Its love for ever shut from thee.
There is a light cloud by the moon-
'Tis passing, and will pass full soon-
If, by the time its vapoury sail
Hath ceased her shaded orb to veil,
Thy heart within thee is not changed,
Then God and man are both avenged;
Dark will thy doom be, darker still
Thine immortality of ill."

Alp looked to heaven, and saw on high
The sign she spake of in the sky;

650

1. I have been told that the idea expressed in this and the five following lines has been admired by those whose approbation is valuable. I am glad of it; but it is not original-at least not mine; it may be found much better expressed in pages 182-3-4 of the English version of "Vathek" (I forget the precise page of the French), a work to which I have before referred; and never recur to, or read, without a renewal of gratification.-[The following is the passage: "Deluded prince!' said the Genius, addressing the Caliph 'This moment is the last, of grace, allowed thee:.. give back Nouronihar to her father, who still retains a few sparks of life: destroy thy tower, with all its abominations: drive Carathis from thy councils: be just to thy subjects: respect the ministers of the Prophet: compensate for thy impieties by an exemplary life; and, instead of squandering thy days in voluptuous indulgence, lament thy crimes on the sepulchres of thy ancestors. holdest the clouds that obscure the sun at the instant he recovers his splendour, if thy heart be not changed, the time of mercy assigned thee will be past for ever.'

Thou be

"Vathek, depressed with fear, was on the point of prostrating himself at the feet of the shepherd... but, his pride prevailing . . . he said, 'Whoever thou art, withhold thy useless admonitions.

If what I have done be so criminal. . . there remains not for me a moment of grace. I have traversed a sea of blood to acquire a power which will make thy equals tremble; deem not that I shall retire when in view of the port; or that I will relinquish her who is dearer to me than either my life or thy mercy. Let the sun appear! let him illumine my career! it matters not where it may end!' On uttering these words. . . Vathek . . . commanded that his horses should be forced back to the road.

"There was no difficulty in obeying these orders; for the attraction had ceased; the sun shone forth in all his glory, and the shepherd vanished with a lamentable scream" (ed. 1786, pp. 183-185).]

But his heart was swollen, and turned aside,
By deep interminable pride.

This first false passion of his breast
Rolled like a torrent o'er the rest.
He sue for mercy! He dismayed
By wild words of a timid maid!

He, wronged by Venice, vow to save

Her sons, devoted to the grave!

660

No-though that cloud were thunder's worst,

And charged to crush him-let it burst!

He looked upon it earnestly,
Without an accent of reply;

He watched it passing; it is flown:
Full on his eye the clear moon shone,
And thus he spake—“Whate'er my fate,
I am no changeling-'tis too late:

The reed in storms may bow and quiver,
Then rise again; the tree must shiver.
What Venice made me, I must be,
Her foe in all, save love to thee:
But thou art safe: oh, fly with me!"
He turned, but she is gone!

Nothing is there but the column stone.

Hath she sunk in the earth, or melted in air?
He saw not-he knew not-but nothing is there.

670

XXII.

The night is past, and shines the sun

As if that morn were a jocund one.1

Lightly and brightly breaks away

By rooted and unhallowed pride.-[MS. G. erased.]

I. [Leave out this couplet.-GIFFORD.]

680

The Morning from her mantle grey,'

And the Noon will look on a sultry day.

Hark to the trump, and the drum,

And the mournful sound of the barbarous horn,
And the flap of the banners, that flit as they're borne,

And the neigh of the steed, and the multitude's hum,

And the clash, and the shout, "They come ! they come !" The horsetails are plucked from the ground, and the

sword

3

From its sheath; and they form, and but wait for the

word.

Tartar, and Spahi, and Turcoman,

Strike your tents, and throng to the van;

Mount ye, spur ye, skirr the plain,*

That the fugitive may flee in vain,

When he breaks from the town; and none escape,
Agéd or young, in the Christian shape;

While your fellows on foot, in a fiery mass,
Bloodstain the breach through which they pass.

1. [Compare

690

"While the still morn went out with sandals grey." Lycidas, line 187.]

2. [Strike out—

-GIFFORD.]

"And the Noon will look on a sultry day."

3. The horsetails, fixed upon a lance, a pacha's standard. ["When the vizir appears in public, three thoughs, or horse-tails, fastened to a long staff, with a large gold ball at top, is borne before him."-Mœurs des Ottomans, par A. L. Castellan (Translated, 1821), iv. 7.

Compare Childe Harold, Canto II., "Albanian War-Song," stanza io, line 2; and Bride of Abydos, line 714 (vide ante, p. 189).] 4. [Compare

5. [Omit

"Send out moe horses, skirr the country round."
Macbeth, act v. sc. 3, line 35.]
"While your fellows on foot, in a fiery mass,
Bloodstain the breach through which they pass."

-GIFFORD.]

The steeds are all bridled, and snort to the rein;
Curved is each neck, and flowing each mane;
White is the foam of their champ on the bit;

700

The spears are uplifted; the matches are lit;

The cannon are pointed, and ready to roar,
And crush the wall they have crumbled before:1
Forms in his phalanx each Janizar;

Alp at their head; his right arm is bare,
So is the blade of his scimitar;

The Khan and the Pachas are all at their post:
The Vizier himself at the head of the host.

When the culverin's signal is fired, then on;
Leave not in Corinth a living one-

A priest at her altars, a chief in her halls,

A hearth in her mansions, a stone on her walls.
God and the prophet-Alla Hu! 2

Up to the skies with that wild halloo !

710

"There the breach lies for passage, the ladder to scale;
And your hands on your sabres, and how should ye fail?
He who first downs with the red cross may crave 3
His heart's dearest wish; let him ask it, and have!"
Thus uttered Coumourgi, the dauntless Vizier; 1

4

1. [" And crush the wall they have shaken before."-GIFFORD.] 2. [Compare The Giaour, line 734 (vide ante, p. 120)— "At solemn sound of 'Alla Hu!'"

And Don Juan, Canto VIII. stanza viii.]

3. ["He who first downs with the red cross may crave," etc. What vulgarism is this !—

-Gifford.]

"He who lowers,—or plucks down," etc.

4. [The historian, George Finlay, who met and frequently conversed with Byron at Mesalonghi, with a view to illustrating "Lord Byron's Siege of Corinth," subjoins in a note the full text of "the summons sent by the grand vizier, and the answer." (See Finlay's Greece under Othoman and Venetian Domination, 1856, p. 266, note I; and, for the original authority, see Brue's Journal de la Campagne,. .. en 1715, Paris, 1871, p. 18.)]

VOL. III.

2 I

The reply was the brandish of sabre and spear, 720
And the shout of fierce thousands in joyous ire :-
Silence-hark to the signal-fire!

XXIII.

As the wolves, that headlong go

On the stately buffalo,

Though with fiery eyes, and angry roar,

And hoofs that stamp, and horns that gore,

He tramples on earth, or tosses on high

The foremost, who rush on his strength but to die
Thus against the wall they went,

Thus the first were backward bent;1

Many a bosom, sheathed in brass,
Strewed the earth like broken glass,"
Shivered by the shot, that tore

The ground whereon they moved no more:
Even as they fell, in files they lay,

Like the mower's grass at the close of day,"
When his work is done on the levelled plain;
Such was the fall of the foremost slain.2

730

1.

XXIV.

As the spring-tides, with heavy plash,
From the cliffs invading dash

Huge fragments, sapped by the ceaseless flow,
Till white and thundering down they go,

i. With such volley yields like glass.—[MS. G. erased.]
ii. Like the mower's ridge

-GIFFORD.]

-.—[MS. G. erased.]

["Thus against the wall they bent,

Thus the first were backward sent."

2. ["Such was the fall of the foremost train."-GIFFORD.]

740