A beauty at the season's close grown hectic,
A genius who has drunk himself to death,

A rake turn'd methodistic, or eclectic

(For that's the name they like to pray beneath)But most, an alderman struck apoplectic,

Are things that really take away the breath, And show that late hours, wine, and love, are able To do not much less damage than the table. LXVII.

Haidée and Juan carpeted their feet

On crimson satin, border'd with pale blue; Their sofa cccupied three parts complete

Of the apartment, and appear'd quite new; The velvet cushions (for a throne more meet) Were scarlet, from whose glowing centre grew A sun emboss' in gold, whose rays of tissue, Meridian-like, were seen all light to issue.

LXVIII.

Crystal and marble, plate and porcelain,

Had done their work of splendour; Indian mats And Persian carpets, which the heart bled to stain, Over the floors were spread; gazelles and cats, And dwarfs and blacks, and such like things, that gain

Their bread as ministers and favourites (that's To say, by degradation), mingled there As plentiful as in a court or fair,

This dress is Moorish, and the bracelets and bar are worn in the manner described. The reader will perceive hereafter, that as the mother of Haidée was of Fez, her daughter wore the garb of the country.

The bar of gold above the instep is a mark of sovereign rank in the women of the families of the Deys, and is worn as such by their female relatives.

This is no exaggeration: there were four women, whom I remember to have seen, who possessed their hair in this profusion; of these, three were English, the other was a Levantine. The hair was of that length and quantity, that, when let down, it almost entirely shaded the person, so as nearly to render dress a superfluity. Of these, only one had dark hair; the Oriental's had, perhaps, the lightest colour of the four,

LXXIV. Round her she made an atmosphere of life, The very air seem'd lighter from her eyes, They were so soft and beautiful, and rife With all we can imagine of the skies, And pure as Psyche ere she grew a wifeToo pure even for the purest human ties; Her overpowering presence made you feel It would not be idolatry to kneel.

LXXV.

Her eyelashes, though dark as night, were tinged
(It is the country's custom), but in vain;
For those large black eyes were so blackly fringed,
The glossy rebels mock'd the jetty stain,
And in their native beauty stood avenged.

Her nails were touch'd with henna; but again The power of art was turn'd to nothing, for They could not look more rosy than before.

LXXVI.

The henna should be deeply dyed to make
The skin relieved appear more fairly fair:
She had no need of this; day ne'er will break
On mountain-tops more heavenly white than her;
The eye might doubt if it were well awake,
She was so like a vision; I might err,
But Shakspeare also says, 'tis very silly,
To gild refined gold, or paint the lily.'

LXXVII.

Juan had on a shawl of black and gold,
But a white baracan, and so transparent,
The sparkling gems beneath you might behold,
Like small stars through the milky-way ap
parent;

His turban, furl'd in many a graceful fold,

An emerald aigrette, with Haidée's hair in't, Surmounted; as its clasp, a glowing crescent, Whose rays shone ever trembling, but incessant.

LXXVIII.

And now they were diverted by their suite,

Dwarfs, dancing girls, black eunuchs, and a poet, Which made their new establishment complete : The last was of great fame, and liked to show it. His verses rarely wanted their due feet;

And for his theme, he seldom sung below it, He being paid to satirize or flatter,

As the psalm says, 'inditing a good matter.'

LXXIX.

He praised the present, and abused the past,
Reversing the good custom of old days;
An eastern anti-Jacobin at last

He turn'd, preferring pudding to no praise--
For some few years his lot had been o'ercast
By his seeming independent in his lays;
But now he sung the Sultan and the Pasha,
With truth like Southey, and with verse like
Crashaw.

LXXX.

He was a man who had seen many changes,
And always changed as true as any needle;
His polar star being one which rather ranges,
And not the fix'd-he knew the way to wheedle:
So vile he 'scaped the doom which oft avenges;
And being fluent (save indeed when fee'd ill,)

He lied with such a fervour of intention,
There was no doubt he earn'd his laureate pension.

LXXXI.

But he had genius,-when a turn-coat has it,
The Vates irritabilis' takes care

That without notice few full moons shall pass it;
Even good men like to make the public stare.
But to my subject-let me see-what was it?-
Oh!--the third canto-and the pretty pair-
Their loves, and feasts, and house, and dress,
Of living in their insular abode.
[and mode

LXXXII.

Their poet, a sad trimmer, but no less
In company a very pleasant fellow,
Had been the favourite of full many a mess

Of men, and made them speeches when half mellow;

And though his meaning they could rarely guess,
Yet still they deign'd to hiccup or to bellow
The glorious meed of popular applause,
Of which the first ne'er knows the second's cause.
LXXXIII.

But now, being lifted into high society,

And having pick'd up several odds and ends Of free thoughts in his travels, for variety,

He deem'd, being in a lone isle among friends, That without any danger of a riot, he

Might for long lying make himself amends; And singing as he sung in his warm youth, Agree to a short armistice with truth.

LXXXIV.

He had travell'd 'mongst the Arabs, Turks, and Franks,

And knew the self-loves of the different nations; And having lived with people of all ranks,

Had something ready upon most occasions-
Which got him a few presents and some thanks.
He varied with some skill his adulations;
To do at Rome as Romans do,' a piece
Of conduct was which he observed in Greece.
LXXXV.

Thus usually when he was ask'd to sing,

He gave the different nations something national; 'Twas all the same to him-'God save the king,' Or 'Ca ira,' according to the fashion all: His muse made increment of anything,

From the high lyric down to the low rational; If Pindar sang horse-races, what should hinder Himself from being as pliable as Pindar?

LXXXVI.

In France, for instance, he would write a chanson;
In England, a six-canto quarto tale;
In Spain, he'd make a ballad or romance on
The last war-much the same in Portugal;
In Germany, the Pegasus he'd prance on

Would be old Goethe's (see what says De Stael); In Italy he'd ape the Trecentisti ;'

In Greece he'd sing some sort of hymn like this t'ye;

The isles of Greece! the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,

Where Delos rose and Phoebus sprung!

Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.

The Scian and the Teian muse,1
The hero's harp, the lover's lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse;
Their place of birth alone is mute
To sounds which echo further west
Than your sires' 'Islands of the Blest."*
The mountains look on Marathon,

And Marathon looks on the sea:
And musing there an hour alone,

I dream'd that Greece might still be free; For, standing on the Persian's grave, I could not deem myself a slave.

A king sat on the rocky brow

Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; And ships, by thousands, lay below, And men in nations;-all were his ! He counted them at break of day, And when the sun set where were they?t And where are they? and where art thou, My country? On thy voiceless shore

The heroic lay is tuneless now

The heroic bosom beats no more!
And must thy lyre, so long divine,
Degenerate into hands like mine?
'Tis something, in the dearth of fame,
Though link'd among a fetter'd race,
To feel at least a patriot's shame,
Even as I sing, suffuse my face;
For what is left the poet here?
For Greeks a blush-for Greece a tear.
Must we but weep o'er days more blest?
Must we but blush?-Our fathers bled.
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopyla!
What, silent still? and silent all?

Ah, no: the voices of the dead
Sound like a distant torrent's fall,

And answer, 'Let one living head, But one, arise-we come, we come!' 'Tis but the living who are dumb.

In vain-in vain: strike other chords:
Fill high the cup with Samian wine!
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,

And shed the blood of Scio's vine!
Hark! rising to the ignoble call,
How answers each bold Bacchanal?
You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet;
Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
Of two such lessons, why forget

The nobler and the manlier one?

Supposed to be the Cape de Verde islands, or the Canaries.

+ 'Deep were the groans of Xerxes, when he saw
This havoc; for his seat, a lofty mound
Commanding the wide sea, o'erlook'd the hosts.
With rueful cries he rent his royal robes,
And through his troops embattled on the shore
Gave signal of retreat; then started wild
And fled disorder'd.'-ÆSCHYLUS.

You have the letters Cadmus gave-
Think ye he meant them for a slave?
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
We will not think of themes like these!
It made Anacreon's song divine:

He served-but served Polycrates-
A tyrant; but our masters then
Were still, at least, our countrymen.
The tyrant of the Chersonese

Was freedom's best and bravest friend; That tyrant was Miltiades!

Oh, that the present hour would lend
Another despot of the kind!
Such chains as his were sure to bind.
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
On Suli's rock and Parga's shore,
Exists the remnant of a line

Such as the Doric mothers bore:
And there, perhaps, some seed is sown,
The Heracleidan blood might own.
Trust not for freedom to the Franks-
They have a king who buys and sells :
In native swords and native ranks,
The only hope of courage dwells;'
But Turkish force and Latin fraud
Would break your shield, however broad.
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
Our virgins dance beneath the shade-
I see their glorious black eyes shine;
But, gazing on each glowing maid,
My own the burning tear-drop laves,
To think such breasts must suckle slaves.
Place me on Sunium's marbled steep,

Where nothing, save the waves and I, May hear our mutual murmurs sweep: There, swan-like, let me sing and die! A land of slaves shall ne'er be mineDash down yon cup of Samian wine! LXXXVII.

Thus sung, or would, or could, or should have sung,

The modern Greek, in tolerable verse; If not like Orpheus quite, when Greece was young, Yet in these times he might have done much

worse:

His strain display'd some feeling-right or wrong;
And feeling, in a poet, is the source

Of others' feeling; but they are such liars,
And take all colours-like the hands of dyers,
LXXXVIII.

But words are things; and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew, upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions,
think:

'Tis strange, the shortest letter which man uses Instead of speech, may form a lasting link

Of ages; to what straits old Time reduces Frail man, when paper-even a rag like thisSurvives himself, his tomb, and all that's his!

LXXXIX. And when his bones are dust, his grave a blank, His station, generation, even his nation,

Are gather'd round us by thy look of rest;
Thou bring'st the child, too, to the mother's breast.
CVIII.

Soft hour! which wakes the wish and melts the heart

Of those who sail the seas, on the first day
When they from their sweet friends are torn apart;
Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way,
As the far bell of vesper makes him start,
Seeming to weep the dying day's decay;
Is this a fancy which our reason scorns?
Ah! surely nothing dies but something mourns.*
CIX.

When Nero perish'd by the justest doom,
Which ever the destroyer yet destroy'd,
Amidst the roar of liberated Rome,

Of nations freed, and the world overjoy'd, Some hands unseen strew'd flowers upon his tomb:t

Perhaps the weakness of a heart not void
Of feeling for some kindness done, when power
Had left the wretch an uncorrupted hour.

CX.

But I'm digressing: what on earth has Nero,
Or any such like sovereign buffoons,

To do with the transactions of my hero,

More than such madmen's fellow-man-the moon's?

Sure my invention must be down at zero,

And I grown one of many wooden spoons' Of verse (the name with which we Cantabs please To dub the last of honours in degrees.)

CXI.

I feel this tediousness will never do-
'Tis being too epic, and I must cut down
(In copying) this long canto into two:

They'll never find it out, unless I own
The fact, excepting some experienced few:
And then as an improvement 'twill be shown:
I'll prove that such the opinion of the critic is,
From Aristotle passim.-See Пointekns.

*'Era gia l' ora che volge 'l disio,
A' naviganti, e 'ntenerisce il cuore,
Lo di ch' han detto a' dolci amici a dio ;
E che lo nuovo peregrin' d'amore
Punge, se ode Squilla di lontano,
Che paia 'l giorno pianger che si muore.'
DANTE'S Purgatory, canto viii.
† See 'Suetonius' for this fact.