760 To-morrow would have given him power To rule, to shine, to smite, to saveAnd must it dawn upon his grave?

XVIII.

"The sun was sinking- still I lay Chain'd to the chill and stiffening steed; 765 I thought to mingle there our clay; And my dim eyes of death had need, No hope arose of being freed.

I cast my last looks up the sky,

And there between me and the sun

770 I saw the expecting raven fly,

Who scarce would wait till both should die
Ere his repast begun.

He flew, and perch'd, then flew once more,
And each time nearer than before;

775 I saw his wing through twilight flit,
And once so near me he alit

I could have smote, but lack'd the strength; But the slight motion of my hand,

And feeble scratching of the sand,
780 The exerted throat's faint struggling noise,
Which scarcely could be call'd a voice,
Together scared him off at length.
I know no more my latest dream

785

790

Is something of a lovely star

Which fix'd my dull eyes from afar,
And went and came with wandering beam,
And of the cold, dull, swimming, dense
Sensation of recurring sense,

And then subsiding back to death,
And then again a little breath,
A little thrill, a short suspense,
An icy sickness curdling o'er

795

My heart, and sparks that cross'd my brainA gasp, a throb, a start of pain,

A sigh, and nothing more.

"I woke

XIX.

Where was I? — Do I see
A human face look down on me?
And doth a roof above me close?
Do these limbs on a couch repose?
800 Is this a chamber where I lie?
And is it mortal, yon bright eye
That watches me with gentle glance?
I closed my own again once more,
As doubtful that the former trance
Could not as yet be o'er.

805

A slender girl, long-hair'd, and tall,
Sate watching by the cottage wall:
The sparkle of her eye I caught,
Even with my first return of thought;
810 For ever and anon she threw

A prying, pitying glance on me
With her black eyes so wild and free.
I gazed, and gazed, until I knew
No vision it could be,-

815 But that I lived, and was released
From adding to the vulture's feast.
And when the Cossack maid beheld
My heavy eyes at length unseal'd,
She smiled and I essay'd to speak,
820 But fail'd and she approach'd, and made
With lip and finger signs that said,

I must not strive as yet to break
The silence, till my strength should be
Enough to leave my accents free;

825 And then her hand on mine she laid, And smooth'd the pillow for my head, And stole along on tiptoe tread,

And gently oped the door, and spake In whispers - ne'er was voice so sweet! 830 Even music follow'd her light feet;

But those she call'd were not awake, And she went forth; but, ere she pass'd, Another look on me she cast,

Another sign she made, to say,

835 That I had naught to fear, that all Were near at my command or call, And she would not delay

Her due return: while she was gone,
Methought I felt too much alone.

XX.

840" She came with mother and with sire What need of more? I will not tire

With long recital of the rest,

Since I became the Cossack's guest.

They found me senseless on the plain845 They bore me to the nearest hut They brought me into life again

850

Me—one day o'er their realm to reign!
Thus the vain fool who strove to glut
His rage, refining on my pain,

Sent me forth to the wilderness,
Bound, naked, bleeding, and alone,

What mortal his own doom may guess?
Let none despond, let none despair!

855 To-morrow the Borysthenes

May see our coursers graze at ease
Upon his Turkish bank, — and never

Had I such welcome for a river

As I shall yield when safely there.

860 Comrades, good night!"-The Hetman threw
His length beneath the oak-tree shade,
With leafy couch already made,

A bed nor comfortless nor new

To him who took his rest whene'er
865 The hour arrived, no matter where:

His eyes the hastening slumbers steep.
And if ye marvel Charles forgot

To thank his tale, he wonder'd not, -
The king had been an hour asleep.

859. "Charles, having perceived that the day was lost, and that his only chance of safety was to retire with the utmost precipitation, suffered himself to be mounted on horseback, and with the remains of his army fled to a place called Perewolochna, situated in the angle formed by the junction of the Vorskla and the Borysthenes. Here, accompanied by Mazeppa and a few hundreds of his followers, Charles swam over the latter great river, and proceeding over a desolate country, in danger of perishing with hunger, at length reached the Bog, where he was kindly received by the Turkish pasha. The Russian envoy at the Sublime Porte demanded that Mazeppa should be delivered up to Peter, but the old Hetman of the Cossacks escaped this fate by taking a disease which hastened his death." BARROW: Peter the Great.

NOTES, COMMENTS, AND SUGGESTIONS.

CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE.

THE first and second cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage were apparently written without thought of publication — written rather as a sort of lyrical journal, free, open, and rapid.

With his friend Hobhouse he had, on July 2, 1809, sailed from Falmouth to Lisbon with the idea of spending a considerable time abroad. During the next two years he visited various cities in Portugal, Spain, Malta, Turkey, Greece, and other places in the Orient, returning to England in July of 1811. He brought with him a poem entitled Hints from Horace, which followed the satiric vein developed in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. This poem he showed with some pride to his kinsman, Mr. Robert Dallas, who candidly avowed that he considered it of little value, and was visibly disappointed that Byron had produced so little during the foreign sojourn. Questioned more closely, Byron said rather casually that he had written an account of his travels in Spenserian stanzas, but he thought the whole of little worth. Dallas read the two cantos, and was charmed by their style. He himself assumed the risk of publication, and they were soon brought out by Murray, the noted English publisher. All the world knows the story of that unprecedented success and the author's resulting popularity.

In his preface to the poem Byron expressly said that Childe Harold was a creature of imagination, and was not to be identified with any real person. The English public, nevertheless, immediately and persistently identified Childe Harold with Lord Byron; and when the poet wrote the third and fourth cantos, he saw the uselessness of longer keeping up the disguise, and accordingly spoke out more boldly in his own person.

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, taken as a whole, is probably the most wonderful poem which travel has inspired. It maintains its interest, not because it describes in a splendid way the places which the poet visited, but because it portrays so intimately and so vividly the thoughts and the emotions which these scenes were able to arouse in a human soul which was responsive to such varied thought and emotion. We are not primarily interested in the scenes, but in the lyric reaction of those scenes.

CANTO IV.

The third canto of Childe Harold was published in November, 1816. The fourth canto was begun June 26, 1817, finished in