Who wisely wish the charms you view to reap, Round the slight waist, or down the glowing side, Voluptuous Waltz! and dare I thus blaspheme? Thy bard forgot thy praises were his theme. Terpsichore, forgive-at every ball My wife now waltzes and my daughters shall; Will wear as green a bough for him as me)- TO TIME. TIME! on whose arbitrary wing But drag or drive us on to die Hail, thou! who on my birth bestow'd For now I bear the weight alone. I would not one fond heart should share To them be joy or rest, on me Yet even that pain was some relief; It felt, but still forgot thy power: Retards, but never counts the hour. In joy I've sigh'd to think thy flight Would soon subside from swift to slow; For then, however drear and dark, That beam hath sunk, and now thou art One scene even thou canst not deform; And I can smile to think how weak THOU ART NOT FALSE, BUT THOU ART FICKLE. THOU art not false, but thou art fickle, "Tis this which breaks the heart thou grievest, The wholly false the heart despises, To dream of joy and wake to sorrow, What must they feel whom no false vision, As if a dream alone had charm'd? REMEMBER HIM, WHOM PASSION'S POWER. REMEMBER him, whom passion's power When neither fell, though both were loved. That yielding breast, that melting eye, Oh let me feel that all I lost But saved thee all that conscience fears; To spare the vain remorse of years. Yet think of this when many a tongue, Think that, whate'er to others, thou Oh, God! that we had met in time, Our hearts as fond, thy hand more free; Far may thy days, as heretofore, From this our gaudy world be pass'd! This heart, alas! perverted long, Itself destroy'd, might thee destroy; Then to the things whose bliss or woe, Thy youth, thy charms, thy tenderness, From what even here hath pass'd, may guess Oh! pardon that imploring tear, Since not by Virtue shed in vain, Though long and mournful must it be, And almost deem the sentence sweet. Still, had I loved thee less, my heart It felt not half so much to part, As if its guilt had raade thee mine. 1329. THE GIAOUR:* A FRAGMENT OF A TURKISH TALE. "One fatal remembrance-one sorrow that throws Ita bleak shade alike o'er our joys and our woes-- To which Life nothing darker nor brighter can bring, For which joy hath no balm-and affliction no sting."-MOORE. ΤΟ SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ., AS A SLIGHT BUT MOST SINCERE TOKEN OF ADMIRATION FOR HIS GENIUS, RESPECT FOR HIS CHARACTER, AND GRATITUDE FOR HIS FRIENDSHIP, THIS PRODUCTION IS INSCRIBED, London, May, 1813. BY HIS OBLIGED AND AFFECTIONATE SERVANT, BYRON. ADVERTISEMENT. The tale which these disjointed fragments present, is founded upon circumstances now less common in the East than formerly; either because the ladies are more circumspect than in the "olden time," or because the Christians have better fortune, or less enterprise. The story, when entire, contained the adventures of a female slave, who was thrown, in the Mussulman manner, into the sea for infidelity, and avenged by a young Venetian, her lover, at the time the Seven Islands were possessed by the Republic of Venice, and soon after the Arnauts were beaten back from the Morea, which they had ravaged for some time subsequent to the Russian invasion. The desertion of the Mainotes, on being refused the plunder of Misitra, led to the abandonment of that enterprise, and to the desolation of the Morea, during which the cruelty exercised on all sides was unparalleled even in the annals of the faithful. This word, immortalized by Byron in this poem, and not less by Beckford in "Vathek," means "infidel," and is pronounced Djiur, like Giamschid and other Fastern names. |