CANTO I.]
CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE.
37
But now the wild flowers round them only breathe:
Yet ruined Splendour still is lingering there.
And yonder towers the Prince's palace fair:
There thou too, Vathek! England's wealthiest son,[1][2]
Once formed thy Paradise, as not aware
When wanton Wealth her mightiest deeds hath done,"[3]
Meek Peace voluptuous lures was ever wont to shun.
XXIII.
Here didst thou dwell, here schemes of pleasure plan,
Beneath yon mountain's ever beauteous brow:
But now, as if a thing unblest by Man,[4]
- ↑ There too proud Vathek—England's wealthiest son.—[MS. D.]
- ↑ [William Beckford, 1760 (? 1759)-1844, published Vathek in French in 1784, and in English in 1787. He spent two years (1794-96) in retirement at Quinta da Monserrate, three miles from Cintra. Byron thought highly of Vathek. "I do not know," he writes (The Giaour, l. 1328, note), "from what source the author ... may have drawn his materials ... but for correctness of costume ... and power of imagination, it surpasses all European imitations.... As an Eastern tale, even Rasselas must bow before it; his happy valley will not bear a comparison with the 'Hall of Eblis.'" In the MS. there is an additional stanza reflecting on Beckford, which Dallas induced him to omit. It was afterwards included by Moore among the Occasional Pieces, under the title of To Dives: a Fragment (Poetical Works, 1883, p. 548). (For Beckford, see Letters, 1898, i. 228, note 1; and with regard to the "Stanzas on Vathek," see letter to Dallas, September 26, 1811: Letters, 1898, ii. 47.)]
- ↑
When Wealth and Taste their worst and best have done,
Meek Peace pollution's lure voluptuous still must shun.—[MS.] - ↑ But now thou blasted Beacon unto man.—[MS.]
—— thou Beacon unto erring man.—[MS. D.]
