The Works of Lord Byron Volume II Part 10

[q] ------_nor honied glose of rhyme_.--[D. pencil.]

[r] _Childe Burun_------.--[MS.]

[s] {18} _For he had on the course too swiftly run_.--[MS. erased.]

[t] _Had courted many_----.--[MS. erased.]

[24] [Mary Chaworth. (Compare "Stanzas to a Lady, on leaving England,"

pa.s.sim: _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 285.)]

[u] ----_Childe Burun_----.--[MS.]

[25] {19} [Compare _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_, Canto I, stanza ix. 9--

"And burning pride and high disdain Forbade the rising tears to flow."]

[v]

_And strait he fell into a reverie_.--[MS.]

----_sullen reverie_.--[D.]

[26] [_Vide post_, stanza xi. line 9, note.]

[w] _Strange fate directed still to uses vile_.--[MS. erased.]

[x]

_Now Paphian jades were heard to sing and smile_.--[MS. erased.]

_Now Paphian nymphs_----.--[D. pencil.]

[27] [The bra.s.s eagle which was fished out of the lake at Newstead in the time of Byron's predecessor contained, among other doc.u.ments, "a grant of full pardon from Henry V. of every possible crime ... which the monks might have committed previous to the 8th of December preceding (_Murdris_, per ipsos _post decimum nonum Diem Novembris_, ultimo praeteritum perpetratis, si quae fuerint, _exceptis_)" (_Life_, p. 2, note). The monks were a constant source of delight to the Newstead "revellers." Francis Hodgson, in his "Lines on a Ruined Abbey in a Romantic Country" (_Poems_, 1809), does not spare them--

"'Hail, venerable pile!' whose ivied walls Proclaim the desolating lapse of years: And hail, ye hills, and murmuring waterfalls, Where yet her head the ruin'd Abbey rears.

No longer now the matin tolling bell, Re-echoing loud among the woody glade, Calls the fat abbot from his drowsy cell, And warns the maid to flee, if yet a maid.

No longer now the festive bowl goes round, Nor monks get drunk in honour of their G.o.d."]

[y] {20} The original MS. inserts two stanzas which were rejected during the composition of the poem:--

_Of all his train there was a henchman page,_ _peasant_ _served_ _A {-dark eyed-} boy, who {-loved-} his master well;_ _And often would his pranksome prate engage_ _Harold's_ _Childe {-Burun's-} ear, when his proud heart did swell_ _With sable thoughts that he disdained to tell_.

_Alwin_ _Then would he smile on him, as {-Rupert-} smiled,_ _{-Robin-}_ _When aught that from his young lips archly fell_ _Harold's_ _The gloomy film from {-Burun's-} eye beguiled;_ _And pleased the Childe appeared nor ere the boy reviled_.} _And pleased for a glimpse appeared the woeful Childe_. }

_Him and one yeoman only did he take_ _To travel Eastward to a far countree;_ _And though the boy was grieved to leave the lake_ _On whose firm banks he grew from Infancy,_ _Eftsoons his little heart beat merrily_ _With hope of foreign nations to behold,_ _And many things right marvellous to see,_ _vaunting_ _Of which our {-lying-} voyagers oft have told,_ _{-From Mandevilles' and scribes of similar mold.-}_ } or, _In tomes p.r.i.c.ked out with prints to monied ... sold_} _In many a tome as true as Mandeville's of old_. }

[z] ----_Childe Burun_----.--[MS.]

[aa] {21} Stanza ix. was the result of much elaboration. The first draft, which was pasted over the rejected stanzas (_vide supra_, p. 20, _var_. i.), retains the numerous erasures and emendations. It ran as follows:--

_And none did love him though to hall and bower_ _{-few could-}_ _Haughty he gathered revellers from far and near_ _{-An evil smile just bordering on a sneer-}_ _He knew them flatterers of the festal hour_ _{-Curled on his lip-}_ _The heartless Parasites of present cheer,_ _As if_ _{-And deemed no mortal wight his peer-}_ _Yea! none did love him not his lemmans dear_ _{-To gentle Dames still less he could be dear-}_ _{-Were aught-} But pomp and power alone are Woman's care_ _{-But-} And where these are let no Possessor fear_ _{-The s.e.x are slaves-} Maidens like moths are ever caught by glare_ _{-Love shrinks outshone by Mammons dazzling-} glare_ _And Mammon_ _{-That Demon-} wins his_ [MS. torn] _where Angels might despair._

[28] [The "trivial particular" which suggested to Byron the friendlessness and desolation of the Childe may be explained by the refusal of an old schoolfellow to spend the last day with him before he set out on his travels. The friend, possibly Lord Delawarr, excused himself on the plea that "he was engaged with his mother and some ladies to go shopping." "Friends.h.i.+p!" he exclaimed to Dallas. "I do not believe I shall leave behind me, yourself and family excepted, and, perhaps, my mother, a single being who will care what becomes of me" (Dallas, _Recollections, etc._, pp. 63, 64). Byron, to quote Charles Lamb's apology for Coleridge, was "full of fun," and must not be taken too seriously. Doubtless he was piqued at the moment, and afterwards, to heighten the tragedy of Childe Harold's exile, expanded a single act of negligence into general abandonment and desertion at the hour of trial.]

[ab] {22} _No! none did love him_----.--[D. pencil.]

[29] The word "lemman" is used by Chaucer in both senses, but more frequently in the feminine.--[_MS. M._]

[30] "Feere," a consort or mate. [Compare the line, "What when lords go with their _feires_, she said," in "The Ancient Fragment of the Marriage of Sir Gawaine" (Percy's _Reliques_, 1812, iii. 416), and the lines--

"As with the woful _fere_, And father of that chaste dishonoured dame."

_t.i.tus Andronicus_, act iv. sc. 1.

Compare, too, "That woman and her fleshless Pheere" (_The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere_, line 180 of the reprint from the first version in the _Lyrical Ballads_, 1798; _Poems_ by S. T. Coleridge, 1893, App. E, p.

515).]

[ac] {23} _Childe Burun_----.--[MS.]

[31] [In a suppressed stanza of "Childe Harold's Good Night" (see p. 27, _var._ ii.), the Childe complains that he has not seen his sister for "three long years and moe." Before her marriage, in 1807, Augusta Byron divided her time between her mother's children, Lady Chichester and the Duke of Leeds; her cousin, Lord Carlisle; and General and Mrs. Harcourt.

After her marriage to Colonel Leigh, she lived at Newmarket. From the end of 1805 Byron corresponded with her more or less regularly, but no meeting took place. In a letter to his sister, dated November 30, 1808 (_Letters_, 1898, i. 203), he writes, "I saw Col. Leigh at Brighton in July, where I should have been glad to have seen you; I only know your husband by sight." Colonel Leigh was his first cousin, as well as his half-sister's husband, and the incidental remark that "he only knew him by sight" affords striking proof that his relations and connections were at no pains to seek him out, but left him to fight his own way to social recognition and distinction. (For particulars of "the Hon. Augusta Byron," see _Letters_, 1898, i. 18, note.)]

[ad] _Of friends he had but few, embracing none_.--[MS. erased.]

[ae] _Yet deem him not from this with breast of steel_.--[MS. D.]

[32] [Compare Campbell's _Gertrude of Wyoming_, ii. 8. 1--"Yet deem not Gertrude sighed for foreign joy."]

[af] {24} _His house, his home, his va.s.sals, and his lands_.--[MS. D.]

[ag]

_The Dalilahs_----.--[MS. D.]

_His damsels all_----.--[MS. erased.]

[ah] ----_where brighter sunbeams s.h.i.+ne_.--[MS. erased.]

[33] "Your objection to the expression 'central line' I can only meet by saying that, before Childe Harold left England, it was his full intention to traverse Persia, and return by India, which he could not have done without pa.s.sing the equinoctial" (letter to Dallas, September 7, 1811; see, too, letter to his mother, October 7, 1808: _Letters_, 1898, i. 193; ii. 27).

[ai] _The sails are filled_----.--[MS.]

[34] He experienced no such emotion on the resumption of his Pilgrimage in 1816. With reference to the confession, he writes (Canto III. stanza i. lines 6-9)--

"... I depart, Whither I know not; but the hour's gone by, When Albion's lessening sh.o.r.es could grieve or glad mine eye."

[35] {25} [See Lord Maxwell's "Good Night" in Scott's _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border_ (_Poetical Works_, ii. 141, ed. 1834): "Adieu, madam, my mother dear," etc. [MS.]. Compare, too, Armstrong's "Good Night"

_ibid._--

"This night is my departing night, For here nae langer mun I stay; There's neither friend nor foe of mine, But wishes me away.

What I have done thro' lack of will, I never, never can recall; I hope ye're a' my friends as yet.

Good night, and joy be with you all."]

[36] {26} [Robert Rushton, the son of one of the Newstead tenants.

"Robert I take with me; I like him, because, like myself, he seems a friendless animal. Tell Mr. Rushton his son is well, and doing well"

(letter to Mrs. Byron, Falmouth, June 22, 1809: _Letters_, 1898, i.