But hark! I hear Zuleika's voice; Like Houris' hymn it meets mine ear: Oh! more than ev'n her mother dear, Such to my longing sight art thou; VI. Fair, as the first that fell of womankind, When on that dread yet lovely serpent smiling, Whose image then was stamp'd upon her mindBut once beguiled- and ever more beguiling; Dazzling, as that, oh! too transcendent vision To Sorrow's phantom-peopled slumber given, When heart meets heart again in dreams Elysian, And paints the lost on Earth revived in Heaven; Soft, as the memory of buried love ; Pure, as the prayer which Childhood wafts above; Was she the daughter of that rude old Chief, Who met the maid with tears—but not of grief. Who hath not proved how feebly words essay (') (1) [These twelve fine lines were added in the course of printing. - E.] His changing cheek, his sinking heart confess The mind, the Music (1) breathing from her face, (2) (1) This expression has met with objections. I will not refer to "Him who hath not Music in his soul," but merely request the reader to recollect, for ten seconds, the features of the woman whom he believes to be the most beautiful; and, if he then does not comprehend fully what is feebly expressed in the above line, I shall be sorry for us both. For an eloquent passage in the latest work of the first female writer of this, perhaps of any, age, on the analogy (and the immediate comparison excited by that analogy) be. tween "painting and music," see vol. iii. cap. 10. DE L'ALLEMAGNE. And is not this connection still stronger with the original than the copy? With the colouring of Nature than of Art? After all, this is rather to be felt than described; still I think there are some who will understand it, at least they would have done had they beheld the countenance whose speaking harmony suggested the idea; for this passage is not drawn from imagination but memory, that mirror which Affliction dashes to the earth, and looking down upon the fragments, only beholds the reflection multiplied !—[“ This morning, a very pretty billet from the Staël. She has been pleased to be pleased with my slight eulogy in the note annexed to the Bride.' This is to be accounted for in several ways: firstly, all women like all, or any praise; secondly, this was unexpected, because I have never courted her; and, thirdly, as Scrub says, those who have been all their lives regularly praised, by regular critics, like a little variety, and are glad when any one goes out of his way to say a civil thing; and, fourthly, she is a very goodnatured creature, which is the best reason, after all, and, perhaps, the only one."- B. Diary, Dec. 7. 1813.-E.] (2) [Among the imputed plagiarisms so industriously hunted out in his writings, this line has been, with somewhat more plausibility than is frequent in such charges, included; the lyric poet Lovelace having, it seems, written "The melody and music of her face." Sir Thomas Browne, too, in his Religio Medici, says, "There is music even in beauty." The coincidence, no doubt, is worth observing, and the task of " tracking thus a favourite writer in the snow (as Dryden expresses it) of others," is sometimes not unamusing: but to those who found upon such resemblances a general charge of plagiarism, we may apply what Sir Walter Scott says:"It is a favourite theme of laborious dulness to trace such coincidences, because they appear to reduce genius of the higher order to the usual standard of humanity, and of course to bring the author nearer to a level with his critics."- MOORE.] The heart whose softness harmonized the whole — And, oh! that eye was in itself a Soul! Her graceful arms in meekness bending VII. "Zuleika! child of gentleness ! When I forget my own distress, In losing what I love so well, Was never seen in battle's van. That won and well can keep their lands. (1) Carasman Oglou, or Kara Osman Oglou, is the principal landholder in Turkey; he governs Magnesia. those who, by a kind of feudal tenure, possess land on condition of service, are called Timariots: they serve as Spahis, according to the extent of territory, and bring a certain number into the field, generally cavalry. Enough that he who comes to woo His years need scarce a thought employ; VIII. In silence bow'd the virgin's head; And if her eye was fill'd with tears (1) When a Pacha is sufficiently strong to resist, the single messenger, who is always the first bearer of the order for his death, is strangled instead, and sometimes five or six, one after the other on the same errand, by command of the refractory patient; if, on the contrary, he is weak or loyal, he bows, kisses the Sultan's respectable signature, and is bowstrung with great complacency. In 1810, several of these presents were exhibited in the niche of the Seraglio gate; among others, the head of the Pacha of Bagdat, a brave young man, cut off by treachery, after a desperate resistance. So sweet the blush of Bashfulness, Thrice clapp'd his hands, and call'd his steed, (1) IX. doors. His head was leant upon his hand, Mix in the game of mimic slaughter, (1) Clapping of the hands calls the servants. The Turks hate a superfluous expenditure of voice, and they have no bells. (2)" Chibouque," the Turkish pipe, of which the amber mouth-piece, and sometimes the ball which contains the leaf, is adorned with precious stones, if in possession of the wealthier orders. (3) "Maugrabee," Moorish mercenaries. (4) "Delis," bravos who form the forlorn hope of the cavalry, and always begin the action. (5) A twisted fold of felt is used for scimitar practice by the Turks, and few but Mussulman arms can cut through it at a single stroke: sometimes a tough turban is used for the same purpose. The jerreed is a game of blunt javelins, animated and graceful. |