LXI.
Here woman's voice is never heard: apart,
And scarce permitted, guarded, veiled, to move,[1]
She yields to one her person and her heart,
Tamed to her cage, nor feels a wish to rove:
For, not unhappy in her Master's love,[2]
And joyful in a mother's gentlest cares,
Blest cares! all other feelings far above!
Herself more sweetly rears the babe she bears
Who never quits the breast—no meaner passion shares.
LXII.
In marble-paved pavilion, where a spring
Of living water from the centre rose,
Whose bubbling did a genial freshness fling,
And soft voluptuous couches breathed repose,
Ali reclined, a man of war and woes:[3]
Yet in his lineaments ye cannot trace,
While Gentleness her milder radiance throws[4]
Along that agéd venerable face,
The deeds that lurk beneath, and stain him with disgrace.
- ↑ —— even for health to move.—[MS.]
She saves for one ——.—[MS. erased.] - ↑
For boyish minions of unhallowed love
The shameless torch of wild desire is lit,
Caressed, preferred even to woman's self above,
Whose forms for Nature's gentler errors fit
All frailties mote excuse save that which they commit.—[MS. D. erased.] - ↑ [For an account of Ali Pasha (1741-1822), see Letters, 1898, i. 246, note.]
- ↑ [In a letter to his mother, November 12, 1809, Byron
