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XXVI.

Morn slowly rolls the clouds away;
Few trophies of the fight are there:
The shouts that shook the midnight bay
Are silent; but some signs of fray

That strand of strife may bear,
And fragments of each shiver'd brand;
Steps stamp'd; and dash'd into the sand
The print of many a struggling hand

May there be mark'd; nor far remote
A broken torch, an oarless boat;
And tangled on the weeds that heap
The beach where shelving to the deep
There lies a white capote!

"Tis rent in twain-one dark red stain
The wave yet ripples o'er in vain :

But where is he who wore?
Ye! who would o'er his relics weep,
Go, seek them where the surges sweep
Their burden round Sigæum's steep,

And cast on Lemnos' shore:
The sea-birds shriek above the prey,
O'er which their hungry beaks delay,
As shaken on his restless pillow,

His head heaves with the heaving billow;
That hand, whose motion is not life,
Yet feebly seems to menace strife,
Flung by the tossing tide on high,

Then levell'd with the wave

What recks it, though that corse shall lie
Within a living grave?

The bird that tears that prostrate form
Hath only robb'd the meaner worm;
The only heart, the only eye

Had bled or wept to see him die,
Had seen those scatter'd limbs composed,

And mourned above his turban-stone,40 That heart hath burst-that eye was closedYea-closed before his own!

XXVII.

By Helle's stream there is a voice of wail!
And woman's eye is wet-man's cheek is pale:
Zulieka! last of Giaffir's race,

Thy destined lord is come too late;
He sees not-ne'er shall see thy face!
Can he not hear

The loud Wul-wulleh 41 warn his distant ear?
Thy handmaids weeping at the gate,
The Koran-chaunters of the hymn of fate,
The silent slaves with folded arms that wait,
Sighs in the hall, and shrieks upon the gale,
Tell him thy tale!

Thou didst not view thy Selim fall!

That fearful moment when he left the cave

Thy heart grew chill:

He was thy hope-thy joy-thy love-thine all—
And that last thought on him thou couldst not save
Sufficed to kill;

Burst forth in one wild cry-and all was still.
Peace to thy broken heart, and virgin grave!
Ah! happy! but of life to lose the worst!
That grief-though deep-though fatal-was thy
first!

Thrice happy! ne'er to feel nor fear the force
Of absence, shame, pride, hate, revenge, remorse!
And, oh! that pang where more than madness lies
The worm that will not sleep-and never dies;

Thought of the gloomy day and ghastly night,
That dreads the darkness, and yet loathes the light,
That winds around and tears the quivering heart!
Ah! wherefore not consume it-and depart!
Wo to thee, rash and unrelenting chief!

Vainly thou heap'st the dust upon thy head,
Vainly the sackcloth o'er thy limbs doth spread:
By that same hand Abdallah-Selim bled.
Now let it tear thy beard in idle grief;
Thy pride of heart, thy bride for Osman's bed,
She, whom thy sultan had but seen to wed,

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Within the place of thousand tombs
That shine beneath, while dark above
The sad but living cypress glooms,
And withers not, though branch and leaf
Are stamp'd with an eternal grief,
Like early unrequited love,
One spot exists, which ever blooms,
Even in that deadly grove-

A single rose is shedding there

Its lonely lustre, meek and pale. It looks as planted by despair

So white so faint-the slightest gale Might whirl the leaves on high;

And yet, though storms and blight assail, And hands more rude than winter sky

May wring it from the stem-in vain—
To-morrow sees it bloom again!
The stalk some spirit gently rears,
And waters with celestial tears;

For well may maids of Helle deem
That this can be no earthly flower,
Which mocks the tempest's withering hour,
And buds unshelter'd by a bower;

Nor droops, though spring refuse her shower,
Not woos the summer beam:

To it the livelong night there sings
A bird unseen-but not remote:
Invisible his airy wings,

But soft as harp that Houri strings
His long entrancing note!

It were the bulbul; but his throat,

Though mournful, pours not such a strain:
For they who listen cannot leave
The spot, but linger there and grieve,
As if they loved in vain!

And yet so sweet the tears they shed,
'Tis sorrow so unmix'd with dread,
They scarce can bear the morn to break
That melancholy spell,

And longer yet would weep and wake,
He sings so wild and well!

But when the day-blush bursts from high
Expires that magic melody.

And some have been who could believe
(So fondly youthful dreams deceive,
And harsh be they that blame)
That note so piercing and profound
Will shape and syllable its sound
Into Zuleika's name.43

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He is an Arab to my sight.

Page 123, line 95. The Turks abhor the Arabs (who return the compliment a hundred fold), even more than they hate

the Christians.

6.

After all, this is rather to be felt than described; still I think there are some who will understand it, at least they would have done, had they beheld the countenance whose speaking harmony suggested the idea; for this passage is not drawn from imagination, but memory, that mirror which affliction dashes to the earth, and looking down upon the fragments, only beholds the reflection multiplied.

7.

But yet the line of Carasman.

Page 124, line 24.

Carasman Oglou, or Cara Osman Oglou, is the principal landholder in Turkey: he governs Magnesia: those who, by a kind of feudal tenure, possess land on condition of service, are called Timariots: they serve as Spahis, according to the extent of territory, and bring a certain number into the field, generally cavalry. 8.

And teach the messenger what fate.

Page 124, line 36.

When a Pacha is sufficiently strong to resist, the single messenger, who is always the first bearer of the order for his death, is strangled instead, and sometimes five or six, one after the other, on the same errand, by command of the refractory patient; if, on the contrary, he is weak or loyal, he bows, kisses the Sultan's respectable signature, and is bowstrung with great complacency. In 1810, several of these presents were exhibited in the niche of the Seraglio gate; among others, the head of the Pacha of Bagdat, a brave young man, cut off by treachery, after a desperate resistance.

The mind, the music breathing from her face. Page 124, line 2. This expression has met with objections. I will not refer to "him who hath not music in his soul," but merely request the reader to recollect, for ten seconds, the features of the woman whom he believes to be the most beautiful; and if he then does not comprehend fully what is feebly expressed in the above line, I shall be sorry for us both. For Thrice clapp'd his hands, and call'd his steed. Page 124, line 55. an eloquent passage in the latest work of the first female writer of this, perhaps of any age, on the Clapping of the hands calls the servants. The analogy (and the immediate comparison excited by Turks hate a superfluous expenditure of voice, and that analogy), between "painting and music," see they have no bells.

vol. iii. cap. 10. DE L'ALLEMAGNE. And is not this connexion still stronger with the original than the copy? With the coloring of nature than of art?!

9.

10.

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Chibouque, the Turkish pipe, of which the amber, Pacha; a Waywode is the third; and then come mouth-piece and sometimes the ball which contains the Agas. the leaf, is adorned with precious stones, if in possession of the wealthier orders.

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21.

Was he not bred in Egripo?

Page 125, line 71. Egripo-the Negropont,-According to the proverb the Turks of Egripo, the Jews of Salonica, and the Greeks of Athens, are the worst of their respective races. 22.

Ah! yonder see the Tchocadar.

Page 126, line 13. "Tchocadar"-one of the attendants who pre

Page 124, line 59.

Deli, bravos who form the forlorn hope of the cavalry, and always begin the action.

cedes a man of authority."

23.

13.

Careering cleave the folded felt.

14.

Page 124, line 71.

Nor heard their Ollahs wild and loud.

Thine own "broad Hellespont" still dashes.

Page 126, line 83. The wrangling about this epithet "the broad or the "boundless Hellespont," Hellespont

A twisted fold of felt is used for scimitar practice by the Turks, and few but Mussulman arms can cut whether it means one or the other, or what it means through it at a single stroke: sometimes a tough at all, has been beyond all possibility of detail. I turban is used for the same purpose. The jerreed have even heard it disputed on the spot; and, not is a game of blunt javelins, animated and graceful. foreseeing a speedy conclusion to the controversy, amused myself with swimming across it in the meantime, and probably may again before the point is settled. Indeed, the question as to the truth of the tale of Troy divine" still continues, much of it resting upon the talismanic word "antipos: " "Ollahs," Alla il Allah, the " Leilies," as the probably Homer had the same notion of distance Spanish poets call them, the sound is Ollah; a cry that a coquette has of time, and when he talks of of which the Turks, for a silent people, are some-boundless, means half a mile; as the latter, by a what profuse, particularly during the jerreed, or in like figure, when she says eternal attachment, simthe chase, but mostly in battle. Their animation ply specifies three weeks. in the field, and gravity in the chamber, with their pipes and comboloios form an amusing contrast.

15.

Page 124, line 74.

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24.

Which Ammon's son ran proudly round.
Page 126, line 94.

Before his Persian invasion, and crowned the altar with laurel, &c. He was afterwards imitated by Caracalla in his race. It is believed that the last also poisoned a friend, named Festus, for the sake of new Patroclan games. I have seen the sheep feeding on the tombs of Esietes and Antilochus; the first is in the centre of the plain.

25.

O'er which her fairy fingers ran.

The pictured roof and marble floor. Page 124, line 95. The ceiling and wainscots, or rather walls, of the Mussulman apartments are generally painted, in great houses, with one eternal and highly colored view of Constantinople, wherein the principal feature is a noble contempt of perspective; below, arms, scimitars, &c., are in general fancifully and fume, which is slight but not disagreeable. not inelegantly disposed.

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Page 126, line 113. When rubbed, the amber is susceptible of a per

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28.

In him was some young Galiongee

Page 127, line 77. Galiongée"-or Galiongi, a sailor, that is, a

Turkish sailor; the Greeks navigate, the Turks in 1789-90 for the independence of his country; work the guns. Their dress is picturesque; and I abandoned by the Russians, he became a pirate, and have seen the Capitan Pacha more than once wear- the Archipelago was the scene of his enterprises ing it as a kind of incog. Their legs, however, are He is said to be still alive at Petersburgh. He and generally naked. The buskins described in the Riga are the two most celebrated of the Greek text as sheathed behind with silver, are those of an revolutionists. Arnaut robber, who was my host, (he had quitted the profession,) at his Pyrgo, near Gastouni in the Morea; they were plated in scales one over the other, like the back of an armadillo.

29.

So may the Koran verse display'd.

Page 127, line 116.

The characters on all Turkish scimitars contain]

36.

To snatch the Rayahs from their fate.
Page 129, line 62.
"Rayahs" all who pay the capitation tax, called
Haratch."

the

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37.

Ay. let me like the ocean-patriarch roam.

Page 129, line 66. The first of voyages is one of the few with which

38.

sometimes the name of the place of their man- the Mussulmans profess much acquaintance. ufacture, but more generally a text from the Koran, in letters of gold. Among those in my possession, is one with a blade of singular construction; it is very broad, and the edge notched into serpenOr only know on land the Tartar's home. tine curves like the ripple of water, or the wavering| Page 129, line 67. of flame. I asked the Armenian who sold it, what The wandering life of the Arabs, Tartars, and possible use such a figure could add: he said, in Turkomans, will be found well detailed in any book Italian, that he did not know; but the Mussulmans of Eastern travels. That it possesses a charm pehad an idea that those of this form gave a severer culiar to itself cannot be denied. A young French wound; and liked it because it was "piu feroce." renegado confessed to Chateaubriand, that he never I did not much admire the reason, but bought it for found himself alone, galloping in the desert, withits peculiarity. out a sensation approaching to rapture, which was indescribable.

30.

But like the nephew of a Cain.

Page 128, line 8. It is to be observed, that every allusion to anything or personage in the Old Testament, such as the Ark, or Cain, is equally the privilege of Mussulman and Jew: indeed, the former profess to be much better acquainted with the lives, true and fabulous, of the patriarchs, than is warranted by our own sacred writ, and not content with Adam, they have a biography of Pre-Adamites. Solomon is the monarch of all necromancy, and Moses a prophet inferior only to Christ and Mahomet. Zuleika is the Persian name of Potiphar's wife, and her amour with Joseph constitutes one of the finest poems in the language. It is therefore no violation of costume to put the names of Cain, or Noah, into the mouth of a Moslem.

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He drank one draught, nor needed more. Page 128, line 49. Ciaffir, Pacha of Argyro Castro, or Scutari, I am not sure which, was actually taken off by the Albanian Ali, in the manner described in the text. Ali Pacha, while I was in the country, married the daughter of his victim, some years after the event had taken place, at a bath in Sophia, or Adrianople. The poison was mixed in the cup of coffee, which is presented before the sherbet by the bath-keeper, after dressing.

34.

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For a belief that the souls of the dead inhabit the

form of birds, we need not travel to the east. Lord Lyttleton's ghost story, the belief of the Dutchess of Kendal that George I. flew into her window in the shape of a raven, (see Orford's Reminiscences,) I sought by turns and saw them all. and many other instances, bring this superstition Page 129, line 35. nearer home. The most singular was the whim of The Turkish notions of almost all islands are con-a Worcester lady, who, believing her daughter to fined to the Archipelago, the sea alluded to. exist in the shape of a singing bird, literally furnished her pew in the Cathedral with cages-full of the kind; and as she was rich, and a benefactress in beautifying the church, no objection was made to her harmless folly. For this anecdote see Orford's Letters.

35.

The last of Lambro's patriots there.
Page 129, line 58.
Lambro Canzani, a Greek, famous for his efforts

THE CORSAIR;

A TALE.

61 I suoi pensieri in lui dormir non ponno."
TASSO, Canto decimo, Gerusalemme Liberata.

ΤΟ

THOMAS MOORE, ESQ.

MY DEAR MOORE,

one,

tention to tempt no further the award of "gods, men, nor columns." In the present composition I have attempted not the most difficult, but, perhaps, the best adapted measure to our language, the good old and now neglected heroic couplet. The stanza

I DEDICATE to you the last production with which of Spenser is, perhaps, too slow and dignified for I shall trespass on public patience, and your indul-narrative; though, I confess, it is the measure most gence, for some years; and I own that I feel anx-after my own heart; Scott alone, of the present ious to avail myself of this latest and only opportu-generation, has hitherto completely triumphed over nity of adorning my pages with a name, consecrated the fatal facility of the octo-syllabic verse; and this by unshaken public principle, and the most un-is not the least victory of his fertile and mighty gendoubted and various talents. While Ireland ranks ius: in blank verse, Milton, Thomson, and our you among the firmest of her patriots; while you dramatists, are the beacons that shine along the stand alone the first of her bards in her estimation, deep, but warn us from the rough and barren rock and Britain repeats and ratifies the decrec, permit on which they are kindled. The heroic couplet is whose only regret, since our first acquaintance, not the most popular measure certainly; but as I has been the years he had lost before it commenced, did not deviate into the other from a wish to flatter to add the humble but sincere suffrage of friendship, what is called public opinion, I shall quit it without to the voice of more than one nation. It will at further apology, and take my chance once more with least prove to you, that I have neither forgotten the that versification, in which I have hitherto published gratification derived from your society, nor aban- nothing but compositions whose former circulation is doned the prospect of its renewal, whenever your part of my present, and will be of my future regret. leisure or inclination allows you to atone to your With regard to my story, and stories in general, friends for too long an absence. It is said, among I should have been glad to have rendered my perthose friends, I trust truly, that you are engaged in sonages more perfect and amiable, if possible, inasthe composition of a poem whose scene will be laid much as I have been sometimes criticised, and conin the East; none can do those scenes so much sidered no less responsible for their deeds and qualjustice. The wrongs of your own country, the mag-ities than if all had been personal. Be it so-if I nificent and fiery spirit of her sons, the beauty and have deviated into the gloomy vanity of "drawing feeling of her daughters, may there be found; and from self," the pictures are probably like, since they Collins, when he denominated his Oriental his Irish are unfavorable; and if not, those who know me Eclogues, was not aware how true, at least, was a are undeceived, and those who do not, I have little part of his parallel. Your imagination will create a interest in undeceiving. I have no particular desire warmer sun, and less clouded sky; but wildness, that any but my acquaintance should think the tenderness, and originality are part of your national author better than the beings of his imagining; but claim of oriental descent, to which you have already I cannot help a little surprise, and perhaps amusethus far proved your title more clearly than the most ment, at some odd critical exceptions in the present zealous of your country's antiquarians. instance, when I see several bards, (far more de

May I add a few words on a subject on which all serving, I allow,) in very reputable plight, and men are supposed to be fluent, and none agreeable? quite exempted from all participation in the faults -Self. I have written much, and published more of those heroes, who, nevertheless, might be found than enough to demand a longer silence than I now with little more morality than "The Giaour," and meditate; but for some years to come, it is my in-perhaps -but no-I must admit Childe Harold to

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