To Brusa's walls for safety sent, The day when Giaffir's charge was o'er. The World,-nay heaven itself, was mine! XIX. 'The shallop of a trusty Moor I long d to see the isles that gem I sought by turns, and saw them all :* Is done, 'twill then be time more meet To tell thee, when the tale's complete. XX. 'Tis true, they are a lawless brood, The wisdom of the cautious Frank- To snatch the Rayahs from their fate. Of equal rights, which man ne'er knew; But be the star that guides the wanderer, Thou! That steals the trembling tear of speechless praise; Dear as his native song to exile's ears, Shall sound each tone thy long-loved voice en dears. For thee in those bright isles is built a bower A thousand swords, with Selim's heart and hand, cease! He makes a solitude, and calls it-peace! *This first of voyages is one of the few with which * The Turkish notions of almost all islands are con- the Mussulmans profess much acquaintance. fined to the Archipelago, the sea alluded to. The wandering life of the Arabs, Tartars, and + Lambro Canzani, a Greek, famous for his efforts Turkomans, will be found well detailed in any book in 1789-90 for the independence of his country. Aban- of Eastern travels. That possesses a charm pecu doned by the Russians, he became a pirate, and the liar to itself, cannot be denied. Archipelago was the scene of his enterprises. He is renegado confessed to Chateaubriand, that he never A young French said to be still alive at St. Petersburg. He and Riga found himself alone, galloping in the desert, without are the two most celebrated of the Greek Revolu- a sensation approaching to rapture, which was inde tionists. Rayahs,' all who pay the capitation tax, called the Haratch." scribable. Jannat al Aden,' the perpetual abode, the Mus sulman paradise. Ours be the last; ia time deceit may come When cities cage us in a social home: Earth-sea alike-our world within our arms! But hence ye thoughts that rise in Horror's shape! This hour bestows, or ever bars escape. Few words remain of mine my tale to close; XXI. 'His head and faith from doubt and death No deed they've done, nor deed shall do, But yet, though thou art plighted mine XXII. Zuleika, mute and motionless, Stood like that statue of distress, When, her last hope for ever gone, 197 'Oh! fly-no more-yet now my more than brother!' Far, wide, through every thicket spread, XXIII. Dauntless he stood-Tis come-soon past- But yet my band not far from shore No matter-yet one effort more.' His pistol's echo rang on high, Despair benumbed her breast and eye!— That sound hath drawn my foes more nigh. Farewell, Zuleika !-Sweet! retire; XXIV. One bound he made, and gain'd the sand A gasping head, a quivering trunk: Wet-wild-unwearied to the strand They struggle-now they touch the land! They come 'tis but to add to slaughterHis heart's best blood is on the water! XXV. Escaped from shot, unharm'd by steel, For her his eye but sought in vain? Hath doom'd his death, or fix'd his chain. Whose voice is heard? whose carbine rang? The son hath found a quicker fate: Fast from his breast the blood is bubbling, 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 But where is he who wore ? And cast on Lemnos' shore: His head heaves with the heaving billow; Then levell'd with the wave- The bird that tears that prostrate form Hath only robb'd the meaner worn ; The only heart, the only eye Had bled or wept to see him die, XXVII. By Helle's stream there is a voice of wail! Thy destined lord is come too late : The loud Wul-wulleh warn his distant ear?t 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 allAnd that last thought on him thou couldst not save Sufficed to kill; Burst forth in one wild cry-and all was still. Peace to thy broken heart, and virgin grave! Thrice happy! ne'er to feel nor fear the force morse! 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! Vainly thou heap'st the dust upon thy head, Thy daughter's dead! Hope of thine age, thy twilights lonely beam, The star hath set that shone on Helle's stream. What quench'd its ray?-the blood that thou hast shed! A turban is carved in stone above the graves of men only. The death-song of the Turkish women. The 'silent slaves' are the men, whose notions of decorum forbid complaint in public. Hark! to the hurried question of Despair: 'Where?'* XXVIII. And yet so sweet the tears they shed, Within the place of thousand tombs That shine beneath, while dark above And withers not, though branch and leaf Its lonely lustre, meek and pale: And yet, though storms and blight assail, May wring it from the stem-in vain- 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 Buibul; but his throat Though mournful, pours not such a strain: 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 And longer yet would weep and wake, He sings so wild and well! But when the day-blush bursts from high, And some have been who could believe, Yet harsh be they that blame), Into Zuleika's name.* 'Tis from her cypress' summit heard, Next morn 'twas found where Selim fell, 'Tis named the 'Pirate-phantom's pillow!" And airy tongues that syllable men's names." MILTON. For a belief that the souls of the dead inhabit the form of birds, we need not travel to the East. Lord Lyttelton'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 Reminiscences), and many other instances, bring this superwhim of a Worcester lady, who, believing her stition nearer home. The most singular was the daughter to exist in the shape of a singing bird, The above quotation (from which the idea in the full of the kind; and as she was rich, and a beneliterally furnished her pew in the cathedral with cages text is taken) must be already familiar to every reader factress in beautifying the church, no objection was -it is given in the first annotation, p. 67, of The made to her harmless folly. For this anecdote, see Pleasures of Memory: a poem so well known as to Orford's Letters. render a reference almost superfluous, but to whose pages all will be delighted to recur. Arabic MS. THE CORSAIR. 1814. 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 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 intention 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 best 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, his obedient servant, Fanuary 2, 1814. BYRON. |