Yet did I love thee to the last

As fervently as thon,

Who didst not change through all the past,

And canst not alter now.

The love where Death has set his seal,
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,

Nor falsehood disavow:

And, what were worse, thou canst not see
Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.

The better days of life were ours;
The worst can be but mine:

The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,
Shall never more be thine.

The silence of that dreamless sleep

I envy now too much to weep;

Nor need I to repine

That all those charms have passed away; I might have watched through long decay.

The flower in ripened bloom unmatched
Must fall the earliest prey;
Though by no hand untimely snatched,
The leaves must drop away:

And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it plucked to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.

I know not if I could have borne

To see thy beauties fade;

The night that followed such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade:

Thy day without a cloud hath past,
And thou wert lovely to the last;
Extinguished, not decayed;
As stars that shoot along the sky
Shine brightest as they fall from

As once I wept, if I could weep

My tears might well be shed,
To think I was not near to keep
One vigil o'er thy bed;

To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,
Uphold thy drooping head;
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.

Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain,
Than thus remember thee!

The all of thine that cannot die
Through dark and dread Eternity,
Returns again to me,

And more thy buried love endears
Than aught, except its living years.

CHAPTER III.

THE success of Childe Harold' placed Lord Byron upon a very different footing in the literary world from that which he had occupied before his travels, while even the members of the aristocracy courted his society, and were glad to recognise him as one of their own body. Upon this occasion they had good taste and good sense enough to perceive that genius like that of the noble poct seldom blossomed among them; and that, when it did, they ought to prize it no less for its intrinsic value than for its rarity. Lord Byron, however, was too deeply penetrated with a sense of other and more really noble pursuits, to catch very eagerly at the temptation which was held out to him. The circle of his acquaintance was but little increased; he usually lived in comparative retirement; and, when he mixed in the gay world, it was only by assisting at the parties of his relations and the very limited number of his most intimate friends.

For several years after his arrival in London he occupied chambers in the Albany, where his establishment was extremely quiet, and, in the French sense of the word, modeste, His only domestics were a

female servant, and Fletcher, his valet, who had been his servant at college, who had accompanied him on his travels, and who never quitted him from the moment of entering his service until that which, by terminating the life of the master, deprived the follower of his best and kindest friend.

Lord Byron devoted himself almost entirely to literary pursuits, and, among other things, to the completion of some of those poetical sketches which he had made in the East. The first of these which he gave to the public was the tale of the Giaour,' which is one of the most original and spirited of his productio ns.

The story is that of a young Venetian, who, at the time when the Seven Islands were in the possession of the republic of Venice, had become enamoured of Leila, the favorite slave of Hassan, a rich emir. His suit had been prosperous, and he had for a time succeeded in baffling the jealous vigilance of her lord. This, however, could not continue for a very long period. Hassan's discovery of the infidelity of Leila is followed by the infliction of that summary vengeance, which, if it does not make the females of the East more virtuous, at least prevents the frequent repetition of their offences. The lover being beyond his reach, he, according to the most approved eastern method in such cases, had the hapless fair fastened up in a sack, and, carrying her in a boat to where the channeled waters' are dark and deep, sunk it into the dark and shuddering flood. The lover of the murdered beauty, distracted at the news of his mistress's fate, resolves at least to avenge that which he could not avert. He leagues himself with a band of Arnaouts, and, attacking Hassan and his train, as the latter is on a journey to woo a rich and youthful bride, he slays him in the desert, and tells him it is for Leila that he strikes the blow. After having satisfied his vengeance he retires to a monastery, where, after living some years of agony, he dies; but, before his death, discloses to one of the brotherhood the tale of his love, his grief, and his revenge.

Lord Byron says he heard this story, by accident, recited in a coffeehouse in the Levant, by one of those professional story-tellers who bound there, and who partly sing, and partly recite, their narratives. He adds modestly, the additions and interpolations by the translator will easily be distinguished from the rest by the want of eastern imagery. and I regret that my memory has retained so few fragments of the original.'

Perhaps to the impression which this disjointed manner of hearing the story, and the additional beauties which the invention of the poet

supplied, may be ascribed the broken manner in which the poem is written. The transitions are abrupt, but they are always highly effective; and, although in no place the thread of the narrative is kept up, it is in no place obscure or unintelligible.

The poem opens with a description of modern Greece, which has been so often quoted, and so highly praised, that it is now merely necessary to draw the reader's attention to it:

He who hath bent him o'er the dead
Ere the first day of death is fled,
The first dark day of nothingness,

The last of danger and distress,
(Before Decay's effacing fingers

Have swept the lines where beauty lingers,)
And marked the mild angelic air,

The rapture of repose, that's there,

The fixed yet tender traits that streak
The langour of the placid cheek,
And-but for that sad shrouded eye,

That fires not, wins not, weeps not, now,
And but for that chill changeless brow,
Where cold Obstruction's apathy
Appals the gazing mourner's heart,
As if to him it could impart

The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon;
Yes, but for these, and these alone,
Some moments, ay, one treacherous hour,
He still might doubt the tyrant's power;
So fair, so calm, so softly sealed,
The first, last look by death revealed!
Such is the aspect of this shore;
'Tis Greece, but living Greece no more!
So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,
We start, for soul is wanting there.

Hers is the loveliness in death,

That parts not quite with parting breath;

But beauty with that fearful bloom,
That hue which haunts it to the tomb,

Expression's last receding ray,

A gilded halo hovering round decay,
The farewell beam of Feeling past away!
Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly birth,
Which gleams, but warms no more its cherished earth.
Clime of the unforgotten brave!

Whose land from plain to mountain-cave
Was Freedom's home or Glory's grave!
Shrine of the mighty! can it be,
That this is all remains of thee?
Approach, thou craven crouching slave!
Say, is not this Thermopyla?
These waters blue that round you lave,
Oh, servile offspring of the free!
Pronounce what sea, what shore, is this-
The gulf, the rock, of Salamis !

These scenes, their story not unknown,
Arise, and make again your own;
Snatch from the ashes of your sires
The embers of their former fires;
And he who in the strife expires
Will add to theirs a name of fear
That Tyranny shall quake to hear,
And leave his sons a hope, a fame,
They too will rather die than shame:
For, Freedom's battle, once begun,
Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, is ever won.
Bear witness, Greece, thy living page,
Attest it many a deathless age!
While kings, in dusty darkness hid,
Have left a nameless pyramid,
Thy heroes, though the general doom
Hath swept the column from their tomb
A mightier monument command,
The mountains of their native land!
There points thy Muse to stranger's eye
The graves of those that cannot die!