Byron: The Last Phase Part 22

'Think'st thou that I could bear to part With thee, and learn to halve my heart?

Ah! were I severed from thy side, Where were thy friend--and who my guide?

Years have not seen, Time shall not see, The hour that tears my soul from thee: Ev'n Azrael, from his deadly quiver When flies that shaft, and fly it must, That parts all else, shall doom for ever Our hearts to undivided dust!

What other can she seek to see Than thee, companion of her bower, The partner of her infancy?

These cherished thoughts with life begun, Say, why must I no more avow?'

Selim suggests that Zuleika should brave the world and fly with him:

'But be the Star that guides the wanderer, Thou!

Thou, my Zuleika, share and bless my bark; The Dove of peace and promise to mine ark!

Or, since that hope denied in worlds of strife, Be thou the rainbow to the storms of life!

The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray!

Not blind to Fate, I see, where'er I rove, Unnumbered perils,--but one only love!

Yet well my toils shall that fond breast repay, Though Fortune frown, or falser friends betray.'

Zuleika, we are told, was the 'last of Giaffir's race.'[44] Selim tells her that 'life is hazard at the best,' and there is much to fear:

'Yes, fear! the doubt, the dread of losing thee.

That dread shall vanish with the favouring gale; Which Love to-night has 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!'

'The Corsair' was written between December 18, 1813, and January 11, 1814.

While it was pa.s.sing through the press, Byron was at Newstead. He gives a little of his own spirit to Conrad, and all Mary's virtues to Medora--a name which was afterwards given to his child. Conrad

'Knew himself a villain--but he deemed The rest no better than the thing he seemed; And scorned the best as hypocrites who hid Those deeds the bolder spirit plainly did.

Lone, wild, and strange, he stood alike exempt From all affection and from all contempt.

None are all evil--quickening round his heart, One softer feeling would not yet depart.

Yet 'gainst that pa.s.sion vainly still he strove, And even in him it asks the name of Love!

Yes, it was Love--unchangeable--unchanged, Felt but for one from whom he never ranged.

Yes--it was Love--if thoughts of tenderness, Tried in temptation, strengthened by distress, Unmoved by absence, firm in every clime, And yet--oh! more than all! untired by Time.

If there be Love in mortals--this was Love!

He was a villain--aye, reproaches shower On him--but not the Pa.s.sion, nor its power, Which only proved--all other virtues gone-- Not Guilt itself could quench this _earliest_ one!'

The following verses are full of meaning for the initiated:

I.

'Deep in my soul that tender secret dwells, Lonely and lost to light for evermore, Save when to thine my heart responsive swells, Then trembles into silence as before.

II.

'There, in its centre, a sepulchral lamp Burns the slow flame, eternal--but unseen; Which not the darkness of Despair can damp, Though vain its ray as it had never been.

III.

'Remember me--oh! pa.s.s not thou my grave Without one thought whose relics there recline: The only pang my bosom dare not brave Must be to find forgetfulness in thine.

IV.

'My fondest--faintest--latest accents hear-- Grief for the dead not Virtue can reprove; Then give me all I ever asked--a tear, The first--last--sole reward of so much love!'

Conrad and Medora part, to meet no more in life

'But she is nothing--wherefore is he here?...

By the first glance on that still, marble brow-- It was enough--she died--what recked it how?

_The love of youth, the hope of better years_, The source of softest wishes, tenderest fears, The only living thing he could not hate, Was reft at once--_and he deserved his fate_, But did not feel it less.'

The blow he feared the most had fallen at last. The only woman whom he loved had withdrawn her society from him, and his heart,

'Formed for softness--warped to wrong, Betrayed too early, and beguiled too long,'

was petrified at last!

'Yet tempests wear, and lightning cleaves the rock; If such his heart, so shattered it the shock.

There grew one flower beneath its rugged brow, Though dark the shade--it sheltered--saved till now.

The thunder came--that bolt hath blasted both, The Granite's firmness, and the Lily's growth: The gentle plant hath left no leaf to tell Its tale, but shrunk and withered where it fell; And of its cold protector, blacken round But shivered fragments on the barren ground!'

In moments of deep emotion, even the most reticent of men may sometimes reveal themselves. 'The Giaour,' 'The Bride of Abydos,' and 'The Corsair,'

formed a trilogy, through which the tragedy of Byron's life swept like a musical theme. Those poems acted like a recording instrument which, by registering his transient moods, was destined ultimately to betray a secret which he had been at so much pains to hide. In 'The Giaour' we see remorse for a crime, which he was at first willing to expiate in sorrow and repentance. In 'The Bride of Abydos' we find him, in an access of madness and pa.s.sion, proposing to share the fate of his victim, if she will but consent to fly with him. Happily for both, Mary would never have consented to an act of social suicide. In 'The Corsair' we behold his dreams dispelled by the death of his Love and the hope of better years.

'He asked no question--all were answered now!'

With the dramatic fate of Medora the curtain falls, and the poet, in whom

'I suoi pensieri in lui dormir non ponno,'

crosses the threshold of a new life. He reappears later on the scene of all his woes, a broken, friendless stranger, in the person of Lara--that last phase, in which the poet discloses his ident.i.ty with characteristic insouciance, brings the tragedy abruptly to a close.[45]

On January 6, 1814, Byron wrote a remarkable letter to Moore, at that time in Nottinghamshire:

'... I have a confidence for you--a perplexing one to me, and just at present in a state of abeyance in itself.... [Here probably follows the disclosure.] However, we shall see. In the meantime you may amuse yourself with my suspense, and put all the justices of peace in requisition, in case I come into your county [Nottinghamshire] with hackbut bent.[46] Seriously, whether I am to hear from her or him, it is a pause, which I can fill up with as few thoughts of my own as I can borrow from other people. Anything is better than stagnation; and now, in the interregnum of my autumn and a strange summer adventure, which I don't like to think of.... Of course you will keep my secret, and don't even talk in your sleep of it. Happen what may, your dedication is ensured, being already written; and I shall copy it out fair to-night, in case business or amus.e.m.e.nt--_Amant alterna Camoenae_.'

Byron here refers to 'The Corsair,' which he dedicated to Thomas Moore. In order to understand this letter, it may be inferred that one of the letters he had written to his lady-love had remained so long unanswered that Byron feared it might have fallen into her husband's hands. Writing to Moore on the following day, Byron says:

'My last epistle would probably put you in a fidget. But the devil, who _ought_ to be civil on such occasions, proved so, and took my letter to the right place.... Is it not odd? the very fate I said she had escaped from * * * * she has now undergone from the worthy * * *

An undated letter from Mary Chaworth, preserved among the Byron letters in Mr. Murray's possession, seems to belong to this period:

'Your kind letter, my dear friend, relieved me much, and came yesterday, when I was by no means well, and was a most agreeable remedy, for I fancied a thousand things.... I shall set great value by your _seal_, and, if you come down to Newstead before we leave Annesley, see no reason why you should not call on us and bring it....[47] I have lately suffered from a pain in my side, which has alarmed me; but I will not, in return for your charming epistle, fill mine with complaints.... I am surprised you have not seen Mr.

Chaworth, as I hear of him going about a good deal. We [herself and Miss Radford] are now visiting very near Nottingham, but return to Annesley to-morrow, I _trust_, where I have left all my little dears except the eldest, whom _you_ saw, and who is with me. We are very anxious to see you, and yet know not how we shall feel on the occasion--_formal_, I dare say, at the _first_; but our meeting must be confined to our trio, and then I think we shall be more at our ease. _Do write_ me, and make a _sacrifice_ to _friendship_, which I shall consider your visit. You _may_ always address your letters to Annesley perfectly safe.