Note ci — THE GIAOUR.
Reading edition
The first draft of this celebrated passage differs in many particulars from the Fair Copy, which, with the exception of the passages marked as vars. i. (p. 89) and i. (p. 90), is the same as the text. It ran as follows:—
He who hath bent him o'er the dead Ere the first day of death is fled— The first dark day of Nothingness The last of doom and of distress— Before Corruption's cankering fingers Hath tinged the hue where Beauty lingers And marked the soft and settled air That dwells with all but Spirit there The fixed yet tender lines that speak Of Peace along the placid cheek And—but for that sad shrouded eye That fires not—pleads not—weeps not—now— And but for that pale chilling brow Whose touch tells of Mortality And curdles to the Gazer's heart As if to him it could impart The doom he only looks upon— Yes but for these and these alone, A moment—yet—a little hour We still might doubt the Tyrant's power.
The eleven lines following (88-98) were not emended in the Fair Copy, and are included in the text. The Fair Copy is the sole MS. authority for the four concluding lines of the paragraph.