Thy handmaids weeping at the gate, Thou didst not view thy Selim fall! That fearful moment when he left the cave He was thy hope-thy joy-thy love-thine all- Burst forth in one wild cry-and all was still. That grief-though deep-though fatal-was thy first. Of absence, shame, pride, hate, revenge, remorse! Vainly thou heap'st the dust upon thy head, Thy daughter's dead! Hope of thine age, thy twnight's lonely beam, "Where is my child?" -an Echo answers-" Where?"* XXVIII. Within the place of thousand tombs That shine beneath, while dark above The sad but living cypress glooms, And withers not, though branch and leaf Are stampt with an eternal grief, One spot exists, which ever blooms, A single rose is shedding there Its lonely lustre, meek and pale : It looks as planted by Despair So white-so faint-the slightest gale "I came to the place of my birth, and cried. The friends of my youth, where are they?' and an Echo answered, Where are they?"-From an Arabic MS. The above quotation (from which the idea in the text is taken) must be already familiar to every reader; it is given in the first annotation, p. 67, of "The Pleasures of Memory;" a poem so well known as to render a reference almost superfluous; but to whose pages all will be delighted to recur.-B. And yet, though storms and blight assail, For well may maids of Helle deem Nor droops, though spring refuse her shower, To it the livelong night there sings A bird unseen-but not remote: But soft as harp that Houri strings, It were the Bulbul; but his throat, Though mournful, pours not such a strain: The spot, but linger there and grieve, As if they loved in vain! And yet so sweet the tears they shed, "Tis sorrow so unmix'd with dread, They scarce can bear the morn to break And longer yet would weep and wake, But when the day-blush bursts from high And some have been who could believe, "Tis from her cypress summit heard, That white rose takes its tender birth. Next morn 'twas found where Selim fell; "And airy tongues that syllable men's names."-MILTON.-B. For a belief that the souls of the dead inhabit the form of birds, we need not travel to the East. Lord Lyttleton's ghost story, the belief of the Duchess of Kendal, that George I. flew into her window in the shape of a raven (see Orford's Reminicences), and many other instances, bring this superstition nearer home. The most singular was the whim of a Worcester lady, who, believing her daughter to exist in the shape of a singing bird, literally furnished her pew in the cathedral with cages full of the kind; and as she was rich, and a benefactress in beautifying the church, no objection was made to her harmless folly, For this anecdote, see Orford's Letters.-B. And there by night, reclined, 'tis said, Is seen a ghastly turbau'd head: And hence extended by the billow "Tis named the "Pirate-phantom's pillow!" Where first it lay that mourning flower Hath flourished; flourisheth this hour, Alone and dewy, coldly pure and pale; As weeping Beauty's cheek at Sorrow's tale! THE CORSAIR; A TALE. -I suoi pensieri in lui dormir non ponno." TO THOMAS MOORE, ESQ. MY DEAR MOORE, I DEDICATE to you the last production with which I shall trespass on public patience, and your indulgence, for some years; and I own that I feel anxious to avail myself of this latest and only opportunity of adorning my pages with a name, consecrated by unshaken public principle, and the most undoubted and various talents. While Ireland ranks you among the firmest of her patriots; while you stand alone the first of her bards in her estimation, and Britain repeats and ratifies the decree, permit one, whose only regret, since our first acquaintance, has been the years he had lost before it had commenced, to add the humble but sincere suffrage of friendship to the voice of more than one nation. It will at least prove to you, that I have neither forgotten the gratification derived from your society, nor abandoned the prospect of its renewal, whenever your leisure or inclination allows you to atone to your friends for too long an absence. It is said among those friends, I trust truly, that you are engaged in the composition of a poem whose scene will be laid in the East; none can do those scenes so much justice. The wrongs of your own country, the magnificent and fiery spirit of her sons, the beauty and feeling of her daughters, may there be found; and Collins, when he denominated his Oriental his Irish Eclogues, was not aware how true, at least, was a part of his parallel. Your imagination will create a warmer sun, and less clouded sky; but wildness, tenderness, and originality, are part of your national claim of oriental descent, to which you have already thus far proved your title more clearly than the most zealous of your country's antiquarians. May I add a few words on a subject on which all men are supposed to be fluent, and none agreeable?-Self. I have written much, and published more than enough to demand a longer silence than I now meditate; but, for some years to come, it is my inten tion to tempt no further the award of "Gods, men, nor columns." In the present composition I have attempted not the most difficult, but, perhaps, the most adapted measure to our language, the good old and now neglected heroic couplet. The stanza of Spenser is perhaps too slow and dignified for narrative; though, I confess, it is the measure most after my own heart: Scott alone, of the present generation, has hitherto completely triumphed over the fatal facility of the octo-syllabic verse; and this is not the least victory of his fertile and mighty genius: in blank verse, Milton, Thomson, and our dramatists, are the beacons that shine along the deep, but warn us from the rough and barren rock on which they are kindled. The heroic couplet is not the most popular measure certainly; but as I did not deviate into the other from a wish to flatter what is called public opinion, I shall quit it without further apology, and take my chance once more with that versification, in which I have hitherto published nothing but compositions whose former circulation is part of my present, and will be of my future, regret. With regard to my story, and stories in general, I should have been glad to have rendered my personages more perfect and amiable if possible, inasmuch as I have been sometimes criticised, and considered no less responsible for their deeds and qualities than if all had been personal. Be it so-if I have deviated into the gloomy vanity of "drawing from self," the pictures are probably like, since they are unfavourable; and if not, those who know me are undeceived, and those who do not, I have little interest in undeceiving. I have no particular desire that any but my acquaintance should think the author better than the beings of his imagining; but I cannot help a little surprise, and perhaps amusement, at some odd critical exceptions in the present instance, when I see several bards (far more deserving, I allow) in very reputable plight, and quite exempted from all participation in the faults of those heroes, who, nevertheless, might be found with little more morality than "The Giaour," and perhaps-but no-I must admit Childe Harold to be a very repulsive personage; and as to his identity, those who like it must give him whatever "alias" they please. If, however, it were worth while to remove the impression, it might be of some service to me, that the man who is alike the delight of his readers and his friends, the poet of all circles, and the idol of his own, permits me here and elsewhere to subscribe myself, Most truly, And affectionately, January 2, 1814. His obedient servant, BYRON. |