Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 3.djvu/150

The browsing camels' bells are tinkling:^{[lower-roman 1]}
His mother looked from her lattice high—^{[decimal 1]} 690
She saw the dews of eve besprinkling
The pasture green beneath her eye,
She saw the planets faintly twinkling:
"'Tis twilight—sure his train is nigh."
She could not rest in the garden-bower,
But gazed through the grate of his steepest tower.
"Why comes he not? his steeds are fleet,
Nor shrink they from the summer heat;
Why sends not the Bridegroom his promised gift?
Is his heart more cold, or his barb less swift? 700
Oh, false reproach! yon Tartar now
Has gained our nearest mountain's brow,
And warily the steep descends,

Variants

1. His mother looked from the lattice high,
   With throbbing heart and eager eye;
   The browsing camel bells are tinkling,
   And the last beam of twilight twinkling:
   'Tis eve; his train should now be nigh.
   She could not rest in her garden bower,
   And gazed through the loop of her steepest tower.
   "Why comes he not? his steeds are fleet,
   And well are they train'd to the summer's heat."—[MS]
   
   
   Another copy began—
   The browsing camel bells are tinkling,
   And the first beam of evening twinkling;
   His mother looked from her lattice high,
   With throbbing breast and eager eye—
   "'Tis twilight-sure his train is nigh."—[MS. Aug. 11, 1813.]
   
   

   The browsing camel's bells are tinkling
   The dews of eve the pasture sprinkling
   And rising planets feebly twinkling:
   His mother looked from the lattice high
   With throbbing heart and eager eye.—[Fourth Edition.]
   
   
   [These lines were erased, and lines 689-692 were substituted. They appeared first in the Fifth Edition.]

Notes

1. ["The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? why tarry the wheels of his chariot?"—Judges v. 28.1]