HEBREW MELODIES.

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY.1

I.

SHE walks in Beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes :
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.

II.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace

...

I. [In a manuscript note to a letter of Byron's, dated June 11, 1814, Wedderburn Webster writes, "I did take him to Lady Sitwell's party. He there for the first time saw his cousin, the beautiful Mrs. Wilmot [who had appeared in mourning with numerous spangles in her dress]. When we returned to .. Albany, he desired Fletcher to give him a tumbler of brandy,

the

which he drank at once to Mrs. Wilmot's health. The next day he wrote some charming lines upon her, 'She walks in beauty,' etc."-Letters, 1899, iii. 92, note 1.

Anne Beatrix, daughter and co-heiress of Eusebius Horton, of Catton Hall, Derbyshire, married Byron's second cousin, Robert John Wilmot (1784-1841), son of Sir Robert Wilmot of Osmaston, by Juliana, second daughter of the Hon. John Byron, and widow of the Hon. William Byron. She died February 4, 1871.

Nathan (Fugitive Pieces, 1829, pp. 2, 3) has a note to the effect that Byron, while arranging the first edition of the Melodies, used to ask for this song, and would not unfrequently join in its execution.]

Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

June 12, 1814

THE HARP THE MONARCH MINSTREL

SWEPT.

THE Harp the Monarch Minstrel swept,
The King of men, the loved of Heaven!
Which Music hallowed while she wept

O'er tones her heart of hearts had given— Redoubled be her tears, its chords are riven ! It softened men of iron mould,

It gave them virtues not their own ;
No ear so dull, no soul so cold,

That felt not-fired not to the tone,
Till David's Lyre grew mightier than his Throne !

i. The Harp the Minstrel Monarch swept,

The first of men, the loved of Heaven,

Which Music cherished while she wept.-[MS. M.]

II.

It told the triumphs of our King,
It wafted glory to our God;

It made our gladdened valleys ring,

The cedars bow, the mountains nod;

Its sound aspired to Heaven and there abode ! 1
Since then, though heard on earth no more,"
Devotion and her daughter Love

Still bid the bursting spirit soar

To sounds that seem as from above,

In dreams that day's broad light can not remove.

IF THAT HIGH WORLD.

I.

If that high world,2 which lies beyond
Our own, surviving Love endears;

i. It told the Triumph -.-{MS. M.]
ii. It there abode, and there it rings,

But ne'er on earth its sound shall be ;
The prophets' race hath passed away;
And all the hallowed minstrelsy-
From earth the sound and soul are fled,

And shall we never hear again?—{MS. M. erased.]

1. ["When Lord Byron put the copy into my hand, it terminated with this line. This, however, did not complete the verse, and I asked him to help out the melody. He replied, ‘Why, I have sent you to Heaven-it would be difficult to go further!' My attention for a few moments was called to some other person, and his Lordship, whom I had hardly missed, exclaimed, 'Here, Nathan, I have brought you down again;' and immediately presented me the beautiful and sublime lines which conclude the melody."Fugitive Pieces, 1829, p. 33.]

2. [According to Nathan, the monosyllable "if" at the beginning of the first line led to "numerous attacks on the noble author's religion, and in some an inference of atheism was drawn."

Needless to add, "in a subsequent conversation," Byron repels this charge, and delivers himself of some admirable if commonplace sentiments on the “grand perhaps."—Fugit.ve Pieces, 1829, pp. 5, 6.]