Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

And he was free !-and she for him had given
Her all on earth, and more than all in heaven!
And now he turn'd him to that dark-ey'd slave
Whose brow was bow'd beneath the glance he gave,
Who now seem'd changed and humbled:-faint and
meek,

But varying oft the color of her cheek

To deeper shades of paleness-all its red
That fearful spot which stain'd it from the dead!
He took that hand-it trembled-now too late-
So soft in love-so wildly nerved in hate;
He clasped that hand-it trembled-and his own
Had lost its firmness, and his voice its tone.
"Gulnare!"—but she replied not-" dear Gulnare!"
She raised her eye-her only answer there-
At once she sought and sunk in his embrace:
If he had driven her from that resting-place,
His had been more or less than mortal heart,
But-good or ill-it bade her not depart.
Perchance, but for the bodings of his breast,
His latest virtue then had join'd the rest.
Yet even Medora might forgive the kiss
That ask'd from form so fair no more than this,
The first, the last that Frailty stole from Faith-
To lips where Love had lavish'd all his breath,
To lips-whose broken sighs such fragrance fling,
As he had fann'd them freshly with his wing!

XVIII.

They gain by twilight's hour their lonely isle:
To them the very rocks appear to smile;
The haven hums with many a cheering sound,
The beacons blaze their wonted stations round,
The boats are darting o'er the curly bay,
And sportive dolphins bend them through the spray;
Even the hoarse sea-bird's shrill, discordant shriek,
Greets like the welcome of his tuneless beak!
Beneath each lamp that through its lattice gleams,
Their fancy paints the friends that trim the beams.
Oh! what can sanctify the joys of home,

He snatch'd the lamp-its light will answer all→→
It quits his grasp, expiring in the fall.
He would not wait for that reviving ray-
As soon could he have linger'd there for day;
But, glimmering through the dusky corridore,
Another checkers o'er the shadow'd floor;
His steps the chamber gain-his eyes behold
All that his heart believed not-yet foretold '

XX.

He turn'd not-spoke not-sunk not-fix'd his look,

And set the anxious frame that lately shook:
He gazed-how long we gaze despite of pain,
And know, but dare not own, we gaze in vain!
In life itself she was so still and fair,
That death with gentler aspect wither'd there;
And the cold flowers 17 her colder hand contain'd,
In the last grasp as tenderly were strain'd
As if she scarcely felt, but feign'd a sleep,
And made it almost mockery yet to weep:
The long dark lashes fringed her lids of snow,
And veil'd-thought shrinks from all that lurk'd
below-

Oh! o'er the eye Death most exerts his might,
And hurls the spirit from her throne of light!
Sinks those blue orbs in that long last eclipse,
But spares, as yet, the charm around her lips-
Yet, yet they seem as they forbore to smile,
And wish'd repose-but only for a while;
But the white shroud, and each extended tress,
Long-fair-but spread in utter lifelessness,
Which, late the sport of every summer wind,
Escaped the baffled wreath that strove to bird;
These-and the pale pure cheek, became the bier-
But she is nothing-wherefore is he here?

XXI.

He ask'd no question-all were answer'd now Like Hope's gay glance from Ocean's troubled foam? By the first glance on that still marble brow.

XIX.

The lights are high on beacon and from bower,
And midst them Conrad seeks Medora's tower:
He looks in vain-'tis strange-and all remark,
Amid so many, her's alone is dark.

'Tis strange-of yore its welcome never fail'd,
Nor now, perchance, extinguish'd, only veil'd.
With the first boat descends he for the shore,
And looks impatient on the lingering oar.
Oh! for a wing beyond the falcon's flight,
To bear him like an arrow to that height!
With the first pause the resting rowers gave,
He waits not-looks not-leaps into the wave,
Strives through the surge, bestrides the beach, and
high

Ascends the path familiar to his eye.

He reach'd his turret door-he paused-no sound
Broke from within; and all was night around.
He knock'd, and loudly-footstep nor reply
Announced that any heard or deem'd him nigh;
He knock'd-but faintly-for his trembling hand
Refused to aid his heavy heart's demand.
The portal opens-'tis a well-known face-
But not the form he panted to embrace.
Its lips are silent-twice his own essay'd,
And fail'd to frame the question they delay'd;

It was enough-she died-what reck'd it how?
The love of youth, the hope of better years,
The source of softest wishes, tenderest fears,
The only living thing he could not hate,
Was reft at once-and he deserved his fate,
But did not feel it less ;-the good explore,
For peace, those realms where guilt can never soar.
The proud-the wayward-who have fix'd below
Their joy, and find this earth enough for wo,
Lose in that one their all-perchance a mite―
But who in patience parts with all delight?
Full many a stoic eye and aspect stern
Mask hearts where grief hath little left to learn;
In smiles that least befit who wear them most.
And many a withering thought lies hid, not lost,

XXII.

By those, that deepest feel, is ill exprest
The indistinctness of the suffering breast;
Where thousand thoughts begin to end in one,
Which seeks for all the refuge found in none;
No words suffice the secret soul to show,
For Truth denies all eloquence to Wo.
On Conrad's stricken soul exhaustion prest,
And stupor almost lulled it into rest:
So feeble now-his mother's softness crept
To those wild eyes, which like an infant's wept;

It was the very weakness of his brain,
Which thus confess'd without relieving pain.
None saw his trickling tears-perchance if seen,
That useless flood of grief had never been:
Nor long they flow'd-he dried them to depart,
In helpless-hopeless-brokenness of heart:
The sun goes forth-but Conrad's day is dim:
And the night cometh-ne'er to pass from him.
There is no darkness like the cloud of mind,
On Grief's vain eye-the blindest of the blind!
Which may not-dare not see-but turns aside
To blackest shade-nor will endure a guide!

XXIII.

His heart was formed for softness-warp'd to wrong;
Betray'd too early, and beguiled too long;
Each feeling pure-as falls the dropping dew
Within the grot; like that had harden'd too;
Less clear, perchance, its earthly trials pass'd,
But sunk, and chill'd, and petrified at last.
Yet tempests wear, and lightning cleaves the rock,
If such his heart, so shatter'd it the shock.
There grew one flower beneath its rugged brow,
Though dark the shade-it shelter'd-saved till now.
The thunder came-that bolt hath blasted both,
The Granite's firmness, and the Lily's growth:

The gentle plant hath left no leaf to tell
Its tale, but shrunk and wither'd where it fell,
And of its cold protector, blacken round
But shiver'd fragments on the barren ground!

XXIV.

'Tis morn-to venture on his lonely hour
Few dare; though now Anselmo sought his tower.
He was not there-nor seen along the shore;
Ere night, alarm'd, their isle is traversed o'er :
Another morn-another bids them seek,
And shout his name till echo waxeth weak;
Mount-grotto-cavern-valley search'd in vain,
They find on shore a sea-boat's broken chain:
Their hope revives-they follow o'er the main.
'Tis idle all-moons roll on moons away,
And Conrad comes not-came not since that day:
Nor trace, nor tidings of his doom declare
Where lives his grief, or perish'd his despair!
Long mourn'd his band whom none could mourn
beside;

And fair the monument they gave his bride:
For him they raise not the recording stone-
His death yet dubious, deeds too widely known;
He left a Corsair's name to other times,

Link'd with one virtue, and a thousand crimes is

NOTES TO THE CORSAIR.

[blocks in formation]

5.

While dance the Almas to wild minstrelsy. Page 141, line 42. Dancing girls.

6.

A captive Dervise, from the Pirate's nest. Page 141, line 55. It has been objected that Conrad's entering disguised as a spy is out of nature.-Perhaps so. I find something not unlike it in history.

"Anxious to explore with his own eyes the state of the Vandals, Majorian ventured, after disguising the color of his hair, to visit Carthage in the character of his own ambassador; and Genseric was afterwards mortified by the discovery, that he had entertained and dismissed the Emperor of the Romans. Such an anecdote may be rejected as an improbable fiction; but it is a fiction which would not have been imagined unless in the life of a hero."-Gibbon, D. and F., vol. vI. p. 180.

That Conrad is a character not altogether out of nature I shall attempt to prove by some historical coincidences which I have met with since writing "The Corsair."

"Eccelin prisonnier," dit Rolandini, "s'enfer

moit dans un silence menaçant, il fixoit sur la terre The Kiosk is a Turkish summer-house: the palm son visage féroce, et ne donnoit point d'essor à sa is without the present walls of Athens, not far from profonde indignation.-De toutes parts cependant the temple of Theseus, between which and the tree les soldats et les peuples accouroient; ils vouloient the wall intervenes.-Cephisus' stream is indeed voir cet homme, jadis si puissant, et la joie univer- scanty, and Ilissus has no stream at all. selle éclatoit de toutes parts.

15.

"Eccelin étoit d'une petite taillie; mais tout l'as- That frown-where gentler ocean seems to smile. pect de sa personne, tous ses mouvemens, indiquoiPage 146, line 20. ent un soldat.-Son langage étoit amer, son déporteThe opening lines as far as Section II. have, perment superbe et par son seul égard, il faisoit haps, little business here, and were annexed to an trembler les plus hardis." Sismondi, tome III. page unpublished (though printed) poem; but they were 219, 220. "Gizericus (Genseric, king of the Vandals, the written on the spot in the spring of 1811, and—1 scarce know why-the reader must excuse their apconqueror of both Carthage and Rome) staturà mediocris, et equi casu claudicans, animo profundus, pearance here if he can. sermone rarus, luxuriæ contemptor, ira turbidus, habendi cupidus, ad solicitandas gentes providentissimus," &c., &c. Jornandes de Rebus Geticis, c. 33.

[blocks in formation]

They seize that Dervise!-seize on Zatanai!
Page 142, line 52.

Satan.

9.

He tore his beard, and foaming fied the fight.
Page 142, line 73.

16.

His only bends in seeming o'er his beads.
Page 146, line 104.
The Comboloio, or Mahometan rosary; the beads
are in number ninety-nine.

17.

And the cold flowers her colder hand contain'd. Page 150, line 75. the bodies of the dead, and in the hands of young In the Levant it is the custom to strew flowers on persons to place a nosegay.

18.

Link'd with one virtue, and a thousand crimes. Page 151, line 43. That the point of honor which is represented in one instance of Conrad's character has not been carried beyond the bounds of probability may per A common and not very novel effect of Mussul-haps be in some degree confirmed by the following man anger. See Prince Eugene's Memoirs, page "The Seraskier received a wound in the thigh; he plucked up his beard by the roots, because he was obliged to quit the field."

24.

10.

Brief time had Conrad now to greet Gulnare. Page 142, line 117. Gulnare, a female name; it means, literally, the flower of the pomegranate.

11.

anecdote of a brother Buccaneer in the year 1814. Our readers have all seen the account of the enterprise against the pirates of Barrataria; but few, we believe, were informed of the situation, history, or nature of that establishment. For the information of such as were unacquainted with it, we have procured from a friend the following interesting narrative of the main facts, of which he has personal knowledge, and which cannot fail to interest some of our readers.

Barrataria is a bay, or a narrow arm of the Gulf of Mexico: it runs through a rich but very flat country until it reaches within a mile of the Mississippi River fifteen miles below the city of New Orleans. The bay has branches almost innumerable, in which persons can lie concealed from the severest scrutiny.

Till even the scaffold echoes with their jest! Page 144, line 87. In Sir Thomas More, for instance, on the scaffold, communicates with three lakes which lie on the and Anne Boleyn, in the Tower, when grasping her neck, she remarked that it "was too slender to southwest side, and these, with the lake of the trouble the headsman much." During one part of same name, and which lies contiguous to the sea, the French Revolution, it became a fashion to leave where there is an island formed by the two arms of The east and west points of some "mot" as a legacy; and the quantity of fa- this lake and the sea. cetious last words spoken during that period would this island were fortified, in the year 1811, by a band form a melancholy jest-book of a considerable size. of pirates under the command of one Monsieur La

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Fitte. A large majority of these outlaws are of
that class of the population of the State of Louisi-
ana who fled from the Island of St. Domingo dur-
ing the troubles there, and took refuge in the
Island of Cuba: and when the last war between
France and Spain commenced, they were com-
pelled to leave that island with the short notice
of a few days. Without ceremony, they entered
the United States, the most of them the State
of Louisiana, with all the negroes they had pos-
sessed in Cuba. They were notified by the Gover-
nor of that State of the clause in the constitution
which forbade the importation of slaves; but, at the
same time, received the assurance of the Governor
that he would obtain, if possible, the approbation
of the General Government for their retaining this
property.
The Island of Barrataria is situated about lat.

See "Curse of Minerva.'

29 deg. 15 min. lon. 92. 30. and is as remarkable for measure connected with the profession of the hero its health, as for the superior scale and shell-fish of the foregoing poem, I cannot resist the temptawith which its waters abound. The chief of this tion of extracting it.

horde, like Charles de Moor, had mixed with his "There is something mysterious in the history many vices some virtues. In the year 1813, this and character of Dr. Blackbourne. The former is party had from its turpitude and boldness, claimed but imperfectly known; and report has even asthe attention of the Governor of Louisiana; and to serted he was a buccaneer; and that one of his break up the establishment, he thought proper to brethren in that profession having asked, on his arstrike at the head. He therefore offered a reward rival in England, what had become of his old chum, of five hundred dollars for the head of Monsieur La Blackbourne, was answered, he is archbishop of Fitte who was well known to the inhabitants of the York. We are informed, that Blackbourne was incity of New Orleans, from his immediate connexion, stalled sub-dean of Exeter, in 1694, which office he and his once having been a fencing-master in that resigned in 1702; but after his successor Lewis Barcity of great reputation, which art he learnt in net's death, in 1704, he regained it. In the followBonaparte's army, where he was captain. The re-ing year he became dean: and, in 1714, held with it ward which was offered by the Governor for the the archdeanery of Cornwall. He was consecrated head of La Fitte was answered by the offer of a re- bishop of Exeter, February 24, 1716; and translated ward from the latter of fifteen thousand for the head to York, November 28, 1724, as a reward, accordof the Governor. The Governor ordered out a com- ing to court scandal, for uniting George I. to the pany to march from the city to La Fitte's island, Duchess of Munster. This, however, appears to and to burn and destroy all the property, and to have been an unfounded calumny. As archbishop bring to the city of New Orleans all his banditti. he behaved with great prudence, and was equally This company, under the command of a man who respectable as the guardian of the revenues of the had been the intimate associate of this bold Cap- see. Rumor whispered he retained the vices of his tain, approached very near to the fortified island, youth, and that a passion for the fair sex formed an before he saw a man, or heard a sound, until he item in the list of his weaknesses; but so far from heard a whistle, not unlike a boatswain's call. being convicted by seventy witnesses, he does not Then it was he found himself surrounded by armed appear to have been directly criminated by one. In men who had emerged from the secret avenues short, I look upon these aspersions as the effects of which led into Bayou. Here it was that the mod- mere malice. How is it possible a buccaneer should ern Charles de Moor developed his few noble traits; have been so good a scholar as Blackbourne cerfor to this man, who had come to destroy his life tainly was? he who had so perfect a knowledge of and all that was dear to him, he not only spared his the classics, (particularly of the Greek tragedians,) life, but offered him that which would have made as to be able to read them with the same ease as he the honest soldier easy for the remainder of his could Shakspeare, must have taken great pains to days, which was indignantly refused. He then, acquire the learned languages; and have had both with the approbation of his captor, returned to the leisure and good masters. But he was undoubtedly city. This circumstance, and some concomitant educated at Christchurch College, Oxford. He is events, proved that this band of pirates was not to allowed to have been a pleasant man: this, howbe taken by land. Our naval force having always ever, was turned against him, by its being said, 'he been small in that quarter, exertions for the destruc- gained more hearts than souls.'

tion of this illicit establishment could not be ex

pected from them until augmented; for an officer

of the navy, with most of the gunboats on that "The only voice that could soothe the passions that station, had to retreat from an overwhelming of the savage, (Alphonso III.) was that of an amiaforce of La Fitte's. So soon as the augmentation ble and virtuous wife, the sole object of his love; of the navy authorized an attack, one was made; the voice of Donna Isabella, the daughter of the the overthrow of this banditti has been the result; Duke of Savoy, and the grand-daughter of Philip II. and now this almost invulnerable point and key to King of Spain.-Her dying words sunk deep into New Orleans is clear of an enemy, it is to be hoped his memory; his fierce spirit melted into tears; and the government will hold it by a strong military after the last embrace, Alphonso retired into his force. From an American Newspaper. chamber to bewail his irreparable loss, and to medi

In Noble's continuation of Granger's Biographi- tate on the vanity of human life.-Miscellaneous cal History, there is a singular passage in his ac- Works of Gibbon, New Edition. 8vo. vol. iii. page count of Archbishop Blackbourne, and as in some 473.

20

[blocks in formation]

THE Serfs are glad through Lara's wide domain,
And Slavery half forgets her feudal chain :
He, their unhoped, but unforgotten lord,
The long self-exiled chieftain is restored;
There be bright faces in the busy hall,
Bowls on the board, and banners on the wall;
Far checkering o'er the pictured window, plays
The unwonted faggots' hospitable blaze;
And gay retainers gather round the hearth,
With tongues all loudness, and with eyes all mirth.

II.

The chief of Lara is return'd again:

And why had Lara cross'd the bounding main ?
Left by his sire, too young such loss to know,
Lord of himself;-that heritage of wo,
That fearful empire which the human breast
But holds to rob the heart within of rest!-
With none to check, and few to point in time
The thousand paths that slope the way to crime;

Then, when he most required commandment, then
Had Lara's daring boyhood govern'd men.
It skills not, boots not step by step to trace
His youth through all the mazes of its race;
Short was the course his restlessness had run,
But long enough to leave him half undone.

III.

And Lara left in youth his father-land;
But from the hour he waved his parting hand
Each trace wax'd fainter of his course, till all
Had nearly ceased his memory to recall.
His sire was dust, his vassals could declare,
'Twas all they knew, that Lara was not there;
Nor sent, nor came he, till conjecture grew
Cold in the many, anxious in the few.
His hall scarce echoes with his wonted name,
His portrait darkens in its fading frame,
Another chief consoled his destined bride,
The young forgot him, and the old had died;
"Yet doth he live!" exclaims the impatient heir,
And sighs for sables which he must not wear.

A hundred scutcheons deck with gloomy grace,
The Lara's last and longest dwelling-place:
But one is absent from the mouldering file,
That now were welcome in that Gothic pile.

IV.

He comes at last in sudden loneliness,
And whence they know not, why they need not guess,
They more might marvel, when the greeting's o'er,
No train is his beyond a single page,
Not that he came, but came not long before:

Of foreign aspect, and of tender age.
Years had roll'd on, and fast they speed away
To those that wander as to those that stay;
But lack of tidings from another clime
Had lent a flagging wing to weary Time.
They see, they recognize, yet almost deem
The present dubious, or the past a dream

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors]
« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »