Sullen it plunged, and slowly sank, The calm wave rippled to the bank; I watch'd it as it sank, methought Some motion from the current caught Bestirr'd it more,-'twas but the beam That checker'd o'er the living stream: I gazed, till vanishing from view, Like lessening pebble it withdrew; Still less and less, a speck of white

That gemm'd the tide, then mock'd the sight;
And all its hidden secrets sleep,
Known but to Genii of the deep,
Which, trembling in their coral caves,
They dare not whisper to the waves.

As rising on its purple wing
The insect-queen' of eastern spring,
O'er emerald meadows of Kashmeer
Invites the young pursuer near,
And leads him on from flower to flower
A weary chase and wasted hour,
Then leaves him, as it soars on high,
With panting heart and tearful eye:
So Beauty lures the full-grown child,
With hue as bright, and wing as wild;
A chase of idle hopes and fears,
Begun in folly, closed in tears.
If won, to equal ills betray'd,'
Wo waits the insect and the maid;
A life of pain, the loss of peace,
From infant's play, and man's caprice:
The lovely toy so fiercely sought
Hath lost its charm by being caught,
For every touch that woo'd its stay
Hath brush'd its brightest hues away,
Till charm, and hue, and beauty gone,
Tis left to fly or fall alone.

With wounded wing, or bleeding breast,
Ah! where shall either victim rest?
Can this with faded pinion soar
From rose to tulip as before?
Or Beauty, blighted in an hour,
Find joy within her broken bower?
No: gayer insects fluttering by

Ne'er droop the wing o'er those that die,
And lovelier things have mercy shown
To every failing but their own,
And every wo a tear can claim
Except an erring sister's shame.

The Mind, that broods o'er guilty woes,
Is like the Scorpion girt by fire,

In circle narrowing as it glows,*
The flames around their captive close,

'The blue-winged butterfly of Kashmeer, the most rare and beautiful of the species.

[If caught, to fate alike betrayed."-MS.]

[Mr. Dallas says, that Lord Byron assured him that the paragraph containing the simile of the scorpion was imagined in his sleep. It forms, therefore, a pendant to the psychological curiosity," beginning with those exquisitely musical lines:

"A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw ;
It was an Abyssinian maid," &c.

Till inly search'd by thousand throes,
And maddening in her ire,
One sad and sole relief she knows,
The sting she nourish'd for her foes,
Whose venom never yet was vain,
Gives but one pang, and cures all pain,
And darts into her desperate brain:
So do the dark in soul expire,

Or live like Scorpion girt by fire;

So writhes the mind Remorse hath riven,
Unfit for earth, undoom'd for heaven,
Darkness above, despair beneath,
Around it flame, within it death!

Black Hassan from the Harem flies, Nor bends on woman's form his eyes; The unwonted chase each hour employs, Yet shares he not the hunter's joys. Not thus was Hassan wont to fly When Leila dwelt in his Serai. Doth Leila there no longer dwell? That tale can only Hassan tell : Strange rumors in our city say Upon that eve she fled away When Rhamazan's' last sun was set, And flashing from each minaret Millions of lamps proclaim'd the feast Of Bairam through the boundless East. "Twas then she went as to the bath, Which Hassan vainly search'd in wrath; For she was flown her master's rage In likeness of a Georgian page, And far beyond the Moslem's power Had wrong'd him with the faithless Giaour. Somewhat of this had Hassan deem'd; But still so fond, so fair she seem'd, Too well he trusted to the slave Whose treachery deserved a grave: And on that eve had gone to mosque, And thence to feast in his kiosk. Such is the tale his Nubians tell, Who did not watch their charge too well; But others say, that on that night, By pale Phingari's trembling light, The Giaour upon his jet-black steed Was seen, but seen alone to speed With bloody spur along the shore, Nor maid nor page behind him bore.

Her eye's dark charm 'twere vain to tell,

But gaze on that of the Gazelle,

It will assist thy fancy well;

As large, as languishingly dark,

But Soul beam'd forth in every spark

4 ["The gathering flames around her close."-MS.] Alluding to the dubious suicide of the scorpion, so placed for experiment by gentle philosophers. Some maintain that the position of the sting, when turned towards the head, is merely a convulsive movement; but others have actually brought in the verdict "Felo de se." The scorpions are surely interested in a speedy decision of the question; as, if once fairly established as insect Catos, they will probably be allowed to live as long as they think proper, without being martyred for the sake of an hypothesis.

6[" So writhes the mind by Conscience riven."-MS.] 7 The cannon at sunset close the Rhamazan. See antè,

• Phingari, the moon.

That darted from beneath the lid,
Bright as the jewel of Giamschid.'
Yea, Soul, and should our prophet say
That form was naught but breathing clay,
By Alla! I would answer nay;
Though on Al-Sirat's arch I stood,
Which totters o'er the fiery flood,
With Paradise within my view,
And all his Houris3 beckoning through.
Oh! who young Leila's glance could read
And keep that portion of his creed,
Which saith that woman is but dust,
A soulless toy for tyrant's lust?
On her might Muftis gaze, and own
That through her eye the Immortal shone;
On her fair cheek's unfading hue

The young pomegranate's blossoms strew
Their bloom in blushes ever new;
Her hair in hyacinthine flow,
When left to roll its folds below,
As midst her handmaids in the hall
She stood superior to them all,
Hath swept the marble where her feet
Gleam'd whiter than the mountain sleet
Ere from the cloud that gave it birth
It fell, and caught one stain of earth.
The cygnet nobly walks the water;
So moved on earth Circassia's daughter,
The loveliest bird of Franguestan!"
As rears her crest the ruffled Swan,

And spurns the wave with wings of pride, When pass the steps of stranger man

Along the banks that bound her tide; Thus rose fair Leila's whiter neck :Thus arm'd with beauty would she check Intrusion's glance, till Folly's gaze

Shrunk from the charms it meant to praise :
Thus high and graceful was her gait;
Her heart as tender to her mate;
Her mate-stern Hassan, who was he?
Alas! that name was not for thee!

Stern Hassan hath a journey ta'en With twenty vassals in his train, Each arm'd, as best becomes a man, With arquebuss and ataghan; The chief before, as deck'd for war, Bears in his belt the scimitar

Stain'd with the best of Arnaut blood,
When in the pass the rebels stood,
And few return'd to tell the tale

Of what befell in Parne's vale.

The pistols which his girdle bore
Were those that once a pasha wore,

Which still, though gemm'd and boss'd with gold,
Even robbers tremble to behold.

"Tis said he goes to woo a bride

More true than her who left his side;

The faithless slave that broke her bower,
And, worse than faithless, for a Giaour!

The sun's last rays are on the hill, And sparkle in the fountain rill, Whose welcome waters, cool and clear, Draw blessings from the mountaineer: Here may the loitering merchant Greek Find that repose 'twere vain to seek In cities lodged too near his lord, And trembling for his secret hoard— Here may he rest where none can see, In crowds a slave, in deserts free; And with forbidden wine may stain The bowl a Moslem must not drain.

The foremost Tartar's in the gap, Conspicuous by his yellow cap; The rest in lengthening line the while Wind slowly through the long defile: Above, the mountain rears a peak, Where vultures whet the thirsty beak, And theirs may be a feast to-night, Shall tempt them down ere morrow's light; Beneath, a river's wintry stream Has shrunk before the summer beam, And left a channel bleak and bare, Save shrubs that spring to perish there: Each side the midway path there lay Small broken crags of granite gray, By time, or mountain lightning, riven From summits clad in mists of heaven; For where is he that hath beheld The peak of Liakura unveil'd?

*

1 The celebrated fabulous ruby of Sultan Giamschid, the embellisher of Istakhar: from its splendor, named Schebgerag, "the torch of night;" also "the cup of the sun," &c. In the first edition, "Giamschid" was written as a word of three syllables; so D'Herbelot has it; but I am told Richardson reduces it to a dissyllable, and writes "Jamshid." I have left in the text the orthography of the one with the pronunciation of the other.-In the first edition, Lord Byron had used this word as a trisyllable,-" Bright as the gem of Giamschid,"-but, on my remarking to him, upon the authority of Richardson's Persian Dictionary, that this was incorrect, he altered it to "Bright as the ruby of Giamschid." On seeing this, however, I wrote to him, "that, as the comparison of his heroine's eye to a ruby might unluckily call up the idea of its being bloodshot, he had better change the line to "Bright as the jewel of Giamschid" which he accordingly did, in the following edition. MOORE.]

2 Al-Sirat, the bridge of breadth, narrower than the thread of a famished spider, and sharper than the edge of a sword, over which the Mussulinans must skate into Paradise, to which it is the only entrance; but this is not the worst, the river beneath being hell itself, into which, as may be expected, the unskilful and tender of foot contrive

to tumble with a "facilis descensus Averni," not very pleasing in prospect to the next passenger. There is a shorter cut downwards for the Jews and Christians.

3 [The virgins of Paradise, called from their large black eyes, Hur al oyun. An intercourse with these, according to the institution of Mahomet, is to constitute the principal felicity of the faithful. Not formed of clay, like mortal women, they are adorned with unfading charms, and deemed to possess the celestial privilege of an eternal youth. See D'Herbelot, and Sale's Koran }

A vulgar error: the Koran allots at least a third of Paradise to well-behaved women; but by far the greater number of Mussulmans interpret the text their own way, and exclude their moieties from heaven. Being enemies to Platonics, they cannot discern "any fitness of things" in the souls of the other sex, conceiving them to be superseded by the Houris.

5 An oriental simile, which may, perhaps, though fairly stolen, be deemed "plus Arabe qu'en Arabie."

6 Hyacinthine, in Arabic "Sunbul;" as common a thought in the eastern poets as it was among the Greeks. "Franguestan," Circassia.

They reach the grove of pine at last : "Bismillah! now the peril's past; For yonder view the opening plain, And there we'll prick our steeds amain:" The Chiaus spake, and as he said, A ballet whistled o'er his head; The foremost Tartar bites the ground!2

Scarce had they time to check the rein,
Swift from their steeds the riders bound;
But three shall never mount again:
Unseen the foes that gave the wound,
The dying ask revenge in vain.

With steel unsheath'd, and carbine bent,
Some o'er their courser's harness leant,
Half shelter'd by the steed;
Some fly behind the nearest rock,
And there await the coming shock,
Nor tamely stand to bleed
Beneath the shaft of foes unseen,
Wao dare not quit their craggy screen.
Stern Hassan only from his horse
Disdains to light, and keeps his course,
Til fiery flashes in the van
Proclaim too sure the robber-clan
Have well secured the only way
Could now avail the promised prey;
Then curl'd his very beard' with ire,
And glared his eye with fiercer fire:

Though far and near the bullets hiss,
I've 'scaped a bloodier hour than this.”
And now the foe their covert quit,
And call his vassals to submit ;
But Hassan's frown and furious word
Are dreaded more than hostile sword,
Nor of his little band a man
Resign'd carbine or ataghan,
Nor raised the craven cry, Amaun!*
In fuller sight, more near and near,
The lately ambush'd foes appear,
And, issuing from the grove, advance
Some who on battle-charger prance.
Who leads them on with foreign brand,
Far flashing in his red right hand?

Tis he! 'tis he! I know him now;
I know him by his pallid brow;
I know him by the evil eyes
That aids his envious treachery;
I know him by his jet-black barb:
Though now array'd in Arnaut garb,
Apostate from his own vile faith,
It shall not save him from the death:
Tis he! well met in any hour,
Lost Leila's love, accursed Giaour!"

As rolls the river into ocean,
In sable torrent wildly streaming;

As the sea-tide's opposing motion, In azure column proudly gleaming, Beats back the current many a rood, In curling foam and mingling flood,

Bismillah-"In the name of God;" the commencement of all the chapters of the Koran but one, and of prayer and thanksgiving.

["Scarce had they time to check the rein,

The foremost Tartar bites the plain."- MS.]

A phenomenon not uncommon with an angry Mussulman. In 189, the Capitan Pacha's whiskers at a diplomatic audience were no less lively with indignation than a tiger cat's, to the horror of all the dragomans; the portentous mustachios twisted, they stood erect of their own accord,

While eddying whirl, and breaking wave,
Roused by the blast of winter, rave;
Through sparkling spray, in thundering clash,
The lightnings of the waters flash

In awful whiteness o'er the shore,
That shines and shakes beneath the roar;
Thus as the stream and ocean greet,
With waves that madden as they meet-
Thus join the bands, whom mutual wrong,
And fate, and fury, drive along.
The bickering subres' shivering jar;

And pealing wide or ringing near
Its echoes on the throbbing ear,
The deathshot hissing from afar;
The shock, the shout, the groan of war,
Reverberate along that vale,

More suited to the shepherd's tale:
Though few the numbers-theirs the strife,
That neither spares nor speaks for life!
Ah! fondly youthful hearts can press,
To seize and share the dear caress;
But Love itself could never pant
For all that Beauty sighs to grant
With half the fervor Hate bestows
Upon the last embrace of foes,
When grappling in the fight they fold
Those arms that ne'er shall lose their hold:
Friends meet to part; Love laughs at faith;
True foes, once met, are join'd till death!

With sabre shiver'd to the hilt,

Yet dripping with the blood he spilt;
Yet strain'd within the sever'd hand
Which quivers round that faithless brand;
His turban far behind him roll'd,
And cleft in twain its firmest fold;
His flowing robe by falchion torn,
And crimson as those clouds of morn
That, streak'd with dusky red, portend
The day shall have a stormy end;
A stain on every bush that bore

A fragment of his palampore,"

His breast with wounds unnumber'd riven,
His back to earth, his face to heaven,
Fall'n Hassan lies-his unclosed eye
Yet lowering on his enemy,

As if the hour that seal'd his fate
Surviving left his quenchless hate;
And o'er him bends that foe with brow
As dark as his that bled below.

"Yes, Leila sleeps beneath the wave, But his shall be a redder grave; Her spirit pointed well the steel Which taught that felon heart to feel. He call'd the Prophet, but his power Was vain against the vengeful Giaour:

and were expected every moment to change their color, but at last condescended to subside, which, probably, saved more heads than they contained hairs.

4"Amaun," quarter, pardon.

The "evil eye," a common superstition in the Levant, and of which the imaginary effects are yet very singular on those who conceive themselves affected.

["That neither gives nor asks for life.”—MS.]

7 The flowered shawls generally worn by persons of rank.

[This beautiful passage first appeared in the fifth edition. "If you send more proofs," writes Lord Byron to Mr. Murray, (August 10th, 1813,) "I shall never finish this infernal story. Ecce signum-thirty-three more lines enclosed! -to the utter discomfiture of the printer, and, I fear, not to your advantage."]

2["The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of his chariot !"-Judges, c. v. v. 28.]

3 [In the original draft

"His mother look'd from the lattice high,
With throbbing heart and eager eye;

The browsing camel bells are tinkling,
And the last beam of twilight twinkling,
'Tis eve; his train should now be nigh.
She could not rest in her garden bower,
And gazed through the loop of his steepest tower.
Why comes he not his steeds are fleet,
And well are they train'd to the summer's heat.""
Another copy begins-

"The browsing camel bells are tinkling,
And the first beam of evening twinkling;
His mother look'd from her lattice high,
With throbbing breast and eager eye-
"Tis twilight-sure his train is nigh.""]
["The Tartar sped beneath the gate,

And flung to earth his fainting weight."-MS.] The calpac is the solid cap or centre part of the headdress; the shawl is wound round it, and forms the turban.

The turban, pillar, and inscriptive verse, decorate the tombs of the Osmanlies, whether in the cemetery or the wilderness. In the mountains you frequently pass similar

A turban carved in coarsest stone,
A pillar with rank weeds o'ergrown,
Whereon can now be scarcely read
The Koran verse that mourns the dead,
Point out the spot where Hassan fell
A victim in that lonely dell.
There sleeps as true an Osmanlie
As e'er at Mecca bent the knee;
As ever scorn'd forbidden wine,

Or pray'd with face towards the shrine,
In orisons resumed anew

At solemn sound of " Alla Hu!”
Yet died he by a stranger's hand,
And stranger in his native land;
Yet died he as in arms he stood,
And unavenged, at least in blood.
But him the maids of Paradise

Impatient to their halls invite,
And the dark Heaven of Houris' eyes

On him shall glance forever bright;
They come their kerchiefs green they wave,
And welcome with a kiss the brave!
Who falls in battle 'gainst a Giaour
Is worthiest an immortal bower.

But thou, false Infidel! shalt writhe Beneath avenging Monkir's" scythe; And from its torment 'scape alone To wander round lost Eblis' throne; And fire unquench'd, unquenchable, Around, within, thy heart shall dwell; Nor ear can hear nor tongue can tell The tortures of that inward hell! But first, on earth as Vampire" sent, Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent:

mementoes; and on inquiry you are informed that they record some victim of rebellion, plunder, or revenge.

7" Alla Hu!" the concluding words of the Muezzin's call to prayer from the highest gallery on the exterior of the minaret. On a still evening, when the Muezzin has a fine voice, which is frequently the case, the effect is solemn and beautiful beyond all the bells in Christendom.-[Valid, the son of Abdalmalek, was the first who erected a minaret or turret; and this he placed on the grand mosque at Damascus, for the muezzin, or crier, to announce from it the hour of prayer. The practice is kept to this day. See D'Herbelot.] The following is part of a battle song of the Turks:"I see-I see a dark-eyed girl of Paradise, and she waves a handkerchief, a kerchief of green; and cries aloud, Come, kiss me, for I love thee,'" &c.

9 Monkir and Nekir are the inquisitors of the dead, before whom the corpse undergoes a slight novitiate and preparatory training for damnation. If the answers are none of the clearest, he is hauled up with a scythe and thumped down with a red-hot mace till properly seasoned, with a variety of subsidiary probations. The office of these angels is no sinecure; there are but two, and the number of orthodox deceased being in a small proportion to the remainder, their hands are always full. See Relig. Ceremon. and Sale's Koran.

10 Eblis, the Oriental Prince of Darkness.-[D'Herbelot supposes this title to have been a corruption of the Greek Διάβολος. According to Arabian mythology, Eblis had suffered a degradation from his primeval rank for having refused to worship Adam, in conformity to the supreme command; alleging, in justification of his refusal, that hinself had been formed of ethereal fire, whilst Adam was only a creature of clay. See Koran.]

11 The Vampire superstition is still general in the Levant. Honest Tournefort tells a long story, which Mr. Southey, in the notes on Thalaba, quotes, about these "Vroucolochias,"

Then ghastly haunt thy native place,
And suck the blood of all thy race;
There from thy daughter, sister, wife,
At midnight drain the stream of life;
Yet loathe the banquet which perforce
Must feed thy livid living corse:
Thy victims ere they yet expire
Shall know the demon for their sire,
As cursing thee, thou cursing them,
Thy flowers are wither'd on the stem.
But one that for thy crime must fall,
The youngest, most beloved of all,
Shall bless thee with a father's name-
That word shall wrap thy heart in flame!
Yet must thou end thy task, and mark
Her cheek's last tinge, her eye's last spark,
And the last glassy glance must view
Which freezes o'er its lifeless blue;
Then with unhallow'd hand shalt tear
The tresses of her yellow hair,

Of which in life a lock when shorn
Affection's fondest pledge was worn,
But now is borne away by thee,
Memorial of thine agony!

Wet with thine own best blood shall drip'
Thy gnashing tooth and haggard lip;
Then stalking to thy sullen grave,
Go-and with Gouls and Afrits rave;
Till these in horror shrink away
From spectre more accursed than they !?

"How name ye yon lone Caloyer?
His features I have scann'd before
In mine own land: 'tis many a year,
Since, dashing by the lonely shore,
I saw him urge as fleet a steed
As ever served a horseman's need.
But once I saw that face, yet then
It was so mark'd with inward pain,
I could not pass it by again;
It breathes the same dark spirit now,
As death were stamp'd upon his brow.

""Tis twice three years at summer tide Since first among our freres he came; And here it soothes him to abide

For some dark deed he will not name. But never at our vesper prayer, Nor e'er before confession chair Kneels he, nor recks he when arise Incense or anthem to the skies, Bat broods within his cell alone, His faith and race alike unknown.

The sea from Paynim land he cross'd,
And here ascended from the coast;
Yet seems he not of Othman race,
But only Christian in his face :
I'd judge him some stray renegade,
Repentant of the change he made,
Save that he shuns our holy shrine,
Nor tastes the sacred bread and wine.
Great largess to these walls he brought,
And thus our abbot's favor bought;
But were I prior, not a day

Should brook such stranger's further stay,
Or pent within our penance cell
Should doom him there for aye to dwell.
Much in his visions mutters he

Of maiden whelm'd beneath the sea;3
Of sabres clashing, foemen flying,
Wrongs avenged, and Moslem dying.
On cliff he hath been known to stand,
And rave as to some bloody hand
Fresh sever'd from its parent limb,
Invisible to all but him,

Which beckons onward to his grave,
And lures to leap into the wave."

Dark and unearthly is the scowl'
That glares beneath his dusky cowl:
The flash of that dilating eye
Reveals too much of times gone by;
Though varying, indistinct its hue,
Oft will his glance the gazer rue,
For in it lurks that nameless spell,
Which speaks, itself unspeakable,
A spirit yet unquell'd and high,
That claims and keeps ascendency;
And like the bird whose pinions quake,
But cannot fly the gazing snake,

Will others quail beneath his look,

Nor 'scape the glance they scarce can brook.
From him the half-affrighted Friar
When met alone would fain retire,
As if that eye and bitter smile
Transferr'd to others fear and guile :
Not oft to smile descendeth he,
And when he doth 'tis sad to see
That he but mocks at Misery.

How that pale lip will curl and quiver!
Then fix once more as if forever;

As if his sorrow or disdain

Forbade him e'er to smile again.
Well were it so such ghastly mirth
From joyaunce ne'er derived its birth.

I

at he calls them. The Romaic term is "Vardoulacha." recollect a whole family being terrified by the scream of a child, which they imagined must proceed from such a visitston. The Greeks never mention the word without horror. Ind that Broucolokas" is an old legitimate Hellenic apellation-at least is so applied to Arsenius, who, according te the Greeks, was after his death ammated by the Devil.The moderns, however, use the word I mention.

The freshness of the face, and the wetness of the lip wah blood, are the never-failing signs of a Vampire. The stones told in Hungary and Greece of these foul feeders are singular, and some of them most incredibly attested.

[With the death of Hassan, or with his interment on the pare where he fell, or with some moral reflections on his we may presume that the original narrator concluded the tale of which Lord Byron has professed to give us a frag

ment. But every reader, we are sure, will agree with us in thinking, that the interest excited by the catastrophe is greatly heightened in the modern poem; and that the imprecations of the Turk against the accursed Giaour," are introduced with great judgment, and contribute much to the dramatic effect of the narrative. The remainder of the poem, we think, would have been more properly printed as a second canto; because a total change of scene, and a chasm of no less than six years in the series of events, can scarcely fail to occasion some little confusion in the mind of the reader.-GEORGE ELLIS.]

["Of foreign maiden lost at sea."-MS.]

4 [The remaining lines, about five hundred in number, were, with the exception of the last sixteen, all added to the poem, either during its first progress through the press, or in subsequent editions.]