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The Giaour’s Love

by George Gordon Byron, 1881

(From The Giaour)

THE COLD in clime are cold in blood,
  Their love can scarce deserve the name;
But mine was like the lava flood
  That boils in Ætna’s breast of flame.
I cannot prate in puling strain
Of ladye-love, and beauty’s chain:
If changing cheek, and scorching vein,
Lips taught to writhe, but not complain,
If bursting heart, and madd’ning brain,
And daring deed, and vengeful steel,
And all that I have felt, and feel,
Betoken love—that love was mine,
And shown by many a bitter sign.
’Tis true, I could not whine nor sigh,
I knew but to obtain or die.
I die—but first I have possess’d,
And come what may, I have been blest.
Shall I the doom I sought upbraid?
No—reft of all, yet undismay’d
But for the thought of Leila slain,
Give me the pleasure with the pain,
So would I live and love again.
I grieve, but not, my holy guide!
For him who dies, but her who died:
She sleeps beneath the wandering wave—
Ah! had she but an earthly grave,
This breaking heart and throbbing head
Should seek and share her narrow bed.
She was a form of life and light,
That, seen, became a part of sight;
And rose, where’er I turn’d mine eye,
The Morning-star of Memory!

Published in Poetry of Byron
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