Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 3.djvu/128

On him who takes such timeless flight.^{[lower-roman 1]}
He wound along; but ere he passed
One glance he snatched, as if his last,
A moment checked his wheeling steed,^{[decimal 1]}
A moment breathed him from his speed,
A moment on his stirrup stood—220
Why looks he o'er the olive wood?^{[lower-roman 2]}
The Crescent glimmers on the hill,
The Mosque's high lamps are quivering still
Though too remote for sound to wake
In echoes of the far tophaike,^{[decimal 2]}
The flashes of each joyous peal
Are seen to prove the Moslem's zeal.
To-night, set Rhamazani's sun;
To-night, the Bairam feast's begun;
To-night—but who and what art thou230
Of foreign garb and fearful brow?
And what are these to thine or thee,
That thou shouldst either pause or flee?

 He stood—some dread was on his face,
Soon Hatred settled in its place:
It rose not with the reddening flush

Variants

1. For him who takes so fast a flight.—[MS. erased.]
2. And looked along the olive wood.—[MS.]

Notes

1. [Compare—
   ⁠"A moment now he slacked his speed,
   ⁠A moment breathed his panting steed."
   Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto I. stanza xxvii. lines 1, 2.]
2. "Tophaike," musket. The Bairam is announced by the cannon at sunset: the illumination of the mosques, and the firing of all kinds of small arms, loaded with ball, proclaim it during the night.
   ⁠[The Bairâm, the Moslem Easter, a festival of three days, succeeded the Ramazân,
   ⁠For the illumination of the mosques during the fast of the Ramazan, see Childe Harold, Canto II. stanza lv. line 5, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 134, note 2.