[289] [According to Nathan, the monosyllable "if" at the beginning of the first line led to "numerous attacks on the noble author's religion, and in some an inference of atheism was drawn."
Needless to add, "in a subsequent conversation," Byron repels this charge, and delivers himself of some admirable if commonplace sentiments on the "grand perhaps."-Fugitive Pieces, 1829, pp. 5, 6.]
[lh] {384} ——breaking link.—[Nathan, 1815, 1829.]
[290] [Compare To Ianthe, stanza iv. lines 1, 2—
"Oh! let that eye, which, wild as the Gazelle's,
Now brightly bold or beautifully shy."
Compare, too, The Giaour, lines 473, 474—
"Her eye's dark charm 'twere vain to tell,
But gaze on that of the Gazelle."
Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 13; et ante, p. 108.]
[291] {387} [Nathan (Fugitive Pieces, 1829, pp. 11, 12) seems to have tried to draw Byron into a discussion on the actual fate of Jephtha's daughter—death at her father's hand, or "perpetual seclusion"—and that Byron had no opinion to offer. "Whatever may be the absolute state of the case, I am innocent of her blood; she has been killed to my hands;" and again, "Well, my hands are not imbrued in her blood!">[
[292] {388} ["In submitting the melody to his Lordship's judgment, I once inquired in what manner they might refer to any scriptural subject: he appeared for a moment affected—at last replied, 'Every mind must make its own references; there is scarcely one of us who could not imagine that the affliction belongs to himself, to me it certainly belongs.' 'She is no more, and perhaps the only vestige of her existence is the feeling I sometimes fondly indulge.'"—Fugitive Pieces, 1829, p. 30. It has been surmised that the lines contain a final reminiscence of the mysterious Thyrza.]