He died too in the battle broil,

A time that heeds nor pain nor toil;
One cry to Mahomet for aid,
One prayer to Alla all he made:
He knew and cross'd me in the fray-
I gazed upon him where he lay,
And watch'd his spirit ebb away:
Though pierced like pard by hunters' steel,
He felt not half that now I feel.

I search'd, but vainly search'd, to find
The workings of a wounded mind;
Each feature of that sullen corse
Betray'd his rage, but no remorse.
Oh, what had Vengeance given to trace
Despair upon his dying face!

The late repentance of that hour,
When Penitence hath lost her power
To tear one terror from the grave,
And will not soothe, and cannot save.

"The cold in clime are cold in blood,

Their love can scarce deserve the name; But mine was like a lava flood

That boils in Etna's breast of flame.

I cannot prate in puling strain
Of ladye-love, and beauty's chain :

If changing cheek, and scorching vein, 1
Lips taught to writhe, but not complain,
If bursting heart, and madd'ning brain,
And daring deed, and vengeful steel,
And all that I have felt, and feel,
Betoken love-that love was mine,
And shown by many a bitter sign.
'Tis true, I could not whine nor sigh,
I knew but to obtain or die.

I die—but first I have possess'd,
And come what may, I have been bless'd.
Shall I the doom I sought upbraid?
No-reft of all, yet undismay'd 2

in his troublesome faculty of fore-hearing. On our return to Athens we heard from Leoné (a prisoner set ashore some days after) of the intended attack of the Mainotes, mentioned, with the cause of its not taking place, in the notes to Childe Harold, Canto 2d. I was at some pains to question the man, and he described the dresses, arms, and marks of the horses of our party so accurately, that, with other circumstances, we could not doubt of his having been in "villanous company," and ourselves in a bad neighbourhood. Dervish became a soothsayer for life, and I dare say is now hearing more musketry than ever will be fired, to the great refreshment of the Arnaouts of Berat, and his native mountains. I shall mention one trait more of this singular race. In March, 1811, a remarkably stout and active Arnaout came (I believe the fiftieth on the same errand) to offer himself as an attendant, which was declined: "Well, Affendi," quoth he, "may you live-you would have found me useful. I shall leave the town for the hills to-morrow, in the winter I return, perhaps you will then receive me."- Dervish, who was present, remarked as a thing of course, and of no consequence," in the mean time he will join the Klephtes" (robbers), which was true to the letter. If not cut off, they come down in the winter, and pass it unmolested in some town, where they are often as well known as their exploits.

1 ["I cannot prate in puling strain

Of bursting heart and maddening brain,
And fire that raged in every vein."- MS.]

["Even now alone, yet undismay'd,

I know no friend and ask no aid."- MS.]

3 [These, in our opinion, are the most beautiful passages of the poem; and some of them of a beauty which it would not be easy to eclipse by many citations in the language. — JEFFREY.]

[The hundred and twenty-six lines which follow, down to "Tell me no more of fancy's gleam," first appeared in the fifth edition. In returning the proof to Mr. Murray, Lord

But for the thought of Leila slain,
Give me the pleasure with the pain,
So would I live and love again.

I grieve, but not, my holy guide!
For him who dies, but her who died:
She sleeps beneath the wandering wave-
Ah! had she but an earthly grave,

This breaking heart and throbbing head
Should seek and share her narrow bed. 3
She was a form of life and light,
That, seen, became a part of sight;
And rose, where'er I turned mine eye,
The Morning-star of Memory!

"Yes, Love indeed is light from heaven; 4
A spark of that immortal fire
With angels shared, by Alla given,

To lift from earth our low desire. 5
Devotion wafts the mind above,
But Heaven itself descends in love;
A feeling from the Godhead caught,
To wean from self each sordid thought;
A Ray of him who form'd the whole;
A Glory circling round the soul !
I grant my love imperfect, all
That mortals by the name miscall;
Then deem it evil, what thou wilt
But
say, oh say, hers was not guilt!

She was my life's unerring light:

;

That quench'd, what beam shall break my night? 6
Oh! would it shone to lead me still,
Although to death or deadliest ill!
Why marvel ye, if they who lose

This present joy, this future hope,
No more with sorrow meekly cope;
In phrensy then their fate accuse :
In madness do those fearful deeds

That seem to add but guilt to woe?
Alas! the breast that inly bleeds

Hath nought to dread from outward blow;

Byron says: "I have, but with some difficulty, not added any more to this snake of a poem, which has been lengthening its rattles every month. It is now fearfully long, being more than a canto and a half of Childe Harold. The last lines Hodgson likes. It is not often he does; and when he don't, he tells me with great energy, and I fret, and alter. have thrown them in to soften the ferocity of our Infidel; and, for a dying man, have given him a good deal to say for himself. Do you know any body who can stop I mean, point-commas, and so forth? for I am, I hear, a sad hand at your punctuation."

5 [Among the Giaour MSS. is the first draught of this passage, which we subjoin: doth spring

""Yes?

If

Love indeed descend

from heaven;

fire,

To human hearts in mercy given, To lift from earth our low desire. A feeling from the Godhead caught,

each

To wean from self{ sordid thought;

our

Who falls from all he knows of bliss,
Cares little into what abyss.
Fierce as the gloomy vulture's now

To thee, old man, my deeds appear: I read abhorrence on thy brow,

And this too was I born to bear!
'Tis true, that, like that bird of prey,
With havock have I mark'd my way:
But this was taught me by the dove,
To die- and know no second love.
This lesson yet hath man to learn,
Taught by the thing he dares to spurn:
The bird that sings within the brake,
The swan that swims upon the lake,
One mate, and one alone, will take.
And let the fool still prone to range,1
And sneer on all who cannot change,
Partake his jest with boasting boys;
I envy not his varied joys,

But deem such feeble, heartless man,
Less than yon solitary swan;
Far, far beneath the shallow maid
He left believing and betray'd.
Such shame at least was never mine-
Leila! each thought was only thine !
My good, my guilt, my weal, my woe,
My hope on high-my all below.
Earth holds no other like to thee,
Or, if it doth, in vain for me :

For worlds I dare not view the dame
Resembling thee, yet not the same.
The very crimes that mar my youth,
This bed of death-attest my truth!
"T is all too late-thou wert, thou art
The cherish'd madness of my heart!

"And she was lost-and yet I breathed,
But not the breath of human life:
A serpent round my heart was wreathed,
And stung my every thought to strife.
Alike all ti ne, abhorred all place,
Shuddering I shrunk from Nature's face,
Where every hue that charm'd before
The blackness of my bosom wore.
The rest thou dost already know,
And all my sins, and half my woe.
But talk no more of penitence;

Thou see'st I soon shall part from hence:
And if thy holy tale were true,

The deed that's done canst thou undo?
Think me not thankless-but this grief
Looks not to priesthood for relief. 2
My soul's estate in secret guess : 3
But wouldst thou pity more, say less.
When thou canst bid my Leila live,
Then will I sue thee to forgive;
Then plead my cause in that high place
Where purchased masses proffer grace.
Go, when the hunter's hand hath wrung
From forest-cave her shrieking young,

1["And let the light, inconstant fool

That sneers his coxcomb ridicule."- MS.]

? The monk's sermon is omitted. It seems to have had so little effect upon the patient, that it could have no hopes from the reader. It may be sufficient to say, that it was of a customary length (as may be perceived from the interruptions and uneasiness of the patient), and was delivered in the usual tone of all orthodox preachers.

And calm the lonely lioness:
But soothe not-mock not my distress!
"In earlier days, and calmer hours,

When heart with heart delights to blend,
Where bloom my native valley's bowers +
I had Ah! have I now ?-a friend!
To him this pledge I charge thee send,
Memorial of a youthful vow;

I would remind him of my end: 5

Though souls absorb'd like mine allow
Brief thought to distant friendship's claim,
Yet dear to him my blighted name.
'Tis strange-he prophesied my doom,

And I have smiled-I then could smile.
When Prudence would his voice assume,

And warn-I reck'd not what-the while :
But now remembrance whispers o'er
Those accents scarcely mark'd before.
that his bodings came to pass,

Say
And he will start to hear their truth,
And wish his words had not been sooth:
Tell him, unheeding as I was,

Through many a busy bitter scene

Of all our golden youth had been,
In pain, my faltering tongue had tried
To bless his memory ere I died;
But Heaven in wrath would turn away,
If Guilt should for the guiltless pray.
I do not ask him not to blame,
Too gentle he to wound my name;
And what have I to do with fame ?

I do not ask him not to mourn,

Such cold request might sound like scorn;

And what than friendship's manly tear
May better grace a brother's bier ?

But bear this ring, his own of old,
And tell him what thou dost behold!
The wither'd frame, the ruin'd mind,
The wrack by passion left behind,
A shrivelled scroll, a scatter'd leaf,
Sear'd by the autumn blast of grief!

"Tell me no more of fancy's gleam,

No, father, no, 't was not a dream;
Alas! the dreamer first must sleep,
I only watch'd, and wish'd to weep;
But could not, for my burning brow
Throbb'd to the very brain as now:

I wish'd but for a single tear,

As something welcome, new, and dear;
I wish'd it then, I wish it still;
Despair is stronger than my will.
Waste not thine orison, despair 6
Is mightier than thy pious prayer:
I would not, if I might, be blest;
I want no paradise, but rest.
'Twas then, I tell thee, father! then

I saw her; yes, she lived again;
And shining in her white symar, 7
As through yon pale gray cloud the star

And art thou, dearest, changed so much,

As meet my eye, yet mock my touch?
Ah! were thy beauties e'er so cold,
I care not; so my arms enfold
The all they ever wish'd to hold.
Alas! around a shadow prest,
They shrink upon my lonely breast;
Yet still 'tis there! In silence stands,
And beckons with beseeching hands!
With braided hair, and bright-black eye-
I knew 't was false-she could not die !
But he is dead! within the dell

I saw him buried where he fell;

He comes not, for he cannot break

From earth; why then art thou awake?

1 [" Which now I view with trembling spark."-MS.]

2 The circumstance to which the above story relates was not very uncommon in Turkey. A few years ago the wife of Muchtar Pacha complained to his father of his son's supposed infidelity; he asked with whom, and she had the barbarity to give in a list of the twelve handsomest women in Yanina They were seized, fastened up in sacks, and drowned in the lake the same night! One of the guards who was present informed me, that not one of the victims uttered a cry, or showed a symptom of terror at so sudden a "wrench from all we know, from all we love." The fate of Phrosine, the fairest of this sacrifice, is the subject of many a Romaic and Arnaout ditty. The story in the text is one told of a young Venetian many years ago, and now nearly forgotten. I heard it by accident recited by one of the coffee-house story-tellers who abound in the Levant, and sing or recite their narratives. The additions and interpolations by the translator will be easily distinguished from the rest, by the want of Eastern imagery; and I regret that my memory has retained so few fragments of the original. For the contents of some of the notes I am indebted partly to D'Herbelot, and partly to that most Eastern, and, as Mr. Weber justly entitles it, "sublime tale," the Caliph Vathek." I do not know from what source the author of that singular volume may have drawn his materials; some of his incidents are to be found in the "Biblio

They told me wild waves roll'd above
The face I view, the form I love;
They told me-'t was a hideous tale!
I'd tell it, but my tongue would fail :
If true, and from thine ocean-cave
Thou com'st to claim a calmer grave;
Oh! pass thy dewy fingers o'er
This brow that then will burn no more;
Or place them on my hopeless heart:
But, shape or shade! whate'er thou art,
In mercy ne'er again depart!

Or farther with thee bear my soul
Than winds can waft or waters roll!

"Such is my name, and such my tale. Confessor to thy secret' ear

I breathe the sorrows I bewail,

And thank thee for the generous tear This glazing eye could never shed. Then lay me with the humblest dead, And, save the cross above my head, Be neither name nor emblem spread, By prying stranger to be read, Or stay the passing pilgrim's tread. "2

He pass'd-nor of his name and race
Hath left a token or a trace,

Save what the father must not say
Who shrived him on his dying day :
This broken tale was all we knew 3
Of her he loved, or him he slew. 4

thèque Orientale;" but for correctness of costume, beauty of description, and power of imagination, it far surpasses all European imitations; and bears such marks of originality, that those who have visited the East will find some difficulty in believing it to be more than a translation. As an Eastern tale, even Rasselas must bow before it; his "Happy Valley" will not bear a comparison with the " Hall of Eblis."

3 ["Nor whether most he mourn'd none knew, For her he loved, or him he slew." - MS.]

[In this poem, which was published after the two first cantos of Childe Harold, Lord Byron began to show his powers. He had now received encouragement which set free his daring hands, and gave his strokes their natural force. Here, then, we first find passages of a tone peculiar to Lord Byron; but still this appearance was not uniform: he often returned to his trammels, and reminds us of the manner of some favourite predecessor: among these, I think we sometimes catch the notes of Sir Walter Scott. But the internal tempest the deep passion, sometimes buried, and sometimes blazing from some incidental touch the intensity of agonising reflection, which will always distinguish Lord Byron from other writers - now began to display themselves. — SIR EGERTON BRYDGES.]

Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle 3
Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime,
Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle,
Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime?
Know ye the land of the cedar and vine,
Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine:
Where the light wings of Zephyr, oppress'd with
perfume,

Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gúl4 in her bloom;
Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit,
And the voice of the nightingale never is mute :
Where the tints of the earth, and the hues of the sky,
In colour though varied, in beauty may vie,
And the purple of ocean is deepest in dye;
Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine,
And all, save the spirit of man, is divine?
"Tis the clime of the East; 'tis the land of the Sun-
Can he smile on such deeds as his children have
done? 5

[The Bride of Abydos" was published in the beginning of December, 1813. The mood of mind in which it was struck off is thus stated by Lord Byron, in a letter to Mr. Gifford : You have been good enough to look at a thing of mine in MS. a Turkish story- and I should feel gratified if you would do it the same favour in its probationary state of printing. It was written, I cannot say for amusement, nor obliged by hunger and request of friends,' but in a state of mind, from circumstances which occasionally occur to us youth,' that rendered it necessary for me to apply my mind to something, any thing, but reality; and under this not very brilliant inspiration it was composed. Send it either to the flames, or

A hundred hawkers' load,

On wings of winds to fly or fall abroad.'

It deserves no better than the first, as the work of a week, and scribbled stans pede in uno' (by the bye, the only foot I have to stand on); and I promise never to trouble you again under forty cantos, and a voyage between each."]

Begirt with many a gallant slave,
Apparell'd as becomes the brave,
Awaiting each his lord's behest
To guide his steps, or guard his rest,
Old Giaffir sate in his Divan:

Deep thought was in his aged eye;
And though the face of Mussulman
Not oft betrays to standers by
The mind within, well skill'd to hide
All but unconquerable pride,

His pensive cheek and pondering brow Did more than he was wont avow.

III.

"Let the chamber be clear'd.". The train disappear'd

"Now call me the chief of the Haram guard." With Giaffir is none but his only son,

And the Nubian awaiting the sire's award.
"Haroun when all the crowd that wait
Are pass'd beyond the outer gate,
(Woe to the head whose eye beheld
My child Zuleika's face unveil'd!)

2 ["Murray tells me that Croker asked him why the thing is called the Bride of Abydos? It is an awkward question, being unanswerable: she is not a bride; only about to be one. I don't wonder at his finding out the Bull but the detection is too late to do any good. I was a great fool to have made it, and am ashamed of not being an Irishman." — Byron Diary, Dec. 6. 1813.]

3 [To the Bride of Abydos, Lord Byron made many additions during its progress through the press, amounting to about two hundred lines; and, as in the case of the Giaour, the passages so added will be seen to be some of the most splendid in the whole poem. These opening lines, which are among the new insertions, are supposed to have been suggested by a song of Goethe's

"Kennst du das Land wo die citronen blühn." 4" Gúl," the rose.

5 Souls made of fire, and children of the Sun,

With whom revenge is virtue."-YOUNG's Revenge.

Hence, lead my daughter from her tower;

Her fate is fix'd this very hour: Yet not to her repeat my thought;

By me alone be duty taught!"

"Pacha! to hear is to obey."

No more must slave to despot say-
Then to the tower had ta'en his way,
But here young Selim silence brake,

First lowly rendering reverence meet;
And downcast look'd, and gently spake,
Still standing at the Pacha's feet:
For son of Moslem must expire,
Ere dare to sit before his sire!

"Father for fear that thou shouldst chide
My sister, or her sable guide,
Know-for the fault, if fault there be,
Was mine, then fall thy frowns on me-
So lovelily the morning shone,

That let the old and weary sleep

I could not; and to view alone

The fairest scenes of land and deep,
With none to listen and reply

To thoughts with which my heart beat high
Were irksome-for whate'er my mood,

In sooth I love not solitude;

I on Zuleika's slumber broke,

And, as thou knowest that for me

Soon turns the haram's grating key,

Before the guardian slaves awoke
We to the cypress groves had flown,

"Son of a slave"- the Pacha said
"From unbelieving mother bred,
Vain were a father's hope to see
Aught that beseems a man in thee.
Thou, when thine arm should bend the bow,
And hurl the dart, and curb the steed,
Thou, Greek in soul if not in creed,
Must pore where babbling waters flow,
And watch unfolding roses blow.
Would that yon orb, whose matin glow
Thy listless eyes so much admire,
Would lend thee something of his fire!
Thou, who would'st see this battlement
By Christian cannon piecemeal rent;
Nay, tamely view old Stambol's wall
Before the dogs of Moscow fall,

Nor strike one stroke for life and death
Against the curs of Nazareth!

But, Haroun ! - to my daughter speed:
And hark- of thine own head take heed
If thus Zuleika oft takes wing —
Thou see'st yon bow-it hath a string!

V.

No sound from Selim's lip was heard,
At least that met old Giaffir's ear,
But every frown and every word
Pierced keener than a Christian's sword.
"Son of a slave ! - reproach'd with fear!
Those gibes had cost another dear.
Son of a slave !-and who my sire?"
Thus held his thoughts their dark career;
And glances ev'n of more than ire
Flash forth, then faintly disappear.
Old Giaffir gazed upon his son

And started; for within his eye
He read how much his wrath had done;
He saw rebellion there begun :

"Come hither, boy-what, no reply?
I mark thee and I know thee too;
But there be deeds thou dar'st not do:
But if thy beard had manlier length,
And if thy hand had skill and strength,
I'd joy to see thee break a lance,
Albeit against my own perchance."

Fair, as the first that fell of womankind,
When on that dread yet lovely serpent smiling,

3 The Turks abhor the Arabs (who return the compliment a hundred-fold) even more than they hate the Christians.