And 'scape alike the law's and muse's
wrath?

Nor blaze with guilty glare through future
time,

Eternal beacons of consummate crime?
Arouse thee, Gifford! be thy promise
claim'd,

830 Make bad men better, or at least ashamed. 905

Unhappy White! while life was in its
spring,

And thy young muse just waved her joy-
ous wing,

The spoiler swept that soaring lyre away, Which else had sounded an immortal lay. 835 Oh! what a noble heart was here undone,1 When Science' self destroy'd her favorite 910 son!

Yes, she too much indulged thy fond pur-
suit,

She sow'd the seeds, but death has reap'd
the fruit.

'Twas thine own genius gave the final
blow,
840 And help'd to plant the wound that laid
thee low:

So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the
plain,

No more through rolling clouds to soar
again,

View'd his own feather on the fatal
dart,

And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his
heart;

845 Keen were his pangs, but keener far to
feel

He nursed the pinion which impell'd the
steel;

While the same plumage that had warm'd
his nest

Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding
breast.

915

920

Though nature's sternest painter, yet the best.

Yet let them1 not to vulgar Wordsworth stoop,

The meanest object of the lowly group, Whose verse, of all but childish prattle void,

Seems blessed harmony to Lamb and Lloyd:

Let them but hold, my muse, nor dare to teach

A strain far, far beyond thy humble. reach:

The native genius with their being given Will point the path, and peal their notes to heaven.

And thou, too, Scott! resign to minstrels rude

The wilder slogan of a Border feud:
Let others spin their meagre lines for hire;
Enough for genius, if itself inspire!
Let Southey sing, although his teeming

muse,

Prolific every spring, be too profuse;
Let simple Wordsworth chime his childish

verse,

And brother Coleridge lull the babe at nurse;2

Let spectre-mongering Lewis aim, at most, To rouse the galleries, or to raise a ghost; Let Moore still sigh; let Strangford steal from Moore,

And swear that Camoëns sang such notes

of yore;

That strain'd invention, ever on the wing, 930 Alone impels the modern bard to sing: 'Tis true, that all who rhyme-nay, all

who write,

Shrink from that fatal word to geniustrite;

855 Yet Truth sometimes will lend her noblest fires,

And decorate the verse herself inspires:
This fact in Virtue's name let Crabbe

attest;

1 See Hamlet, III, 1, 158.

line;

Let Stott, Carlisle, Matilda, and the rest Of Grub Street, and of Grosvenor Place the best,

Scrawl on, till death release us from the strain,

Or Common Sense assert her rights again. But thou, with powers that mock the aid of praise,

Shouldst leave to humbler bards ignoble lays:

Thy country's voice, the voice of all the nine,

1 A band of mediocre English poets_who_translated and published, in 1806, Translations chiefly from the Greek Anthology, with Tales and Miscellaneous Poems.

2 See Coleridge's Frost at Midnight, 10, 44 (p. 350), and Sonnet to a Friend (p. 331).

20

25

30

35

40

45

Can he smile on such deeds as his chil

dren have done?

Oh! wild as the accents of lovers' farewell Are the hearts which they bear, and the tales which they tell.

Begirt with many a gallant slave,
Apparell'd as becomes the brave,
Awaiting each his lord's behest

To guide his steps, or guard his rest,
Old Giaffir sate in his Divan:2

Deep thought was in his aged eye;
And though the face of Mussulman

Not oft betrays to standers by

The mind within, well skill'd to hide
All but unconquerable pride,

His pensive cheek and pondering brow
Did more than he was wont avow.

"Let the chamber be clear'd."-The train disappear'd.

65

70

75

Then to the tower had ta'en his way,
But here young Selim silence brake,
First lowly rendering reverence meet;
And downcast look'd, and gently spake,
Still standing at the Pacha's feet:
For son of Moslem must expire,
Ere dare to sit before his sire!

"Father! for fear that thou shouldst chide

My sister, or her sable guide,
Know-for the fault, if fault there be,
Was mine, then fall thy frowns on

me

So lovelily the morning shone,

That-let the old and weary sleepI could not; and to view alone

The fairest scenes of land and deep, With none to listen and reply

To thoughts with which my heart beat high

Were irksome-for whate'er my mood, In sooth I love not solitude;

I on Zuleika's slumber broke,

And, as thou knowest that for me
Soon turns the Haram's grating key,
Before the guardian slaves awoke
We to the cypress groves had flown,
And made earth, main, and heaven our
own!

There linger'd we, beguiled too long
With Mejnoun's tale, or Sadi's song;
Till I, who heard the deep tambour1
Beat thy Divan's approaching hour,
To thee, and to my duty true,
Warn'd by the sound, to greet thee
flew:

But there Zuleika wanders yet-
Nay, father, rage not-nor forget
That none can pierce that secret bower
But those who watch the women's
tower."

"Son of a slave"-the Pacha said"From unbelieving mother bred, Vain were a father's hope to see Aught that beseems a man in thee. Thou, when thine arm should bend the bow,

And hurl the dart, and curb the steed, Thou, Greek in soul if not in creed, Must pore where babbling waters flow, And watch unfolding roses blow. Would that yon orb, whose matin glow Thy listless eyes so much admire, Would lend thee something of his fire! Thou, who wouldst see this battlement

1 A large kettledrum which was sounded at sunrise, noon, and twilight.

And glances ev'n of more than ire

Flash forth, then faintly disappear. Old Giaffir gazed upon his son

And started; for within his eye He read how much his wrath had done; He saw rebellion there begun :

"Come hither, boy-what, no reply? I mark thee-and I know thee too; But there be deeds thou dar'st not do: But if thy beard had manlier length, And if thy hand had skill and strength, I'd joy to see thee break a lance, Albeit against my own perchance.'

As sneeringly these accents fell,
On Selim's eye he fiercely gazed:
That eye return'd him glance for
glance,

And proudly to his sire's was raised, Till Giaffir's quail'd and shrunk askance

And why-he felt, but durst not tell.
"Much I misdoubt this wayward boy
Will one day work me more annoy:
I never loved him from his birth,
And-but his arm is little worth,
And scarcely in the chase could cope
With timid fawn or antelope,

Far less would venture into strife
Where man contends for fame and

life

I would not trust that look or tone:
No-nor the blood so near my own.
That blood-he hath not heard-no

more

I'll watch him closer than before.

160

165

He is an Arab to my sight,'

Or Christian crouching in the fightBut hark! I hear Zuleika's voice; Like Houris' hymn it meets mine ear: She is the offspring of my choice;

Oh! more than ev'n her mother dear, With all to hope, and nought to fearMy Peri! ever welcome here! Sweet, as the desert fountain's wave To lips just cool'd in time to save

Such to my longing sight art thou; Nor can they waft to Mecca's shrine More thanks for life, than I for thine,

Who blest thy birth and bless thee now."

Fair, as the first that fell of womankind,2 When on that dread yet lovely serpent

smiling,

Whose image then was stamp'd upon her

mind

But once beguil'd-and ever more be

guiling;

Dazzling, as that, oh! too transcendent vision

To Sorrow's phantom-peopled slumber
given,

When heart meets heart again in dreams
Elysian,

And paints the lost on Earth revived
in Heaven;

Soft, as the memory of buried love;
Pure, as the prayer which Childhood
wafts above,

Was she-the daughter of that rude old
Chief,

Who met the maid with tears-but not
of grief.

170 Who hath not proved how feebly words