Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (With Byron's Biography). Lord Byron

dark eyed boy, who loved his master well; And often would his pranksome prate engage Harold's Childe Burun's ear, when his proud heart did swell With sable thoughts that he disdained to tell. Alwin Then would he smile on him, as Rupert smiled, Robin When aught that from his young lips archly fell Harold's The gloomy film from Burun's eye beguiled; And pleased the Childe appeared nor ere the boy reviled. And pleased for a glimpse appeared the woeful Childe. } Him and one yeoman only did he take To travel Eastward to a far countree; And though the boy was grieved to leave the lake On whose firm banks he grew from Infancy, Eftsoons his little heart beat merrily With hope of foreign nations to behold, And many things right marvellous to see, vaunting Of which our lying voyagers oft have told, From Mandevilles' and scribes of similar mold. or, In tomes pricked out with prints to monied ... sold In many a tome as true as Mandeville's of old. }

z ——Childe Burun——.—[MS.]

aa Stanza ix. was the result of much elaboration. The first draft, which was pasted over the rejected stanzas (vide supra, p. 20, var. i.), retains the numerous erasures and emendations. It ran as follows:—

      And none did love him though to hall and bower few could Haughty he gathered revellers from far and near An evil smile just bordering on a sneer He knew them flatterers of the festal hour Curled on his lip The heartless Parasites of present cheer, As if And deemed no mortal wight his peer Yea! none did love him not his lemmans dear To gentle Dames still less he could be dear Were aught But pomp and power alone are Woman's care But And where these are let no Possessor fear The sex are slaves Maidens like moths are ever caught by glare Love shrinks outshone by Mammons dazzling glare And Mammon That Demon wins his [MS. torn] where Angels might despair.

28 The "trivial particular" which suggested to Byron the friendlessness and desolation of the Childe may be explained by the refusal of an old schoolfellow to spend the last day with him before he set out on his travels. The friend, possibly Lord Delawarr, excused himself on the plea that "he was engaged with his mother and some ladies to go shopping." "Friendship!" he exclaimed to Dallas. "I do not believe I shall leave behind me, yourself and family excepted, and, perhaps, my mother, a single being who will care what becomes of me" (Dallas, Recollections, etc., pp. 63, 64). Byron, to quote Charles Lamb's apology for Coleridge, was "full of fun," and must not be taken too seriously. Doubtless he was piqued at the moment, and afterwards, to heighten the tragedy of Childe Harold's exile, expanded a single act of negligence into general abandonment and desertion at the hour of trial.

ab No! none did love him——.—[D. pencil.]

29 The word "lemman" is used by Chaucer in both senses, but more frequently in the feminine.—[MS. M.]

30 "Feere," a consort or mate. [Compare the line, "What when lords go with their feires, she said," in "The Ancient Fragment of the Marriage of Sir Gawaine" (Percy's Reliques, 1812, iii. 416), and the lines—

      "As with the woful fere, And father of that chaste dishonoured dame."

       Titus Andronicus, act iv. sc. 1.

      Compare, too, "That woman and her fleshless Pheere" (The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere, line 180 of the reprint from the first version in the Lyrical Ballads, 1798; Poems by S. T. Coleridge, 1893, App. E, p. 515).]

ac Childe Burun——.—[MS.]

31 [In a suppressed stanza of "Childe Harold's Good Night" (see p. 27, var. ii.), the Childe complains that he has not seen his sister for "three long years and moe." Before her marriage, in 1807, Augusta Byron divided her time between her mother's children, Lady Chichester and the Duke of Leeds; her cousin, Lord Carlisle; and General and Mrs. Harcourt. After her marriage to Colonel Leigh, she lived at Newmarket. From the end of 1805 Byron corresponded with her more or less regularly, but no meeting took place. In a letter to his sister, dated November 30, 1808 (Letters, 1898, i. 203), he writes, "I saw Col. Leigh at Brighton in July, where I should have been glad to have seen you; I only know your husband by sight." Colonel Leigh was his first cousin, as well as his half-sister's husband, and the incidental remark that "he only knew him by sight" affords striking proof that his relations and connections were at no pains to seek him out, but left him to fight his own way to social recognition and distinction. (For particulars of "the Hon. Augusta Byron," see Letters, 1898, i. 18, note.)]

ad Of friends he had but few, embracing none.—[MS. erased.]

ae Yet deem him not from this with breast of steel.—[MS. D.]

32 [Compare Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoming, ii. 8. 1—"Yet deem not Gertrude sighed for foreign joy."]

af His house, his home, his vassals, and his lands.—[MS. D.]

ag The Dalilahs——.—[MS. D.] His damsels all——.—[MS. erased.]

ah ——where brighter sunbeams shine.—[MS. erased.]

33 "Your objection to the expression 'central line' I can only meet by saying that, before Childe Harold left England, it was his full intention to traverse Persia, and return by India, which he could not have done without passing the equinoctial" (letter to Dallas, September 7, 1811; see, too, letter to his mother, October 7, 1808: Letters, 1898, i. 193; ii. 27).

ai The sails are filled——.—[MS.]

34 He experienced no such emotion on the resumption of his Pilgrimage in 1816. With reference to the confession, he writes (Canto III. stanza i. lines 6-9)—

      " ... I depart,

       Whither I know not; but the hour's gone by,

       When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye."

35 [See Lord Maxwell's "Good Night" in Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (Poetical Works, ii. 141, ed. 1834): "Adieu, madam, my mother dear," etc. [MS.]. Compare, too, Armstrong's "Good Night" ibid.—

      "This night is my departing night,

       For here nae langer mun I stay;

       There's neither friend nor foe of mine,

       But wishes me away.

       What I have done thro' lack of will, I never, never can recall;