[y] [{20}] The original MS. inserts two stanzas which were rejected during the composition of the poem:—
Of all his train there was a henchman page,
peasant served
A dark eyed boy, who loved his master well;
And often would his pranksome prate engage
Harold's
Childe Burun's ear, when his proud heart did swell
With sable thoughts that he disdained to tell.
Alwin
Then would he smile on him, as Rupert smiled,
Robin
When aught that from his young lips archly fell
Harold's
The gloomy film from Burun's eye beguiled;
And pleased the Childe appeared nor ere the boy reviled. And pleased for a glimpse appeared the woeful Childe. } Him and one yeoman only did he take
To travel Eastward to a far countree;
And though the boy was grieved to leave the lake
On whose firm banks he grew from Infancy,
Eftsoons his little heart beat merrily
With hope of foreign nations to behold,
And many things right marvellous to see,
vaunting
Of which our lying voyagers oft have told,
From Mandevilles' and scribes of similar mold. or, In tomes pricked out with prints to monied ... sold In many a tome as true as Mandeville's of old. }
[z] ——Childe Burun——.—[MS.]
[aa] [{21}] Stanza ix. was the result of much elaboration. The first draft, which was pasted over the rejected stanzas (vide supra, p. 20, [var. i].), retains the numerous erasures and emendations. It ran as follows:—
And none did love him though to hall and bower
few could
Haughty he gathered revellers from far and near
An evil smile just bordering on a sneer
He knew them flatterers of the festal hour
Curled on his lip
The heartless Parasites of present cheer,
As if
And deemed no mortal wight his peer
Yea! none did love him not his lemmans dear
To gentle Dames still less he could be dear
Were aught But pomp and power alone are Woman's care
But And where these are let no Possessor fear
The sex are slaves Maidens like moths are ever caught by glare
Love shrinks outshone by Mammons dazzling glare
And Mammon
That Demon wins his [MS. torn] where Angels might despair.
[28] The "trivial particular" which suggested to Byron the friendlessness and desolation of the Childe may be explained by the refusal of an old schoolfellow to spend the last day with him before he set out on his travels. The friend, possibly Lord Delawarr, excused himself on the plea that "he was engaged with his mother and some ladies to go shopping." "Friendship!" he exclaimed to Dallas. "I do not believe I shall leave behind me, yourself and family excepted, and, perhaps, my mother, a single being who will care what becomes of me" (Dallas, Recollections, etc., pp. 63, 64). Byron, to quote Charles Lamb's apology for Coleridge, was "full of fun," and must not be taken too seriously. Doubtless he was piqued at the moment, and afterwards, to heighten the tragedy of Childe Harold's exile, expanded a single act of negligence into general abandonment and desertion at the hour of trial.
[ab] [{22}] No! none did love him——.—[D. pencil.]
[29] The word "lemman" is used by Chaucer in both senses, but more frequently in the feminine.—[MS. M.]
[30] "Feere," a consort or mate. [Compare the line, "What when lords go with their feires, she said," in "The Ancient Fragment of the Marriage of Sir Gawaine" (Percy's Reliques, 1812, iii. 416), and the lines—
"As with the woful fere,
And father of that chaste dishonoured dame."