Chapter 11

Chapter 1132,109 wordsPublic domain

before Nathan's folio, which was advertised for the first time in the _Morning Chronicle_, April 6, 1815; and it is possible that the first public announcement of the _Hebrew Melodies_, as a separate issue, was made in the _Courier_, June 22, 1815.

The _Hebrew Melodies_ were reviewed in the _Christian Observer_, August, 1815, vol. xiv. p. 542; in the _Analectic Magazine_, October, 1815, vol. vi. p. 292; and were noticed by Jeffrey [The _Hebrew Melodies_, though "obviously inferior" to Lord Byron's other works, "display a skill in versification and a mastery in diction which would have raised an inferior artist to the very summit of distinction"] in the _Edinburgh Review_, December, 1816, vol. xxvii. p. 291.

The subsequent poems were written at the request of my friend, the Hon. Douglas Kinnaird, for a Selection of Hebrew Melodies, and have been published, with the music, arranged by Mr. Braham and Mr. Nathan.

_January_, 1815.

HEBREW MELODIES

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY.[287]

She walks in Beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellowed to that tender light Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.

II.

One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress, Or softly lightens o'er her face; Where thoughts serenely sweet express, How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

III.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, The smiles that win, the tints that glow, But tell of days in goodness spent, A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent!

_June_ 12, 1814.

THE HARP THE MONARCH MINSTREL SWEPT.

The Harp the Monarch Minstrel swept,[le] The King of men, the loved of Heaven! Which Music hallowed while she wept O'er tones her heart of hearts had given-- Redoubled be her tears, its chords are riven! It softened men of iron mould, It gave them virtues not their own; No ear so dull, no soul so cold, That felt not--fired not to the tone, Till David's Lyre grew mightier than his Throne!

II.

It told the triumphs of our King,[lf] It wafted glory to our God; It made our gladdened valleys ring, The cedars bow, the mountains nod; Its sound aspired to Heaven and there abode![288] Since then, though heard on earth no more,[lg] Devotion and her daughter Love Still bid the bursting spirit soar To sounds that seem as from above, In dreams that day's broad light can not remove.

IF THAT HIGH WORLD.

If that high world,[289] which lies beyond Our own, surviving Love endears; If there the cherished heart be fond, The eye the same, except in tears-- How welcome those untrodden spheres! How sweet this very hour to die! To soar from earth and find all fears Lost in thy light--Eternity!

II.

It must be so: 'tis not for self That we so tremble on the brink; And striving to o'erleap the gulf, Yet cling to Being's severing link.[lh] Oh! in that future let us think To hold each heart the heart that shares, With them the immortal waters drink, And soul in soul grow deathless theirs!

THE WILD GAZELLE.

The wild gazelle on Judah's hills Exulting yet may bound, And drink from all the living rills That gush on holy ground; Its airy step and glorious eye[290] May glance in tameless transport by:--

II.

A step as fleet, an eye more bright, Hath Judah witnessed there; And o'er her scenes of lost delight Inhabitants more fair. The cedars wave on Lebanon, But Judah's statelier maids are gone!

III.

Than Israel's scattered race; For, taking root, it there remains In solitary grace: It cannot quit its place of birth, It will not live in other earth.

IV.

But we must wander witheringly, In other lands to die; And where our fathers' ashes be, Our own may never lie: Our temple hath not left a stone, And Mockery sits on Salem's throne.

OH! WEEP FOR THOSE.

Oh! weep for those that wept by Babel's stream, Whose shrines are desolate, whose land a dream; Weep for the harp of Judah's broken shell; Mourn--where their God hath dwelt the godless dwell!

II.

And where shall Israel lave her bleeding feet? And when shall Zion's songs again seem sweet? And Judah's melody once more rejoice The hearts that leaped before its heavenly voice?

III.

Tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast, How shall ye flee away and be at rest! The wild-dove hath her nest, the fox his cave, Mankind their country--Israel but the grave!

ON JORDAN'S BANKS.

On Jordan's banks the Arab's camels stray, On Sion's hill the False One's votaries pray, The Baal-adorer bows on Sinai's steep-- Yet there--even there--Oh God! thy thunders sleep:

II.

There--where thy finger scorched the tablet stone! There--where thy shadow to thy people shone! Thy glory shrouded in its garb of fire: Thyself--none living see and not expire!

III.

Oh! in the lightning let thy glance appear; Sweep from his shivered hand the oppressor's spear! How long by tyrants shall thy land be trod? How long thy temple worshipless, Oh God?

JEPHTHA'S DAUGHTER.[291]

Since our Country, our God--Oh, my Sire! Demand that thy Daughter expire; Since thy triumph was bought by thy vow-- Strike the bosom that's bared for thee now!

II.

And the voice of my mourning is o'er, And the mountains behold me no more: If the hand that I love lay me low, There cannot be pain in the blow!

III.

And of this, oh, my Father! be sure-- That the blood of thy child is as pure As the blessing I beg ere it flow, And the last thought that soothes me below.

IV.

Though the virgins of Salem lament, Be the judge and the hero unbent! I have won the great battle for thee, And my Father and Country are free!

When this blood of thy giving hath gushed, When the voice that thou lovest is hushed, Let my memory still be thy pride, And forget not I smiled as I died!

OH! SNATCHED AWAY IN BEAUTY'S BLOOM.[292]

Oh! snatched away in beauty's bloom, On thee shall press no ponderous tomb; But on thy turf shall roses rear Their leaves, the earliest of the year; And the wild cypress wave in tender gloom:[li]

II.

And oft by yon blue gushing stream Shall Sorrow lean her drooping head,[lj] And feed deep thought with many a dream, And lingering pause and lightly tread; Fond wretch! as if her step disturbed the dead!

III.

Away! we know that tears are vain, That Death nor heeds nor hears distress: Will this unteach us to complain? Or make one mourner weep the less? And thou--who tell'st me to forget,[lk] Thy looks are wan, thine eyes are wet.[ll][293]

[Published in the _Examiner_, April 23, 1815.]

MY SOUL IS DARK.

My soul is dark--Oh! quickly string[294] The harp I yet can brook to hear; And let thy gentle fingers fling Its melting murmurs o'er mine ear. If in this heart a hope be dear, That sound shall charm it forth again: If in these eyes there lurk a tear, 'Twill flow, and cease to burn my brain.

II.

But bid the strain be wild and deep, Nor let thy notes of joy be first: I tell thee, minstrel, I must weep, Or else this heavy heart will burst; For it hath been by sorrow nursed, And ached in sleepless silence long; And now 'tis doomed to know the worst, And break at once--or yield to song.[295]

I SAW THEE WEEP.

I saw thee weep--the big bright tear Came o'er that eye of blue;[296] And then methought it did appear A violet dropping dew: I saw thee smile--the sapphire's blaze Beside thee ceased to shine; It could not match the living rays That filled that glance of thine.

II.

As clouds from yonder sun receive A deep and mellow dye, Which scarce the shade of coming eve Can banish from the sky, Those smiles unto the moodiest mind Their own pure joy impart; Their sunshine leaves a glow behind That lightens o'er the heart.

THY DAYS ARE DONE.

Thy days are done, thy fame begun; Thy country's strains record The triumphs of her chosen Son, The slaughters of his sword! The deeds he did, the fields he won, The freedom he restored!

II.

Though thou art fall'n, while we are free Thou shall not taste of death! The generous blood that flowed from thee Disdained to sink beneath: Within our veins its currents be, Thy spirit on our breath!

III.

Thy name, our charging hosts along, Shall be the battle-word! Thy fall, the theme of choral song From virgin voices poured! To weep would do thy glory wrong: Thou shalt not be deplored.

SAUL.

Thou whose spell can raise the dead, Bid the Prophet's form appear. "Samuel, raise thy buried head! King, behold the phantom Seer!" Earth yawned; he stood the centre of a cloud: Light changed its hue, retiring from his shroud.[lm] Death stood all glassy in his fixéd eye; His hand was withered, and his veins were dry; His foot, in bony whiteness, glittered there, Shrunken and sinewless, and ghastly bare; From lips that moved not and unbreathing frame, Like caverned winds, the hollow accents came. Saul saw, and fell to earth, as falls the oak, At once, and blasted by the thunder-stroke.[ln]

II.

"Why is my sleep disquieted? Who is he that calls the dead? Is it thou, O King? Behold, Bloodless are these limbs, and cold:[lo] Such are mine; and such shall be Thine to-morrow, when with me: Ere the coming day is done, Such shalt thou be--such thy Son. Fare thee well, but for a day, Then we mix our mouldering clay. Thou--thy race, lie pale and low, Pierced by shafts of many a bow; And the falchion by thy side To thy heart thy hand shall guide: Crownless--breathless--headless fall, Son and Sire--the house of Saul!"[297]

Seaham, _Feb._, 1815.

SONG OF SAUL BEFORE HIS LAST BATTLE.

Warriors and chiefs! should the shaft or the sword Pierce me in leading the host of the Lord, Heed not the corse, though a King's, in your path:[lp] Bury your steel in the bosoms of Gath!

II.

Thou who art bearing my buckler and bow,[lq] Should the soldiers of Saul look away from the foe, Stretch me that moment in blood at thy feet! Mine be the doom which they dared not to meet.

III.

Farewell to others, but never we part, Heir to my Royalty--Son of my heart![lr] Bright is the diadem, boundless the sway, Or kingly the death, which awaits us to-day!

Seaham, 1815.

"ALL IS VANITY, SAITH THE PREACHER"

Fame, Wisdom, Love, and Power were mine, And Health and Youth possessed me; My goblets blushed from every vine, And lovely forms caressed me; I sunned my heart in Beauty's eyes, And felt my soul grow tender; All Earth can give, or mortal prize, Was mine of regal splendour.

II.

I strive to number o'er what days[ls] Remembrance can discover, Which all that Life or Earth displays Would lure me to live over. There rose no day, there rolled no hour Of pleasure unembittered;[298] And not a trapping decked my Power That galled not while it glittered.

III.[lt]

The serpent of the field, by art And spells, is won from harming; But that which coils around the heart, Oh! who hath power of charming? It will not list to Wisdom's lore, Nor Music's voice can lure it; But there it stings for evermore The soul that must endure it.

Seaham, 1815.

WHEN COLDNESS WRAPS THIS SUFFERING CLAY.

When coldness wraps this suffering clay,[lu] Ah! whither strays the immortal mind? It cannot die, it cannot stay, But leaves its darkened dust behind. Then, unembodied, doth it trace By steps each planet's heavenly way?[lv] Or fill at once the realms of space, A thing of eyes, that all survey?

II.

Eternal--boundless,--undecayed, A thought unseen, but seeing all, All, all in earth, or skies displayed,[lw] Shall it survey, shall it recall: Each fainter trace that Memory holds So darkly of departed years, In one broad glance the Soul beholds, And all, that was, at once appears.

III.

Before Creation peopled earth, Its eye shall roll through chaos back; And where the farthest heaven had birth, The Spirit trace its rising track. And where the future mars or makes, Its glance dilate o'er all to be, While Sun is quenched--or System breaks, Fixed in its own Eternity.

IV.

Above or Love--Hope--Hate--or Fear, It lives all passionless and pure: An age shall fleet like earthly year; Its years as moments shall endure. Away--away--without a wing, O'er all--through all--its thought shall fly, A nameless and eternal thing, Forgetting what it was to die.

Seaham, 1815.

VISION OF BELSHAZZAR.[299]

The King was on his throne, The Satraps thronged the hall:[lx] A thousand bright lamps shone O'er that high festival. A thousand cups of gold, In Judah deemed divine--[ly] Jehovah's vessels hold The godless Heathen's wine!

II.

In that same hour and hall, The fingers of a hand Came forth against the wall, And wrote as if on sand: The fingers of a man;-- A solitary hand Along the letters ran, And traced them like a wand.

III.

The monarch saw, and shook, And bade no more rejoice; All bloodless waxed his look, And tremulous his voice. "Let the men of lore appear, The wisest of the earth, And expound the words of fear, Which mar our royal mirth."

IV.

Chaldea's seers are good, But here they have no skill; And the unknown letters stood Untold and awful still. And Babel's men of age Are wise and deep in lore; But now they were not sage, They saw--but knew no more.

A captive in the land, A stranger and a youth,[300] He heard the King's command, He saw that writing's truth. The lamps around were bright, The prophecy in view; He read it on that night,-- The morrow proved it true.

VI.

"Belshazzar's grave is made,[lz] His kingdom passed away. He, in the balance weighed, Is light and worthless clay; The shroud, his robe of state, His canopy the stone; The Mede is at his gate! The Persian on his throne!"

SUN OF THE SLEEPLESS!

Sun of the sleepless! melancholy star! Whose tearful beam glows tremulously far, That show'st the darkness thou canst not dispel, How like art thou to Joy remembered well! So gleams the past, the light of other days, Which shines, but warms not with its powerless rays: A night-beam Sorrow watcheth to behold, Distinct, but distant--clear--but, oh how cold!

WERE MY BOSOM AS FALSE AS THOU DEEM'ST IT TO BE.

Were my bosom as false as thou deem'st it to be, I need not have wandered from far Galilee; It was but abjuring my creed to efface The curse which, thou say'st, is the crime of my race.

II.

If the bad never triumph, then God is with thee! If the slave only sin--thou art spotless and free! If the Exile on earth is an Outcast on high, Live on in thy faith--but in mine I will die.

III.

I have lost for that faith more than thou canst bestow, As the God who permits thee to prosper doth know; In his hand is my heart and my hope--and in thine The land and the life which for him I resign.

Seaham, 1815.

HEROD'S LAMENT FOR MARIAMNE.[301]

Oh, Mariamne! now for thee The heart for which thou bled'st is bleeding; Revenge is lost in Agony[ma] And wild Remorse to rage succeeding.[mb] Oh, Mariamne! where art thou? Thou canst not hear my bitter pleading:[mc] Ah! could'st thou--thou would'st pardon now, Though Heaven were to my prayer unheeding.

II.

And is she dead?--and did they dare Obey my Frenzy's jealous raving?[md] My Wrath but doomed my own despair: The sword that smote her 's o'er me waving.-- But thou art cold, my murdered Love! And this dark heart is vainly craving[me] For he who soars alone above, And leaves my soul unworthy saving.

III.

She's gone, who shared my diadem; She sunk, with her my joys entombing; I swept that flower from Judah's stem, Whose leaves for me alone were blooming; And mine's the guilt, and mine the hell, This bosom's desolation dooming; And I have earned those tortures well,[mf] Which unconsumed are still consuming!

_Jan._ 15, 1815.

ON THE DAY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM BY TITUS.

From the last hill that looks on thy once holy dome,[mg] I beheld thee, oh Sion! when rendered to Rome:[mh] 'Twas thy last sun went down, and the flames of thy fall Flashed back on the last glance I gave to thy wall.

II.

I looked for thy temple--I looked for my home, And forgot for a moment my bondage to come;[mi] I beheld but the death-fire that fed on thy fane, And the fast-fettered hands that made vengeance in vain.

III.

On many an eve, the high spot whence I gazed Had reflected the last beam of day as it blazed; While I stood on the height, and beheld the decline Of the rays from the mountain that shone on thy shrine.

IV.

And now on that mountain I stood on that day, But I marked not the twilight beam melting away; Oh! would that the lightning had glared in its stead, And the thunderbolt burst on the Conqueror's head![mj]

But the Gods of the Pagan shall never profane The shrine where Jehovah disdained not to reign; And scattered and scorned as thy people may be, Our worship, oh Father! is only for thee.

1815.

BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON WE SAT DOWN AND WEPT.[302]

We sate down and wept by the waters[303] Of Babel, and thought of the day When our foe, in the hue of his slaughters, Made Salem's high places his prey; And Ye, oh her desolate daughters! Were scattered all weeping away.

II.

While sadly we gazed on the river Which rolled on in freedom below, They demanded the song; but, oh never That triumph the Stranger shall know![mk] May this right hand be withered for ever, Ere it string our high harp for the foe!

III.

On the willow that harp is suspended, Oh Salem! its sound should be free;[ml] And the hour when thy glories were ended But left me that token of thee: And ne'er shall its soft tones be blended With the voice of the Spoiler by me!

_Jan._ 15, 1813.

"BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON."

In the valley of waters we wept on the day When the host of the Stranger made Salem his prey; And our heads on our bosoms all droopingly lay, And our hearts were so full of the land far away!

II.

The song they demanded in vain--it lay still In our souls as the wind that hath died on the hill-- They called for the harp--but our blood they shall spill Ere our right hands shall teach them one tone of their skill.

III.

All stringlessly hung in the willow's sad tree, As dead as her dead-leaf, those mute harps must be: Our hands may be fettered--our tears still are free For our God--and our Glory--and Sion, Oh _Thee!_

1815.

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB.

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

II.

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen: Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,[304] That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

III.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved--and for ever grew still!

IV.

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride; And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,[mm] And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.[mn]

And there lay the rider distorted and pale, With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail:[mo] And the tents were all silent--the banners alone-- The lances unlifted--the trumpet unblown.

VI.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,[mp] And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal; And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,[mq] Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

Seaham, Feb. 17, 1815.

A SPIRIT PASSED BEFORE ME.

FROM JOB.

A spirit passed before me: I beheld The face of Immortality unveiled-- Deep Sleep came down on every eye save mine-- And there it stood,--all formless--but divine: Along my bones the creeping flesh did quake; And as my damp hair stiffened, thus it spake:

II.

"Is man more just than God? Is man more pure Than he who deems even Seraphs insecure? Creatures of clay--vain dwellers in the dust! The moth survives you, and are ye more just? Things of a day! you wither ere the night, Heedless and blind to Wisdom's wasted light!"

FOOTNOTES:

[287] {381} [In a manuscript note to a letter of Byron's, dated June 11, 1814, Wedderburn Webster writes, "I _did_ take him to Lady Sitwell's party.... He there for the first time saw his cousin, the beautiful Mrs. Wilmot [who had appeared in mourning with numerous spangles in her dress]. When we returned to ... the Albany, he ... desired Fletcher to give him a _tumbler of brandy_, which he drank at once to Mrs. Wilmot's health.... The next day he wrote some charming lines upon her, 'She walks in beauty,' etc."--_Letters_, 1899, iii. 92, note 1.

Anne Beatrix, daughter and co-heiress of Eusebius Horton, of Catton Hall, Derbyshire, married Byron's second cousin, Robert John Wilmot (1784-1841), son of Sir Robert Wilmot of Osmaston, by Juliana, second daughter of the Hon. John Byron, and widow of the Hon. William Byron. She died February 4, 1871.

Nathan (_Fugitive Pieces_, 1829, pp. 2, 3) has a note to the effect that Byron, while arranging the first edition of the _Melodies_, used to ask for this song, and would not unfrequently join in its execution.]

[le] {382} _The Harp the Minstrel Monarch swept,_ _The first of men, the loved of Heaven,_ _Which Music cherished while she wept_.--[MS. M.]

[lf] {383} _It told the Triumph_----.--[MS. M.]

[288] ["When Lord Byron put the copy into my hand, it terminated with this line. This, however, did not complete the verse, and I asked him to help out the melody. He replied, 'Why, I have sent you to Heaven--it would be difficult to go further!' My attention for a few moments was called to some other person, and his Lordship, whom I had hardly missed, exclaimed, 'Here, Nathan, I have brought you down again;' and immediately presented me the beautiful and sublime lines which conclude the melody."--_Fugitive Pieces_, 1829, p. 33.]

[lg] _It there abode, and there it rings_, _But ne'er on earth its sound shall be;_ _The prophets' race hath passed away;_ _And all the hallowed minstrelsy_-- _From earth the sound and soul are fled_, _And shall we never hear again?_--[MS. M. erased.]

[289] [According to Nathan, the monosyllable "if" at the beginning of the first line led to "numerous attacks on the noble author's religion, and in some an inference of atheism was drawn."

Needless to add, "in a subsequent conversation," Byron repels this charge, and delivers himself of some admirable if commonplace sentiments on the "grand perhaps."-_Fugitive Pieces_, 1829, pp. 5, 6.]

[lh] {384} ----_breaking link_.--[Nathan, 1815, 1829.]

[290] [Compare _To Ianthe_, stanza iv. lines 1, 2--

"Oh! let that eye, which, wild as the Gazelle's, Now brightly bold or beautifully shy."

Compare, too, _The Giaour_, lines 473, 474--

"Her eye's dark charm 'twere vain to tell, But gaze on that of the Gazelle." _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 13; _et ante_, p. 108.]

[291] {387} [Nathan (_Fugitive Pieces_, 1829, pp. 11, 12) seems to have tried to draw Byron into a discussion on the actual fate of Jephtha's daughter--death at her father's hand, or "perpetual seclusion"--and that Byron had no opinion to offer. "Whatever may be the absolute state of the case, I am innocent of her blood; she has been killed to my hands;" and again, "Well, my hands are not imbrued in her blood!"]

[292] {388} ["In submitting the melody to his Lordship's judgment, I once inquired in what manner they might refer to any scriptural subject: he appeared for a moment affected--at last replied, 'Every mind must make its own references; there is scarcely one of us who could not imagine that the affliction belongs to himself, to me it certainly belongs.' 'She is no more, and perhaps the only vestige of her existence is the feeling I sometimes fondly indulge.'"--_Fugitive Pieces_, 1829, p. 30. It has been surmised that the lines contain a final reminiscence of the mysterious Thyrza.]

[li] ----_in gentle gloom._--[MS. M.]

[lj] _Shall Sorrow on the waters gaze_, _And lost in deep remembrance dream_, _As if her footsteps could disturb the dead._--[MS. M.]

[lk] {389} _Even thou_----.--[MS. M.]

[ll] IV.

_Nor need I write to tell the tale_, _My pen were doubly weak;_ _Oh what can idle words avail_, _Unless my 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 turn for thee_.--[MS. M.]

[293] [Compare "Nay, now, pry'thee weep no more! you know, ... that 'tis sinful to murmur at ... Providence."--"And should not that reflection check your own, my Blanche?"--"Why are your cheeks so wet? Fie! fie, my child!"--_Romantic Tales_, by M. G. Lewis, 1808, i. 53.]

[294] [Compare "My soul is dark."--Ossian, "Oina-Morul," _The Works of Ossian_, 1765, ii. 279.]

[295] {390} ["It was generally conceived that Lord Byron's reported singularities approached on some occasions to derangement; and at one period, indeed, it was very currently asserted that his intellects were actually impaired. The report only served to amuse his Lordship. He referred to the circumstance, and declared that he would try how a _Madman_ could write: seizing the pen with eagerness, he for a moment fixed his eyes in majestic wildness on vacancy; when, like a flash of inspiration, without erasing a single word, the above verses were the result."--_Fugitive Pieces_, 1829, p. 37.]

[296] [Compare the first _Sonnet to Genevra_ (addressed to Lady Frances Wedderburn Webster), "Thine eye's blue tenderness."]

[lm] {392} _He stands amidst an earthly cloud_, _And the mist mantled o'er his floating shroud_.--[MS. erased.]

[ln] _At once and scorched beneath_----.--[MS. Copy (1, 2).]

[lo] _Bloodless are these bones_----.--[MS.]

[297] ["Since we have spoken of witches," said Lord Byron at Cephalonia, in 1823, "what think you of the witch of Endor? I have always thought this the finest and most finished witch-scene that ever was written or conceived; and you will be of my opinion, if you consider all the circumstances and the actors in the case, together with the gravity, simplicity, and dignity of the language."--_Conversations on Religion with Lord Byron_, by James Kennedy, M.D., London, 1830, p. 154.]

[lp] {393} _Heed not the carcase that lies in your path_.--[MS. Copy (1).]

[lq] ----_my shield and my bow_, _Should the ranks of your king look away from the foe_.--[MS.]

[lr] {394} _Heir to my monarchy_----.--[MS.] Note to _Heir_--Jonathan.--[Copy.]

[ls] _My father was the shepherd's son_, _Ah were my lot as lowly_ _My earthly course had softly run_.--[MS.]

[298] {395} [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto I. stanza lxxxii. lines 8, 9--

"Full from the fount of Joy's delicious springs Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings." _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 73, and note 16, p. 93.]

[lt] _Ah! what hath been but what shall be_, _The same dull scene renewing?_ _And all our fathers were are we_ _In erring and undoing_.--[MS.]

[lu] _When this corroding clay is gone_.--[MS. erased.]

[lv] _The stars in their eternal way_.--[MS. L. erased.]

[lw] {396} _A conscious light that can pervade_.--[MS. erased.]

[299] {397} [Compare the lines entitled "Belshazzar" (_vide post_, p. 421), and _Don Juan_, Canto III. stanza lxv.]

[lx] ----_in the hall_.--[Copy.]

[ly] _In Israel_----.--[Copy.]

[300] {398} [It was not in his youth, but in extreme old age, that Daniel interpreted the "writing on the wall."]

[lz] _Oh king thy grave_----.--[Copy erased.]

[301] {400} [Mariamne, the wife of Herod the Great, falling under the suspicion of infidelity, was put to death by his order. Ever after, Herod was haunted by the image of the murdered Mariamne, until disorder of the mind brought on disorder of body, which led to temporary derangement. See _History of the Jews_, by H. H. Milman, 1878, pp. 236, 237. See, too, Voltaire's drama, _Mariamne_, _passim_.

Nathan, wishing "to be favoured with so many lines pathetic, some playful, others martial, etc.... one evening ... unfortunately (while absorbed for a moment in worldly affairs) requested so many _dull_ lines--meaning _plaintive_." Byron instantly caught at the expression, and exclaimed, "Well, Nathan! you have at length set me an easy task," and before parting presented him with "these beautifully pathetic lines, saying, 'Here, Nathan, I think you will find these _dull_ enough.'"--_Fugitive Pieces_, 1829, p. 51.]

[ma] _And what was rage is agony_.--[MS. erased.] _Revenge is turned_----.--[MS.]

[mb] _And deep Remorse_----.--[MS.]

[mc] _And what am I thy tyrant pleading_.--[MS. erased.]

[md] _Thou art not dead--they could not dare_ _Obey my jealous Frenzy's raving_.--[MS.]

[me] _But yet in death my soul enslaving_.--[MS. erased.]

[mf] {401} _Oh I have earned_----.--[MS.]

[mg] ----_that looks o'er thy once holy dome_.--[MS.]

[mh] ----_o'er thy once holy wall_ _I beheld thee O Sion the day of thy fall_.--[MS. erased.]

[mi] _And forgot in their ruin_----.--[MS. erased.]

[mj] {402} _And the red bolt_----.--[MS. erased.] _And the thunderbolt crashed_----.--[MS.]

[302] [The following note, in Byron's handwriting, is prefixed to the copy in Lady Byron's handwriting:--

"Dear Kinnaird,--Take only _one_ of these marked 1 and 2 [i.e. 'By the Rivers,' etc.; and 'By the waters,' _vide_ p. 404], as both are but different versions of the _same thought_--leave the choice to any important person you like. Yours, B."]

[303] [Landor, in his "Dialogue between Southey and Porson" (_Works_, 1846, i. 69), attempted to throw ridicule on the opening lines of this "Melody."

"A prey in 'the hue of his slaughters'! This is very pathetic; but not more so than the thought it suggested to me, which is plainer--

'We sat down and wept by the waters Of Camus, and thought of the day When damsels would show their red garters In their hurry to scamper away.'"]

[mk] {403} _Our mute harps were hung on the willow_ _That grew by the stream of our foe_, _And in sadness we gazed on each billow_ _That rolled on in freedom below_.--[MS, erased.]

[ml] _On the willow that harp still hangs mutely_ _Oh Salem its sound was for thee_.--[MS. erased.]

[304] {405} [Compare--"As leaves in autumn, so the bodies fell." _The Barons' Wars_, by Michael Drayton, Bk. II. stanza lvii.; Anderson's _British Poets_, iii. 38.]

[mm] _And the foam of his bridle lay cold on the earth_.--[MS.]

[mn] ----_of the cliff-beating surf_.--[MS.]

[mo] _With the crow on his breast_----.--[MS.]

[mp] _And the widows of Babel_----.--[MS. erased.]

[mq] _And the voices of Israel are joyous and high_.--[MS. erased.]

POEMS 1814-1816.

FAREWELL! IF EVER FONDEST PRAYER.

Farewell! if ever fondest prayer For other's weal availed on high, Mine will not all be lost in air, But waft thy name beyond the sky. 'Twere vain to speak--to weep--to sigh: Oh! more than tears of blood can tell, When wrung from Guilt's expiring eye,[305] Are in that word--Farewell!--Farewell!

These lips are mute, these eyes are dry; But in my breast and in my brain, Awake the pangs that pass not by, The thought that ne'er shall sleep again. My soul nor deigns nor dares complain, Though Grief and Passion there rebel: I only know we loved in vain-- I only feel--Farewell!--Farewell!

[First published, _Corsair_, Second Edition, 1814.]

WHEN WE TWO PARTED.

When we two parted In silence and tears, Half broken-hearted To sever for years, Pale grew thy cheek and cold, Colder thy kiss; Truly that hour foretold[mr] Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning[ms] Sunk chill on my brow-- It felt like the warning Of what I feel now. Thy vows are all broken,[mt] And light is thy fame: I hear thy name spoken, And share in its shame.

3.[mu]

They name thee before me, A knell to mine ear; A shudder comes o'er me-- Why wert thou so dear? They know not I knew thee, Who knew thee too well:-- Long, long shall I rue thee, Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met-- In silence I grieve. That thy heart could forget, Thy spirit deceive. If I should meet thee[mv] After long years, How should I greet thee?-- With silence and tears.

[First published, _Poems_, 1816.]

[LOVE AND GOLD.[306]]

I cannot talk of Love to thee, Though thou art young and free and fair! There is a spell thou dost not see, That bids a genuine love despair.

And yet that spell invites each youth, For thee to sigh, or seem to sigh; Makes falsehood wear the garb of truth, And Truth itself appear a lie.

If ever Doubt a place possest In woman's heart, 'twere wise in thine: Admit not Love into thy breast, Doubt others' love, nor trust in mine.

Perchance 'tis feigned, perchance sincere, But false or true thou canst not tell; So much hast thou from all to fear, In that unconquerable spell.

Of all the herd that throng around, Thy simpering or thy sighing train, Come tell me who to thee is bound By Love's or Plutus' heavier chain.

In some 'tis Nature, some 'tis Art That bids them worship at thy shrine; But thou deserv'st a better heart, Than they or I can give for thine.

For thee, and such as thee, behold, Is Fortune painted truly--blind! Who doomed thee to be bought or sold, Has proved too bounteous to be kind.

Each day some tempter's crafty suit Would woo thee to a loveless bed: I see thee to the altar's foot A decorated victim led.

Adieu, dear maid! I must not speak Whate'er my secret thoughts may be; Though thou art all that man can reck I dare not talk of Love to _thee_.

STANZAS FOR MUSIC.[307]

I speak not, I trace not, I breathe not thy name,[mw] There is grief in the sound, there is guilt in the fame: But the tear which now burns on my cheek may impart The deep thoughts that dwell in that silence of heart.

2.[mx]

Too brief for our passion, too long for our peace, Were those hours--can their joy or their bitterness cease? We repent, we abjure, we will break from our chain,-- We will part, we will fly to--unite it again!

Oh! thine be the gladness, and mine be the guilt![my] Forgive me, adored one!--forsake, if thou wilt;-- But the heart which is thine shall expire undebased[mz] And _man_ shall not break it--whatever _thou_ mayst.[na]

And stern to the haughty, but humble to thee, This soul, in its bitterest blackness, shall be:[nb] And our days seem as swift, and our moments more sweet, With thee by my side, than with worlds at our feet.

5.[nc]

One sigh of thy sorrow, one look of thy love,[nd] Shall turn me or fix, shall reward or reprove; And the heartless may wonder at all I resign-- Thy lip shall reply, not to them, but to _mine_.

_May_ 4, 1814. [First published, _Letters and Journals_, 1830, i. 554.]

ADDRESS INTENDED TO BE RECITED AT THE CALEDONIAN MEETING.[308]

Who hath not glowed above the page where Fame Hath fixed high Caledon's unconquered name; The mountain-land which spurned the Roman chain, And baffled back the fiery-crested Dane, Whose bright claymore and hardihood of hand No foe could tame--no tyrant could command? That race is gone--but still their children breathe, And Glory crowns them with redoubled wreath: O'er Gael and Saxon mingling banners shine, And, England! add their stubborn strength to thine. The blood which flowed with Wallace flows as free, But now 'tis only shed for Fame and thee! Oh! pass not by the northern veteran's claim, But give support--the world hath given him fame!

The humbler ranks, the lowly brave, who bled While cheerly following where the Mighty led--[309] Who sleep beneath the undistinguished sod Where happier comrades in their triumph trod, To us bequeath--'tis all their fate allows-- The sireless offspring and the lonely spouse: She on high Albyn's dusky hills may raise The tearful eye in melancholy gaze, Or view, while shadowy auguries disclose The Highland Seer's anticipated woes, The bleeding phantom of each martial form Dim in the cloud, or darkling in the storm;[310] While sad, she chaunts the solitary song, The soft lament for him who tarries long-- For him, whose distant relics vainly crave The Coronach's wild requiem to the brave!

'Tis Heaven--not man--must charm away the woe, Which bursts when Nature's feelings newly flow; Yet Tenderness and Time may rob the tear Of half its bitterness for one so dear; A Nation's gratitude perchance may spread A thornless pillow for the widowed head; May lighten well her heart's maternal care, And wean from Penury the soldier's heir; Or deem to living war-worn Valour just[311] Each wounded remnant--Albion's cherished trust-- Warm his decline with those endearing rays, Whose bounteous sunshine yet may gild his days-- So shall that Country--while he sinks to rest-- His hand hath fought for--by his heart be blest!

_May_, 1814. [First published, _Letters and Journals_, 1830, i. 559.]

ELEGIAC STANZAS ON THE DEATH OF SIR PETER PARKER, BART.[312]

There is a tear for all that die,[313] A mourner o'er the humblest grave; But nations swell the funeral cry, And Triumph weeps above the brave.

For them is Sorrow's purest sigh O'er Ocean's heaving bosom sent: In vain their bones unburied lie, All earth becomes their monument!

A tomb is theirs on every page, An epitaph on every tongue: The present hours, the future age, For them bewail, to them belong.

For them the voice of festal mirth Grows hushed, _their name_ the only sound; While deep Remembrance pours to Worth The goblet's tributary round.

A theme to crowds that knew them not, Lamented by admiring foes, Who would not share their glorious lot? Who would not die the death they chose?

And, gallant Parker! thus enshrined Thy life, thy fall, thy fame shall be; And early valour, glowing, find A model in thy memory.

But there are breasts that bleed with thee In woe, that glory cannot quell; And shuddering hear of victory, Where one so dear, so dauntless, fell.

Where shall they turn to mourn thee less? When cease to hear thy cherished name? Time cannot teach forgetfulness, While Grief's full heart is fed by Fame.

Alas! for them, though not for thee, They cannot choose but weep the more; Deep for the dead the grief must be, Who ne'er gave cause to mourn before.

_October_ 7, 1814. [First published, _Morning Chronicle_, October 7, 1814.]

JULIAN [A FRAGMENT].[314]

The Night came on the Waters--all was rest On Earth--but Rage on Ocean's troubled Heart. The Waves arose and rolled beneath the blast; The Sailors gazed upon their shivered Mast. In that dark Hour a long loud gathered cry From out the billows pierced the sable sky, And borne o'er breakers reached the craggy shore-- The Sea roars on--that Cry is heard no more.

There is no vestige, in the Dawning light, Of those that shrieked thro' shadows of the Night. The Bark--the Crew--the very Wreck is gone, Marred--mutilated--traceless--all save one. In him there still is Life, the Wave that dashed On shore the plank to which his form was lashed, Returned unheeding of its helpless Prey-- The lone survivor of that Yesterday-- The one of Many whom the withering Gale Hath left unpunished to record their Tale. But who shall hear it? on that barren Sand None comes to stretch the hospitable hand. That shore reveals no print of human foot, Nor e'en the pawing of the wilder Brute; And niggard vegetation will not smile, All sunless on that solitary Isle.

The naked Stranger rose, and wrung his hair, And that first moment passed in silent prayer. Alas! the sound--he sunk into Despair-- He was on Earth--but what was Earth to him, Houseless and homeless--bare both breast and limb? Cut off from all but Memory he curst His fate--his folly--but himself the worst. What was his hope? he looked upon the Wave-- Despite--of all--it still may be his Grave!

He rose and with a feeble effort shaped His course unto the billows--late escaped: But weakness conquered--swam his dizzy glance, And down to Earth he sunk in silent trance. How long his senses bore its chilling chain, He knew not--but, recalled to Life again, A stranger stood beside his shivering form-- And what was he? had he too scaped the storm?

He raised young Julian. "Is thy Cup so full Of bitterness--thy Hope--thy heart so dull That thou shouldst from Thee dash the Draught of Life, So late escaped the elemental strife! Rise--tho' these shores few aids to Life supply, Look upon me, and know thou shalt not die. Thou gazest in mute wonder--more may be Thy marvel when thou knowest mine and me. But come--The bark that bears us hence shall find Her Haven, soon, despite the warning Wind."

He raised young Julian from the sand, and such Strange power of healing dwelt within the touch, That his weak limbs grew light with freshened Power, As he had slept not fainted in that hour, And woke from Slumber--as the Birds awake, Recalled at morning from the branchéd brake, When the day's promise heralds early Spring, And Heaven unfolded woos their soaring wing: So Julian felt, and gazed upon his Guide, With honest Wonder what might next betide.

Dec. 12, 1814.

TO BELSHAZZAR.

1.[ne]

Belshazzar! from the banquet turn, Nor in thy sensual fulness fall; Behold! while yet before thee burn The graven words, the glowing wall,[nf] Many a despot men miscall Crowned and anointed from on high; But thou, the weakest, worst of all-- Is it not written, thou must die?[ng]

Go! dash the roses from thy brow-- Grey hairs but poorly wreathe with them; Youth's garlands misbecome thee now, More than thy very diadem,[nh] Where thou hast tarnished every gem:-- Then throw the worthless bauble by, Which, worn by thee, ev'n slaves contemn; And learn like better men to die!

Oh! early in the balance weighed, And ever light of word and worth, Whose soul expired ere youth decayed, And left thee but a mass of earth. To see thee moves the scorner's mirth: But tears in Hope's averted eye Lament that even thou hadst birth-- Unfit to govern, live, or die.

_February_ 12, 1815. [First published, 1831.]

STANZAS FOR MUSIC.[315]

"O Lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros Ducentium ortus ex animo: quater Felix! in imo qui scatentem Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit." Gray's _Poemata_. [Motto to "The Tear," _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 49.]

There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away, When the glow of early thought declines in Feeling's dull decay; 'Tis not on Youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast,[ni] But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere Youth itself be past.

Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt or ocean of excess: The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain The shore to which their shivered sail shall never stretch again.

Then the mortal coldness of the soul like Death itself comes down; It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream its own; That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our tears, And though the eye may sparkle still, 'tis where the ice appears.

Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast, Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest; 'Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruined turret wreath[nj][316] All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and grey beneath.

Oh, could I feel as I have felt,--or be what I have been, Or weep as I could once have wept, o'er many a vanished scene; As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though they be, So, midst the withered waste of life, those tears would flow to me.

_March, 1815._ [First published, _Poems, 1816._]

ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF DORSET.[317]

I heard thy fate without a tear, Thy loss with scarce a sigh; And yet thou wast surpassing dear, Too loved of all to die. I know not what hath seared my eye-- Its tears refuse to start; But every drop, it bids me dry, Falls dreary on my heart.

Yes, dull and heavy, one by one, They sink and turn to care, As caverned waters wear the stone, Yet dropping harden there: They cannot petrify more fast, Than feelings sunk remain, Which coldly fixed regard the past, But never melt again.

[1815.]

STANZAS FOR MUSIC.

Bright be the place of thy soul! No lovelier spirit than thine E'er burst from its mortal control, In the orbs of the blessed to shine. On earth thou wert all but divine, As thy soul shall immortally be;[nk] And our sorrow may cease to repine When we know that thy God is with thee.

Light be the turf of thy tomb![nl][318] May its verdure like emeralds be![nm] There should not be the shadow of gloom In aught that reminds us of thee. Young flowers and an evergreen tree[nn] May spring from the spot of thy rest: But nor cypress nor yew let us see; For why should we mourn for the blest?

[First published, _Examiner_, June 4, 1815.]

NAPOLEON'S FAREWELL.[319]

[FROM THE FRENCH.]

Farewell to the Land, where the gloom of my Glory Arose and o'ershadowed the earth with her name-- She abandons me now--but the page of her story, The brightest or blackest, is filled with my fame.[no] I have warred with a World which vanquished me only When the meteor of conquest allured me too far; I have coped with the nations which dread me thus lonely, The last single Captive to millions in war.

Farewell to thee, France! when thy diadem crowned me, I made thee the gem and the wonder of earth,-- But thy weakness decrees I should leave as I found thee,[np] Decayed in thy glory, and sunk in thy worth. Oh! for the veteran hearts that were wasted In strife with the storm, when their battles were won-- Then the Eagle, whose gaze in that moment was blasted Had still soared with eyes fixed on Victory's sun![nq]

Farewell to thee, France!--but when Liberty rallies Once more in thy regions, remember me then,-- The Violet still grows in the depth of thy valleys; Though withered, thy tear will unfold it again-- Yet, yet, I may baffle the hosts that surround us, And yet may thy heart leap awake to my voice-- There are links which must break in the chain that has bound us, _Then_ turn thee and call on the Chief of thy choice!

_July_ 25, 1815. London. [First published, _Examiner_, July 30, 1815.]

FROM THE FRENCH.[320]

Must thou go, my glorious Chief, Severed from thy faithful few? Who can tell thy warrior's grief, Maddening o'er that long adieu?[nr] Woman's love, and Friendship's zeal, Dear as both have been to me--[ns] What are they to all I feel, With a soldier's faith for thee?[nt]

II.

Idol of the soldier's soul! First in fight, but mightiest now;[nu] Many could a world control; Thee alone no doom can bow. By thy side for years I dared Death; and envied those who fell, When their dying shout was heard, Blessing him they served so well.[321]

III.

Would that I were cold with those, Since this hour I live to see; When the doubts of coward foes[nv] Scarce dare trust a man with thee, Dreading each should set thee free! Oh! although in dungeons pent, All their chains were light to me, Gazing on thy soul unbent.

IV.

Would the sycophants of him Now so deaf to duty's prayer,[nw] Were his borrowed glories dim, In his native darkness share? Were that world this hour his own, All thou calmly dost resign, Could he purchase with that throne Hearts like those which still are thine?[nx]

My Chief, my King, my Friend, adieu! Never did I droop before; Never to my Sovereign sue, As his foes I now implore: All I ask is to divide Every peril he must brave; Sharing by the hero's side His fall--his exile--and his grave.[ny]

[First published, _Poems_, 1816,]

ODE FROM THE FRENCH.[322]

We do not curse thee, Waterloo! Though Freedom's blood thy plain bedew; There 'twas shed, but is not sunk-- Rising from each gory trunk, Like the water-spout from ocean, With a strong and growing motion-- It soars, and mingles in the air, With that of lost La Bédoyère--[323] With that of him whose honoured grave Contains the "bravest of the brave." A crimson cloud it spreads and glows, But shall return to whence it rose; When 'tis full 'twill burst asunder-- Never yet was heard such thunder As then shall shake the world with wonder-- Never yet was seen such lightning As o'er heaven shall then be bright'ning! Like the Wormwood Star foretold By the sainted Seer of old, Show'ring down a fiery flood, Turning rivers into blood.[324]

II.

The Chief has fallen, but not by you, Vanquishers of Waterloo! When the soldier citizen Swayed not o'er his fellow-men-- Save in deeds that led them on Where Glory smiled on Freedom's son-- Who, of all the despots banded, With that youthful chief competed? Who could boast o'er France defeated, Till lone Tyranny commanded? Till, goaded by Ambition's sting, The Hero sunk into the King? Then he fell:--so perish all, Who would men by man enthral!

III.

And thou, too, of the snow-white plume! Whose realm refused thee ev'n a tomb;[325] Better hadst thou still been leading France o'er hosts of hirelings bleeding, Than sold thyself to death and shame For a meanly royal name; Such as he of Naples wears, Who thy blood-bought title bears. Little didst thou deem, when dashing On thy war-horse through the ranks. Like a stream which burst its banks, While helmets cleft, and sabres clashing, Shone and shivered fast around thee-- Of the fate at last which found thee: Was that haughty plume laid low By a slave's dishonest blow? Once--as the Moon sways o'er the tide, It rolled in air, the warrior's guide; Through the smoke-created night Of the black and sulphurous fight, The soldier raised his seeking eye To catch that crest's ascendancy,-- And, as it onward rolling rose, So moved his heart upon our foes. There, where death's brief pang was quickest, And the battle's wreck lay thickest, Strewed beneath the advancing banner Of the eagle's burning crest-- (There with thunder-clouds to fan her, _Who_ could then her wing arrest-- Victory beaming from her breast?) While the broken line enlarging Fell, or fled along the plain; There be sure was Murat charging! There he ne'er shall charge again!

IV.

O'er glories gone the invaders march, Weeps Triumph o'er each levelled arch-- But let Freedom rejoice, With her heart in her voice; But, her hand on her sword, Doubly shall she be adored; France hath twice too well been taught The "moral lesson"[326] dearly bought-- Her safety sits not on a throne, With Capet or Napoleon! But in equal rights and laws, Hearts and hands in one great cause-- Freedom, such as God hath given Unto all beneath his heaven, With their breath, and from their birth, Though guilt would sweep it from the earth; With a fierce and lavish hand Scattering nations' wealth like sand; Pouring nations' blood like water, In imperial seas of slaughter!

But the heart and the mind, And the voice of mankind, Shall arise in communion-- And who shall resist that proud union? The time is past when swords subdued-- Man may die--the soul's renewed: Even in this low world of care Freedom ne'er shall want an heir; Millions breathe but to inherit Her for ever bounding spirit-- When once more her hosts assemble, Tyrants shall believe and tremble-- Smile they at this idle threat? Crimson tears will follow yet.[327]

[First published, _Morning Chronicle_, March 15, 1816.]

STANZAS FOR MUSIC.

There be none of Beauty's daughters With a magic like thee; And like music on the waters Is thy sweet voice to me: When, as if its sound were causing The charméd Ocean's pausing, The waves lie still and gleaming, And the lulled winds seem dreaming:

And the midnight Moon is weaving Her bright chain o'er the deep; Whose breast is gently heaving, As an infant's asleep: So the spirit bows before thee, To listen and adore thee; With a full but soft emotion, Like the swell of Summer's ocean.

_March_ 28 [1816]. [First published, _Poems_, 1816.]

ON THE STAR OF "THE LEGION OF HONOUR."[328]

[FROM THE FRENCH.]

Star of the brave!--whose beam hath shed Such glory o'er the quick and dead-- Thou radiant and adored deceit! Which millions rushed in arms to greet,-- Wild meteor of immortal birth! Why rise in Heaven to set on Earth?

Souls of slain heroes formed thy rays; Eternity flashed through thy blaze; The music of thy martial sphere Was fame on high and honour here; And thy light broke on human eyes, Like a Volcano of the skies.

Like lava rolled thy stream of blood, And swept down empires with its flood; Earth rocked beneath thee to her base, As thou didst lighten through all space; And the shorn Sun grew dim in air, And set while thou wert dwelling there.

Before thee rose, and with thee grew, A rainbow of the loveliest hue Of three bright colours,[329] each divine, And fit for that celestial sign; For Freedom's hand had blended them, Like tints in an immortal gem.

One tint was of the sunbeam's dyes; One, the blue depth of Seraph's eyes; One, the pure Spirit's veil of white Had robed in radiance of its light: The three so mingled did beseem The texture of a heavenly dream.

Star of the brave! thy ray is pale, And darkness must again prevail! But, oh thou Rainbow of the free! Our tears and blood must flow for thee. When thy bright promise fades away, Our life is but a load of clay.

And Freedom hallows with her tread The silent cities of the dead; For beautiful in death are they Who proudly fall in her array; And soon, oh, Goddess! may we be For evermore with them or thee!

[First published, _Examiner_, April 7, 1816.]

STANZAS FOR MUSIC.

They say that Hope is happiness; But genuine Love must prize the past, And Memory wakes the thoughts that bless: They rose the first--they set the last;

II.

And all that Memory loves the most Was once our only Hope to be, And all that Hope adored and lost Hath melted into Memory.

III.

Alas! it is delusion all: The future cheats us from afar, Nor can we be what we recall, Nor dare we think on what we are.

[First published, _Fugitive Pieces_, 1829.]

FOOTNOTES:

[305] {409} [Compare _The Corsair_, Canto I. stanza xv. lines 480-490.]

[mr] {410} _Never may I behold_ _Moment like this_.--[MS.]

[ms] _The damp of the morning_ _Clung chill on my brow_.--[MS. erased.]

[mt] _Thy vow hath been broken_.--[MS.]

[mu] ----_lies hidden_ _Our secret of sorrow_-- _And deep in my soul_-- _But deed more forbidden_, _Our secret lies hidden_, _But never forgot_.--[Erasures, stanza 3, MS.]

[mv] {411} _If one_ should _meet thee_ _How should we greet thee?_ _In silence and tears_.--[MS.]

[306] [From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for the first time printed.

The water-mark of the paper on which a much-tortured rough copy of these lines has been scrawled, is 1809, but, with this exception, there is no hint as to the date of composition. An entry in the _Diary_ for November 30, 1813, in which Annabella (Miss Milbanke) is described "as an heiress, a girl of twenty, a peeress that is to be," etc., and a letter (Byron to Miss Milbanke) dated November 29, 1813 (see _Letters_, 1898, ii. 357, and 1899, iii. 407), in which there is more than one allusion to her would-be suitors, "your thousand and one pretendants," etc., suggest the idea that the lines were addressed to his future wife, when he first made her acquaintance in 1812 or 1813.]

[307] {413} ["Thou hast asked me for a song, and I enclose you an experiment, which has cost me something more than trouble, and is, therefore, less likely to be worth your taking any in your proposed setting. Now, if it be so, throw it into the fire without _phrase_."--Letter to Moore, May 4, 1814, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 80.]

[mw] _I speak not--I breathe not--I write not that name_.--[MS. erased.]

[mx] {414} _We have loved--and oh, still, my adored one we love!_ _Oh the moment is past, when that Passion might cease._-- [MS. erased.]

[my] _The thought may be madness--the wish may be--guilt_.--[MS. erased.]

[mz] {_But I cannot repent what we ne'er can recall._ {_But the heart which is thine would disdain to recall_.-- [MS. erased.]

[na] ----_though I feel that thou mayst_.--[MS. L. erased.]

[nb] _This soul in its bitterest moments shall be_, _And our days run as swift--and our moments more sweet_, _With thee at my side, than the world at my feet_.--[MS.]

[nc] {415} _And thine is that love which I will never forego_ _Though the price which I pay be Eternity's woe_.--[MS. erased]

[nd] _One tear of thy sorrow, one smile_----.--[MS. erased]

[308] [The "Caledonian Meeting," at which these lines were, or were intended to be, recited (see _Life_, p. 254), was a meeting of subscribers to the Highland Society, held annually in London, in support of the [Royal] _Caledonian Asylum_ "for educating and supporting children of soldiers, sailors, and marines, natives of Scotland." "To soothe," says the compiler of the _Report_ for 1814, p. 4, "by the assurance that their offspring will be reared in virtue and comfort, the minds of those brave men, through whose exposure to hardship and danger the independence of the Empire has been preserved, is no less an act of sound policy than of gratitude."]

[309] {416} [As an instance of Scottish gallantry in the Peninsular War it is sufficient to cite the following list of "casualties" at the battle of Vittoria, June 21, 1813: "The battalion [the seventy-first Highland Light Infantry] suffered very severely, having had 1 field officer, 1 captain, 2 lieutenants, 6 sergeants, 1 bugler, and 78 rank and file killed; 1 field officer, 3 captains, 7 lieutenants, 13 sergeants, 2 buglers, and 255 rank and file were wounded."--_Historical Record of the 71st Highland Light Infantry_, by Lieut. Henry J. T. Hildyard, 1876, p. 91.]

[310] [Compare _Temora_, bk. vii., "The king took his deathful spear, and struck the deeply-sounding shield.... Ghosts fled on every side, and rolled their gathered forms on the wind.--Thrice from the winding vale arose the voices of death."--_Works of Ossian_, 1765, ii. 160.]

[311] {417} [The last six lines are printed from the MS.]

[312] [Sir P. Parker fell in August, 1814, in his twenty-ninth year, whilst leading a party from his ship, the _Menelaus_, at the storming of the American camp near Baltimore. He was Byron's first cousin (his father, Christopher Parker (1761-1804), married Charlotte Augusta, daughter of Admiral the Hon. John Byron); but they had never met since boyhood. (See letter to Moore, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 150; see too _Letters_, i. 6, note 1.) The stanzas were included in _Hebrew Melodies_, 1815, and in the Ninth Edition of _Childe Harold_, 1818.]

[313] [Compare Tasso's sonnet--"Questa Tomba non è, ehe non è morto," etc. _Rime Eroiche_, Parte Seconda, No. 38, _Opere di Torquato Tasso_, Venice, 1736, vi. 169.]

[314] {419} [From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for the first time printed.]

[ne] {421} 1.

_The red light glows, the wassail flows_, _Around the royal hall;_ _And who, on earth, dare mar the mirth_ _Of that high festival?_ _The prophet dares--before thee glows_-- _Belshazzar rise, nor dare despise_ _The writing on the wall!_

_Thy vice might raise th' avenging steel_, _Thy meanness shield thee from the blow_-- _And they who loathe thee proudly feel_.--[MS.]

[nf] {422} _The words of God along the wall_.--[MS. erased.] _The word of God--the graven wall_.--[MS.]

[ng] _Behold it written_----.--[MS.]

[nh] ----_thy sullied diadem_.--[MS.]

[315] {423} [Byron gave these verses to Moore for Mr. Power of the Strand, who published them, with music by Sir John Stevenson. "I feel merry enough," he wrote, March 2, "to send you a sad song." And again, March 8, 1815, "An event--the death of poor Dorset--and the recollection of what I once felt, and ought to have felt now, but could not--set me pondering, and finally into the train of thought which you have in your hands." A year later, in another letter to Moore, he says, "I pique myself on these lines as being the _truest_, though the most melancholy, I ever wrote." (March 8, 1816.)--_Letters_, 1899, iii. 181, 183, 274.]

[ni] _'Tis not the blush alone that fades from Beauty's cheek_.--[MS.]

[nj] {424} _As ivy o'er the mouldering wall that heavily hath crept_.--[MS.]

[316] [Compare--

"And oft we see gay ivy's wreath The tree with brilliant bloom o'erspread, When, part its leaves and gaze beneath, We find the hidden tree is dead." "To Anna," _The Warrior's Return, etc._, by Mrs. Opie, 1808, p. 144.]

[317] {425} [From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for the first time printed. The MS. is headed, in pencil, "Lines written on the Death of the Duke of Dorset, a College Friend of Lord Byron's, who was killed by a fall from his horse while hunting." It is endorsed, "Bought of Markham Thorpe, August 29, 1844." (For Duke of Dorset, see _Poetical Works, 1898, i. 194, note 2_; and _Letters, 1899, in. 181, note 1._)]

[nk] {426} ----_shall eternally be_.--[MS. erased.]

[nl] _Green be the turf_----.--[MS.]

[318] [Compare "O lay me, ye that see the light, near some rock of my hills: let the thick hazels be around, let the rustling oaks be near. Green be the place of my rest."--"The War of Inis-Thona," _Works of Ossin_, 1765, i. 156.]

[nm] _May its verdure be sweetest to see_.--[MS.]

[nn] {427} _Young flowers and a far-spreading tree_ _May wave on the spot of thy rest;_ _But nor cypress nor yew let it be_.--[MS.]

[319] ["We need scarcely remind our readers that there are points in these spirited lines, with which our opinions do not accord; and, indeed, the author himself has told us that he rather adapted them to what he considered the speaker's feelings than his own."--_Examiner_, July 30, 1815.]

[no] _The brightest and blackest are due to my fame_.--[MS.]

[np] _But thy destiny wills_----.--[MS.]

[nq] {428} _Oh for the thousands of Those who have perished_ _By elements blasted, unvanquished by man_-- _Then the hope which till now I have fearlessly cherished_, _Had waved o'er thine eagles in Victory's van_.--[MS.]

[320] ["All wept, but particularly Savary, and a Polish officer who had been exalted from the ranks by Buonaparte. He clung to his master's knees; wrote a letter to Lord Keith, entreating permission to accompany him, even in the most menial capacity, which could not be admitted."--_Private Letter from Brussels._]

[nr] {429} ----_that mute adieu_.--[MS.]

[ns] _Dear as they have seemed to me_.--[MS.]

[nt] _In the faith I pledged to thee_.--[MS.]

[nu] _Glory lightened from thy soul_. _Never did I grieve till now_.--[MS.]

[321] ["At Waterloo one man was seen, whose left arm was shattered by a cannon-ball, to wrench it off with the other, and, throwing it up in the air, exclaimed to his comrades, 'Vive l'Empereur, jusqu'à la mort!' There were many other instances of the like: this you may, however, depend on as true."--_Private Letter from Brussels._]

[nv] _When the hearts of coward foes_.--[MS.]

[nw] {430} ----_to Friendship's prayer_.--[MS.]

[nx] _'Twould not gather round his throne_ _Half the hearts that still are thine_.--[MS.]

[ny] _Let me but partake his doom_, _Be it exile or the grave_. or, _All I ask is to abide_ _All the perils he must brave_, _All my hope was to divide_.--[MS.] or, _Let me still partake his gloom_, _Late his soldier, now his slave_-- _Grant me but to share the gloom_ _Of his exile or his grave_.--[MS.]

[322] {431} [These lines "are said to have been done into English verse by R. S. ---- P. L. P. R., Master of the Royal Spanish Inqn., etc., etc."--_Morning Chronicle_, March 15, 1816. "The French have their _Poems_ and _Odes_ on the famous Battle of Waterloo, as well as ourselves. Nay, they seem to glory in the battle as the source of great events to come. We have received the following poetical version of a poem, the original of which is circulating in Paris, and which is ascribed (we know not with what justice) to the Muse of M. de Chateaubriand. If so, it may be inferred that in the poet's eye a new change is at hand, and he wishes to prove his secret indulgence of old principles by reference to this effusion."--Note, _ibid._]

[323] [Charles Angélique François Huchet, Comte de La Bédoyère, born 1786, was in the retreat from Moscow, and in 1813 distinguished himself at the battles of Lutzen and Bautzen. On the return of Napoleon from Elba he was the first to bring him a regiment. He was promoted, and raised to the peerage, but being found in Paris after its occupation by the Allied army, he was tried by a court-martial, and suffered death August 15, 1815.]

[324] {432} See _Rev._ Chap. viii. V. 7, etc., "The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood," etc. V. 8, "And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood," etc. V. 10, "And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters." V. 11, "And the name of the star is called _Wormwood_: and the third part of the waters became _wormwood_; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter."

[325] Murat's remains are said to have been torn from the grave and burnt. ["Poor dear Murat, what an end ...! His white plume used to be a rallying point in battle, like Henry the Fourth's. He refused a confessor and a bandage; so would neither suffer his soul or body to be bandaged."--Letter to Moore, November 4. 1815, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 245. See, too, for Joachim Murat (born 1771), proclaimed King of Naples and the Two Sicilies, August, 1808, _ibid_., note 1.]

[326] {434} ["Write, Britain, write the moral lesson down." Scott's _Field of Waterloo_, Conclusion, stanza vi. line 3.]

[327] {435} ["Talking of politics, as Caleb Quotem says, pray look at the conclusion of my 'Ode on Waterloo,' written in the year 1815, and comparing it with the Duke de Berri's catastrophe in 1820, tell me if I have not as good a right to the character of '_Vates_,' in both senses of the word, as Fitzgerald and Coleridge?--

'Crimson tears will follow yet;'

and have not they?"--Letter to Murray, April 24, 1820.

In the Preface to _The Tyrant's Downfall, etc_., 1814, W. L. Fitzgerald (see _English Bards, etc._, line 1, _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 297, note 3) "begs leave to refer his reader to the dates of his Napoleonics ... to prove his legitimate title to the prophetical meaning of _Vates_" (_Cent. Mag._, July, 1814, vol. lxxxiv. p. 58). Coleridge claimed to have foretold the restoration of the Bourbons (see _Biographia Literaria_, cap. x.).]

[328] {436} ["The Friend who favoured us with the following lines, the poetical spirit of which wants no trumpet of ours, is aware that they imply more than an impartial observer of the late period might feel, and are written rather as by Frenchman than Englishman;--but certainly, neither he nor any lover of liberty can help feeling and regretting that in the latter time, at any rate, the symbol he speaks of was once more comparatively identified with the cause of Freedom."--_Examiner_. April 7, 1816.]

[329] {437} The tricolor.

THE SIEGE OF CORINTH

"Guns, Trumpets, Blunderbusses, Drums and Thunder."

Pope, _Sat._ i. 26.[330]

INTRODUCTION TO _THE SIEGE OF CORINTH_.

In a note to the "Advertisement" to the _Siege of Corinth_ (_vide post_, p. 447), Byron puts it on record that during the years 1809-10 he had crossed the Isthmus of Corinth eight times, and in a letter to his mother, dated Patras, July 30, 1810, he alludes to a recent visit to the town of Corinth, in company with his friend Lord Sligo. (See, too, his letter to Coleridge, dated October 27, 1815, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 228.) It is probable that he revisited Corinth more than once in the autumn of 1810; and we may infer that, just as the place and its surroundings--the temple with its "two or three columns" (line 497), and the view across the bay from Acro-Corinth--are sketched from memory, so the story of the siege which took place in 1715 is based upon tales and legends which were preserved and repeated by the grandchildren of the besieged, and were taken down from their lips. There is point and meaning in the apparently insignificant line (stanza xxiv. line 765), "We have heard the hearers say" (see _variant_ i. p. 483), which is slipped into the description of the final catastrophe. It bears witness to the fact that the _Siege of Corinth_ is not a poetical expansion of a chapter in history, but a heightened reminiscence of local tradition.

History has, indeed, very little to say on the subject. The anonymous _Compleat History of the Turks_ (London, 1719), which Byron quotes as an authority, is meagre and inaccurate. Hammer-Purgstall (_Histoire de l'Empire Ottoman_, 1839, xiii. 269), who gives as his authorities Girolamo Ferrari and Raschid, dismisses the siege in a few lines; and it was not till the publication of Finlay's _History of Greece_ (vol. v., a.d. 1453-1821), in 1856, that the facts were known or reported. Finlay's newly discovered authority was a then unpublished MS. of a journal kept by Benjamin Brue, a connection of Voltaire's, who accompanied the Grand Vizier, Ali Cumurgi, as his interpreter, on the expedition into the Morea. According to Brue (_Journal de la Campagne ... en_ 1715 ... Paris, 1870, p. 18), the siege began on June 28, 1715. A peremptory demand on the part of the Grand Vizier to surrender at discretion was answered by the Venetian proveditor-general, Giacomo Minetto, with calm but assured defiance ("Your menaces are useless, for we are prepared to resist all your attacks, and, with confidence in the assistance of God, we will preserve this fortress to the most serene Republic. God is with us"). Nevertheless, the Turks made good their threat, and on the 2nd of July the fortress capitulated. On the following day at noon, whilst a party of Janissaries, contrary to order, were looting and pillaging in all directions, the fortress was seen to be enveloped in smoke. How or why the explosion happened was never discovered, but the result was that some of the pillaging Janissaries perished, and that others, to avenge their death, which they attributed to Venetian treachery, put the garrison to the sword. It was believed at the time that Minetto was among the slain; but, as Brue afterwards discovered, he was secretly conveyed to Smyrna, and ultimately ransomed by the Dutch Consul.

The late Professor Kölbing (_Siege of Corinth_, 1893, p. xxvii.), in commenting on the sources of the poem, suggests, under reserve, that Byron may have derived the incident of Minetto's self-immolation from an historic source--the siege of Zsigetvar, in 1566, when a multitude of Turks perished from the explosion of a powder magazine which had been fired at the cost of his own life by the Hungarian commander Zrini.

It is, at least, equally probable that local patriotism was, in the first instance, responsible for the poetic colouring, and that Byron supplemented the meagre and uninteresting historic details which were at his disposal by "intimate knowledge" of the Corinthian version of the siege. (See _Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Right Hon. Lord Byron_, London, 1822, p. 222; and _Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Lord Byron_, by George Clinton, London, 1825, p. 284.)

It has been generally held that the _Siege of Corinth_ was written in the second half of 1815 (Kölbing's _Siege of Corinth_, p. vii.). "It appears," says John Wright (_Works_, 1832, x. 100), "by the original MS., to have been begun in July, 1815;" and Moore (_Life_, p. 307), who probably relied on the same authority, speaks of "both the _Siege of Corinth_ and _Parisina_ having been produced but a short time before the Separation" (i.e. spring, 1816). Some words which Medwin (_Conversations_, 1824, p. 55) puts into Byron's mouth point to the same conclusion. Byron's own testimony, which is completely borne out by the MS. itself (dated J^y [i.e. January, not July] 31, 1815), is in direct conflict with these statements. In a note to stanza xix. lines 521-532 (_vide post_, pp. 471-473) he affirms that it "was not till after these lines were written" that he heard "that wild and singularly original and beautiful poem [_Christabel_] recited;" and in a letter to S. T. Coleridge, dated October 27, 1815 (_Letters_, 1899, iii. 228), he is careful to explain that "the enclosed extract from an unpublished poem (i.e. stanza xix. lines 521-532) ... was written before (not seeing your _Christabelle_ [sic], for that you know I never did till this day), but before I heard Mr. S[cott] repeat it, which he did in June last, and this thing was begun in January, and more than half written before the Summer." The question of plagiarism will be discussed in an addendum to Byron's note on the lines in question; but, subject to the correction that it was, probably, at the end of May (see Lockhart's _Memoir of the Life of Sir W. Scott_, 1871, pp. 311-313), not in June, that Scott recited _Christabel_ for Byron's benefit, the date of the composition of the poem must be determined by the evidence of the author himself.

The copy of the MS. of the _Siege of Corinth_ was sent to Murray at the beginning (probably on the 2nd, the date of the copy) of November, and was placed in Gifford's hands about the same time (see letter to Murray, November 4, 1815, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 245; and Murray's undated letter on Gifford's "great delight" in the poem, and his "three critical remarks," _Memoir of John Murray_, 1891, i. 356). As with _Lara_, Byron began by insisting that the _Siege_ should not be published separately, but slipped into a fourth volume of the collected works, and once again (possibly when he had at last made up his mind to accept a thousand guineas for his own requirements, and not for other beneficiaries--Godwin, Coleridge, or Maturin) yielded to his publisher's wishes and representations. At any rate, the _Siege of Corinth_ and _Parisina_, which, says Moore, "during the month of January and part of February were in the hands of the printers" (_Life_, p. 300), were published in a single volume on February 7, 1816. The greater reviews were silent, but notices appeared in numerous periodicals; e.g. the _Monthly Review_, February, 1816, vol. lxxix. p. 196; the _Eclectic Review_, March, 1816, N.S. vol. v. p. 269; the _European_, May, 1816, vol. lxxix. p. 427; the _Literary Panorama_, June, 1816, N.S. vol. iv. p. 418; etc. Many of these reviews took occasion to pick out and hold up to ridicule the illogical sentences, the grammatical solecisms, and general imperfections of _technique_ which marked and disfigured the _Siege of Corinth_. A passage in a letter which John Murray wrote to his brother-publisher, William Blackwood (_Annals of a Publishing House_, 1897, i. 53), refers to these cavillings, and suggests both an apology and a retaliation--

"Many who by 'numbers judge a poet's song' are so stupid as not to see the powerful effect of the poems, which is the great object of poetry, because they can pick out fifty careless or even bad lines. The words may be carelessly put together; but this is secondary. Many can write polished lines who will never reach the name of poet. You see it is all poetically conceived in Lord B.'s mind."

In such wise did Murray bear testimony to Byron's "splendid and imperishable excellence, which covers all his offences and outweighs all his defects--the excellence of sincerity and strength."

JOHN HOBHOUSE, ESQ.,

this poem is inscribed,

by his

FRIEND.

_January 22nd_, 1816.

"The grand army of the Turks (in 1715), under the Prime Vizier, to open to themselves a way into the heart of the Morea, and to form the siege of Napoli di Romania, the most considerable place in all that country,[331] thought it best in the first place to attack Corinth, upon which they made several storms. The garrison being weakened, and the governor seeing it was impossible to hold out such a place against so mighty a force, thought it fit to beat a parley: but while they were treating about the articles, one of the magazines in the Turkish camp, wherein they had six hundred barrels of powder, blew up by accident, whereby six or seven hundred men were killed; which so enraged the infidels, that they would not grant any capitulation, but stormed the place with so much fury, that they took it, and put most of the garrison, with Signior Minotti, the governor, to the sword. The rest, with Signior or Antonio Bembo, Proveditor Extraordinary, were made prisoners of war."--_A Compleat History of the Turks_ [London, 1719], iii. 151.

NOTE ON THE MS. OF _THE SIEGE OF CORINTH_.

The original MS. of the _Siege of Corinth_ (now in the possession of Lord Glenesk) consists of sixteen folio and nine quarto sheets, and numbers fifty pages. Sheets 1-4 are folios, sheets 5-10 are quartos, sheets 11-22 are folios, and sheets 23-25 are quartos.

To judge from the occasional and disconnected pagination, this MS. consists of portions of two or more fair copies of a number of detached scraps written at different times, together with two or three of the original scraps which had not been transcribed.

The water-mark of the folios is, with one exception (No. 8, 1815), 1813; and of the quartos, with one exception (No. 8, 1814), 1812.

Lord Glenesk's MS. is dated January 31, 1815. Lady Byron's transcript, from which the _Siege of Corinth_ was printed, and which is in Mr. Murray's possession, is dated November 2, 1815.

THE SIEGE OF CORINTH

In the year since Jesus died for men,[332] Eighteen hundred years and ten,[333] We were a gallant company, Riding o'er land, and sailing o'er sea. Oh! but we went merrily![334] 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 couched in our rough capote,[335] 10 On the rougher plank of our gliding boat, Or stretched 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, 20 And some, or I mis-say, of neither; Yet through the wide world might ye search, Nor find a motlier crew nor blither.

But some are dead, and some are gone, And some are scattered and alone, And some are rebels on the hills[336] 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, 30 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![nz] And when they now fall drearily, My thoughts, like swallows, skim the main,[337] 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, 40 And oft, too oft, implores again The few who may endure my lay,[oa] To follow me so far away. Stranger, wilt thou follow now, And sit with me on Acro-Corinth's brow?

I.[338]

Many a vanished year and age,[ob] And Tempest's breath, and Battle's rage, Have swept o'er Corinth; yet she stands, A fortress formed to Freedom's hands.[oc] The Whirlwind's wrath, the Earthquake's shock, 50 Have left untouched her hoary rock, The keystone of a land, which still, Though fall'n, looks proudly on that hill, The landmark to the double tide That purpling rolls on either side, As if their waters chafed to meet, Yet pause and crouch beneath her feet. But could the blood before her shed Since first Timoleon's brother bled,[339] Or baffled Persia's despot fled, 60 Arise from out the Earth which drank The stream of Slaughter as it sank, That sanguine Ocean would o'erflow Her isthmus idly spread below: Or could the bones of all the slain,[od] Who perished there, be piled again, That rival pyramid would rise More mountain-like, through those clear skies[oe] Than yon tower-capp'd Acropolis, Which seems the very clouds to kiss. 70

II.

On dun Cithæron's ridge appears The gleam of twice ten thousand spears; And downward to the Isthmian plain, From shore to shore of either main,[of] The tent is pitched, the Crescent shines Along the Moslem's leaguering lines; And the dusk Spahi's bands[340] advance Beneath each bearded Pacha's glance; And far and wide as eye can reach[og] The turbaned cohorts throng the beach; 80 And there the Arab's camel kneels, And there his steed the Tartar wheels; The Turcoman hath left his herd,[341] The sabre round his loins to gird; And there the volleying thunders pour, Till waves grow smoother to the roar. The trench is dug, the cannon's breath Wings the far hissing globe of death;[342] Fast whirl the fragments from the wall, Which crumbles with the ponderous ball; 90 And from that wall the foe replies, O'er dusty plain and smoky skies, With fares that answer fast and well The summons of the Infidel.

III.

But near and nearest to the wall Of those who wish and work its fall, With deeper skill in War's black art, Than Othman's sons, and high of heart As any Chief that ever stood Triumphant in the fields of blood; 100 From post to post, and deed to deed, Fast spurring on his reeking steed, Where sallying ranks the trench assail, And make the foremost Moslem quail; Or where the battery, guarded well, Remains as yet impregnable, Alighting cheerly to inspire The soldier slackening in his fire; The first and freshest of the host Which Stamboul's Sultan there can boast, 110 To guide the follower o'er the field, To point the tube, the lance to wield, Or whirl around the bickering blade;-- Was Alp, the Adrian renegade![343]

IV.

From Venice--once a race of worth His gentle Sires--he drew his birth; But late an exile from her shore,[oh] Against his countrymen he bore The arms they taught to bear; and now The turban girt his shaven brow. 120 Through many a change had Corinth passed With Greece to Venice' rule at last; And here, before her walls, with those To Greece and Venice equal foes, He stood a foe, with all the zeal Which young and fiery converts feel, Within whose heated bosom throngs The memory of a thousand wrongs. To him had Venice ceased to be Her ancient civic boast--"the Free;" 130 And in the palace of St. Mark Unnamed accusers in the dark Within the "Lion's mouth" had placed A charge against him uneffaced:[344] He fled in time, and saved his life, To waste his future years in strife,[oi] That taught his land how great her loss In him who triumphed o'er the Cross, 'Gainst which he reared the Crescent high, And battled to avenge or die. 140

Coumourgi[345]--he whose closing scene Adorned the triumph of Eugene, When on Carlowitz' bloody plain, The last and mightiest of the slain, He sank, regretting not to die, But cursed the Christian's victory-- Coumourgi--can his glory cease, That latest conqueror of Greece, Till Christian hands to Greece restore The freedom Venice gave of yore? 150 A hundred years have rolled away Since he refixed the Moslem's sway; And now he led the Mussulman, And gave the guidance of the van To Alp, who well repaid the trust By cities levelled with the dust; And proved, by many a deed of death, How firm his heart in novel faith.

VI.

The walls grew weak; and fast and hot Against them poured the ceaseless shot, 160 With unabating fury sent From battery to battlement; And thunder-like the pealing din[oj] Rose from each heated culverin; And here and there some crackling dome Was fired before the exploding bomb; And as the fabric sank beneath The shattering shell's volcanic breath, In red and wreathing columns flashed The flame, as loud the ruin crashed, 170 Or into countless meteors driven, Its earth-stars melted into heaven;[ok] Whose clouds that day grew doubly dun, Impervious to the hidden sun, With volumed smoke that slowly grew[ol] To one wide sky of sulphurous hue.

VII.

But not for vengeance, long delayed, Alone, did Alp, the renegade, The Moslem warriors sternly teach His skill to pierce the promised breach: 180 Within these walls a Maid was pent His hope would win, without consent Of that inexorable Sire, Whose heart refused him in its ire, When Alp, beneath his Christian name, Her virgin hand aspired to claim. In happier mood, and earlier time, While unimpeached for traitorous crime, Gayest in Gondola or Hall, He glittered through the Carnival; 190 And tuned the softest serenade That e'er on Adria's waters played At midnight to Italian maid.[om]

VIII.

And many deemed her heart was won; For sought by numbers, given to none, Had young Francesca's hand remained Still by the Church's bonds unchained: And when the Adriatic bore Lanciotto to the Paynim shore, Her wonted smiles were seen to fail, 200 And pensive waxed the maid and pale; More constant at confessional, More rare at masque and festival; Or seen at such, with downcast eyes, Which conquered hearts they ceased to prize: With listless look she seems to gaze: With humbler care her form arrays; Her voice less lively in the song; Her step, though light, less fleet among The pairs, on whom the Morning's glance 210 Breaks, yet unsated with the dance.

IX.

Sent by the State to guard the land, (Which, wrested from the Moslem's hand,[346] While Sobieski tamed his pride By Buda's wall and Danube's side,[on] The chiefs of Venice wrung away From Patra to Euboea's bay,) Minotti held in Corinth's towers[oo] The Doge's delegated powers, While yet the pitying eye of Peace 220 Smiled o'er her long forgotten Greece: And ere that faithless truce was broke Which freed her from the unchristian yoke, With him his gentle daughter came; Nor there, since Menelaus' dame Forsook her lord and land, to prove What woes await on lawless love, Had fairer form adorned the shore Than she, the matchless stranger, bore.[op]

The wall is rent, the ruins yawn; 230 And, with to-morrow's earliest dawn, O'er the disjointed mass shall vault The foremost of the fierce assault. The bands are ranked--the chosen van Of Tartar and of Mussulman, The full of hope, misnamed "forlorn,"[347] Who hold the thought of death in scorn, And win their way with falchion's force, Or pave the path with many a corse, O'er which the following brave may rise, 240 Their stepping-stone--the last who dies![oq]

XI.

'Tis midnight: on the mountains brown[348] The cold, round moon shines deeply down; Blue roll the waters, blue the sky Spreads like an ocean hung on high, Bespangled with those isles of light,[or][349] So wildly, spiritually bright; Who ever gazed upon them shining And turned to earth without repining, Nor wished for wings to flee away, 250 And mix with their eternal ray? The waves on either shore lay there Calm, clear, and azure as the air; And scarce their foam the pebbles shook, But murmured meekly as the brook. The winds were pillowed on the waves; The banners drooped along their staves, And, as they fell around them furling, Above them shone the crescent curling; And that deep silence was unbroke, 260 Save where the watch his signal spoke, Save where the steed neighed oft and shrill, And echo answered from the hill, And the wide hum of that wild host Rustled like leaves from coast to coast, As rose the Muezzin's voice in air In midnight call to wonted prayer; It rose, that chanted mournful strain, Like some lone Spirit's o'er the plain: 'Twas musical, but sadly sweet, 270 Such as when winds and harp-strings meet, And take a long unmeasured tone, To mortal minstrelsy unknown.[os] It seemed to those within the wall A cry prophetic of their fall: It struck even the besieger's ear With something ominous and drear,[350] An undefined and sudden thrill, Which makes the heart a moment still, Then beat with quicker pulse, ashamed 280 Of that strange sense its silence framed; Such as a sudden passing-bell Wakes, though but for a stranger's knell.[ot]

XII.

The tent of Alp was on the shore; The sound was hushed, the prayer was o'er; The watch was set, the night-round made, All mandates issued and obeyed: 'Tis but another anxious night, His pains the morrow may requite With all Revenge and Love can pay, 290 In guerdon for their long delay. Few hours remain, and he hath need Of rest, to nerve for many a deed Of slaughter; but within his soul The thoughts like troubled waters roll.[ou] He stood alone among the host; Not his the loud fanatic boast To plant the Crescent o'er the Cross, Or risk a life with little loss, Secure in paradise to be 300 By Houris loved immortally: Nor his, what burning patriots feel, The stern exaltedness of zeal, Profuse of blood, untired in toil, When battling on the parent soil. He stood alone--a renegade Against the country he betrayed; He stood alone amidst his band, Without a trusted heart or hand: They followed him, for he was brave, 310 And great the spoil he got and gave; They crouched to him, for he had skill To warp and wield the vulgar will:[ov] But still his Christian origin With them was little less than sin. They envied even the faithless fame He earned beneath a Moslem name; Since he, their mightiest chief, had been In youth a bitter Nazarene. They did not know how Pride can stoop, 320 When baffled feelings withering droop; They did not know how Hate can burn In hearts once changed from soft to stern; Nor all the false and fatal zeal The convert of Revenge can feel. He ruled them--man may rule the worst, By ever daring to be first: So lions o'er the jackals sway; The jackal points, he fells the prey,[ow][351] Then on the vulgar, yelling, press, 330 To gorge the relics of success.

XIII.

His head grows fevered, and his pulse The quick successive throbs convulse; In vain from side to side he throws His form, in courtship of repose;[ox] Or if he dozed, a sound, a start Awoke him with a sunken heart. The turban on his hot brow pressed, The mail weighed lead-like on his breast, Though oft and long beneath its weight 340 Upon his eyes had slumber sate, Without or couch or canopy, Except a rougher field and sky[oy] Than now might yield a warrior's bed, Than now along the heaven was spread. He could not rest, he could not stay Within his tent to wait for day,[oz] But walked him forth along the sand, Where thousand sleepers strewed the strand. What pillowed them? and why should he 350 More wakeful than the humblest be, Since more their peril, worse their toil? And yet they fearless dream of spoil; While he alone, where thousands passed A night of sleep, perchance their last, In sickly vigil wandered on, And envied all he gazed upon.

XIV.

He felt his soul become more light Beneath the freshness of the night. Cool was the silent sky, though calm, 360 And bathed his brow with airy balm: Behind, the camp--before him lay, In many a winding creek and bay, Lepanto's gulf; and, on the brow Of Delphi's hill, unshaken snow,[pa] High and eternal, such as shone Through thousand summers brightly gone, Along the gulf, the mount, the clime; It will not melt, like man, to time: Tyrant and slave are swept away, 370 Less formed to wear before the ray; But that white veil, the lightest, frailest,[352] Which on the mighty mount thou hailest, While tower and tree are torn and rent, Shines o'er its craggy battlement; In form a peak, in height a cloud, In texture like a hovering shroud, Thus high by parting Freedom spread, As from her fond abode she fled, And lingered on the spot, where long 380 Her prophet spirit spake in song.[pb] Oh! still her step at moments falters O'er withered fields, and ruined altars, And fain would wake, in souls too broken, By pointing to each glorious token: But vain her voice, till better days Dawn in those yet remembered rays, Which shone upon the Persian flying, And saw the Spartan smile in dying.

XV.

Not mindless of these mighty times 390 Was Alp, despite his flight and crimes; And through this night, as on he wandered,[pc] And o'er the past and present pondered, And thought upon the glorious dead Who there in better cause had bled, He felt how faint and feebly dim[pd] The fame that could accrue to him, Who cheered the band, and waved the sword,[pe] A traitor in a turbaned horde; And led them to the lawless siege, 400 Whose best success were sacrilege. Not so had those his fancy numbered,[353] The chiefs whose dust around him slumbered; Their phalanx marshalled on the plain, Whose bulwarks were not then in vain. They fell devoted, but undying; The very gale their names seemed sighing; The waters murmured of their name; The woods were peopled with their fame; The silent pillar, lone and grey, 410 Claimed kindred with their sacred clay; Their spirits wrapped the dusky mountain, Their memory sparkled o'er the fountain;[pf] The meanest rill, the mightiest river Rolled mingling with their fame for ever. Despite of every yoke she bears, That land is Glory's still and theirs![pg] 'Tis still a watch-word to the earth: When man would do a deed of worth He points to Greece, and turns to tread, 420 So sanctioned, on the tyrant's head: He looks to her, and rushes on Where life is lost, or Freedom won.[ph]

XVI.

Still by the shore Alp mutely mused, And wooed the freshness Night diffused. There shrinks no ebb in that tideless sea,[354] Which changeless rolls eternally; So that wildest of waves, in their angriest mood,[pi] Scarce break on the bounds of the land for a rood; And the powerless moon beholds them flow, 430 Heedless if she come or go: Calm or high, in main or bay, On their course she hath no sway. The rock unworn its base doth bare, And looks o'er the surf, but it comes not there; And the fringe of the foam may be seen below, On the line that it left long ages ago: A smooth short space of yellow sand[pj][355] Between it and the greener land.

He wandered on along the beach, 440 Till within the range of a carbine's reach Of the leaguered wall; but they saw him not, Or how could he 'scape from the hostile shot?[pk] Did traitors lurk in the Christians' hold? Were their hands grown stiff, or their hearts waxed cold? I know not, in sooth; but from yonder wall[pl] There flashed no fire, and there hissed no ball, Though he stood beneath the bastion's frown, That flanked the seaward gate of the town; Though he heard the sound, and could almost tell 450 The sullen words of the sentinel, As his measured step on the stone below Clanked, as he paced it to and fro; And he saw the lean dogs beneath the wall Hold o'er the dead their Carnival,[356] Gorging and growling o'er carcass and limb; They were too busy to bark at him! From a Tartar's skull they had stripped the flesh, As ye peel the fig when its fruit is fresh; And their white tusks crunched o'er the whiter skull,[357] 460 As it slipped through their jaws, when their edge grew dull, As they lazily mumbled the bones of the dead, When they scarce could rise from the spot where they fed; So well had they broken a lingering fast With those who had fallen for that night's repast. And Alp knew, by the turbans that rolled on the sand, The foremost of these were the best of his band: Crimson and green were the shawls of their wear, And each scalp had a single long tuft of hair,[358] All the rest was shaven and bare. 470 The scalps were in the wild dog's maw, The hair was tangled round his jaw: But close by the shore, on the edge of the gulf, There sat a vulture flapping a wolf, Who had stolen from the hills, but kept away, Scared by the dogs, from the human prey; But he seized on his share of a steed that lay, Picked by the birds, on the sands of the bay.

XVII.

Alp turned him from the sickening sight: Never had shaken his nerves in fight; 480 But he better could brook to behold the dying, Deep in the tide of their warm blood lying,[pm][359] Scorched with the death-thirst, and writhing in vain, Than the perishing dead who are past all pain.[pn][360] There is something of pride in the perilous hour, Whate'er be the shape in which Death may lower; For Fame is there to say who bleeds, And Honour's eye on daring deeds![361] But when all is past, it is humbling to tread[po] O'er the weltering field of the tombless dead,[362] 490 And see worms of the earth, and fowls of the air, Beasts of the forest, all gathering there; All regarding man as their prey, All rejoicing in his decay.[pp]

XVIII.

There is a temple in ruin stands, Fashioned by long forgotten hands; Two or three columns, and many a stone, Marble and granite, with grass o'ergrown! Out upon Time! it will leave no more Of the things to come than the things before![pq][363] 500 Out upon Time! who for ever will leave But enough of the past for the future to grieve O'er that which hath been, and o'er that which must be: What we have seen, our sons shall see; Remnants of things that have passed away, Fragments of stone, reared by creatures of clay![pr]

XIX.

He sate him down at a pillar's base,[364] And passed his hand athwart his face; Like one in dreary musing mood, Declining was his attitude; 510 His head was drooping on his breast, Fevered, throbbing, and oppressed; And o'er his brow, so downward bent, Oft his beating fingers went, Hurriedly, as you may see Your own run over the ivory key, Ere the measured tone is taken By the chords you would awaken. There he sate all heavily, As he heard the night-wind sigh. 520 Was it the wind through some hollow stone,[ps] Sent that soft and tender moan?[365] He lifted his head, and he looked on the sea, But it was unrippled as glass may be; He looked on the long grass--it waved not a blade; How was that gentle sound conveyed? He looked to the banners--each flag lay still, So did the leaves on Cithæron's hill, And he felt not a breath come over his cheek; What did that sudden sound bespeak? 530 He turned to the left--is he sure of sight? There sate a lady, youthful and bright![pt][366]

XX.

He started up with more of fear Than if an arméd foe were near. "God of my fathers! what is here? Who art thou? and wherefore sent So near a hostile armament?" His trembling hands refused to sign The cross he deemed no more divine: He had resumed it in that hour,[pu] 540 But Conscience wrung away the power. He gazed, he saw; he knew the face Of beauty, and the form of grace; It was Francesca by his side, The maid who might have been his bride![pv]

The rose was yet upon her cheek, But mellowed with a tenderer streak: Where was the play of her soft lips fled? Gone was the smile that enlivened their red. The Ocean's calm within their view,[pw] 550 Beside her eye had less of blue; But like that cold wave it stood still, And its glance, though clear, was chill.[367] Around her form a thin robe twining, Nought concealed her bosom shining; Through the parting of her hair, Floating darkly downward there, Her rounded arm showed white and bare: And ere yet she made reply, Once she raised her hand on high; 560 It was so wan, and transparent of hue, You might have seen the moon shine through.

XXI.

"I come from my rest to him I love best, That I may be happy, and he may be blessed. I have passed the guards, the gate, the wall; Sought thee in safety through foes and all. 'Tis said the lion will turn and flee[368] From a maid in the pride of her purity; And the Power on high, that can shield the good Thus from the tyrant of the wood, 570 Hath extended its mercy to guard me as well From the hands of the leaguering Infidel. I come--and if I come in vain, Never, oh never, we meet again! Thou hast done a fearful deed In falling away from thy fathers' creed: But dash that turban to earth, and sign The sign of the cross, and for ever be mine; Wring the black drop from thy heart, And to-morrow unites us no more to part." 580

"And where should our bridal couch be spread? In the midst of the dying and the dead? For to-morrow we give to the slaughter and flame The sons and the shrines of the Christian name. None, save thou and thine, I've sworn, Shall be left upon the morn: But thee will I bear to a lovely spot, Where our hands shall be joined, and our sorrow forgot. There thou yet shall be my bride, When once again I've quelled the pride 590 Of Venice; and her hated race Have felt the arm they would debase Scourge, with a whip of scorpions, those Whom Vice and Envy made my foes."

Upon his hand she laid her own-- Light was the touch, but it thrilled to the bone, And shot a chillness to his heart,[px] Which fixed him beyond the power to start. Though slight was that grasp so mortal cold, He could not loose him from its hold; 600 But never did clasp of one so dear Strike on the pulse with such feeling of fear, As those thin fingers, long and white, Froze through his blood by their touch that night. The feverish glow of his brow was gone, And his heart sank so still that it felt like stone, As he looked on the face, and beheld its hue,[py] So deeply changed from what he knew: Fair but faint--without the ray Of mind, that made each feature play 610 Like sparkling waves on a sunny day; And her motionless lips lay still as death, And her words came forth without her breath, And there rose not a heave o'er her bosom's swell,[pz] And there seemed not a pulse in her veins to dwell. Though her eye shone out, yet the lids were fixed,[369] And the glance that it gave was wild and unmixed With aught of change, as the eyes may seem Of the restless who walk in a troubled dream; Like the figures on arras, that gloomily glare, 620 Stirred by the breath of the wintry air[qa] So seen by the dying lamp's fitful light,[qb] Lifeless, but life-like, and awful to sight; As they seem, through the dimness, about to come down From the shadowy wall where their images frown; Fearfully flitting to and fro, As the gusts on the tapestry come and go.[370]

"If not for love of me be given Thus much, then, for the love of Heaven,-- Again I say--that turban tear 630 From off thy faithless brow, and swear Thine injured country's sons to spare, Or thou art lost; and never shalt see-- Not earth--that's past--but Heaven or me. If this thou dost accord, albeit A heavy doom' tis thine to meet, That doom shall half absolve thy sin, And Mercy's gate may receive thee within:[371] But pause one moment more, and take The curse of Him thou didst forsake; 640 And look once more to Heaven, and see Its love for ever shut from thee. There is a light cloud by the moon--[372] 'Tis passing, and will pass full soon-- If, by the time its vapoury sail Hath ceased her shaded orb to veil, Thy heart within thee is not changed, Then God and man are both avenged; Dark will thy doom be, darker still Thine immortality of ill." 650

Alp looked to heaven, and saw on high The sign she spake of in the sky; But his heart was swollen, and turned aside, By deep interminable pride.[qc] This first false passion of his breast Rolled like a torrent o'er the rest. _He_ sue for mercy! _He_ dismayed By wild words of a timid maid! _He_, wronged by Venice, vow to save Her sons, devoted to the grave! 660 No--though that cloud were thunder's worst, And charged to crush him--let it burst!

He looked upon it earnestly, Without an accent of reply; He watched it passing; it is flown: Full on his eye the clear moon shone, And thus he spake--"Whate'er my fate, I am no changeling--'tis too late: The reed in storms may bow and quiver, Then rise again; the tree must shiver. 670 What Venice made me, I must be, Her foe in all, save love to thee: But thou art safe: oh, fly with me!" He turned, but she is gone! Nothing is there but the column stone. Hath she sunk in the earth, or melted in air? He saw not--he knew not--but nothing is there.

XXII.

The night is past, and shines the sun As if that morn were a jocund one.[373] Lightly and brightly breaks away 680 The Morning from her mantle grey,[374] And the Noon will look on a sultry day.[375] Hark to the trump, and the drum, And the mournful sound of the barbarous horn, And the flap of the banners, that flit as they're borne, And the neigh of the steed, and the multitude's hum, And the clash, and the shout, "They come! they come!" The horsetails[376] are plucked from the ground, and the sword From its sheath; and they form, and but wait for the word. Tartar, and Spahi, and Turcoman, 690 Strike your tents, and throng to the van; Mount ye, spur ye, skirr the plain,[377] That the fugitive may flee in vain, When he breaks from the town; and none escape, Agéd or young, in the Christian shape; While your fellows on foot, in a fiery mass, Bloodstain the breach through which they pass.[378] The steeds are all bridled, and snort to the rein; Curved is each neck, and flowing each mane; White is the foam of their champ on the bit; 700 The spears are uplifted; the matches are lit; The cannon are pointed, and ready to roar, And crush the wall they have crumbled before:[379] Forms in his phalanx each Janizar; Alp at their head; his right arm is bare, So is the blade of his scimitar; The Khan and the Pachas are all at their post; The Vizier himself at the head of the host. When the culverin's signal is fired, then on; Leave not in Corinth a living one-- 710 A priest at her altars, a chief in her halls, A hearth in her mansions, a stone on her walls. God and the prophet--Alla Hu![380] Up to the skies with that wild halloo! "There the breach lies for passage, the ladder to scale; And your hands on your sabres, and how should ye fail? He who first downs with the red cross may crave[381] His heart's dearest wish; let him ask it, and have!" Thus uttered Coumourgi, the dauntless Vizier;[382] The reply was the brandish of sabre and spear, 720 And the shout of fierce thousands in joyous ire:-- Silence--hark to the signal--fire!

XXIII.

As the wolves, that headlong go On the stately buffalo, Though with fiery eyes, and angry roar, And hoofs that stamp, and horns that gore, He tramples on earth, or tosses on high The foremost, who rush on his strength but to die Thus against the wall they went, Thus the first were backward bent;[383] 730 Many a bosom, sheathed in brass, Strewed the earth like broken glass,[qd] Shivered by the shot, that tore The ground whereon they moved no more: Even as they fell, in files they lay, Like the mower's grass at the close of day,[qe] When his work is done on the levelled plain; Such was the fall of the foremost slain.[384]

XXIV.

As the spring-tides, with heavy plash, From the cliffs invading dash 740 Huge fragments, sapped by the ceaseless flow, Till white and thundering down they go, Like the avalanche's snow On the Alpine vales below; Thus at length, outbreathed and worn, Corinth's sons were downward borne By the long and oft renewed Charge of the Moslem multitude. In firmness they stood, and in masses they fell, Heaped by the host of the Infidel, 750 Hand to hand, and foot to foot: Nothing there, save Death, was mute;[385] Stroke, and thrust, and flash, and cry For quarter, or for victory, Mingle there with the volleying thunder, Which makes the distant cities wonder How the sounding battle goes, If with them, or for their foes; If they must mourn, or may rejoice In that annihilating voice, 760 Which pierces the deep hills through and through With an echo dread and new: You might have heard it, on that day, O'er Salamis and Megara; (We have heard the hearers say,)[qf] Even unto Piræus' bay.

XXV.

From the point of encountering blades to the hilt, Sabres and swords with blood were gilt;[386] But the rampart is won, and the spoil begun, And all but the after carnage done. 770 Shriller shrieks now mingling come From within the plundered dome: Hark to the haste of flying feet, That splash in the blood of the slippery street; But here and there, where 'vantage ground Against the foe may still be found, Desperate groups, of twelve or ten, Make a pause, and turn again-- With banded backs against the wall, Fiercely stand, or fighting fall. 780 There stood an old man[387]--his hairs were white, But his veteran arm was full of might: So gallantly bore he the brunt of the fray, The dead before him, on that day, In a semicircle lay; Still he combated unwounded, Though retreating, unsurrounded. Many a scar of former fight Lurked[388] beneath his corslet bright; But of every wound his body bore, 790 Each and all had been ta'en before: Though agéd, he was so iron of limb, Few of our youth could cope with him, And the foes, whom he singly kept at bay, Outnumbered his thin hairs[389] of silver grey. From right to left his sabre swept: Many an Othman mother wept Sons that were unborn, when dipped[390] His weapon first in Moslem gore, Ere his years could count a score. 800 Of all he might have been the sire[391] Who fell that day beneath his ire: For, sonless left long years ago, His wrath made many a childless foe; And since the day, when in the strait[392] His only boy had met his fate, His parent's iron hand did doom More than a human hecatomb.[393] If shades by carnage be appeased, Patroclus' spirit less was pleased 810 Than his, Minotti's son, who died Where Asia's bounds and ours divide. Buried he lay, where thousands before For thousands of years were inhumed on the shore; What of them is left, to tell Where they lie, and how they fell? Not a stone on their turf, nor a bone in their graves; But they live in the verse that immortally saves.[394]

XXVI.

Hark to the Allah shout![395] a band Of the Mussulman bravest and best is at hand; 820 Their leader's nervous arm is bare, Swifter to smite, and never to spare-- Unclothed to the shoulder it waves them on; Thus in the fight is he ever known: Others a gaudier garb may show, To tempt the spoil of the greedy foe; Many a hand's on a richer hilt, But none on a steel more ruddily gilt; Many a loftier turban may wear,-- Alp is but known by the white arm bare; 830 Look through the thick of the fight,'tis there! There is not a standard on that shore So well advanced the ranks before; There is not a banner in Moslem war Will lure the Delhis half so far; It glances like a falling star! Where'er that mighty arm is seen, The bravest be, or late have been;[396] There the craven cries for quarter Vainly to the vengeful Tartar; 840 Or the hero, silent lying, Scorns to yield a groan in dying; Mustering his last feeble blow 'Gainst the nearest levelled foe, Though faint beneath the mutual wound, Grappling on the gory ground.

XXVII.

Still the old man stood erect. And Alp's career a moment checked. "Yield thee, Minotti; quarter take, For thine own, thy daughter's sake." 850

"Never, Renegado, never! Though the life of thy gift would last for ever."[qg]

"Francesca!--Oh, my promised bride![qh] Must she too perish by thy pride!"

"She is safe."--"Where? where?"--"In Heaven; From whence thy traitor soul is driven-- Far from thee, and undefiled." Grimly then Minotti smiled, As he saw Alp staggering bow Before his words, as with a blow. 860

"Oh God! when died she?"--"Yesternight-- Nor weep I for her spirit's flight: None of my pure race shall be Slaves to Mahomet and thee-- Come on!"--That challenge is in vain-- Alp's already with the slain! While Minotti's words were wreaking More revenge in bitter speaking Than his falchion's point had found, Had the time allowed to wound, 870 From within the neighbouring porch Of a long defended church, Where the last and desperate few Would the failing fight renew, The sharp shot dashed Alp to the ground; Ere an eye could view the wound That crashed through the brain of the infidel, Round he spun, and down he fell; A flash like fire within his eyes Blazed, as he bent no more to rise, 880 And then eternal darkness sunk Through all the palpitating trunk;[qi] Nought of life left, save a quivering Where his limbs were slightly shivering: They turned him on his back; his breast And brow were stained with gore and dust, And through his lips the life-blood oozed, From its deep veins lately loosed; But in his pulse there was no throb, Nor on his lips one dying sob; 890 Sigh, nor word, nor struggling breath[qj] Heralded his way to death: Ere his very thought could pray, Unaneled he passed away, Without a hope from Mercy's aid,-- To the last a Renegade.[397]

XXVIII.

Fearfully the yell arose Of his followers, and his foes; These in joy, in fury those:[qk] Then again in conflict mixing,[ql] 900 Clashing swords, and spears transfixing, Interchanged the blow and thrust, Hurling warriors in the dust. Street by street, and foot by foot, Still Minotti dares dispute The latest portion of the land Left beneath his high command; With him, aiding heart and hand, The remnant of his gallant band. Still the church is tenable, 910 Whence issued late the fated ball That half avenged the city's fall, When Alp, her fierce assailant, fell: Thither bending sternly back, They leave before a bloody track; And, with their faces to the foe, Dealing wounds with every blow,[398] The chief, and his retreating train, Join to those within the fane; There they yet may breathe awhile, 920 Sheltered by the massy pile.

XXIX.

Brief breathing-time! the turbaned host, With added ranks and raging boast, Press onwards with such strength and heat, Their numbers balk their own retreat; For narrow the way that led to the spot Where still the Christians yielded not; And the foremost, if fearful, may vainly try Through the massy column to turn and fly; They perforce must do or die. 930 They die; but ere their eyes could close, Avengers o'er their bodies rose; Fresh and furious, fast they fill The ranks unthinned, though slaughtered still; And faint the weary Christians wax Before the still renewed attacks: And now the Othmans gain the gate; Still resists its iron weight, And still, all deadly aimed and hot, From every crevice comes the shot; 940 From every shattered window pour The volleys of the sulphurous shower: But the portal wavering grows and weak-- The iron yields, the hinges creak-- It bends--it falls--and all is o'er; Lost Corinth may resist no more!

XXX.

Darkly, sternly, and all alone, Minotti stood o'er the altar stone: Madonna's face upon him shone,[399] Painted in heavenly hues above, 950 With eyes of light and looks of love; And placed upon that holy shrine To fix our thoughts on things divine, When pictured there, we kneeling see Her, and the boy-God on her knee, Smiling sweetly on each prayer To Heaven, as if to waft it there. Still she smiled; even now she smiles, Though slaughter streams along her aisles: Minotti lifted his agéd eye, 960 And made the sign of a cross with a sigh, Then seized a torch which blazed thereby; And still he stood, while with steel and flame, Inward and onward the Mussulman came.

XXXI.

The vaults beneath the mosaic stone[qm] Contained the dead of ages gone; Their names were on the graven floor, But now illegible with gore;[qn] The carvéd crests, and curious hues The varied marble's veins diffuse, 970 Were smeared, and slippery--stained, and strown With broken swords, and helms o'erthrown: There were dead above, and the dead below Lay cold in many a coffined row; You might see them piled in sable state, By a pale light through a gloomy grate; But War had entered their dark caves,[qo] And stored along the vaulted graves Her sulphurous treasures, thickly spread In masses by the fleshless dead: 980 Here, throughout the siege, had been The Christians' chiefest magazine; To these a late formed train now led, Minotti's last and stern resource Against the foe's o'erwhelming force.

XXXII.

The foe came on, and few remain To strive, and those must strive in vain: For lack of further lives, to slake The thirst of vengeance now awake, With barbarous blows they gash the dead, 990 And lop the already lifeless head, And fell the statues from their niche, And spoil the shrines of offerings rich, And from each other's rude hands wrest The silver vessels Saints had blessed. To the high altar on they go; Oh, but it made a glorious show![400] On its table still behold The cup of consecrated gold; Massy and deep, a glittering prize, 1000 Brightly it sparkles to plunderers' eyes: That morn it held the holy wine,[qp] Converted by Christ to his blood so divine, Which his worshippers drank at the break of day,[qq] To shrive their souls ere they joined in the fray. Still a few drops within it lay; And round the sacred table glow Twelve lofty lamps, in splendid row, From the purest metal cast; A spoil--the richest, and the last. 1010

XXXIII.

So near they came, the nearest stretched To grasp the spoil he almost reached When old Minotti's hand Touched with the torch the train-- 'Tis fired![401] Spire, vaults, the shrine, the spoil, the slain, The turbaned victors, the Christian band, All that of living or dead remain, Hurled on high with the shivered fane, In one wild roar expired![402] 1020 The shattered town--the walls thrown down-- The waves a moment backward bent-- The hills that shake, although unrent,[qr] As if an Earthquake passed-- The thousand shapeless things all driven In cloud and flame athwart the heaven, By that tremendous blast-- Proclaimed the desperate conflict o'er On that too long afflicted shore:[403] Up to the sky like rockets go 1030 All that mingled there below: Many a tall and goodly man, Scorched and shrivelled to a span, When he fell to earth again Like a cinder strewed the plain: Down the ashes shower like rain; Some fell in the gulf, which received the sprinkles With a thousand circling wrinkles; Some fell on the shore, but, far away, Scattered o'er the isthmus lay; 1040 Christian or Moslem, which be they? Let their mothers see and say![qs] When in cradled rest they lay, And each nursing mother smiled On the sweet sleep of her child, Little deemed she such a day Would rend those tender limbs away.[404] Not the matrons that them bore Could discern their offspring more;[405] That one moment left no trace 1050 More of human form or face Save a scattered scalp or bone: And down came blazing rafters, strown Around, and many a falling stone,[qt] Deeply dinted in the clay, All blackened there and reeking lay. All the living things that heard The deadly earth-shock disappeared: The wild birds flew; the wild dogs fled, And howling left the unburied dead;[qu][406] 1060 The camels from their keepers broke; The distant steer forsook the yoke-- The nearer steed plunged o'er the plain, And burst his girth, and tore his rein; The bull-frog's note, from out the marsh, Deep-mouthed arose, and doubly harsh;[407] The wolves yelled on the caverned hill Where Echo rolled in thunder still;[qv] The jackal's troop, in gathered cry,[qw][408] Bayed from afar complainingly, 1070 With a mixed and mournful sound,[qx] Like crying babe, and beaten hound:[409] With sudden wing, and ruffled breast, The eagle left his rocky nest, And mounted nearer to the sun, The clouds beneath him seemed so dun; Their smoke assailed his startled beak, And made him higher soar and shriek-- Thus was Corinth lost and won![410]

FOOTNOTES:

[330] "With Gun, Drum, Trumpet, Blunderbuss, and Thunder."

[331] {447} Napoli di Romania is not now the most considerable place in the Morea, but Tripolitza, where the Pacha resides, and maintains his government. Napoli is near Argos. I visited all three in 1810-11; and, in the course of journeying through the country from my first arrival in 1809, I crossed the Isthmus eight times in my way from Attica to the Morea, over the mountains; or in the other direction, when passing from the Gulf of Athens to that of Lepanto. Both the routes are picturesque and beautiful, though very different: that by sea has more sameness; but the voyage, being always within sight of land, and often very near it, presents many attractive views of the islands Salamis, Ægina, Poros, etc., and the coast of the Continent.

["Independently of the suitableness of such an event to the power of Lord Byron's genius, the Fall of Corinth afforded local attractions, by the intimate knowledge which the poet had of the place and surrounding objects.... Thus furnished with that topographical information which could not be well obtained from books and maps, he was admirably qualified to depict the various operations and progress of the siege."--_Memoir of the Life and Writings of the Right Honourable Lord Byron_, London, 1822, p. 222.]

[332] {449} [The introductory lines, 1-45, are not included in the copy of the poem in Lady Byron's handwriting, nor were they published in the First Edition. On Christmas Day, 1815, Byron, enclosing this fragment to Murray, says, "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." They are headed in the MS., "The Stranger's Tale," October 23rd. First published in _Letters and Journals_, 1830, i. 638, they were included among the _Occasional Poems_ in the edition of 1831, and first prefixed to the poem in the edition of 1832.]

[333] [The metrical rendering of the date (miscalculated from the death instead of the birth of Christ) may be traced to the opening lines of an old ballad (Kölbing's _Siege of Corinth_, p. 53)--

"Upon the sixteen hunder year Of God, and fifty-three, From Christ was born, that bought us dear, As writings testifie," etc.

See "The Life and Age of Man" (_Burns' Selected Poems_, ed. by J. L. Robertson, 1889, p. 191).]

[334] [Compare letter to Hodgson, July 16, 1809: "How merrily we lives that travellers be!"--_Letters_, 1898, i. 233.]

[335] {450} [For "capote," compare _Childe Harold_, Canto II. stanza lii. line 7, and Byron's note (24.B.), _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 132, 181. Compare, too, letter to Mrs. Byron, November 12, 1809 (_Letters_, 1899, i. 253): "Two days ago I was nearly lost in a Turkish ship of war.... I wrapped myself up in my Albanian capote (an immense cloak), and lay down on deck to wait the worst."]

[336] The last tidings recently heard of Dervish (one of the Arnauts 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.

[nz] {451} _But those winged days_----.--[MS.]

[337] [Compare Kingsley's _Last Buccaneer_--

"If I might but be a sea-dove, I'd fly across the main-- To the pleasant isle of Aves, to look at it once again."]

[oa] _The kindly few who love my lay_.--[MS.]

[338] [The MS. is dated J^y (January) 31, 1815. Lady Byron's copy is dated November 2, 1815.]

[ob] _Many a year, and many an age_.--[MS. G. Copy.]

[oc] _A marvel from her Moslem bands_.--[MS. G.]

[339] {452} [Timoleon, who had saved the life of his brother Timophanes in battle, afterwards put him to death for aiming at the supreme power in Corinth. Warton says that Pope once intended to write an epic poem on the story, and that Akenside had the same design (_Works_ of Alexander Pope, Esq., 1806, ii. 83).]

[od] _Or could the dead be raised again_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[oe] ----_through yon clear skies_ _Than tower-capt Acropolis_.--[MS. G.]

[of] _Stretched on the edge----.--[MS. G. erased.]_

[340] [Turkish holders of military fiefs.]

[og] _The turbaned crowd of dusky hue_ _Whose march Morea's fields may rue_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[341] {453} The life of the Turcomans is wandering and patriarchal: they dwell in tents.

[342] [Compare _The Giaour_, line 639 (_vide ante_, p. 116)--"The deathshot hissing from afar."]

[343] {454} [Professor Kolbing admits that he is unable to say how "Byron met with the name of Alp." I am indebted to my cousin, Miss Edith Coleridge, for the suggestion that the name is derived from Mohammed (Lhaz-ed-Dyn-Abou-Choudja), surnamed Alp-Arslan (Arsslan), or "Brave Lion," the second of the Seljuk dynasty, in the eleventh century. "He conquered Armenia and Georgia ... but was assassinated by Yussuf Cothuol, Governor of Berzem, and was buried at Merw, in Khorassan." His epitaph moralizes his fate: "O vous qui avez vu la grandeur d'Alparslan élevée jusq'au ciel, regardez! le voici maintenant en poussière."--Hammer-Purgstall, _Histoire de l'Empire Othoman_, i. 13-15.]

[oh] _But now an exile_----.--[MS. G.]

[344] {455} ["The _Lions' Mouths_, under the arcade at the summit of the Giants' Stairs, which gaped widely to receive anonymous charges, were no doubt far more often employed as vehicles of private malice than of zeal for the public welfare."--_Sketches from Venetian History_, 1832, ii. 380.]

[oi] _To waste its future_----.--[MS. G.]

[345] Ali Coumourgi [Damad Ali or Ali Cumurgi (i.e. son of the charcoal-burner)], the favourite of three sultans, and Grand Vizier to Achmet III., after recovering Peloponnesus from the Venetians in one campaign, was mortally wounded in the next, against the Germans, at the battle of Peterwaradin (in the plain of Carlowitz), in Hungary, endeavouring to rally his guards. He died of his wounds next day [August 16, 1716]. His last order was the decapitation of General Breuner, and some other German prisoners, and his last words, "Oh that I could thus serve all the Christian dogs!" a speech and act not unlike one of Caligula. He was a young man of great ambition and unbounded presumption: on being told that Prince Eugene, then opposed to him, "was a great general," he said, "I shall become a greater, and at his expense."

[For his letter to Prince Eugene, "Eh bien! la guerre va décider entre nous," etc., and for an account of his death, see Hammer-Purgstall, _Historie de l'Empire Othoman_, xiii. 300, 312.]

[oj] {456} _And death-like rolled_----.--[MS. G. erased.]

[ok] _Like comets in convulsion riven_.--[MS. G. Copy erased.]

[ol] _Impervious to the powerless sun_, _Through sulphurous smoke whose blackness grew_.-- [MS. G. erased.]

[om] {457} _In midnight courtship to Italian maid_.--[MS. G.]

[346] {458} [The siege of Vienna was raised by John Sobieski, King of Poland (1629-1696), September 12, 1683. Buda was retaken from the Turks by Charles VII., Duke of Lorraine, Sobieski's ally and former rival for the kingdom of Poland, September 2, 1686. The conquest of the Morea was begun by the Venetians in 1685, and completed in 1699.]

[on] _By Buda's wall to Danube's side_.--[MS. G.]

[oo] _Pisani held_----.--[MS. G.]

[op] _Than she, the beauteous stranger, bore_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[347] {459} [For Byron's use of the phrase, "Forlorn Hope," as an equivalent of the Turkish Delhis, or Delis, see _Childe Harold_, Canto II. ("The Albanian War-Song"), _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 149, note 1.]

[oq] _By stepping o'er_----.--[MS. G.]

[348] ["Brown" is Byron's usual epithet for landscape seen by moonlight. Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto II. stanza xxii. line 6, etc., _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 113, note 3.]

[or] _Bespangled with her isles_----.--[MS. G.]

[349] ["Stars" are likened to "isles" by Campbell, in _The Pleasures of Hope_, Part II.--

"The seraph eye shall count the starry train, Like distant isles embosomed on the main."

And "isles" to "stars" by Byron, in _The Island_, Canto II. stanza xi. lines 14, 15--

"The studded archipelago, O'er whose blue bosom rose the starry isles."

For other "star-similes," see _Childe Harold_, Canto III. stanza lxxxviii. line 9, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 270, note 2.]

[os] _And take a dark unmeasured tone._--[MS. G.] _And make a melancholy moan_, _To mortal voice and ear unknown._--[MS. G. erased.]

[350] {461} [Compare Scott's _Marmion_, III. xvi. 4--

"And that strange Palmer's boding say, That fell so ominous and drear."]

[ot] ----_by fancy framed_, _Which rings a deep, internal knell_, _A visionary passing-bell._--[MS. G. erased.]

[ou] _The thoughts tumultuously roll._--[MS. G.]

[ov] {462} _To triumph o'er_----.--[MS. G. erased.]

[ow] _They but provide, he fells the prey._--[MS. G.] _As lions o'er the jackal sway_ _By springing dauntless on the prey;_ _They follow on, and yelling press_ _To gorge the fragments of success._--[MS. G. erased.]

[351] [Lines 329-331 are inserted in the copy. They are in Byron's handwriting. Compare _Don Juan_, Canto IX. stanza xxvii. line 1, _seq._--"_That's_ an appropriate simile, _that jackal_."]

[ox] {463} _He vainly turned from side to side_, _And each reposing posture tried_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[oy] _Beyond a rougher_----.--[MS. G.]

[oz] ----_to sigh for day_.--[MS. G.]

[pa] {464} _Of Liakura--his unmelting snow_ _Bright and eternal_----.--[MS. G. erased.]

[352] [Compare _The Giaour_, line 566 (_vide ante_, p. 113)--

"For where is he that hath beheld The peak of Liakura unveiled?"

The reference is to the almost perpetual "cap" of mist on Parnassus (Mount Likeri or Liakura), which lies some thirty miles to the north-west of Corinth.]

[pb] {465} _Her spirit spoke in deathless song_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[pc] _And in this night_----.--[MS. G.]

[pd] _He felt how little and how dim_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[pe] _Who led the band_----.--[MS. G.]

[353] [Compare _The Giaour_, lines 103, _seq._ (_vide ante_, p. 91)--"Clime of the unforgotten brave!" etc.]

[pf] {466} _Their memory hallowed every fountain_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[pg] Here follows, in the MS.--

_Immortal--boundless--undecayed--_ _Their souls the very soil pervade_.-- [_In the Copy the lines are erased_.]

[ph] _Where Freedom loveliest may be won_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[354] The reader need hardly be reminded that there are no perceptible tides in the Mediterranean.

[pi] _So that fiercest of waves_----.--[MS. G.]

[pj] {467} _A little space of light grey sand_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[355] [Compare _The Island_, Canto IV. sect. ii. lines 11, 12--

"A narrow segment of the yellow sand On one side forms the outline of a strand."]

[pk] _Or would not waste on a single head_ _The ball on numbers better sped_.--[MS. G. erased]

[pl] _I know not in faith_----.--[MS. G.]

[356] [Gifford has drawn his pen through lines 456-478. If, as the editor of _The Works of Lord Byron_, 1832 (x. 100), maintains, "Lord Byron gave Mr. Gifford _carte blanche_ to strike out or alter anything at his pleasure in this poem as it was passing through the press," it is somewhat remarkable that he does not appear to have paid any attention whatever to the august "reader's" suggestions and strictures. The sheets on which Gifford's corrections are scrawled are not proof-sheets, but pages torn out of the first edition; and it is probable that they were made after the poem was published, and with a view to the inclusion of an emended edition in the collected works. See letter to Murray, January 2, 1817.]

[357] {468} This spectacle I have seen, such as described, beneath the wall of the Seraglio at Constantinople, in the little cavities worn by the Bosphorus in the rock, a narrow terrace of which projects between the wall and the water. I think the fact is also mentioned in Hobhouse's _Travels_ [_in Albania_, 1855, ii. 215]. The bodies were probably those of some refractory Janizaries.

[358] This tuft, or long lock, is left from a superstition that Mahomet will draw them into Paradise by it.

[pm] {469} _Deep in the tide of their lost blood lying_.--[MS. G. Copy.]

[359] ["Than the mangled corpse in its own blood lying."--Gifford.]

[pn] _Than the rotting dead_----.--[MS. G. erased.]

[360] [Strike out--

"Scorch'd with the death-thirst, and writhing in vain, Than the perishing dead who are past all pain."

What is a "perishing dead"?--Gifford.]

[361] [Lines 487, 488 are inserted in the copy in Byron's handwriting.]

[po] _And when all_----.--[MS. G.]

[362] ["O'er the weltering _limbs_ of the tombless dead."--Gifford.]

[pp] _All that liveth on man will prey_, _All rejoicing in his decay,_ or, _Nature rejoicing in his decay_. _All that can kindle dismay and disgust_ _Follow his frame from the bier to the dust._--[MS. G. erased.]

[pq] {470} ----_it hath left no more_ _Of the mightiest things that have gone before_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[363] [Omit this couplet.--Gifford.]

[pr] After this follows in the MS. erased--

_Monuments that the coming age_ _Leaves to the spoil of the season's rage_-- _Till Ruin makes the relics scarce_, _Then Learning acts her solemn farce_, _And, roaming through the marble waste_, _Prates of beauty, art, and taste_.

XIX.

_That Temple was more in the midst of the plain_-- or, _What of that shrine did yet remain_ _Lay to his left more in midst of the plain_.--[MS. G.]

[364] [From this all is beautiful to--"He saw not--he knew not--but nothing is there."--Gifford. For "pillar's base," compare _Childe Harold_, Canto II. stanza x. line 2, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 105.]

[ps] {471} _Is it the wind that through the stone._ or,----_o'er the heavy stone_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[365] I must here acknowledge a close, though unintentional, resemblance in these twelve lines to a passage in an unpublished poem of Mr. Coleridge, called "Christabel." It was not till after these lines were written that I heard that wild and singularly original and beautiful poem recited; and the MS. of that production I never saw till very recently, by the kindness of Mr. Coleridge himself, who, I hope, is convinced that I have not been a wilful plagiarist. The original idea undoubtedly pertains to Mr. Coleridge, whose poem has been composed above fourteen years. Let me conclude by a hope that he will not longer delay the publication of a production, of which I can only add my mite of approbation to the applause of far more competent judges.

[The lines in _Christabel_, Part the First, 43-52, 57, 58, are these--

"The night is chill; the forest bare; Is it the wind that moaneth bleak? There is not wind enough in the air To move away the ringlet curl From the lovely lady's cheek-- There is not wind enough to twirl The one red leaf, the last of its clan, That dances as often as dance it can, Hanging so light, and hanging so high, On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky."

" ... What sees she there? There she sees a damsel bright, Drest in a silken robe of white."

Byron (_vide ante_, p. 443), in a letter to Coleridge, dated October 27, 1815, had already expressly guarded himself against a charge of plagiarism, by explaining that lines 521-532 of stanza xix. were written before he heard Walter Scott repeat _Christabel_ in the preceding June. Now, as Byron himself perceived, perhaps for the first time, when he had the MS. of _Christabel_ before him, the coincidence in language and style between the two passages is unquestionable; and, as he hoped and expected that Coleridge's fragment, when completed, would issue from the press, he was anxious to avoid even the semblance of pilfering, and went so far as to suggest that the passage should be cancelled. Neither in the private letter nor the published note does Byron attempt to deny or explain away the coincidence, but pleads that his lines were written before he had heard Coleridge's poem recited, and that he had not been guilty of a "wilful plagiarism." There is no difficulty in accepting his statement. Long before the summer of 1815 _Christabel_ "had a pretty general circulation in the literary world" (Medwin, _Conversations_, 1824, p. 261), and he may have heard without heeding this and other passages quoted by privileged readers; or, though never a line of _Christabel_ had sounded in his ears, he may (as Kölbing points out) have caught its lilt at second hand from the published works of Southey, or of Scott himself.

Compare _Thalaba the Destroyer_, v. 20 (1838, iv. 187)--

"What sound is borne on the wind? Is it the storm that shakes The thousand oaks of the forest?

* * * * *

Is it the river's roar Dashed down some rocky descent?" etc.

Or compare _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_, I. xii. 5. _seq._ (1812, p. 24)--

"And now she sits in secret bower In old Lord David's western tower, And listens to a heavy sound, That moans the mossy turrets round. Is it the roar of Teviot's tide, That chafes against the scaur's red side? Is it the wind that swings the oaks? Is it the echo from the rocks?" etc.

Certain lines of Coleridge's did, no doubt, "find themselves" in the _Siege of Corinth_, having found their way to the younger poet's ear and fancy before the Lady of the vision was directly and formally introduced to his notice.]

[pt] {473}_There sate a lady young and bright_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[366] [Contemporary critics fell foul of these lines for various reasons. The _Critical Review_ (February, 1816, vol. iii. p. 151) remarks that "the following couplet [i.e. lines 531, 532] reminds us of the _persiflage_ of Lewis or the pathos of a vulgar ballad;" while the _Dublin Examiner_ (May, 1816, vol. i. p. 19) directs a double charge against the founders of the schism and their proselyte: "If the Cumberland _Lakers_ were not well known to be personages of the most pious and saintly temperament, we would really have serious apprehensions lest our noble Poet should come to any harm in consequence of the envy which the two following lines and a great many others through the poems, might excite by their successful rivalship of some of the finest effects of babyism that these Gentlemen can boast."]

[pu] _He would have made it_----.--[MS. G. erased.]

[pv] _She who would_----.--[MS. G. erased.]

[pw] {474} _The ocean spread before their view_.--[Copy.]

[367] ["And its _thrilling_ glance, etc."--Gifford.]

[368] [Warton (_Observations en the Fairy Queen_, 1807, ii. 131), commenting on Spenser's famous description of "Una and the Lion" (_Faëry Queene_, Book I. canto iii. stanzas 5, 6, 7), quotes the following passage from _Seven Champions of Christendom_: "Now, Sabra, I have by this sufficiently proved thy true virginitie: for it is the nature of a lion, be he never so furious, not to harme the unspotted virgin, but humbly to lay his bristled head upon a maiden's lap."

Byron, according to Leigh Hunt (_Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries_, 1828, i. 77), could not "see anything" in Spenser, and was not familiar with the _Fairy Queen_; but he may have had in mind Scott's allusion to Spenser's Una--

"Harpers have sung and poets told That he, in fury uncontrolled, The shaggy monarch of the wood, Before a virgin, fair and good, Hath pacified his savage mood."

_Marmion_, Canto II. stanza vii. line 3, _seq_.

(See Kölbing's note to _Siege of Corinth_, 1893, pp. 110-112.)]

[px] {476} _She laid her fingers on his hand_, _Its coldness thrilled through every bone_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[py] _As he looked on her face_----.--[MS. G.]

[pz] ----_on her bosom's swell_.--[MS. G. erased. Copy.]

[369] [Compare Shakespeare, _Macbeth_, act v. sc. 1, line 30--

"You see, her eyes are open, Aye, but their sense is shut."

Compare, too, _Christabel_, Conclusion to Part the First (lines 292, 293)--

"With open eyes (ah, woe is me!) Asleep, and dreaming fearfully."]

[qa] {477} _Like a picture, that magic had charmed from its frame_, _Lifeless but life-like, and ever the same_. or, _Like a picture come forth from its canvas and frame_.-- [MS. G. erased.]

[qb] _And seen_----.--[MS. G.] ----_its fleecy mail_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[370] [In the summer of 1803, Byron, then turned fifteen, though offered a bed at Annesley, used at first to return every night to Newstead; alleging that he was afraid of the family pictures of the Chaworths, which he fancied "had taken a grudge to him on account of the duel, and would come down from their frames to haunt him." Moore thinks this passage may have been suggested by the recollection (_Life_, p. 27). Compare _Lara_, Canto I. stanza xi. line 1, _seq_. (_vide ante_, p. 331, note 1).]

[371] [Compare Southey's _Roderick_, Canto XXI. (ed. 1838, ix. 195)--

" ... and till the grave Open, the gate of mercy is not closed."]

[372] {478} I have been told that the idea expressed in this and the five following lines has been admired by those whose approbation is valuable. I am glad of it; but it is not original--at least not mine; it may be found much better expressed in pages 182-3-4 of the English version of "Vathek" (I forget the precise page of the French), a work to which I have before referred; and never recur to, or read, without a renewal of gratification.--[The following is the passage: "'Deluded prince!' said the Genius, addressing the Caliph ... 'This moment is the last, of grace, allowed thee: ... give back Nouronihar to her father, who still retains a few sparks of life: destroy thy tower, with all its abominations: drive Carathis from thy councils: be just to thy subjects: respect the ministers of the Prophet: compensate for thy impieties by an exemplary life; and, instead of squandering thy days in voluptuous indulgence, lament thy crimes on the sepulchres of thy ancestors. Thou beholdest the clouds that obscure the sun: at the instant he recovers his splendour, if thy heart be not changed, the time of mercy assigned thee will be past for ever.'"

"Vathek, depressed with fear, was on the point of prostrating himself at the feet of the shepherd ... but, his pride prevailing ... he said, 'Whoever thou art, withhold thy useless admonitions.... If what I have done be so criminal ... there remains not for me a moment of grace. I have traversed a sea of blood to acquire a power which will make thy equals tremble; deem not that I shall retire when in view of the port; or that I will relinquish her who is dearer to me than either my life or thy mercy. Let the sun appear! let him illumine my career! it matters not where it may end!' On uttering these words ... Vathek ... commanded that his horses should be forced back to the road.

"There was no difficulty in obeying these orders; for the attraction had ceased; the sun shone forth in all his glory, and the shepherd vanished with a lamentable scream" (ed. 1786, pp. 183-185).]

[qc] {479} _By rooted and unhallowed pride_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[373] [Leave out this couplet.--Gifford.]

[374] {480} [Compare--"While the still morn went out with sandals grey." _Lycidas_, line 187.]

[375] [Strike out--"And the Noon will look on a sultry day."--Gifford.]

[376] The horsetails, fixed upon a lance, a pacha's standard.

["When the vizir appears in public, three _thoughs_, or horse-tails, fastened to a long staff, with a large gold ball at top, is borne before him."--_Moeurs des Ottomans_, par A. L. Castellan (Translated, 1821), iv. 7.

Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto II., "Albanian War-Song," stanza 10, line 2; and _Bride of Abydos_, line 714 (_vide ante_, p. 189).]

[377] [Compare--"Send out moe horses, skirr the country round." _Macbeth_, act v. sc. 3, line 35.]

[378] [Omit--

"While your fellows on foot, in a fiery mass, Bloodstain the breach through which they pass."

--Gifford.]

[379] ["And crush the wall they have _shaken_ before."--Gifford.]

[380] [Compare _The Giaour_, line 734 (_vide ante_, p. 120)--"At solemn sound of 'Alla Hu!'" And _Don Juan_, Canto VIII. stanza viii.]

[381] ["He who first _downs_ with the red cross may crave," etc. What vulgarism is this!--"He who _lowers_,--or _plucks down_," etc.--Gifford.]

[382] [The historian, George Finlay, who met and frequently conversed with Byron at Mesalonghi, with a view to illustrating "Lord Byron's _Siege of Corinth_," subjoins in a note the full text of "the summons sent by the grand vizier, and the answer." (See Finlay's _Greece under Othoman and Venetian Domination_, 1856, p. 266, note 1; and, for the original authority, see Brue's _Journal de la Campagne_, ... _en_ 1715, Paris, 1871, p. 18.)]

[383] {482} ["Thus against the wall they _bent_, Thus the first were backward _sent_."

--Gifford.]

[qd] _With such volley yields like glass_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[qe] _Like the mowers ridge_----.--[MS. G. erased.]

[384] ["Such was the fall of the foremost train."--Gifford.]

[385] {483} [Compare _The Deformed Transformed_, Part I. sc. 2 ("Song of the Soldiers")--

"Our shout shall grow gladder, And death only be mute."]

[qf] _I have heard_----.--[MS. G.]

[386] [Compare _Macbeth_, act ii. sc. 2, line 55--

"If he do bleed, I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal."]

[387] {484} ["There stood a man," etc.--Gifford.]

[388] ["_Lurked_"--a bad word--say "_was hid_."--Gifford.]

[389] ["Outnumbered his hairs," etc.--Gifford.]

[390] ["Sons that were unborn, when _he_ dipped."--Gifford.]

[391] {485} [Bravo!--this is better than King Priam's fifty sons.--Gifford.]

[392] In the naval battle at the mouth of the Dardanelles, between the Venetians and Turks.

[393] [There can be no such thing; but the whole of this is poor, and spun out.--Gifford. The solecism, if such it be, was repeated in _Marino Faliero_, act iii. sc. I, line 38.]

[394] [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto II. stanza xxix. lines 5-8 (_Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 125)--

"Dark Sappho! could not Verse immortal save?... If life eternal may await the lyre."]

[395] ["Hark to the Alia Hu!" etc.--Gifford.]

[396] {486} [Gifford has erased lines 839-847.]

[qg] _Though the life of thy giving would last for ever_.--[MS. G. Copy.]

[qh] _Where's Francesca?--my promised bride!_--[MS. G. Copy.]

[qi] {488} Here follows in _MS. G._--

_Twice and once he roll'd a space_, _Then lead-like lay upon his face_.

[qj] _Sigh, nor sign, nor parting word_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[397] [The Spanish "renegado" and the Anglicized "renegade" were favourite terms of reprobation with politicians and others at the beginning of the century. When Southey's _Wat Tyler_ was reprinted in 1817, William Smith, the Member for Norwich, denounced the Laureate as a "renegado," an attack which Coleridge did his best to parry by contributing articles to the _Courier_ on "Apostasy and Renegadoism" (Letter to Murray, March 26, 1817, _Memoir of John Murray_, 1891, i. 306). Byron himself, in _Don Juan_ ("Dedication," stanza i. line 5), hails Southey as "My Epic Renegade!" Compare, too, stanza xiv. of "_Lines addressed to a Noble Lord_ (His Lordship will know why), By one of the small Fry of the Lakes" (i.e. Miss Barker, the "Bhow Begum" of Southey's _Doctor_)--

"And our Ponds shall better please thee, Than those now dishonoured seas, With their shores and Cyclades Stocked with Pachas, Seraskiers, Slaves and turbaned Buccaneers; Sensual Mussulmans atrocious, Renegadoes more ferocious," etc.]

[qk] {489} _These in rage, in triumph those_.--[MS. G. Copy erased.]

[ql] _Then again in fury mixing_.--[MS. G.]

[398] ["Dealing _death_ with every blow."--Gifford.]

[399] {490} [Compare _Don Juan_, Canto XIII. stanza lxi. lines 1, _seq._--

"But in a higher niche, alone, but crowned, The Virgin-Mother of the God-born Child, With her Son in her blessed arms, looked round ... But even the faintest relics of a shrine Of any worship wake some thoughts divine."]

[qm] / _chequered_ \ ----_beneath the_ { } _stone_.--[MS. G. erased.] \ _inlaid_ /

[qn] _But now half-blotted_----.--[MS. G. erased.]

[qo] _But War must make the most of means_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[400] {492} ["Oh, but it made a glorious show!!!" Gifford erases the line, and adds these marks of exclamation.]

[qp] ----_the sacrament wine_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[qq] _Which the Christians partook at the break of the day_.--[MS. G. Copy.]

[401] {493} [Compare _Sardanapalus_, act v. sc. 1 (s.f.)--

"_Myr._ Art thou ready? _Sard._ As the torch in thy grasp. (_Myrrha fires the pile._) _Myr._ 'Tis fired! I come."]

[402] [A critic in the _Eclectic Review_ (vol. v. N.S., 1816, p. 273), commenting on the "obvious carelessness" of these lines, remarks, "We know not how 'all that of dead remained' could _expire_ in that wild roar." To apply the word "expire" to inanimate objects is, no doubt, an archaism, but Byron might have quoted Dryden as an authority, "The ponderous ball expires."]

[qr] _The hills as by an earthquake bent_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[403] {494} [Strike out from "Up to the sky," etc., to "All blackened there and reeking lay." Despicable stuff.--Gifford.]

[qs] _Who can see or who shall say?_--[MS. G. erased.]

[404] [Lines 1043-1047 are not in the Copy or MS. G., but were included in the text of the First Edition.]

[405] [Compare _Don Juan_, Canto II. stanza cii. line 1, _seq._--

"Famine, despair, cold, thirst, and heat, had done Their work on them by turns, and thinned them to Such things a mother had not known her son Amidst the skeletons of that gaunt crew."

Compare, too, _The Island_, Canto I. section ix. lines 13, 14.]

[qt] {495} _And crashed each mass of stone_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[qu] _And left their food the unburied dead_.--[Copy.] _And left their food the untasted dead_.--[MS. G.] _And howling left_----.--[MS. G. erased.]

[406] [Omit the next six lines.--Gifford.]

[407] ["I have heard hyænas and jackalls in the ruins of Asia; and bull-frogs in the marshes; besides wolves and angry Mussulmans."--_Journal_, November 23, 1813, _Letters_, 1898, ii. 340.]

[qv] _Where Echo rolled in horror still_.--[MS. G.]

[qw] _The frightened jackal's shrill sharp cry_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[408] I believe I have taken a poetical licence to transplant the jackal from Asia. In Greece I never saw nor heard these animals; but among the ruins of Ephesus I have heard them by hundreds. They haunt ruins, and follow armies. [Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza cliii. line 6; and _Don Juan_, Canto IX. stanza xxvii. line 2.]

[qx] _Mixed and mournful as the sound_.--[MS. G.]

[409] [Leave out this couplet.--Gifford.]

[410] [With lines 1058-1079, compare Southey's _Roderick_ (Canto XVIII., ed. 1838, ix. 169)--

"Far and wide the thundering shout, Rolling among reduplicating rocks, Pealed o'er the hills, and up the mountain vales. The wild ass starting in the forest glade Ran to the covert; the affrighted wolf Skulked through the thicket to a closer brake; The sluggish bear, awakened in his den, Roused up and answered with a sullen growl, Low-breathed and long; and at the uproar scared, The brooding eagle from her nest took wing."

A sentence in a letter to Moore, dated January 10, 1815 (_Letters_, 1899, iii. 168), "_I_ have tried the rascals (i.e. the public) with my Harrys and Larrys, Pilgrims and Pirates. Nobody but S....y has done any thing worth a slice of bookseller's pudding, and _he_ has not luck enough to be found out in doing a good thing," implies that Byron had read and admired Southey's _Roderick_--an inference which is curiously confirmed by a memorandum in Murray's handwriting: "When Southey's poem, _Don Roderick_ (_sic_), was published, Lord Byron sent in the middle of the night to ask John Murray if he had heard any opinion of it, for he thought it one of the finest poems he had ever read." The resemblance between the two passages, which is pointed out by Professor Kölbing, is too close to be wholly unconscious, but Byron's expansion of Southey's lines hardly amounts to a plagiarism.]

PARISINA.

INTRODUCTION TO _PARISINA_.

_Parisina_, which had been begun before the _Siege of Corinth_, was transcribed by Lady Byron, and sent to the publisher at the beginning of December, 1815. Murray confessed that he had been alarmed by some hints which Byron had dropped as to the plot of the narrative, but was reassured when he traced "the delicate hand that transcribed it." He could not say enough of this "Pearl" of great price. "It is very interesting, pathetic, beautiful--do you know I would almost say moral" (_Memoir of John Murray_, 1891, i. 353). Ward, to whom the MS. of _Parisina_ was shown, and Isaac D'Israeli, who heard it read aloud by Murray, were enthusiastic as to its merits; and Gifford, who had mingled censure with praise in his critical appreciation of the _Siege_, declared that the author "had never surpassed _Parisina_."

The last and shortest of the six narrative poems composed and published in the four years (the first years of manhood and of fame, the only years of manhood passed at home in England) which elapsed between the appearance of the first two cantos of _Childe Harold_ and the third, _Parisina_ has, perhaps, never yet received its due. At the time of its appearance it shared the odium which was provoked by the publication of _Fare Thee Well_ and _A Sketch_, and before there was time to reconsider the new volume on its own merits, the new canto of _Childe Harold_, followed almost immediately by the _Prisoner of Chillon_ and its brilliant and noticeable companion poems, usurped the attention of friend and foe. Contemporary critics (with the exception of the _Monthly_ and _Critical_ Reviews) fell foul of the subject-matter of the poem--the guilty passion of a bastard son for his father's wife. "It was too disgusting to be rendered pleasing by any display of genius" (_European Magazine_); "The story of _Parisina_ includes adultery not to be named" (_Literary Panorama_); while the _Eclectic_, on grounds of taste rather than of morals, gave judgment that "the subject of the tale was purely unpleasing"--"the impression left simply painful."

Byron, no doubt, for better or worse, was in advance of his age, in the pursuit of art for art's sake, and in his indifference, not to morality--the _dénouement_ of the story is severely moral--but to the moral edification of his readers. The tale was chosen because it is a tale of love and guilt and woe, and the poet, unconcerned with any other issue, sets the tale to an enchanting melody. It does not occur to him to condone or to reprobate the loves of Hugo and Parisina, and in detailing the issue leaves the actors to their fate. It was this aloofness from ethical considerations which perturbed and irritated the "canters," as Byron called them--the children and champions of the anti-revolution. The modern reader, without being attracted or repelled by the _motif_ of the story, will take pleasure in the sustained energy and sure beauty of the poetic strain. Byron may have gone to the "nakedness of history" for his facts, but he clothed them in singing robes of a delicate and shining texture.

SCROPE BERDMORE DAVIES, ESQ.

the following poem

Is Inscribed,

by one who has long admired his talents

and valued his friendship.

_January_ 22, 1816.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The following poem is grounded on a circumstance mentioned in Gibbon's "Antiquities of the House of Brunswick." I am aware, that in modern times, the delicacy or fastidiousness of the reader may deem such subjects unfit for the purposes of poetry. The Greek dramatists, and some of the best of our old English writers, were of a different opinion: as Alfieri and Schiller have also been, more recently, upon the Continent. The following extract will explain the facts on which the story is founded. The name of _Azo_ is substituted for Nicholas, as more metrical.--[B.]

"Under the reign of Nicholas III. [A.D. 1425] Ferrara was polluted with a domestic tragedy. By the testimony of a maid, and his own observation, the Marquis of Este discovered the incestuous loves of his wife Parisina, and Hugo his bastard son, a beautiful and valiant youth. They were beheaded in the castle by the sentence of a father and husband, who published his shame, and survived their execution.[411] He was unfortunate, if they were guilty: if they were innocent, he was still more unfortunate; nor is there any possible situation in which I can sincerely approve the last act of the justice of a parent."--Gibbon's _Miscellaneous Works_, vol. iii. p. 470.--[Ed. 1837, p. 830.]

PARISINA.[412]

It is the hour when from the boughs[413] The nightingale's high note is heard; It is the hour when lovers' vows Seem sweet in every whispered word; And gentle winds, and waters near, Make music to the lonely ear. Each flower the dews have lightly wet, And in the sky the stars are met, And on the wave is deeper blue, And on the leaf a browner hue, 10 And in the heaven that clear obscure, So softly dark, and darkly pure, Which follows the decline of day, As twilight melts beneath the moon away.[414]

II.

But it is not to list to the waterfall[qy] That Parisina leaves her hall, And it is not to gaze on the heavenly light That the Lady walks in the shadow of night; And if she sits in Este's bower, 'Tis not for the sake of its full-blown flower; 20 She listens--but not for the nightingale-- Though her ear expects as soft a tale. There glides a step through the foliage thick,[qz] And her cheek grows pale, and her heart beats quick. There whispers a voice through the rustling leaves, And her blush returns, and her bosom heaves: A moment more--and they shall meet-- 'Tis past--her Lover's at her feet.

III.

And what unto them is the world beside, With all its change of time and tide? 30 Its living things--its earth and sky-- Are nothing to their mind and eye. And heedless as the dead are they Of aught around, above, beneath; As if all else had passed away, They only for each other breathe; Their very sighs are full of joy So deep, that did it not decay, That happy madness would destroy The hearts which feel its fiery sway: 40 Of guilt, of peril, do they deem In that tumultuous tender dream? Who that have felt that passion's power, Or paused, or feared in such an hour? Or thought how brief such moments last? But yet--they are already past! Alas! we must awake before We know such vision comes no more.

IV.

With many a lingering look they leave The spot of guilty gladness past: 50 And though they hope, and vow, they grieve, As if that parting were the last. The frequent sigh--the long embrace-- The lip that there would cling for ever, While gleams on Parisina's face The Heaven she fears will not forgive her, As if each calmly conscious star Beheld her frailty from afar-- The frequent sigh, the long embrace, Yet binds them to their trysting-place. 60 But it must come, and they must part In fearful heaviness of heart, With all the deep and shuddering chill Which follows fast the deeds of ill.

And Hugo is gone to his lonely bed, To covet there another's bride; But she must lay her conscious head A husband's trusting heart beside. But fevered in her sleep she seems, And red her cheek with troubled dreams, 70 And mutters she in her unrest A name she dare not breathe by day,[415] And clasps her Lord unto the breast Which pants for one away: And he to that embrace awakes, And, happy in the thought, mistakes That dreaming sigh, and warm caress, For such as he was wont to bless; And could in very fondness weep O'er her who loves him even in sleep. 80

VI.

He clasped her sleeping to his heart, And listened to each broken word: He hears--Why doth Prince Azo start, As if the Archangel's voice he heard? And well he may--a deeper doom Could scarcely thunder o'er his tomb, When he shall wake to sleep no more, And stand the eternal throne before. And well he may--his earthly peace Upon that sound is doomed to cease. 90 That sleeping whisper of a name Bespeaks her guilt and Azo's shame. And whose that name? that o'er his pillow Sounds fearful as the breaking billow, Which rolls the plank upon the shore, And dashes on the pointed rock The wretch who sinks to rise no more,-- So came upon his soul the shock. And whose that name?--'tis Hugo's,--his-- In sooth he had not deemed of this!-- 100 'Tis Hugo's,--he, the child of one He loved--his own all-evil son-- The offspring of his wayward youth, When he betrayed Bianca's truth,[ra][416] The maid whose folly could confide In him who made her not his bride.

VII.

He plucked his poniard in its sheath, But sheathed it ere the point was bare; Howe'er unworthy now to breathe, He could not slay a thing so fair-- 110 At least, not smiling--sleeping--there-- Nay, more:--he did not wake her then, But gazed upon her with a glance Which, had she roused her from her trance, Had frozen her sense to sleep again; And o'er his brow the burning lamp Gleamed on the dew-drops big and damp. She spake no more--but still she slumbered-- While, in his thought, her days are numbered.

VIII.

And with the morn he sought and found, 120 In many a tale from those around, The proof of all he feared to know, Their present guilt--his future woe; The long-conniving damsels seek To save themselves, and would transfer The guilt--the shame--the doom--to her: Concealment is no more--they speak All circumstance which may compel Full credence to the tale they tell: And Azo's tortured heart and ear 130 Have nothing more to feel or hear.

IX.

He was not one who brooked delay: Within the chamber of his state, The Chief of Este's ancient sway Upon his throne of judgement sate; His nobles and his guards are there,-- Before him is the sinful pair; Both young,--and _one_ how passing fair! With swordless belt, and fettered hand, Oh, Christ! that thus a son should stand 140 Before a father's face! Yet thus must Hugo meet his sire, And hear the sentence of his ire, The tale of his disgrace! And yet he seems not overcome, Although, as yet, his voice be dumb.

And still,--and pale--and silently Did Parisina wait her doom; How changed since last her speaking eye Glanced gladness round the glittering room, 150 Where high-born men were proud to wait-- Where Beauty watched to imitate Her gentle voice--her lovely mien-- And gather from her air and gait The graces of its Queen: Then,--had her eye in sorrow wept, A thousand warriors forth had leapt, A thousand swords had sheathless shone, And made her quarrel all their own.[417] Now,--what is she? and what are they? 160 Can she command, or these obey? All silent and unheeding now, With downcast eyes and knitting brow, And folded arms, and freezing air, And lips that scarce their scorn forbear, Her knights, her dames, her court--is there: And he--the chosen one, whose lance Had yet been couched before her glance, Who--were his arm a moment free-- Had died or gained her liberty; 170 The minion of his father's bride,-- He, too, is fettered by her side; Nor sees her swoln and full eye swim Less for her own despair than him: Those lids--o'er which the violet vein Wandering, leaves a tender stain, Shining through the smoothest white That e'er did softest kiss invite-- Now seemed with hot and livid glow To press, not shade, the orbs below; 180 Which glance so heavily, and fill, As tear on tear grows gathering still[rb][418]

XI.

And he for her had also wept, But for the eyes that on him gazed: His sorrow, if he felt it, slept; Stern and erect his brow was raised. Whate'er the grief his soul avowed, He would not shrink before the crowd; But yet he dared not look on her; Remembrance of the hours that were-- 190 His guilt--his love--his present state-- His father's wrath, all good men's hate-- His earthly, his eternal fate-- And hers,--oh, hers! he dared not throw One look upon that death-like brow! Else had his rising heart betrayed Remorse for all the wreck it made.

XII.

And Azo spake:--"But yesterday I gloried in a wife and son; That dream this morning passed away; 200 Ere day declines, I shall have none. My life must linger on alone; Well,--let that pass,--there breathes not one Who would not do as I have done: Those ties are broken--not by me; Let that too pass;--the doom's prepared! Hugo, the priest awaits on thee, And then--thy crime's reward! Away! address thy prayers to Heaven. Before its evening stars are met, 210 Learn if thou there canst be forgiven: Its mercy may absolve thee yet. But here, upon the earth beneath, There is no spot where thou and I Together for an hour could breathe: Farewell! I will not see thee die-- But thou, frail thing! shall view his head-- Away! I cannot speak the rest: Go! woman of the wanton breast; Not I, but thou his blood dost shed: 220 Go! if that sight thou canst outlive, And joy thee in the life I give."

XIII.

And here stern Azo hid his face-- For on his brow the swelling vein Throbbed as if back upon his brain The hot blood ebbed and flowed again; And therefore bowed he for a space, And passed his shaking hand along His eye, to veil it from the throng; While Hugo raised his chainéd hands, 230 And for a brief delay demands His father's ear: the silent sire Forbids not what his words require. "It is not that I dread the death-- For thou hast seen me by thy side All redly through the battle ride, And that--not once a useless brand-- Thy slaves have wrested from my hand Hath shed more blood in cause of thine, Than e'er can stain the axe of mine:[419] 240 Thou gav'st, and may'st resume my breath, A gift for which I thank thee not; Nor are my mother's wrongs forgot, Her slighted love and ruined name, Her offspring's heritage of shame; But she is in the grave, where he, Her son--thy rival--soon shall be. Her broken heart--my severed head-- Shall witness for thee from the dead How trusty and how tender were 250 Thy youthful love--paternal care. 'Tis true that I have done thee wrong-- But wrong for wrong:--this,--deemed thy bride, The other victim of thy pride,-- Thou know'st for me was destined long; Thou saw'st, and coveted'st her charms; And with thy very crime--my birth,-- Thou taunted'st me--as little worth; A match ignoble for her arms; Because, forsooth, I could not claim 260 The lawful heirship of thy name, Nor sit on Este's lineal throne; Yet, were a few short summers mine, My name should more than Este's shine With honours all my own. I had a sword--and have a breast That should have won as haught[420] a crest As ever waved along the line Of all these sovereign sires of thine. Not always knightly spurs are worn 270 The brightest by the better born; And mine have lanced my courser's flank Before proud chiefs of princely rank, When charging to the cheering cry Of 'Este and of Victory!' I will not plead the cause of crime, Nor sue thee to redeem from time A few brief hours or days that must At length roll o'er my reckless dust;-- Such maddening moments as my past, 280 They could not, and they did not, last;-- Albeit my birth and name be base, And thy nobility of race Disdained to deck a thing like me-- Yet in my lineaments they trace Some features of my father's face, And in my spirit--all of thee. From thee this tamelessness of heart-- From thee--nay, wherefore dost thou start?--- From thee in all their vigour came 290 My arm of strength, my soul of flame-- Thou didst not give me life alone, But all that made me more thine own. See what thy guilty love hath done! Repaid thee with too like a son! I am no bastard in my soul, For that, like thine, abhorred control; And for my breath, that hasty boon Thou gav'st and wilt resume so soon, I valued it no more than thou, 300 When rose thy casque above thy brow, And we, all side by side, have striven, And o'er the dead our coursers driven: The past is nothing--and at last The future can but be the past;[421] Yet would I that I then had died: For though thou work'dst my mother's ill, And made thy own my destined bride, I feel thou art my father still: And harsh as sounds thy hard decree, 310 'Tis not unjust, although from thee. Begot in sin, to die in shame, My life begun and ends the same: As erred the sire, so erred the son, And thou must punish both in one. My crime seems worst to human view, But God must judge between us too!"[422]

XIV.

He ceased--and stood with folded arms, On which the circling fetters sounded; And not an ear but felt as wounded, 320 Of all the chiefs that there were ranked, When those dull chains in meeting clanked: Till Parisina's fatal charms[423] Again attracted every eye-- Would she thus hear him doomed to die! She stood, I said, all pale and still, The living cause of Hugo's ill: Her eyes unmoved, but full and wide, Not once had turned to either side-- Nor once did those sweet eyelids close, 330 Or shade the glance o'er which they rose, But round their orbs of deepest blue The circling white dilated grew-- And there with glassy gaze she stood As ice were in her curdled blood; But every now and then a tear[424] So large and slowly gathered slid From the long dark fringe of that fair lid, It was a thing to see, not hear![425] And those who saw, it did surprise, 340 Such drops could fall from human eyes. To speak she thought--the imperfect note Was choked within her swelling throat, Yet seemed in that low hollow groan Her whole heart gushing in the tone. It ceased--again she thought to speak, Then burst her voice in one long shriek, And to the earth she fell like stone Or statue from its base o'erthrown, More like a thing that ne'er had life,-- 350 A monument of Azo's wife,-- Than her, that living guilty thing, Whose every passion was a sting, Which urged to guilt, but could not bear That guilt's detection and despair. But yet she lived--and all too soon Recovered from that death-like swoon-- But scarce to reason--every sense Had been o'erstrung by pangs intense; And each frail fibre of her brain 360 (As bowstrings, when relaxed by rain, The erring arrow launch aside) Sent forth her thoughts all wild and wide-- The past a blank, the future black, With glimpses of a dreary track, Like lightning on the desert path, When midnight storms are mustering wrath. She feared--she felt that something ill Lay on her soul, so deep and chill; That there was sin and shame she knew, 370 That some one was to die--but who? She had forgotten:--did she breathe? Could this be still the earth beneath, The sky above, and men around; Or were they fiends who now so frowned On one, before whose eyes each eye Till then had smiled in sympathy? All was confused and undefined To her all-jarred and wandering mind; A chaos of wild hopes and fears: 380 And now in laughter, now in tears, But madly still in each extreme, She strove with that convulsive dream; For so it seemed on her to break: Oh! vainly must she strive to wake!

XV.

The Convent bells are ringing, But mournfully and slow; In the grey square turret swinging, With a deep sound, to and fro. Heavily to the heart they go! 390 Hark! the hymn is singing-- The song for the dead below, Or the living who shortly shall be so! For a departed being's soul[rc] The death-hymn peals and the hollow bells knoll:[426] He is near his mortal goal; Kneeling at the Friar's knee, Sad to hear, and piteous to see-- Kneeling on the bare cold ground. With the block before and the guards around; 400 And the headsman with his bare arm ready, That the blow may be both swift and steady, Feels if the axe be sharp and true Since he set its edge anew:[427] While the crowd in a speechless circle gather To see the Son fall by the doom of the Father!

XVI.

It is a lovely hour as yet Before the summer sun shall set, Which rose upon that heavy day, And mock'd it with his steadiest ray; 410 And his evening beams are shed Full on Hugo's fated head, As his last confession pouring To the monk, his doom deploring In penitential holiness, He bends to hear his accents bless With absolution such as may Wipe our mortal stains away. That high sun on his head did glisten As he there did bow and listen, 420 And the rings of chestnut hair Curled half down his neck so bare; But brighter still the beam was thrown Upon the axe which near him shone With a clear and ghastly glitter---- Oh! that parting hour was bitter! Even the stern stood chilled with awe: Dark the crime, and just the law-- Yet they shuddered as they saw.

XVII.

The parting prayers are said and over 430 Of that false son, and daring lover! His beads and sins are all recounted,[rd] His hours to their last minute mounted; His mantling cloak before was stripped, His bright brown locks must now be clipped; 'Tis done--all closely are they shorn; The vest which till this moment worn-- The scarf which Parisina gave-- Must not adorn him to the grave. Even that must now be thrown aside, 440 And o'er his eyes the kerchief tied; But no--that last indignity Shall ne'er approach his haughty eye. All feelings seemingly subdued, In deep disdain were half renewed, When headsman's hands prepared to bind Those eyes which would not brook such blind, As if they dared not look on death. "No--yours my forfeit blood and breath; These hands are chained, but let me die 450 At least with an unshackled eye-- Strike:"--and as the word he said, Upon the block he bowed his head; These the last accents Hugo spoke: "Strike"--and flashing fell the stroke-- Rolled the head--and, gushing, sunk Back the stained and heaving trunk, In the dust, which each deep vein Slaked with its ensanguined rain; His eyes and lips a moment quiver, 460 Convulsed and quick--then fix for ever.

He died, as erring man should die, Without display, without parade; Meekly had he bowed and prayed, As not disdaining priestly aid, Nor desperate of all hope on high. And while before the Prior kneeling, His heart was weaned from earthly feeling; His wrathful Sire--his Paramour-- What were they in such an hour? 470 No more reproach,--no more despair,-- No thought but Heaven,--no word but prayer-- Save the few which from him broke, When, bared to meet the headsman's stroke, He claimed to die with eyes unbound, His sole adieu to those around.

XVIII.

Still as the lips that closed in death, Each gazer's bosom held his breath: But yet, afar, from man to man, A cold electric[428] shiver ran, 480 As down the deadly blow descended On him whose life and love thus ended; And, with a hushing sound compressed, A sigh shrunk back on every breast; But no more thrilling noise rose there,[re] Beyond the blow that to the block Pierced through with forced and sullen shock, Save one:--what cleaves the silent air So madly shrill, so passing wild? That, as a mother's o'er her child, 490 Done to death by sudden blow, To the sky these accents go, Like a soul's in endless woe. Through Azo's palace-lattice driven, That horrid voice ascends to heaven, And every eye is turned thereon; But sound and sight alike are gone! It was a woman's shriek--and ne'er In madlier accents rose despair; And those who heard it, as it past, 500 In mercy wished it were the last.

XIX.

Hugo is fallen; and, from that hour, No more in palace, hall, or bower, Was Parisina heard or seen: Her name--as if she ne'er had been-- Was banished from each lip and ear, Like words of wantonness or fear; And from Prince Azo's voice, by none Was mention heard of wife or son; No tomb--no memory had they; 510 Theirs was unconsecrated clay-- At least the Knight's who died that day. But Parisina's fate lies hid Like dust beneath the coffin lid: Whether in convent she abode, And won to heaven her dreary road, By blighted and remorseful years Of scourge, and fast, and sleepless tears; Or if she fell by bowl or steel, For that dark love she dared to feel: 520 Or if, upon the moment smote, She died by tortures less remote, Like him she saw upon the block With heart that shared the headsman's shock, In quickened brokenness that came, In pity o'er her shattered frame, None knew--and none can ever know: But whatsoe'er its end below, Her life began and closed in woe!

XX.

And Azo found another bride, 530 And goodly sons grew by his side; But none so lovely and so brave As him who withered in the grave;[429] Or if they were--on his cold eye Their growth but glanced unheeded by, Or noticed with a smothered sigh. But never tear his cheek descended, And never smile his brow unbended; And o'er that fair broad brow were wrought The intersected lines of thought; 540 Those furrows which the burning share Of Sorrow ploughs untimely there; Scars of the lacerating mind Which the Soul's war doth leave behind.[430] He was past all mirth or woe: Nothing more remained below But sleepless nights and heavy days, A mind all dead to scorn or praise, A heart which shunned itself--and yet That would not yield, nor could forget, 550 Which, when it least appeared to melt, Intensely thought--intensely felt: The deepest ice which ever froze Can only o'er the surface close; The living stream lies quick below, And flows, and cannot cease to flow.[431] Still was his sealed-up bosom haunted[rf] By thoughts which Nature hath implanted; Too deeply rooted thence to vanish, Howe'er our stifled tears we banish; 560 When struggling as they rise to start, We check those waters of the heart, They are not dried--those tears unshed But flow back to the fountain head, And resting in their spring more pure, For ever in its depth endure, Unseen--unwept--but uncongealed, And cherished most where least revealed. With inward starts of feeling left, To throb o'er those of life bereft, 570 Without the power to fill again The desert gap which made his pain; Without the hope to meet them where United souls shall gladness share; With all the consciousness that he Had only passed a just decree;[rg] That they had wrought their doom of ill; Yet Azo's age was wretched still. The tainted branches of the tree, If lopped with care, a strength may give, 580 By which the rest shall bloom and live All greenly fresh and wildly free: But if the lightning, in its wrath, The waving boughs with fury scathe, The massy trunk the ruin feels, And never more a leaf reveals.

FOOTNOTES:

[411] {503} ["Ferrara is much decayed and depopulated; but the castle still exists entire; and I saw the court where Parisina and Hugo were beheaded, according to the annal of Gibbon."--_Vide_ Advertisement to _Lament of Tasso_.]

[412] {505} "This turned out a calamitous year for the people of Ferrara, for there occurred a very tragical event in the court of their sovereign. Our annals, both printed and in manuscript, with the exception of the unpolished and negligent work of Sardi, and one other, have given the following relation of it,--from which, however, are rejected many details, and especially the narrative of Bandelli, who wrote a century afterwards, and who does not accord with the contemporary historians.

"By the above-mentioned Stella dell' Assassino, the Marquis, in the year 1405, had a son called Ugo, a beautiful and ingenuous youth. Parisina Malatesta, second wife of Niccolo, like the generality of step-mothers, treated him with little kindness, to the infinite regret of the Marquis, who regarded him with fond partiality. One day she asked leave of her husband to undertake a certain journey, to which he consented, but upon condition that Ugo should bear her company; for he hoped by these means to induce her, in the end, to lay aside the obstinate aversion which she had conceived against him. And indeed his intent was accomplished but too well, since, during the journey, she not only divested herself of all her hatred, but fell into the opposite extreme. After their return, the Marquis had no longer any occasion to renew his former reproofs. It happened one day that a servant of the Marquis, named Zoese, or, as some call him, Giorgio, passing before the apartments of Parisina, saw going out from them one of her chamber-maids, all terrified and in tears. Asking the reason, she told him that her mistress, for some slight offence, had been beating her; and, giving vent to her rage, she added, that she could easily be revenged, if she chose to make known the criminal familiarity which subsisted between Parisina and her step-son. The servant took note of the words, and related them to his master. He was astounded thereat, but, scarcely believing his ears, he assured himself of the fact, alas! too clearly, on the 18th of May, by looking through a hole made in the ceiling of his wife's chamber. Instantly he broke into a furious rage, and arrested both of them, together with Aldobrandino Rangoni, of Modena, her gentleman, and also, as some say, two of the women of her chamber, as abettors of this sinful act. He ordered them to be brought to a hasty trial, desiring the judges to pronounce sentence, in the accustomed forms, upon the culprits. This sentence was death. Some there were that bestirred themselves in favour of the delinquents, and, amongst others, Ugoccion Contrario, who was all-powerful with Niccolo, and also his aged and much deserving minister Alberto dal Sale. Both of these, their tears flowing down their cheeks, and upon their knees, implored him for mercy; adducing whatever reasons they could suggest for sparing the offenders, besides those motives of honour and decency which might persuade him to conceal from the public so scandalous a deed. But his rage made him inflexible, and, on the instant, he commanded that the sentence should be put in execution.

"It was, then, in the prisons of the castle, and exactly in those frightful dungeons which are seen at this day beneath the chamber called the Aurora, at the foot of the Lion's tower, at the top of the street Giovecca, that on the night of the 21st of May were beheaded, first, Ugo, and afterwards Parisina. Zoese, he that accused her, conducted the latter under his arm to the place of punishment. She, all along, fancied that she was to be thrown into a pit, and asked at every step, whether she was yet come to the spot? She was told that her punishment was the axe. She enquired what was become of Ugo, and received for answer, that he was already dead; at which, sighing grievously, she exclaimed, 'Now, then, I wish not myself to live;' and, being come to the block, she stripped herself, with her own hands, of all her ornaments, and, wrapping a cloth round her head, submitted to the fatal stroke, which terminated the cruel scene. The same was done with Rangoni, who, together with the others, according to two calendars in the library of St. Francesco, was buried in the cemetery of that convent. Nothing else is known respecting the women.

"The Marquis kept watch the whole of that dreadful night, and, as he was walking backwards and forwards, enquired of the captain of the castle if Ugo was dead yet? who answered him, Yes. He then gave himself up to the most desperate lamentations, exclaiming, 'Oh! that I too were dead, since I have been hurried on to resolve thus against my own Ugo!' And then gnawing with his teeth a cane which he had in his hand, he passed the rest of the night in sighs and in tears, calling frequently upon his own dear Ugo. On the following day, calling to mind that it would be necessary to make public his justification, seeing that the transaction could not be kept secret, he ordered the narrative to be drawn out upon paper, and sent it to all the courts of Italy.

"On receiving this advice, the Doge of Venice, Francesco Foscari, gave orders, but without publishing his reasons, that stop should be put to the preparations for a tournament, which, under the auspices of the Marquis, and at the expense of the city of Padua, was about to take place, in the square of St. Mark, in order to celebrate his advancement to the ducal chair.

"The Marquis, in addition to what he had already done, from some unaccountable burst of vengeance, commanded that as many of the married women as were well known to him to be faithless, like his Parisina, should, like her, be beheaded. Amongst others, Barberina, or, as some call her, Laodamia Romei, wife of the court judge, underwent this sentence, at the usual place of execution; that is to say, in the quarter of St. Giacomo, opposite the present fortress, beyond St. Paul's. It cannot be told how strange appeared this proceeding in a prince, who, considering his own disposition, should, as it seemed, have been in such cases most indulgent. Some, however, there were who did not fail to commend him." [_Memorie per la Storia di Ferrara_, Raccolte da Antonio Frizzi, 1793, iii. 408-410. See, too, _Celebri Famiglie Italiane_, by Conte Pompeo Litta, 1832, Fasc. xxvi. Part III. vol. ii.]

[413] {507} [The revise of _Parisina_ is endorsed in Murray's handwriting, "Given to me by Lord Byron at his house, Saturday, January 13, 1816."]

[414] The lines contained in this section were printed as set to music some time since, but belonged to the poem where they now appear; the greater part of which was composed prior to _Lara_, and other compositions since published. [Note to _Siege, etc._, First Edition, 1816.]

[qy] _Francisca walks in the shadow of night_, _But it is not to gaze on the heavenly light_-- _But if she sits in her garden bower_, _'Tis not for the sake of its blowing flower_.-- [_Nathan_, 1815, 1829.]

[qz] {508} _There winds a step_----.--[_Nathan_, 1815, 1829.]

[415] {509} [Leigh Hunt, in his _Autobiography_ (1860, p. 252), says, "I had the pleasure of supplying my friendly critic, Lord Byron, with a point for his _Parisina_ (the incident of the heroine talking in her sleep)."

Putting Lady Macbeth out of the question, the situation may be traced to a passage in Henry Mackenzie's _Julia de Roubigné_ (1777, ii. 101: "Montauban to Segarva," Letter xxxv.):--

"I was last night abroad at supper; Julia was a-bed before my return. I found her lute lying on the table, and a music-book open by it. I could perceive the marks of tears shed on the paper, and the air was such as might encourage their falling. Sleep, however, had overcome her sadness, and she did not awake when I opened the curtain to look on her. When I had stood some moments, I heard her sigh strongly through her sleep, and presently she muttered some words, I know not of what import. I had sometimes heard her do so before, without regarding it much; but there was something that roused my attention now. I listened; she sighed again, and again spoke a few broken words. At last I heard her plainly pronounce the name Savillon two or three times, and each time it was accompanied with sighs so deep that her heart seemed bursting as it heaved then."]

[ra] {511} ----_Medora's_----.--[Copy erased.]

[416] [Compare _Christabel_, Part II. lines 408, 409--

"Alas! they had been friends in youth; But whispering tongues can poison truth."]

[417] {513} [Compare the famous eulogy of Marie Antoinette, in Burke's _Reflections on the Revolution in France, in a Letter intended to have been sent to a Gentleman in Paris_, London, 1790, pp. 112, 113--

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles.... Little did I dream ... that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult."]

[rb] {514} _As tear by tear rose gathering still_.--[Revise.]

[418] [Lines 175-182, which are in Byron's handwriting, were added to the Copy.]

[419] {516} [The meaning is plain, but the construction is involved. The contrast is between the blood of foes, which Hugo has shed for Azo, and Hugo's own blood, which Azo is about to shed on the scaffold. But this is one of Byron's incurious infelicities.]

[420] {517} Haught--haughty. "Away, _haught_ man, thou art insulting me."--Shakespeare [_Richard II._, act iv. sc. i, line 254--"No lord of thine, thou haught insulting man."]

[421] {518} [Lines 304, 305, and lines 310-317 are not in the Copy. They were inserted by Byron in the Revise.]

[422] [A writer in the _Critical Review_ (February, 1816, vol. iii. p. 151) holds this couplet up to derision. "Too" is a weak ending, and, orally at least, ambiguous.]

[423] ["I sent for _Marmion_, ... because it occurred to me there might be a resemblance between part of _Parisina_ and a similar scene in Canto 2d. of _Marmion_. I fear there is, though I never thought of it before, and could hardly wish to imitate that which is inimitable.... I had completed the story on the passage from Gibbon, which, in fact, leads to a like scene naturally, without a thought of the kind; but it comes upon me not very comfortably."--Letter to Murray, February 3, 1816 (_Letters_, 1899, iii. 260). The scene in _Marmion_ is the one where Constance de Beverley appears before the conclave--

"Her look composed, and steady eye, Bespoke a matchless constancy; And there she stood so calm and pale, That, but her breathing did not fail, And motion slight of eye and head, And of her bosom, warranted That neither sense nor pulse she lacks, You must have thought a form of wax, Wrought to the very life, was there-- So still she was, so pale, so fair."