XI.

The world is all before me; I but ask Of Nature that with which she will comply— It is but in her Summer's sun to bask, To mingle with the quiet of her sky, To see her gentle face without a mask, And never gaze on it with apathy. She was my early friend, and now shall be My sister—till I look again on thee.

XII.

I can reduce all feelings but this one; And that I would not;—for at length I see Such scenes as those wherein my life begun—[89] The earliest—even the only paths for me—[ai] Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun, I had been better than I now can be; The Passions which have torn me would have slept; I had not suffered, and thou hadst not wept.

XIII.

With false Ambition what had I to do? Little with Love, and least of all with Fame; And yet they came unsought, and with me grew, And made me all which they can make—a Name. Yet this was not the end I did pursue; Surely I once beheld a nobler aim. But all is over—I am one the more To baffled millions which have gone before.

XIV.

And for the future, this world's future may[aj] From me demand but little of my care; I have outlived myself by many a day;[ak] Having survived so many things that were; My years have been no slumber, but the prey Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share Of life which might have filled a century,[90] Before its fourth in time had passed me by.

XV.

And for the remnant which may be to come[al] I am content; and for the past I feel Not thankless,—for within the crowded sum Of struggles, Happiness at times would steal, And for the present, I would not benumb My feelings farther.—Nor shall I conceal That with all this I still can look around, And worship Nature with a thought profound.

XVI.

For thee, my own sweet sister, in thy heart I know myself secure, as thou in mine; We were and are—I am, even as thou art—[am] Beings who ne'er each other can resign; It is the same, together or apart, From Life's commencement to its slow decline We are entwined—let Death come slow or fast,[an] The tie which bound the first endures the last!

[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 38-41.]



LINES ON HEARING THAT LADY BYRON WAS ILL.[91]

And thou wert sad—yet I was not with thee; And thou wert sick, and yet I was not near; Methought that Joy and Health alone could be Where I was not—and pain and sorrow here! And is it thus?—it is as I foretold, And shall be more so; for the mind recoils Upon itself, and the wrecked heart lies cold, While Heaviness collects the shattered spoils. It is not in the storm nor in the strife We feel benumbed, and wish to be no more, But in the after-silence on the shore, When all is lost, except a little life.

I am too well avenged!—but 'twas my right; Whate'er my sins might be, thou wert not sent To be the Nemesis who should requite—[92] Nor did Heaven choose so near an instrument. Mercy is for the merciful!—if thou Hast been of such, 'twill be accorded now. Thy nights are banished from the realms of sleep:—[93] Yes! they may flatter thee, but thou shall feel A hollow agony which will not heal, For thou art pillowed on a curse too deep; Thou hast sown in my sorrow, and must reap The bitter harvest in a woe as real! I have had many foes, but none like thee; For 'gainst the rest myself I could defend, And be avenged, or turn them into friend; But thou in safe implacability Hadst nought to dread—in thy own weakness shielded, And in my love, which hath but too much yielded, And spared, for thy sake, some I should not spare; And thus upon the world—trust in thy truth, And the wild fame of my ungoverned youth— On things that were not, and on things that are— Even upon such a basis hast thou built A monument, whose cement hath been guilt! The moral Clytemnestra of thy lord,[94] And hewed down, with an unsuspected sword, Fame, peace, and hope—and all the better life Which, but for this cold treason of thy heart, Might still have risen from out the grave of strife, And found a nobler duty than to part. But of thy virtues didst thou make a vice, Trafficking with them in a purpose cold, For present anger, and for future gold— And buying others' grief at any price.[95] And thus once entered into crooked ways, The early truth, which was thy proper praise,[96] Did not still walk beside thee—but at times, And with a breast unknowing its own crimes, Deceit, averments incompatible, Equivocations, and the thoughts which dwell In Janus-spirits—the significant eye Which learns to lie with silence—the pretext[97] Of prudence, with advantages annexed— The acquiescence in all things which tend, No matter how, to the desired end— All found a place in thy philosophy. The means were worthy, and the end is won— I would not do by thee as thou hast done!

September, 1816.

[First published, New Monthly Magazine, August, 1832, vol. xxxv. pp. 142, 143.]



FOOTNOTES:

[35] {33}[Compare—

"Come, blessed barrier between day and day."

[36] [Compare—

"...the night's dismay Saddened and stunned the coming day."

The Pains of Sleep, lines 33, 34, by S. T. Coleridge, Poetical Works, 1893, p. 170.]

[37] {34}[Compare Childe Harold, Canto III. stanza vi. lines 1-4, note, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 219.]

[38] [Compare—

"With us acts are exempt from time, and we Can crowd eternity into an hour."

Cain, act i. sc. 1]

[i] {35}

——she was his sight, For never did he turn his glance until Her own had led by gazing on an object.—[MS.]

[39] {35}[Compare—

"Thou art my life, my love, my heart, The very eyes of me."

To Anthea, etc., by Robert Herrick.]

[40] [Compare—

"...the river of your love, Must in the ocean of your affection To me, be swallowed up."

Massinger's Unnatural Combat, act iii. sc. 4.]

[41] [Compare—

"The hot blood ebbed and flowed again."

Parisina, line 226, Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 515.]

[42] ["Annesley Lordship is owned by Miss Chaworth, a minor heiress of the Chaworth family."—Throsby's Thoroton's History of Nottinghamshire, 1797, ii. 270.]

[43] ["Moore, commenting on this (Life, p. 28), tells us that the image of the lover's steed was suggested by the Nottingham race-ground ... nine miles off, and ... lying in a hollow, and totally hidden from view.... Mary Chaworth, in fact, was looking for her lover's steed along the road as it winds up the common from Hucknall."-"A Byronian Ramble," Athenaeum, No. 357, August 30, 1834.]

[44] {36}[Moore (Life, p. 28) regards "the antique oratory," as a poetical equivalent for Annesley Hall; but vide ante, the Introduction to The Dream, p. 31.]

[45] [Compare—

"Love by the object loved is soon discerned."

Story of Rimini, by Leigh Hunt, Canto III. ed. 1844, p. 22.

The line does not occur in the first edition, published early in 1816, or, presumably, in the MS. read by Byron in the preceding year. (See Letter to Murray, November 4, 1815.)]

[46] {37}[Byron once again revisited Annesley Hall in the autumn of 1808 (see his lines, "Well, thou art happy," and "To a Lady," etc., Poetical Works, 1898, i. 277, 282, note 1); but it is possible that he avoided the "massy gate" ("arched over and surmounted by a clock and cupola") of set purpose, and entered by another way. He would not lightly or gladly have taken a liberty with the actual prosaic facts in a matter which so nearly concerned his personal emotions (vide ante, the Introduction to The Dream, p. 31).]

[47] ["This is true keeping—an Eastern picture perfect in its foreground, and distance, and sky, and no part of which is so dwelt upon or laboured as to obscure the principal figure."—Sir Walter Scott, Quarterly Review, No. xxxi. "Byron's Dream" is the subject of a well-known picture by Sir Charles Eastlake.]

[48] {38}[Compare—

"Then Cythna turned to me and from her eyes Which swam with unshed tears," etc.

Shelly's Revolt of Islam ("Laon and Cythna"), Canto XII. stanza xxii. lines 2, 3, Poetical Works, 1829, p. 48.]

[49] [An old servant of the Chaworth family, Mary Marsden, told Washington Irving (Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey, 1835, p. 204) that Byron used to call Mary Chaworth "his bright morning star of Annesley." Compare the well-known lines—

"She was a form of Life and Light, That, seen, became a part of sight; And rose, where'er I turned mine eye, The Morning-star of Memory!"

The Giaour, lines 1127-1130, Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 136, 137.]

[50] ["This touching picture agrees closely, in many of its circumstances, with Lord Byron's own prose account of the wedding in his Memoranda; in which he describes himself as waking, on the morning of his marriage, with the most melancholy reflections, on seeing his wedding-suit spread out before him. In the same mood, he wandered about the grounds alone, till he was summoned for the ceremony, and joined, for the first time on that day, his bride and her family. He knelt down—he repeated the words after the clergyman; but a mist was before his eyes—his thoughts were elsewhere: and he was but awakened by the congratulations of the bystanders to find that he was—married."—Life, p. 272.

Medwin, too, makes Byron say (Conversations, etc., 1824, p. 46) that he "trembled like a leaf, made the wrong responses, and after the ceremony called her (the bride) Miss Milbanke." All that can be said of Moore's recollection of the "memoranda," or Medwin's repetition of so-called conversations (reprinted almost verbatim in Life, Writings, Opinions, etc., 1825, ii. 227, seq., as "Recollections of the Lately Destroyed Manuscript," etc.), is that they tend to show that Byron meant The Dream to be taken literally as a record of actual events. He would not have forgotten by July, 1816, circumstances of great import which had taken place in December, 1815: and he's either lying of malice prepense or telling "an ower true tale."]

[j] {40}

——the glance Of melancholy is a fearful gift; For it becomes the telescope of truth, And shows us all things naked as they are.—[MS.]

[51] [Compare—

"Who loves, raves—'tis youth's frenzy—but the cure Is bitterer still, as charm by charm unwinds Which robed our idols, and we see too sure Nor Worth nor Beauty dwells from out the mind's Ideal shape of such."

Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza cxxiii. lines 1-5, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 420.]

[52] Mithridates of Pontus. [Mithridates, King of Pontus (B.C. 120-63), surnamed Eupator, succeeded to the throne when he was only eleven years of age. He is said to have safeguarded himself against the designs of his enemies by drugging himself with antidotes against poison, and so effectively that, when he was an old man, he could not poison himself, even when he was minded to do so—"ut ne volens quidem senex veneno mori potuerit."—Justinus, Hist., lib. xxxvii. cap. ii.

According to Medwin (Conversations, p. 148), Byron made use of the same illustration in speaking of Polidori's death (April, 1821), which was probably occasioned by "poison administered to himself" (see Letters, 1899, iii. 285).]

[53] {41}[Compare—

"Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends."

Childe Harold, Canto III. stanza xiii. line 1.

"...and to me High mountains are a feeling."

Ibid., stanza lxxii. lines 2,3, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 223, 261.]

[54] [Compare—

"Ye Spirits of the unbounded Universe!"

Manfred, act i. sc. 1, line 29, vide post, p. 86.]

[55] [Compare Manfred, act ii. sc. 2, lines 79-91; and ibid., act iii. sc. 1, lines 34-39; and sc. 4, lines 112-117, vide post, pp. 105, 121, 135.]

[k] {42}In the original MS. A Dream.

[56] [Sir Walter Scott (Quarterly Review, October, 1816, vol. xvi. p. 204) did not take kindly to Darkness. He regarded the "framing of such phantasms" as "a dangerous employment for the exalted and teeming imagination of such a poet as Lord Byron. The waste of boundless space into which they lead the poet, the neglect of precision which such themes may render habitual, make them in respect to poetry what mysticism is to religion." Poetry of this kind, which recalled "the wild, unbridled, and fiery imagination of Coleridge," was a novel and untoward experiment on the part of an author whose "peculiar art" it was "to show the reader where his purpose tends." The resemblance to Coleridge is general rather than particular. It is improbable that Scott had ever read Limbo (first published in Sibylline Leaves, 1817), an attempt to depict the "mere horror of blank nought-at-all;" but it is possible that he had in his mind the following lines (384-390) from Religious Musings, in which "the final destruction is impersonated" (see Coleridge's note) in the "red-eyed Fiend:"—

"For who of woman born may paint the hour, When seized in his mid course, the Sun shall wane, Making the noon ghastly! Who of woman born May image in the workings of his thought, How the black-visaged, red-eyed Fiend outstretched Beneath the unsteady feet of Nature groans In feverous slumbers?"

Poetical Works, 1893, p. 60.

Another and a less easily detected source of inspiration has been traced (see an article on Campbell's Last Man, in the London Magazine and Review, 1825, New Series, i. 588, seq.) to a forgotten but once popular novel entitled The Last Man, or Omegarus and Syderia, a Romance in Futurity (two vols. 1806). Koelbing (Prisoner of Chillon, etc., pp. 136-140) adduces numerous quotations in support of this contention. The following may serve as samples: "As soon as the earth had lost with the moon her guardian star, her decay became more rapid.... Some, in their madness, destroyed the instruments of husbandry, others in deep despair summoned death to their relief. Men began to look on each other with eyes of enmity" (i. 105). "The sun exhibited signs of decay, its surface turned pale, and its beams were frigid. The northern nations dreaded perishing by intense cold ... and fled to the torrid zone to court the sun's beneficial rays" (i. 120). "The reign of Time was over, ages of Eternity were going to begin; but at the same moment Hell shrieked with rage, and the sun and stars were extinguished. The gloomy night of chaos enveloped the world, plaintive sounds issued from mountains, rocks, and caverns,—Nature wept, and a doleful voice was heard exclaiming in the air, 'The human race is no more!'"(ii. 197).

It is difficult to believe that Byron had not read, and more or less consciously turned to account, the imagery of this novel; but it is needless to add that any charge of plagiarism falls to the ground. Thanks to a sensitive and appreciative ear and a retentive memory, Byron's verse is interfused with manifold strains, but, so far as Darkness is concerned, his debt to Coleridge or the author of Omegarus and Syderia is neither more nor less legitimate than the debt to Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Joel, which a writer in the Imperial Magazine (1828, x. 699), with solemn upbraidings, lays to his charge.

The duty of acknowledging such debts is, indeed, "a duty of imperfect obligation." The well-known lines in Tennyson's Locksley Hall—

"Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue!"

is surely an echo of an earlier prophecy from the pen of the author of Omegarus and Syderia: "In the center the heavens were seen darkened by legions of armed vessels, making war on each other!... The soldiers fell in frightful numbers.... Their blood stained the soft verdure of the trees, and their scattered bleeding limbs covered the fields and the roofs of the labourers' cottages" (i. 68). But such "conveyings" are honourable to the purloiner. See, too, the story of the battle between the Vulture-cavalry and the Sky-gnats, in Lucian's Verae Historiae, i. 16.]

[57] {44}

["If thou speak'st false, Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive, Till famine cling thee."

Macbeth, act V. sc. 5, lines 38-40.

Fruit is said to be "clung" when the skin shrivels, and a corpse when the face becomes wasted and gaunt.]

[58] {45}[So, too, Vathek and Nouronihar, in the Hall of Eblis, waited "in direful suspense the moment which should render them to each other ... objects of terror."—Vathek, by W. Beckford, 1887, p. 185.]

[59] [Charles Churchill was born in February, 1731, and died at Boulogne, November 4, 1764. The body was brought to Dover and buried in the churchyard attached to the demolished church of St. Martin-le-Grand ("a small deserted cemetery in an obscure lane behind [i.e. above] the market"). See note by Charles De la Pryme, Notes and Queries, 1854, Series I. vol. x. p. 378. There is a tablet to his memory on the south wall of St. Mary's Church, and the present headstone in the graveyard (it was a "plain headstone" in 1816) bears the following inscription:—

"1764. Here lie the remains of the celebrated C. Churchill. 'Life to the last enjoy'd, here Churchill lies.'"

Churchill had been one of Byron's earlier models, and the following lines from The Candidate, which suggested the epitaph (lines 145-154), were, doubtless, familiar to him:—

"Let one poor sprig of Bay around my head Bloom whilst I live, and point me out when dead; Let it (may Heav'n indulgent grant that prayer) Be planted on my grave, nor wither there; And when, on travel bound, some rhyming guest Roams through the churchyard, whilst his dinner's drest, Let it hold up this comment to his eyes; Life to the last enjoy'd, here Churchill lies; Whilst (O, what joy that pleasing flatt'ry gives) Reading my Works he cries—here Churchill lives."

Byron spent Sunday, April 25, 1816, at Dover. He was to sail that night for Ostend, and, to while away the time, "turned to Pilgrim" and thought out, perhaps began to write, the lines which were finished three months later at the Campagne Diodati.

"The Grave of Churchill," writes Scott (Quarterly Review, October, 1816), "might have called from Lord Byron a deeper commemoration; for, though they generally differed in character and genius, there was a resemblance between their history and character.... both these poets held themselves above the opinion of the world, and both were followed by the fame and popularity which they seemed to despise. The writings of both exhibit an inborn, though sometimes ill-regulated, generosity of mind, and a spirit of proud independence, frequently pushed to extremes. Both carried their hatred of hypocrisy beyond the verge of prudence, and indulged their vein of satire to the borders of licentiousness."

Save for the affectation of a style which did not belong to him, and which in his heart he despised, Byron's commemoration of Churchill does not lack depth or seriousness. It was the parallel between their lives and temperaments which awoke reflection and sympathy, and prompted this "natural homily." Perhaps, too, the shadow of impending exile had suggested to his imagination that further parallel which Scott deprecated, and deprecated in vain, "death in the flower of his age, and in a foreign land."]

[60] {46}[On the sheet containing the original draft of these lines Lord Byron has written, "The following poem (as most that I have endeavoured to write) is founded on a fact; and this detail is an attempt at a serious imitation of the style of a great poet—its beauties and its defects: I say the style; for the thoughts I claim as my own. In this, if there be anything ridiculous, let it be attributed to me, at least as much as to Mr. Wordsworth: of whom there can exist few greater admirers than myself. I have blended what I would deem to be the beauties as well as defects of his style; and it ought to be remembered, that, in such things, whether there be praise or dispraise, there is always what is called a compliment, however unintentional." There is, as Scott points out, a much closer resemblance to Southey's "English Eclogues, in which moral truths are expressed, to use the poet's own language, 'in an almost colloquial plainness of language,' and an air of quaint and original expression assumed, to render the sentiment at once impressive and piquant."]

[61] {47}[Compare—

"The under-earth inhabitants—are they But mingled millions decomposed to clay?"

A Fragment, lines 23, 24, vide post, p. 52.

It is difficult to "extricate" the meaning of lines 19-25, but, perhaps, they are intended to convey a hope of immortality. "As I was speaking, the sexton (the architect) tried to answer my question by taxing his memory with regard to the occupants of the several tombs. He might well be puzzled, for 'Earth is but a tombstone,' covering an amalgam of dead bodies, and, unless in another life soul were separated from soul, as on earth body is distinct from body, Newton himself, who disclosed 'the turnpike-road through the unpaved stars' (Don Juan, Canto X. stanza ii. line 4), would fail to assign its proper personality to any given lump of clay."]

[62] {48}[Compare—

"But here [i.e. in 'the realm of death'] all is So shadowy and so full of twilight, that It speaks of a day past."

Cain, act ii. sc. 2.

[63] ["Selected," that is, by "frequent travellers" (vide supra, line 12).]

[l]

——then most pleased, I shook My inmost pocket's most retired nook, And out fell five and sixpence.—[MS.]

[64] [Byron was a lover and worshipper of Prometheus as a boy. His first English exercise at Harrow was a paraphrase of a chorus of the Prometheus Vinctus of AEschylus, line 528, sq. (see Poetical Works, 1898, i. 14). Referring to a criticism on Manfred (Edinburgh Review, vol xxviii. p. 431) he writes (October 12, 1817, Letters, 1900, iv. 174): "The Prometheus, if not exactly in my plan, has always been so much in my head, that I can easily conceive its influence over all or any thing that I have written." The conception of an immortal sufferer at once beneficent and defiant, appealed alike to his passions and his convictions, and awoke a peculiar enthusiasm. His poems abound with allusions to the hero and the legend. Compare the first draft of stanza xvi. of the Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte (Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 312, var. ii.); The Prophecy of Dante, iv. 10, seq.; the Irish Avatar, stanza xii. line 2, etc.]

[65] {49}[Compare—

[Greek: Toiau~t' e)pey/rou tou~ philanthro/pou tro/pou]

P. V., line 28.

Compare, too—

[Greek: Thnetous d' e)n oi)/.kto prothe/menos, tou/tou tychei~n] [Greek: Ou)k e)xio/then au)to]

Ibid., lines 241, 242.]

[66] [Compare—

[Greek: Dios ga dysparai/tetoi phre/nes.]

Ibid., line 34.

Compare, too—

[Greek: ...gigno/skonth' o(/ti] [Greek: To te~s a)na/nkes e)st' a)de/riton sthe/nos]

Ibid., line 105.]

[67] {50}[Compare—

"The maker—call him Which name thou wilt; he makes but to destroy."

Cain, act i. sc. 1.

Compare, too—

"And the Omnipotent, who makes and crushes."

Heaven and Earth, Part I. sc. 3.]

[68] [Compare—

[Greek: O)/to thanei~n me/n e)stin ou) peprome/non]

P. V., line 754.]

[69][Compare—

[Greek: ...pa/nta prou)xepi/stamai] [Greek: Skethro~s ta/ me/llonta]

Ibid., lines 101, 102.]

[70] [Compare—

[Greek: Thnetoi~s d' a)e/gon au)tos eu(ro/men po/nous.]

Ibid., line 269.]

[71] {51}[Compare—

"But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we, Half dust, half deity."

Manfred, act i. sc. 2, lines 39, 40, vide post, p. 95.]

[m]——and equal to all woes.—[Editions 1832, etc.]

[72] [The edition of 1832 and subsequent issues read "and equal." It is clear that the earlier reading, "an equal," is correct. The spirit opposed by the spirit is an equal, etc. The spirit can also oppose to "its own funereal destiny" a firm will, etc.]

[73] [A Fragment, which remained unpublished till 1830, was written at the same time as Churchill's Grave (July, 1816), and is closely allied to it in purport and in sentiment. It is a questioning of Death! O Death, what is thy sting? There is an analogy between exile end death. As Churchill lay in his forgotten grave at Dover, one of "many millions decomposed to clay," so he the absent is dead to the absent, and the absent are dead to him. And what are the dead? the aggregate of nothingness? or are they a multitude of atoms having neither part nor lot one with the other? There is no solution but in the grave. Death alone can unriddle death. The poet's questioning spirit would plunge into the abyss to bring back the answer.]

[74] {52}[Compare—

"'Tis said thou holdest converse with the things Which are forbidden to the search of man; That with the dwellers of the dark abodes, The many evil and unheavenly spirits Which walk the valley of the Shade of Death, Thou communest."

Manfred, act iii. sc. 1, lines 34, seq., vide post, p. 121.]

[75] {53}Geneva, Ferney, Copet, Lausanne. [For Rousseau, see Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 277, note 1, 300, 301, note 18; for Voltaire and Gibbon, vide ibid., pp. 306, 307, note 22; and for De Stael, see Letters, 1898, ii. 223, note 1. Byron, writing to Moore, January 2, 1821, declares, on the authority of Monk Lewis, "who was too great a bore ever to lie," that Madame de Stael alleged this sonnet, "in which she was named with Voltaire, Rousseau, etc.," as a reason for changing her opinion about him—"she could not help it through decency" (Letters, 1901, v. 213). It is difficult to believe that Madame de Stael was ashamed of her companions, or was sincere in disclaiming the compliment, though, as might have been expected, the sonnet excited some disapprobation in England. A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine (February, 1818, vol. 88, p. 122) relieved his feelings by a "Retort Addressed to the Thames"—

"Restor'd to my dear native Thames' bank, My soul disgusted spurns a Byron's lay,— * * * * * Leman may idly boast her Stael, Rousseau, Gibbon, Voltaire, whom Truth and Justice shun— * * * * * Whilst meekly shines midst Fulham's bowers the sun O'er Sherlock's and o'er Porteus' honour'd graves, Where Thames Britannia's choicest meads exulting laves."]

[76] [Compare—

"Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face."

Childe Harold, Canto III. stanza lxviii. line 1, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 257.]

[n] {54}Stanzas To——.—[Editions 1816-1830.]

"Though the Day."—[MS. in Mrs. Leigh's handwriting.]

[77] [The "Stanzas to Augusta" were written in July, at the Campagne Diodati, near Geneva. "Be careful," he says, "in printing the stanzas beginning, 'Though the day of my Destiny's,' etc., which I think well of as a composition."—Letter to Murray, October 5, 1816, Letters, 1899, iii. 371.]

[o]

Though the days of my Glory are over, And the Sun of my fame has declined.—[Dillon MS.]

[p] ——had painted.—[MS.]

[78] [Compare—

"Dear Nature is the kindest mother still!... To me by day or night she ever smiled."

Childe Harold, Canto II. stanza xxxvii. lines 1, 7, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 122.]

[q] I will not——.—[MS. erased.]

[r] {55}As the breasts I reposed in with me.—[MS.]

[s]

Though the rock of my young hope is shivered, And its fragments lie sunk in the wave.—[MS. erased.]

[t]

There is many a pang to pursue me, And many a peril to stem; They may torture, but shall not subdue me; They may crush, but they shall not contemn.—[MS. erased.] And I think not of thee but of them.—[MS. erased.]

[u] Though tempted——.—[MS.]

[79] [Compare Childe Harold, Canto III. stanzas liii., lv., Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 247, 248, note 1.]

[v]

Though watchful, 'twas but to reclaim me, Nor, silent, to sanction a lie.—[MS.]

[80] {56}[Compare—

"Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun, I had been better than I now can be."

Epistle to Augusta, stanza xii. lines 5, 6, vide post, p. 61.

Compare, too—

"But soon he knew himself the most unfit Of men to herd with Man."

Childe Harold, Canto III. stanza xii. lines 1, 2, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 223.]

[w]

And more than I then could foresee. I have met but the fate that hath crost me.—[MS.]

[x] In the wreck of the past—[MS.]

[y]

In the Desert there still are sweet waters, In the wild waste a sheltering tree.—[MS.]

[81] [Byron often made use of this illustration. Compare—

"My Peri! ever welcome here! Sweet, as the desert fountain's wave."

The Bride of Abydos, Canto I. lines 151, 152, Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 163.]

[82] [For Hobhouse's parody of these stanzas, see Letters, 1900, iv. 73,74.]

[83] {57}[These stanzas—"than which," says the Quarterly Review for January, 1831, "there is nothing, perhaps, more mournfully and desolately beautiful in the whole range of Lord Byron's poetry," were also written at Diodati, and sent home to be published, if Mrs. Leigh should consent. She decided against publication, and the "Epistle" was not printed till 1830. Her first impulse was to withhold her consent to the publication of the "Stanzas to Augusta," as well as the "Epistle," and to say, "Whatever is addressed to me do not publish," but on second thoughts she decided that "the least objectionable line will be to let them be published."—See her letters to Murray, November 1, 8, 1816, Letters, 1899, iii. 366, note 1.]

[z]

Go where thou wilt thou art to me the same— A loud regret which I would not resign.—[MS.]

[84] [Compare—

"Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling-place, With one fair Spirit for my minister!"

Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza clxxvii. lines 1, 2, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 456.]

[aa] But other cares——.—[MS.]

[ab] A strange doom hath been ours, but that is past.—[MS.]

[85] ["Admiral Byron was remarkable for never making a voyage without a tempest. He was known to the sailors by the facetious name of 'Foul-weather Jack' [or 'Hardy Byron'].

"'But, though it were tempest-toss'd, Still his bark could not be lost.'

He returned safely from the wreck of the Wager (in Anson's voyage), and many years after circumnavigated the world, as commander of a similar expedition" (Moore). Admiral the Hon. John Byron (1723-1786), next brother to William, fifth Lord Byron, published his Narrative of his shipwreck in the Wager in 1768, and his Voyage round the World in the Dolphin, in 1767 (Letters, 1898, i. 3).]

[ac] {58}

I am not yet o'erwhelmed that I shall ever lean A thought upon such Hope as daily mocks.—[MS. erased.]

[86] [For Byron's belief in predestination, compare Childe Harold, Canto I. stanza lxxxiii. line 9, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 74, note 1.]

[ad] {59}For to all such may change of soul refer.—[MS.]

[ae]

Have hardened me to this—but I can see Things which I still can love—but none like thee.—[MS. erased.]

[af]

{Before I had to study far more useless books.—[MS. erased,] {Ere my young mind was fettered down to books.

[ag] Some living things——-.—[MS.]

[87] [Compare—

"Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt In solitude, when we are least alone."

Childe Harold, Canto III. stanza xc. lines 1, 2, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 272]

[88] {60}[For a description of the lake at Newstead, see Don Juan, Canto XIII. stanza lvii.]

[ah] And think of such things with a childish eye.—[MS.]

[89] {61}[Compare—

"He who first met the Highland's swelling blue, Will love each peak, that shows a kindred hue, Hail in each crag a friend's familiar face, And clasp the mountain in his mind's embrace."

The Island, Canto II. stanza xii. lines 9-12.

His "friends are mountains." He comes back to them as to a "holier land," where he may find not happiness, but peace.

Moore was inclined to attribute Byron's "love of mountain prospects" in his childhood to the "after-result of his imaginative recollections of that period," but (as Wilson, commenting on Moore, suggests) it is easier to believe that the "high instincts" of the "poetic child" did not wait for association to consecrate the vision (Life, p. 8).]

[ai]

The earliest were the only paths for me. The earliest were the paths and meant for me.—[MS. erased.]

[aj]

Yet could I but expunge from out the book Of my existence all that was entwined.—[MS. erased.]

[ak]

My life has been too long—if in a day I have survived——.—[MS. erased.]

[90] {62}[Byron often insists on this compression of life into a yet briefer span than even mortality allows. Compare—

"He, who grown aged in this world of woe, In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life," etc.

Childe Harold, Canto III. stanza v. lines 1, 2, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 218, note 1.

Compare, too—

"My life is not dated by years— There are moments which act as a plough," etc.

Lines to the Countess of Blessington, stanza 4.]

[al] And for the remnants——.—[MS.]

[am] Whate'er betide——.—[MS.]

[an] We have been and we shall be——.—[MS. erased.]

[91] {63}["These verses," says John Wright (ed. 1832, x. 207), "of which the opening lines (1-6) are given in Moore's Notices, etc. (1830, ii. 36), were written immediately after the failure of the negotiation ... [i.e. the intervention] of Madame de Stael, who had persuaded Byron 'to write a letter to a friend in England, declaring himself still willing to be reconciled to Lady Byron' (Life, p. 321), but were not intended for the public eye." The verses were written in September, and it is evident that since the composition of The Dream in July, another "change had come over" his spirit, and that the mild and courteous depreciation of his wife as "a gentle bride," etc., had given place to passionate reproach and bitter reviling. The failure of Madame de Stael's negotiations must have been to some extent anticipated, and it is more reasonable to suppose that it was a rumour or report of the "one serious calumny" of Shelley's letter of September 29, 1816, which provoked him to fury, and drove him into the open maledictions of The Incantation (published together with the Prisoner of Chillon, but afterwards incorporated with Manfred, act i. sc. 1, vide post, p. 91), and the suppressed "lines," written, so he told Lady Blessington (Conversations, etc., 1834, p. 79) "on reading in a newspaper" that Lady Byron had been ill.]

[92] [Compare—

" ... that unnatural retribution—just, Had it but been from hands less near."

Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza cxxxii. lines 6, 7, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 427.]

[93] {64}[Compare—

"Though thy slumber may be deep, Yet thy Spirit shall not sleep.

* * * * *

Nor to slumber nor to die, Shall be in thy destiny."

The Incantation, lines 201, 202, 254, 255, Manfred, act i. sc. 1, vide post, pp. 92, 93.]

[94] [Compare "I suppose now I shall never be able to shake off my sables in public imagination, more particularly since my moral ... [Clytemnestra?] clove down my fame" (Letter to Moore, March 10, 1817, Letters, 1900, iv. 72). The same expression, "my moral Clytemnestra," is applied to his wife in a letter to Lord Blessington, dated April 6, 1823. It may be noted that it was in April, 1823, that Byron presented a copy of the "Lines," etc., to Lady Blessington (Conversations, etc., 1834, p. 79).]

[95] {65}[Compare—

"By thy delight in others' pain."

Manfred, act i. sc. i, line 248, vide post, p. 93.]

[96] [Compare—

" ... but that high Soul secured the heart, And panted for the truth it could not hear."

A Sketch, lines 18, 19, Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 541.]

[97] [Compare Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza cxxxvi. lines 6-9, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 430.]



MONODY ON THE DEATH

OF

THE RIGHT HON. R. B. SHERIDAN.



INTRODUCTION TO MONODY ON THE DEATH OF THE RIGHT HON. R. B. SHERIDAN.

When Moore was engaged on the Life of Sheridan, Byron gave him some advice. "Never mind," he says, "the angry lies of the humbug Whigs. Recollect that he was an Irishman and a clever fellow, and that we have had some very pleasant days with him. Don't forget that he was at school at Harrow, where, in my time, we used to show his name—R. B. Sheridan, 1765—as an honour to the walls. Depend upon it that there were worse folks going, of that gang, than ever Sheridan was" (Letter to Moore, September 19, 1818, Letters, 1900, iv. 261).

It does not appear that Byron had any acquaintance with Sheridan when he wrote the one unrejected Address which was spoken at the opening of Drury Lane Theatre, October 10, 1812, but that he met him for the first time at a dinner which Rogers gave to Byron and Moore, on or before June 1, 1813. Thenceforward, as long as he remained in England (see his letter to Rogers, April 16, 1816, Letters, 1899, iii 281, note 1), he was often in his company, "sitting late, drinking late," not, of course, on terms of equality and friendship (for Sheridan was past sixty, and Byron more than thirty years younger), but of the closest and pleasantest intimacy. To judge from the tone of the letter to Moore (vide supra) and of numerous entries in his diaries, during Sheridan's life and after his death, he was at pains not to pass judgment on a man whom he greatly admired and sincerely pitied, and whom he felt that he had no right to despise. Body and soul, Byron was of different stuff from Sheridan, and if he "had lived to his age," he would have passed over "the red-hot ploughshares" of life and conduct, not unscathed, but stoutly and unconsumed. So much easier is it to live down character than to live through temperament.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan (born October 30, 1751) died July 7, 1816. The Monody was written at the Campagne Diodati, on July 17, at the request of Douglas Kinnaird. "I did as well as I could," says Byron; "but where I have not my choice I pretend to answer for nothing" (Letter to Murray, September 29, 1816, Letters, 1899, iii. 366). He told Lady Blessington, however, that his "feelings were never more excited than while writing it, and that every word came direct from the heart" (Conversations, etc., p. 241).

The MS., in the handwriting of Claire, is headed, "Written at the request of D. Kinnaird, Esq., Monody on R. B. Sheridan. Intended to be spoken at Dy. L^e.^ T. Diodati, Lake of Geneva, July 18^th^, 1816. Byron."

The first edition was entitled Monody on the Death of the Right Honourable R.B. Sheridan. Written at the request of a Friend. To be spoken at Drury Lane Theatre, London. Printed for John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1816.

It was spoken by Mrs. Davison at Drury Lane Theatre, September 7, and published September 9, 1816.

When the Monody arrived at Diodati Byron fell foul of the title-page: "'The request of a Friend:'—

'Obliged by Hunger and request of friends.'

"I will request you to expunge that same, unless you please to add, 'by a person of quality, or of wit and honour about town.' Merely say, 'written to be spoken at D[rury] L[ane]'" (Letter to Murray, September 30, 1816, Letters, 1899, iii. 367). The first edition had been issued, and no alteration could be made, but the title-page of a "New Edition," 1817, reads, "Monody, etc. Spoken at Drury Lane Theatre. By Lord Byron."]



MONODY ON THE DEATH

OF THE

RIGHT HON. R. B. SHERIDAN,

SPOKEN AT DRURY-LANE THEATRE, LONDON.

When the last sunshine of expiring Day In Summer's twilight weeps itself away, Who hath not felt the softness of the hour Sink on the heart, as dew along the flower? With a pure feeling which absorbs and awes While Nature makes that melancholy pause— Her breathing moment on the bridge where Time Of light and darkness forms an arch sublime— Who hath not shared that calm, so still and deep, The voiceless thought which would not speak but weep, 10 A holy concord, and a bright regret, A glorious sympathy with suns that set?[98] 'Tis not harsh sorrow, but a tenderer woe, Nameless, but dear to gentle hearts below, Felt without bitterness—but full and clear, A sweet dejection—a transparent tear, Unmixed with worldly grief or selfish stain— Shed without shame, and secret without pain. Even as the tenderness that hour instils When Summer's day declines along the hills, 20 So feels the fulness of our heart and eyes When all of Genius which can perish dies. A mighty Spirit is eclipsed—a Power Hath passed from day to darkness—to whose hour Of light no likeness is bequeathed—no name, Focus at once of all the rays of Fame! The flash of Wit—the bright Intelligence, The beam of Song—the blaze of Eloquence, Set with their Sun, but still have left behind The enduring produce of immortal Mind; 30 Fruits of a genial morn, and glorious noon, A deathless part of him who died too soon. But small that portion of the wondrous whole, These sparkling segments of that circling Soul, Which all embraced, and lightened over all, To cheer—to pierce—to please—or to appal. From the charmed council to the festive board, Of human feelings the unbounded lord; In whose acclaim the loftiest voices vied, The praised—the proud—who made his praise their pride. 40 When the loud cry of trampled Hindostan Arose to Heaven in her appeal from Man, His was the thunder—his the avenging rod, The wrath—the delegated voice of God! Which shook the nations through his lips, and blazed Till vanquished senates trembled as they praised.[99]

And here, oh! here, where yet all young and warm, The gay creations of his spirit charm,[100] The matchless dialogue—the deathless wit, Which knew not what it was to intermit; 50 The glowing portraits, fresh from life, that bring Home to our hearts the truth from which they spring; These wondrous beings of his fancy, wrought To fulness by the fiat of his thought, Here in their first abode you still may meet, Bright with the hues of his Promethean heat; A Halo of the light of other days, Which still the splendour of its orb betrays. But should there be to whom the fatal blight Of failing Wisdom yields a base delight, 60 Men who exult when minds of heavenly tone Jar in the music which was born their own, Still let them pause—ah! little do they know That what to them seemed Vice might be but Woe. Hard is his fate on whom the public gaze Is fixed for ever to detract or praise; Repose denies her requiem to his name, And Folly loves the martyrdom of Fame. The secret Enemy whose sleepless eye Stands sentinel—accuser—judge—and spy. 70 The foe, the fool, the jealous, and the vain, The envious who but breathe in other's pain— Behold the host! delighting to deprave, Who track the steps of Glory to the grave, Watch every fault that daring Genius owes Half to the ardour which its birth bestows, Distort the truth, accumulate the lie, And pile the Pyramid of Calumny! These are his portion—but if joined to these Gaunt Poverty should league with deep Disease, 80 If the high Spirit must forget to soar, And stoop to strive with Misery at the door,[101] To soothe Indignity—and face to face Meet sordid Rage, and wrestle with Disgrace, To find in Hope but the renewed caress, The serpent-fold of further Faithlessness:— If such may be the Ills which men assail, What marvel if at last the mightiest fail? Breasts to whom all the strength of feeling given Bear hearts electric-charged with fire from Heaven, 90 Black with the rude collision, inly torn, By clouds surrounded, and on whirlwinds borne, Driven o'er the lowering atmosphere that nurst Thoughts which have turned to thunder—scorch, and burst.[ao]

But far from us and from our mimic scene Such things should be—if such have ever been; Ours be the gentler wish, the kinder task, To give the tribute Glory need not ask, To mourn the vanished beam, and add our mite Of praise in payment of a long delight. 100 Ye Orators! whom yet our councils yield, Mourn for the veteran Hero of your field! The worthy rival of the wondrous Three![102] Whose words were sparks of Immortality! Ye Bards! to whom the Drama's Muse is dear, He was your Master—emulate him here! Ye men of wit and social eloquence![103] He was your brother—bear his ashes hence! While Powers of mind almost of boundless range,[104] Complete in kind, as various in their change, 110 While Eloquence—Wit—Poesy—and Mirth, That humbler Harmonist of care on Earth, Survive within our souls—while lives our sense Of pride in Merit's proud pre-eminence, Long shall we seek his likeness—long in vain, And turn to all of him which may remain, Sighing that Nature formed but one such man, And broke the die—in moulding Sheridan![105]

FOOTNOTES:

[98] {71}[Compare—

"As 'twere the twilight of a former Sun."

Churchill's Grave, line 26, vide ante, p. 48.]

[99] {72}[Sheridan's first speech on behalf of the Begum of Oude was delivered February 7, 1787. After having spoken for five hours and forty minutes he sat down, "not merely amidst cheering, but amidst the loud clapping of hands, in which the Lords below the bar and the strangers in the Gallery joined" (Critical ... Essays, by T. B. Macaulay, 1843, iii. 443). So great was the excitement that Pitt moved the adjournment of the House. The next year, during the trial of Warren Hastings, he took part in the debates on June 3,6,10,13, 1788. "The conduct of the part of the case relating to the Princesses of Oude was intrusted to Sheridan. The curiosity of the public to hear him was unbounded.... It was said that fifty guineas had been paid for a single ticket. Sheridan, when he concluded, contrived ... to sink back, as if exhausted, into the arms of Burke, who hugged him with the energy of generous admiration" (ibid.,iii 451, 452).]

[100] [The Rivals, The Scheming Lieutenant, and The Duenna were played for the first time at Covent Garden, January 17, May 2, and November 21, 1775. A Trip to Scarborough and the School for Scandal were brought out at Drury Lane, February 24 and May 8, 1777; the Critic, October 29, 1779; and Pizarro, May 24, 1799.]

[101] {73}[Only a few days before his death, Sheridan wrote thus to Rogers: "I am absolutely undone and broken-hearted. They are going to put the carpets out of window, and break into Mrs. S.'s room and take me. For God's sake let me see you!" (Moore's Life of Sheridan, 1825, ii. 455).

The extent and duration of Sheridan's destitution at the time of his last illness and death have been the subject of controversy. The statements in Moore's Life (1825) moved George IV. to send for Croker and dictate a long and circumstantial harangue, to the effect that Sheridan and his wife were starving, and that their immediate necessities were relieved by the (then) Prince Regent's agent, Taylor Vaughan (Croker's Correspondence and Diaries, 1884, i. 288-312). Mr. Fraser Rae, in his Life of Sheridan (1896, ii. 284), traverses the king's apology in almost every particular, and quotes a letter from Charles Sheridan to his half-brother Tom, dated July 16, 1816, in which he says that his father "almost slumbered into death, and that the reports ... in the newspapers (vide, e.g., Morning Chronicle, July, 1816) of the privations and want of comforts were unfounded."

Moore's sentiments were also expressed in "some verses" (Lines on the Death of SH—R—D—N), which were published in the newspapers, and are reprinted in the Life, 1825, ii. 462, and Poetical Works, 1850, p. 400—

"How proud they can press to the funeral array Of one whom they shunned in his sickness and sorrow! How bailiffs may seize his last blanket to-day, Whose pall shall be held up by nobles to-morrow.

* * * * *

Was this, then, the fate of that high-gifted man, The pride of the palace, the bower, and the hall, The orator—dramatist—minstrel, who ran Through each mode of the lyre, and was master of all?"]

[ao] {74}

Abandoned by the skies, whose teams have nurst Their very thunders, lighten—scorch, and burst.—[MS.]

[102] {75}Fox—Pitt—Burke. ["I heard Sheridan only once, and that briefly; but I liked his voice, his manner, and his wit: he is the only one of them I ever wished to hear at greater length."—Detached Thoughts, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 413.]

[103] ["In society I have met Sheridan frequently: he was superb!... I have seen him cut up Whitbread, quiz Madame de Stael, annihilate Colman, and do little less by some others ... of good fame and abilities.... I have met him in all places and parties, ... and always found him very convivial and delightful."—Ibid., pp. 413, 414.]

[104] ["The other night we were all delivering our respective and various opinions on him, ... and mine was this:—'Whatever Sheridan has done or chosen to do has been, par excellence, always the best of its kind. He has written the best comedy (School for Scandal), the best drama (in my mind, far before that St. Giles's lampoon, the Beggars Opera), the best farce (the Critic—it is only too good for a farce), and the best Address ('Monologue on Garrick'), and, to crown all, delivered the very best Oration (the famous Begum Speech) ever conceived or heard in this country.'"—Journal, December 17, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 377.]

[105] [It has often been pointed out (e.g. Notes and Queries, 1855, Series I. xi. 472) that this fine metaphor may be traced to Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. The subject is Zerbino, the son of the King of Scotland—

"Non e vu si bello in tante altre persone: Natura il fece e poi ruppe la stampa."

Canto X. stanza lxxxiv. lines 5, 6.]



MANFRED:

A DRAMATIC POEM.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." [Hamlet, Act i. Scene 5, Lines 166, 167.

[Manfred, a choral tragedy in three acts, was performed at Covent Garden Theatre, October 29-November 14, 1834 [Denvil (afterwards known as "Manfred" Denvil) took the part of "Manfred," and Miss Ellen Tree (afterwards Mrs. Charles Kean) played "The Witch of the Alps"]; at Drury Lane Theatre, October 10, 1863-64 [Phelps played "Manfred," Miss Rosa Le Clercq "The Phantom of Astarte," and Miss Heath "The Witch of the Alps"]; at the Prince's Theatre, Manchester, March 27-April 20, 1867 [Charles Calvert played "Manfred"]; and again, in 1867, under the same management, at the Royal Alexandra Theatre, Liverpool; and at the Princess's Theatre Royal, London, August 16, 1873 [Charles Dillon played "Manfred;" music by Sir Henry Bishop, as in 1834].

Overtures, etc.

"Music to Byron's Manfred" (overture and incidental music and choruses), by R. Schumann, 1850.

"Incidental Music," composed, in 1897, by Sir Alexander Campbell Mackenzie (at the request of Sir Henry Irving); heard (in part only) at a concert in Queen's Hall, May, 1899.

"Manfred Symphony" (four tableaux after the Poem by Byron), composed by Tschaikowsky, 1885; first heard in London, autumn, 1898.]



INTRODUCTION TO MANFRED

Byron passed four months and three weeks in Switzerland. He arrived at the Hotel d'Angleterre at Secheron, on Saturday, May 25, and he left the Campagne Diodati for Italy on Sunday, October 6, 1816. Within that period he wrote the greater part of the Third Canto of Childe Harold, he began and finished the Prisoner of Chillon, its seven attendant poems, and the Monody on the death of Sheridan, and he began Manfred.

A note to the "Incantation" (Manfred, act i. sc. 1, lines 192-261), which was begun in July and published together with the Prisoner of Chillon, December 5, 1816, records the existence of "an unfinished Witch Drama" (First Edition, p. 46); but, apart from this, the first announcement of his new work is contained in a letter to Murray, dated Venice, February 15, 1817 (Letters, 1900, iv. 52). "I forgot," he writes, "to mention to you that a kind of Poem in dialogue (in blank verse) or drama ... begun last summer in Switzerland, is finished; it is in three acts; but of a very wild, metaphysical, and inexplicable kind." The letter is imperfect, but some pages of "extracts" which were forwarded under the same cover have been preserved. Ten days later (February 25) he reverts to these "extracts," and on February 28 he despatches a fair copy of the first act. On March 9 he remits the third and final act of his "dramatic poem" (a definition adopted as a second title), but under reserve as to publication, and with a strict injunction to Murray "to submit it to Mr. G[ifford] and to whomsoever you please besides." It is certain that this third act was written at Venice (Letter to Murray, April 14), and it may be taken for granted that the composition of the first two acts belongs to the tour in the Bernese Alps (September 17-29), or to the last days at Diodati (September 30 to October 5, 1816), when the estro (see Letter to Murray, January 2, 1817) was upon him, when his "Passions slept," and, in spite of all that had come and gone and could not go, his spirit was uplifted by the "majesty and the power and the glory" of Nature.

Gifford's verdict on the first act was that it was "wonderfully poetical" and "merited publication," but, as Byron had foreseen, he did not "by any means like" the third act. It was, as its author admitted (Letter to Murray, April 14) "damnably bad," and savoured of the "dregs of a fever," for which the Carnival (Letter to Murray, February 28) or, more probably, the climate and insanitary "palaces" of Venice were responsible. Some weeks went by before there was either leisure or inclination for the task of correction, but at Rome the estro returned in full force, and on May 5 a "new third act of Manfred—the greater part rewritten," was sent by post to England. Manfred, a Dramatic Poem, was published June 16, 1817.

Manfred was criticized by Jeffrey in the Edinburgh Review (No. lvi., August, 1817, vol. 28, pp. 418-431), and by John Wilson in the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine (afterwards Blackwood's, etc.) (June, 1817, i. 289-295). Jeffrey, as Byron remarked (Letter to Murray, October 12, 1817), was "very kind," and Wilson, whose article "had all the air of being a poet's," was eloquent in its praises. But there was a fly in the ointment. "A suggestion" had been thrown out, "in an ingenious paper in a late number of the Edinburgh Magazine [signed H. M. (John Wilson), July, 1817], that the general conception of this piece, and much of what is excellent in the manner of its execution, have been borrowed from the Tragical History of Dr. Faustus of Marlow (sic);" and from this contention Jeffrey dissented. A note to a second paper on Marlowe's Edward II. (Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, October, 1817) offered explanations, and echoed Jeffrey's exaltation of Manfred above Dr. Faustus; but the mischief had been done. Byron was evidently perplexed and distressed, not by the papers in Blackwood, which he never saw, but by Jeffrey's remonstrance in his favour; and in the letter of October 12 he is at pains to trace the "evolution" of Manfred. "I never read," he writes, "and do not know that I ever saw the Faustus of Marlow;" and, again, "As to the Faustus of Marlow, I never read, never saw, nor heard of it." "I heard Mr. Lewis translate verbally some scenes of Goethe's Faust ... last summer" (see, too, Letter to Rogers, April 4, 1817), which is all I know of the history of that magical personage; and as to the germs of Manfred, they may be found in the Journal which I sent to Mrs. Leigh ... when I went over first the Dent, etc., ... shortly before I left Switzerland. I have the whole scene of Manfred before me."

Again, three years later he writes (a propos of Goethe's review of Manfred, which first appeared in print in his paper Kunst und Alterthum, June, 1820, and is republished in Goethe's Saemmtliche Werke ... Stuttgart, 1874, xiii. 640-642; see Letters, 1901, v. Appendix II. "Goethe and Byron," pp. 503-521): "His Faust I never read, for I don't know German; but Matthew Monk Lewis (sic), in 1816, at Coligny, translated most of it to me viva voce, and I was naturally much struck with it; but it was the Staubach (sic) and the Jungfrau, and something else, much more than Faustus, that made me write Manfred. The first scene, however, and that of Faustus are very similar" (Letter to Murray, June 7, 1820, Letters, 1901, v. 36). Medwin (Conversations, etc., pp. 210, 211), who of course had not seen the letters to Murray of 1817 or 1820, puts much the same story into Byron's mouth.

Now, with regard to the originality of Manfred, it may be taken for granted that Byron knew nothing about the "Faust-legend," or the "Faust-cycle." He solemnly denies that he had ever read Marlowe's Faustus, or the selections from the play in Lamb's Specimens, etc. (see Medwin's Conversations, etc., pp. 208, 209, and a hitherto unpublished Preface to Werner, vol. v.), and it is highly improbable that he knew anything of Calderon's El Magico Prodigioso, which Shelley translated in 1822, or of "the beggarly elements" of the legend in Hroswitha's Lapsus et Conversio Theophrasti Vice-domini. But Byron's Manfred is "in the succession" of scholars who have reached the limits of natural and legitimate science, and who essay the supernatural in order to penetrate and comprehend the "hidden things of darkness." A predecessor, if not a progenitor, he must have had, and there can be no doubt whatever that the primary conception of the character, though by no means the inspiration of the poem, is to be traced to the "Monk's" oral rendering of Goethe's Faust, which he gave in return for his "bread and salt" at Diodati. Neither Jeffrey nor Wilson mentioned Faust, but the writer of the notice in the Critical Review (June, 1817, series v. vol. 5, pp. 622-629) avowed that "this scene (the first) is a gross plagiary from a great poet whom Lord Byron has imitated on former occasions without comprehending. Goethe's Faust begins in the same way;" and Goethe himself, in a letter to his friend Knebel, October, 1817, and again in his review in Kunst und Alterthum, June, 1820, emphasizes whilst he justifies and applauds the use which Byron had made of his work. "This singular intellectual poet has taken my Faustus to himself, and extracted from it the strangest nourishment for his hypochondriac humour. He has made use of the impelling principles in his own way, for his own purposes, so that no one of them remains the same; and it is particularly on this account that I cannot enough admire his genius." Afterwards (see record of a conversation with Herman Fuerst von Pueckler, September 14, 1826, Letters, v. 511) Goethe somewhat modified his views, but even then it interested him to trace the unconscious transformation which Byron had made of his Mephistopheles. It is, perhaps, enough to say that the link between Manfred and Faust is formal, not spiritual. The problem which Goethe raised but did not solve, his counterfeit presentment of the eternal issue between soul and sense, between innocence and renunciation on the one side, and achievement and satisfaction on the other, was not the struggle which Byron experienced in himself or desired to depict in his mysterious hierarch of the powers of nature. "It was the Staubach and the Jungfrau, and something else," not the influence of Faust on a receptive listener, which called up a new theme, and struck out a fresh well-spring of the imagination. The motif of Manfred is remorse—eternal suffering for inexpiable crime. The sufferer is for ever buoyed up with the hope that there is relief somewhere in nature, beyond nature, above nature, and experience replies with an everlasting No! As the sunshine enhances sorrow, so Nature, by the force of contrast, reveals and enhances guilt. Manfred is no echo of another's questioning, no expression of a general world-weariness on the part of the time-spirit, but a personal outcry: "De profundis clamavi!"

No doubt, apart from this main purport and essence of his song, his sensitive spirit responded to other and fainter influences. There are "points of resemblance," as Jeffrey pointed out and Byron proudly admitted, between Manfred and the Prometheus of AEschylus. Plainly, here and there, "the tone and pitch of the composition," and "the victim in the more solemn parts," are AEschylean. Again, with regard to the supernatural, there was the stimulus of the conversation of the Shelleys and of Lewis, brimful of magic and ghost-lore; and lastly, there was the glamour of Christabel, "the wild and original" poem which had taken Byron captive, and was often in his thoughts and on his lips. It was no wonder that the fuel kindled and burst into a flame.

For the text of Goethe's review of Manfred, and Hoppner's translation of that review, and an account of Goethe's relation with Byron, drawn from Professor A. Brandl's Goethes Verhaeltniss zu Byron (Goethe-Jahrbuch, Zwanzigster Band, 1899), and other sources, see Letters, 1901, v. Appendix II. pp. 503-521.

For contemporary and other notices of Manfred, in addition to those already mentioned, see Eclectic Review, July, 1817, New Series, vol. viii. pp. 62-66; Gentleman's Magazine, July, 1817, vol. 87, pp. 45-47; Monthly Review, July, 1817, Enlarged Series, vol. 83, pp. 300-307; Dublin University Magazine, April, 1874, vol. 83, pp. 502-508, etc.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

Manfred. Chamois Hunter. Abbot of St. Maurice. Manuel. Herman.

Witch of the Alps. Arimanes. Nemesis. The Destinies. Spirits, etc.

The Scene of the Drama is amongst the Higher Alps—partly in the Castle of Manfred, and partly in the Mountains.



MANFRED.[106]

ACT 1.

SCENE 1.—Manfred alone.—Scene, a Gothic Gallery.[107]— Time, Midnight.

Man. The lamp must be replenished, but even then It will not burn so long as I must watch: My slumbers—if I slumber—are not sleep, But a continuance, of enduring thought, Which then I can resist not: in my heart There is a vigil, and these eyes but close To look within; and yet I live, and bear The aspect and the form of breathing men. But Grief should be the Instructor of the wise; Sorrow is Knowledge: they who know the most 10 Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth, The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life. Philosophy and science, and the springs[108] Of Wonder, and the wisdom of the World, I have essayed, and in my mind there is A power to make these subject to itself— But they avail not: I have done men good, And I have met with good even among men— But this availed not: I have had my foes, And none have baffled, many fallen before me— 20 But this availed not:—Good—or evil—life— Powers, passions—all I see in other beings, Have been to me as rain unto the sands, Since that all-nameless hour. I have no dread, And feel the curse to have no natural fear, Nor fluttering throb, that beats with hopes or wishes, Or lurking love of something on the earth. Now to my task.— Mysterious Agency! Ye Spirits of the unbounded Universe![ap] Whom I have sought in darkness and in light— 30 Ye, who do compass earth about, and dwell In subtler essence—ye, to whom the tops Of mountains inaccessible are haunts,[aq] And Earth's and Ocean's caves familiar things— I call upon ye by the written charm[109] Which gives me power upon you—Rise! Appear! [A pause. They come not yet.—Now by the voice of him Who is the first among you[110]—by this sign, Which makes you tremble—by the claims of him Who is undying,—Rise! Appear!——Appear! 40 [A pause. If it be so.—Spirits of Earth and Air, Ye shall not so elude me! By a power, Deeper than all yet urged, a tyrant-spell, Which had its birthplace in a star condemned, The burning wreck of a demolished world, A wandering hell in the eternal Space; By the strong curse which is upon my Soul,[111] The thought which is within me and around me, I do compel ye to my will.—Appear!

[A star is seen at the darker end of the gallery: it is stationary; and a voice is heard singing.]

First Spirit.

Mortal! to thy bidding bowed, 50 From my mansion in the cloud, Which the breath of Twilight builds, And the Summer's sunset gilds With the azure and vermilion, Which is mixed for my pavilion;[ar] Though thy quest may be forbidden, On a star-beam I have ridden, To thine adjuration bowed: Mortal—be thy wish avowed!

Voice of the Second Spirit.

Mont Blanc is the Monarch of mountains; 60 They crowned him long ago On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds, With a Diadem of snow. Around his waist are forests braced, The Avalanche in his hand; But ere it fall, that thundering ball Must pause for my command. The Glacier's cold and restless mass Moves onward day by day; But I am he who bids it pass, 70 Or with its ice delay.[as] I am the Spirit of the place, Could make the mountain bow And quiver to his caverned base— And what with me would'st Thou?

Voice of the Third Spirit.

In the blue depth of the waters, Where the wave hath no strife, Where the Wind is a stranger, And the Sea-snake hath life, Where the Mermaid is decking 80 Her green hair with shells, Like the storm on the surface Came the sound of thy spells; O'er my calm Hall of Coral The deep Echo rolled— To the Spirit of Ocean Thy wishes unfold!

FOURTH SPIRIT.

Where the slumbering Earthquake Lies pillowed on fire, And the lakes of bitumen 90 Rise boilingly higher; Where the roots of the Andes Strike deep in the earth, As their summits to heaven Shoot soaringly forth; I have quitted my birthplace, Thy bidding to bide— Thy spell hath subdued me, Thy will be my guide!

FIFTH SPIRIT.

I am the Rider of the wind, 100 The Stirrer of the storm; The hurricane I left behind Is yet with lightning warm; To speed to thee, o'er shore and sea I swept upon the blast: The fleet I met sailed well—and yet 'Twill sink ere night be past.

SIXTH SPIRIT.

My dwelling is the shadow of the Night, Why doth thy magic torture me with light?

SEVENTH SPIRIT.

The Star which rules thy destiny no 110 Was ruled, ere earth began, by me: It was a World as fresh and fair As e'er revolved round Sun in air; Its course was free and regular, Space bosomed not a lovelier star. The Hour arrived—and it became A wandering mass of shapeless flame, A pathless Comet, and a curse, The menace of the Universe; Still rolling on with innate force, 120 Without a sphere, without a course, A bright deformity on high, The monster of the upper sky! And Thou! beneath its influence born— Thou worm! whom I obey and scorn— Forced by a Power (which is not thine, And lent thee but to make thee mine) For this brief moment to descend, Where these weak Spirits round thee bend And parley with a thing like thee— 130 What would'st thou, Child of Clay! with me?[112]

The SEVEN SPIRITS.

Earth—ocean—air—night—mountains—winds—thy Star, Are at thy beck and bidding, Child of Clay! Before thee at thy quest their Spirits are— What would'st thou with us, Son of mortals—say?

Man. Forgetfulness——

First Spirit. Of what—of whom—and why?

Man. Of that which is within me; read it there— Ye know it—and I cannot utter it.

Spirit. We can but give thee that which we possess: Ask of us subjects, sovereignty, the power 140 O'er earth—the whole, or portion—or a sign Which shall control the elements, whereof We are the dominators,—each and all, These shall be thine.

Man. Oblivion—self-oblivion! Can ye not wring from out the hidden realms Ye offer so profusely—what I ask?

Spirit. It is not in our essence, in our skill; But—thou may'st die.

Man. Will Death bestow it on me?

Spirit. We are immortal, and do not forget; We are eternal; and to us the past 150 Is, as the future, present. Art thou answered?

Man. Ye mock me—but the Power which brought ye here Hath made you mine. Slaves, scoff not at my will! The Mind—the Spirit—the Promethean spark,[at] The lightning of my being, is as bright, Pervading, and far darting as your own, And shall not yield to yours, though cooped in clay! Answer, or I will teach you what I am.[au]

Spirit. We answer—as we answered; our reply Is even in thine own words.

Man. Why say ye so? 160

Spirit. If, as thou say'st, thine essence be as ours, We have replied in telling thee, the thing Mortals call death hath nought to do with us.

Man. I then have called ye from your realms in vain; Ye cannot, or ye will not, aid me.

Spirit. Say—[113] What we possess we offer; it is thine: Bethink ere thou dismiss us; ask again; Kingdom, and sway, and strength, and length of days—

Man. Accursed! what have I to do with days? They are too long already.—Hence—begone! 170

Spirit. Yet pause: being here, our will would do thee service; Bethink thee, is there then no other gift Which we can make not worthless in thine eyes?

Man. No, none: yet stay—one moment, ere we part, I would behold ye face to face. I hear Your voices, sweet and melancholy sounds, As Music on the waters;[114] and I see The steady aspect of a clear large Star; But nothing more. Approach me as ye are, Or one—or all—in your accustomed forms. 180

Spirit. We have no forms, beyond the elements Of which we are the mind and principle: But choose a form—in that we will appear.

Man. I have no choice; there is no form on earth Hideous or beautiful to me. Let him, Who is most powerful of ye, take such aspect As unto him may seem most fitting—Come!

Seventh Spirit (appearing in the shape of a beautiful female figure).[115] Behold!

Man. Oh God! if it be thus, and thou[116] Art not a madness and a mockery, I yet might be most happy. I will clasp thee, 190 And we again will be—— [The figure vanishes. My heart is crushed! [MANFRED falls senseless.

(A voice is heard in the Incantation which follows.)[117]

When the Moon is on the wave, And the glow-worm in the grass, And the meteor on the grave, And the wisp on the morass;[118] When the falling stars are shooting, And the answered owls are hooting, And the silent leaves are still In the shadow of the hill, Shall my soul be upon thine, 200 With a power and with a sign.

Though thy slumber may be deep, Yet thy Spirit shall not sleep; There are shades which will not vanish, There are thoughts thou canst not banish; By a Power to thee unknown, Thou canst never be alone; Thou art wrapt as with a shroud, Thou art gathered in a cloud; And for ever shalt thou dwell 210 In the spirit of this spell.

Though thou seest me not pass by, Thou shalt feel me with thine eye As a thing that, though unseen, Must be near thee, and hath been; And when in that secret dread Thou hast turned around thy head, Thou shalt marvel I am not As thy shadow on the spot, And the power which thou dost feel 220 Shall be what thou must conceal.

And a magic voice and verse Hath baptized thee with a curse; And a Spirit of the air Hath begirt thee with a snare; In the wind there is a voice Shall forbid thee to rejoice; And to thee shall Night deny All the quiet of her sky; And the day shall have a sun, 230 Which shall make thee wish it done.

From thy false tears I did distil An essence which hath strength to kill; From thy own heart I then did wring The black blood in its blackest spring; From thy own smile I snatched the snake, For there it coiled as in a brake; From thy own lip I drew the charm Which gave all these their chiefest harm; In proving every poison known, 240 I found the strongest was thine own.

By the cold breast and serpent smile, By thy unfathomed gulfs of guile, By that most seeming virtuous eye, By thy shut soul's hypocrisy; By the perfection of thine art Which passed for human thine own heart; By thy delight in others' pain, And by thy brotherhood of Cain, I call upon thee! and compel[av] 250 Thyself to be thy proper Hell!

And on thy head I pour the vial Which doth devote thee to this trial; Nor to slumber, nor to die, Shall be in thy destiny; Though thy death shall still seem near To thy wish, but as a fear; Lo! the spell now works around thee, And the clankless chain hath bound thee; O'er thy heart and brain together 260 Hath the word been passed—now wither!

SCENE II.—The Mountain of the Jungfrau.— Time, Morning.—MANFRED alone upon the cliffs.

Man. The spirits I have raised abandon me, The spells which I have studied baffle me, The remedy I recked of tortured me I lean no more on superhuman aid; It hath no power upon the past, and for The future, till the past be gulfed in darkness, It is not of my search.—My Mother Earth![119] And thou fresh-breaking Day, and you, ye Mountains, Why are ye beautiful? I cannot love ye. And thou, the bright Eye of the Universe, 10 That openest over all, and unto all Art a delight—thou shin'st not on my heart. And you, ye crags, upon whose extreme edge I stand, and on the torrent's brink beneath Behold the tall pines dwindled as to shrubs In dizziness of distance; when a leap, A stir, a motion, even a breath, would bring My breast upon its rocky bosom's bed To rest for ever—wherefore do I pause? I feel the impulse—yet I do not plunge; 20 I see the peril—yet do not recede; And my brain reels—and yet my foot is firm: There is a power upon me which withholds, And makes it my fatality to live,— If it be life to wear within myself This barrenness of Spirit, and to be My own Soul's sepulchre, for I have ceased To justify my deeds unto myself— The last infirmity of evil. Aye, Thou winged and cloud-cleaving minister, 30 [An Eagle passes. Whose happy flight is highest into heaven, Well may'st thou swoop so near me—I should be Thy prey, and gorge thine eaglets; thou art gone Where the eye cannot follow thee; but thine Yet pierces downward, onward, or above, With a pervading vision.—Beautiful! How beautiful is all this visible world![120] How glorious in its action and itself! But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we, Half dust, half deity, alike unfit 40 To sink or soar, with our mixed essence make A conflict of its elements, and breathe The breath of degradation and of pride, Contending with low wants and lofty will, Till our Mortality predominates, And men are—what they name not to themselves, And trust not to each other. Hark! the note, [The Shepherd's pipe in the distance is heard. The natural music of the mountain reed— For here the patriarchal days are not A pastoral fable—pipes in the liberal air, 50 Mixed with the sweet bells of the sauntering herd;[121] My soul would drink those echoes. Oh, that I were The viewless spirit of a lovely sound, A living voice, a breathing harmony, A bodiless enjoyment[122]—born and dying With the blest tone which made me!

Enter from below a CHAMOIS HUNTER.

Chamois Hunter. Even so This way the Chamois leapt: her nimble feet Have baffled me; my gains to-day will scarce Repay my break-neck travail.—What is here? Who seems not of my trade, and yet hath reached 60 A height which none even of our mountaineers, Save our best hunters, may attain: his garb Is goodly, his mien manly, and his air Proud as a free-born peasant's, at this distance: I will approach him nearer.

Man. (not perceiving the other). To be thus— Grey-haired with anguish, like these blasted pines, Wrecks of a single winter, barkless, branchless,[123] A blighted trunk upon a cursed root, Which but supplies a feeling to Decay— And to be thus, eternally but thus, 70 Having been otherwise! Now furrowed o'er With wrinkles, ploughed by moments, not by years And hours, all tortured into ages—hours Which I outlive!—Ye toppling crags of ice! Ye Avalanches, whom a breath draws down In mountainous o'erwhelming, come and crush me! I hear ye momently above, beneath, Crash with a frequent conflict;[124] but ye pass, And only fall on things that still would live; On the young flourishing forest, or the hut 80 And hamlet of the harmless villager.

C. Hun. The mists begin to rise from up the valley; I'll warn him to descend, or he may chance To lose at once his way and life together.

Man. The mists boil up around the glaciers; clouds Rise curling fast beneath me, white and sulphury, Like foam from the roused ocean of deep Hell,[aw] Whose every wave breaks on a living shore, Heaped with the damned like pebbles.—I am giddy.[125]

C. Hun. I must approach him cautiously; if near, 90 A sudden step will startle him, and he Seems tottering already.

Man. Mountains have fallen, Leaving a gap in the clouds, and with the shock Rocking their Alpine brethren; filling up The ripe green valleys with Destruction's splinters; Damming the rivers with a sudden dash, Which crushed the waters into mist, and made Their fountains find another channel—thus, Thus, in its old age, did Mount Rosenberg—[126] Why stood I not beneath it?

C. Hun. Friend! have a care, 100 Your next step may be fatal!—for the love Of Him who made you, stand not on that brink!

Man. (not hearing him). Such would have been for me a fitting tomb; My bones had then been quiet in their depth; They had not then been strewn upon the rocks For the wind's pastime—as thus—thus they shall be— In this one plunge.—Farewell, ye opening Heavens! Look not upon me thus reproachfully— You were not meant for me—Earth! take these atoms!

[As MANFRED is in act to spring from the cliff, the CHAMOIS HUNTER seizes and retains him with a sudden grasp.

C. Hun. Hold, madman!—though aweary of thy life, 110 Stain not our pure vales with thy guilty blood: Away with me——I will not quit my hold.

Man. I am most sick at heart—nay, grasp me not— I am all feebleness—the mountains whirl Spinning around me——I grow blind——What art thou?

C. Hun. I'll answer that anon.—Away with me—— The clouds grow thicker——there—now lean on me— Place your foot here—here, take this staff, and cling A moment to that shrub—now give me your hand, And hold fast by my girdle—softly—well— 120 The Chalet will be gained within an hour: Come on, we'll quickly find a surer footing, And something like a pathway, which the torrent Hath washed since winter.—Come,'tis bravely done— You should have been a hunter.—Follow me.

[As they descend the rocks with difficulty, the scene closes.



ACT II.

SCENE I.—A Cottage among the Bernese Alps.— MANFRED and the CHAMOIS HUNTER.

C. Hun. No—no—yet pause—thou must not yet go forth; Thy mind and body are alike unfit To trust each other, for some hours, at least; When thou art better, I will be thy guide— But whither?

Man. It imports not: I do know My route full well, and need no further guidance.

C. Hun. Thy garb and gait bespeak thee of high lineage— One of the many chiefs, whose castled crags Look o'er the lower valleys—which of these May call thee lord? I only know their portals; 10 My way of life leads me but rarely down To bask by the huge hearths of those old halls, Carousing with the vassals; but the paths, Which step from out our mountains to their doors, I know from childhood—which of these is thine?

Man. No matter.

C. Hun. Well, Sir, pardon me the question, And be of better cheer. Come, taste my wine; 'Tis of an ancient vintage; many a day 'T has thawed my veins among our glaciers, now Let it do thus for thine—Come, pledge me fairly! 20

Man. Away, away! there's blood upon the brim! Will it then never—never sink in the earth?

C. Hun. What dost thou mean? thy senses wander from thee.

Man. I say 'tis blood—my blood! the pure warm stream Which ran in the veins of my fathers, and in ours When we were in our youth, and had one heart, And loved each other as we should not love,[127] And this was shed: but still it rises up, Colouring the clouds, that shut me out from Heaven, Where thou art not—and I shall never be. 30

C. Hun. Man of strange words, and some half-maddening sin,[ax] Which makes thee people vacancy, whate'er Thy dread and sufferance be, there's comfort yet— The aid of holy men, and heavenly patience——

Man. Patience—and patience! Hence—that word was made For brutes of burthen, not for birds of prey! Preach it to mortals of a dust like thine,— I am not of thine order.

C. Hun. Thanks to Heaven! I would not be of thine for the free fame Of William Tell; but whatsoe'er thine ill, 40 It must be borne, and these wild starts are useless.

Man. Do I not bear it?—Look on me—I live.

C. Hun. This is convulsion, and no healthful life.

Man. I tell thee, man! I have lived many years, Many long years, but they are nothing now To those which I must number: ages—ages— Space and eternity—and consciousness, With the fierce thirst of death—and still unslaked!

C. Hun. Why on thy brow the seal of middle age Hath scarce been set; I am thine elder far. 50

Man. Think'st thou existence doth depend on time?[128] It doth; but actions are our epochs: mine Have made my days and nights imperishable, Endless, and all alike, as sands on the shore, Innumerable atoms; and one desert, Barren and cold, on which the wild waves break, But nothing rests, save carcasses and wrecks, Rocks, and the salt-surf weeds of bitterness.

C. Hun. Alas! he's mad—but yet I must not leave him.

Man. I would I were—for then the things I see 60 Would be but a distempered dream.

C. Hun. What is it That thou dost see, or think thou look'st upon?

Man. Myself, and thee—a peasant of the Alps— Thy humble virtues, hospitable home, And spirit patient, pious, proud, and free; Thy self-respect, grafted on innocent thoughts; Thy days of health, and nights of sleep; thy toils, By danger dignified, yet guiltless; hopes Of cheerful old age and a quiet grave, With cross and garland over its green turf, 70 And thy grandchildren's love for epitaph! This do I see—and then I look within— It matters not—my Soul was scorched already!

C. Hun. And would'st thou then exchange thy lot for mine?

Man. No, friend! I would not wrong thee, nor exchange My lot with living being: I can bear— However wretchedly, 'tis still to bear— In life what others could not brook to dream, But perish in their slumber.

C. Hun. And with this— This cautious feeling for another's pain, 80 Canst thou be black with evil?—say not so. Can one of gentle thoughts have wreaked revenge Upon his enemies?

Man. Oh! no, no, no! My injuries came down on those who loved me— On those whom I best loved: I never quelled An enemy, save in my just defence— But my embrace was fatal.

C. Hun. Heaven give thee rest! And Penitence restore thee to thyself; My prayers shall be for thee.

Man. I need them not, But can endure thy pity. I depart— 90 'Tis time—farewell!—Here's gold, and thanks for thee— No words—it is thy due.—Follow me not— I know my path—the mountain peril's past: And once again I charge thee, follow not! [Exit MANFRED.

SCENE II.—A lower Valley in the Alps.—A Cataract.

Enter MANFRED.

It is not noon—the Sunbow's rays[129] still arch The torrent with the many hues of heaven, And roll the sheeted silver's waving column O'er the crag's headlong perpendicular, And fling its lines of foaming light along, And to and fro, like the pale courser's tail, The Giant steed, to be bestrode by Death, As told in the Apocalypse.[130] No eyes But mine now drink this sight of loveliness; I should be sole in this sweet solitude, 10 And with the Spirit of the place divide The homage of these waters.—I will call her.

[MANFRED takes some of the water into the palm of his hand and flings it into the air, muttering the ajuration. After a pause, the WITCH OF THE ALPS rises beneath the arch of the sunbow of the torrent.

Beautiful Spirit! with thy hair of light, And dazzling eyes of glory, in whose form The charms of Earth's least mortal daughters grow To an unearthly stature, in an essence Of purer elements; while the hues of youth,— Carnationed like a sleeping Infant's cheek, Rocked by the beating of her mother's heart, Or the rose tints, which Summer's twilight leaves 20 Upon the lofty Glacier's virgin snow, The blush of earth embracing with her Heaven,— Tinge thy celestial aspect, and make tame The beauties of the Sunbow which bends o'er thee. Beautiful Spirit! in thy calm clear brow, Wherein is glassed serenity of Soul,[ay] Which of itself shows immortality, I read that thou wilt pardon to a Son Of Earth, whom the abstruser powers permit At times to commune with them—if that he 30 Avail him of his spells—to call thee thus, And gaze on thee a moment.

Witch. Son of Earth! I know thee, and the Powers which give thee power! I know thee for a man of many thoughts, And deeds of good and ill, extreme in both, Fatal and fated in thy sufferings. I have expected this—what would'st thou with me?

Man. To look upon thy beauty—nothing further. The face of the earth hath maddened me, and I Take refuge in her mysteries, and pierce 40 To the abodes of those who govern her— But they can nothing aid me. I have sought From them what they could not bestow, and now I search no further.

Witch. What could be the quest Which is not in the power of the most powerful, The rulers of the invisible?

Man. A boon;— But why should I repeat it? 'twere in vain.

Witch. I know not that; let thy lips utter it.

Man. Well, though it torture me, 'tis but the same; My pang shall find a voice. From my youth upwards 50 My Spirit walked not with the souls of men, Nor looked upon the earth with human eyes; The thirst of their ambition was not mine, The aim of their existence was not mine; My joys—my griefs—my passions—and my powers, Made me a stranger; though I wore the form, I had no sympathy with breathing flesh, Nor midst the Creatures of Clay that girded me Was there but One who—but of her anon. I said with men, and with the thoughts of men, 60 I held but slight communion; but instead, My joy was in the wilderness,—to breathe The difficult air of the iced mountain's top,[131] Where the birds dare not build—nor insect's wing Flit o'er the herbless granite; or to plunge Into the torrent, and to roll along On the swift whirl of the new-breaking wave Of river-stream, or Ocean, in their flow.[132] In these my early strength exulted; or To follow through the night the moving moon,[133] 70 The stars and their development; or catch The dazzling lightnings till my eyes grew dim; Or to look, list'ning, on the scattered leaves, While Autumn winds were at their evening song. These were my pastimes, and to be alone; For if the beings, of whom I was one,— Hating to be so,—crossed me in my path, I felt myself degraded back to them, And was all clay again. And then I dived, In my lone wanderings, to the caves of Death, 80 Searching its cause in its effect; and drew From withered bones, and skulls, and heaped up dust Conclusions most forbidden.[134] Then I passed— The nights of years in sciences untaught, Save in the old-time; and with time and toil, And terrible ordeal, and such penance As in itself hath power upon the air, And spirits that do compass air and earth, Space, and the peopled Infinite, I made Mine eyes familiar with Eternity, 90 Such as, before me, did the Magi, and He who from out their fountain-dwellings raised Eros and Anteros,[135] at Gadara, As I do thee;—and with my knowledge grew The thirst of knowledge, and the power and joy Of this most bright intelligence, until——

Witch. Proceed.

Man. Oh! I but thus prolonged my words, Boasting these idle attributes, because As I approach the core of my heart's grief— But—to my task. I have not named to thee 100 Father or mother, mistress, friend, or being, With whom I wore the chain of human ties; If I had such, they seemed not such to me— Yet there was One——

Witch. Spare not thyself—proceed.

Man. She was like me in lineaments—her eyes— Her hair—her features—all, to the very tone Even of her voice, they said were like to mine; But softened all, and tempered into beauty: She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings, The quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind 110 To comprehend the Universe: nor these Alone, but with them gentler powers than mine, Pity, and smiles, and tears—which I had not; And tenderness—but that I had for her; Humility—and that I never had. Her faults were mine—her virtues were her own— I loved her, and destroyed her!

Witch. With thy hand?

Man. Not with my hand, but heart, which broke her heart; It gazed on mine, and withered. I have shed Blood, but not hers—and yet her blood was shed; 120 I saw—and could not stanch it.

Witch. And for this— A being of the race thou dost despise— The order, which thine own would rise above, Mingling with us and ours,—thou dost forego The gifts of our great knowledge, and shrink'st back To recreant mortality——Away!

Man. Daughter of Air! I tell thee, since that hour— But words are breath—look on me in my sleep, Or watch my watchings—Come and sit by me! My solitude is solitude no more, 130 But peopled with the Furies;—I have gnashed My teeth in darkness till returning morn, Then cursed myself till sunset;—I have prayed For madness as a blessing—'tis denied me. I have affronted Death—but in the war Of elements the waters shrunk from me,[136] And fatal things passed harmless; the cold hand Of an all-pitiless Demon held me back, Back by a single hair, which would not break. In Fantasy, Imagination, all 140 The affluence of my soul—which one day was A Croesus in creation—I plunged deep, But, like an ebbing wave, it dashed me back Into the gulf of my unfathomed thought. I plunged amidst Mankind—Forgetfulness[137] I sought in all, save where 'tis to be found— And that I have to learn—my Sciences, My long pursued and superhuman art, Is mortal here: I dwell in my despair— And live—and live for ever.[az]

Witch. It may be 150 That I can aid thee.

Man. To do this thy power Must wake the dead, or lay me low with them. Do so—in any shape—in any hour— With any torture—so it be the last.

Witch. That is not in my province; but if thou Wilt swear obedience to my will, and do My bidding, it may help thee to thy wishes.

Man. I will not swear—Obey! and whom? the Spirits Whose presence I command, and be the slave Of those who served me—Never!

Witch. Is this all? 160 Hast thou no gentler answer?—Yet bethink thee, And pause ere thou rejectest.

Man. I have said it.

Witch. Enough! I may retire then—say!

Man. Retire!

[The WITCH disappears.

Man. (alone). We are the fools of Time and Terror: Days Steal on us, and steal from us; yet we live, Loathing our life, and dreading still to die. In all the days of this detested yoke— This vital weight upon the struggling heart, Which sinks with sorrow, or beats quick with pain, Or joy that ends in agony or faintness— 170 In all the days of past and future—for In life there is no present—we can number How few—how less than few—wherein the soul Forbears to pant for death, and yet draws back As from a stream in winter, though the chill[ba] Be but a moment's. I have one resource Still in my science—I can call the dead, And ask them what it is we dread to be: The sternest answer can but be the Grave, And that is nothing: if they answer not— 180 The buried Prophet answered to the Hag Of Endor; and the Spartan Monarch drew From the Byzantine maid's unsleeping spirit An answer and his destiny—he slew That which he loved, unknowing what he slew, And died unpardoned—though he called in aid The Phyxian Jove, and in Phigalia roused The Arcadian Evocators to compel The indignant shadow to depose her wrath, Or fix her term of vengeance—she replied 190 In words of dubious import, but fulfilled.[138] If I had never lived, that which I love Had still been living; had I never loved, That which I love would still be beautiful, Happy and giving happiness. What is she? What is she now?—a sufferer for my sins— A thing I dare not think upon—or nothing. Within few hours I shall not call in vain— Yet in this hour I dread the thing I dare: Until this hour I never shrunk to gaze 200 On spirit, good or evil—now I tremble, And feel a strange cold thaw upon my heart. But I can act even what I most abhor, And champion human fears.—The night approaches. [Exit.