"December 25. 1815.
"I send some lines, written some time ago, and intended as an
opening to 'The Siege of Corinth.' I had forgotten them, and am not
sure that they had not better be left out now:--on that, you and
your Synod can determine. Yours," &c.
* * * * *
The following are the lines alluded to in this note. They are written in
the loosest form of that rambling style of metre which his admiration of
Mr. Coleridge's "Christabel" led him, at this time, to adopt; and he
judged rightly, perhaps, in omitting them as the opening of his poem.
They are, however, too full of spirit and character to be lost. Though
breathing the thick atmosphere of Piccadilly when he wrote them, it is
plain that his fancy was far away, among the sunny hills and vales of
Greece; and their contrast with the tame life he was leading at the
moment, but gave to his recollections a fresher spring and force.
"In the year since Jesus died for men,
Eighteen hundred years and ten,
We were a gallant company,
Riding o'er land, and sailing o'er sea.
Oh! but we went merrily!
We forded the river, and clomb the high hill,
Never our steeds for a day stood still;
Whether we lay in the cave or the shed,
Our sleep fell soft on the hardest bed;
Whether we couch'd in our rough capote,
On the rougher plank of our gliding boat,
Or stretch'd on the beach, or our saddles spread
As a pillow beneath the resting head,
Fresh we woke upon the morrow:
All our thoughts and words had scope,
We had health, and we had hope,
Toil and travel, but no sorrow.
We were of all tongues and creeds;--
Some were those who counted beads,
Some of mosque, and some of church,
And some, or I mis-say, of neither;
Yet through the wide world might ye search
Nor find a mother crew nor blither.
"But some are dead, and some are gone,
And some are scatter'd and alone,
And some are rebels on the hills[89]
That look along Epirus' valleys
Where Freedom still at moments rallies,
And pays in blood Oppression's ills:
And some are in a far countree,
And some all restlessly at home;
But never more, oh! never, we
Shall meet to revel and to roam.
But those hardy days flew cheerily;
And when they now fall drearily,
My thoughts, like swallows, skim the main
And bear my spirit back again
Over the earth, and through the air,
A wild bird, and a wanderer.
'Tis this that ever wakes my strain,
And oft, too oft, implores again
The few who may endure my lay,
To follow me so far away.
"Stranger--wilt thou follow now,
And sit with me on Acro-Corinth's brow?"
[Footnote 89: "The last tidings recently heard of Dervish (one of the
Arnaouts who followed me) state him to be in revolt upon the mountains,
at the head of some of the bands common in that country in times of
trouble."]
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