But sadder still it were to trace
What once were feelings in that face:
Time hath not yet the features fix'd,
But brighter traits with evil mix'd;
And there are hues not always faded,
Which speak a mind not all degraded

Even by the crimes through which it waded:
The common crowd but see the gloom
Of wayward deeds, and fitting doom;
The close observer can espy

A noble soul, and lineage high:
Alas! though both bestow'd in vain,

Which Grief could change, and Guilt could stain,
It was no vulgar tenement

To which such lofty gifts were lent,
And still with little less than dread
On such the sight is riveted.
The roofless cot, decay'd and rent,

Will scarce delay the passer by;
The tower by war or tempest bent,
While yet may frown one battlement,
Demands and daunts the stranger's eye;
Each ivied arch, and pillar lone,
Pleads haughtily for glories gone!

"His floating robe around him folding,

Slow sweeps he through the column'd aisle ; With dread beheld, with gloom beholding

The rites that sanctify the pile.
But when the anthem shakes the choir,
And kneel the monks, his steps retire;
By yonder lone and wavering torch
His aspect glares within the porch;
There will be pause till all is done-
And hear the prayer, but utter none.
See-by the half-illumined wall'
His hood fly back, his dark hair fall,
That pale brow wildly wreathing round,
As if the Gorgon there had bound
The sablest of the serpent-braid
That o'er her fearful forehead stray'd:
For he declines the convent oath,
And leaves those locks unhallow'd growth,
But wears our garb in all beside;
And, not from piety but pride,
Gives wealth to walls that never heard
Of his one holy vow nor word.
Lo!-mark ye, as the harmony
Peals louder praises to the sky,
That livid cheek, that stony air
Of mix'd defiance and despair!

Saint Francis, keep him from the shrine!
Else may we dread the wrath divine
Made manifest by awful sign.

If ever evil angel bore

The form of mortal, such he wore :

By all my hope of sins forgiven,

Such looks are not of earth nor heaven!"

To love the softest hearts are prone,
But such can ne'er be all his own;
Too timid in his woes to share,
Too meck to meet, or brave despair;
And sterner hearts alone may feel
The wound that time can never heal:
The rugged metal of the mine,
Must burn before its surface shine,2
But plunged within the furnace-flame,
It bends and melts-though still the same;"
Then temper'd to thy want, or will,
"Twill serve thee to defend or kill;
A breastplate for thine hour of need,
Or blade to bid thy foeman bleed;
But if a dagger's form it bear,
Let those who shape its edge, beware!
Thus passion's fire, and woman's art,
Can turn and tame the sterner heart;
From these its form and tone are ta'en,
And what they make it, must remain,
But break-before it bend again.

If solitude succeed to grief,
Release from pain is slight relief;
The vacant bosom's wilderness
Might thank the pang that made it less.
We loathe what none are left to share:
Even bliss-'twere wo alone to bear;
The heart once left thus desolate
Must fly at last for ease-to hate.
It is as if the dead could feel
The icy worm around them steal,
And shudder, as the reptiles creep
To revel o'er their rotting sleep,
Without the power to scare away
The cold consumers of their clay!
It is as if the desert-bird,"

Whose beak unlocks her bosom's stream
To still her famish'd nestlings' scream,
Nor mourns a life to them transferr'd,
Should rend her rash devoted breast,
And find them flown her empty nest.
The keenest pangs the wretched find

Are rapture to the dreary void,
The leafless desert of the mind,

The waste of feelings unemploy❜d.
Who would be doom'd to gaze upon
A sky without a cloud or sun?
Less hideous far the tempest's roar
Than ne'er to brave the billows more-
Thrown, when the war of winds is o'er,
A lonely wreck on fortune's shore,
'Mid sullen calm, and silent bay,
Unseen to drop by dull decay;-
Better to sink beneath the shock
Than moulder piecemeal on the rock!

1["Behold-as turns he from the wall."-MS.] 2 ["Must burn before it smite or shine."-MS.]

[Seeing himself accused of having, in this passage, too closely imitated Crabbe, Lord Byron wrote to a friend-"I have read the British Review, and really think the writer in most points very right. The only mortifying thing is, the accusation of imitation. Crabbe's passage I never saw; and Scott I no further meant to follow than in his lyric measure, which is Gray's, Milton's, and any one's who likes it. The Giaour is certainly a bad character, but not dangerous; I think his fate and his feelings will meet with few prose

and

lytes." The following are the lines of Crabbe which Lord Byron is charged with having imitated :—

"These are like wax-apply them to the fire,
Melting, they take the impression you desire;
Easy to mould and fashion as you please,
And again moulded with an equal ease;
Like smelted iron these the forms retain,
But once impress'd will never melt again."-
Crabbe's Works, vol. v. p. 163, ed. 1834.]

4 The pelican is, I believe, the bird so libelled, by the im putation of feeding her chickens with her blood.

Father! thy days have pass'd in peace,
'Mid counted beads, and countless prayer;
To bid the sins of others cease,

Thyself without a crime or care,
Save transient ills that all must bear,
Has been thy lot from youth to age;
And thou wilt bless thee from the rage
Of passions fierce and uncontroll'd,
Such as thy penitents unfold,
Whose secret sins and sorrows rest
Within thy pure and pitying breast.

My days, though few, have pass'd below
In much of joy, but more of wo;
Yet still in hours of love or strife,
I've 'scaped the weariness of life:

Now leagued with friends, now girt by foes,
I loathed the languor of repose.
Now nothing left to love or hate,
No more with hope or pride elate,
I'd rather be the thing that crawls
Most noxious o'er a dungeon's walls,
Toan pass my dull, unvarying days,
Condemn'd to meditate and gaze.
Yet, lurks a wish within my breast
For rest-but not to feel 'tis rest.
Soon shall my fate that wish fulfil;
And I shall sleep without the dream
Of what I was, and would be still,

Dark as to thee my deeds may seem:1
My memory now is but the tomb
Of joys long dead; my hope, their doom:
Though better to have died with those
Than bear a life of lingering woes.
My spirit shrunk not to sustain
The searching throes of ceaseless pain;
Nor sought the self-accorded grave
Of ancient fool and modern knave:
Yet death I have not fear'd to meet;
And in the field it had been sweet,
Had danger woo'd me on to move
The slave of glory, not of love.
I've braved it-not for honor's boast;
I smile at laurels won or lost;
To such let others carve their way,
For high renown, or hireling pay:
But place again before my eyes
Aught that I deem a worthy prize;
The maid I love, the man I hate,
And I will hunt the steps of fate,
To save or slay, as these require,
Through rending steel, and rolling fire:
Nor need'st thou doubt this speech from one
Who would but do what he hath done.
Death is but what the haughty brave,
The weak must bear, the wretch must crave;

Though Hope hath long withdrawn her beam."-MS.] This superstition of a second hearing (for I never met with downright second-sight in the East) fell once under my Own observation. On my third journey to Cape Colonna, early in 1811, as we passed through the defile that leads from the hamlet between Keratia and Colonna, I observed Dervish Talur riding rather out of the path, and leaning his head apon his hand, as if in pain. I rode up and inquired. "We are in peril," he answered. "What peril? we are not now Albania, nor in the passes to Ephesus, Messalunghi, or Lepanto; there are plenty of us, well armed, and the Chonates have not courage to be thieves."-" True, Affendi, but nevertheless the shot is ringing in my ears."-" The shot! not a tophaike has been fired this morning."-" I hear Anotwithstanding-Bom-Bom-as plainly as I hear your

Then let Life go to him who gave:
I have not quail'd to danger's brow
When high and happy-need I now?

"I loved her, Friar! nay, adored

But these are words that all can useI proved it more in deed than word; There's blood upon that dinted sword, A stain its steel can never lose : "Twas shed for her, who died for me,

It warm'd the heart of one abhorr'd: Nay, start not-no-nor bend thy knee, Nor midst my sins such act record; Thou wilt absolve me from the deed, For he was hostile to thy creed! The very name of Nazarene Was wormwood to his Paynim spleen. Ungrateful fool! since but for brands Well wielded in some hardy hands, And wounds by Galileans given, The surest pass to Turkish heaven, For him his Houris still might wait Impatient at the Prophet's gate.

I loved her-love will find its way
Through paths where wolves would fear to prey;
And if it dares enough, 'twere hard
If passion met not some reward—
No matter how, or where, or why,
I did not vainly seek, nor sigh:

Yet sometimes, with remorse, in vain
I wish she had not loved again.
She died-I dare not tell thee how;
But look-'tis written on my brow!
There read of Cain the curse and crime,
In characters unworn by time:
Still, ere thou dost condemn me, pause;
Not mine the act, though I the cause.
Yet did he but what I had done
Had she been false to more than one.
Faithless to him, he gave the blow;
But true to me, I laid him low:
Howe'er deserved her doom might be,
Her treachery was truth to me;
To me she gave her heart, that all
Which tyranny can ne'er inthral;
And I, alas! too late to save!
Yet all I then could give, I gave,
"Twas some relief, our foe a grave.
His death sits lightly; but her fate
Has made me-what thou well mayst hate.
His doom was seal'd-he knew it well,
Warn'd by the voice of stern Taheer,
Deep in whose darkly boding ear'
The deathshot peal'd of murder near,

As filed the troop to where they fell!

voice."-" Psha!"-"As you please, Affendi; if it is written, so will it be."-I left this quick-eared predestinarian, and rode up to Basili, his Christian compatriot, whose ears, though not at all prophetic, by no means relished the intelligence. We all arrived at Colonna, remained some hours, and returned leisurely, saying a variety of brilliant things, in more languages than spoiled the building of Babel, upon the mistaken seer. Romaic, Arnaout, Turkish, Italian, and English were all exercised, in various conceits, upon the unfortunate Mussulman. While we were contemplating the beautiful prospect, Dervish was occupied about the columns. I thought he was deranged into an antiquarian, and asked him if he had become a "Palao-castro" man? "No," said he, "but these pillars will be useful in making a stand:" and added other remarks. which at least evinced his own belief

He died too in the battle broil,

A time that heeds nor pain nor toil;
One cry to Mahomet for aid,
One prayer to Alla all he made:

He knew and cross'd me in the fray-
I gazed upon him where he lay,
And watch'd his spirit ebb away:
Though pierced like pard by hunters' steel,
He felt not half that now I feel.

I search'd, but vainly search'd, to find
The workings of a wounded mind;
Each feature of that sullen corse
Betray'd his rage, but no remorse.
Oh, what had Vengeance given to trace
Despair upon his dying face!
The late repentance of that hour,
When Penitence hath lost her power
To tear one terror from the grave,
And will not soothe, and cannot save.

"The cold in clime are cold in blood,

Their love can scarce deserve the name; But mine was like a lava flood

That boils in Ætna's breast of flame.
I cannot prate in puling strain
Of ladye-love, and beauty's chain:

If changing cheek, and scorching vein,'
Lips taught to writhe, but not complain,
If bursting heart, and madd'ning brain,
And daring deed, and vengeful steel,
And all that I have felt and feel,
Betoken love-that love was mine,
And shown by many a bitter sign.
'Tis true, I could not whine nor sigh,
I knew but to obtain or die.

I die-but first I have possess'd,

And come what may, I have been bless'd.
Shall I the doom I sought upbraid?
No-reft of all, yet undismay'd"

in his troublesome faculty of fore-hearing. On our return to Athens we heard from Leoné (a prisoner set ashore some days after) of the intended attack of the Mainotes, mentioned, with the cause of its not taking place, in the notes to Childe Harold, Canto 2d. I was at some pains to question the man, and he described the dresses, arms, and marks of the horses of our party so accurately, that, with other circumstances, we could not doubt of his having been in "villanous company," and ourselves in a bad neighborhood. Dervish became a soothsayer for life, and I dare say is now hearing more musketry than ever will be fired, to the great refreshment of the Arnaouts of Berat, and his native mountains. I shall mention one trait more of this singular race. In March, 1811, a remarkably stout and active Arnaout came (I believe the fiftieth on the same errand) to offer himself as an attendant, which was declined: "Well, Affendi," quoth he," may you live-you would have found me useful. I shall leave the town for the hills to-morrow: in the winter I return, perhaps you will then receive me."-Dervish, who was present, remarked as a thing of course, and of no consequence," in the mean time he will join the Klephtes," (robbers,) which was true to the letter. If not cut off, they come down in the winter, and pass it unmolested in some town, where they are often as well known as their exploits. 1["I cannot prate in puling strain

Of bursting heart and maddening brain,
And fire that raged in every vein."-MS.]

2 ["Even now alone, yet undismay'd,

I know no friend and ask no aid."-MS.] [These, in our opinion, are the most beautiful passages of the poem; and some of them of a beauty which it would not be easy to eclipse by many citations in the language.— JEFFREY.)

4 [The hundred and twenty-six lines which follow, down to "Tell me no more of fancy's gleam," first appeared in the fifth edition. In returning the proof to Mr. Murray, Lord

But for the thought of Leila slain,
Give me the pleasure with the pain,
So would I live and love again.

I grieve, but not, my holy guide!
For him who dies, but her who died:
She sleeps beneath the wandering wave-
Ah! had she but an earthly grave,
This breaking heart and throbbing head
Should seek and share her narrow bed.3
She was a form of life and light,
That, seen, became a part of sight;
And rose, where'er I turn'd mine eye,
The Morning-star of Memory!

"Yes, Love indeed is light from heaven;"
A spark of that immortal fire
With angels shared, by Alla given,

To lift from earth our low desire."
Devotion wafts the mind above,
But Heaven itself descends in love;
A feeling from the Godhead caught,
To wean from self each sordid thought;
A Ray of him who form'd the whole;
A Glory circling round the soul!
I grant my love imperfect, all
That mortals by the name miscall;
Then deem it evil, what thou wilt;
But say, oh say, hers was not guilt!
She was my life's unerring light:

That quench'd, what beam shall break my night?
Oh! would it shone to lead me still,
Although to death or deadliest ill!
Why marvel ye, if they who lose

This present joy, this future hope,
No more with sorrow meekly cope;
In phrensy then their fate accuse:
In madness do those fearful deeds
That seem to add but guilt to wo?
Alas! the breast that inly bleeds

Hath naught to dread from outward blow;

Byron says:-"I have, but with some difficulty, not added any more to this snake of a poem, which has been lengthening its rattles every month. It is now fearfully long, being more than a canto and a half of Childe Harold. The last lines Hodgson likes. It is not often he does; and when he don't, he tells me with great energy, and I fret, and alter. I have thrown them in to soften the ferocity of our Infidel; and, for a dying man, have given him a good deal to say for himself. Do you know anybody who can stop-I mean, point-commas, and so forth? for I am, I hear, a sad hand at your punctuation." [Amich we subjoin: the Giaour MSS. is the first draught of this pas doth spring)

sage,

"Yes

If

Love indeed descend be born immortal

A spark of that

eternal celestial

from heaven;

fire,

Who falls from all he knows of bliss,
Cares little into what abyss

Ferce as the gloomy vulture's now

To thee, old man, my deeds appear:
Imad abhorrence on thy brow,
And this too was I born to bear!
Tx true, that, like that bird of prey,
With havoc have I mark'd my way:
Bet this was taught me by the dove,
To de-and know no second love.
This lesson vet hath man to learn,

Tanght by the thing he dares to spurn:
The bird that sings within the brake,
The swan that swims upon the lake,
One mate, and one alone, will take.
And let the fool still prone to range,1
And sneer on all who cannot change,
Patake his jest with boasting boys;
I envy not his varied joys,

But deem such feeble, heartless man,
Less than yon solitary swan;
Fer, far beneath the shallow maid
He left believing and betray'd.
Such shame at least was never mine-
Lea! each thought was only thine!
My good, my guilt, my weal, my wo,
My hope on high-my all below.
Earth holds no other like to thee,
Or, if it doth, in vain for me:
For worlds I dare not view the dame
Resembling thee, yet not the same.
The very crimes that mar my youth,
This bed of death-attest my truth!
Ts all too late-thou wert, thou art
The cherish'd madness of my heart!

“And she was lost—and yet I breathed, But not the breath of human life: A serpent round my heart was wreathed, And stung my every thought to strife. Ake all time, abhorr'd all place, Shuddering I shrunk from Nature's face, Where every hue that charm'd before The blackness of my bosom wore. The rest thou dost already know, And all my sins, and half my wo. Bert talk no more of penitence; Thou see'st I soon shall part from hence: And if thy holy tale were true, The deed that's done canst thou undo? Think me not thankless-but this grief Looks not to priesthood for relief.? My soul's estate in secret guess:3 But wouldst thou pity more, say less. When thou canst bid my Leila live, Then will I sue thee to forgive; Then plead my cause in that high place masses proffer grace.

1

Where purchased

Go, when the hunter's hand hath wrung From forest-cave her shrieking young,

["And let the light, inconstant fool That sneers his coxcomb ridicule."-MS.]

And calm the lonely Joness:

But soothe not-mock not my distress ! "In earlier days, and calmer hours.

The monk's sermon is omitted. It seems to have had so little effect upon the patient, that it could have no hopes from the reader. It may be sufficient to say, that it was of a Customary length, (as may be perceived from the interrupbons and uneasiness of the patient,) and was delivered in the usual tone of all orthodox preachers.

When heart with heart delights to bend,
Where bloom my native vailey's bowers"
I had-Ah! have I now a friend!

To him this pledge I charge thee send,
Memorial of a youthful vow:

I would remind him of my end

Though souls absorb'd like mine allow
Brief thought to distant friendship's claim.
Yet dear to him my blighted name.
"Tis strange-he prophesied my doom.

And I have smiled-I then could smile-
When Prudence would his voice assume,
And warn-I reck'd not what-the whe:
But now remembrance whispers o'er
Those accents scarcely mark'd before.
Say that his bodings came to pass,
And he will start to hear their truth.
And wish his words had not been sooth:
Tell him, unheeding as I was,

Through many a busy bitter scene
Of all our golden youth had been,
In pain, my faltering tongue had tried
To bless his memory ere I died;
But Heaven in wrath would turn away,
If Guilt should for the guiltless pray.

I do not ask him not to blame,
Too gentle he to wound my name;
And what have I to do with fame?

I do not ask him not to mourn,

Such cold request might sound like scorn;
And what than friendship's manly tear
May better grace a brother's bier!
But bear this ring, his own of old,
And tell him-what thou dost behold!
The wither'd frame, the ruin'd mind,
The wrack by passion left behind,
A shrivell'd scroll, a scatter'd leaf,
Sear'd by the autumn blast of grief!

"Tell me no more of fancy's gleam,
No, father, no, 'twas not a dream:
Alas! the dreamer first must sleep,
I only watch'd, and wish'd to weep;
But could not, for my burning brow
Throbb'd to the very brain as now:
I wish'd but for a single tear,

As something welcome, new, and dear;
I wish'd it then, I wish it still;
Despair is stronger than my will
Waste not thine orison, despair
Is mightier than thy pious prayer:
I would not, if I might, be blest;
I want no paradise, but rest.

"Twas then, I tell thee, father! then

I saw her; yes, she lived again;

And shining in her white symar,"

As through yon pale gray cloud the star

Which now I gaze on, as on her,
Who look'd and looks far lovelier;
Dimly I view its trembling spark ;'
To-morrow's night shall be more dark;
And I, before its rays appear,
That lifeless thing the living fear.
I wander, father! for my soul
Is fleeting towards the final goal.
I saw her, friar! and I rose
Forgetful of our former woes;
And rushing from my couch, I dart,
And clasp her to my desperate heart;
I clasp what is it that I clasp?
No breathing form within my grasp,
No heart that beats reply to mine,
Yet, Leila! yet the form is thine!
And art thou, dearest, changed so much,
As meet my eye, yet mock my touch?
Ah! were thy beauties e'er so cold,
I care not; so my arms enfold
The all they ever wish'd to hold.
Alas! around a shadow press'd,
They shrink upon my lonely breast;
Yet still 'tis there! In silence stands,
And beckons with beseeching hands!
With braided hair, and bright-black eye-
I knew 'twas false-she could not die!
But he is dead! within the dell

I saw him buried where he fell;

He comes not, for he cannot break
From earth; why then art thou awake?

1["Which now I view with trembling spark."-MS."] 2 The circumstance to which the above story relates was not very uncommon in Turkey. A few years ago the wife of Muchtar Pacha complained to his father of his son's supposed infidelity; he asked with whom, and she had the barbarity to give in a list of the twelve handsomest women in Yanina. They were seized, fastened up in sacks, and drowned in the lake the same night! One of the guards who was present informed me, that not one of the victims uttered a cry, or showed a symptom of terror at so sudden a "wrench from all we know, from all we love." The fate of Phrosine, the fairest of this sacrifice, is the subject of many a Romaic and Arnaout ditty. The story in the text is one told of a young Venetian many years ago, and now nearly forgotten. I heard it by accident recited by one of the coffee-house storytellers who abound in the Levant, and sing or recite their narratives. The additions and interpolations by the translator will be easily distinguished from the rest, by the want of Eastern imagery; and I regret that my memory has retained so few fragments of the original. For the contents of some of the notes I am indebted partly to D'Herbelot, and partly to that most Eastern, and, as Mr. Weber justly entitles it, "sublime tale," the "Caliph Vathek." I do not know from what source the author of that singular volume may have drawn his materials; some

They told me wild waves roll'd above
The face I view, the form I love;
They told me 'twas a hideous tale!
I'd tell it, but my tongue would fail :
If true, and from thine ocean-cave
Thou com'st to claim a calmer grave;
Oh! pass thy dewy fingers o'er
This brow that then will burn no more;
Or place them on my hopeless heart:
But, shape or shade! whate'er thou art,
In mercy ne'er again depart!

Or farther with thee bear my soul
Than winds can waft or waters roll?

"Such is my name, and such my tale. Confessor to thy secret ear

I breathe the sorrows I bewail,

And thank thee for the generous tear
This glazing eye could never shed.
Then lay me with the humblest dead,
And, save the cross above my head,
Be neither name nor emblem spread,
By prying stranger to be read,
Or stay the passing pilgrim's tread."""

He pass'd-nor of his name and race
Hath left a token or a trace,
Save what the father must not say
Who shrived him on his dying day:
This broken tale was all we knew
Of her he loved, or him he slew.*

of his incidents are to be found in the "Bibliothèque Orientale;" but for correctness of costume, beauty of description, and power of imagination, it far surpasses all European imitations; and bears such marks of originality, that those who have visited the East will find some difficulty in believing it to be more than a translation. As an Eastern tale, even Rasselas must bow before it; his "Happy Valley" will not bear a comparison with the "Hall of Eblis."

3

["Nor whether most he mourn'd none knew,
For her he loved, or him he slew."-MS.]

4 [In this poem, which was published after the first two cantos of Childe Harold, Lord Byron began to show his powers. He had now received encouragement which set free his daring hands, and gave his strokes their natural force. Here, then, we first find passages of a tone peculiar to Lord Byron; but still this appearance was not uniform: he often returned to his trammels, and reminds us of the manner of some favorite predecessor: among these, I think we sometimes catch the notes of Sir Walter Scott. But the internal tempest-the deep passion, sometimes buried, and sometimes blazing from some incidental touch-the intensity of agonizing reflection, which will always distinguish Lord Byron from other writers-now began to display themselves.-SIR EGERTON BRYDGES.]