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For Alla! sure thy lips are flame,

What fever in thy veins is flushing?
My own hath nearly caught the same,

At least I feel my cheek too blushing."

With an agreement between them to meet at twilight and retire to the seashore the first Canto ends.

In the opening of the second Canto, the author indulges in that fondness for classic lore and classic ground which, next to the great master passion already alluded to, seems to hold the most supreme sovereignty over his heart. The night scene to which he brings Selim and Zuleika, is placed upon the highest of classic ground— the margin of the Hellespont; and this suggests to his enriched fancy the story of Hero and Leander, from which a train of recollections arise, and foremost among them Troy, and the divine bard to whom that celebrated city owes its immortality, and, perhaps, its existence. Readers, whose thoughts are raised to a view of such lofty themes, will peruse this part of the poem with great delight. Allusions, in themselves very beautiful, are often injured by being introduced without any obvious connexion with the main subject. But nothing can be imagined more interestingly relative than this of Hero and Leander to the story in hand; because not only the scene but the tragical catastrophe, and the causes that led to it, are in effect the same; and the recollectionof the story of antiquity brings the mind of the reader into a mood fitted for the reception of the melancholy catastrophe of the modern. Indeed, no scholar can read the works of this author without observing the sublimed spirit of erudition which (to borrow the words of Doctor Parr) "pervade with essential fragrance" all his compositions. In that before us, after the beautiful allusion above, and a tribute to "the blind old man of Scio's rocky Isle," he indulges in the following apostrophe :

"O yet-for there my steps have been,

These feet have pressed the sacred shore,
These limbs that buoyant wave hath borne--
Minstrel with thee to muse, to mourn-

To trace again those fields of yore-
Believing every hillock green

Contains no fabled hero's ashes-
And that around the undoubted scene

Thine own broad Hellespont' still dashes-
Be long my lot-and cold were he

Who there could gaze denying thee!"

Of our author's classic enthusiasm a stronger proof cannot be imagined, than a fact mentioned by him in a note to this passage, namely, that he swam across the Hellespont.

Zuleika, conducted by Selim in the dress of a Turkish sailor, arrives at a grotto near the shore. Here he unfolds to her the secret of his birth, and of his father's murder, and informs her that during the absence of Giaffir in the war with Paswan Oglou, Haroun indulged him with liberty to go abroad, availing himself of which he had visited the Grecian Islands, and become the chief of a band of pirates, who were now on their way to the shore with a bark to convey her and him to a retreat he had provided for their reception and security, in one of those islands-and he enforces his solicitations for her departure with him, by reminding her that if she return back to the haram, the next morning will place her in the possession of Sultan Osman. The whole of this interesting scene is conducted by the author with great art, and in a charming uninterrupted strain of fine poetry. One passage claims very particular applause for the fervid glow of feeling-the enthusiastic rapture in which he describes his emotions on being set at liberty by Haroun.

""Tis vain-my tongue cannot impart
MY ALMOST DRUNKENNESS OF HEART,
When first this liberated eye
Survey'd earth-ocean-sun and sky!
As if my spirit pierced them through,
And all their inmost wonders knew-
One word alone can paint to thee
That more than feeling I was free!
E'en for thy presence ceased to pine-

The world-nay-heaven itself, was mine."

And now for the catastrophe-while Selim is speaking to Zuleika, the approach of a multitude of people with torches gives them the sad intelligence that their escape from the haram has been

THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS.

discovered. The poet rises with the exigency, and presents such
an animated picture of the tremendous situation of the hapless
pair that the reader imagines he sees it passing before him.
"But ere her lip, or even her eye,

Essayed to speak, or look reply—
Beneath the garden's wicket porch

Far flash'd on high a blazing torch!
Another-and another-and another-

'O! fly-no more-yet now my more than brother!"
Far-wide through every thicket spread
The fearful lights are gleaming red;
Nor these alone-for each right hand
Is ready with a sheathless brand :---
They part, pursue, return, and wheel
With searching flambeau, shining steel;
And last of all his sabre waving,
Stern Giaffir in his fury raving,
And now almost they touch the cave---

O! must that grot be Selim's grave ?"

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As a last, but almost hopeless effort, Selim fires a pistol as a signal to his band to approach the shore, and determines to fight his way to the bark. In no part of his works has the poet displayed more genius than in his description of the result.

"One bound he made, and gain'd the sand

Already at his feet hath sunk

The foremost of the prying band

A gasping head, a quivering trunk;
Another falls---but round him close
A swarming circle of his foes:
From right to left his path he cleft,

And almost met the meeting wave;→
His boat appears-not five oars' length-
His comrades strain with desperate strength-
O! are they yet in time to save?
His feet the foremost breakers lave;

His band are plunging in the bay,
Their sabres glitter through the spray;
Wet--wild-unwearied to the strand
They struggle-now they touch the land!
They come 'tis but to add to slaughter---
His heart's best blood is on the water!"

Here we find the poet's words keep pace with the confused celerity of the transaction. The persons of his drama are breathless with fury, ardour, effort and so seems his muse :-the fearful anxiety-the painful suspense, are kept up to the very last moment of Selim's existence-and the abruptness, as well as the particular words announcing his fall, are singularly beautiful, appropriate, and affecting. From this to the end of the poem, all is one continued blaze of poetic fire, in which the particular details before judiciously overlooked in order to get at the catastrophe, and particularly the death of Zuleika, are recapitulated. To extract all that we admire in this poem, would be to transcribe almost the whole of it. We fear that our admiration of the work may have already led us to trespass too far on some of our readers-but we are satisfied that those whose judgment is most desirable will be pleased. To the book itself we refer them for a multitude of beauties which it would be inconsistent with the nature of this article to introduce into it by way of extract.

Upon the whole, the Bride of Abydos, as it seems to have been conceived in a season of sorrow, deep and sincere, so it is breathed forth in the sweetest accents of plaintive poetry. Even in the irregularities of the verse there is harmony;-and a certain wildness and disorder which pervades it, in common with most of Lord Byron's poems, far from creating perplexity and disgust, as in other hands they generally do, fascinate with their gracefulness, and delight with their beauty. How different from the ordinary cant of Cupid's flames and darts, and the fulsome wailings of the mob of amatory rhymers, are the felicitous "breathing thoughts," the nervous diction, and the soft and elegant numbers of our poet; of what author can more be said in praise than that he differs essentially from that herd? The merits of Lord Byron, however, stand upon a still stronger foundation-the positive, intrinsic excellence of his poetry: for we venture to affirm that he who reads his Bride of Abydos, without breathing a wish for a long continuance of his lordship's labours, can be but little susceptible of the thrilling sensations of delight imparted by genuine poetry.

We cannot, however, dismiss the work without one observation more. The only exceptionable point attending it is its title. To us it appears a palpable misnomer. Zuleika, the only female in it, is not a BRIDE.

C.

POETRY.

HALLOW MY FANCIE.

Anonymous

IN melancholic fancie

Out of myself,

In the Vulcan dancie,

All the world surveying,
Nowhere staying,

Just like a fairie-elf;

Out o'er the tops of highest mountains skipping,
Out o'er the hills, the trees and valleys tripping,
Out o'er the ocean seas, without an oar or shipping.
Hallow my fancie, whither wilt thou go?

Amidst the misty vapours,

Fain would I know,

What doth cause the tapours.

Why the clouds benight us,

And affright us,

While we travel here below.

Fain would I know, what makes the roaring thunder,

And what these lightnings be that rend the clouds asunder,
And what these comets are, on which we gaze and wonder.
Hallow my fancie, whither wilt thou go?

Fain would I know the reason,

Why the little ant,

All the summer season,

Layeth up provision,

On condition,

To know no winter's want:

And how huswives, that are so good and painful,

Do unto their husbands prove so good and gainful,
And why the lazy drones to them do prove disdainful.

Hallow my fancie, whither wilt thou go?

Ships, ships, will descrie you,

Amidst the main,

I will come and try you,
What you are protecting,
And projecting,

What's your end and aim.
44

VOL. III. New Series.

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