t
Where yet she scarce believed that he was not, 1250
Her eye shot forth with all the living fire
That haunts the tigress in her whelpless ire;
But left to waste her weary moments there,
She talked all idly unto shapes of air,
Such as the busy brain of Sorrow paints,
And woos to listen to her fond complaints:
And she would sit beneath the very tree
Where lay his drooping head upon her knee;
And in that posture where she saw him fall,
His words, his looks, his dying grasp recall; 1260
And she had shorn, but saved her raven hair,
And oft would snatch it from her bosom there,
And fold, and press it gently to the ground,
As if she staunched anew some phantom's wound.[ld]
Herself would question, and for him reply;
Then rising, start, and beckon him to fly
From some imagined Spectre in pursuit;
Then seat her down upon some linden's root,
And hide her visage with her meagre hand,
Or trace strange characters along the sand-- 1270
This could not last--she lies by him she loved;
Her tale untold--her truth too dearly proved.

FOOTNOTES:

[jb] {323} _Lara the sequel of "the Corsair_."--[MS. erased.]

[265] [A revised version of the following "Advertisement" was prefixed
to the First Edition (Printed for J. Murray, Albemarle Street, By T.
Davison, Whitefriars, 1814), which was accompanied by _Jacqueline:_--

"The Reader--if the tale of _Lara_ has the fortune to meet with
one--may probably regard it as a sequel to the _Corsair_;--the
colouring is of a similar cast, and although the situations of the
characters are changed, the stories are in some measure connected.
The countenance is nearly the same--but with a different
expression. To the readers' conjecture are left the name of the
writer and the failure or success of his attempt--the latter are
the only points upon which the author or his judges can feel
interested.

"The Poem of _Jaqueline_ is the production of a different author
and is added at the request of the writer of the former tale, whose
wish and entreaty it was that it should occupy the first pages of
the following volume, and he regrets that the tenacious courtesy of
his friend would not permit him to place it where the judgement of
the reader concurring with his own will sugges