If aught his lips essay'd to groan,
The rushing billows choked the tone

XXVI.

Morn slowly rolls the clouds away

Few trophies of the fight are there:
The shouts that shook the midnight-bay
Are silent; but some signs of fray

That strand of strife may bear,
And fragments of each shiver'd brand;
Steps stamp'd; and dash'd into the sand
The print of many a struggling hand
May there be mark'd; nor far remote
A broken torch, an oarless boat;
And tangled on the weeds that heap
The beach where shelving to the deep
There lies a white capote !

"Tis rent in twain-one dark red stain
The wave yet ripples o'er in vain:
But where is he who wore ?
Ye! who would o'er his relics weep,
Go, seek them where the surges sweep
Their burthen round Sigæum's steep
And cast on Lemnos' shore:
The sea-birds shriek above the prey,
O'er which their hungry beaks delay,
As shaken on his restless pillow,

His head heaves with the heaving billow;
That hand whose motion is not life,
Yet feebly seems to menace strife,
Flung by the tossing tide on high,
Then levell'd with the wave*.

What recks it, though that corse shall lie
Within a living grave?

The bird that tears that prostrate form

Hath only robb'd the meaner worm!

The only heart, the only eye

Had bled or wept to see him die,

Had seen those scatter'd limbs composed,

And mourn'd above his turban-stone,†

That heart hath burst-that eye was closed-
Yea-closed before his own!

XXVII.

By Helle's stream there is a voice of wail!

And woman's eye is wet-man's cheek is pale;
Zuleika last of Giaffir's race,

Thy destined lord is come too late:
He sees not-ne'er shall see thy face!

Can he not hear

The loud Wul-wulleh warn his distant ear?

Galt mentions, "While the Salsette lay off the Dardanelles, Lord Byron saw the body of a man who had been executed by being cast into the sea, floating on the stream to and fro with the trembling of the water, which gave to its arma the effect of scaring away several sea-fowl that were hovering to devour."

A turban is carved in stone above the graves of men only.-E.

The death-song of the Turkish women. The silent slaves" are the men whose notions of decorum forbid complaint in public.-B.

Thy handmaids weeping at the gate,
The Koran-chanters of the hymn of fate,
The silent slaves with folded arms that wait,
Sighs in the hall, and shrieks upon the gale,
Tell him thy tale!

Thou didst not view thy Selim fall!

That fearful moment when he left the cave
Thy heart grew chill:

He was thy hope-thy joy-thy love-thine all—
And that last thought on him thou could'st not save
Sufficed to kill;

Burst forth in one wild cry-and all was still.
Peace to thy broken heart, and virgin grave
Ah! happy! but of life to lose the worst!

That grief-though deep-though fatal-was thy first.
Thrice happy! ne'er to feel nor fear the force
Of absence, shame, pride, hate, revenge, remorse!
And, oh! that pang where more than madness lies!
The worm that will not sleep-and never dies;
Thought of the gloomy day and ghastly night,
That dreads the darkness, and yet loathes the light,
That winds around, and tears the quivering heart!
Ah! wherefore not consume it-and depart!
Woe to thee, rash and unrelenting chief!

Vainly thou heap'st the dust upon thy head,
Vainly the sackcloth o'er thy limbs dost spread;
By that same hand Abdallah-Selim bled.
Now let it tear thy beard in idle grief:
Thy pride of heart, thy bride for Osman's bed,
She, whom thy Sultan had but seen to wed,

Thy daughter's dead!

Hope of thine age, thy twilight's lonely beam,
The Star hath set that shone on Helle's stream.
What quench'd its ray ?-the blood that thou hast shed!
Hark to the hurried question of Despair:

"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,
Like early unrequited Love,

One spot exists, which ever blooms,
Ev'n in that deadly grove-

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
Might whirl the leaves on high;

"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,
And hands more rude than wintry sky
May wring it from the stem-in vain-
To-morrow sees it bloom again!
The stalk some spirit gently rears,
And waters with celestial tears;

For well may maids of Helle deem
That this can be no earthly flower,
Which mocks the tempest's withering hour
And buds unshelter'd by a bower;
Nor droops, though spring refuse her shower.
Nor woos the summer beam:
To it the livelong night there sings

A bird unseen-but not remote:
Invisible his airy wings,

But soft as harp that Houri strings,
His long entrancing note!

It were the Bulbul; but his throat,

Though mournful, pours not such a strain

For they who listen cannot leave

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
That melancholy spell,

And longer yet would weep and wake,
He sings so wild and well!

But when the day-blush bursts from high
Expires that magic melody.

And some have been who could believe,
(So fondly youthful dreams deceive,
Yet harsh be they that blame,)
That note so piercing and profound
Will shape and syllable* the sound
Into Zuleika's name.t

'Tis from her cypress summit heard,
That melts in air the liquid word:
"Tis from her lowly virgin earth

That white rose takes its tender birth.
There late was laid a marble stone;
Eve saw it placed-the Morrow gone!
It was no mortal arm that bore
That deep fixed pillar to the shore;
For there, as Helle's legends tell,
Next morn 'twas found where Selim fell;
Lash'd by the tumbling tide, whose wave
Denied his bones a holier grave:

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 Ken. dal, 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, so

Orford's Letters.-B.

And there by night, reclined, 'tis said. Is seen a ghastly turban'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

朗

THE CORSAIR

A TALE.

I suoi pensleri in lui dormir non ponno."
TASSO, Gerusalemme Liberata, canto x

to

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 owr that I feel anxious to avail myself of this latest and only oppor tunity 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, sinca 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 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 sup posed 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