287. WHEN WE Two Parted.' twentieth year. Written 1808, in the poet's Published with Poems, 1816. It is a frequent practice of Byron to admit lines apparently or actually longer or shorter by a foot than the norm of the stanza would seem to exact. So here lines 5 and 7 apparently require three stresses each. They, however, have each six syllables, like the corresponding lines in stanza 2, and musically or metrically can thus be read to the same time as the rest of the lines. For other and similar irregularities see p. 297 (different rhymescheme for each stanza), p. 299. ("There be none of Beauty's daughters," the scansion throughout.) Ad 288. MAID OF ATHENS.' Written at Athens in 1810. dressed to the eldest daughter (Theresa Macri) of the widow of the vice-consul for England, at whose house Byron lodged during his first visit to Athens. She is described by a contemporary traveller (Hugh Williams, Travels in Italy, Greece,' etc.) as of middle stature, oval countenance, dark hair and eyes, and pleasing manners. Galt, however (Life of Byron' p. 119), thinks that she has been rendered more famous by his Lordship's verses than her degree of beauty deserved. She was a pale and pensive-looking girl, with regular Grecian features. Whether he really cherished any sincere attachment to her I much doubt.” After his departure from Athens Byron wrote in a letter to his friend Drury: "I almost forgot to tell you that I am dying for love of three Greek girls at Athens, sisters. I lived in the same house. Teresa, Mariana, and Katinka are the names of these divinities, all of them under fifteen." From this passage one can fairly judge the sincerity of the poet's attachment. All the better, perhaps, is the poetry itself. 66 288: 6. Romaic expression of tenderness. . . It means, 'My life, I love you!' which sounds very prettily in all languages." [Byron's note. 288: 15. "In the East (where ladies are not taught to write, lest they should scribble assignations) flowers, cinders, pebbles, etc., convey the sentiments of the parties by that universal deputy of Mercury—an old woman. [Byron's note. 288:21. Istambol. Constantinople. 289. AND THOU ART DEAD.' Written in February, 1812. I am not aware that it is to be attached to any circumstance in the poet's life, but it was written not long after the deaths of his mother and of several of the friends of his youth, which deeply affected him. With this stimulus the poem may very well have been written directly from the Latin text which is prefixed to it, which is echoed in the concluding lines, and which Moore also paraphrased in the poem mentioned below. 289: 1. For the motto, cf. Shenstone, 'Inscription on an Ornamented Urn' (To Miss Dolman: in Chalmers' Poets, xiii, 330). Translated by Moore : "To live with them is far less sweet, Than to remember thee.” Moore's poem ('I saw thy form in youthful prime,' in the 'Irish Melodies'), written in a stanza of which Byron's seems to be a modification, and upon a similar theme and from the same motto or text, was probably Byron's starting-point in this lyric. Byron was a great admirer of Moore's songs. The two poems may be compared with profit. They exhibit strikingly the differences in diction, tone of sentiment, and lyric method of the two poets. 291; "CLIME OF THE UNFORGOTTEN BRAVE!" From The Giaour,' written and published in the spring of 1813,-a poem to which a motto from Moore is prefixed. 292: "KNOW YE THE LAND." From The Bride of Abydos,' written in November, and published early in December, 1813. These form the opening lines of the poem and are written in a different metre from the rest. These lines were written as an after-thought, while the poem was passing through the press. They suggest at once Goethe's famous lyric, prefixed to the first chapter of the third book of Wilhelm Meister': "Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen blühn, Kennst du es wohl ?-Dahin! Dahin Möcht ich mit dir, O mein Geliebter, ziehn," etc. The resemblance, however, is merely in general theme and coloring. Byron has not followed his model very closely, if Goethe were his model. As he did not read German, this last seems doubtful. He, however, was accused of borrowing these lines from Madame de Staël's paraphrase: "Cette terre, où les myrtes fleurissent, Où les rayons des cieux tombent avec amour, Où des sons enchanteurs dans les airs retentissent, Où la plus douce nuit succède au plus beau jour." This charge the Countess of Blessington ('Conversations with Byron,' 326) reports him as denying. In any event, while the motive is the same, the resemblance otherwise is merely a vague and general one. The lines as given above are from the Countess of Blessington's book. In Madame de Staël's 'L'Allemagne ' (ch. xxviii) only the first line is given, and that in another form, viz.: "Connais-tu cette terre où les citronniers fleurissent." The measure is a four-foot verse of free anapæstic movement. 292: 8. Gúl. The rose. [Byron's note. 293: "O'ER THE GLAD WATERS OF THE DARK-BLUE SEA." The opening lines of The Corsair,' written in December, 1813, and published in January, 1814. The poem is written in heroic couplets. The first line, however, is rhythmically exceedingly irregular, although metrically regular, producing thus a strong effect of rapidity and animation. The management of cadence and pause in this entire passage may be studied with advantage. 294: "SLOW SINKS, MORE LOVELY ERE HIS RACE BE RUN." The opening lines of the third canto of 'The Corsair,' 1813-14. These lines, however, as Byron tells us in a note, were written in 1811 for another (unpublished) poem,--and so may the more justifiably here be detached from 'The Corsair' as a whole. They were," he says, "written on the spot,"-i.e., at Athens. Could a painter comprehend the picture, here given, on one canvas? What does the poet here give which the painter could 66 not give ? 2947. Idra's isle. Idra, otherwise Hydra, an island off the east coast of the Morea. 294: 22. "Socrates drank the hemlock a short time before sunset (the hour of execution), notwithstanding the entreaties of his disciples to wait till the sun went down." [Byron's note. 295: 29. Citharon's head. A mountain in Boeotia, northwest from Athens. 295: 33. high Hymettus. A mountain two miles southeast from Athens. 295: 42. meek Cephisus. The smaller stream of this name, in Attica. 295: 44, 46. "The Kiosk is a Turkish summer-house: the palm is without the present walls of Athens, not far from the temple of Theseus, between which and the tree the wall intervenes. Cephisus' stream is indeed scanty, and Ilissus has no stream at all." [Byron's note. 296: "SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY." The first among the so-called'Hebrew Melodies,' written in December, 1814, and published in. 1815. The volume was intended for the use of the modern Israelites, the music being written or arranged by Messrs. Nathan and Braham. At the solicitation of his friend the Hon. Douglas Kinnaird, Byron consented to write a number of songs for the collection. The editor of the 1832 edition of Byron's Works appends the following note to this lyric: "These stanzas were written by Lord Byron on returning from a ballroom, where he had seen Mrs. (now Lady) Wilmot Horton, the wife of his relation, the present Governor of Ceylon. On this occasion Mrs. W. H. had appeared in mourning, with numerous spangles on her dress." 296: 3. The meaning is made more explicit in l. 7. 296: 5. Thus mellowed. i.e., through the meeting "in her aspect and her eyes." 296: "IF THAT HIGH WORLD." Also from the Hebrew Melodies,' 1814. 296: 2. 297: 14. Love is the subject of the sentence. The phrase is elliptical; after "shares" is understood some such phrase as "mutual love with it.” 297: "OH! SNATCH'D AWAY IN BEAUTY'S BLOOM." From the Hebrew Melodies,' 1814. 297: "WHEN COLDNESS WRAPS THIS SUFFERING CLAY." From the Hebrew Melodies,' 1814. 298. THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB. From the 'Hebrew Melodies,' 1814. Cf. II Kings xviii-xix, esp. xviii, 13: “Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah did Sennacherib, king of Assyria, come up against all the fenced cities of Judah, and took them." Also xix, 35: "And it came to pass that night that the angel of the Lord went out and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses." Cf. also II Chronicles' xxxii, and Isaiah' xxxvi-vii. 299: 21. the widows of Ashur. i.e. of Assyria, the ancient Semitic kingdom of Asshur, or perhaps one of its capitals, the city of the same name. 299: "THERE be None of BEAUTY'S DAUGHTERS." Written in 1815, as "Stanzas for Music." Published 1816. The rhythmical scansion of these two stanzas is difficult, if not practically impossible, after any consistent scheme. As they were written for music, however, the metrical scansion is the more important. This seems to require the scheme 4, 3, 4, 3, 4, 3,4, 4 (i.e. a four-foot line, a three-foot, etc.), with allowance of a full rest or pause to complete the defective foot in each seven-syllabled line. 299: 3. Cf. Manfred,' I, i, 177. Sent in the poet's 300: SO WE'LL GO NO MORE A-ROVING. letter of February 28, 1817, from Venice to Moore, introduced with the following words: "The Carnival--that is, the latter part of it, and sitting up late o' nights, had knocked me up a little. But it is over,--and it is now Lent, with all its abstinence and sacred music. The mumming closed with a masked ball at the Fenice, where I went, as also to most of the ridottos, etc., etc.; and, though I did not dissipate much upon the whole, yet I find the sword wearing out the scabbard,' though I have but just turned the corner of twenty-nine. : So, we'll go no more a-roving," etc. . . . 300. "O, TALK NOT TO ME OF A NAME GREAT IN STORY." Otherwise headed Stanzas written on the road between Florence and Pisa.' Written in the autumn of 1821. 301. SONG OF THE SOUTH-SEA ISLANDERS. From The Island,' written early in 1823, and published in June of the same year. The poem as a whole is chiefly concerned with the story of the mutiny of the Bounty, and, as Byron tells us, is founded |