1 I must here acknowledge a close, though unintentional, resemblance in these twelve lines to a passage in an unpublished poem of Mr Coleridge, called "Christabel." It was not till after these lines were written that I heard that wild and singularly original and beautiful poem recited; and the MS. of that production I never saw till very recently, by the kindness of Mr Coleridge himself, who, I hope, is convinced that I have not been a wilful plagiarist. The original idea undoubtedly pertains to Mr Coleridge, whose poem has been composed above fourteen years. Let me conclude by a hope that he will not longer delay the publication of a production, of which I can only add my mite of approbation to the applause of far more competent judges.

[The lines in Christabel, Part the First, 4352, 57, 59, are these

"The night is chill; the forest bare;

Is it the wind that moaneth bleak?
There is not wind enough in the air
To move away the ringlet curl
From the lovely lady's cheek -
There is not wind enough to twirl
The one red leaf, the last of its clan,
That dances as often as dance it can,
Hanging so light, and hanging so high,
On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky."
What sees she there?

There she sees a damsel bright,
Drest in a silken robe of white.'

Byron, in a letter to Coleridge, dated October 27, 1815, had already expressly guarded himself against a charge of plagiarism, by explaining that lines 521-532 of stanza xix. were written before he heard Walter Scott repeat Christabel in the preceding June. Neither in letter or note does Byron attempt to deny or explain away the coincidence, but pleads that his lines were written before he had heard Coleridge's poem recited, and that he had not been guilty of a "wilful plagiarism." There is no difficulty in accepting his statement. Long before the

551

The Ocean's calm within their view, Beside her eye had less of blue; But like that cold wave it stood still, And its glance, though clear, was chill. Around her form a thin robe twining, Nought concealed her bosom shining; Through the parting of her hair, Floating darkly downward there, Her rounded arm showed white and bare: summer of 1815 Christabel "had a pretty general circulation in the literary world," and he may have heard, without heeding, this and other passages quoted by privileged readers; or. though never a line of Christabel had sounded in his ears, he may (as the late Professor Kölbing points out) have caught its lilt at second hand from the published works of Southey, or of Scott himself.]

And ere yet she made reply,
Once she raised her hand on high; 560
It was so wan, and transparent of hue,
You might have seen the moon shine
through.

XXI.

"I come from my rest to him I loved best,

That I may be happy, and he may be blessed.

I have passed the guards, the gate, the wall;

Sought thee in safety through foes and all.

'Tis said the lion will turn and flee

From a maid in the pride of her purity; And the Power on high, that can shield the good

Thus from the tyrant of the wood, 570 Hath extended its mercy to guard me as well

From the hands of the leaguering
Infidel.

I come - and if I come in vain,
Never, oh never, we meet again!
Thou hast done a fearful deed

In falling away from thy fathers' creed:
But dash that turban to earth, and sign
The sign of the cross, and for ever be
mine;

Wring the black drop from thy heart, And to-morrow unites us no more to part." 580

"And where should our bridal couch be spread?

In the midst of the dying and the dead? For to-morrow we give to the slaughter

With aught of change, as the eyes may

seem

Of the restless who walk in a troubled dream;

Like the figures on arras, that gloomily glare, 620

Stirred by the breath of the wintry air,

So seen by the dying lamp's fitful light,

Lifeless, but life-like, and awful to

sight;

As they seem, through the dimness, about to come down

Alp looked to heaven, and saw on high
The sign she spake of in the sky;
But his heart was swollen, and turned
aside,

[In the summer of 1803, Byron, then turned fifteen, though offered a bed at Annesley, used at first to return every night to Newstead; alleging that he was afraid of the family pictures of the Chaworths, which he fancied "had taken a grudge to him on account of the duel, and would come down from their frames to haunt him." Moore thinks this passage may have been suggested by the recollection (Life, p. 27).]

I have been told that the idea expressed in this and the five following lines has been admired by those whose approbation is valuable. I am glad of it; but it is not original at least not mine; it may be found much better expressed in pages 182-3-4 of the English version [Ed. 1786] of Vathek" (I forget the precise page of the French), a work to which I have before referred; and never recur to, or read, without a renewal of gratification.

680

The night is past, and shines the sun
As if that morn were a jocund one.
Lightly and brightly breaks away
The Morning from her mantle grey,
And the Noon will look on a sultry day.
Hark to the trump, and the drum,
And the mournful sound of the barbar-
ous horn,

And the flap of the banners, that flit as they're borne,

And the neigh of the steed, and the multitude's hum,

And the clash, and the shout, "They

come! they come!"

The horsetails are plucked from the ground, and the sword

From its sheath; and they form, and

but wait for the word.

Tartar, and Spahi, and Turcoman, 690 Strike your tents, and throng to the van;

XXIII.

As the wolves, that headlong go
On the stately buffalo,

Though with fiery eyes, and angry roar, And hoofs that stamp, and horns that gore,

He tramples on earth, or tosses on high The foremost, who rush on his strength but to die:

Thus against the wall they went,
Thus the first were backward bent; 730
Many a bosom, sheathed in brass,
Strewed the earth like broken glass,
Shivered by the shot, that tore

The ground whereon they moved no

more:

Even as they fell, in files they lay, Like the mower's grass at the close of day,

When his work is done on the levelled

plain;

Such was the fall of the foremost slain.

XXIV.

740

As the spring-tides, with heavy plash,
From the cliffs invading dash
Huge fragments, sapped by the ceaseless
flow,

Till white and thundering down they go,
Like the avalanche's snow

On the Alpine vales below;

Thus at length, outbreathed and worn,
Corinth's sons were downward borne
By the long and oft renewed
Charge of the Moslem multitude.

In firmness they stood, and in masses they fell,

Heaped by the host of the Infidel, 750 Hand to hand, and foot to foot: Nothing there, save Death, was mute; Stroke, and thrust, and flash, and cry For quarter, or for victory,

Mingle there with the volleying thunder,
Which makes the distant cities wonder
How the sounding battle goes,

If with them, or for their foes;
If they must mourn, or may rejoice
In that annihilating voice,
Which pierces the deep hills through
and through

With an echo dread and new:

760

You might have heard it, on that day,

O'er Salamis and Megara, (We have heard the hearers say,) Even unto Piræus' bay.

XXV.

From the point of encountering blades to the hilt,

Sabres and swords with blood were gilt; But the rampart is won, and the spoil begun,

And all but the after carnage done. 770 Shriller shrieks now mingling come From within the plundered dome: Hark to the haste of flying feet,

That splash in the blood of the slippery street;

But here and there, where 'vantage ground

Against the foe may still be found,
Desperate groups, of twelve or ten,
Make a pause, and turn again
With banded backs against the wall,
Fiercely stand, or fighting fall.
There stood an old man

were white,

But his veteran arm might:

780 - his hairs

was full of

So gallantly bore he the brunt of the fray,

The dead before him, on that day,
In a semicircle lay;

Still he combated unwounded,
Though retreating, unsurrounded.
Many a scar of former fight

Lurked beneath his corslet bright;
But of every wound his body bore, 790
Each and all had been ta'en before:
Though agéd, he was so iron of limb,
Few of our youth could cope with
him;

And the foes, whom he singly kept at bay,

Outnumbered his thin hairs of silver

810

And since the day, when in the strait'
His only boy had met his fate,
His parent's iron hand did doom
More than a human hecatomb.
If shades by carnage be appeased,
Patroclus' spirit less was pleased
Than his, Minotti's son, who died
Where Asia's bounds and ours divide.
Buried he lay, where thousands before
For thousands of years were inhumed
on the shore;

What of them is left, to tell

Where they lie, and how they fell? Not a stone on their turf, nor a bone in their graves;

But they live in the verse that immortally

Look through the thick of the fight, 'tis there!

There is not a standard on that shore
So well advanced the ranks before;
There is not a banner in Moslem war
Will lure the Delhis half so far;
It glances like a falling star!
Where'er that mighty arm is seen,
The bravest be, or late have been;
There the craven cries for quarter
Vainly to the vengeful Tartar;
Or the hero, silent lying,
Scorns to yield a groan in dying;
Mustering his last feeble blow
'Gainst the nearest levelled foe,.
Though faint beneath the mutual wound,
Grappling on the gory ground.

840

In the naval battle at the mouth of the Dardanelles, between the Venetians and Turks.