Who had stolen from the hills, but kept away,
Scared by the dogs, from the human prey;
But he seized on his share of a steed that lay,
Picked by the birds, on the sands of the bay.

XVII.

Alp turned him from the sickening sight:
Never had shaken his nerves in fight;

480

2

But he better could brook to behold the dying,
Deep in the tide of their warm blood lying,i. 1
Scorched with the death-thirst, and writhing in vain,
Than the perishing dead who are past all pain.".
There is something of pride in the perilous hour,
Whate'er be the shape in which Death may lower;
For Fame is there to say who bleeds,

And Honour's eye on daring deeds ! 3

iii.

4

But when all is past, it is humbling to tread
O'er the weltering field of the tombless dead, 490
And see worms of the earth, and fowls of the air,
Beasts of the forest, all gathering there;

All regarding man as their prey,

All rejoicing in his decay.iv.

i. Deep in the tide of their lost blood lying.—[MS. G. Copy.] ii. Than the rotting dead

iii. And when all

.-[MS. G. erased.]

—.—[MS. G.]

iv. All that liveth on man will prey,

All rejoicing in his decay,

or, Nature rejoicing in his decay.

All that can kindle dismay and disgust

Follow his frame from the bier to the dust.-[MS. G. erased.]

1. ["Than the mangled corpse in its own blood lying."GIFFORD.]

2. [Strike out

"Scorch'd with the death-thirst, and writhing in vain,

Than the perishing dead who are past all pain."

What is a "perishing dead"?-GIFFORD.]

3. [Lines 487, 488 are inserted in the copy in Byron's handwriting.] 4. ["O'er the weltering limbs of the tombless dead."-Gifford.]

XVIII.

There is a temple in ruin stands,
Fashioned by long forgotten hands;
Two or three columns, and many a stone,
Marble and granite, with grass o'ergrown!
Out upon Time! it will leave no more

Of the things to come than the things before!i. 1
Out upon Time! who for ever will leave

But enough of the past for the future to grieve

500

O'er that which hath been, and o'er that which must be:

What we have seen, our sons shall see;

Remnants of things that have passed away,
Fragments of stone, reared by creatures of clay !.

XIX.

He sate him down at a pillar's base,
And passed his hand athwart his face;
Like one in dreary musing mood,
Declining was his attitude;

i.

it hath left no more

Of the mightiest things that have gone before.

ii. After this follows in the MS. erased

Monuments that the coming age

Leaves to the spoil of the season's rage—
Till Ruin makes the relics scarce,

Then Learning acts her solemn farce,

And, roaming through the marble waste,

Prates of beauty, art, and taste.

XIX.

510

[MS. G. erased.]

That Temple was more in the midst of the plain—

or, What of that shrine did yet remain

Lay to his left more in midst of the plain.—[MS. G.]

1. [Omit this couplet.-GIFFORD.]

2. [From this all is beautiful to

"He saw not-he knew not-but nothing is there."-GIFFORD. For "pillar's base," compare Childe Harold, Canto II. stanza x. line 2, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 105.]

The Temple of Jupiter Nomaus

between Argos and Corinth.

His head was drooping on his breast,
Fevered, throbbing, and oppressed;
And o'er his brow, so downward bent,
Oft his beating fingers went,
Hurriedly, as you may see

Your own run over the ivory key,
Ere the measured tone is taken
By the chords you would awaken.
There he sate all heavily,

As he heard the night-wind sigh.

Was it the wind through some hollow stone,
Sent that soft and tender moan?1

520

i.

I. I must here acknowledge a close, though unintentional, resemblance in these twelve lines to a passage in an unpublished poem of Mr. Coleridge, called "Christabel." It was not till after these lines were written that I heard that wild and singularly original and beautiful poem recited; and the MS. of that production I never saw till very recently, by the kindness of Mr. Coleridge himself, who, I hope, is convinced that I have not been a wilful plagiarist. The original idea undoubtedly pertains to Mr. Coleridge, whose poem has been composed above fourteen years. Let me conclude by a hope that he will not longer delay the publication of a production, of which I can only add my mite of approbation to the applause of far more competent judges.

The lines in Christabel, Part the First, 43-52, 57, 58, are these

"The night is chill; the forest bare;
Is it the wind that moaneth bleak?
There is not wind enough in the air
To move away the ringlet curl
From the lovely lady's cheek-
There is not wind enough to twirl
The one red leaf, the last of its clan,
That dances as often as dance it can,

Hanging so light, and hanging so high,

On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky."

Byron (vide ante, p. 443), in a letter to Coleridge, dated October 27, 1815, had already expressly guarded himself against a charge of