XXV.

And Kaled--Lara--Ezzelin, are gone, Alike without their monumental stone! The first, all efforts vainly strove to wean From lingering where her Chieftain's blood had been: Grief had so tamed a spirit once too proud, Her tears were few, her wailing never loud; But furious would you tear her from the spot Where yet she scarce believed that he was not, 1250 Her eye shot forth with all the living fire That haunts the tigress in her whelpless ire; But left to waste her weary moments there, She talked all idly unto shapes of air, Such as the busy brain of Sorrow paints, And woos to listen to her fond complaints: And she would sit beneath the very tree Where lay his drooping head upon her knee; And in that posture where she saw him fall, His words, his looks, his dying grasp recall; 1260 And she had shorn, but saved her raven hair, And oft would snatch it from her bosom there, And fold, and press it gently to the ground, As if she staunched anew some phantom's wound.[ld] Herself would question, and for him reply; Then rising, start, and beckon him to fly From some imagined Spectre in pursuit; Then seat her down upon some linden's root, And hide her visage with her meagre hand, Or trace strange characters along the sand-- 1270 This could not last--she lies by him she loved; Her tale untold--her truth too dearly proved.

FOOTNOTES:

[jb] {323} _Lara the sequel of "the Corsair_."--[MS. erased.]

[265] [A revised version of the following "Advertisement" was prefixed to the First Edition (Printed for J. Murray, Albemarle Street, By T. Davison, Whitefriars, 1814), which was accompanied by _Jacqueline:_--

"The Reader--if the tale of _Lara_ has the fortune to meet with one--may probably regard it as a sequel to the _Corsair_;--the colouring is of a similar cast, and although the situations of the characters are changed, the stories are in some measure connected. The countenance is nearly the same--but with a different expression. To the readers' conjecture are left the name of the writer and the failure or success of his attempt--the latter are the only points upon which the author or his judges can feel interested.

"The Poem of _Jaqueline_ is the production of a different author and is added at the request of the writer of the former tale, whose wish and entreaty it was that it should occupy the first pages of the following volume, and he regrets that the tenacious courtesy of his friend would not permit him to place it where the judgement of the reader concurring with his own will suggest its more appropriate station."]

[266] The reader is apprised, that the name of Lara being Spanish, and no circumstance of local and natural description fixing the scene or hero of the poem to any country or age, the word "Serf," which could not be correctly applied to the lower classes in Spain, who were never vassals of the soil, has nevertheless been employed to designate the followers of our fictitious chieftain.

[Byron, writing to Murray, July 14, 1814, says, "The name only is Spanish; the country is not Spain, but the Moon" (not "Morea," as hitherto printed).--_Letters_, 1899, iii. 110. The MS. is dated May 15, 1814.]

[267] {324} [For the opening lines to _Lara_, see _Murray's Magazine_, January, 1887, vol. i. p. 3.]

[268] [Compare _Childish Recollections_, lines 221-224--

"Can Rank, or e'en a Guardian's name supply The love, which glistens in a Father's eye? For this, can Wealth, or Title's sound atone, Made, by a Parent's early loss, my own?"

Compare, too, _English Bards, etc._, lines 689-694, _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 95, 352.]

[jc] _First in each folly--nor the last in vice_.--[MS. erased]

[jd] {325} _Short was the course the beardless wanderer run_.--[MS.]

[je] _Another chief had won_----.--[MS. erased.]

[jf] _His friends forgot him--and his dog had died_.--[MS.]

[jg] _Without one rumour to relieve his care_.--[MS. erased.]

[jh] _That most might decorate that gloomy pile_.--[MS. erased.]

[269] {326} [The construction is harsh and obscure, but the meaning is, perhaps, that, though Lara's soul was haughty, his sins were due to nothing worse than pleasure, that they were the natural sins of youth.]

[ji] {328} _Their refuge in intensity of thought_.--[MS.]

[jj] {329} _The sound of other voices than his own_.--[MS.]

[270] ["The circumstance of his having at this time [1808-9] among the ornaments of his study, a number of skulls highly polished, and placed on light stands round the room, would seem to indicate that he rather courted than shunned such gloomy associations."--_Life_, p. 87.]

[271] [Compare--

"His train but deemed the favourite page Was left behind to spare his age, Or other if they deemed, none dared To mutter what he thought or heard." _Marmion_, Canto III. stanza xv. lines 19-22.]

[272] [Compare--

"Sweetly shining on the eye, A rivulet gliding smoothly by; Which shows with what an easy tide The moments of the happy glide."

Dyer's _Country Walk_ (_Poetical Works of Armstrong, Dyer, and Green_, 1858, p. 221).]

[273] {331} ["He used, at first, though offered a bed at Annesley, to return every night to Newstead, to sleep; alleging as a reason that he was afraid of the family pictures of the Chaworths."--_Life_, p. 27.]

[jk] ----_knelt in painted prayer_.--[MS.]

[jl] _His aspect all that best becomes the grave_.--[MS.]

[jm] {333} ----_along the gallery crawl_.--[MS.]

[jn] {334} _Opinion various as his varying eye_ _In praise or railing--never passed him by_.--[MS.]

[jo] {335} ----_gayest of the gay_.--[MS.]

[274] [The MS. omits lines 313-382. Stanza xviii. is written on a loose sheet belonging to the Murray MSS.; stanza xix. on a sheet inserted in the MS. Both stanzas must have been composed after the first draft of the poem was completed.]

[jp] ----_an inward scorn of all_.--[MS.]

[275] {336} [Compare Coleridge's _Lines to a Gentleman_ [William Wordsworth] (written in 1807, but not published till 1817), lines 69, 70--

"Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain, And genius given, and knowledge won in vain."]

[jq] _And left Reflection: loth himself to blame,_ _He called on Nature's self to share the shame_.--[MS.]

[jr] _And half mistook for fate his wayward will_.--[MS.]

[276] [For Byron's belief or half-persuasion that he was predestined to evil, compare _Childe Harold_, Canto I. stanza lxxxiii. lines 8, 9, and note. Compare, too, Canto III. stanza lxx. lines 8 and 9; and Canto IV. stanza xxxiv. line 6: _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii, 74, 260, 354.]

[js] {337} ----_around another's mind;_ _There he was fixed_----.--[MS.]

[jt] {338} _That friendship, interest, aversion knew_ _But there within your inmost_----.--[MS.]

[ju] _Yes you might hate abhor, but from the breast_ _He wrung an all unwilling interest_-- _Vain was the struggle, in that sightless net_.--[MS.]

[jv] _So springs the exulting spirit_--.--[MS.]

[jw] {339} _That question thus repeated--Thrice and high_.--[MS.]

[jx] {340} _Art thou not he who_----" "_Whatso'eer I be._--[MS.]

[jy] {342} _"Tomorrow!--aye--tomorrow" these were all_ _The words from Lara's answering lip that fall_.--[MS.]

[jz] {343} _That brought their native echoes to his ear_.--[MS.]

[ka] _From high and quickened into life and thought_.--[MS.]

[kb] {344} _Though no reluctance checked his willing hand,_ _He still obeyed as others would command_.--[MS.]

[kc] _To tune his lute and, if none else were there,_ _To fill the cup in which himself might share_.--[MS.]

[kd] {345} _Yet still existed there though still supprest_.--[ms]

[ke] _And when the slaves and pages round him told_.--[ms]

[277] {346} [Compare--

"Strange things I have in head, that will to hand, Which must be acted, ere they may be scanned." _Macbeth_, act iii. sc. 4, lines 139, 140.]

[kf] {347} _There lie the lover's hope--the watcher's toil_.--[MS.]

[kg] _And half-Existence melts within a grave_.--[MS.]

[278] {348} [Compare--

"Now slowly melting into day, Vapour and mist dissolved away."

Sotheby's _Constance de Castile_, Canto III. stanza v. lines 17, 18.]

[279] [Compare the last lines of Pippa's song in Browning's _Pippa Passes_--"God's in His Heaven, all's right with the world!"]

[280] [Mr. Alexander Dyce points out the resemblance between these lines and a passage in one of Pope's letters to Steele (July 15, 1712, _Works_, 1754, viii. 226): "The morning after my exit the sun will rise as bright as ever, the flowers smell as sweet, the plants spring as green."]

[kh] {349} _When Ezzelin_----.--[Ed. 1831.]

[ki] _Here in thy hall_----.--[MS.]

[281] {351} [Compare _Mysteries of Udolpho_, by Mrs. Ann Radcliffe, 1794, ii. 279: "The Count then fell back into the arms of his servants, while Montoni held his sword over him and bade him ask his life ... his complexion changed almost to blackness as he looked upon his fallen adversary."]

[kj] _And turned to smite a foe already felled_.--[MS.]

[kk] _And he less calm--yet calmer than them all_.--[MS.]

[kl] {353} ----_the blind and headlong rage_.--[MS.]

[km] {354} _The first impressions with his milder sway_ _Of dread_----.--[MS.]

[kn] _Mysterious gloom around his hall and state_.--[MS.]

[ko] {355} _The Beauty--which the first success would snatch_.--[MS.]

[kp] {356} _A word's enough to rouse mankind to kill_ _Some factions phrase by cunning raised and spread_.--[MS.]

[kq] {357} ----_upon the battle slain_.--[Ed. 1831.]

[kr] {358} _But not endure the long protracted strife_.--[MS. erased.]

[ks] {360} _And raged the combat till_----.--[MS.]

[282] {361} [Stanza XV. was added after the completion of the first draft of the poem.]

[283] [Compare-- "Il s'excite, il s'empresse, il inspire aux soldats Cet espoir généreux que lui-même il n'a pas." Voltaire, _Henriade_, Chant. viii. lines 127, 128, _Oeuvres Complêtes_, Paris, 1837, ii. 325.]

[kt] {362} _The stiffening steed is on the dinted earth_.--[MS.]

[284] [Compare-- "There lay a horse, another through the field Ran masterless." Tasso's _Jerusalem_ (translated by Edward Fairfax), Bk. VII. stanza cvi. lines 3, 4.]

[ku] ----_that glassy river lie_.--[MS.]

[285] {364} [Stanza xix. was added after the completion of the poem. The MS. is extant.]

[kv] ----_white lips spoke_.--[MS.]

[kw] ----_pale--and passionless_.--[MS.]

[kx] {365} _That Life--immortal--infinite secure_ _To All for whom that Cross hath made it sure_.-- [MS. First ed. 1814.] or, _That life immortal, infinite and sure_ _To all whose faith the eternal boon secure_.--[MS.]

[ky] _But faint the dying Lara's accents grew_.--[MS.]

[kz] _He gazed as doubtful that the thing he saw_ _Had something more to ask from Lone or awe_.--[MS.]

[la] {367} _But all unknown the blood he lost or spilt_ _These only told his Glory or his Guilt_.--[MS.]

[286] The event in this section was suggested by the description of the death or rather burial of the Duke of Gandia. "The most interesting and

## particular account of it is given by Burchard, and is in substance as

follows:--'On the eighth day of June, the Cardinal of Valenza and the Duke of Gandia, sons of the pope, supped with their mother, Vanozza, near the church of _S. Pietro ad vincula_: several other persons being present at the entertainment. A late hour approaching, and the cardinal having reminded his brother that it was time to return to the apostolic palace, they mounted their horses or mules, with only a few attendants, and proceeded together as far as the palace of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, when the duke informed the cardinal that, before he returned home, he had to pay a visit of pleasure. Dismissing therefore all his attendants, excepting his _staffiero_, or footman, and a person in a mask, who had paid him a visit whilst at supper, and who, during the space of a month or thereabouts, previous to this time, had called upon him almost daily at the apostolic palace, he took this person behind him on his mule, and proceeded to the street of the Jews, where he quitted his servant, directing him to remain there until a certain hour; when, if he did not return, he might repair to the palace. The duke then seated the person in the mask behind him, and rode I know not whither; but in that night he was assassinated, and thrown into the river. The servant, after having been dismissed, was also assaulted and mortally wounded; and although he was attended with great care, yet such was his situation, that he could give no intelligible account of what had befallen his master. In the morning, the duke not having returned to the palace, his servants began to be alarmed; and one of them informed the pontiff of the evening excursion of his sons, and that the duke had not yet made his appearance. This gave the pope no small anxiety; but he conjectured that the duke had been attracted by some courtesan to pass the night with her, and, not choosing to quit the house in open day, had waited till the following evening to return home. When, however, the evening arrived, and he found himself disappointed in his expectations, he became deeply afflicted, and began to make inquiries from different persons, whom he ordered to attend him for that purpose. Amongst these was a man named Giorgio Schiavoni, who, having discharged some timber from a bark in the river, had remained on board the vessel to watch it; and being interrogated whether he had seen any one thrown into the river on the night preceding, he replied, that he saw two men on foot, who came down the street, and looked diligently about to observe whether any person was passing. That seeing no one, they returned, and a short time afterwards two others came, and looked around in the same manner as the former: no person still appearing, they gave a sign to their companions, when a man came, mounted on a white horse, having behind him a dead body, the head and arms of which hung on one side, and the feet on the other side of the horse; the two persons on foot supporting the body, to prevent its falling. They thus proceeded towards that part where the filth of the city is usually discharged into the river, and turning the horse, with his tail towards the water, the two persons took the dead body by the arms and feet, and with all their strength flung it into the river. The person on horseback then asked if they had thrown it in; to which they replied, _Signor, si_ (yes, Sir). He then looked towards the river, and seeing a mantle floating on the stream, he enquired what it was that appeared black, to which they answered, it was a mantle; and one of them threw stones upon it, in consequence of which it sunk. The attendants of the pontiff then enquired from Giorgio, why he had not revealed this to the governor of the city; to which he replied, that he had seen in his time a hundred dead bodies thrown into the river at the same place, without any inquiry being made respecting them; and that he had not, therefore, considered it as a matter of any importance. The fishermen and seamen were then collected, and ordered to search the river, where, on the following evening, they found the body of the duke, with his habit entire, and thirty ducats in his purse. He was pierced with nine wounds, one of which was in his throat, the others in his head, body, and limbs. No sooner was the pontiff informed of the death of his son, and that he had been thrown, like filth, into the river, than, giving way to his grief, he shut himself up in a chamber, and wept bitterly. The Cardinal of Segovia, and other attendants on the pope, went to the door, and after many hours spent in persuasions and exhortations, prevailed upon him to admit them. From the evening of Wednesday till the following Saturday the pope took no food; nor did he sleep from Thursday morning till the same hour on the ensuing day. At length, however, giving way to the entreaties of his attendants, he began to restrain his sorrow, and to consider the injury which his own health might sustain by the further indulgence of his grief.'"--Roscoe's _Life and Pontificate of Leo Tenth_, 1805, i. 265. [See, too, for the original in _Burchard Diar_, in Gordon's _Life of Alex. VI., Append._, "De Cæde Ducis Gandiæ," _Append._ No. xlviii., _ib._, pp. 90, 91.]

[lb] {370} _A mighty pebble_----.--[MS.]

[lc] _That not unarmed in combat fair he fell_.--[MS. erased.]

[ld] {371} ----_some phantom wound_.--[MS.]

HEBREW MELODIES

INTRODUCTION TO _HEBREW MELODIES_

According to the "Advertisement" prefixed to Murray's First Edition of the _Hebrew Melodies_, London, 1815 (the date, January, 1815, was appended in 1832), the "poems were written at the request of the author's friend, the Hon. D. Kinnaird, for a selection of Hebrew Melodies, and have been published, with the music, arranged by Mr. Braham and Mr. Nathan."

Byron's engagement to Miss Milbanke took place in September, 1814, and the remainder of the year was passed in London, at his chambers in the Albany. The so-called _Hebrew Melodies_ were, probably, begun in the late autumn of that year, and were certainly finished at Seaham, after his marriage had taken place, in January-February, 1815. It is a natural and pardonable conjecture that Byron took to writing sacred or, at any rate, scriptural verses by way of giving pleasure and doing honour to his future wife, "the girl who gave to song What gold could never buy." They were, so to speak, the first-fruits of a seemlier muse.

It is probable that the greater number of these poems were in MS. before it occurred to Byron's friend and banker, the Honble. Douglas James William Kinnaird (1788-1830), to make him known to Isaac Nathan (1792-1864), a youthful composer of "musical farces and operatic works," who had been destined by his parents for the Hebrew priesthood, but had broken away, and, after some struggles, succeeded in qualifying himself as a musician.

Byron took a fancy to Nathan, and presented him with the copyright of his "poetical effusions," on the understanding that they were to be set to music and sung in public by John Braham. "Professional occupations" prevented Braham from fulfilling his part of the engagement, but a guinea folio (Part. I.) ("_Selections of Hebrew Melodies, Ancient and Modern_, with appropriate symphonies and accompaniments, by I. Braham and I. Nathan, the poetry written expressly for the work by the Right Honourable Lord Byron")--with an ornamental title-page designed by the architect Edward Blore (1789-1879), and dedicated to the Princess Charlotte of Wales--was published in April, 1815. A second part was issued in 1816.

The preface, part of which was reprinted (p. vi.) by Nathan, in his _Fugitive Pieces and Reminiscences of Lord Byron_, London, 1829, is not without interest--

"The Hebrew Melodies are a selection from the favourite airs which are still sung in the religious ceremonies of the Jews. Some of these have, in common with all their Sacred airs, been preserved by memory and tradition alone, without the assistance of written characters. Their age and originality, therefore, must be left to conjecture. But the latitude given to the taste and genius of their performers has been the means of engrafting on the original Melodies a certain wildness and pathos, which have at length become the chief characteristics of the sacred songs of the Jews....

"Of the poetry it is necessary to speak, in order thus publicly to acknowledge the kindness with which Lord Byron has condescended to furnish the most valuable part of the work. It has been our endeavour to select such melodies as would best suit the style and sentiment of the poetry."

Moore, for whose benefit the Melodies had been rehearsed, was by no means impressed by their "wildness and pathos," and seems to have twitted Byron on the subject, or, as he puts it (_Life_, p. 276), to have taken the liberty of "laughing a little at the manner in which some of the Hebrew Melodies had been set to music." The author of _Sacred Songs_ (1814) set to airs by Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, etc., was a critic not to be gainsaid, but from the half-comical petulance with which he "curses" and "sun-burns" (Letters to Moore, February 22, March 8, 1815, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 179, 183) Nathan, and his "vile Ebrew nasalities," it is evident that Byron winced under Moore's "chaff."

Apart from the merits or demerits of the setting, the title _Hebrew Melodies_ is somewhat misleading. Three love-songs, "She walks in Beauty like the Night," "Oh! snatched away in Beauty's Bloom," and "I saw thee weep," still form part of the collection; and, in Nathan's folio (which does not contain "A spirit passed before me"), two fragments, "It is the hour when from the boughs" and "Francesca walks in the shadow of night," which were afterwards incorporated in _Parisina_, were included. The _Fugitive Pieces_, 1829, retain the fragments from _Parisina_, and add the following hitherto unpublished poems: "I speak not, I trace not," etc., "They say that Hope is Happiness," and the genuine but rejected Hebrew Melody "In the valley of waters we wept on the day."

It is uncertain when Murray's first edition appeared. Byron wrote to Nathan with regard to the copyright in January, 1815 (_Letters_, 1899, iii. 167), but it is unlikely that the volume was put on the market before Nathan's folio, which was advertised for the first time in the _Morning Chronicle_, April 6, 1815; and it is possible that the first public announcement of the _Hebrew Melodies_, as a separate issue, was made in the _Courier_, June 22, 1815.

The _Hebrew Melodies_ were reviewed in the _Christian Observer_, August, 1815, vol. xiv. p. 542; in the _Analectic Magazine_, October, 1815, vol. vi. p. 292; and were noticed by Jeffrey [The _Hebrew Melodies_, though "obviously inferior" to Lord Byron's other works, "display a skill in versification and a mastery in diction which would have raised an inferior artist to the very summit of distinction"] in the _Edinburgh Review_, December, 1816, vol. xxvii. p. 291.

ADVERTISEMENT

The subsequent poems were written at the request of my friend, the Hon. Douglas Kinnaird, for a Selection of Hebrew Melodies, and have been published, with the music, arranged by Mr. Braham and Mr. Nathan.

_January_, 1815.

HEBREW MELODIES

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY.[287]