deep in whose darkly boding ear[117]

The deathshot pealed of murder near,

As filed the troop to where they fell!

He died too in the battle broil, 1080

A time that heeds nor pain nor toil;

One cry to Mahomet for aid,

One prayer to Alla all he made:

He knew and crossed me in the fray--

I gazed upon him where he lay,

And watched his spirit ebb away:

Though pierced like pard by hunter's steel,

He felt not half that now I feel.

I searched, but vainly searched, to find

The workings of a wounded mind; 1090

Each feature of that sullen corse

Betrayed his rage, but no remorse.[118]

Oh, what had Vengeance given to trace

Despair upon his dying face!

The late repentance of that hour

When Penitence hath lost her power

To tear one terror from the grave,[ee]

And will not soothe, and cannot save.

* * * * *

"The cold in clime are cold in blood,

Their love can scarce deserve the name; 1100

But mine was like the lava flood

That boils in Ætna's breast of flame.

I cannot prate in puling strain

Of Ladye-love, and Beauty's chain:

If changing cheek, and scorching vein,[ef]

Lips taught to writhe, but not complain,

If bursting heart, and maddening brain,

And daring deed, and vengeful steel,

And all that I have felt, and feel,

Betoken love--that love was mine, 1110

And shown by many a bitter sign.

'Tis true, I could not whine nor sigh,

I knew but to obtain or die.

I die--but first I have possessed,

And come what may, I _have been_ blessed.

Shall I the doom I sought upbraid?

No--reft of all, yet undismayed[eg]

But for the thought of Leila slain,

Give me the pleasure with the pain,

So would I live and love again. 1120

I grieve, but not, my holy Guide!

For him who dies, but her who died:

She sleeps beneath the wandering wave--

Ah! had she but an earthly grave,

This breaking heart and throbbing head

Should seek and share her narrow bed.

She was a form of Life and Light,[119]

That, seen, became a part of sight;

And rose, where'er I turned mine eye,

The Morning-star of Memory! 1130

"Yes, Love indeed is light from heaven;[eh][120]

A spark of that immortal fire

With angels shared, by Alia given,

To lift from earth our low desire.

Devotion wafts the mind above,

But Heaven itself descends in Love;

A feeling from the Godhead caught,

To wean from self each sordid thought;

A ray of Him who formed the whole;

A Glory circling round the soul! 1140

I grant _my_ love imperfect, all

That mortals by the name miscall;

Then deem it evil, what thou wilt;

But say, oh say, _hers_ was not Guilt!

She was my Life's unerring Light:

That quenched--what beam shall break my night?[ei]

Oh! would it shone to lead me still,

Although to death or deadliest ill!

Why marvel ye, if they who lose

This present joy, this future hope, 1150

No more with Sorrow meekly cope;

In phrensy then their fate accuse;

In madness do those fearful deeds

That seem to add but Guilt to Woe?

Alas! the breast that inly bleeds

Hath nought to dread from outward blow:

Who falls from all he knows of bliss,

Cares little into what abyss.[ej]

Fierce as the gloomy vulture's now

To thee, old man, my deeds appear: 1160

I read abhorrence on thy brow,

And this too was I born to bear!

'Tis true, that, like that bird of prey,

With havock have I marked my way:

But this was taught me by the dove,

To die--and know no second love.

This lesson yet hath man to learn,

Taught by the thing he dares to spurn:

The bird that sings within the brake,

The swan that swims upon the lake, 1170

One mate, and one alone, will take.

And let the fool still prone to range,[ek]

And sneer on all who cannot change,

Partake his jest with boasting boys;

I envy not his varied joys,

But deem such feeble, heartless man,

Less than yon solitary swan;

Far, far beneath the shallow maid[el]

He left believing and betrayed.

Such shame at least was never mine-- 1180

Leila! each thought was only thine!

My good, my guilt, my weal, my woe,

My hope on high--my all below.

Each holds no other like to thee,

Or, if it doth, in vain for me:

For worlds I dare not view the dame

Resembling thee, yet not the same.

The very crimes that mar my youth,

This bed of death--attest my truth!

'Tis all too late--thou wert, thou art 1190

The cherished madness of my heart![em]

"And she was lost--and yet I breathed,

But not the breath of human life:

A serpent round my heart was wreathed,

And stung my every thought to strife.

Alike all time, abhorred all place,[en]

Shuddering I shrank from Nature's face,

Where every hue that charmed before

The blackness of my bosom wore.

The rest thou dost already know, 1200

And all my sins, and half my woe.

But talk no more of penitence;

Thou seest I soon shall part from hence:

And if thy holy tale were true,

The deed that's done canst _thou_ undo?

Think me not thankless--but this grief

Looks not to priesthood for relief.[eo][121]

My soul's estate in secret guess:

But wouldst thou pity more, say less.

When thou canst bid my Leila live, 1210

Then will I sue thee to forgive;

Then plead my cause in that high place

Where purchased masses proffer grace.[ep]

Go, when the hunter's hand hath wrung

From forest-cave her shrieking young,

And calm the lonely lioness:

But soothe not--mock not _my_ distress!

"In earlier days, and calmer hours,

When heart with heart delights to blend,

Where bloom my native valley's bowers,[eq] 1220

I had--Ah! have I now?--a friend![er]

To him this pledge I charge thee send,[es]

Memorial of a youthful vow;

I would remind him of my end:

Though souls absorbed like mine allow

Brief thought to distant Friendship's claim,

Yet dear to him my blighted name.

'Tis strange--he prophesied my doom,

And I have smiled--I then could smile--

When Prudence would his voice assume, 1230

And warn--I recked not what--the while:

But now Remembrance whispers o'er[et]

Those accents scarcely marked before.

Say--that his bodings came to pass,

And he will start to hear their truth,

And wish his words had not been sooth:

Tell him--unheeding as I was,

Through many a busy bitter scene

Of all our golden youth had been,

In pain, my faltering tongue had tried 1240

To bless his memory--ere I died;

But Heaven in wrath would turn away,

If Guilt should for the guiltless pray.

I do not ask him not to blame,

Too gentle he to wound my name;

And what have I to do with Fame?

I do not ask him not to mourn,

Such cold request might sound like scorn;

And what than Friendship's manly tear

May better grace a brother's bier? 1250

But bear this ring, his own of old,

And tell him--what thou dost behold!

The withered frame, the ruined mind,

The wrack by passion left behind,

A shrivelled scroll, a scattered leaf,

Seared by the autumn blast of Grief!

* * * * *

"Tell me no more of Fancy's gleam,

No, father, no,'twas not a dream;

Alas! the dreamer first must sleep,

I only watched, and wished to weep; 1260

But could not, for my burning brow

Throbbed to the very brain as now:

I wished but for a single tear,

As something welcome, new, and dear:

I wished it then, I wish it still;

Despair is stronger than my will.

Waste not thine orison, despair[eu]

Is mightier than thy pious prayer:

I would not, if I might, be blest;

I want no Paradise, but rest. 1270

'Twas then--I tell thee--father! then

I saw her; yes, she lived again;

And shining in her white symar[122]

As through yon pale gray cloud the star

Which now I gaze on, as on her,

Who looked and looks far lovelier;

Dimly I view its trembling spark;[ev]

To-morrow's night shall be more dark;

And I, before its rays appear,

That lifeless thing the living fear. 1280

I wander--father! for my soul

Is fleeting towards the final goal.

I saw her--friar! and I rose

Forgetful of our former woes;

And rushing from my couch, I dart,

And clasp her to my desperate heart;

I clasp--what is it that I clasp?

No breathing form within my grasp,

No heart that beats reply to mine--

Yet, Leila! yet the form is thine! 1290

And art thou, dearest, changed so much

As meet my eye, yet mock my touch?

Ah! were thy beauties e'er so cold,

I care not--so my arms enfold

The all they ever wished to hold.

Alas! around a shadow prest

They shrink upon my lonely breast;

Yet still 'tis there! In silence stands,

And beckons with beseeching hands!

With braided hair, and bright-black eye-- 1300

I knew 'twas false--she could not die!

But _he_ is dead! within the dell

I saw him buried where he fell;

He comes not--for he cannot break

From earth;--why then art _thou_ awake?

They told me wild waves rolled above

The face I view--the form I love;

They told me--'twas a hideous tale!--

I'd tell it, but my tongue would fail:

If true, and from thine ocean-cave 1310

Thou com'st to claim a calmer grave,

Oh! pass thy dewy fingers o'er

This brow that then will burn no more;

Or place them on my hopeless heart:

But, Shape or Shade! whate'er thou art,

In mercy ne'er again depart!

Or farther with thee bear my soul

Than winds can waft or waters roll!

* * * * *

"Such is my name, and such my tale.

Confessor! to thy secret ear 1320

I breathe the sorrows I bewail,

And thank thee for the generous tear

This glazing eye could never shed.

Then lay me with the humblest dead,[ew]

And, save the cross above my head,

Be neither name nor emblem spread,

By prying stranger to be read,

Or stay the passing pilgrim's tread."[123]

He passed--nor of his name and race

He left a token or a trace, 1330

Save what the Father must not say

Who shrived him on his dying day:

This broken tale was all we knew[ex]

Of her he loved, or him he slew.

FOOTNOTES:

[55] {85} A tomb above the rocks on the promontory, by some supposed the

sepulchre of Themistocles.

["There are," says Cumberland, in his _Observer_, "a few lines by Plato

upon the tomb of Themistocles, which have a turn of elegant and pathetic

simplicity in them, that deserves a better translation than I can give--

"'By the sea's margin, on the watery strand,

Thy monument, Themistocles, shall stand:

By this directed to thy native shore,

The merchant shall convey his freighted store;

And when our fleets are summoned to the fight

Athens shall conquer with thy tomb in sight.'"

Note to Edition 1832.

The traditional site of the tomb of Themistocles, "a rock-hewn grave on

the very margin of the sea generally covered with water," adjoins the

lighthouse, which stands on the westernmost promontory of the Piræus,

some three quarters of a mile from the entrance to the harbour.

Plutarch, in his _Themistocles_ (cap. xxxii.), is at pains to describe

the exact site of the "altar-like tomb," and quotes the passage from

Plato (the comic poet, B.C. 428-389) which Cumberland paraphrases. Byron

and Hobhouse "made the complete circuit of the peninsula of Munychia,"

January 18, 1810.--_Travels in Albania_, 1858, i. 317, 318.]

[cg] {86}

_Fair clime! where_ ceaseless summer _smiles_

_Benignant o'er those blessed isles_,

_Which seen from far Colonna's height_,

_Make glad the heart that hails the sight_,

_And lend to loneliness delight_.

_There_ shine the bright abodes ye seek,

Like dimples upon Occan's cheek,

So smiling round the waters lave

_These Edens of the Eastern wave_.

Or _if, at times, the transient breeze_

_Break the_ smooth _crystal of the seas_,

_Or_ brush _one blossom from the trees_,

_How_ grateful _is each gentle air_

_That wakes and wafts the_ fragrance _there_.--[MS.]

----_the fragrance there_.--[Second Edition.]

[56] The attachment of the nightingale to the rose is a well-known

Persian fable. If I mistake not, the "Bulbul of a thousand tales" is one

of his appellations.

[Thus Mesihi, as translated by Sir William Jones--

"Come, charming maid! and hear thy poet sing,

Thyself the rose and he the bird of spring:

Love bids him sing, and Love will be obey'd.

Be gay: too soon the flowers of spring will fade."

"The full style and title of the Persian nightingale (_Pycnonotus

hæmorrhous_) is 'Bulbul-i-hazár-dástán,' usually shortened to 'Hazar'

(bird of a thousand tales = the thousand), generally called 'Andalib.'"

(See _Arabian Nights_, by Richard F. Burton, 1887; _Supplemental

Nights_, iii. 506.) For the nightingale's attachment to the rose,

compare Moore's _Lalla Rookh_--

"Oh! sooner shall the rose of May

Mistake her own sweet nightingale," etc.

(Ed. "Chandos Classics," p. 423)

and Fitzgerald's translation of the _Rubáiyát_ of Omar Khayyám (stanza

vi.)--

"And David's lips are lockt; but in divine

High piping Pehlevi, with 'Wine! Wine! Wine!

Red Wine!'--the Nightingale cries to the Rose

That sallow cheek of hers to incarnadine."

_Rubáiyát, etc._, 1899, p. 29, and note, p. 62.

Byron was indebted for his information to a note on a passage in

_Vathek_, by S. Henley (_Vathek_, 1893, p. 217).]

[57] {87} The guitar is the constant amusement of the Greek sailor by

night; with a steady fair wind, and during a calm, it is accompanied

always by the voice, and often by dancing.

[ch] {88} _Should wanton in a wilderness_.--[MS.]

[ci] The first draft of this celebrated passage differs in many

particulars from the Fair Copy, which, with the exception of the

passages marked as _vars._ i. (p. 89) and i. (p. 90), is the same as the

text. It ran as follows:--

_He who hath bent him o'er the dead_

_Ere the first day of death is fled_--

_The first dark day of Nothingness_

_The last of_ doom _and of distress_--

_Before_ Corruption's _cankering fingers_

_Hath_ tinged the hue _where Beauty lingers_

_And marked_ the soft and settled _air_

That dwells with all but Spirit there

_The fixed yet tender_ lines _that speak_

Of Peace along _the placid cheek_

_And--but for that sad shrouded eye_

_That fires not_--pleads _not--weeps not--now--_

_And but for that pale_ chilling _brow_

Whose touch tells of Mortality

{-And curdles to the Gazer's heart-}

_As if to him it could impart_

_The doom_ he only _looks upon_--

_Yes but for these and these alone_,

A moment--yet--a little hour

We _still might doubt the Tyrant's power_.

The eleven lines following (88-98) were not emended in the Fair Copy,

and are included in the text. The Fair Copy is the sole MS. authority

for the four concluding lines of the paragraph.

[58] [Compare "Beyond Milan the country wore the aspect of a wider

devastation; and though everything seemed more quiet, the repose was

like that of death spread over features which retain the impression of

the last convulsions."--_Mysteries of Udolpho_, by Mrs. Ann Radcliffe,

1794, ii. 29.]

[cj] {89}

_And marked the almost dreaming air_,

_Which speaks the sweet repose that's there_.--

[MS. of Fair Copy.]

[59] {90}

"Aye, but to die, and go we know not where;

To lie in cold obstruction?"

_Measure for Measure_, act iii. sc. I, lines 115, 116.

[Compare, too, _Childe Harold_, Canto II. stanza iv. line 5.]

[ck]

_Whose touch thrills with mortality_,

_And curdles to the gazer's heart_.--[MS. of Fair Copy.]

[60] I trust that few of my readers have ever had an opportunity of

witnessing what is here attempted in description; but those who have

will probably retain a painful remembrance of that singular beauty which

pervades, with few exceptions, the features of the dead, a few hours,

and but for a few hours, after "the spirit is not there." It is to be

remarked in cases of violent death by gun-shot wounds, the expression is

always that of languor, whatever the natural energy of the sufferer's

character; but in death from a stab the countenance preserves its traits

of feeling or ferocity, and the mind its bias, to the last. [According

to Medwin (1824, 4to, p. 223), an absurd charge, based on the details of

this note, was brought against Byron, that he had been guilty of murder,

and spoke from experience.]

[61] [In Dallaway's _Constantinople_ (p. 2) [Rev. James Dallaway

(1763-1834) published _Constantinople Ancient and Modern, etc_., in

1797], a book which Lord Byron is not unlikely to have consulted, I find

a passage quoted from Gillies' _History of Greece_(vol. i. p. 335),

which contains, perhaps, the first seed of the thought thus expanded

into full perfection by genius: "The present state of Greece, compared

to the ancient, is the silent obscurity of the grave contrasted with the

vivid lustre of active life."--Moore, _Note to Edition_ 1832.]

[62] {91} [From hence to the conclusion of the paragraph, the MS. is

written in a hurried and almost illegible hand, as if these splendid

lines had been poured forth in one continuous burst of poetic feeling,

which would hardly allow time for the pen to follow the

imagination.--(_Note to Edition_ 1837. The lines were added to the

Second Edition.)]

[cl] _Fountain of Wisdom! can it be_.--[MS. erased.]

[63] [Compare--

"Son of the Morning, rise! approach you here!"

_Childe Harold_, Canto II. stanza iii. line 1.]

[cm]

_Why is not this Thermopylæ_;

_These waters blue that round you lave_

_Degenerate offspring of the free_--

_How name ye them what shore is this?_

_The wave, the rock of Salamis?_--[MS.]

[cn] {92}

_And he who in the cause expires_,

_Will add a name and fate to them_

_Well worthy of his noble stem_.--[MS.]

[co] _Commenced by Sire--renewed by Son_.--[MS.]

[cp]

_Attest it many a former age_

_While kings in dark oblivion hid_.--[MS.]

[cq] _There let the Muse direct thine eye_.--[MS.]

[cr] {93} _The hearts amid thy mountains bred_.--[MS.]

[64] Athens is the property of the Kislar Aga [kizlar-aghasî] (the slave

of the Seraglio and guardian of the women), who appoints the Waywode. A

pander and eunuch--these are not polite, yet true appellations--now

_governs_ the _governor_ of Athens!

[Hobhouse maintains that this subordination of the waiwodes (or vaivodes

= the Sclavic [Greek: boebo/da]) (Turkish governors of Athens) to a

higher Turkish official, was on the whole favourable to the liberties

and well-being of the Athenians.--_Travels in Albania_, 1858, i. 246.]

[cs]

_Now to the neighbouring shores they waft_

_Their ancient and proverbial craft_.--[MS. erased.]

[ct] {94} _he silent slants the doubtful creek_.--[MS]

[65] [The reciter of the tale is a Turkish fisherman, who has been

employed during the day in the gulf of Ægina, and in the evening,

apprehensive of the Mainote pirates who infest the coast of Attica,

lands with his boat on the harbour of Port Leone, the ancient Piræus. He

becomes the eye-witness of nearly all the incidents in the story, and in

one of them is a principal agent. It is to his feelings, and

particularly to his religious prejudices, that we are indebted for some

of the most forcible and splendid parts of the poem.--Note by George

Agar Ellis, 1797-1833.]

[66] [In Dr. Clarke's Travels (Edward Daniel Clarke, 1769-1822,

published _Travels in Europe, Asia, Africa_, 1810-24), this word, which

means _infidel_, is always written according to its English

pronunciation, _Djour_. Byron adopted the Italian spelling usual among

the Franks of the Levant.--_Note to Edition_ 1832.

The pronunciation of the word depends on its origin. If it is associated

with the Arabic _jawr_, a "deviating" or "erring," the initial consonant

would be soft, but if with the Persian _gawr_, or _guebre_, "a

fire-worshipper," the word should be pronounced _Gow-er_--as Gower

Street has come to be pronounced. It is to be remarked that to the

present day the Nestorians of Urumiah are contemned as _Gy-ours_ (the _G_

hard), by their Mohammedan countrymen.--(From information kindly

supplied by Mr. A. G. Ellis, of the Oriental Printed Books and MSS.

Department, British Museum.)]

[cu] {95} _Though scarcely marked_----.--[MS.]

[cv]

_With him my wonder as he flew_.--[MS.]

_With him my roused and wondering view_.--[MS. erased.]

[cw] {96} _For him who takes so fast a flight_.--[MS. erased.]

[67] [Compare--

"A moment now he slacked his speed,

A moment breathed his panting steed."

Scott's _Lay of the Last Minstrel_, Canto I. stanza xxvii. lines 1, 2.]

[cx] _And looked along the olive wood_.--[MS.]

[68] "Tophaike," musket. The Bairam is announced by the cannon at

sunset: the illumination of the mosques, and the firing of all kinds of

small arms, loaded with _ball_, proclaim it during the night. [The

Bairâm, the Moslem Easter, a festival of three days, succeeded the

Ramazân.]

For the illumination of the mosques during the fast of the Ramazân, see

_Childe Harold_, Canto II. stanza lv. line 5, _Poetical Works_, 1899,

ii. 134, note 2.

[cy] {97} _Of transient Anger's Darkening blush_.--[MS.]

[69] [For "hasty," all the editions till the twelfth read "_darkening_

blush." On the back of a copy of the eleventh, Lord Byron has written,

"Why did not the printer attend to the solitary correction so repeatedly

made? I have no copy of this, and desire to have none till my request is

complied with." _Notes to Editions_ 1832, 1837.]

[cz]

_As doubting if to stay or fly_--

_Then turned it swiftly to his blade;_

_As loud his raven charger neighed_--

_That sound dispelled his waking dream_,

_As sleepers start at owlet's scream_.--[MS.]

[70] Jerreed, or Djerrid [Jarid], a blunted Turkish javelin, which is

darted from horseback with great force and precision. It is a favourite

exercise of the Mussulmans; but I know not if it can be called a _manly_

one, since the most expert in the art are the Black Eunuchs of

Constantinople. I think, next to these, a Mamlouk at Smyrna was the most

skilful that came within my observation. [Lines 250, 251, together with

the note, were inserted in the Third Edition.]

[da] {98}

_'Twas but an instant, though so long_

_When thus dilated in my song_.

_'Twas but an instant_----.--[MS.]

[db]

_Such moment holds a thousand years_.

or, _Such moment proves the grief of years_.--[MS.]

[71] ["Lord Byron told Mr. Murray that he took this idea from one of the

Arabian tales--that in which the Sultan puts his head into a butt of

water, and, though it remains there for only two or three minutes, he

imagines that he lives many years during that time. The story had been

quoted by Addison in the _Spectator_" [No. 94, June 18, 1711].--_Memoir

of John Murray_, 1891, i. 219, note.]

[72] [Lines 271-276 were added in the Third Edition. The MS. proceeds

with a direction (dated July 31, 1813) to the printer--"And alter

'A life of _woe_--an age of crime--'

'A life of _pain_--an age of crime.'

Alter also the lines

'On him who loves or hates or fears

Such moment holds a thousand years,'

'O'er him who loves or hates or fears

Such moment pours the grief of years.'"]

[dc] {99} _But neither fled nor fell alone_.--[MS.]

[73] The blast of the desert, fatal to everything living, and often

alluded to in Eastern poetry.

[James Bruce, 1730-1794 (nicknamed "Abyssinian Bruce"), gives a

remarkable description of the simoom: "I saw from the south-east a haze

come, in colour like the purple part of the rainbow, but not so

compressed or thick. It did not occupy twenty yards in breadth, and was

about twelve feet high from the ground. It was a kind of blush upon the

air, and it moved very rapidly.... We all lay flat on the ground ...

till it was blown over. The meteor, or purple haze, which I saw was,

indeed, passed, but the light air which still blew was of a heat to

threaten suffocation." He goes on to say that he did not recover the

effect of the sandblast on his chest for nearly two years (Brace's _Life

and Travels_, ed. 1830, p. 470).--Note to Edition 1832.]

[dd] There are two MS. versions of lines 290-298: (A) a rough copy, and

(B) a fair copy--

(A) _And wide the Spider's thin grey pall_

_Is curtained on the splendid wall_--

_The Bat hath built in his mother's bower_,

_And in the fortress of his power_

_The Owl hath fixed her beacon tower_,

_The wild dogs howl on the fountain's brim_

_With baffled thirst and famine grim_,

_For the stream is shrunk from its marble bed_

_Where Desolation's dust is spread_.--[MS.]

B. ["August 5, 1813, in last of 3rd or first of 4th ed."]

_The lonely Spider's thin grey pall_

_Is curtained o'er the splendid wall_--

_The Bat builds in his mother's bower;_

_And in the fortress of his power_

_The Owl hath fixed her beacon-tower_,

_The wild dog howls o'er the fountain's brink_,

_But vainly lolls his tongue to drink_.--[MS.]

[74] {100} [Compare "The walls of Balclutha were desolated.... The

stream of Clutha was removed from its place by the fall of the walls.

The fox looked out from the windows" (Ossian's _Balclutha_). "The dreary

night-owl screams in the solitary retreat of his mouldering ivy-covered

tower" (_Larnul, or the Song of Despair: Poems of Ossian_, discovered by

the Baron de Harold, 1787, p. 172). Compare, too, the well-known lines,

"The spider holds the veil in the palace of Cæsar; the owl stands

sentinel on the watch-tower of Afrasyab" (_A Grammar of the Persian

Language_, by Sir W. Jones, 1809, p. 106).]

[de]

_The silver dew of coldness sprinkling_

_In drops fantastically twinkling_

_As from the spring the silver dew_

_In whirls fantastically flew_

_And dashed luxurions coolness round_

_The air--and verdure on the ground_.--[MS.]

[df] {101}

_For thirsty Fox and Jackal gaunt_

_May vainly for its waters pant_.--[MS.]

or, _The famished fox the wild dog gaunt_

_May vainly for its waters pant_.--[MS.]

[dg] _Might strike an echo_----.--[MS.]

[dh] {102}

_And welcome Life though but in one_

_For many a gilded chamber's there_

_Unmeet for Solitude to share_.--- [MS.]

[75] ["I have just recollected an alteration you may make in the

proof.... Among the lines on Hassan's Serai, is this--'Unmeet for

Solitude to share.' Now, to share implies more than _one_, and Solitude

is a single gentlewoman: it must be thus--

'For many a gilded chamber's there,

Which Solitude might well forbear;'

and so on. Will you adopt this correction? and pray accept a cheese from

me for your trouble."--Letter to John Murray, Stilton, October 3, 1813,

_Letters_, 1898, ii. 274.]

[di] _To share the Master's "bread and salt."_--[MS.]

[76] [To partake of food--to break bread and taste salt with your host,

ensures the safety of the guest: even though an enemy, his person from

that moment becomes sacred.--(Note appended to Letter of October 3,

1813.)

"I leave this (_vide supra_, note 1) to your discretion; if anybody

thinks the old line a good one or the cheese a bad one, don't accept

either. But in that case the word _share_ is repeated soon after in the

line--

'To share the master's bread and salt;'

and must be altered to--

'To break the master's bread and salt.'

This is not so well, though--confound it!

If the old line ['Unmeet for Solitude to share'] stands, let the other

run thus--

'Nor there will weary traveller halt,

To bless the sacred bread and salt.'"

(P.S. to Murray, October 3, 1813.)

The emendation of line 335 made that of line 343 unnecessary, but both

emendations were accepted.

(Moore says (_Life_; p. 191, note) that the directions are written on a

separate slip of paper from the letter to Murray of October 3, 1813).]

[dj] {103}

_And cold Hospitality shrinks from the labour_,

_The slave fled his halter and the serf left his labour_.--[MS.]

or, _Ah! there Hospitality light is thy labour_,

or, _Ah! who for the traveller's solace will labour?_--[MS.]

[77] I need hardly observe, that Charity and Hospitality are the first

duties enjoined by Mahomet; and to say truth, very generally practised

by his disciples. The first praise that can be bestowed on a chief is a

panegyric on his bounty; the next, on his valour. ["Serve God ... and

show kindness unto parents, and relations, and orphans, and the poor,

and your neighbour who is of kin to you ... and the traveller, and the

captives," etc.--_Korân_, cap. iv. Lines 350, 351 were inserted in the

Fifth Edition.]

[78] The ataghan, a long dagger worn with pistols in the belt, in a

metal scabbard, generally of silver; and, among the wealthier, gilt, or

of gold.

[79] Green is the privileged colour of the prophet's numerous pretended

descendants; with them, as here, faith (the family inheritance) is

supposed to supersede the necessity of good works: they are the worst of

a very indifferent brood.

[80] {104} "Salam aleikoum! aleikoum salam!" peace be with you; be with

you peace--the salutation reserved for the faithful:--to a Christian,

"Urlarula!" a good journey; or "saban hiresem, saban serula," good morn,

good even; and sometimes, "may your end be happy!" are the usual

salutes.

["After both sets of prayers, Farz and Sunnah, the Moslem looks over his

right shoulder, and says, 'The Peace (of Allah) be upon you and the ruth

of Allah,' and repeats the words over the left shoulder. The salutation

is addressed to the Guardian Angels, or to the bystanders (Moslem), who,

however, do not return it."--_Arabian Nights_, by Richard F. Burton,

1887: _Supplemental Nights_, i. 14, note.]

[dk]

_Take ye and give ye that salam_,

_That says of Moslem faith I am_.--[MS.]

[dl] _Which one of yonder barks may wait_.--[MS.]

[81] [In the MS. and the first five editions the broken line (373)

consisted of two words only, "That one."]

[82] The blue-winged butterfly of Kashmeer, the most rare and beautiful

of the species.

[The same insects (butterflies of Cachemir) are celebrated in an

unpublished poem of Mesihi.... Sir Anthony Shirley relates that it was

customary in Persia "to hawk after butterflies with sparrows, made to

that use."--Note by S. Henley to _Vathek_, ed. 1893, p. 222. Byron, in

his Journal, December 1, 1813, speaks of Lady Charlemont as "that

blue-winged Kashmirian butterfly of book-learning."]

[dm] _If caught, to fate alike betrayed_.-[MS.]

[dn] {106} _The gathering flames around her close_.-[MS. erased.]

[83] {107} Alluding to the dubious suicide of the scorpion, so placed

for experiment by gentle philosophers. Some maintain that the position

of the sting, when turned towards the head, is merely a convulsive

movement; but others have actually brought in the verdict "Felo de se."

The scorpions are surely interested in a speedy decision of the

question; as, if once fairly established as insect Catos, they will

probably be allowed to live as long as they think proper, without being

martyred for the sake of an hypothesis.

[Byron assured Dallas that the simile of the scorpion was imagined in

his sleep.--_Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron_, by R. C. Dallas,

p. 264.

"Probably in some instances the poor scorpion has been burnt to death;

and the well-known habit of these creatures to raise the tail over the

back and recurve it so that the extremity touches the fore part of the

cephalo-thorax, has led to the idea that it was stinging

itself."--_Encycl. Brit_., art. "Arachnida," by Rev. O. P. Cambridge,

ii. 281.]

[do] _So writhes the mind by Conscience riven_.--[MS.]

[84] The cannon at sunset close the Rhamazan. [Compare _Childe Harold_,

Canto II. stanza Iv. line 5, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 134. note 2.]

[85] {108} Phingari, the moon. [[Greek: phenga/ri] is derived from

[Greek: phenga/rion,] dim. of [Greek: phe/ngos.]]

[86] The celebrated fabulous ruby of Sultan Giamschid, the embellisher

of Istakhar; from its splendour, named Schebgerag [Schabchir[=a]gh], "the

torch of night;" also "the cup of the sun," etc. In the First Edition,

"Giamschid" was written as a word of three syllables; so D'Herbelot has

it; but I am told Richardson reduces it to a dissyllable, and writes

"Jamshid." I have left in the text the orthography of the one with the

pronunciation of the other.

[The MS. and First Edition read, "Bright as the gem of Giamschid."

Byron's first intention was to change the line into "Bright as the ruby

of Giamschid;" but to this Moore objected, "that as the comparison of

his heroine's eye to a ruby might unluckily call up the idea of its

being bloodshot, he had better change the line to 'Bright as the jewel,'

etc."

For the original of Byron's note, see S. Henley's note, _Vathek,_ 1893,

p. 230. See, too, D'Herbelot's _Bibliothèque Orientale_, 1781, iii. 27.

Sir Richard Burton (_Arabian Nights, S.N._, iii. 440) gives the

following _résumé_ of the conflicting legends: "Jám-i-jámshid is a

well-known commonplace in Moslem folk-lore; but commentators cannot

agree whether 'Jám' be a mirror or a cup. In the latter sense it would

represent the Cyathomantic cup of the Patriarch Joseph, and the symbolic

bowl of Nestor. Jamshid may be translated either 'Jam the bright,' or

'the Cup of the Sun;' this ancient king is the Solomon of the grand old

Guebres."

Fitzgerald, "in a very composite quatrain (stanza v.) which cannot be

claimed as a translation at all" (see the _Rubáiyát_ of Omar Khayya[=a]m,

by Edward Heron Allen, 1898), embodies a late version of the myth--

"Iram is gone and all his Rose,

And Jamshyd's sev'n-ringed Cup where no one knows."]

[87] {109} Al-Sirat, the bridge of breadth narrower than the thread of a

famished spider, and sharper than the edge of a sword, over which the

Mussulmans must _skate_ into Paradise, to which it is the only entrance;

but this is not the worst, the river beneath being hell itself, into

which, as may be expected, the unskilful and tender of foot contrive to

tumble with a "facilis descensus Averni," not very pleasing in prospect

to the next passenger. There is a shorter cut downwards for the Jews and

Christians.

[Byron is again indebted to _Vathek_, and S. Henley on _Vathek,_ p. 237,

for his information. The authority for the legend of the Bridge of

Paradise is not the Koran, but the Book of Mawakef, quoted by Edward

Pococke, in his Commentary (_Notæ Miscellaneæ_) on the _Porta Mosis_ of

Moses Maimonides (Oxford, 1654, p. 288)--

"Stretched across the back of Hell, it is narrower than a javelin,

sharper than the edge of a sword. But all must essay the passage,

believers as well as infidels, and it baffles the understanding to

imagine in what manner they keep their foothold."

The legend, or rather allegory, to which there would seem to be some

allusion in the words of Scripture, "Strait is the gate," etc., is of

Zoroastrian origin. Compare the _Zend-Avesta_, Yasna xix. 6 (_Sacred

Books of the East_, edited by F. Max Muller, 1887, xxxi. 261), "With

even threefold (safety and with speed) I will bring his soul over the

Bridge of Kinvat," etc.]

[88] {110} A vulgar error: the Koran allots at least a third of Paradise

to well-behaved women; but by far the greater number of Mussulmans

interpret the text their own way, and exclude their moieties from

heaven. Being enemies to Platonics, they cannot discern "any fitness of

things" in the souls of the other sex, conceiving them to be superseded

by the Houris.

[Sale, in his _Preliminary Discourse_ ("Chandos Classics," p. 80), in

dealing with this question, notes "that there are several passages in

the Koran which affirm that women, in the next life, will not only be

punished for their evil actions, but will also receive the rewards of

their good deeds, as well as the men, and that in this case God will

make no distinction of sexes." A single quotation will suffice: "God has

promised to believers, men and women, gardens beneath which rivers flow,

to dwell therein for aye; and goodly places in the garden of

Eden."--_The Qur'ân_, translated by E. H. Palmer, 1880, vi. 183.]

[89] An Oriental simile, which may, perhaps, though fairly stolen, be

deemed "plus Arabe qu'en Arabie."

[Gulnár (the heroine of the _Corsair_ is named Gulnare) is Persian for a

pomegranate flower.]

[90] Hyacinthine, in Arabic "Sunbul;" as common a thought in the Eastern

poets as it was among the Greeks.

[S. Henley (_Vathek_, 1893, p. 208) quotes two lines from the _Solima_

(lines 5, 6) of Sir W. Jones--

"The fragrant hyacinths of Azza's hair

That wanton with the laughing summer-air;"

and refers Milton's "Hyacinthine locks" (_Paradise Lost_, iv. 301) to

Lucian's _Pro Imaginibus_, cap. v.]

[91] {111} "Franguestan," Circassia. [Or Europe generally--the land of

the Frank.]

[92] [Lines 504-518 were inserted in the second revise of the Third

Edition, July 31, 1813.]

[93] {113} [Parnassus.]

[94] "In the name of God;" the commencement of all the chapters of the

Koran but one [the ninth], and of prayer and thanksgiving. ["Bismillah"

(in full, _Bismillahi 'rrahmani 'rrahiem_, i.e. "In the name of Allah

the God of Mercy, the Merciful") is often used as a deprecatory formula.

Sir R. Burton (_Arabian Nights_, i. 40) cites as an equivalent the

"remembering Iddio e' Santí," of Boccaccio's _Decameron_, viii. 9.

The MS. reads, "Thank Alla! now the peril's past."]

[95] [A Turkish messenger, sergeant or lictor. The proper

sixteen-seventeenth century pronunciation would have been _chaush_, but

apparently the nearest approach to this was _chaus_, whence _chouse_ and

_chiaush_, and the vulgar form _chiaus_ (_N. Eng. Dict_., art.

"Chiaus"). The peculations of a certain "chiaus" in the year A.D. 1000

are said to have been the origin of the word "to chouse."]

[96] {114} A phenomenon not uncommon with an angry Mussulman. In 1809

the Capitan Pacha's whiskers at a diplomatic audience were no less

lively with indignation than a tiger cat's, to the horror of all the

dragomans; the portentous mustachios twisted, they stood erect of their

own accord, and were expected every moment to change their colour, but

at last condescended to subside, which, probably, saved more heads than

they contained hairs.

[97] {115} "Amaun," quarter, pardon.

[Line 603 was inserted in a proof of the Second Edition, dated July 24,

1813: "Nor raised the _coward_ cry, Amaun!"]

[98] The "evil eye," a common superstition in the Levant, and of which

the imaginary effects are yet very singular on those who conceive

themselves affected.

[99] [Compare "As with a thousand waves to the rocks, so Swaran's host

came on."--_Fingal_, bk. i., Ossian's _Works_, 1807, i. 19.]

[dp] {116} _That neither gives nor asks for life_.--[MS.]

[100] {117} The flowered shawls generally worn by persons of rank.

[101] [Compare "Catilina vero longè a suis, inter hostium cadavera

repertus est, paululum etiam spirans ferociamque animi, quam habuerat

vivus, in vultu retinens."--_Catilina_, cap. 61, _Opera_, 1820, i. 124.]

[dq] {118}

_His mother looked from the lattice high_,

_With throbbing heart and eager eye;_

_The browsing camel bells are tinkling_,

_And the last beam of twilight twinkling:_

_'Tis eve; his train should now be nigh_.

_She could not rest in her garden bower_,

_And gazed through the loop of her steepest tower_.

_"Why comes he not? his steeds are fleet_,

_And well are they train'd to the summer's heat_."--[MS.]

Another copy began--

_The browsing camel bells are tinkling_,

_And the first beam of evening twinkling;_

_His mother looked from her lattice high_,

_With throbbing breast and eager eye_--

"'_Tis twilight--sure his train is nigh_."--[MS. Aug. 11, 1813.]

_The browsing camel's bells are tinkling_

_The dews of eve the pasture sprinkling_

_And rising planets feebly twinkling:_

_His mother looked from the lattice high_

_With throbbing heart and eager eye_.--[Fourth Edition.]

[These lines were erased, and lines 689-692 were substituted. They

appeared first in the Fifth Edition.]

[102] ["The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through

the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels

of his chariot?"--Judges v. 28.]

[dr] {119} _And now his courser's pace amends_.--[MS. erased.]

[ds] _I could not deem my son was slow_.--[MS. erased.]

[dt]

_The Tartar sped beneath the gate_

_And flung to earth his fainting weight_.--[MS.]

[103] The calpac is the solid cap or centre part of the head-dress; the

shawl is wound round it, and forms the turban.

[104] The turban, pillar, and inscriptive verse, decorate the tombs of

the Osmanlies, whether in the cemetery or the wilderness. In the

mountains you frequently pass similar mementos; and on inquiry you are

informed that they record some victim of rebellion, plunder, or revenge.

[The following is a "Koran verse:" "Every one that is upon it (the

earth) perisheth; but the person of thy Lord abideth, the possessor of

glory and honour" (Sur. lv. 26, 27). (See "Kufic Tombstones in the

British Museum," by Professor Wright, _Proceedings of the Biblical

Archæological Society_, 1887, ix. 337, _sq_.)]

[105] {120} "Alla Hu!" the concluding words of the Muezzin's call to

prayer from the highest gallery on the exterior of the Minaret. On a

still evening, when the Muezzin has a fine voice, which is frequently

the case, the effect is solemn and beautiful beyond all the bells in

Christendom. [Valid, the son of Abdalmalek, was the first who erected a

minaret or turret; and this he placed on the grand mosque at Damascus,

for the muezzin or crier to announce from it the hour of prayer. (See

D'Herbelot, _Bibliothèque Orientale_, 1783, vi. 473, art. "Valid." See,

too, _Childe Harold_, Canto II. stanza lix. line 9, _Poetical Works_,

1899, ii. 136, note 1.)]

[106] The following is part of a battle-song of the Turks:--"I see--I

see a dark-eyed girl of Paradise, and she waves a handkerchief, a

kerchief of green; and cries aloud, 'Come, kiss me, for I love thee,'"

etc.

[107] {121} Monkir and Nekir are the inquisitors of the dead, before

whom the corpse undergoes a slight noviciate and preparatory training

for damnation. If the answers are none of the clearest, he is hauled up

with a scythe and thumped down with a red-hot mace till properly

seasoned, with a variety of subsidiary probations. The office of these

angels is no sinecure; there are but two, and the number of orthodox

deceased being in a small proportion to the remainder, their hands are

always full.--See _Relig. Ceremon_., v. 290; vii. 59,68, 118, and Sale's

_Preliminary Discourse to the Koran_, p. 101.

[Byron is again indebted to S. Henley (see _Vathek_, 1893, p. 236).

According to Pococke (_Porta Mosis_, 1654, Notæ Miscellaneæ, p. 241),

the angels Moncar and Nacir are black, ghastly, and of fearsome aspect.

Their function is to hold inquisition on the corpse. If his replies are

orthodox (_de Mohammede_), he is bidden to sleep sweetly and soundly in

his tomb, but if his views are lax and unsound, he is cudgelled between

the ears with iron rods. Loud are his groans, and audible to the whole

wide world, save to those deaf animals, men and genii. Finally, the

earth is enjoined to press him tight and keep him close till the crack

of doom.]

[108] Eblis, the Oriental Prince of Darkness.

[109] The Vampire superstition is still general in the Levant. Honest

Tournefort [_Relation d'un Voyage du Levant_, par Joseph Pitton de

Tournefort, 1717, i. 131] tells a long story, which Mr. Southey, in the

notes on _Thalaba_ [book viii., notes, ed. 1838, iv. 297-300], quotes

about these "Vroucolochas" ["Vroucolocasses"], as he calls them. The

Romaic term is "Vardoulacha." I recollect a whole family being terrified

by the scream of a child, which they imagined must proceed from such a

visitation. The Greeks never mention the word without horror. I find

that "Broucolokas" is an old legitimate Hellenic appellation--at least

is so applied to Arsenius, who, according to the Greeks, was after his

death animated by the Devil. The moderns, however, use the word I

mention.

[[Greek: Bourko/lakas] or [Greek: Bryko/lakas] (= the Bohemian and

Slovak _Vrholak_) is modern Greek for a ghost or vampire. George

Bentotes, in his [Greek: Lexikon Tri/glôsson,] published in Vienna in

1790 (see _Childe Harold_, Canto II. Notes, Papers, etc., No. III.,

_Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 197), renders [Greek: Brouko/lakas] "lutin,"

and [Greek: Broukoliasme/nos,] "devenu un spectre."

Arsenius, Archbishop of Monembasia (circ. 1530), was famous for his

scholarship. He prefaced his _Scholia in Septem Euripidis Tragædias_

(Basileæ, 1544) by a dedicatory epistle in Greek to his friend Pope Paul

III. "He submitted to the Church of Rome, which made him so odious to

the Greek schismatics that the Patriarch of Constantinople

excommunicated him; and the Greeks reported that Arsenius, after his

death, was _Broukolakas_, that is, that the Devil hovered about his

corps and re-animated him" (Bayle, _Dictionary_, 1724, i. 508, art.

"Arsenius"). Martinus Crusius, in his _Turco-Græcia_, lib. ii. (Basileæ,

1584, p. 151) records the death of Arsenius while under sentence of

excommunication, and adds that "his miserable corpse turned black, and

swelled to the size of a drum, so that all who beheld it were

horror-stricken, and trembled exceedingly." Hence, no doubt, the legend

which Bayle takes _verbatim_ from Guillet, "Les Grecs disent qu'

Arsenius, apres la mort fust _Broukolakas_," etc. (_Lacédémone, Ancienne

et Nouvelle_, par Le Sieur de la Guilletiére, 1676, ii. 586. See, too,

for "Arsenius," Fabricii _Script. Gr. Var._, 1808, xi. 581, and Gesneri

_Bibliotheca Univ_., ed. 1545, fol. 96.) Byron, no doubt, got his

information from Bayle. By "old legitimate Hellenic" he must mean

literary as opposed to klephtic Greek.]

[110] {123} The freshness of the face [? "_The paleness of the face_,"

MS.] and the wetness of the lip with blood, are the never-failing signs

of a Vampire. The stories told in Hungary and Greece of these foul

feeders are singular, and some of them most _incredibly_ attested.

[Vampires were the reanimated corpses of persons newly buried, which

were supposed to suck the blood and suck out the life of their selected

victims. The marks by which a vampire corpse was recognized were the

apparent non-putrefaction of the body and effusion of blood from the

lips. A suspected vampire was exhumed, and if the marks were perceived

or imagined to be present, a stake was driven through the heart, and the

body was burned. This, if Southey's authorities (J. B. Boyer, Marquis

d'Argens, in _Lettres Juives_) may be believed, "laid" the vampire, and

the community might sleep in peace. (See, too, _Dissertations sur les

Apparitions_, par Augustine Calmet, 1746, p. 395, _sq_., and _Russian

Folk-Tales_, by W. R. S. Ralston, 1873, pp. 318-324.)]

[111] [For "Caloyer," see _Childe Harold_, Canto II. stanza xlix. line

6, and note 21, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 130, 181. It is a hard

matter to piece together the "fragments" which make up the rest of the

poem. Apparently the question, "How name ye?" is put by the fisherman,

the narrator of the first part of the _Fragment_, and answered by a monk

of the fraternity, with whom the Giaour has been pleased to "abide"

during the past six years, under conditions and after a fashion of which

the monk disapproves. Hereupon the fisherman disappears, and a kind of

dialogue between the author and the protesting monk ensues. The poem

concludes with the Giaour's confession, which is addressed to the monk,

or perhaps to the interested and more tolerant Prior of the community.]

[du] {124} _As Time were wasted on his brow_.--[MS.]

[dv] {125} _Of foreign maiden lost at sea_.--[MS.]

[dw] {127}

_Behold--as turns he from the--wall_

_His cowl fly back, his dark hair fall_.--[ms]

[A variant of the copy sent for insertion in the Seventh Edition differs

alike from the MS. and the text--]

_Behold as turns him from the wall_--

_His Cowl flies back--his tresses fall_--

_That pallid aspect wreathing round_.

[dx] _Lo! mark him as the harmony_.--[MS.]

[dy] _Thank heaven--he stands without the shrine_.--[MS. erased.]

[dz] {128}

_Must burn before it smite or shine_.--[MS.]

_Appears unfit to smite or shine_.--[MS. erased]

[112] [In defence of lines 922-927, which had been attacked by a critic

in the _British Review_, October, 1813, vol. v. p. 139, who compared

them with some lines in Crabbe's _Resentment_ (lines 11--16, _Tales_,

1812, p. 309), Byron wrote to Murray, October 12, 1813, "I have ... read

the British Review. I really think the writer in most points very right.

The only mortifying thing is the accusation of imitation. _Crabbe's_

passage I never saw; and Scott I no further meant to follow than in his

_lyric_ measure, which is Gray's, Milton's, and any one's who like it."

The lines, which Moore quotes (_Life_, p. 191), have only a formal and

accidental resemblance to the passage in question.]

[113] {129} [Compare--

"To surfeit on the same [our pleasures]

And yawn our joys. Or thank a misery

For change, though sad?"

_Night Thoughts_, iii., by Edward Young; Anderson's _British Poets_, x.

72. Compare, too, _Childe Harold_, Canto I. stanza vi, line 8--

"With pleasure drugged, he almost longed for woe."]

[114] [Byron was wont to let his imagination dwell on these details of

the charnel-house. In a letter to Dallas, August 12, 1811, he writes, "I

am already too familiar with the dead. It is strange that I look on the

skulls which stand beside me (I have always had four in my study)

without emotion, but I cannot strip the features of those I have known

of their fleshy covering, even in idea, without a hideous sensation; but

the worms are less ceremonious." See, too, his "Lines inscribed upon a

Cup formed from a Skull," _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 276.]

[115] {130} The pelican is, I believe, the bird so libelled, by the

imputation of feeding her chickens with her blood. [It has been

suggested that the curious bloody secretion ejected from the mouth of

the flamingo may have given rise to the belief, through that bird having

been mistaken for the "pelican of the wilderness."--_Encycl. Brit._,

art. "Pelican" (by Professor A. Newton), xviii. 474.]

[ea] _Than feeling we must feel no more_.--[MS.]

[116] {131} [Compare--

"I'd rather be a toad,

And live upon the vapours of a dungeon."

_Othello_, act iii. sc. 3, lines 274, 275.]

[eb] _Though hope hath long withdrawn her beam_.--[MS.] [This line was

omitted in the Third and following Editions.]

[ec] {132}

_Through ranks of steel and tracks of fire_,

_And all she threatens in her ire;_

_And these are but the words of one_

_Who thus would do--who thus hath done_.--[MS. erased.]

[ed] {134} _My hope a tomb, our foe a grave_.--[MS.]

[117] This superstition of a second-hearing (for I never met with

downright second-sight in the East) fell once under my own observation.

On my third journey to Cape Colonna, early in 1811, as we passed through

the defile that leads from the hamlet between Keratia and Colonna, I

observed Dervish Tahiri riding rather out of the path and leaning his

head upon his hand, as if in pain. I rode up and inquired. "We are in

peril," he answered. "What peril? We are not now in Albania, nor in the

passes to Ephesus, Messalunghi, or Lepanto; there are plenty of us, well

armed, and the Choriates have not courage to be thieves."--"True,

Affendi, but nevertheless the shot is ringing in my ears."--"The shot.

Not a tophaike has been fired this morning."--"I hear it

notwithstanding--Bom--Bom--as plainly as I hear your

voice."--"Psha!"--"As you please, Affendi; if it is written, so will it

be."--I left this quick-eared predestinarian, and rode up to Basili, his

Christian compatriot, whose ears, though not at all prophetic, by no

means relished the intelligence. We all arrived at Colonna, remained

some hours, and returned leisurely, saying a variety of brilliant

things, in more languages than spoiled the building of Babel, upon the

mistaken seer. Romaic, Arnaout, Turkish, Italian, and English were all

exercised, in various conceits, upon the unfortunate Mussulman. While we

were contemplating the beautiful prospect, Dervish was occupied about

the columns. I thought he was deranged into an antiquarian, and asked

him if he had become a "_Palaocastro_" man? "No," said he; "but these

pillars will be useful in making a stand;" and added other remarks,

which at least evinced his own belief in his troublesome faculty of

_forehearing_. On our return to Athens we heard from Leoné (a prisoner

set ashore some days after) of the intended attack of the Mainotes,

mentioned, with the cause of its not taking place, in the notes to

_Childe Harold_, Canto 2nd [_Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 169]. I was at

some pains to question the man, and he described the dresses, arms, and

marks of the horses of our party so accurately, that, with other

circumstances, we could not doubt of _his_ having been in "villanous

company" [I _Henry IV_., act iii. sc. 3, line 11] and ourselves in a bad

neighbourhood. Dervish became a soothsayer for life, and I dare say is

now hearing more musketry than ever will be fired, to the great

refreshment of the Arnaouts of Berat, and his native mountains.--I shall

mention one trait more of this singular race. In March, 1811, a

remarkably stout and active Arnaout came (I believe the fiftieth on the

same errand) to offer himself as an attendant, which was declined.

"Well, Affendi," quoth he, "may you live!--you would have found me

useful. I shall leave the town for the hills to-morrow; in the winter I

return, perhaps you will then receive me."--Dervish, who was present,

remarked as a thing of course, and of no consequence, "in the mean time

he will join the Klephtes" (robbers), which was true to the letter. If

not cut off, they come down in the winter, and pass it unmolested in

some town, where they are often as well known as their exploits.

[118] {135} [_Vide ante_, p. 90, line 89, note 2, "In death from a stab

the countenance preserves its traits of feeling or ferocity."]

[ee]

_Her power to soothe--her skill to save--_

_And doubly darken o'er the grave,_--[MS.]

[ef] {136}

_Of Ladye-love--and dart--and chain--_

_And fire that raged in every vein_.--[MS.]

[eg]

_Even now alone, yet undismayed,--_

_I know no friend, and ask no aid_.--[MS.]

[119] [Lines 1127-1130 were inserted in the Seventh Edition. They recall

the first line of Plato's epitaph [Greek: A)stê\r prin me\n e)/lampes

e)ni zôoi~sin e(ô~|os] which Byron prefixed to his "Epitaph on a Beloved

Friend" (_Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 18), and which, long afterwards,

Shelley chose as the motto to his _Adonais_.]

[eh] {137}

_Yes_ \ / _doth spring_ \

} _Love indeed_ { _descend_ } _from heaven:_

_If_ / \ _be born_ /

/ _immortal_ \

_A spark of that_ { _eternal_ } _fire_

\ _celestial_ /

_To human hearts in mercy given,_

_To lift from earth our low desire,_

_A feeling from the Godhead caught,_

/ _each_ \

_To wean from self_ { } _sordid thought:_

\ _our_ /

_Devotion sends the soul above,_

_But Heaven itself descends to love,_

_Yet marvel not, if they who love_

_This present joy, this future hope_

_Which taught them with all ill to cope,_

_No more with anguish bravely cope_.--[MS.]

[120] [The hundred and twenty-six lines which follow, down to "Tell me

no more of Fancy's gleam," first appeared in the Fifth Edition. In

returning the proof to Murray, Byron writes, August 26, 1813, "The last

lines Hodgson likes--it is not often he does--and when he don't, he

tells me with great energy, and I fret and alter. I have thrown them in

to soften the ferocity of our Infidel, and, for a dying man, have given

him a good deal to say for himself."--_Letters,_ 1898, ii. 252.]

[ei] {138}

_That quenched, I wandered far in night,_

or, _'Tis quenched, and I am lost in night_.--[MS.]

[ej] _Must plunge into a dark abyss_.--[MS.]

[ek] {139}

_And let the light, inconstant fool_

_That sneers his coxcomb ridicule_.--[MS.]

[el] _Less than the soft and shallow maid_.--[MS. erased.]

[em] _The joy--the madness of my heart_.--[MS.]

[en]

_To me alike all time and place_--

_Scarce could I gaze on Nature's face_

_For every hue_----.--[MS.]

or, _All, all was changed on Nature's face_

_To me alike all time and place_.--[MS. erased.]

[eo] {140}

----_but this grief_

_In truth is not for thy relief._

_My state thy thought can never guess_.--[MS.]

[121] The monk's sermon is omitted. It seems to have had so little

effect upon the patient, that it could have no hopes from the reader. It

may be sufficient to say that it was of a customary length (as may be

perceived from the interruptions and uneasiness of the patient), and was

delivered in the usual tone of all orthodox preachers.

[ep] _Where thou, it seems, canst offer grace_.--[MS. erased.]

[eq] _Where rise my native city's towers_.--[MS.]

[er] _I had, and though but one--a friend!_--[MS.]

[es] {141}

_I have no heart to love him now_

_And 'tis but to declare my end_.--[ms]

[et]

_But now Remembrance murmurs o'er_

_Of all our early youth had been_--

_In pain, I now had turned aside_

_To bless his memory ere I died_,

_But Heaven would mark the vain essay_,

_If Guilt should for the guiltless fray_--

_I do not ask him not to blame_--

_Too gentle he to wound my name_--

_I do not ask him not to mourn_,

_For such request might sound like scorn_--

_And what like Friendship's manly tear_

_So well can grace a brother's bier?_

_But bear this ring he gave of old_,

_And tell him--what thou didst behold_--

_The withered frame--the ruined mind_,

_The wreck that Passion leaves behind_--

_The shrivelled and discoloured leaf_

_Seared by the Autumn blast of Grief_.--[MS., First Copy.]

[eu] {142} _Nay--kneel not, father, rise--despair_.--[MS.]

[122] {143} "Symar," a shroud. [Cymar, or simar, is a long loose robe

worn by women. It is, perhaps, the same word as the Spanish _camarra_

(Arabic _camârra_), a sheep-skin cloak. It is equivalent to "shroud"

only in the primary sense of a "covering."]

[ev] _Which now I view with trembling spark_.--[MS.]

[ew] {144} _Then lay me with the nameless dead_.--[MS.]

[123] The circumstance to which the above story relates was not very

uncommon in Turkey. A few years ago the wife of Muchtar Pacha complained

to his father of his son's supposed infidelity; he asked with whom, and

she had the barbarity to give in a list of the twelve handsomest women

in Yanina. They were seized, fastened up in sacks, and drowned in the

lake the same night! One of the guards who was present informed me that

not one of the victims uttered a cry, or showed a symptom of terror at

so sudden a "wrench from all we know, from all we love." The fate of

Phrosine, the fairest of this sacrifice, is the subject of many a Romaic

and Arnaout ditty. The story in the text is one told of a young Venetian

many years ago, and now nearly forgotten. I heard it by accident recited

by one of the coffee-house story-tellers who abound in the Levant, and

sing or recite their narratives. The additions and interpolations by the

translator will be easily distinguished from the rest, by the want of

Eastern imagery; and I regret that my memory has retained so few

fragments of the original. For the contents of some of the notes I am

indebted partly to D'Herbelot, and partly to that most Eastern, and, as

Mr. Weber justly entitles it, "sublime tale," the "Caliph Vathek." I do

not know from what source the author of that singular volume may have

drawn his materials; some of his incidents are to be found in the

_Bibliothèque Orientale_; but for correctness of costume, beauty of

description, and power of imagination, it far surpasses all European

imitations, and bears such marks of originality that those who have

visited the East will find some difficulty in believing it to be more

than a translation. As an Eastern tale, even Rasselas must bow before

it; his "Happy Valley" will not bear a comparison with the "Hall of

Eblis." [See _Childe Harold_, Canto II. stanza xxii. line 6, _Poetical

Works_, 1899, ii. 37, note 1.

"Mansour Effendi tells the story (_vide supra_, line 6) thus: Frosini

was niece of the Archbishop of Joannina. Mouctar Pasha ordered her to

come to his harem, and her father advised her to go; she did so.

Mouctar, among other presents, gave her a ring of great value, which she

wished to sell, and gave it for that purpose to a merchant, who offered

it to the wife of Mouctar. That lady recognized the jewel as her own,

and, discovering the intrigue, complained to Ali Pasha, who, the next

night, seized her himself in his own house, and ordered her to be

drowned. Mansour Effendi says he had the story from the brother and son

of Frosini. This son was a child of six years old, and was in bed in his

mother's chamber when Ali came to carry away his mother to death. He had

a confused recollection of the horrid scene."--_Travels in Albania,_

1858, i. Ill, note 6.

The concluding note, like the poem, was built up sentence by sentence.

Lines 1-12, "forgotten," are in the MS. Line 12, "I heard," to line 17,

"original," were added in the Second Edition. The next sentence, "For

the contents" to "Vathek," was inserted in the Third; and the concluding

paragraph, "I do not know" to the end, in the Fourth Editions.]

[ex] {146}

_Nor whether most he mourned none knew_.

_For her he loved--or him he slew_.--[MS.]

THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS.

A TURKISH TALE.

"Had we never loved sae kindly,

Had we never loved sae blindly,

Never met--or never parted,

We had ne'er been broken-hearted."--

Burns [_Farewell to Nancy_].

INTRODUCTION TO THE _THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS_.

Many poets--Wordsworth, for instance--have been conscious in their old

age that an interest attaches to the circumstances of the composition of

their poems, and have furnished their friends and admirers with

explanatory notes. Byron recorded the _motif_ and occasion of the _Bride

of Abydos_ while the poem was still in the press. It was written, he

says, to divert his mind, "to wring his thoughts from reality to

imagination--from selfish regrets to vivid recollections" (_Diary_,

December 5, 1813, _Letters_, ii. 361), "to distract his dreams from ..."

(_Diary_, November 16) "for the sake of _employment_" (Letter to Moore,

November 30, 1813). He had been staying during part of October and

November at Aston Hall, Rotherham, with his friend James Wedderburn

Webster, and had fallen in love with his friend's wife, Lady Frances.

From a brief note to his sister, dated November 5, we learn that he was

in a scrape, but in "no immediate peril," and from the lines, "Remember

him, whom Passion's power" (_vide ante_, p. 67), we may infer that he

had sought safety in flight. The _Bride of Abydos_, or _Zuleika_, as it

was first entitled, was written early in November, "in four nights"

(_Diary_, November 16), or in a week (Letter to Gifford, November

12)--the reckoning goes for little--as a counter-irritant to the pain

and distress of _amour interrompu_.

The confession or apology is eminently characteristic. Whilst the

_Giaour_ was still in process of evolution, still "lengthening its

rattles," another Turkish poem is offered to the public, and the natural

explanation, that the author is in vein, and can score another trick, is

felt to be inadequate and dishonouring--"To withdraw _myself_ from

_myself_," he confides to his _Diary_(November 27), "has ever been my

sole, my entire, my sincere motive for scribbling at all."

It is more than probable that in his twenty-sixth year Byron had not

attained to perfect self-knowledge, but there is no reason to question

his sincerity. That Byron loved to surround himself with mystery, and to

dissociate himself from "the general," is true enough; but it does not

follow that at all times and under all circumstances he was insincere.

"Once a _poseur_ always a _poseur_" is a rough-and-ready formula not

invariably applicable even to a poet.

But the _Bride of Abydos_ was a tonic as well as a styptic. Like the

_Giaour_, it embodied a personal experience, and recalled "a country

replete with the _darkest_ and _brightest_, but always the most _lively_

colours of my memory" (_Diary_, December 5, 1813).

In a letter to Galt (December 11, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 304,

reprinted from _Life of Byron_, pp. 181, 182) Byron maintains that the

first part of the _Bride_ was drawn from "observations" of his own,

"from existence." He had, it would appear, intended to make the story

turn on the guilty love of a brother for a sister, a tragic incident of

life in a Harem, which had come under his notice during his travels in

the East, but "on second thoughts" had reflected that he lived "two

centuries at least too late for the subject," and that not even the

authority of the "finest works of the Greeks," or of Schiller (in the

_Bride of Messina_), or of Alfieri (in _Mirra_), "in modern times,"

would sanction the intrusion of the [Greek: misêto\n] into English

literature. The early drafts and variants of the MS. do not afford any

evidence of this alteration of the plot which, as Byron thought, was

detrimental to the poem as a work of art, but the undoubted fact that

the _Bride of Abydos_, as well as the _Giaour_, embody recollections of

actual scenes and incidents which had burnt themselves into the memory

of an eye-witness, accounts not only for the fervent heat at which these

Turkish tales were written, but for the extraordinary glamour which they

threw over contemporary readers, to whom the local colouring was new and

attractive, and who were not out of conceit with "good Monsieur

Melancholy."

Byron was less dissatisfied with his second Turkish tale than he had

been with the _Giaour_. He apologizes for the rapidity with which it had

been composed--_stans pede in uno_--but he announced to Murray (November

20) that "he was doing his best to beat the _Giaour_," and (November 29)

he appraises the _Bride_ as "my first entire composition of any length."

Moreover, he records (November 15), with evident gratification, the

approval of his friend Hodgson, "a very sincere and by no means (at

times) a flattering critic of mine," and modestly accepts the praise of

such masters of letters as "Mr. Canning," Hookham Frere, Heber, Lord

Holland, and of the traveller Edward Daniel Clarke.

The _Bride of Abydos_ was advertised in the _Morning Chronicle,_ among

"Books published this day," on November 29, 1813. It was reviewed by

George Agar Ellis in the _Quarterly Review_ of January, 1814 (vol. x. p.

331), and, together with the _Corsair_, by Jeffrey in the _Edinburgh

Review_ of April, 1814 (vol. xxiii. p. 198).

* * * * *

NOTE TO THE MSS. OF _THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS_.

The MSS. of the _Bride of Abydos_ are contained in a bound volume, and

in two packets of loose sheets, numbering thirty-two in all, of which

eighteen represent additions, etc., to the First Canto; and fourteen

additions, etc., to the Second Canto.

The bound volume consists of a rough copy and a fair copy of the first

draft of the _Bride_; the fair copy beginning with the sixth stanza of

Canto I.

The "additions" in the bound volume consist of--

1. Stanza xxviii. of Canto II.--here called "Conclusion" (fifty-eight

lines). And note on "Sir Orford's Letters."

2. Eight lines beginning, "Eve saw it placed," at the end of stanza

xxviii.

3. An emendation of six lines to stanza v. of Canto II., with reference

to the comboloio, the Turkish rosary.

4. Forty additional lines to stanza xx. of Canto II., beginning, "For

thee in those bright isles," and being the first draft of the addition

as printed in the Revises of November 13, etc.

5. Stanza xxvii. of Canto II., twenty-eight lines.

6. Ten additional lines to stanza xxvii., "Ah! happy!"--"depart."

7. Affixed to the rough Copy in stanza xxviii., fifty-eight lines, here

called "Continuation." This is the rough Copy of No. 1.

The eighteen loose sheets of additions to Canto I. consist of--

1. The Dedication.

2. Two revisions of "Know ye the land."

3. Seven sheets, Canto I. stanzas i.-v., being the commencement of the

Fair Copy in the bound volume.

4. Two sheets of the additional twelve lines to Canto I. stanza vi.,

"Who hath not proved,"--"Soul."

5. Four sheets of notes to Canto I. stanza vi., dated November 20,

November 22, 1813.

6. Two sheets of notes to stanza xvi.

7. Sixteen additional lines to stanza xiii.

The fourteen additional sheets to Canto II. consist of--

1. Ten lines of stanza iv., and four lines of stanza xvii.

2. Two lines and note of stanza v.

3. Sheets of additions, etc., to stanza xx. (eight sheets).

(a) Eight lines, "Or, since that hope,"--"thy command."

(b) "For thee in those bright isles" (twenty-four lines).

(d) "Blest as the call" (three variants).

(e) "For thee in those bright isles" (seven lines).

(f) Fourteen lines, "There ev'n thy soul,"--"Zuleika's name," "Aye--let

the loud winds,"--"bars escape," additional to stanza xx.

4. Two sheets of five variants of "Ah! wherefore did he turn to look?"

being six additional lines to stanza xxv.

5. Thirty-five lines of stanza xxvi.

6. Ten lines, "Ah! happy! but,"--"depart." And eleven lines, "Woe to

thee, rash,"--"hast shed," being a continuous addition to stanza xxvii.

REVISES.

Endorsed--

i. November 13, 1813.

ii. November 15, 1813.

iii. November 16, 1813.

iv. November 18, 1813.

v. November 19, 1813.

vi. November 21, 1813.

vii. November 23, 1813.

viii. November 24, 1813. A wrong date,

ix. November 25, 1813.

x. An imperfect revise = Nos. i.-v.

the right honourable

LORD HOLLAND,

this tale

is inscribed, with

every sentiment of regard

and respect,

by his gratefully obliged

and sincere friend,

BYRON.[ey]

THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS.[124]

CANTO THE FIRST.

Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle[125]

Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime?

Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle,

Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime?

Know ye the land of the cedar and vine,

Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine;

Where the light wings of Zephyr, oppressed with perfume,

Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gúl[126] in her bloom;

Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit,

And the voice of the nightingale never is mute;[127] 10

Where the tints of the earth, and the hues of the sky,

In colour though varied, in beauty may vie,

And the purple of Ocean is deepest in dye;

Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine,

And all, save the spirit of man, is divine--

Tis the clime of the East--'tis the land of the Sun--

Can he smile on such deeds as his children have done?[128]

Oh! wild as the accents of lovers' farewell[ez]

Are the hearts which they bear, and the tales which they tell.

II.[fa]

Begirt with many a gallant slave, 20

Apparelled as becomes the brave,

Awaiting each his Lord's behest

To guide his steps, or guard his rest,

Old Giaffir sate in his Divan:

Deep thought was in his agéd eye;

And though the face of Mussulman

Not oft betrays to standers by

The mind within, well skilled to hide

All but unconquerable pride,

His pensive cheek and pondering brow[fb] 30

Did more than he was wont avow.

III.

"Let the chamber be cleared."--The train disappeared--

"Now call me the chief of the Haram guard"--

With Giaffir is none but his only son,

And the Nubian awaiting the sire's award.

"Haroun--when all the crowd that wait

Are passed beyond the outer gate,

(Woe to the head whose eye beheld

My child Zuleika's face unveiled!)

Hence, lead my daughter from her tower--[fc] 40

Her fate is fixed this very hour;

Yet not to her repeat my thought--

By me alone be duty taught!"

"Pacha! to hear is to obey."--

No more must slave to despot say--

Then to the tower had ta'en his way:

But here young Selim silence brake,

First lowly rendering reverence meet;

And downcast looked, and gently spake,

Still standing at the Pacha's feet: 50

For son of Moslem must expire,

Ere dare to sit before his sire!

"Father! for fear that thou shouldst chide

My sister, or her sable guide--

Know--for the fault, if fault there be,

Was mine--then fall thy frowns on me!

So lovelily the morning shone,

That--let the old and weary sleep--

I could not; and to view alone

The fairest scenes of land and deep, 60

With none to listen and reply

To thoughts with which my heart beat high

Were irksome--for whate'er my mood,

In sooth I love not solitude;

I on Zuleika's slumber broke,

And, as thou knowest that for me

Soon turns the Haram's grating key,

Before the guardian slaves awoke

We to the cypress groves had flown,

And made earth, main, and heaven our own! 70

There lingered we, beguiled too long

With Mejnoun's tale, or Sadi's song;[fd][129]

Till I, who heard the deep tambour[130]

Beat thy Divan's approaching hour,

To thee, and to my duty true,

Warned by the sound, to greet thee flew:

But there Zuleika wanders yet--

Nay, Father, rage not--nor forget

That none can pierce that secret bower

But those who watch the women's tower." 80

IV.

"Son of a slave"--the Pacha said--

"From unbelieving mother bred,

Vain were a father's hope to see

Aught that beseems a man in thee.

Thou, when thine arm should bend the bow,

And hurl the dart, and curb the steed,

Thou, Greek in soul if not in creed,

Must pore where babbling waters flow,[fe]

And watch unfolding roses blow.

Would that yon Orb, whose matin glow 90

Thy listless eyes so much admire,

Would lend thee something of his fire!

Thou, who woulds't see this battlement

By Christian cannon piecemeal rent;

Nay, tamely view old Stambol's wall

Before the dogs of Moscow fall,

Nor strike one stroke for life and death

Against the curs of Nazareth!

Go--let thy less than woman's hand

Assume the distaff--not the brand. 100

But, Haroun!--to my daughter speed:

And hark--of thine own head take heed--

If thus Zuleika oft takes wing--

Thou see'st yon bow--it hath a string!"

No sound from Selim's lip was heard,

At least that met old Giaffir's ear,

But every frown and every word

Pierced keener than a Christian's sword.

"Son of a slave!--reproached with fear!

Those gibes had cost another dear. 110

Son of a slave!--and _who_ my Sire?"

Thus held his thoughts their dark career;

And glances ev'n of more than ire[ff]

Flash forth, then faintly disappear.

Old Giaffir gazed upon his son

And started; for within his eye

He read how much his wrath had done;

He saw rebellion there begun:

"Come hither, boy--what, no reply?

I mark thee--and I know thee too; 120

But there be deeds thou dar'st not do:

But if thy beard had manlier length,

And if thy hand had skill and strength,

I'd joy to see thee break a lance,

Albeit against my own perchance."

As sneeringly these accents fell,

On Selim's eye he fiercely gazed:

That eye returned him glance for glance,

And proudly to his Sire's was raised[fg],

Till Giaffir's quailed and shrunk askance-- 130

And why--he felt, but durst not tell.

"Much I misdoubt this wayward boy

Will one day work me more annoy:

I never loved him from his birth,

And--but his arm is little worth,

And scarcely in the chase could cope

With timid fawn or antelope,

Far less would venture into strife

Where man contends for fame and life--

I would not trust that look or tone: 140

No--nor the blood so near my own.[fh]

That blood--he hath not heard--no more--

I'll watch him closer than before.

He is an Arab[131] to my sight,

Or Christian crouching in the fight--[fi]

But hark!--I hear Zuleika's voice;

Like Houris' hymn it meets mine ear:

She is the offspring of my choice;

Oh! more than ev'n her mother dear,

With all to hope, and nought to fear-- 150

My Peri! ever welcome here![fj]

Sweet, as the desert fountain's wave

To lips just cooled in time to save--

Such to my longing sight art thou;

Nor can they waft to Mecca's shrine

More thanks for life, than I for thine,

Who blest thy birth and bless thee now."[fk]

VI.

Fair, as the first that fell of womankind,

When on that dread yet lovely serpent smiling,

Whose Image then was stamped upon her mind-- 160

But once beguiled--and ever more beguiling;

Dazzling, as that, oh! too transcendent vision

To Sorrow's phantom-peopled slumber given,

When heart meets heart again in dreams Elysian,

And paints the lost on Earth revived in Heaven;

Soft, as the memory of buried love;

Pure, as the prayer which Childhood wafts above;

Was she--the daughter of that rude old Chief,

Who met the maid with tears--but not of grief.

Who hath not proved how feebly words essay[132] 170

To fix one spark of Beauty's heavenly ray?

Who doth not feel, until his failing sight[fl]

Faints into dimness with its own delight,

His changing cheek, his sinking heart confess

The might--the majesty of Loveliness?

Such was Zuleika--such around her shone

The nameless charms unmarked by her alone--

The light of Love, the purity of Grace,[fm]

The mind, the Music[133] breathing from her face,

The heart whose softness harmonized the whole, 180

And oh! that eye was in itself a Soul!

Her graceful arms in meekness bending

Across her gently-budding breast;

At one kind word those arms extending

To clasp the neck of him who blest

His child caressing and carest,

Zuleika came--and Giaffir felt

His purpose half within him melt:

Not that against her fancied weal

His heart though stern could ever feel; 190

Affection chained her to that heart;

Ambition tore the links apart.

VII.

"Zuleika! child of Gentleness!

How dear this very day must tell,

When I forget my own distress,

In losing what I love so well,

To bid thee with another dwell:

Another! and a braver man

Was never seen in battle's van.

We Moslem reck not much of blood: 200

But yet the line of Carasman[134]

Unchanged, unchangeable hath stood

First of the bold Timariot bands

That won and well can keep their lands.[fn]

Enough that he who comes to woo[fo]

Is kinsman of the Bey Oglou:[135]

His years need scarce a thought employ;

I would not have thee wed a boy.

And thou shalt have a noble dower:

And his and my united power 210

Will laugh to scorn the death-firman,

Which others tremble but to scan,

And teach the messenger[136] what fate

The bearer of such boon may wait.

And now thou know'st thy father's will;

All that thy sex hath need to know:

'Twas mine to teach obedience still--

The way to love, thy Lord may show."

VIII.

In silence bowed the virgin's head;

And if her eye was filled with tears 220

That stifled feeling dare not shed,

And changed her cheek from pale to red,

And red to pale, as through her ears

Those wingéd words like arrows sped,

What could such be but maiden fears?

So bright the tear in Beauty's eye,

Love half regrets to kiss it dry;

So sweet the blush of Bashfulness,

Even Pity scarce can wish it less!

Whate'er it was the sire forgot: 230

Or if remembered, marked it not;

Thrice clapped his hands, and called his steed,[137]

Resigned his gem-adorned chibouque,[138]

And mounting featly for the mead,

With Maugrabeel[139] and Mamaluke,

His way amid his Delis took,[140]

To witness many an active deed

With sabre keen, or blunt jerreed.

The Kislar only and his Moors[141]

Watch well the Haram's massy doors. 240

IX.

His head was leant upon his hand,

His eye looked o'er the dark blue water

That swiftly glides and gently swells

Between the winding Dardanelles;

But yet he saw nor sea nor strand,

Nor even his Pacha's turbaned band

Mix in the game of mimic slaughter,

Careering cleave the folded felt[142]

With sabre stroke right sharply dealt;

Nor marked the javelin-darting crowd, 250

Nor heard their Ollahs[143] wild and loud--

He thought but of old Giaffir's daughter!

No word from Selim's bosom broke;

One sigh Zuleika's thought bespoke:

Still gazed he through the lattice grate,

Pale, mute, and mournfully sedate.

To him Zuleika's eye was turned,

But little from his aspect learned:

Equal her grief, yet not the same;

Her heart confessed a gentler flame:[fp] 260

But yet that heart, alarmed or weak,

She knew not why, forbade to speak.

Yet speak she must--but when essay?

"How strange he thus should turn away!

Not thus we e'er before have met;

Not thus shall be our parting yet."

Thrice paced she slowly through the room,

And watched his eye--it still was fixed:

She snatched the urn wherein was mixed

The Persian Atar-gul's perfume,[144] 270

And sprinkled all its odours o'er

The pictured roof[145] and marble floor:

The drops, that through his glittering vest[fq]

The playful girl's appeal addressed,

Unheeded o'er his bosom flew,

As if that breast were marble too.

"What, sullen yet? it must not be--

Oh! gentle Selim, this from thee!"

She saw in curious order set

The fairest flowers of Eastern land-- 280

"He loved them once; may touch them yet,

If offered by Zuleika's hand."

The childish thought was hardly breathed

Before the rose was plucked and wreathed;

The next fond moment saw her seat

Her fairy form at Selim's feet:

"This rose to calm my brother's cares

A message from the Bulbul[146] bears;

It says to-night he will prolong

For Selim's ear his sweetest song; 290

And though his note is somewhat sad,

He'll try for once a strain more glad,

With some faint hope his altered lay

May sing these gloomy thoughts away.

XI.

"What! not receive my foolish flower?

Nay then I am indeed unblest:

On me can thus thy forehead lower?

And know'st thou not who loves thee best?[fr]

Oh, Selim dear! oh, more than dearest!

Say, is it me thou hat'st or fearest? 300

Come, lay thy head upon my breast,

And I will kiss thee into rest,

Since words of mine, and songs must fail,

Ev'n from my fabled nightingale.

I knew our sire at times was stern,

But this from thee had yet to learn:

Too well I know he loves thee not;

But is Zuleika's love forgot?

Ah! deem I right? the Pacha's plan--

This kinsman Bey of Carasman 310

Perhaps may prove some foe of thine.

If so, I swear by Mecca's shrine,--[fs]

If shrines that ne'er approach allow

To woman's step admit her vow,--

Without thy free consent--command--

The Sultan should not have my hand!

Think'st thou that I could bear to part

With thee, and learn to halve my heart?

Ah! were I severed from thy side,

Where were thy friend--and who my guide? 320

Years have not seen, Time shall not see,

The hour that tears my soul from thee:[ft]

Ev'n Azrael,[147] from his deadly quiver

When flies that shaft, and fly it must,[fu]

That parts all else, shall doom for ever

Our hearts to undivided dust!"

XII.

He lived--he breathed--he moved--he felt;

He raised the maid from where she knelt;

His trance was gone, his keen eye shone

With thoughts that long in darkness dwelt; 330

With thoughts that burn--in rays that melt.

As the stream late concealed

By the fringe of its willows,

When it rushes reveal'd

In the light of its billows;

As the bolt bursts on high

From the black cloud that bound it,

Flashed the soul of that eye

Through the long lashes round it.

A war-horse at the trumpet's sound, 340

A lion roused by heedless hound,

A tyrant waked to sudden strife

By graze of ill-directed knife,[fv]

Starts not to more convulsive life

Than he, who heard that vow, displayed,

And all, before repressed, betrayed:

"Now thou art mine, for ever mine,

With life to keep, and scarce with life resign;[fw]

Now thou art mine, that sacred oath,

Though sworn by one, hath bound us both. 350

Yes, fondly, wisely hast thou done;

That vow hath saved more heads than one:

But blench not thou--thy simplest tress

Claims more from me than tenderness;

I would not wrong the slenderest hair

That clusters round thy forehead fair,[fx]

For all the treasures buried far

Within the caves of Istakar.[148]

This morning clouds upon me lowered,

Reproaches on my head were showered, 360

And Giaffir almost called me coward!

Now I have motive to be brave;

The son of his neglected slave,

Nay, start not,'twas the term he gave,

May show, though little apt to vaunt,

A heart his words nor deeds can daunt.

_His_ son, indeed!--yet, thanks to thee,

Perchance I am, at least shall be;

But let our plighted secret vow

Be only known to us as now. 370

I know the wretch who dares demand

From Giaffir thy reluctant hand;

More ill-got wealth, a meaner soul

Holds not a Musselim's[149] control;

Was he not bred in Egripo?[150]

A viler race let Israel show!

But let that pass--to none be told

Our oath; the rest shall time unfold.

To me and mine leave Osman Bey!

I've partisans for Peril's day: 380

Think not I am what I appear;

I've arms--and friends--and vengeance near."

XIII.

"Think not thou art what thou appearest!

My Selim, thou art sadly changed:

This morn I saw thee gentlest--dearest--

But now thou'rt from thyself estranged.

My love thou surely knew'st before,

It ne'er was less--nor can be more.

To see thee--hear thee--near thee stay--

And hate the night--I know not why, 390

Save that we meet not but by day;

With thee to live, with thee to die,

I dare not to my hope deny:

Thy cheek--thine eyes--thy lips to kiss--

Like this--and this--no more than this;[fy]

For, Allah! sure thy lips are flame:

What fever in thy veins is flushing?

My own have nearly caught the same,

At least I feel my cheek, too, blushing.

To soothe thy sickness, watch thy health, 400

Partake, but never waste thy wealth,

Or stand with smiles unmurmuring by,

And lighten half thy poverty;

Do all but close thy dying eye,

For that I could not live to try;

To these alone my thoughts aspire:

More can I do? or thou require?

But, Selim, thou must answer why[fz]

We need so much of mystery?

The cause I cannot dream nor tell, 410

But be it, since thou say'st 'tis well;

Yet what thou mean'st by 'arms' and 'friends,'

Beyond my weaker sense extends.

I meant that Giaffir should have heard

The very vow I plighted thee;

His wrath would not revoke my word:

But surely he would leave me free.

Can this fond wish seem strange in me,

To be what I have ever been?

What other hath Zuleika seen 420

From simple childhood's earliest hour?

What other can she seek to see

Than thee, companion of her bower,

The partner of her infancy?

These cherished thoughts with life begun,

Say, why must I no more avow?

What change is wrought to make me shun

The truth--my pride, and thine till now?

To meet the gaze of stranger's eyes

Our law--our creed--our God denies; 430

Nor shall one wandering thought of mine

At such, our Prophet's will, repine:

No! happier made by that decree,

He left me all in leaving thee.

Deep were my anguish, thus compelled[ga]

To wed with one I ne'er beheld:

This wherefore should I not reveal?

Why wilt thou urge me to conceal?[gb]

I know the Pacha's haughty mood

To thee hath never boded good; 440

And he so often storms at nought,

Allah! forbid that e'er he ought!

And why I know not, but within

My heart concealment weighs like sin.[gc]

If then such secrecy be crime,

And such it feels while lurking here;

Oh, Selim! tell me yet in time,

Nor leave me thus to thoughts of fear.

Ah! yonder see the Tchocadar,[151]

My father leaves the mimic war; 450

I tremble now to meet his eye--

Say, Selim, canst thou tell me why?"

XIV.

"Zuleika--to thy tower's retreat

Betake thee--Giaffir I can greet:

And now with him I fain must prate

Of firmans, imposts, levies, state.

There's fearful news from Danube's banks,

Our Vizier nobly thins his ranks

For which the Giaour may give him thanks!

Our Sultan hath a shorter way 460

Such costly triumph to repay.

But, mark me, when the twilight drum

Hath warned the troops to food and sleep,

Unto thy cell with Selim come;

Then softly from the Haram creep

Where we may wander by the deep:

Our garden battlements are steep;

Nor these will rash intruder climb

To list our words, or stint our time;

And if he doth, I want not steel 470

Which some have felt, and more may feel.

Then shalt thou learn of Selim more

Than thou hast heard or thought before:

Trust me, Zuleika--fear not me!

Thou know'st I hold a Haram key."

"Fear thee, my Selim! ne'er till now

Did words like this----"

"Delay not thou;[gd]

I keep the key--and Haroun's guard

Have _some_, and hope of _more_ reward.

To-night, Zuleika, thou shalt hear 480

My tale, my purpose, and my fear:

I am not, love! what I appear."

CANTO THE SECOND.[ge]

The winds are high on Helle's wave,

As on that night of stormy water

When Love, who sent, forgot to save

The young--the beautiful--the brave--

The lonely hope of Sestos' daughter.

Oh! when alone along the sky

Her turret-torch was blazing high,

Though rising gale, and breaking foam, 490

And shrieking sea-birds warned him home;

And clouds aloft and tides below,

With signs and sounds, forbade to go,

He could not see, he would not hear,

Or sound or sign foreboding fear;

His eye but saw that light of Love,

The only star it hailed above;

His ear but rang with Hero's song,

"Ye waves, divide not lovers long!"--

That tale is old, but Love anew[152] 500

May nerve young hearts to prove as true.

II.

The winds are high and Helle's tide

Rolls darkly heaving to the main;

And Night's descending shadows hide

That field with blood bedewed in vain,

The desert of old Priam's pride;

The tombs, sole relics of his reign,

All--save immortal dreams that could beguile

The blind old man of Scio's rocky isle!

III.

Oh! yet--for there my steps have been; 510

These feet have pressed the sacred shore,

These limbs that buoyant wave hath borne--

Minstrel! with thee to muse, to mourn,

To trace again those fields of yore,

Believing every hillock green

Contains no fabled hero's ashes,

And that around the undoubted scene

Thine own "broad Hellespont"[153] still dashes,

Be long my lot! and cold were he

Who there could gaze denying thee! 520

IV.

The Night hath closed on Helle's stream,

Nor yet hath risen on Ida's hill

That Moon, which shone on his high theme:

No warrior chides her peaceful beam,

But conscious shepherds bless it still.

Their flocks are grazing on the Mound

Of him who felt the Dardan's arrow:

That mighty heap of gathered ground

Which Ammon's son ran proudly round,[154]

By nations raised, by monarchs crowned, 530

Is now a lone and nameless barrow!

Within--thy dwelling-place how narrow![155]

Without--can only strangers breathe

The name of him that _was_ beneath:

Dust long outlasts the storied stone;

But Thou--thy very dust is gone!

Late, late to-night will Dian cheer

The swain, and chase the boatman's fear;

Till then--no beacon on the cliff

May shape the course of struggling skiff; 540

The scattered lights that skirt the bay,

All, one by one, have died away;

The only lamp of this lone hour

Is glimmering in Zuleika's tower.

Yes! there is light in that lone chamber,

And o'er her silken ottoman

Are thrown the fragrant beads of amber,

O'er which her fairy fingers ran;[156]

Near these, with emerald rays beset,[157]

(How could she thus that gem forget?) 550

Her mother's sainted amulet,[158]

Whereon engraved the Koorsee text,

Could smooth this life, and win the next;

And by her Comboloio[159] lies

A Koran of illumined dyes;

And many a bright emblazoned rhyme

By Persian scribes redeemed from Time;

And o'er those scrolls, not oft so mute,

Reclines her now neglected lute;

And round her lamp of fretted gold 560

Bloom flowers in urns of China's mould;

The richest work of Iran's loom,

And Sheeraz[160] tribute of perfume;

All that can eye or sense delight

Are gathered in that gorgeous room:

But yet it hath an air of gloom.

She, of this Peri cell the sprite,

What doth she hence, and on so rude a night?

VI.

Wrapt in the darkest sable vest,

Which none save noblest Moslem wear, 570

To guard from winds of Heaven the breast

As Heaven itself to Selim dear,

With cautious steps the thicket threading,

And starting oft, as through the glade

The gust its hollow moanings made,

Till on the smoother pathway treading,

More free her timid bosom beat,

The maid pursued her silent guide;

And though her terror urged retreat,

How could she quit her Selim's side? 580

How teach her tender lips to chide?

VII.

They reached at length a grotto, hewn

By nature, but enlarged by art,

Where oft her lute she wont to tune,

And oft her Koran conned apart;

And oft in youthful reverie

She dreamed what Paradise might be:

Where Woman's parted soul shall go

Her Prophet had disdained to show;[gf][161]

But Selim's mansion was secure, 590

Nor deemed she, could he long endure

His bower in other worlds of bliss

Without _her_, most beloved in this!

Oh! who so dear with him could dwell?

What Houri soothe him half so well?

VIII.

Since last she visited the spot

Some change seemed wrought within the grot:

It might be only that the night

Disguised things seen by better light:

That brazen lamp but dimly threw 600

A ray of no celestial hue;

But in a nook within the cell

Her eye on stranger objects fell.

There arms were piled, not such as wield

The turbaned Delis in the field;

But brands of foreign blade and hilt,

And one was red--perchance with guilt![gg]

Ah! how without can blood be spilt?

A cup too on the board was set

That did not seem to hold sherbet. 610

What may this mean? she turned to see

Her Selim--"Oh! can this be he?"[gh]

IX.

His robe of pride was thrown aside,

His brow no high-crowned turban bore,

But in its stead a shawl of red,

Wreathed lightly round, his temples wore:

That dagger, on whose hilt the gem

Were worthy of a diadem,

No longer glittered at his waist,

Where pistols unadorned were braced; 620

And from his belt a sabre swung,

And from his shoulder loosely hung

The cloak of white, the thin capote

That decks the wandering Candiote;

Beneath--his golden plated vest

Clung like a cuirass to his breast;

The greaves below his knee that wound

With silvery scales were sheathed and bound.

But were it not that high command

Spake in his eye, and tone, and hand, 630

All that a careless eye could see

In him was some young Galiongée.[162]

"I said I was not what I seemed;

And now thou see'st my words were true:

I have a tale thou hast not dreamed,

If sooth--its truth must others rue.

My story now 'twere vain to hide,

I must not see thee Osman's bride:

But had not thine own lips declared

How much of that young heart I shared, 640

I could not, must not, yet have shown

The darker secret of my own.

In this I speak not now of love;

That--let Time--Truth--and Peril prove:

But first--Oh! never wed another--

Zuleika! I am not thy brother!"

XI.

"Oh! not my brother!--yet unsay--

God! am I left alone on earth

To mourn--I dare not curse--the day[gi]

That saw my solitary birth? 650

Oh! thou wilt love me now no more!

My sinking heart foreboded ill;

But know _me_ all I was before,

Thy sister--friend--Zuleika still.

Thou led'st me here perchance to kill;

If thou hast cause for vengeance, see!

My breast is offered--take thy fill!

Far better with the dead to be

Than live thus nothing now to thee:

Perhaps far worse, for now I know 660

Why Giaffir always seemed thy foe;

And I, alas! am Giaffir's child,

For whom thou wert contemned, reviled.

If not thy sister--would'st thou save

My life--Oh! bid me be thy slave!"

XII.

"My slave, Zuleika!--nay, I'm thine:

But, gentle love, this transport calm,

Thy lot shall yet be linked with mine;

I swear it by our Prophet's shrine,[gj]

And be that thought thy sorrow's balm. 670

So may the Koran[163] verse displayed

Upon its steel direct my blade,

In danger's hour to guard us both,

As I preserve that awful oath!

The name in which thy heart hath prided

Must change; but, my Zuleika, know,

That tie is widened, not divided,

Although thy Sire's my deadliest foe.

My father was to Giaffir all

That Selim late was deemed to thee; 680

That brother wrought a brother's fall,

But spared, at least, my infancy!

And lulled me with a vain deceit

That yet a like return may meet.

He reared me, not with tender help,

But like the nephew of a Cain;[164]

He watched me like a lion's whelp,

That gnaws and yet may break his chain.

My father's blood in every vein

Is boiling! but for thy dear sake 690

No present vengeance will I take;

Though here I must no more remain.

But first, beloved Zuleika! hear

How Giaffir wrought this deed of fear.

XIII.

"How first their strife to rancour grew,

If Love or Envy made them foes,

It matters little if I knew;

In fiery spirits, slights, though few

And thoughtless, will disturb repose.

In war Abdallah's arm was strong, 700

Remembered yet in Bosniac song,[165]

And Paswan's[166] rebel hordes attest

How little love they bore such guest:

His death is all I need relate,

The stern effect of Giaffir's hate;

And how my birth disclosed to me,[gk]

Whate'er beside it makes, hath made me free.

XIV.

"When Paswan, after years of strife,

At last for power, but first for life,

In Widdin's walls too proudly sate, 710

Our Pachas rallied round the state;

Not last nor least in high command,

Each brother led a separate band;

They gave their Horse-tails[167] to the wind,

And mustering in Sophia's plain

Their tents were pitched, their post assigned;

To one, alas! assigned in vain!

What need of words? the deadly bowl,

By Giaffir's order drugged and given,

With venom subtle as his soul,[gl]

Dismissed Abdallah's hence to heaven. 720

Reclined and feverish in the bath,

He, when the hunter's sport was up,

But little deemed a brother's wrath

To quench his thirst had such a cup:

The bowl a bribed attendant bore;

He drank one draught,[168] nor needed more!

If thou my tale, Zuleika, doubt,

Call Haroun--he can tell it out.

XV.

"The deed once done, and Paswan's feud 730

In part suppressed, though ne'er subdued,

Abdallah's Pachalick was gained:--

Thou know'st not what in our Divan

Can wealth procure for worse than man--

Abdallah's honours were obtained

By him a brother's murder stained;

'Tis true, the purchase nearly drained

His ill-got treasure, soon replaced.

Would'st question whence? Survey the waste,

And ask the squalid peasant how 740

His gains repay his broiling brow!--

Why me the stern Usurper spared,

Why thus with me his palace spared,

I know not. Shame--regret--remorse--

And little fear from infant's force--

Besides, adoption as a son

By him whom Heaven accorded none,

Or some unknown cabal, caprice,

Preserved me thus:--but not in peace:

He cannot curb his haughty mood,[gm] 750

Nor I forgive a father's blood.

XVI.

"Within thy Father's house are foes;

Not all who break his bread are true:

To these should I my birth disclose,

His days-his very hours were few:

They only want a heart to lead,

A hand to point them to the deed.

But Haroun only knows, or knew

This tale, whose close is almost nigh:

He in Abdallah's palace grew, 760

And held that post in his Serai

Which holds he here--he saw him die;

But what could single slavery do?

Avenge his lord? alas! too late;

Or save his son from such a fate?

He chose the last, and when elate

With foes subdued, or friends betrayed,

Proud Giaffir in high triumph sate,

He led me helpless to his gate,

And not in vain it seems essayed 770

To save the life for which he prayed.

The knowledge of my birth secured

From all and each, but most from me;

Thus Giaffir's safety was ensured.

Removed he too from Roumelie

To this our Asiatic side,

Far from our seats by Danube's tide,

With none but Haroun, who retains

Such knowledge--and that Nubian feels

A Tyrant's secrets are but chains, 780

From which the captive gladly steals,

And this and more to me reveals:

Such still to guilt just Allah sends--

Slaves, tools, accomplices--no friends!

XVII.

"All this, Zuleika, harshly sounds;

But harsher still my tale must be:

Howe'er my tongue thy softness wounds,

Yet I must prove all truth to thee."[gn]

I saw thee start this garb to see,

Yet is it one I oft have worn, 790

And long must wear: this Galiongée,

To whom thy plighted vow is sworn,

Is leader of those pirate hordes,

Whose laws and lives are on their swords;

To hear whose desolating tale

Would make thy waning cheek more pale:

Those arms thou see'st my band have brought,

The hands that wield are not remote;

This cup too for the rugged knaves

Is filled--once quaffed, they ne'er repine: 800

Our Prophet might forgive the slaves;

They're only infidels in wine.

XVIII.

"What could I be? Proscribed at home,

And taunted to a wish to roam;

And listless left--for Giaffir's fear

Denied the courser and the spear--

Though oft--Oh, Mahomet! how oft!--

In full Divan the despot scoffed,

As if _my_ weak unwilling hand

Refused the bridle or the brand: 810

He ever went to war alone,

And pent me here untried--unknown;

To Haroun's care with women left,[go]

By hope unblest, of fame bereft,

While thou--whose softness long endeared,

Though it unmanned me, still had cheered--

To Brusa's walls for safety sent,

Awaited'st there the field's event.

Haroun who saw my spirit pining[gp]

Beneath inaction's sluggish yoke, 820

His captive, though with dread resigning,

My thraldom for a season broke,

On promise to return before

The day when Giaffir's charge was o'er.

'Tis vain--my tongue can not impart[gq]

My almost drunkenness of heart,[169]

When first this liberated eye

Surveyed Earth--Ocean--Sun--and Sky--

As if my Spirit pierced them through,

And all their inmost wonders knew! 830

One word alone can paint to thee

That more than feeling--I was Free!

E'en for thy presence ceased to pine;

The World--nay, Heaven itself was mine!

XIX.

"The shallop of a trusty Moor

Conveyed me from this idle shore;

I longed to see the isles that gem

Old Ocean's purple diadem:

I sought by turns, and saw them all;[170]

But when and where I joined the crew, 840

With whom I'm pledged to rise or fall,

When all that we design to do

Is done,'twill then be time more meet

To tell thee, when the tale's complete.

XX.

"'Tis true, they are a lawless brood,

But rough in form, nor mild in mood;

And every creed, and every race,

With them hath found--may find a place:

But open speech, and ready hand,

Obedience to their Chief's command; 850

A soul for every enterprise,

That never sees with Terror's eyes;

Friendship for each, and faith to all,

And vengeance vowed for those who fall,

Have made them fitting instruments

For more than e'en my own intents.

And some--and I have studied all

Distinguished from the vulgar rank,

But chiefly to my council call

The wisdom of the cautious Frank:-- 860

And some to higher thoughts aspire.

The last of Lambro's[171] patriots there

Anticipated freedom share;

And oft around the cavern fire

On visionary schemes debate,

To snatch the Rayahs[172] from their fate.

So let them ease their hearts with prate

Of equal rights, which man ne'er knew;

I have a love for freedom too.

Aye! let me like the ocean-Patriarch[173] roam, 870

Or only know on land the Tartar's home![174]

My tent on shore, my galley on the sea,

Are more than cities and Serais to me:[175]

Borne by my steed, or wafted by my sail,

Across the desert, or before the gale,

Bound where thou wilt, my barb! or glide, my prow!

But be the Star that guides the wanderer, Thou!

Thou, my Zuleika, share and bless my bark;

The Dove of peace and promise to mine ark![176]

Or, since that hope denied in worlds of strife, 880

Be thou the rainbow to the storms of life!

The evening beam that smiles the clouds away,

And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray![177]

Blest--as the Muezzin's strain from Mecca's wall

To pilgrims pure and prostrate at his call;

Soft--as the melody of youthful days,

That steals the trembling tear of speechless praise;

Dear--as his native song to Exile's ears,[gr]

Shall sound each tone thy long-loved voice endears.

For thee in those bright isles is built a bower 890

Blooming as Aden[178] in its earliest hour.

A thousand swords, with Selim's heart and hand,

Wait--wave--defend--destroy--at thy command![gs]

Girt by my band, Zuleika at my side,

The spoil of nations shall bedeck my bride.

The Haram's languid years of listless ease

Are well resigned for cares--for joys like these:

Not blind to Fate, I see, where'er I rove,

Unnumbered perils,--but one only love!

Yet well my toils shall that fond breast repay, 900

Though Fortune frown, or falser friends betray.

How dear the dream in darkest hours of ill,

Should all be changed, to find thee faithful still!

Be but thy soul, like Selim's firmly shown;

To thee be Selim's tender as thine own;

To soothe each sorrow, share in each delight,[gt]

Blend every thought, do all--but disunite!

Once free, 'tis mine our horde again to guide;

Friends to each other, foes to aught beside:[179]

Yet there we follow but the bent assigned 910

By fatal Nature to man's warring kind:[gu]

Mark! where his carnage and his conquests cease!

He makes a solitude, and calls it--peace![gv][180]

I like the rest must use my skill or strength,

But ask no land beyond my sabre's length:

Power sways but by division--her resource[gw]

The blest alternative of fraud or force!

Ours be the last; in time Deceit may come

When cities cage us in a social home:

There ev'n thy soul might err--how oft the heart 920

Corruption shakes which Peril could not part!

And Woman, more than Man, when Death or Woe,

Or even Disgrace, would lay her lover low,

Sunk in the lap of Luxury will shame--

Away suspicion!--_not_ Zuleika's name!

But life is hazard at the best; and here

No more remains to win, and much to fear:

Yes, fear!--the doubt, the dread of losing thee,

By Osman's power, and Giaffir's stern decree.

That dread shall vanish with the favouring gale, 930

Which Love to-night hath promised to my sail:[gx]

No danger daunts the pair his smile hath blest,

Their steps still roving, but their hearts at rest.

With thee all toils are sweet, each clime hath charms;

Earth--sea alike--our world within our arms!

Aye--let the loud winds whistle o'er the deck,[181]

So that those arms cling closer round my neck:

The deepest murmur of this lip shall be,[gy][182]

No sigh for safety, but a prayer for thee!

The war of elements no fears impart 940

To Love, whose deadliest bane is human Art:

_There_ lie the only rocks our course can check;

_Here_ moments menace--_there_ are years of wreck!

But hence ye thoughts that rise in Horror's shape!

This hour bestows, or ever bars escape.[gz]

Few words remain of mine my tale to close;

Of thine but _one_ to waft us from our foes;

Yea--foes--to me will Giaffir's hate decline?

And is not Osman, who would part us, thine?

XXI.

"His head and faith from doubt and death 950

Returned in time my guard to save;

Few heard, none told, that o'er the wave

From isle to isle I roved the while:

And since, though parted from my band

Too seldom now I leave the land,

No deed they've done, nor deed shall do,

Ere I have heard and doomed it too:

I form the plan--decree the spoil--

Tis fit I oftener share the toil.

But now too long I've held thine ear; 960

Time presses--floats my bark--and here

We leave behind but hate and fear.

To-morrow Osman with his train

Arrives--to-night must break thy chain:

And would'st thou save that haughty Bey,--

Perchance _his_ life who gave thee thine,--

With me this hour away--away!

But yet, though thou art plighted mine,

Would'st thou recall thy willing vow,

Appalled by truths imparted now, 970

Here rest I--not to see thee wed:

But be that peril on _my_ head!"

XXII.

Zuleika, mute and motionless,

Stood like that Statue of Distress,

When, her last hope for ever gone,

The Mother hardened into stone;

All in the maid that eye could see

Was but a younger Niobé.

But ere her lip, or even her eye,

Essayed to speak, or look reply, 980

Beneath the garden's wicket porch

Far flashed on high a blazing torch!

Another--and another--and another--[183]

"Oh! fly--no more--yet now my more than brother!"

Far, wide, through every thicket spread

The fearful lights are gleaming red;

Nor these alone--for each right hand

Is ready with a sheathless brand.

They part--pursue--return, and wheel

With searching flambeau, shining steel; 990

And last of all, his sabre waving,

Stern Giaffir in his fury raving:

And now almost they touch the cave--

Oh! must that grot be Selim's grave?

XXIII.

Dauntless he stood--"'Tis come--soon past--

One kiss, Zuleika--'tis my last:

But yet my band not far from shore

May hear this signal, see the flash;

Yet now too few--the attempt were rash:

No matter--yet one effort more." 1000

Forth to the cavern mouth he stept;

His pistol's echo rang on high,

Zuleika started not, nor wept,

Despair benumbed her breast and eye!--

"They hear me not, or if they ply

Their oars,'tis but to see me die;

That sound hath drawn my foes more nigh.

Then forth my father's scimitar,

Thou ne'er hast seen less equal war!

Farewell, Zuleika!--Sweet! retire: 1010

Yet stay within--here linger safe,

At thee his rage will only chafe.

Stir not--lest even to thee perchance

Some erring blade or ball should glance.

Fear'st them for him?--may I expire

If in this strife I seek thy sire!

No--though by him that poison poured;

No--though again he call me coward!

But tamely shall I meet their steel?

No--as each crest save _his_ may feel!" 1020

XXIV.

One bound he made, and gained the sand:

Already at his feet hath sunk

The foremost of the prying band,

A gasping head, a quivering trunk:

Another falls--but round him close

A swarming circle of his foes;

From right to left his path he cleft,

And almost met the meeting wave:

His boat appears--not five oars' length--

His comrades strain with desperate strength-- 1030

Oh! are they yet in time to save?

His feet the foremost breakers lave;

His band are plunging in the bay,

Their sabres glitter through the spray;

Wet--wild--unwearied to the strand

They struggle--now they touch the land!

They come--'tis but to add to slaughter--

His heart's best blood is on the water.

XXV.

Escaped from shot, unharmed by steel,

Or scarcely grazed its force to feel,[ha] 1040

Had Selim won, betrayed, beset,

To where the strand and billows met;

There as his last step left the land,

And the last death-blow dealt his hand--

Ah! wherefore did he turn to look[hb]

For her his eye but sought in vain?

That pause, that fatal gaze he took,

Hath doomed his death, or fixed his chain.

Sad proof, in peril and in pain,

How late will Lover's hope remain! 1050

His back was to the dashing spray;

Behind, but close, his comrades lay,

When, at the instant, hissed the ball--

"So may the foes of Giaffir fall!"

Whose voice is heard? whose carbine rang?

Whose bullet through the night-air sang,

Too nearly, deadly aimed to err?

'Tis thine--Abdallah's Murderer!

The father slowly rued thy hate,

The son hath found a quicker fate: 1060

Fast from his breast the blood is bubbling,

The whiteness of the sea-foam troubling--

If aught his lips essayed to groan,

The rushing billows choked the tone!

XXVI.

Morn slowly rolls the clouds away;

Few trophies of the fight are there:

The shouts that shook the midnight-bay

Are silent; but some signs of fray

That strand of strife may bear,

And fragments of each shivered brand; 1070

Steps stamped; and dashed into the sand

The print of many a struggling hand

May there be marked; nor far remote

A broken torch, an oarless boat;

And tangled on the weeds that heap

The beach where shelving to the deep

There lies a white capote!

'Tis rent in twain--one dark-red stain

The wave yet ripples o'er in vain:

But where is he who wore? 1080

Ye! who would o'er his relics weep,

Go, seek them where the surges sweep

Their burthen round Sigæum's steep

And cast on Lemnos' shore:

The sea-birds shriek above the prey,

O'er which their hungry beaks delay,[hc]

As shaken on his restless pillow,

His head heaves with the heaving billow;

That hand, whose motion is not life,[hd]

Yet feebly seems to menace strife, 1090

Flung by the tossing tide on high,

Then levelled with the wave--[184]

What recks it, though that corse shall lie

Within a living grave?

The bird that tears that prostrate form

Hath only robbed the meaner worm;

The only heart, the only eye

Had bled or wept to see him die,

Had seen those scattered limbs composed,

And mourned above his turban-stone,[185] 1100

That heart hath burst--that eye was closed--

Yea--closed before his own!

XXVII.

By Helle's stream there is a voice of wail!

And Woman's eye is wet--Man's cheek is pale:

Zuleika! last of Giaffir's race,

Thy destined lord is come too late:

He sees not--ne'er shall see thy face!

Can he not hear

The loud Wul-wulleh[186] warn his distant ear?

Thy handmaids weeping at the gate, 1110

The Koran-chanters of the Hymn of Fate,[he][187]

The silent slaves with folded arms that wait,

Sighs in the hall, and shrieks upon the gale,

Tell him thy tale!

Thou didst not view thy Selim fall!

That fearful moment when he left the cave

Thy heart grew chill:

He was thy hope--thy joy--thy love--thine all,

And that last thought on him thou could'st not save

Sufficed to kill; 1120

Burst forth in one wild cry--and all was still.

Peace to thy broken heart--and virgin grave!

Ah! happy! but of life to lose the worst!

That grief--though deep--though fatal--was thy first!

Thrice happy! ne'er to feel nor fear the force

Of absence--shame--pride--hate--revenge--remorse!

And, oh! that pang where more than Madness lies

The Worm that will not sleep--and never dies;

Thought of the gloomy day and ghastly night,

That dreads the darkness, and yet loathes the light, 1130

That winds around, and tears the quivering heart!

Ah! wherefore not consume it--and depart!

Woe to thee, rash and unrelenting Chief!

Vainly thou heap'st the dust upon thy head,

Vainly the sackcloth o'er thy limbs dost spread:[188]

By that same hand Abdallah--Selim bled.

Now let it tear thy beard in idle grief:

Thy pride of heart, thy bride for Osman's bed,

She, whom thy Sultan had but seen to wed,[hf]

Thy Daughter's dead! 1140

Hope of thine age, thy twilight's lonely beam,

The Star hath set that shone on Helle's stream.

What quenched its ray?--the blood that thou hast shed!

Hark! to the hurried question of Despair:[189]

"Where is my child?"--an Echo answers--"Where?"[190]

XXVIII.

Within the place of thousand tombs

That shine beneath, while dark above

The sad but living cypress glooms[hg]

And withers not, though branch and leaf

Are stamped with an eternal grief, 1150

Like early unrequited Love,

One spot exists, which ever blooms,

Ev'n in that deadly grove--

A single rose is shedding there

Its lonely lustre, meek and pale:

It looks as planted by Despair--

So white--so faint--the slightest gale

Might whirl the leaves on high;

And yet, though storms and blight assail,

And hands more rude than wintry sky 1160

May wring it from the stem--in vain--

To-morrow sees it bloom again!

The stalk some Spirit gently rears,

And waters with celestial tears;

For well may maids of Helle deem

That this can be no earthly flower,

Which mocks the tempest's withering hour,

And buds unsheltered by a bower;

Nor droops, though Spring refuse her shower,

Nor woos the Summer beam: 1170

To it the livelong night there sings

A Bird unseen--but not remote:

Invisible his airy wings,

But soft as harp that Houri strings

His long entrancing note!

It were the Bulbul; but his throat,

Though mournful, pours not such a strain:

For they who listen cannot leave

The spot, but linger there and grieve,

As if they loved in vain! 1180

And yet so sweet the tears they shed,

'Tis sorrow so unmixed with dread,

They scarce can bear the morn to break

That melancholy spell,

And longer yet would weep and wake,

He sings so wild and well!

But when the day-blush bursts from high[hh]

Expires that magic melody.

And some have been who could believe,[hi]

(So fondly youthful dreams deceive, 1190

Yet harsh be they that blame,)

That note so piercing and profound

Will shape and syllable[191] its sound

Into Zuleika's name.

'Tis from her cypress summit heard,

That melts in air the liquid word:

'Tis from her lowly virgin earth

That white rose takes its tender birth.

There late was laid a marble stone;

Eve saw it placed--the Morrow gone! 1200

It was no mortal arm that bore

That deep fixed pillar to the shore;

For there, as Helle's legends tell,

Next morn 'twas found where Selim fell;

Lashed by the tumbling tide, whose wave

Denied his bones a holier grave:

And there by night, reclined, 'tis said.

Is seen a ghastly turbaned head:[192]

And hence extended by the billow,

'Tis named the "Pirate-phantom's pillow!" 1210

Where first it lay that mourning flower

Hath flourished; flourisheth this hour,

Alone and dewy--coldly pure and pale;

As weeping Beauty's cheek at Sorrow's tale![hj][193]

NOTE TO _THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS_.