To sooth each sorrow, share in each delight,
Blend every thought-do all but disunite!
Once free, 'tis mine our horde again to guide;
Friends to each other, foes to aught beside:
Yet there we follow but the bent assigned

T

By fatal Nature to man's warring kind:
Mark! where his carnage and his conquests cease-
He makes a solitude, and calls it-peace!
I, like the rest, must use my skill or strength,
But ask no land beyond my sabre's length:
Power sways but by division-her resource
The blest alternative of fraud or force!
Ours be the last; in time deceit may come,
When cities cage us in a social home:
There e'en thy soul might err-how oft the heart
Corruption shakes, which Peril could not part!
And woman, more than man, when death or woe,
Or e'en disgrace, would lay her lover low,
Sunk in the lap of Luxury will shame-
Away, suspicion !-not Zuleika's name!
But life is hazard at the best; and here
No more remains to win, and much to fear:
Yes, fear!-the doubt, the dread, of losing thee,
By Osman's power, and Giaffir's stern decree.
That dread shall vanish with the favoring gale,
Which Love to-night hath promised to my sail :
No danger daunts the pair his smile hath blest,
Their steps still roving, but their hearts at rest:
With thee all toils are sweet, each clime hath charms;
Earth, sea, alike—our world within our arms!

Ay ! let the loud winds whistle o'er the deck,
So that those arms cling closer round my neck,

The deepest murmur of this lip shall be
No sigh for safety, but a prayer for thee!
The war of elements no fears impart

To Love, whose deadliest bane is human art:
There lie the only rocks our course can check';
Here moments menace-there are years of wreck!
But hence, ye thoughts! that rise in Horror's shape-
This hour bestows, or ever bars, escape.

Few words remain of mine my tale to close;
Of thine but one to waft us from our foes;
Yea-foes-to me will Giaffir's hate decline?
And is not Osman, who would part us, thine?'

Zuleika hesitates; but her doubts are put an end to by the fatal catastrophe which terminates the story :

Zuleika, mute and motionless,

Stood like that statue of Distress,
When, her last hope for ever gone,
The mother hardened into stone;
All in the maid that eye could see
Was but a younger Niobé!
But ere her lip, or e'en her eye,
Essayed to speak or look reply,
Beneath the garden's wicket porch

Far flashed on high a blazing torch!
Another-and another-and another-

'Oh! 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—

Oh! must that grot be Selim's grave?

Selim endeavours to effect his escape. He reaches the strand, marking his course with the bodies of the slaves, who endeavour to oppose

his passage,

but in vain-the bullet of old Giaffir strikes him:

Escaped from shot, unharmed by steel,

Or scarcely grazed its force to feel,

Had Selim won, betrayed, beset,
To where the strand and billows met:
There, as his last step left the land,
And the last death-blow dealt his hand-
Ah! wherefore did he turn to look

For her his eye but sought in vain?

That pause, that fatal gaze he took,

Hath doomed his death, or fixed his chain:

Sad proof, in peril and in pain,

How late will lover's hope remain!
His back was to the dashing spray;
Behind, but close, his comrades lay;
When, at the instant, hissed the ball-
'So may the foes of Giaffir fall!'
Whose voice is heard? whose carbine rang?
Whose bullet through the night-air sang?
Too nearly-deadly aimed-to err-

། Tis thine-Abdallah's murderer!

The father slowly rued thy hate,
The son hath found a quicker fate;

Fast from his breast the blood is bubbling,
The whiteness of the sea-foam troubling-
If aught his lips essayed to groan,

The rushing billows choked the tone!

Zuleika dies heart-broken, and the aged despot is left to all the tortures of despair and remorse, loaded with the blood of his brother and his brother's son, and deprived of his daughter, the only being in whom his happiness was placed.

The delicacy and beauty of the concluding stanza are beyond all praise:

Within the place of thousand tombs

That shine beneath, while dark above
The sad but living cypress glooms

And withers not, though branch and leaf
Are stamped with an eternal grief,
Like early unrequited love!
One spot exists which ever blooms,
E'en in that deadly grove!-

A single rose is shedding there

Its lonely lustre, meek and pale:

It looks as planted by Despair-
So white-so faint-the slightest gale
Might whirl the leaves on high;

And yet, though storms and blight assail,

And bands more rude than wintry sky
May wring it from the stem-in vain—
To-morrow sees it bloom again!

The stalk some spirit gently rears,
And waters with celestial tears;

For well may maids of Helle deem
That this can be no earthly flower,
Which mocks the tempest's withering hour,
And buds unsheltered by a bower} \;
Nor droops, though Spring refuse her shower.
Nor woos the summer beam:

To it the livelong night there sings
A bird unseen-but not remote:

Invisible his airy wings,

But soft as harp that houri strings

His long entrancing note!

It were the bulbul; but his throat,

Though mournful, pours not such a strain :

For they who listen cannot leave

The spot, but linger there and grieve,

As if they loved in vain!:

And yet so sweet the tears they shed,
'Tis sorrow so unmixed with dread,
They scarce can bear the morn to break
That melancholy spell,

And longer yet would weep and wake,
He sings so wild and well!

But when the day-blush bursts from high
Expires that magic melody,

And some have been who could believe

(So fondly youthful dreams deceive,

Yet harsh be they that blame)
That note, so piercing and profound.
Will shape and syllable its sound
Into Zuleika's name.

'Tis from her cypress' summit heard,
That melts in air the liquid word:
'Tis from her lowly virgin earth
That white rose takes its tender birth.
There late was laid a marble stone;
Eve saw it placed-the Morrow gone!
It was no mortal arm that bore
That deep-fixed pillar to the shore;

1.

For there, as Helle's legends tell,

Next morn 'twas found where Selim fell-
Lashed by the tumbling tide, whose wave
Denied his bones a holier grave :
And there by night, reclined, 'tis said,
Is seen a ghastly turbaned head;
And hence extended by the billow,

'Tis named the Pirate-phantom's Pillow :'
Where first it lay, that mourning flower
Hath flourished-flourisheth this hour-
Alone and dewy, coldly pure and pale,

As weeping Beauty's cheek at Sorrow's tale!

In the beginning of 1814 Lord Byron published another poem of the same class as the two which we have lately described. Of The Corsair' the author, we believe, thought more highly than any thing he had hitherto written; and although Childe Harold' contains proofs that many of its passages were written entirely con amore, and under the influence of feelings which were then present in his mind, yet he is understood to have been better satisfied with his success in a style of versification which it is easy enough to write, but difficult so to master as to make it bend to all the purposes of a narrative.

Preceding the poem is a dedication to Mr. Moore, the author of 'Lalla Rookh.' The whole of this epistle is in a highly adulatory strain, which might have been well enough in a private letter, but is rather too honey-sweet for the public. After the little ceremony, too, with which his lordship had treated Mr. Moore in his English Bards,' the excessive commendation of the Irish poet's genius, and the unlimited professions of affection and respect for him in which Lord Byron now indulged, seemed too much like an indiscreet attempt at apologizing for an undeserved outrage. We believe the truth was, that Lord Byron, when he wrote his satire, knew nothing personally of Mr. Moore. There was enough in the character of the latter gentleman's poetry to serve as the foundation for a great many bitter things, when a satirist is resolved to be bitter; and this is saying no more of Mr. Moore than might be said of every other individual, for where is there any man who shares so little of the infirmity of human nature, that satire cannot find many ridiculous and even some blameable points in his history? When, afterwards, Lord Byron knew how much Mr Moore's character deserved the esteem of all his friends, and, the