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164
THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS.
[CANTO I.
Pure, as the prayer which Childhood wafts above;
Was she—the daughter of that rude old Chief,
Who met the maid with tears—but not of grief.
Was she—the daughter of that rude old Chief,
Who met the maid with tears—but not of grief.
Who hath not proved how feebly words essay[decimal 1] 170
To fix one spark of Beauty's heavenly ray?
Who doth not feel, until his failing sight[lower-roman 1]
Faints into dimness with its own delight,
His changing cheek, his sinking heart confess
The might—the majesty of Loveliness?
Such was Zuleika—such around her shone
The nameless charms unmarked by her alone—
The light of Love, the purity of Grace,[lower-roman 2]
The mind, the Music breathing from her face,
To fix one spark of Beauty's heavenly ray?
Who doth not feel, until his failing sight[lower-roman 1]
Faints into dimness with its own delight,
His changing cheek, his sinking heart confess
The might—the majesty of Loveliness?
Such was Zuleika—such around her shone
The nameless charms unmarked by her alone—
The light of Love, the purity of Grace,[lower-roman 2]
The mind, the Music breathing from her face,
[lower-roman 3]Variants
- ↑ Who hath not felt his very power of sight
Faint with the languid dimness of delight?-[MS.] - ↑ The light of life—the purity of grace
The mind of Music breathing in her face.
or,Mind on her lip and music in her face.
A heart where softness harmonized the whole
And oh! her eye was in itself a Soul!—[MS.] - ↑ In this line I have not drawn from fiction but memory—that mirror of regret memory—the too faithful mirror of affliction the long vista through which we gaze. Someone has said that the perfection of Architecture is frozen music—the perfection of Beauty to my mind always presented the idea of living Music.—[MS. erased.]
Notes
- ↑ [Lines 170-181 were added in the course of printing. They were received by the publisher on November 22, 1813.]
- ↑ This expression has met with objections. I will not refer to "Him who hath not Music in his soul," but merely request the reader to recollect, for ten seconds, the features of the woman whom he believes to be the most beautiful; and, if he then does not comprehend fully what is feebly expressed in the above line, I shall be sorry for us both. For an eloquent passage in the latest work of the first female writer of this, perhaps of any, age, on the analogy (and the immediate comparison excited by that analogy) between "painting and music," see vol. iii. cap. 10, De l'Allemagne. And is not this connection still stronger with the original than the copy? with the colouring of Nature than of Art? After all, this is rather to be felt than described; still I think there are some who will understand it, at least they would have done had they beheld the countenance whose speaking harmony suggested the idea; for this passage is not drawn from imagination but memory, that mirror
