6. 1 What Exile from himself can flee?1 To zones though more and more remote, The blight of life the demon Thought. 2 7. Yet others rapt in pleasure seem, And taste of all that I forsake; 8. Through many a clime 't is mine to go, Whate'er betides, I've known the worst. 9. What is that worst? Nay do not ask Smile on nor venture to unmask Man's heart, and view the Hell that's there. 3 "What exile from himself can flee? To other zones, howe'er remote, The blight of life-the demon Thought."― MS.] 2 ["Written January 25. 1810." - MS.] 3 In place of this song, which was written at Athens, January 25. 1810, and which contains, as Moore says, "some of the dreariest touches of sadness that ever Byron's pen let fall," we find, in the first draught of the Canto, the following: LXXXV. Adieu, fair Cadiz! yea, a long adieu! Who may forget how well thy walls have stood? Although her eye be not of blue, 2. Prometheus-like, from heaven she stole The fire, that through those silken lashes From eyes that cannot hide their flashes: In lengthen'd flow her raven tresses, 3. Our English maids are long to woo, For love ordain'd the Spanish maid is, 4. The Spanish maid is no coquette, And if she love, or if she hate, Alike she knows not to dissemble. 5. The Spanish girl that meets your love For every thought is bent to prove Some native blood was seen thy streets to die ; A traitor only fell beneath the feud: 1 Here all were noble, save Nobility; None hugg'd a conqueror's chain, save fallen Chivalry! LXXXVI. Such be the sons of Spain, and strange her fate! Fond of a land which gave them nought but life, Back to the struggle, baffled in the strife, War, war is still the cry, "War even to the knife!"2 When thronging foemen menace Spain, She dares the deed and shares the danger; And should her lover press the plain, 6. And when, beneath the evening star, Or sings to her attuned guitar Of Christian knight or Moorish hero, Beneath the twinkling rays of Hesper, Or joins devotion's choral band, To chaunt the sweet and hallow'd vesper; 7. In each her charms the heart must move May match the dark-eyed Girl of Cadiz. 1 Alluding to the conduct and death of Solano, the governor of Cadiz, in May, 1809. 2" War to the knife." Palafox's answer to the French general LXXXVII. Ye, who would more of Spain and Spaniards know, Go, read whate'er is writ of bloodiest strife : Whate'er keen Vengeance urged on foreign foe Can act, is acting there against man's life: From flashing scimitar to secret knife, War mouldeth there each weapon to his need So may he guard the sister and the wife, So may he make each curst oppressor bleed So may such foes deserve the most remorseless deed! 1 at the siege of Saragoza. [In his proclamations, also, he stated, that, should the French commit any robberies, devastations, and murders, no quarter should be given them. The dogs by whom he was beset, he said, scarcely left him time to clean his sword from their blood, but they still found their grave at Saragoza. All his addresses were in the same spirit. "His language," says Mr. Southey, "had the high tone, and something of the inflation of Spanish romance, suiting the character of those to whom it was directed." See History of the Peninsular War, vol. iii. p. 152] The Canto, in the original MS., closes with the following stanzas: Ye, who would more of Spain and Spaniards know, Are they not written in the Book of Carr*, Green Erin's Knight and Europe's wandering star! Then listen, readers, to the Man of Ink, Hear what he did, and sought, and wrote afar; All these are coop'd within one Quarto's brink, This borrow, steal,- don't buy,—and tell us what you think. There may you read, with spectacles on eyes, How many troops y-cross'd the laughing main Porphyry said, that the prophecies of Daniel were written after their completion, and such may be my fate here; but it requires no second sight to foretel a tome: the first glimpse of the knight was enough. [In a letter written from Gibraltar, August 6. 1809, to his friend Hodson, Lord Byron says, "I have seen Sir John Carr at Seville and Cadiz; and, like Swift's barber, have been down on my knees to beg he would not put me into black and white."] LXXXVIII. Flows there a tear of pity for the dead? Let their bleach'd bones, and blood's unbleaching stain, That ne'er beheld the said return again: And where Giralda stands on her gigantic base. There may you read (Oh, Phoebus, save Sir John! But cease, my Muse, thy speed some respite craves, Yet here of mention may be made, On such unshaken fame let Satire do its worst. [The "Needy Knife-grinder," in the Anti-jacobin, was a joint production of Messrs. Frere and Canning.] |