The Works of Lord Byron Volume III Part 79

[350] {461} [Compare Scott's _Marmion_, III. xvi. 4--

"And that strange Palmer's boding say, That fell so ominous and drear."]

[ot]

----_by fancy framed_, _Which rings a deep, internal knell_, _A visionary pa.s.sing-bell._--[MS. G. erased.]

[ou] _The thoughts tumultuously roll._--[MS. G.]

[ov] {462} _To triumph o'er_----.--[MS. G. erased.]

[ow]

_They but provide, he fells the prey._--[MS. G.]

_As lions o'er the jackal sway_ _By springing dauntless on the prey;_ _They follow on, and yelling press_ _To gorge the fragments of success._--[MS. G. erased.]

[351] [Lines 329-331 are inserted in the copy. They are in Byron's handwriting. Compare _Don Juan_, Canto IX. stanza xxvii. line 1, _seq._--"_That's_ an appropriate simile, _that jackal_."]

[ox] {463} _He vainly turned from side to side_, _And each reposing posture tried_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[oy] _Beyond a rougher_----.--[MS. G.]

[oz] ----_to sigh for day_.--[MS. G.]

[pa] {464} _Of Liakura--his unmelting snow_ _Bright and eternal_----.--[MS. G. erased.]

[352] [Compare _The Giaour_, line 566 (_vide ante_, p. 113)--

"For where is he that hath beheld The peak of Liakura unveiled?"

The reference is to the almost perpetual "cap" of mist on Parna.s.sus (Mount Likeri or Liakura), which lies some thirty miles to the north-west of Corinth.]

[pb] {465} _Her spirit spoke in deathless song_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[pc] _And in this night_----.--[MS. G.]

[pd] _He felt how little and how dim_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[pe] _Who led the band_----.--[MS. G.]

[353] [Compare _The Giaour_, lines 103, _seq._ (_vide ante_, p.

91)--"Clime of the unforgotten brave!" etc.]

[pf] {466} _Their memory hallowed every fountain_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[pg] Here follows, in the MS.--

_Immortal--boundless--undecayed--_ _Their souls the very soil pervade_.-- [_In the Copy the lines are erased_.]

[ph] _Where Freedom loveliest may be won_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[354] The reader need hardly be reminded that there are no perceptible tides in the Mediterranean.

[pi] _So that fiercest of waves_----.--[MS. G.]

[pj] {467} _A little s.p.a.ce of light grey sand_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[355] [Compare _The Island_, Canto IV. sect. ii. lines 11, 12--

"A narrow segment of the yellow sand On one side forms the outline of a strand."]

[pk]

_Or would not waste on a single head_ _The ball on numbers better sped_.--[MS. G. erased]

[pl] _I know not in faith_----.--[MS. G.]

[356] [Gifford has drawn his pen through lines 456-478. If, as the editor of _The Works of Lord Byron_, 1832 (x. 100), maintains, "Lord Byron gave Mr. Gifford _carte blanche_ to strike out or alter anything at his pleasure in this poem as it was pa.s.sing through the press," it is somewhat remarkable that he does not appear to have paid any attention whatever to the august "reader's" suggestions and strictures. The sheets on which Gifford's corrections are scrawled are not proof-sheets, but pages torn out of the first edition; and it is probable that they were made after the poem was published, and with a view to the inclusion of an emended edition in the collected works. See letter to Murray, January 2, 1817.]

[357] {468} This spectacle I have seen, such as described, beneath the wall of the Seraglio at Constantinople, in the little cavities worn by the Bosphorus in the rock, a narrow terrace of which projects between the wall and the water. I think the fact is also mentioned in Hobhouse's _Travels_ [_in Albania_, 1855, ii. 215]. The bodies were probably those of some refractory Janizaries.

[358] This tuft, or long lock, is left from a superst.i.tion that Mahomet will draw them into Paradise by it.

[pm] {469} _Deep in the tide of their lost blood lying_.--[MS. G.

Copy.]

[359] ["Than the mangled corpse in its own blood lying."--Gifford.]

[pn] _Than the rotting dead_----.--[MS. G. erased.]

[360] [Strike out--

"Scorch'd with the death-thirst, and writhing in vain, Than the peris.h.i.+ng dead who are past all pain."

What is a "peris.h.i.+ng dead"?--Gifford.]

[361] [Lines 487, 488 are inserted in the copy in Byron's handwriting.]

[po] _And when all_----.--[MS. G.]

[362] ["O'er the weltering _limbs_ of the tombless dead."--Gifford.]

[pp]

_All that liveth on man will prey_, _All rejoicing in his decay,_ or, _Nature rejoicing in his decay_.

_All that can kindle dismay and disgust_ _Follow his frame from the bier to the dust._--[MS. G. erased.]

[pq] {470} ----_it hath left no more_ _Of the mightiest things that have gone before_.--[MS. G. erased.]

[363] [Omit this couplet.--Gifford.]

[pr] After this follows in the MS. erased--