XCII.

Oh, known the earliest, and esteem'd the most! 67
Dear to a heart where nought was left so dear!
Though to my hopeless days for ever lost,

In dreams deny me not to see thee here!
And Morn in secret shall renew the tear
Of Consciousness awaking to her woes,
And Fancy hover o'er thy bloodless bier,
Till my frail frame return to whence it rose,
And mourn'd and mourner lie united in repose.

XCIII.

Here is one fytte of Harold's pilgrimage: Ye who of him may further seek to know, Shall find some tidings in a future page, If he that rhymeth now may scribble moc. Is this too much? stern Critic! say not so: Patience and ye shall hear what he beheld In other lands, where he was doom'd to go: Lands that contain the monuments of Eld, Ere Greece and Grecian arts by barbarous hands were quell'd.63

NOTES TO CANTO THE FIRST.

1.-Stanza i., line 6.

Yes! sigh'd o'er Delphi's long deserted shrine,

The little village of Castri stands partly on the site of Delphi. Along the path of the mountain, from Chrysso, are the remains of sepulchres hewn in and from the rock:-"One," said the guide, "of a king who broke his neck hunting." His majesty had certainly chosen the fittest spot for such an achievement. A little above Castri is a cave, supposed the Pythian, of immense depth; the upper part of it is paved, and now a cowhouse. On the other side of Castri stands a Greek monastery; some way above which is the cleft in the rock, with a range of caverns difficult of ascent, and apparently leading to the interior of the mountain; probably to the Corycian Cavern mentioned by Pausanias. From this part descend the fountain and the "Dews of Castalie." [The opening stanza is not in the original MS.]

2. Stanza ii., line 7.

Few earthly things found favour in his sight
["He cheer'd the bad and did the good affright,
With concubines," &c.-MS.]

3. Stanza v., line 3.

Had sigh'd to many though he loved but one,

[The stanzas written to Mrs. Musters, on leaving England, are the best comment on the allusion in the text:

"And I must from this land be gone,
Because I cannot love but one."]

4. Stanza vi., line 5.

Apart he stalk'd in joyless reverie,

["And straight he fell into a reverie."-MS.]

5.-Stanza vii., line 7.

Now Paphian girls were known to sing and smile;

[The old housekeeper at Newstead told Washington Irving, that the licentious life, and the paramours, were mainly a fiction. The interior at Newstead was often loose and irregular, but it never exhibited the profuse luxury and Satanic revelry which he here seems to indicate.]

6. Stanza x., line 6.

Yet deem not thence his breast a breast of steel:

["Yet deem him not from this with breast of steel."-MS.]

7.-Stanza xi., line 2.

The laughing dames in whom he did delight,

["His house, his home, his vassals, and his lands,

The Dalilahs," &c.-MS.

The last line of the stanza is an allusion to Lord Byron's original intention to extend his travels to India.]

8.-Page 8, line 9.

"Come hither, hither, my little page!

[This "little page' was Robert Rushton, the son of one of Lord Byron's tenants. "Robert I take with me," says the poct, in a letter to his mother; "I like him, because, like myself, he seems a friendless animal." The boy being sickly, Lord Byron, on reaching Gibraltar, sent him back to England.]

9.-Page 8, line 16.

More merrily along."

["Our best goss-hawk can hardly fly
So merrily along."-MS.]

10.-Page 8, line 18.

I fear not wave nor wind:

["Oh, master dear! I do not cry
From fear of wave or wind."-MS.]

11.-Page 9, line 8.

Mine own would not be dry.

[Here follows in the original MS.:

"My Mother is a high-born dame,
And much misliketh me;

She saith my riot bringeth shame
On all my ancestry:

I had a sister once I ween,

Whose tears perhaps will flow;
But her fair face I have not seen
For three long years and moe.'"]

12.-Page 9, line 9.

"Come hither, hither, my staunch yeoman,

[William Fletcher, his faithful valet. Notwithstanding that he is made in this stanza to disclaim being timid, Lord Byron says in his letters that he was the reverse of valiant, and that he sighed for home comforts, beef, beer, and tea, as well as for his wife.]

13.-Page 9, line 24.

Will laugh to flee away."

["Enough, enough, my yeoman good,
All this is well to say;
But if I in thy sandals stood,
I'd laugh to get away."-MS.]

14.-Page 10, line 4.

We late saw streaming o'er.

["For who would trust a paramour,

Or e'en a wedded freere,

Though her blue eyes were streaming o'er,
And torn her yellow hair?"-MS.]

15.-Page 10, line 8.

No thing that claims a tear.

["I leave England without regret-I shall return to it without pleasure. I am like Adam, the first convict sentenced to transportation; but I have no Eve, and have eaten no apple but what was sour as a crab."--Lord Byron to Mr. Hodgson.]

16.-Page 10, line 13.

Perchance my dog will whine in vain,

["I do not mean," Lord Byron wrote to Mr. Dallas, "to exchange the ninth verse of the 'Good Night.' I have no reason to suppose my dog better than his brother brutes, mankind; and Argus we know to be a fable." In Don Juan, also, one of the felicities that are said to await "an honest gentleman" on his return, after a lengthened absence,

"Is that his Argus bites him by-the breeches."