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Would never dapple into day; How heavily it roll'd away

Before the eastern flame Rose crimson, and deposed the stars, 650 And call'd the radiance from their cars, And fill'd the earth, from his deep throne, With lonely lustre, all his own.

"Up rose the sun; the mists were curl'd Back from the solitary world 655 Which lay around, behind, before. What booted it to traverse o'er Plain, forest, river? Man nor brute, Nor dint of hoof, nor print of foot, Lay in the wild luxuriant soil; 660 No sign of travel, none of toil; The very air was mute;

And not an insect's shrill small horn, Nor matin bird's1 new voice was borne From herb nor thicket. Many a werst,2 665 Panting as if his heart would burst,

The weary brute still stagger'd on; And still we were-or seem'd-alone. At length, while reeling on our way, Methought I heard a courser neigh, 670 From out yon tuft of blackening firs. Is it the wind those branches stirs? No, no! from out the forest prance

675

A trampling troop; I see them come!
In one vast squadron they advance!

I strove to cry-my lips were dumb!
The steeds rush on in plunging pride;
But where are they the reins to guide?
A thousand horse-and none to ride!
With flowing tail, and flying mane,
680 Wide nostrils never stretch'd by pain,
Mouths bloodless to the bit or rein,
And feet that iron never shod,
And flanks unscarr'd by spur or rod,
A thousand horse, the wild, the free,
685 Like waves that follow o'er the sea,
Came thickly thundering on,
As if our faint approach to meet.
The sight re-nerved my courser's feet,
A moment staggering, feebly fleet,
690 A moment, with a faint low neigh,
He answer'd, and then fell;
With gasps and glazing eyes he lay,
And reeking limbs immovable-
His first and last career is done!

695 On came the troop-they saw him stoop,
They saw me strangely bound along
His back with many a bloody thong.
They stop-they start-they snuff the air,
Gallop a moment here and there,
700 Approach, retire, wheel round and round,
Then plunging back with sudden bound,

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I little deem'd another day

Would see my houseless, helpless head.

"And there from morn to twilight bound, I felt the heavy hours toil round, 720 With just enough of life to see

My last of suns go down on me,
In hopeless certainty of mind,
That makes us feel at length resign'd
To that which our foreboding years
725 Present the worst and last of fears:
Inevitable-even a boon,

730

735

Nor more unkind for coming soon,
Yet shunn'd and dreaded with such care,
As if it only were a snare

That Prudence might escape:

At times both wish'd for and implored,
At times sought with self-pointed sword,
Yet still a dark and hideous close

To even intolerable woes,

And welcome in no shape.

And, strange to say, the sons of pleasure,
They who have revell'd beyond measure
In beauty, wassail, wine, and treasure,
Die calm, or calmer, oft than he

740 Whose heritage was misery.

For he who hath in turn run through
All that was beautiful and new,

Hath nought to hope, and nought to
leave:

And, save the future (which is view'd
745 Not quite as men are base or good,
But as their nerves may be endued),

With nought perhaps to grieve:
The wretch still hopes his woes must end,
And Death, whom he should deem his
friend,

750 Appears, to his distemper'd eyes,
Arrived to rob him of his prize,
The tree of his new Paradise.
Tomorrow would have given him all,
Repaid his pangs, repair'd his fall;
755 Tomorrow would have been the first
Of days no more deplored or curst,

But bright, and long, and beckoning years, Seen dazzling through the mist of tears, Guerdon of many a painful hour; 760 Tomorrow would have given him power To rule, to shine, to smite, to saveAnd must it dawn upon his grave?

"The sun was sinking-still I lay

Chain'd to the chill and stiffening steed; 765 I thought to mingle there our clay, And my dim eyes of death had need; No hope arose of being freed.

I cast my last looks up the sky,

And there between me and the sun

770 I saw the expecting raven fly,

Who scarce would wait till both should die,

Ere his repast begun;

He flew, and perch'd, then flew once more,
And each time nearer than before;

775 I saw his wing through twilight flit,

And once so near me he alit

Even with my first return of thought; 810 For ever and anon she threw

A prying, pitying glance on me
With her black eyes so wild and free:
I gazed, and gazed, until I knew
No vision it could be,-

815 But that I lived, and was released

820

From adding to the vulture's feast:
And when the Cossack maid beheld
My heavy eyes at length unseal'd,
She smiled-and I essay'd to speak,
But fail'd-and she approach'd, and
made

With lip and finger signs that said,
I must not strive as yet to break
The silence, till my strength should be
Enough to leave my accents free;

825 And then her hand on mine she laid;
And smooth'd the pillow for my head,
And stole along on tiptoe tread,

And gently oped the door, and spake In whispers-ne'er was voice so sweet!

I could have smote, but lack'd the 830 Even music follow'd her light feet:

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Which fix'd my dull eyes from afar,

But those she call'd were not awake, And she went forth; but, ere she pass'd, Another look on me she cast,

Another sign she made, to say,

835 That I had nought to fear, that all
Were near, at my command or call,
And she would not delay

Her due return: -while she was gone,
Methought I felt too much alone.

And went and came with wandering 840 She came with mother and with sire

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845

850

What need of more?-I will not tire

With long recital of the rest,
Since I became the Cossack's guest.
They found me senseless on the plain,

They bore me to the nearest hut,
They brought me into life again-
Me-one day o'er their realm to reign!
Thus the vain fool who strove to glut
His rage, refining on my pain,

Sent me forth to the wilderness,
Bound, naked, bleeding, and alone,
To pass the desert to a throne,—

What mortal his own doom may guess? Let none despond, let none despair! 855 Tomorrow the Borysthenes

May see our coursers graze at ease Upon his Turkish bank, and never Had I such welcome for a river As I shall yield when safely there. 860 Comrades, good night!"-The Hetman threw

His length beneath the oak-tree shade,
With leafy couch already made,

A bed nor comfortless nor new
To him, who took his rest whene'er

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A nest of tuneful persons, to my eye Like "four and twenty Blackbirds in & pye;

.2 "Which pye being open'd they began to sing"

(This old song and new simile holds good),

3

"A dainty dish to set before the King," Or Regent, who admires such kind of food;

And Coleridge, too, has lately taken wing, But like a hawk encumbered with his hood,

Explaining metaphysics to the nation-
I wish he would explain his Explanation.*

3 You, Bob! are rather insolent, you know,
At being disappointed in your wish
To supersede all warblers here below,

And be the only Blackbird in the dish; And then you overstrain yourself, or so, And tumble downward like the flying fish

Gasping on deck, because you soar too high, Bob,

And fall, for lack of moisture, quite a-dry, Bob!

1 Southey, like Wordsworth and Coleridge, was at one time an ardent Republican, but the excesses and the failures of the French Revolution led him finally to become a Tory.

2 Wordsworth, Coleridge, and others, so called because of their residence in the Lake District.

The Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV, who was appointed Regent when his father, George III, became insane in 1811. Southey was made poet laureate in 1813.

A reference to Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, which appeared in 1817.

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And then your hero tells, whene'er you please,

What went before-by way of episode, While seated after dinner at his ease,

Beside his mistress in some soft abode, Palace, or garden, paradise or cavern, Which serves the happy couple for a tavern.

7 That is the usual method, but not mineMy way is to begin with the beginning; The regularity of my design

Forbids all wandering as the worst of sinning,

And therefore I shall open with a line (Although it cost me half an hour in spinning)

Narrating somewhat of Don Juan's father,

And also of his mother, if you'd rather.

8 In Seville was he born, a pleasant city, Famous for oranges and women-he Who has not seen it will be much to pity,

So says the proverb-and I quite agree; Of all the Spanish towns is none more pretty,

Cadiz, perhaps-but that you soon may

see;

Don Juan's parents lived beside the river, A noble stream, and call'd the Guadalquivir.

5 Brave men were living before Agamemnon 9 His father's name was Jóse-Don, of And since, exceeding valorous and sage,

A good deal like him too, though quite

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6 Most epic poets plunge "in medias res''4 (Horace makes this the heroic turnpike road),

1 The colors of the uniform adopted by members of the Whig Club; hence, the binding of The Edinburgh Review, the Whig organ. "I allude not to our friend Landor's hero, the traitor Count Julian, but to Gibbon's hero, vulgarly yclept "The Apostate.'"-Byron. A short version of Shadwell's Libertine, acted under the title of Don Juan; or, The Libertine Destroyed. At the conclusion of the last Act, Don Juan is thrown into the flames by the Furies.

into the middle of things (Horace, Ars Poetica, 148)

10

course,

A true Hidalgo,1 free from every stain Of Moor or Hebrew blood, he traced his

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