THE GIAOUR.
107
So do the dark in soul expire,
Or live like Scorpion girt by fire;[decimal 1]
So writhes the mind Remorse hath riven,[lower-roman 1]
Unfit for earth, undoomed for heaven,
Darkness above, despair beneath,
Around it flame, within it death!
*****
Black Hassan from the Haram flies,
Nor bends on woman's form his eyes; 440
The unwonted chase each hour employs,
Yet shares he not the hunter's joys.
Not thus was Hassan wont to fly
When Leila dwelt in his Serai.
Doth Leila there no longer dwell?
That tale can only Hassan tell:
Strange rumours in our city say
Upon that eve she fled away
When Rhamazan's[decimal 2] last sun was set
And flashing from each Minaret 450
Or live like Scorpion girt by fire;[decimal 1]
So writhes the mind Remorse hath riven,[lower-roman 1]
Unfit for earth, undoomed for heaven,
Darkness above, despair beneath,
Around it flame, within it death!
*****
Black Hassan from the Haram flies,
Nor bends on woman's form his eyes; 440
The unwonted chase each hour employs,
Yet shares he not the hunter's joys.
Not thus was Hassan wont to fly
When Leila dwelt in his Serai.
Doth Leila there no longer dwell?
That tale can only Hassan tell:
Strange rumours in our city say
Upon that eve she fled away
When Rhamazan's[decimal 2] last sun was set
And flashing from each Minaret 450
Variants
- ↑ So writhes the mind by Conscience riven.—[MS.]
Notes
- ↑ Alluding to the dubious suicide of the scorpion, so placed for experiment by gentle philosophers. Some maintain that the position of the sting, when turned towards the head, is merely a convulsive movement; but others have actually brought in the verdict "Felo de se." The scorpions are surely interested in a speedy decision of the question; as, if once fairly established as insect Catos, they will probably be allowed to live as long as they think proper, without being martyred for the sake of an hypothesis.
[Byron assured Dallas that the simile of the scorpion was imagined in his sleep.—Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron, by R. C. Dallas, p. 264.
"Probably in some instances the poor scorpion has been burnt to death; and the well-known habit of these creatures to raise the tail over the back and recurve it so that the extremity touches the fore part of the cephalo-thorax, has led to the idea that it was stinging itself."—Encycl. Brit., art. "Arachnida," by Rev. O. P. Cambridge, ii. 281.] - ↑ The cannon at sunset close the Rhamazan. [Compare Childe Harold, Canto II. stanza lv. line 5, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 134, note 2.]
