TO INEZ. 1. NAY, smile not at my sullen brow; 2. And dost thou ask what secret woe 3. It is not love, it is not hate, Nor low Ambition's honours lost, That bids me loathe my present state, And fly from all I prized the most: 4. It is that weariness which springs 5. It is that settled, ceaseless gloom The fabled Hebrew wanderer bore; That will not look beyond the tomb, But cannot hope for rest before. 6. 1 What Exile from himself can flee?1 To zones though more and more remote, The blight of life the demon Thought. 2 7. Yet others rapt in pleasure seem, 8. Through many a clime 't is mine to go, Whate'er betides, I've known the worst. 9. What is that worst? Nay do not ask Smile on nor venture to unmask Man's heart, and view the Hell that's there. 3 "What exile from himself can flee? To other zones, howe'er remote, The blight of life-the demon Thought."-MS.] 2 ["Written January 25. 1810."— MS.] In place of this song, which was written at Athens, January 25. 1810, and which contains, as Moore says, "some of the dreariest touches of sadness that ever Byron's pen let fall," we find, in the first draught of the Canto, the following: 1. Oh never talk again to me Of northern climes and British ladies; It has not been your lot to see, Like me, the lovely girl of Cadiz. LXXXV. Adieu, fair Cadiz! yea, a long adieu! Who may forget how well thy walls have stood? Although her eye be not of blue, Nor fair her locks, like English lasses, 2. Prometheus-like, from heaven she stole The fire, that through those silken lashes From eyes that cannot hide their flashes: In lengthen'd flow her raven tresses, 3. Our English maids are long to woa, For love ordain'd the Spanish maid is, 4. The Spanish maid is no coquette, And if she love, or if she hate, Alike she knows not to dissemble. Her heart can ne'er be bought or sold- 5. The Spanish girl that meets your love For every thought is bent to prove Some native blood was seen thy streets to die; A traitor only fell beneath the feud : 1 Here all were noble, save Nobility; None hugg'd a conqueror's chain, save fallen Chivalry ! LXXXVI. Such be the sons of Spain, and strange her fate! Fond of a land which gave them nought but life, War, war is still the cry, "War even to the knife!" When thronging foemen menace Spain, She dares the deed and shares the danger; And should her lover press the plain, 6. And when, beneath the evening star, Or sings to her attuned guitar Of Christian knight or Moorish hero, Or counts her beads with fairy hand Beneath the twinkling rays of Hesper, Or joins devotion's choral band, To chaunt the sweet and hallow'd vesper ; — 7. In each her charms the heart must move Of all who venture to behold her May match the dark-eyed Girl of Cadiz. 1 Alluding to the conduct and death of Solano, the governor of Cadiz, in May, 1809. 2" War to the knife." Palafox's answer to the French general LXXXVII. Ye, who would more of Spain and Spaniards know, Go, read whate'er is writ of bloodiest strife: Whate'er keen Vengeance urged on foreign foe Can act, is acting there against man's life: From flashing scimitar to secret knife, War mouldeth there each weapon to his need So may he guard the sister and the wife, So may he make each curst oppressor bleedSo may such foes deserve the most remorseless deed!! at the siege of Saragoza. [In his proclamations, also, he stated, Ye, who would more of Spain and Spaniards know, Are they not written in the Book of Carr*, Hear what he did, and sought, and wrote afar ; This borrow, steal,- don't buy,—and tell us what you think. There may you read, with spectacles on eyes, How many troops y-cross'd the laughing main Porphyry said, that the prophecies of Daniel were written after their completion, and such may be my fate here; but it requires no second sight to foretel a tome: the first glimpse of the knight was enough. [In a letter written from Gibraltar, August 6. 1809, to his friend Hodson, Lord Byron says, "I have seen Sir John Carr at Seville and Cadiz; and, like Swift's barber, have been down on my knees to beg he would not put me into black and |