Note 28 — Scene I.-The same Hall in the Palace.
Reading edition
{94}[Myrrha's apostrophe to the sunrise may be compared with the famous waking vision of the "Solitary" in the Second Book of the Excursion (Works of Wordsworth, 1889, p. 439)—
"The appearance, instantaneously disclosed, Was of a mighty city—boldly say A wilderness of building, sinking far And self-withdrawn into a boundless depth, Far sinking into splendour—without end! Fabric it seemed of diamond and of gold, With alabaster domes, and silver spires, And blazing terrace upon terrace, high Uplifted."
But the difference, even in form, between the two passages is more remarkable than the resemblance, and the interpretation, the moral of Byron's vision is distinct from, if not alien to, Wordsworth's. The "Solitary" sees all heaven opened; the revealed abode of spirits in beatitude—a refuge and a redemption from "this low world of care;" while Myrrha drinks in "enough of heaven," a medicament of "Sorrow and of Love," for the invigoration of "the common, heavy, human hours" of mortal existence. For a charge of "imitation," see Works of Lord Byron, 1832, xiii. 172, note I. See, too, Poetical Works, etc., 1891, p. 271, note 2.]