Chapter 76

"November 14. 1815.

"I return you your bills not accepted, but certainly not _unhonoured_. Your present offer is a favour which I would accept from you, if I accepted such from any man. Had such been my intention, I can assure you I would have asked you fairly, and as freely as you would give; and I cannot say more of my confidence or your conduct.

"The circumstances which induce me to part with my books, though sufficiently, are not _immediately_, pressing. I have made up my mind to them, and there's an end.

"Had I been disposed to trespass on your kindness in this way, it would have been before now; but I am not sorry to have an opportunity of declining it, as it sets my opinion of you, and indeed of human nature, in a different light from that in which I have been accustomed to consider it.

"Believe me very truly," &c.

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TO MR. MURRAY.

"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.

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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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