the whole poem. The opening lines,--"Know ye the land,' &c.--supposed to
have been suggested to him by a song of Goëthe's[106]--were among the
number of these new insertions, as were also those fine verses,--"Who
hath not proved how feebly words essay," &c. Of one of the most popular
lines in this latter passage, it is not only curious, but instructive,
to trace the progress to its present state of finish. Having at first
written--

"Mind on her lip and music in her face,"

he afterwards altered it to--

"The mind of music breathing in her face."

But, this not satisfying him, the next step of correction brought the
line to what it is at present--

"The mind, the music breathing from her face."[107]

But the longest, as well as most splendid, of those passages, with which
the perusal of his own strains, during revision, inspired him, was that
rich flow of eloquent feeling which follows the couplet,--"Thou, my
Zuleika, share and bless my bark," &c.--a strain of poetry, which, for
energy and tenderness of thought, for music of versification, and
selectness of diction, has, throughout the greater portion of it, but
few rivals in either ancient or modern song. All this passage was sent,
in successive scraps, to the printer,--correction following correction,
and thought reinforced by thought. We have here, too, another example of
that retouching process by which some of his most exquisite effects were
attained. Every reader remembers the four beautiful lines--