In years, have marked him with a tiger's tooth;
Blood follows blood, and, through their mortal span,
In bloodier acts conclude those who with blood began.[1][2]
LXIV.
'Mid many things most new to ear and eye[3]
The Pilgrim rested here his weary feet,
And gazed around on Moslem luxury,
Till quickly wearied with that spacious seat
Of Wealth and Wantonness, the choice retreat
Of sated Grandeur from the city's noise:
And were it humbler it in sooth were sweet;
But Peace abhorreth artificial joys,
And Pleasure, leagued with Pomp, the zest of both destroys.
- ↑ Those who in blood begin in blood conclude their span.—[MS. erased.]
- ↑ [This was prophetic. "On the 5th of February, 1822, a meeting took place between Ali and Mohammed Pasha.... When Mohammed rose to depart, the two viziers, being of equal rank, moved together towards the door.... As they parted Ali bowed low to his visitor, and Mohammed, seizing the moment when the watchful eye of the old man was turned away, drew his hanjar, and plunged it in Ali's heart. He walked on calmly to the gallery, and said to the attendants, 'Ali of Tepalen is dead.' ... The head of Ali was exposed at the gate of the serai."—Finlay's Hist. of Greece, 1877, vi. 94, 95.]
- ↑
Childe Harold with that chief held colloquy
Yet what they spake it boots not to repeat;
Converse may little charm strange ear or eye;
Albeit he rested on that spacious seat,
Of Moslem luxury the choice retreat.—[MS. D. erased.]
Four days he rested on that worthy seat.—[MS. erased.]
