I would remind him of my end:

Though souls absorbed like mine allow

Brief thought to distant Friendship's claim,

Yet dear to him my blighted name.

'Tis strange — he prophesied my doom,

And I have smiled — I then could smile —

When Prudence would his voice assume,

And warn — I recked not what — the while:

But now Remembrance whispers o'er

Those accents scarcely marked before.

Say — that his bodings came to pass,

And he will start to hear their truth,

And wish his words had not been sooth:

Tell him — unheeding as I was,

Through many a busy bitter scene

Of all our golden youth had been,

In pain, my faltering tongue had tried

To bless his memory — ere I died;

But Heaven in wrath would turn away,

If Guilt should for the guiltless pray.

I do not ask him not to blame,

Too gentle he to wound my name;

And what have I to do with Fame?

I do not ask him not to mourn,

Such cold request might sound like scorn;

And what than Friendship's manly tear

May better grace a brother's bier?

But bear this ring, his own of old,

And tell him — what thou dost behold!

The withered frame, the ruined mind,

The wrack by passion left behind,

A shrivelled scroll, a scattered leaf,

Seared by the autumn blast of Grief!

* * * * * "Such is my name, and such my tale.       Confessor! to thy secret ear I breathe the sorrows I bewail,       And thank thee for the generous tear This glazing eye could never shed. Then lay me with the humblest dead, And save the cross above my head, Be neither name nor emblem spread, By prying stranger to be read, Or stay the passing pilgrim's tread."

The Giaour is tortured with the thought that his feelings are wasted. He accuses the society that humiliated him, made him a miserable renegade. The poem is crowned with the following lines:

He passed — nor of his name and race Hath left a token or a trace, Save what the Father must not say Who shrived him on his dying day: This broken tale was all we knew Of her he loved, or him he slew.

Although the story seems an exotic romance, it had its seed in an incident that Byron witnessed when he was in Athens in 1811. The thought that the story contained autobiographical elements, and that the Giaour was at some level a disguised self-portrait, fascinated Byron's first readers and increased his fame still further.

“The Corsair”

Between 18 and 31 December Byron produced a third Oriental tale, The Corsair. For the first time he used heroic couplets for extended romantic narrative rather than for Popean satire. This poem is divided into songs or cantos as it was in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, which are marked chronologically, there is no fragmentarity of The Giaour. The author chose the favourite in the 18^th c. iambic pentameter with the adjoining rhyming. This very form, the so-called heroic couplet, was mastered by Pope and Byron refused his free verse of The Giaour special for this form.

The poem is full of picturesque contrasts as the events of it took place on the south of Peloponnesis peninsula, in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The chronos (time) of it is not specified, however, we can presume the epoch of Turkish enslaving of Greece being under crisis. Expressive means, characterizing the heroes, are close to those of The Giaour, but the plot is further developed and organized.

Conrad's personality is that of the Gothic Villain. He is "The man of loneliness and mystery" (Canto I), whose name is "Linked with one virtue, and a thousand crimes" (Canto III). Conrad also embodies traits of the Noble Outlaw and the Hero of Sensibility. He displays true chivalry in his rescue of the women in the Pasha's harem, a deed which causes his defeat and capture; in his recoil from "Gulnare, the homicide"; and in his "love – unchangeable – unchanged" for Medora.

He is the chief of pirates – the fearless people, who live beyond the despotic laws of society, which they had to live in and which they escaped to the uninhabited island’s free life. The Corsair, their courageous leader, is the same rebel as the Giaour was – everyone fears him and obeys him on the island, he is respected by his valour and luck in deeds:

But who that Chief? his name on every shore Is famed and feared—they ask and know no more With these he mingles not but to command; Few are his words, but keen his eye and hand. Ne'er seasons he with mirth their jovial mess, But they forgive his silence for success.

He’s strict and powerful and even his foes tremble at the sound of his name, but he’s lonely, a fatal mystery fell over his life and became his burden. Only some hints give us possibility to learn that in his youth “he longed for good”. He’s close to his fellow-pirates, but still very far from them:

That man of loneliness and mystery, Scarce seen to smile, and seldom heard to sigh; Whose name appals the fiercest of his crew, And tints each swarthy cheek with sallower hue; Still sways their souls with that commanding art That dazzles, leads, yet chills the vulgar heart. What is that spell, that thus his lawless train Confess and envy—yet oppose in vain?

Love playes great role in the life of the Corsair as well as it did in the life of the Giaour. He loves Medora and remains faithful to her only. The strength and tragedy of romantic love is its uniqueness, its being the last shelter, the most important thing for the hero, where his best features of character are combined and preserved. Moreover, there is nothing beyond this love, only enmity of insulted by misunderstanding, disappointed in life hero. This love is always doomed, because all the evil will of people and envy of the gods is against it. Conrad, the protagonist of the poem says:

How strange that heart, to me so tender still, Should war with Nature and its better will!"

"Yea, strange indeed—that heart hath long been changed; Worm-like 'twas trampled—adder-like avenged— Without one hope on earth beyond thy love, 400 And scarce a glimpse of mercy from above. Yet the same feeling which thou dost condemn, My very love to thee is hate to them, So closely mingling here, that disentwined, I cease to love thee when I love Mankind: Yet dread not this—the proof of all the past Assures the future that my love will last…

Not believing in the truth of social morality, Byron finds it in the souls of the social outcasts. Using some blurred fragmental hints, the reader may suppose that the hero is a man who started his life with the dream to make good things, but was betrayed in feasibility of his dream and dispared. His love, his ability to nobel deeds — the last treasures of his soul, waisted and suffering alone:

"Deep in my soul that tender secret dwells, Lonely and lost to light for evermore, Save when to thine my heart responsive swells, Then trembles into silence as before.

"There, in its centre, a sepulchral lamp Burns the slow flame, eternal—but unseen; Which not the darkness of Despair can damp, Though vain its ray as it had never been.”

This dubiousness attracted the Romantics as it corresponded with human nature, balancing between Evil and Good. The protagonist of the poem is always deepened in his inner world, looking at his suffering, his pride and keeping safe his loneliness. Here we can recognize his individualism, his being as if higher everyone else, especially those being morally weaker – thus, he couldn’t appreciate Gulnare’s victim, her saving him by the risk of her own life:

Yet was not Conrad thus by Nature sent To lead the guilty—Guilt's worse instrument— His soul was changed, before his deeds had driven Him forth to war with Man and forfeit Heaven. Warped by the world in Disappointment's school, In words too wise—in conduct there a fool; Too firm to yield, and far too proud to stoop, Doomed by his very virtues for a dupe, He cursed those virtues as the cause of ill, And not the traitors who betrayed him still; Nor deemed that gifts bestowed on better men Had left him joy, and means to give again. Feared—shunned—belied—ere Youth had lost her force, He hated Man too much to feel remorse, And thought the voice of Wrath a sacred call, To pay the injuries of some on all. He knew himself a villain—but he deemed The rest no better than the thing he seemed; And scorned the best as hypocrites who hid Those deeds the bolder spirit plainly did.

The first song is opened with the passionate proclamation of risky and troublesome but still attractive life of a pirate. United by the feeling of being fighting brethren, the pirates adore their captain Conrad. A quick brig brought news from the Greek spy about the possibility of assault of Turkish deputy Seyd’s palace and city. The pirates started at the view of their captain being distracted from their plans as he was all in thoughts of his love, his Medora.

Conrad’s appearance in the poem is typical of lyro-epic poem. He is standing on the top of the rock, leaning against his sword, staring at the waves, and his very pose in space at the moment – he is higher than everyone else – underlines the exclusiveness of this hero. This is traced along in Conrad’s portrait, where every character’s feature is revealed in each detail of his physical self, creating an eternal depiction of the Romantic hero:

Sun-burnt his cheek, his forehead high and pale The sable curls in wild profusion veil; And oft perforce his rising lip reveals The haughtier thought it curbs, but scarce conceals. Though smooth his voice, and calm his general mien, Still seems there something he would not have seen: His features' deepening lines and varying hue At times attracted, yet perplexed the view, As if within that murkiness of mind Worked feelings fearful, and yet undefined; Such might it be—that none could truly tell— Too close inquiry his stern glance would quell.

Contempt to people, cruelty, violent habits did not consume Conrad’s soul to the end. At the first time in the history of world literature Byron, creating his Romantic hero, justified his deeds and feelings, far from the Christian ideal and there happened the substitution of moral values as Conrad, the criminal, was endowed with fascinating charm. The only feeling that combines Conrad with mankind, the last thread to his soul – is his love. That’s why he values it so much.

Medora loves him equally and the scene of their farewell and her love song became the most heartfelt. Having left alone, she can’t help worrying about his life while he is all in a battle, giving orders and making decisions to win.

The second song takes us into the festive hall of Seyd’s palace. Turks also planned the fight long ago as they wanted to purify sea ways from the pirates and they are busy dividing money they haven’t gotten yet. Pasha paid his attention to a dervish who appeared in rags from nowhere. The dervish tells a story of having been kidnapped by infidels and his escaping from them, but he refuses any offers of food by saying he promised that to the profit. Seyd felt it was a spy, so he odered to sieze him and the stranger suddenly changes into Pasha’s worst enemy – Conrad, whose pirates appeared in no time to start a fight.

Nevertheless, the ruthless pirate, who defeated Turks’s resistance, acted like a true knight, when fire got into the female part of the palace. He banned his brethren any violence towards the Pasha’s slaves and resques the most beautiful of them – Gulnare. Seyd managed to escape in the panic and organized a new attack. Conrad’s people were too few, so they were killed and he was taken a captive.

Desiring to torture Conrad, bloodthirsty Seyd gave a command to put him into a cramped prison cell. The hero is not scared with coming proving; only one thought disturbs him before the face of death: "Oh, how these tidings will Medora greet?" he fell asleep and when he woke up he found there Gulnare, captured by his fortitude and nobleness. She tries to persuade him to run away, promising to delay the execution as long as possible. He would never accept this as it is dishonest, but for Medora…having listened to his passionate speech, Gulnare sighs: