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Please do not assume that a book's appearance in 'The Builder' library means it can be used in any manner anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liability can be quite severe. The Webmaster " POETICAL WORKS ROBERT SOUTHE V O L. VIII. nor wasted g rv RBSC THE POETICAL WORKS OF ROBERT SOUTHEY, I OIXBOTEO UV HIM8ELF. IN TEH volumes. VOL. VIII. — , LONDON: :.\s, oiimi, p.i:o\\ s, i.ki i .. i/OVOUAin, fATtKVfisTrR-liliW . Ifi CURSE OF KEIIAMA. KATAPAI, n.1 KAI TA AAEKTPTONONEOTTA, OIKON Atl, 0¥E KEN EHANHH AN ETKAeiZOMENAI. '. \i"-. rov \i\ii-\. r v Mijr, n are Liar. yoi.-S". CHltnavt, they always com BOHI TO ROOST. THE AUTHOR OF GEBIK, U ALTKK SAVAGE LANDOR, I HI- POKM is [N8CRJBI D, BY ROBER1 Mill HEY. 2THIATE MOI nPHTHA nOATTPOnON, 0«PA «ANEIH nOIKIAON EI^OI BX12N, OTI nOlKIAON T.MNON APAIlil. N. )'. &10V. FOR I WILL FOR No man's PLEASURE CHANCE A SYLLABLE OR MEASURE; FEt*NT>, SHALL NOT TIE MT STRAINS t> fu ASTiyie rorrs' veins; BF1NO BORN AS FREE AS THESE, I WILL SINC AS I SHALL PLEASE. GeoRi;f. WlTHl'U. CONTEXTS. Page Preface ..... xiii Oricinai. Prffacf - - - xxiii The Ct rsf n> Kfiiama: I. The- Funeral - - - ] - II. Tl • < 9 in. n • . - it IV. -turc ... •_•;! V. I'ion - • - _"i VI. - - I 38 VI I. 'I . .17 VIII. rilicc - ... I \ . ill Smm ... 73 \ I. ... \ 1 1. Tl Mil. 1 - - - \ \ I '. J | - - -II'. Ul PREFACE. i> ago, in the Introduction of my "Letters t<» Mr. Charles Batier, vindicating the -. of the Church," I had occasion tO state that, while school-boy at Westminster, I had formed an Intention of exhibiting the most remarkable t'>.riii> of Mythology which have at any time ob- tained among mankind, by making < acta the ground- work of a narrative poem. The performanoi eoted, tell far short of the design, and d Bom< thing more than a dream of juv. nile ambition. I began with the Mahommedan religion, as beiag that with arhicb I was then best acquainted •id of which ereri one who bad read th< tainmi nt-- possess) '1 all the nece.s-ury lor readily understanding and XIV PREFACE. entering into the intent and spirit of the poem. Mr. Wilberforce thought that I had conveyed in it a very false impression of that religion, and that the moral sublimity which he admired in it was owing to this flattering misrepresentation. But Thalaba the Destroyer was professedly an Arabian Tale. The design required that I should bring into view the best features of that system of belief and worship which had been developed under the Covenant with Ishmael, placing in the most favour- able light the morality of the Koran, and what the least corrupted of the Mahommedans retain of the patriarchal faith. It would have been altogether incongruous to have touched upon the abomina- tions engrafted upon it ; first by the false Prophet himself, who appears to have been far more re- markable for audacious profligacy than for any in- tellectual endowments, and afterwards by the spirit of Oriental despotism which accompanied Mahom- medanism wherever it was established. Heathen Mythologies have generally been repre- sented by Christian poets as the work of the Devil and his Angels ; and the machinery derived from them was thus rendered credible, according to what PREFACE. XV was during many ages a received opinion. The plan upon which I proceeded in Madoc was to pro- duce the effect of machinery as far as was con- it with the character of the poem, by repre- senting the most remarkable religion of the New World Buch a> it was, a system of atrocious priest- craft. It was not here as in Thalaba the foundation of the poem, but, as usual in what are called epic po< in-, only incidentally connected with it. Win d I took up, for my m-xt subject, thai my» thology which Sir William Jones had been the first to introduce into English pot try, I -non n< rceived that the best mode of treating it would be to con- struct a story altogether mythological. In what to compose il was then to be d< termined. No such question bad arisen concerning any of my former poems. I should oev< r for a moment have thought of any other measure than blank verse for of \re, mil for Madoc, and afterwards for R i •.. The reason why the irregular rhymeli — lyrics "Mi - n pn R m 'I for Thalaba was, that the freedom and I sueh verse were suited to the • Indeed, of all the laudator] • i-riis irith which I have been favoured during XVI PREFACE. a long literary life, none ever gratified me more than that of Henry Kirke White upon this occa- sion, when he observed, that if any other known measure had been adopted, the poem would have been deprived of half its beauty, and all its pro- priety. And when he added, that the author never seemed to inquire how other men would treat a subject, or what might be the fashion of the times, but took that course which his own sense of fitness pointed out, I could not have desired more appro- priate commendation. The same sense of fitness which made me chuse for an Arabian tale the simplest and easiest form of verse, induced me to take a different course in an Indian poem. It appeared to me, that here neither the tone of morals, nor the strain of poetry, could be pitched too high ; that nothing but moral sub- limity could compensate for the extravagance of the fictions, and that all the skill I might possess in the art of poetry was required to counterbalance the disadvantage of a mythology with which few readers were likely to be well acquainted, and which would appear monstrous if its deformities were not kept out of sight. I endeavoured, therefore, to PREPACK. xvii combine the utmost richness of versification with the _ eedom. The spirit of the poem was Indian, but there was nothing Oriental in the style. I had learnt the language of poetry from our owu great marten and the great poets of antiquity. hi. in could have been more deliberately planned, nor more carefully composed. It was commenced at Lisbon on the first of May. |sni. and reoonunenoed in the summer of the same year at Kingedown, in the same bouse (endeared to me oate by many delightful but now mournful recol- lections) in which Madoc had been finished, and Tlialaba begun. A little was added during tin Winter of that year in London. It was resumed at Kingsdown in the summer of ISQ2* *nd then laid s aside, 'ill l '>'i, during which interval (Vfadoc was street) d and published. IN sumiug it then more, all that had been written was reCBSl at rick: there I proceeded \\itli it leisurely, and finished it on the 25tfa of November, 1 809. I' Is the onls- one of my loriL' poems of which detached part- were written to be afterward, in-erted in their proper place.. Wen- I to name the peiSOns to whom it was aommunicated during it> progress, it XV111 PREFACE. would be admitted now that I might well be en- couraged by their approbation ; and, indeed, when it was published, I must have been very unreason- able if I had not been satisfied with its reception. It was not till the present edition of these Poems was in the press, that, eight and twenty years after Kehama had been published, I first saw the article upon it in the Monthly Review, parts of which cannot be more appropriately preserved any where than here ; it shows the determination with which the Reviewer entered upon his task, and the im- portance which he attached to it.

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