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UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

FROM THE BOOKS
OF

HENRY MORROW HYDESELECT WORKS

LORD BYRON.

HOURS OF IDLENESS:

ENGLISH BARDS & SCOLCH REVIEWERS,

&
AND

SELECT POEMS;
TO WHICH is PREFIXED,

A MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR.

es

LONDON:
PUBLISHED BY J.S, PRATT,

om om

MBGOCLEYM,PREFACE.

Ix submitting to the public eye the following
collection, I have not only to combat the dif-
ficulties that writers of verse generally en-
counter, but may incur the charge of presump-
tion for obtruding myself on the world, when
without doubt, I might be, at my age, more use-
fully employed.

These productions are the fruits of the lighter
hours of a young man who has lately completed
his nineteenth year. As they bear the internal
evidence of a boyish mind, this is, perhaps, un-
necessary information. Some few were written
under the disadvantage of illness and depression
of spirits : under the former influence, “ Childish
Recollections,” in particular, were composed.
This consideration, though it cannot excite the
voice of praise, may at least arrest the arm of
censure. A considerable portion of these poems
have been privately printed, at the request and
for the perusal of my friends. Iam sensible
that the paxtial and frequently injudicious ad-
miration of a social circle is not the criterion by
which poetical genius is to be estimated, yet,
“to do greatly,” we must “ dare greatly,” and
have hazarded my reputation and feelings in

ublishing this volume. I have passed the
abicon,” and must stand or fall by the * cast

-PREFAON.

of the die.” In the latter event, I shall submit
without murmur; for, though not without soli-
citude, for the fate of these effusions, my ex-

ectations are by no means sanguine. It is pro-

able, that I may have dared much and done
little, for, in the words of Cowper, “it is one
thing to write what may please our friends, who,
because they are such, are apt to bea little
biassed in our endeavour, and another to write
what may please everybody; because they who
have no connexion, or even knowledge of the
author, will be sure to find fault if they can.”
To the truth ofthis, however, I do not wholly
subscribe ; on the contrary, I feel convinced that
these trifles will not be treated with injustice.
Their merits if they possess any, will be liberal-
ly allowed ; their numerous faults, on the other
hand, cannot expect that favour which has been
densied to others of maturer years, decided char-
acter, and far greater ability.

I have not aimed at exclusive originality,
gtill less have I studied any particular model for
intimation; some translations are given, of
which many are paraphrastic. In the original
pieces there may appear a casual coincidence
with authors whose works I have been accus-

‘tomed to read, but I have not been guilty of
plagiarism. To produce any thing entirely new,
in an age so fertile in rhyme, would be an Her-
culean task, as every subject has already been
treated to its utmost extent. Poetry, however,
is not my primary vocation ; to divert the dull
moments of indisposition, or the monotony of a
vacant hour, urged me “ to this sin ; little can

‘ \PREFACE.

wreath, scanty as it must be, is all I sha
from these productions ; as I shall neve
to replace its fading leaves, or pluck as
ditional sprig from the groves where
best, an intruder.

Though accustomed, in my younger
rove a careless mountaineer on the Hig!
Scotland, I have not oflate years, had
fit of such pure air, or so elevated a re:
as might enable me to enter the

beexpected from so unpromising a muse. My
maya eer

 
  

 

To beeen

genuine bards, who have enjoyed both these

vantages. But they derive considerable fame,
and a few not less profit, from their productions ;
while | shall expatiate my rashness as an inter-
loper, certainly without the latter, and in all
probability with a very slight share of the

| former, I leave to others. “virum volitare per
ora.” I look to the few who will hear wi
>

patience, “dulce est desipere in loco.” ‘To the
former worthies I resign, without repining, the
te 4

hope of immortality, and content myself with
the not very magnificent prospect of ranking
amongst “the mob of gentlemen who write :”
my readers must determine whether I day say
“with ease,” or the honour of a post humous
page in “The Catalogue of Royal and Noble
Authors,”—a work to which the Peerage is un-
der infinite obligations, inasmuch as many
names of considerable length, sound, and anti-
quity, are thereby secured from the obseurity
which unluckily overshadows several volumin-
ous productions of their illustrious bearers.

With slight hopes, or some fears, I publishVili PREFACE,

this first and last attempt. To the dictates of
young ambition may be ascribed many actions
more criminal and equally absurd. ‘To a few of
my own age the contents may afford amusement,
I trust they will, at least, be found harmless. It
is highly improbable, from any situation and
pursuits hereafter, that I shall everobtrude my-
self a second time on the public; nor even, in
the very doubtful event of present indulgence,
shall be tempted to commit a future trespass of
the same nature. The opinion of Dr. Johnson,
on the Poems of a noble relation of mine, *‘ That
.when aman of rank appearedin the character of
an author, he deserved to have his merit hand-
somely allowed,’ can have little weight with
verbal, and still less with periodical censors;
but were it otherwise, I should be loth to avail
myself of the privilege, and would rather incur
the bitterest censure of anonymous criticism,
than triumph in the honours granted solely toa
title.LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.

 

Gorse Gorpon, Lord Byron, had not only his
own talents, but the pride of an illustrious an-
cestry to boast. - Even so early as the conquest,
his family was distinguished, not only on account
of possessing extensive manors in Lancashire
and other parts, but for their prowess in arms.
The last Lord Byron but one, had only one
son, who held a commission in the army, and
_was killed in Corsica several years previous to
the death of his father, which accelerated the
succession of his present lordship, as the infant
grandson of the celebrated Admiral Byron, who
was the eldest brother of the late lord. This
nobleman died on the 19th of May, 1791, by
which means our author succeeded to the title
and estates of his illustriousancestry. His lord-
ship’s father married first the Baroness Conyers,
daughter of Lord Holderness, by whom he had
a daughter ; and after her demise, Miss Gordon
of Gight, the mother of the noble lord.

A considerable portion of the early life of
Lord Byron was spent in Scotland, where the
wild mountainous scenes which surrounded him,
contributed materially to strengthen the'mighty
energies of his mind, and to imprint on his vivid
imagination those powerfuland beautiful images
of natural grandeur which characterise his wrtt-LIE OF

ings. His lordship would frequently leave his
ordinary companions, and wander alone amid
the majestic and sublime scenery of the High-
lands, until his soul appeared tinged with those
elements of real sublimity, and drank a species
of inspiration from the mists of the mountains,
the wild waves of the ocean, and the black
adamant of its terrific boundaries.

The celebrated school at Harrow, and the
University at Cambridge, had the honour of af-
fording the polish of education to the innate
powers of his mind, and many of his academic
companions can relate varlous instances of his
precocious talents and strange eccentricities,
At this early period of his life he made many
voluntary excursions to the Aonian Hill, and
partook largely of the Castalian stream, which
the work he published under the title of “ Hours
of Idleness, a Series of Poems, original and
translated,’ sufficiently demonstrates. Prema-
ture as these poetic attempts might be consider-
ed, and severe as they were handled by the
Editor of the Edinburgh Review, there are nu- —
merous original beauties in several of the pieces,
which pr oved the har bingers of the a
galaxy that succeeded them

These poems were published at Nowak: in
the year 1805, when his lordship was only nine-
teen years of age; and from the dates prefixed,
it appears that a ‘ereat number were written be-
tween his sixteenth and nineteenth year.

This critique elicited from his lordsbip one of
the bitterest and most powerful satires that was
ever published. Lord Byron avows towards theTHE AUTHOR. Xi

close of the poem, that it was his intention to
close, from that period, his connexion with the
Muses, and that should he return in safety from
the “ Minarets” of Constantinople, the “Maidens
of Georgia,” and the “sublimer snows” of mount
Caucasus, nothing on earth should induce him
to resume his pen.

Happily, however, for the republic of lettres
this resolution was not persevered in; and the
noble bard, with that generosity which generally
accompanies true genius, has not only forgiven
the Editor of the Edinburgh Review, but alluded
to him, in a flattering manner, in one of his
poems.

Swimming and managing a boat were among
the early amusements of his lordship, in both of
which he is said to have acquired great dexterity
even in his childhood. In his aquatic excur-
sions near Newstead Abbey, le had rarely any
other companion than a large Newfoundland
dog, to try whose fidelity and sagacity, he would
sometimes fall out of the boat, as though by ac-
cident, when the dog would seize him, and drag
him onshore. In 1808 his lordship lost his fa-
vourite dog, and he caused a monument to be
erected, commemorative of his attachment, with
an inscription, which will be found amongst the
select Poems.

At an early age, his lordship was placed under
the guardianship of Mr. Wh—te, an eminent
solicitor, who, by a singular coincidence of cir-
cumstances, had likewise become the guardian
of the accomplished Miss C—th, whose fatherxii LIFE OF
had formerly fallen a victim to the resentment
of a near relative of his lordship.

Notwithstanding the family feud, their guard-
jan wished that Lord Byron should be united to
this lady; and it is believed that the inclina-
tions of his lordship were not at variance with
the intentions of his guardian. The lady, how-
ever, either from family circumstances, or early
formed attachment to J. M—sters, Esq. then
honoured for his fashionable notoriety, with the
more familiar appellation of “the gay Jack
M—sters,” was far from being a willing ward.
His lordship’s pride would not permit him to
woo a reluctant fair one, In propria persone, yet
he frequently expressed the warmth of his feel-
ings in his invocation to the Muses.

Mr. M—sters was a pretty constant attendant
upon Miss Ch—th; for the purpose of avoiding
him, Mr. Wh—te, his two sisters, Lord Byron,
and the unwilling fair, hastened in rapid succes-
sion from one watering place to another while
he followed in pursuit.

It was, however, useless contending with de-
tiny. It was his lordship’s fate not to be united
with that of Miss Ch—th, notwithstanding the
ardency of his attachment, and the influence of
their guardians. .

The anguish produced on his lordship’s mind
by unrequited love. and disappointed ambition,
may-be more easily vonceived than described ;
fits of gloominess aud gaiety, desperation and.
dissipation, alternately prevailed, until the
Muses, the invariable confidants of intense pas-
sion, gently soothed the irritation of his hearf,THE AUTHOR. XU

by presenting to his warm imagination a bright
perspective of poetical honours and perennial
triumphs. He soon afterwards* published his
Minor Poems. This last and long cherished
hope seemed blasted for ever, and under the ex-
treme anguish of his feelings, he could no long-
er look for consolation to literary glory. This
drove him to the verge of madness—his mind
and conduct were entirely metamorphised ; na-
turally mirthful, he became suddenly melancho-
ly; he despised, shunned and hated every one,
his present sulky disposition was converted into
the gall of misanthropy: and the conflicting
passions, which, like vultures, preyed upon the
¢enderest fibres of his heart, goaded him to a
determination to quit the scenes where associa-
¢ions and circumstances only failed to awaken
recollections which tortured his soul.

On arriving at maturity, Lord Byron took a
long leave of his native country, with the inten-
tion of making a tour in foreign lands; but as
the ordinary course of travelling through Eu-
rope was impeded by the war which existed be-
tween England and France, he embarked from
Falmouth for Lisbon. In 1809, he passed
through Portugal and Spain, touched at Malta
atid Sicily, and proceeded to the Morea and
Constantinople ; during a part of which tour
he was accompanied by Mr. John Cam Hob-
house.

While the Salsette frigate, in which Lord
Byron was a passenger to Constantinople, lay in
the Dardanelles, a discussion arose among some
of the officers, respecting the practicability of9

LIFS OF

swimming across the Hellespont— Lord Byron
and Lieutenant Ekenhead determined upon
making the trial; and they accordingly per-
formed this enterprise on the 3rd of May, 1810.

After an absence of nearly three years, Lord
Byron re-visited his native shores, and shortly
afterwards produced “Childe Harolde,” the
plan of which was laid in Albania, and prose-
cuted at Athens, where it received some of its
finest touches, and most splendid ornaments.

His lordship published in rapid succession
the Poems, ettitled the “ Giaour,” the “Bride
of Abydos,” and the “ Corsair,” the spirit and
brilliancy of which are very great.

On the 2nd of January, 1815, Lord Byron
married at Seaham, in the county of Durham,
the only daughter of Sir Ralph Noel Milbank,
Baronet ; and, towards the close of the same
year, his lady brought him a daughter, for
whom he always manifested the strongest affec-
tion. In a few weeks, however, after that event
a separation took place, for which various causes
have been stated, and soon afterwards, Lord
Byron left the kingdom with the resolution ne-
ver to return.

He crossed over to France, through which
he passed rapidly to Brussels, taking in his way
a survey of the field of Waterloo. He proceeded
to Coblentz, and thence up the Rhine as far as
Basle. After visiting some of the most remark-
able scenes in Switzerland, he proceeded to the
north of Italy. He took up his abode for some
time at Venice, where he was joined by Mr.THE AUTHOR, zY

Hobhouse, who accompanied him on an excur-
sion to Rome.

His lordship remained for some time at Pisa,
and during his stay in Italy, he wrote a great
many poetical productions, including his “ Don
Juan, Beppo, Mazeppa,” and three or four tra-
gedies.

He was particularly attached to Greece, and
he devoted himself to the redemption of that
lovely and classic land, from the bondage of
the infidel, which so long enthralled it. Lord
Byron’s cheerful influence reconciled the Greek
chiefs, and banished discord from among them.
He contributed largely from his private fortune
to their wants, and his presence on these shores
drew the attention of all Europe to the strife of
the Christians against the Infidel crescent, and
made the very Divan tremble.

The names of her modern heroes, by whose
intrepidity the Turkish bands have been so
often scattered, would have joined with the pa-
triots of Platea and Thermopyle ; and conse-
crated by the genius of Lord Byron, have gone
down, in kindred memory, in succeeding days ;
but, unfortunately for Greece, their champion
perished in the prime of youth, and in the mid-
dle of his exertions in her cause. This melan-.
choly event took place at Missolonghi, on the
19th of April. On the 9th.of that month, his
lordship, who had been living very low, exposed
himself to a very violent rain; the consequence
of which was a severe cold, and he was immedi-
ately confined to his bed. His last words, bes
fore delirium had seized his powerful mind,
were, “1 wish it to be known that my lastXV

 

LIFE OF THE AUTHOR.

thoughts were given to my wife, my child, and
my sister.”

Thus died Lord Byron, at the early age of
thirty-seven, leaving behind him a name second
only to that of the renowned emperor, N apole-

. on Bonaparte, and amemory, which the sublime
effusions of his muse will endear to all his pos-
terity.

His body was conveyed to England, and was
buried in the next vault to his mother, at the
village of Hucknall.

Besides his only legitimate child, he left ano-
ther daughter in Italy, to whom he bequeathed
£5000, on condition that she should not marry
an Englishman.

The Greeks have requested and obtained the
heart of Lord Byron, which they intend placing
in a mausoleum, in the country for whese liber-
ation it last beat. .

Some time previous to his decease, Lord By-
ron wrote his own memoirs, which he presented
to Mr. Moore; and Mr. Murray purchased the
M.S. for £2060, with an understanding that it
Should not be published until the death of the
noble poet; he has since given it up, and at the
wish of some of Lord Byron’s relatives, it is said
to have been destroyed.

The death of Lord Byron was an event little
expected. It fell on the public ear like a shock
of deep private misfortune. He has sunk to
rest in the prime of his days, and in the zenith
of his fame; he has left the world when his
services could ill be spared,—and we may add,
with the greatest truth, when they cannot be

supplied.CONTENTS.

 

PAGE

Hoves or IpLENESS :
Adrian’s address to his Soul when dying 32
Answer to Lines written in Letters of

 

an Italian Nun as me 27
Anacreon, From io ts om bess
‘Answer to verses sent by a Friend to the

Author: ¥-.. a ae oo 112

to a Poem, entitled ‘The Common

Lot’ ee ee np pe 134
Calmar and Orla, The death of 137

Caroline, To ae. 2 : 43, 44, 46
Catullus, Translation and Imitation

from aS , , 30
Childish Recollection ie hed 120
Cornelian, The : a he 98
Duke of Dorset, To the 50
Earl of Clare, To the ... 160
Edward Noel Long, Esq., To 149
Eiiza, To eS. a os sh 107
Emma, To ae Beg Ba i53 AL
Epitaph ona Fiiend ... ie a 23
Fox, On the dvath of Mr. oe oe 100
~~, Reply te Ditto fs a a9

24, 58

Fragments aeavi CONTENTS.

George, Harl of Delaware, To

Granta, a Medley oe oe ae

Harrow on the Hill, On the distant
View of ca co ee

Lines written beneath an Elm ...

Horace, Translation from ;

I would I were a Careless Child

Uachinly Gair

Lady, To a aS oe at

L’Amitie est L’ Amour sans Ailes

Lines written in Letters to a Nun

Lines addressed to the Rev. J. T. Bocher

Love; the first kiss of ate ‘

Nature, The Prayer of on

Newstead Abbey, On leaving

a oe, lleoy on ow

Nisus and Euryalus, The Episode of ...

On a change of masters at a great school

Oscar of Alvar i

Prologue, An occasional s

Prometheus Vinctus of Aischylus

Quaker, To a beautiful a: a

Reply to some verses of J. M. Pigot, Esq.

Romance, To _.... : ec cee

Stanzas to a Lady pea

Strephon, To the sighing

Tear, The ei a ee ue

Thoughts suggested by an Examination

Tibullus, Imitation of

To To D

-— M. 8.,G.

— M—— sh os A Kips

Translation of the Epitaph on Virgil, &c.

 

 

 

 

eve

  
 
 
 
 
  
  
  
 
 
 
  
 
 
  
 
 
 
  
  
  
 
  
  
   
  
 
   

PAGE.
156
d4

58
163
36
154
108
152
140
26
185
48
146
25
114
77
49
66
99
39
93
10
110
41
105
102
95
34
22

+
aS

60SONTENTS. Xi

   

 

 

 

PAGE,
Translation from the Medea of Euripedezs 91
When I roved a Young Highlander .... 156
Woman, To ee 55
Young Lady, On the Death ofa ees 21
————., Lines addressed to a eee 59
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers 167
SeLzct Poums—
Adieu to Malta : iF 36 264
Beautiful Females sleeping ig I 312
Childe Harold’s adieu to England as 28
Conrad the Corsair be iat 316
Curse of Minerva, The or ee 302
England, Farewellto ... ie we 207
Enigma ee a a 4 316
Euthanasia ue i ae oa 292
Fare-thee-weli ae s es 220
Farewell a i ae ied 227
Greek, Song of ie ah 22
Haidee, discov ering Juan Ps ee 233
wandering with Juan et 238
Dream se 23 or 239
— Death of as A a: 242
Inez, Song to ... a ay see 228
Italy a. ay = s on 25 4
Jessy, To i Be ef 218
Lily of France, To the é 273
Lines inscr ibed ona cup for med from a
Skull ae 257
Lines written by Lord Byr on in Greece 63
Madame Lavalette a ie ae 275

Medora, The death ofCONTENTS,

Mutineers of the Bounty after their de-

feat, The

Newfoundland Dog, Inscription on mo-

nument

Napoleon's farewell to France _
Ode to the Island of St. Helena

Ode

On the Star of the Legion of Honour.
On a Cornelian Heart which was broken

Parting Kiss, The we
Portuguese, From the
Prisoner of Chillon, The

Sennacherib, The destruction of

Sketch from private ae
Song, A

Sonnet to Genevra
Sultana Gulbayaz
Stanza, for Music

   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
  
  
 
 
 
 
 

PAGE,
Sh

253
272
248
281
258

63
295

314
256
222
291

231

" 266, 296, 299

Stanzas Oi , aM ai ype’ 288.
Stanza to ———— bos 293
- Mhyrza, To 297
To my Daughter o on the morning of her
Birth sie 215
o——~~ an ihe 226, 251, 210, 289
War Song ie TaN 268
Waterloo 261
Written after swimming from Sestos to
Abydos... 800
Written on a blank leaf of Pleasures of
Memory : 301
Written beneath a Picture 62

Youthful Friend, To a&

' HOURS OF IDLENESS.

ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG LADY,
Cousin to the Author, and very dear to hem.

Husn’p are the winds, and still the evening
gloom,
Not e’en a zephyr wanders through the grove,
While I return, to view my Margaret’s tomb,
And scatter flowers on the dust I love.

Within this narrow cell reclines her clay,
That clay where once such animation beam’d!
The King of Terrors seizd her as his prey,
Nor worth, nor beauty, have her life redeem’d.

Oh! could that King of Terrors pity feel,
Or heaven reverse the dread decrees of fate !
Nor here the mourner would his grief reveal,
Nor here the muse her virtues would relate.

But wherefore weep? Her mafchless spirit soars
Beyond where splendid shines the orb of day ;

And weeping Angels lead her to those bowers
Where endless pleasures virtue’s deeds repay.

And shall presumptuous mortals Heaven ar-

raign,
And, madly, godlike Providence aceuse ?22 BYRON'S
Ah! no, far fly from me attentpts so vain ;
I'll ne'er submission to my God refuse.

Yet is remembrance of those virtues dear,
Yet fresh the memory of that beauteous face ;
Still they call forth my warm affection’s tear,
Still in my heart retain their wonted place.

TO E——

Lut folly smile to view the names

Of thee and me in friendship twin’d;
Yet virtue will have greater claims
- To loye than rank with vice combin’d.

And though unequal in thy fate,
Since titles deck’d my higher birth !
. Yet envy not this gaudy state y
Thine is the pride of modest worth.

Our souls at least congenial meet,
Nor can thy lot my rank disgrace:
Our intercourse is not less sweet,
Since worth of rank supplies the place.

TO D——

In thee, I fondly hop’d to clasp
A friend, whom death alone could sever:

Till envy, with malignant grasp,

Detach’d thee from my breast for ever.POEMS. 2$

True, she has forced thee from my. breast,

Yet in my heart thou keep’st thy seat ;

There, there, thine image still must rest,
Until that heart shall cease to beat.

And when the grave restores her dead,
When life again to dust is given ;,

On thy dear breast I’ll lay my head,
Without thee, where would be my heaven?

EPITAPH ON A FRIEND.

On, Friend! for ever loved, for ever dear ;
What fruitless tears have bath’d thy honour'd
bier,
What sighs reechoed to thy parting breath,
Whilst thou wert struggling in the pangs of
death ! ;
Could tears retard the tyrant in his course;
Could sighs avert his dart’s relentless force ;
Could youth and virtue claim a short delay ;
Or beauty charm the spectre from his prey :
Thou still had’st lived to bless my aching sight,
Thy comrade’s honour and thy friend’s delight.
If yet thy gentle spirit hovers nigh _ :
The spot where now thy mouldering ashes lie,
Here wilt thou read, recorded on my heart,
A grief too deep to trust the sculptor’d art.
No marble marks thy couch of lowly sleep,
But living statues there are seen to weep ;
Affliction’s semblance bends not o’er thy tomb,
A ffliction’s self deplores thy youthful doom.

}BYRON S

What though thy sire lament: his falling line,

A father’s sorrow cannot equal mine!

Though none, like thee, his dying hour. will
cheer,

Yet other offspring soothe his anguish here ;

But, who with me shall hold thy former place ?

Thine image, what new friendship can efface ¢

Ah; none !—a father’s tears will cease to flow.

Time will assuage an infant brother's woe ;

To all, save one, is consolation known,

While solitary friendship sighs alone.

————

A FRAGMENT.

Wusn, to the airy hall, my father’s voice

Shall call my spirit, joyful to thei choice ;

When, pois’d upon the gale, my form shall ride,

Or, dark in mist, descend the mountain side ;

Oh! may my shade behold the sculptor’d urns

To mark the spot where earth to earth returns !

No lengthen’d scroll, no praise encumber’d
stone,

My epitaph shall be my name alone:

If that with honour fail to crown my clay,

Oh? may no other fame my deeds repay !

That, only that, shall single out the spot,

By that remember‘, or with that forgot.ON LEAVING NEWSTEAD ABBEY.

Turoves thy battlements, Newstead, the hol-
low winds whistle:
Thou, the hall of my fathers, art goneto decay ;
In thy once smiling garden, the hemlock and
thistle
Have chock’d up the rose which late bloom’d
in the way.
Ofthe mail cover’d Barons, who proudly to battle
Led their vassals from Europe to Palestine’s
plain,
The escutcheon and shield, which with every
blast rattle,
Are the only sad vestiges now that remain.
No more doth old Robert, with harp stringing
numbers,
Raise a flame in the breast of the war-
laurell’d wreath ; :
Near Askalon’s towers, John of Horistan slum-
bers,
Unnerv’d is the hand of his minstrel by death.
Paul and Hubert, too, sleep in the valley of
Cressy ;
For the safety of Edward and England they
fell ;
My father ! the tears of your country redress ye ;
How you fought, how you died, still her an-
nals can’ tell.
On Marston, with Rupert, ’gainst traitors con:
: tending,BYRON’S

Four brothers enrich’d with their blood the
bleak field ;
For the rights of a monarch their country de-
fending,
Till death their attachment to loyalty seal’d.
Shades of heroes, farewell ! your descendant de-
parting |
From the seat of his ancestors, bids you adieu !
Abroad, or at home, your remembrance impart-
New courage, he'll think upon glory and you,
Though a tear dim his eyes. at this sad separa-
tion,
‘Tis nature, not fear, that excites his regret:
Far distant he goes, with the same emulation,
The fame of his fathers he ne’er can forget.
The fame, and that memory, still will he cherish;
He vows that he ne’er will disgrace your re-
nown :
Like you will he live, or like you will he perish,
When decay’d, may he mingle his dust with
your own !

 

LINES,

Written in“ Letters of an Italian Nun and an
Linglish Gentleman : by J. J. Rousseau ; found:
ed on facts.” —

Away, away, your flattering arts,

May now betray some simpler hearts ;
And you will smile at their believing,
And they would weep at your deceiving.

\ANSWER TO THE FOREGOING.
ADDRESSED TO MISS——————.

Dzar, simple girl, those flattering arts

From which thou’dst guard frail female hearts,

Exist but in imagination—

Mere phantoms of thine own creation :

For he who views that witching grace,

That perfect form, that lovly face,

With eyes admiring, oh ! believe, me,

He never wishes to deceive thee :

Once in thy polish’d mirror glance,

Thow'lt there descry that elegance

Which from our sex demands such praises,

But envy in the other raises ;

Then he who tells thee of thy beauty,
Believe me, only does his duty :

Ah ! fly not from the candid youth ;

It is not flattery—'tis truth.

STANZAS

WRITTEN IN PASSING THE AMBRACIAN GULF,
NOVEMBER 14, 1809.

-‘Jaroven cloudless skies, on silvery sheen,
Pull beams the moon on Actium’s coast,
And on these waves for Egypt's queen,

The ancient world was won and lost.

    

 

Sates: i
apg hmeael. phe Sib28 BYRON's

And now upon the scene I look,
he azure grave of many a Roman
Where stern ambition once forsook
is wavering crown to follow woman,

Florence ! whom I will love as well
As ever yet was said or sung,
. (Since Orpheus sang his spouse from hell)
Whilst thou art fair and I am young ;

Sweet Florence ! these were pleasant times,
When worlds were staked for ladies eyes ;
is bards as many realms as rhymes,

Thy charms might raise new Antonies.

Though fate forbids such things to be,
Yet by thine eyes and ringlet curl’d !
J cannot lose a world for thee,
But would not lose thee for @ world.

——

CHILDE HAROLD'S ADIEU TO ENGLAND

“ ADIEU, adieu ! my native shore
Fades o’er the waters blue :
he night winds sigh, the breakers roar,
And shrieks the wild sea-mew :
Yon sun that sets upon the sea
We follow in his flight ;
Farewell awhile to him and thee,
My native land—Good night !

*A few short hours’ and he will rise
To give the Morrow birth ;PORNS.

And I shall hati the morn and skies,
But not my mother Earth.

Deserted is my own good hall,
It@ hearth is desolate :

Wild @eeds are gathering on the wall;
My dog howls at the gate.

«Come hither, hither, my little page,
Why dost thou weep and wail?

Or dost thou dread the billows’ rage ?
Or dost thou fear the gale?

But dash the tear-drop from thine eye ;
Our ship is swift and strong ;

Our swiftest falcon scarce can fly
More merrily along.”

‘« Let winds be shrill, let waves roll high,
I fear not wave nor wind ;

Yet marvel not, Sir Childe, that I
Am sorrowful in mind !

For I have from my father gone,
A mother whom I love,

And have ro friend save these alone,
But thee—and one above.

“My father bless’d me fervently,
Yet did not much complain ;
But sorely will my mother sigh
Till I come back again.” —
“ Enough, my little lad !
Such tears become thine eye ;
If I thy guileless bosom had,
Mine own would not be dry-BYRON Ss

“ Come hither, hither, my stauneh yeoman,
Why dost thou look so palé?
Or dost thou dread a French foeman ?
Or shiver at the gale ?”—
“ Deem’st thou I tremble for my life ?
Sir Childe, I’m not so weak ;
But thinking on an absent wife
Will blanche a faithful cheek.

“My spouse and boys dwell near the hall,
Along the bordering lake ;
And when they on their father eall,
What answer shall she make ?”
“Enough, enough, my yeoman good,
Thy grief let none gainsay :
But I am of a lighter mood,
Will laugh to flee away.

“ For who would trust the seeming sighs
Of wife or paramour?

Fresh fears will dry the bright blue syes
We late saw streaming o’er,

For pleasures past I do not grieve;
Nor perils gathering near :

My greatest grief is that I leave
No thing that claims a tear.

And now I’m in the world alone,
Upon the wide, wide sea:

But why should J for others groan,
When none will sigh for me?

Perchance my dog may whine in vain,
Till fed by stranger hands:

But long ere I come back again,
He'd tear me where he stands,POHMS.

« With thee, my bark, I'll swiftly go
Athwart the foaming brine ;

Nor care what land thou bear’st me to,
So not again to mine.

“Welcome, welcome, ye dark blue waves,
And when ye fail my sight,

Welcome, ye deserts and ye caves!
My native land—Good Night !

THE MUTINEERS OF THE BOUNTY
AFTER THEIR DEFEAT.

Srern, and aloof a little from the rest,
Stood Christian, with his arms across his chest.
The ruddy, reckless, dauntless hue once spread
Along his cheek was livid now as lead ;

His light-brown locks, so graceful in their flow,”

Now rose like startled vipers o’er his brow.

| Still as a statue; with his lips comprest,

To stifle even the breath within his breast,

Fast by a rock, all menacing but mute,

He stood ; and save a light beat of his foot,

Which deepen’d now and then the sandy dint

Beneath his heel—his form seem’d turn’d to
flint.

Some paces further Tarquil leaned his head
Against a bank, and spoke not, but he bled,—
Not mortally—his worst wound was within ;
His brow was pale, his blue eyes sunken in,
And blood-drops sprinkled o’er his yellow hair
Showed that his faintness came not from de-

spair,ea SA TT

 

    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
 
 
 

oo BYREN S i

But nature's ebb. Beside hint was another,

Rough as a bear, but willing as a brother,

Ben Bunting, who essay’d to wash and wipe,

And bind his wound—then calmly lit his pipe,

A trophy which survived a thousand fights,

A béacon which had eheered ten thousand
nights,

The fourth and last of this deserted group,

Walked up and down—at times would stand,
then stoop |

To pick a pebble up—then let it drop—

Then hurry as in haste—then quickly step—

Then cast his eyes on his companions—then—

Half whistle half a tune, and pause again— |

And then his former movements would redouble, |

With something between carelessness and trou- |

Aes

, This is a long description, but applies

™o scarce five minutes past before my eyes,

But yet what minutes! Moments like to these,

Rend men’s lives into immortalities,

 

ADRIAN’S ADDRESS TO HIS SOUL
WHEN DYING.

Ah ! gentle, fleeting, wav’ring sprite,
Friend and associate of this clay,

To what unknown region borne?
Wilt thou now wing thy distant flight ?
Mo more with wonted humour gay,
But pallid, cheerless, and forlorn.POEMS.

TRANSLATION FROM CATULLUS.

= Ad Lesbiam,

Eqvat to Jove that youth must be—
Greater than Jove he seems to me—
Who, free from Jealousy’s alarms,
Securely views thy matchless charms,
That cheek, which ever dimpling glows,
That mouth, from whence such music flows,
To him, alike, are always known,
Reserved from him, and him alone.

Ah ! Lesbia ! though ’tis death to me,

T cannot choose but look on thee ;

But, atthe sight, my senses fly :

I needs must gaze, but gazing die ;
Whilst trembling with a thousand fears,
Parch’d to the throat my tongue adheres,
My pulse beats quick, my breath heaves short,
My limbs deny their slight support,

Cold dews my pallid face o’erspread,
With deadly langour droops my head,
My tears with tingling echoes ring.

And life itself is on the wing ;

| 2ily eyes refuse the cheering light,

[Their orbs are veiled in starless night ;
Such pangs my nature sinks beneath,
And feels a temporary death.34

TRANSLATION OF THE EPITAPH
VIRGIL AND TIBULLUS.

BY DOMITIUS MALSUS.

Fiz who sublime in epic numbers roll'd,
And he who struck the softer lyre of love,

By death’s unequal hand alike controll’d, ij
Fit comrades in Elysian regions move !

 

IMITATION OF TIBULLUS.
Sulpicia ad Cerinthum.—uin. 4.
Crvrn Cerinthus ! does the fell disease
Which racks my breast your fickle bosom
lease ?
Alas ! I wished but to o’ercome the pain,
That I might live for love and you again :

But now I scarcely shall bewail my fate ;
By death alone I can avoid your hate,

IMITATED FROM CATULLUS.
TO ELLEN.

Ox ! might I quench these eyes of fire,
A million scarce would quench desire ;Still would I steep my eyes in bliss,
And dwell an age on every kiss;
Nor then my soul should sated be ;
Still would I kiss and cling to thee ;

Nought should my kiss from thine discover ;
Still would we kiss, and kiss for ever;

F’en though the numbers did exceed

The yellow harvest’s countless seed.

To fast would be a vain endeavour

Could I desist?—ah ! never—never.

oe

TRANSLATED FROM CATULLUS,
TO ELLEN.

Yer Cupids, droop each little head
Nor let your wings with joy be spread,
My Lesbia’s favourite bird is dead,

Whom dearer than her eyes she lov’d
Forghe was gentle and so true,
Obedient to her call he flew,

No fear no wild alarm he knew,

But lightly o’er her bosom mov’d;
And softly fluttering here and there,
He never sought to cleave the air,

But chirrup’d oft, and free from care,

Tuned to her ear the grateful strain
Now have passed the gloomy bourne
From whence he never can return,

His death and Lesbia’s grief I mourn,
Who sighs, alas! but sighs in vain.

2BYRON S

Oh! ecurst be thou, devouring grave !
Whose jaws eternal victims crave,
From whom no earthly power can save,
For thou hast ta’ea the bird away ;
From thee my Lesbia’s eyes o’erflow,
Here swollen cheeks with weeping glow ;
Thou art the cause of all her woe,
Receptacle of life's decay.

TRANSLATION FROM HORACE, —
(Justam et tenacem propositi virum, &c.

Tue man of firm and noble soul,
No factious clamours can control ;
No threat/ning tyrant’s darkling brow

Can swerve him from his just intent :
Gales the warring waves which plough,

By Auster on the billows spent,

To curb the Adriatic main,
Would awe his fixed determin’d mind in vain.

Aye, and the red right arm of Jove,
Hurling his lightning from above,
With all histerrors there unfurl’d,
He would unmov’d, unaw’d behold,
The flames of an expiring world,
Again in crashing chaos roll’d,
In vast promiscuous ruin hurl’d,
Might light his glorious funeral pile ;
Still dauntless "midst the wreck of earth he'd
smile.POEMS,

FROM ANACREON.

1 wisn to tune my quivering lyre
To deeds of fame and notes of fire ;
To echo from its rising swell,
How heroes fought and nations fell,
When Atreus’ som, advance to war,
Or Tyrian Cadmus roved afar ;
But still, to martial strains unknown,
My lyre récurs to love alone,
Fir'd with the hope of future fame,
I seek some nobler hero’s name.
The dying chords are strung anew,
To war, to war, my harp is due:
With glowing strings, the epic strain,
To Jove’s great son I raised again :
Alcides and his glorious deeds,
Beneath whose arm the hydra bleeds ;
All, all in vain; my wayward lyre
Wakes silver notes of soft desire.
- Adieu, ye chiefs, renown’d in arms !
Adieu the clang of war's alarms !
To other deeds my soul is strung,
And sweeter notes shall now be sung;
My harp shall all his powers reveal,
M6 tell the tale my heart must feel ;
Love, love alone, my lyre shall claim,
In songs of bliss and sighs of flame.FROM ANACREON.

"T'was now the hour when night had driven
Her ear half round yon sable heaven ;
Bootes, only, seemed to roll

His artic charge around the pole;

While mortals, lost in gentle sleep,
Forgot to smile, or ceased to weep:

At this lone hour, the Paphian boy,
Descending from the realms of joy,
Quick to my gate directs his course,

And knocks with all his little force.

My vision’s fled, alarmed I rose,—
“What stranger breaks my blest repose ?”
“‘ Alas !” replies the wily child,

In faltering accents sweetly mild,

“A hapless infant here I roam,

Far from my dear paternal home.

Oh ! shield me from the wintry blast !
The nightly storm is pouring fast,

No prowling robber lingers here ;

A wandering baby who can fear ?”

I heard his seeming heartless tale,

T heard his sighs upon the gale;

My breast was never pity’s foe,

But felt for all the baby’s woe.

I drew the bar and by the light

Young love, the infant, met my sight ;
His bow across his shoulders flung,
And thence his fatal quiver hung ;
(Ah ! little did I think the dart
Would rankle soon within my heart,POEMS,

With care l tend my weary guest,

His little fingers chill my breast ;

His glossy curls, his azure wing,

Which droops with nightly showers, I wring ;
His shivering limbs the embers warm ;

And now reviving from the storm,

Scarce had he felt his wonted glow,

Than swift he seized his slender bow ;—

“J fain would know my gentle host,”

He cried, “if this its strength has lost ;

I fear, relax’d with midnight dews,

The strings their former aid refuse.”

With poison tipt, the arrow flies,

Deep in my tortured heart it lies ;

Then loud the joyous urchin laugh’d:

My bow can still impel the shaft :

Tis firmly fix’d thy sighs reveal it :

Say, courteous host, canst thou not feel it Y

eS

FROM THE PROMETHEUS VINCTUS OF
JESCHYLUS.

Great Jove, to whose almighty throne
Both gods and mortals homage pay,
Ne’er may my soul thy power disown,
Thy dread behest ne’er disobey.
Oft shall the sacred victim fall
In sea-girt ocean’s mossy hall ;
My voice shall raise no impious strain
*Ghinst him who rules the sky and azure main,
Hlow different now the joyous fate,
Since first Hessione thy bride,BYRON'S
When placed aloft im high estate,
The blushieg beauty by thy side,

Thou sat’st while reverend Ocean smiled,

And mirthful straims the hour beguiled,

The Nymphs and Tritons danced around,

Her yet the doom was fix’d, nor Jove relentless

frown'd.

TO EMMA.

Since now the hour is come at last,

When you must quit your anxious lover ;
Since now our dream of bliss is past,

One pang, my girl, and all is over.

; Alas ! that pang wili be severe,
Which bids us part to meet no more;
Which tears me far from one so dear,
Departing for a distant shore.

Well ! we have pass’d some happy hours,
And joy will mingle with our tears ;
When thinking on these ancient towers,

The shelter of ourinfant years.

Where from this gothic casement’s height,
We view’d the lake, the park the dell,
And still, though tears obstruct our sight,

We lingering took a last farewell.

@er fields through which we used to run,
And spend the hours in childish play ;HADATS
POULMS,

O’er shades where, when our race was done,
Reposing on my breast you lay ;

While I, admiring, too remiss
Forgot to scare the hovering flies,
r : a :
Yet envied every fiy the kiss
It dard to give your slumbering eyes ;

Yet still the little painted bark,
In which I row’d you o’er the lake:
See there, high wavering o'er the park,
The elm I clamber’d for your sake.

These times are pasi—our joys are gone,
You leave me, leave this happy vale;

These scenes I must retrace alone :
Without thee what will they avail?

Who can conceive, who has not proved,
The anguish of a Jast embrace ?

When torn from all you fondly loved,
You bid a long adieu to peace.

This is the deepest of our woes,
For this these tears our cheeks bedew :
This is of love the final close, |
Oh, God ! the fondest, last adien !

 

TO M.S. G.

Wuens’er I view those lips of thine,
Their hue invites my fervent kiss ;#¥ RON'S

Yet, I forego that bliss divine,
Alas ! it was unhallow’d bliss,

Whene’er I dream of that pure breast,
How could I dwell upon its snow)!
Yet is the daring wish represt,
For that,—-would banish its repose.

A glance from thy soul searching eye
an raise with hope, depress with fear ;
Yet I conceal my love, and why ?
I would not force a painful tear.

I ne’er had told my love, yet thou
Hast seen my ardent flame too well ;
And shall I plead my passion now,
To make thy bosom’s heaven a hell.

No! for thou never canst be mine,
United by the priest’s decree ;

By any ties but those divine,
Mine, my beloved, thou ne’er shalt be.

Then let the secret fire consume,
Let it consume, thou shalt not know;
With joy I court a certain doom,
Rather than spread its guilty glow.

{ will not ease my tortured heart,

By driving dove-eyed peace from thine :
Rather than such a sting impart,

Each thought presumptuous I resign.

Yes! yield those lips, for which I’d brave
More than I here shall dare to tell;POEMS.

Thy innocence and mine to save,—
1 bid thee now a last farewell.

Yes ! yield that breast, to seek despair,
And hope no more thy soft embrace :

Which to obtain my soul would dare,
Ail, all reproach, but thy disgrace.

At least from guilt shalt thou be free,
No matron shall thy shame reprove;

Though cureless pangs may prey on me,
No martyr shalt thou be in love.

TO CAROLINE.

Tunk’st thou I saw thy beauteous eyes,
Suffused in tears, implore to stay ;

And heard unmoved those plenteous sighs,
Which said far more than words can say ?

Though keen the grief thy tears exprest,
When love and hope lay both o’erthrown ;

Yet, still, my girl, this bleeding breast
Throbb’d with deep sorrow as thine own.

But when our cheeks with anguish glow’d,
When thy sweet lips were join’d to mine,

The tears that from my eyelids flowed,
Were lost in those that fell from thine.

Thou could’st not feel my burning cheek,
Thy gushing tears had quench’d its fame,we

BYRON S

And as thy tongue essay’d to speak,
In sighs alone it breath’d my name.

And yet, my girl, we weep in vain,
In vain our fate in sighs deplore ; \
Remembrance only can remain— __ |
But what will make us weep no more.

Again, thou best beloved, adieu ;
Ah ! if thou canst, o’ercome regret,
Nor let thy mind past joys review,
Our only hope is to forget.

TO CAROLINE.

Wuey I hear you express an affection so warm,
Ne’er think, my beloved, that I donot be-
lieve ;
For your lip would the soul of suspicion disarm,
And your eye beams a ray which can never
deceive,

Yet, still this fond bosom regrets, while ador-

ing, ;
That love, like the leaf must fall into the sear;
That age will come on, when resemblance, de-
ploring, . .
Contemplates tlie scenes of her youth with a
tear.

That the time must arrive, when no longer re-
taining

Their auburn, those locks must wave thin to

the breeze,PORMS. 45

When a few silver hairs of those tresses remain-
ing
Prove nature a prey to decay and disease.

Dis this my.beloved, which spreads gloom o’er
my features,
Though I ne’er shall presume to arraign the
decree
Which God has proclaimed as the fate of his
creatures,
In the death which will one day deprive you
of me.

Mistake not, sweet sceptic, the cause of emotion,
No*doubt can the mind of your lover invade ;
He worships each look with such faithful-devo-

tion,
A smile can enchant, or a tear can dissuade.

But as death, my beloved, soon or late shall
o’ertake us,

And our breasts, which alive with such sym-
pathy glow,

Will sleep in the grave till the blast shall awake

us,
When calling the dead in earth’s bosom laid
low.

Oh ! then let us drain, while we may, draughts
of pleasure
Which from passion like our’s may unceasing-
ly flow ;
Let us pass round the cup of love’s bliss in full
measure,
And quatt the contents as our nectar below.BYRON'S

TO CAROLINE.

    
  
  
   
 
    
  
  
  
   
   

Ox ! when shall the grave hide for.ever my sor-
Tow ? ‘
Oh! when shall my soul wing her flight from
this clay ?
The present is hell, and the coming to-morrow,
But brings, with new torture, the curse of to-
day.

From my eye flows no tear, from my lips flow
no curses,
I blast not the fiends’ who have hurled me
from bliss ;
For poor is the soul which bewailing rehearses
Its querulous grief, when in anguish like this.

Was my eye, ’stead, with red fury flakes bright-
ning,
Would my lips breathe a flame which no
stream could assuage,
On our foes should my glance launch in venge-
ance its lightning,
With transport my tongue give a loose to its
rage.

But now tears and curses, alike unavailing,
Would add to the souls of our tyrants de-
light ;
Could they view us our sad separation bewail-
ing
Their merciless hearts would rejoice at the
sightPOEMS. *

Yet still, though we bend with a feigned resig-
nation,
Life beams not for us with one ray that can
cheer ;
Love and hope on earth brings no more consola-
tion,
_ In the grave is our hope, for in life is our fear.

Qh! when, my adored, in the tomb will they
place me, ‘
Since, in lite, love and friendship for ever are
fied
If again in the mansion of death I embrace thee,
Perhaps they will leave unmolested the dead.

STANZAS TO A LADY,
WITH THE POEMS OF CAMOENS.

Ts1s votive pledge of fond esteem,
Perhaps, dear girl ! for me thou'lt prize,
‘In signs of Love's enchanting dream,
A thing we never can despise.

Who blames it but the envious fool,
The old and dissappointed maid :
Or pupil of the prudish school,
In single sorrow doom’d to fade !

Then read, dear girl! with feeling read,
For thou wilt ne’er be one of those ;

Jo thee in vain I shall not plead

In pity for the poet’s woes.BYRON’S

   
 
 
 
  
   
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  

He was in sooth a genuine bard;

His was no vain, fictitious flame:
Like his, may love be thy reward,
~ But not, thy hapless fate the same.

\

 

THE FIRST KISS OF LOVE.

Away with your fictions of flimsy romance : ’
Those tissues of falsehood which folly has

wove,

Give me the mild beam of the soul breathing
glance,

: Or the rapture which dwells on the first kiss
of love.

Ye rhymers, whose bosoms with phantasy glow;
Whose pastoral passions are made for the
grove,
From what blest inspiration your,sonnets would
tlow,
Could you ever have tasted the first kiss of
love !

If Apollo should e’er his assistance refuse,
Or the Nine be disposed from your service to
rove,
Invoke them no more, bid adieu to the muse, ©
And try the effect of the first kiss of love.

I hate you, ye cold compositions of art :
Though prudes may condemn me, and bigots
reprove,49

I court. the effusions which spring from the

heart,
Which throb with delight to the first kiss of
love.

Your shepherds, your flocks, those fantastical
themes,
Perhaps they a amuse,
Arcadia displays but a reg ams
What are visions like if 1ese to the &rst kiss of
love?

~
oO
Sort
Oc,
ka
OD
S
7 4
ob
oO
2
=
bs
=)
o
aI
oO

Oh, cease to affirm that man from his birth,
From Adam till now has with wretchedness
strove :
Some portion of paradise still is on e ae
And Eden revives in the first nae of love.

When age chills the blood, when our pleasures

are past—

For years flee away with the wings of the
dove—

The dearest remembrance will still b the la Ye

Our sweetest memorial the first kiss ae lov

ON A CHANGE OF MASTERS AT A
GREAT PUBLIC SCHOOL.

Wuene are those honours, Ida, once your own,
When Probus filled your magister ial throne ?
As ancient Rome, fast falling to disgrace,
Hail’d a barbarian in her Ceesar’s place,

DBYRON S

So you, degenerate, share as hard a fate,
And seat Pomposus where your Probus sate,
Of narrow brain, yet of a narrower soul,
Pomposus holds you in his harsh control ;
Pomposus, by no social virtue sway’d,

With florid jargon, and with vain parade; °
With noisy nonsense, and new-fangled rules,
Such as were ne’er before enforc’d in schools,
Mistaking pedantry for learning’s laws,

He governs, sanction’d but by self-applause,
With him the same dire fate attending Rome,
Ill fated Ida ! soon must be your doom;

Like her o’erthrown, for ever lost to fame,
No trace of Science left you, but the name.

en

TO THE DUKE OF DORSET.

Dorsur! whose early steps with mine have
strayed,

Exploring every path of Ida’s glade:

Whom still affection taught me to defend,

And made me less a tyrant than a friend,

Though the harsh custom of our youthful band,

Bade thee obey, and gave me to command;

Thee, on whose head a few short years will
show’r

The gift of riches, and the pride of pow’ :

Hen now a name illustrious is thine own,

Renown'd in rank, not far beneath the throne.

Yet Dorset, let not this seduce thy soul,

To shun fair science, or evade control,

Though passive tutors, fearful to dispraise

The titled child whose future breath may raise,POEMS.

View ducal errors with indulgent eyes
And wink at faults they tremble to chastise.

When youthful parasites who bend the knee
To wealth, their golden idol, not to thee—
And even in simple boyhood’s opening dawn
Some slaves are-found to flatter and to fawn,—
When these declare “that pomp alone should

wait
On one by birth predestined to be great ;
Mhat books were only meant for drudging fools,
That gallant spirits scorn the common rules ;”
Believe them not : they point the path to shame,
And seek to blast the honours of thy name.
Turn to the few in Ida’s early throng,
Whose souls disdain not to condemn the wrong:
Or, if amidst the comrades of thy youth,
None dare to raise the sterner voice of truth,
Ask thine own heart ; “twill bid thee, boy, for-
bear,
For well [ know that virtue lingers there.

Yes! Ihave mark’d thee many a passing day,
But now new scenes invite me far away ;
Yes, | have mark’d within that generous mind
A soul, if well matured, to bless mankind.
Ah! though myself, by nature, haughty, wild,
When indiscretion hail’d her favourite child,
Though every error stamps me for her own,
And dooms my fall, I fain would fall alone
Though my proud heart no precept now can

tame,

I love the virtue which I cannot claim.BYRON ¢

‘Tis not enough, with other sons of power,

To gleam the*lambent meteor of an hour;

‘To swell some peerage page in feeble pride,

With long-drawn names that grace no page be-
sides :

Then share with titled crowds the common lot,

In life just gazed at, in the grave forgot;

While nought divides thee from the vulgar
dead,

Except the dull cold stone that hides thy head,

The mouldering ’scutcheon, or the herald’s roll,

That well emblazon’d but neglected scroll,

Where lords, unhonoured in the tomb may find

One spot to leave a worthless name behind,

There sleep, unnoticed as the gloomy vaults

That veil their dust, their follies, and their
faults, |

A race, with old armorial lists o’erspread,

In records destined never to be read.

Fain would I view thee, with prophetic eyes,

Exalted more among the good and wise,

A glorious and a long career pursue,

As first in rank, and first in talent too:

Spurn every vice, each little meanness shun:

Not Fortune’s minion, but her noblest son.

Turn to the annals of a former day ;
Bright are the deeds thine earlier sires display.
One, though a courtier, liveda man of worth,
And call’d—proud boast! the British drama

forth.
Another view, not less renown’d for wit;
Alike for courts, or camps, or senates fit:
Both in the field, and favoured by the Nine ;
In every splendid part ordained to shine;POEMS,

Far, far distinguished from the glittering
throng—

The pride of princes, and the boast of song.

Such were thy fathers—thus preserve their
name—

Not only heirs to titles, but to fame.

The hours draw nigh,—a few brief days will
close,

To me this little scene of joys and woes;

Hach knell of Time now warns me to resign

Shades where Hope, Peace, and Friendship all
were mine !

Hope, that could vary like the rainbow’s hue,
And gild their pinions as the moments flew ;
Peace, that reflection never frown’d away ;

By dreams of ill to cloud some future day ;
Friendship, whose truth let childhood only tell,
Alas ! they love not loag whe leve so well. :
To these adieu, nor let me lingep o’er

Scenes hail’d as exiles heal their native shore,
Receding slowly through the dark-blue deep,
Beheld by eyes that mourn, yet cannot weep.

Dorset, farewell! I will not ask one part
Of sad remembrance in so young a heart ;
The coming morrow from thy youthful mind
Will sweep thy name, nor leave a trace behind,
And yet, perhaps, in some maturer year,

Since chance has thrown us in the selfsame
sphere,

Since the same senate, nay, the same debate,

May one day claim our suffrage from the state,w’YRONS

We hence may meet, and pass éach other by,

With faint regard, and cold and distant eye.

For me, in future, neither friend nor foe,

A stranger to thyself, to weal, or woe,

With thee no more again I hope to trace

The recollection of our early race ;

No more, as once, in social hours rejoice,

Or hear, unless in crowds, thy well-known voice.

Still, if the wishes of a heart untaught

To veil those feelings which perchance it ought,

If these,—but let me cease the lengthened
strain,— ¥

Oh ! if those wishes are not breathed in vain,

The guardian seraph who directs thy fate

Will leave thee glorious, as he found thee great.

——

GRAN@As—A MEDLEY.
Ox! could Le Sage’s. demon’s gift
Be realised at my desire,
This night my trembling form he’d lift,
To place it on St. Mary’s spire.

Then would unroof'd old Granta’s halls
Pedantic inmates full display ;
» Fellows who dream on lawn or stalls,
The price of venal votes to pay.

Then would I view each rival wight,
Petty and Palmerston survey; |

‘Who canvass there with all their might,

Against the next elective day.

SA a aPOEMS,

Lo! candidates and voters lie
All lull’d in sleep, a goodly number :
A race renown’d for piety,

Whose conscience won’t disturb their slum:

ber.

Tord H-—-, indeed, may not demur,
Fellows are sage, reflecting men :

They know preferment can occur
But very seldom,—now and then.

They know the chancellor has got
Some pretty livings in disposal ;

Each hopes that one may be his lot,
And therefore smiles at his proposal.

Now from the soporific scene,

I'll turn mine eyes, as night grows later,
To view, unheeded and unseen,

The studies of the Alma Mater.

There in apartments small and damp,
The candidate for college prizes,

Sits poring by the midnight lamp ;
Goes late to bed, yet early rises.

He surely well deserves to gain them,
With all the honours of his college,
Who, striving hardly to obtain them,
Thus seeks unproiitable knowledge :

Who sacrifices hours of rest,

To scan precisely metres attic ;
Or agitates his anxious breast,
In problems mathematic :BYRON'S

Who reads faise quantities from Seale,
Or puzzles o’er the deep triangle: ~
Deprived of many a wholesome meal;
In barbarous Latin doom’d to wrangle:

Renouncing every pleasing page
From authors of historic use;
refeiring to the letter’d sage,
‘he square of the hypothenuse.

P.

Still, harmless are these occupations,

That hurt none but the hapless student,
Compared to other recreations,

Which brings together the imprudent ;

Whose daring revels shock the sight,
When vice and infamy combine,

When drunkenness and dice invite,
And every sense is steep’d in wine.

\

Not so the methodistic crew,
Who plans of reformation lay;
In humble attitude they sue,
_ And for the sins of others pray :

Forgetting that their pride of spirit,
Their exultation on their trial,
Detracts most largely from the merit
Of all their boasted self-denial.

‘Tis morn; from these I turn my sight—

What scene is this that meets the eye?
A numerous crowd array’d in white,
Across the green in numbers fly.PORMS, 57

_Lord rings in air the chapel bell

"Tis hush’d ;—what sounds are these I hear?
| The organ’s soft celestial swell

Rolls deeply on the list’ning ear.

|'To this is join’d the sacred song,
The royal minstrel’s hallow’d stain ;
| Though he who hears the music long
Will never wish to hear again.

Our choir would scarcely be excused,
Even as a band of raw beginners :
All mercy now must be refused
To such a eroaking set of sinners.

If David, when his toils were ended,

Had heard these blockheads sing before him,
'To us his psalms had ne’er descended,—

In furious mood he would have tore ’em. e.

|The luckless Israelites, when taken
By some inhuman monster’s order, ~
| Were ask’d to sing, by joy forsaken,
On Babylonian river’s border.

Oh! had they sung in notes like these,
Inspired by stratagem or fear,

They might have set their hearts at ease,
The devil a soul had stay’d to hear.

But if I scribble longer now,

The deuce a soul will stay to read:
My pen is blunt, my ink is low;

"Tis almost time to stop, indeed.58 BYRON’S

Therefore, farewell, old Granta’s spires
No more, like Cleofas, I fly :

No more thy theme my muse inspires ;
The reader’s tired and so am I.

FRAGMENT.

Written shorily after the marriage of Miss
Chaworth.

Hits of Annesley, bleak and barren,

Where my thoughtless childhood stray’d, © |

How the northern tempest warring,
Howls above thy tufted shade !

Now no more the hours beguiling
Former favourite haunts I see :

Now no more my Mary smiling
Makes ye seem a heaven to me.

   

ON A DISTANT VIEW OF THE VILLAGE |

AND SCHOOL OF HARROW ON THE
HILL.

Oh, mlhi prztoritos referat si Jupiter annos.— VIRGIL.

Ye scenes of my childhood, whose loved recol- |

lection

Embitters the present, compared with the

past ;POEMS. 59
Vhere science first dawn’d on the powers of re-
flection,
And friendships were form’d too romantic to
last ;
Where fancy yet joys to > trace the resemblance
Of comrades, in friendship and mischief al-

lied,
How welcome to me your ne’er fading remem-
brance,
Which rests in the bosom, though hope is
denied.

Again I revisit the hills where we sported,
The streams where we swam, and the fields
where we fought,
The school where, loud warned by the bell, we
resorted,
To pore o’er the precept by pedagogue taught.

Again I behold where for hours I have ponder’d,
As reclining at eve on yon .tombstone [ lay,
Orround the steep brow of the church-yard I

wander’d,
To catch the last gleam of the sun’s setting
ray.

I once more view the room, by spectators sur-
round ad.
Where as Zanga, I trod on Alonzo, o’erthrown,
While, to swell my young pride, such applauses
resounded,
I fancied that Mossop himself was outshone.60 BYRON 'S
Or, as Lear, 1 poured forth the good impreca-
tion,

By my daughters of kingdom and reason de }

prived ;
Till fired by loud plaudits and self-adulation,
T regarded myself as a Garrick revived.

Ye dreams of my boyhood, how much I regret
you!
Unfaded your memory dwells in my breast ;
Though sad and deserted, I ne’er can forget you, |
Your pleasures may still bein fancy possest.

To Ida full off my remembrance restores me, 4
While fate shall the shades of the future un-
roll ! \

Since darkness o’ershadows the prospect before '

me, ! a
More dear is the beam of the past to my soul. | |

 

TO M——.

Ou ! did those eyes, instead of fire,
With bright, but mild affection shine,
Though they might kindle less desire,
Love, more than mortal, would be mine.

For thou art form’d so heavenly fair,

Howe’er those orbs may wildly beam,

We must admire, but still despair;

That fatal glance forbids esteem,
%When nature stamp’d thy beauteous birth,
So much perfection in thee shone,
She fear’d, that, too divine for earth,

!

The skies might claim thee for their own.

 
   
   
 
 
 
 
    
  
 
 
 
 
 
   
   
 
    

Therefore, to guard her dearest work,
Lest angels might dispute the prize,
She bade a. secret lightning lurk |
Within those once celestial eyes. \

These might the boldest sylph appal,
When gleaming with meridian blaze !
Thy beauty must enrapture all;
But who can dare thine ardent gaze ?

Tis said that Berenice’s hair, :
In stars adorn the vaults of heaven:
But they would ne’er permit thee there,
Thou wouldst so far outshine the seven.
For did those eyes as planets roll,
Thy sister lights would scarce anpear.:
Hen suns which systems now cor.trol,
Would twinkle dimly throug b their sphere. dt

SONNET TO GENEVRA.

Tuy cheek is pale with thought, but not from | 7 E
woe, ( :
And yet so lovely that if Mirth could flush |

Its rose of whiteness with the brightest blush
My heart would wish away that ruddier glow:
And dazzle not thy deep blue eyes—but oh !
While gazing on them sterner eyes will gush,62 BYRON’S

And into mine my mother’s weakness rush.
Soft as the last drops round heaven’s airy bow,
For, through thy long dark lashes low depen ae |
The soul of melancholy eee
Gleams like a seraph from the sky descending,
Above all pain, yet pitying all distress ;
At once such majesty with sweetness blending,
I worship more, but cannot love thee less,

FROM THE PORTUGUESE.

In moments to delight devoted,
“ My life !” with : tend’rest tone, you cry ;
Dear -vords ! on which my heart had doted,
If youth could neither fade nor die.

To neath even hours like these,must roll,
-th ! then repeat these accents never ;

Oi change “ my life !” into “my soul !”
W hich, like my love, exists for ever.

WRITTEN BENEATH A PICTURE.

Dui object of defeated care !

Though now of thee and love bereft,
To reconcile me with despair,

Thine image and thy tears are left.

"Tiss: d, with sorrow Time can cope -
But this | ee eee ’er be true;

For k y the death blow of my Hope,

M y Menorytinamortal grew.

   
  
  
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
  
  
   

 

j
4

RON A CORNELIAN HEART, WHICH
WAS BROKEN.

Iuu-Fa TED Heart ! and can it be

That thou shouldst thus be rent in twain !
Have years of care for thine and thee
- Alike been all employed in vain?

Yet precious seems each shatter’d part,
And every fragment deat grown,
Since he who wears thee feels thou art

A bitter emblem of his own.

LINES

WRITTEN BY “LORD BYRON IN GREECE—-BEING THE
LAST HE EVER COMP@SED.

Missilonghi, Jan. 22, 1824,
On this day 1 complete my thirty-secth year.

Tis time this heart should be unmoved,

Since others it has ceased to move;
Yet, though I cannot be beloved,

Still let me love.

My days are in the yellow leaf,

The flowers and fruits of love are gone ;
The worm, the canker, and the evief, ;
Are mine alone,64

 

  

BYRON S

 

The fire that in my bosom preys,
Is like to some volcanic isle,

No torch is kindled at its blaze ;—
A funeral pile.

The hopes, the fears, the jealous care,
The exalted portion of the pain,

And power of love I cannot share,
But wear the chain.

But ’tis not here—it is not here—

Such thoughts shake my soul not now—
Where glory seeks the hero’s bier,

Or binds his brow.

The sword, the banner, aud the field,
Glory and Greece around us see ;
The Spartan borne upon the shield—
Was not more free. :

 

Awake ! not Greece !—she is awake !
Awake my spirit !—think through whom
My life-blood tastes its parent lake—
And then strikes home !

I tread reviving passions down,
Unworthy manhood—unto thee,

Indifferent should the smile or frown
Of beauty be.

Seek out—less often sought than found,
A soldier's grave, for thee the best,

Then look around and choose thy ground,

And take thy rest.TO A LADY,

Who presented to the Author a lock of hair braided with
his own, and appointed a night in December to meet
him in the Garden.

Tuess locks, which fond thus entwine,
In firmer chains our hearts confine,

Than all tly unmeaning protestations

Which swell with nonsense love orations.
Our love is fix’d, | think weve proved it,
Nor time, nor place, 2 nor art have mov oa Bs
Then wherefore should we sigh and whi

With groundless jealousy repige,

With silly whims and fino rantic,

Merely to make our love romantic ?

Why should we weep like Lydia Languish,
And fret with self-created anguish !

Or doom the lover you have chosen,

On winter nights to sigh half frozen ;

In leafless shade to sue for pardon,

Only because the scene’s a garden!

For gardens seem, by one consent,

Since Shakspeare set the precedent,

Since Juliet first declared her passion

To form the place of assignation.

Oh! would some modern. muse inspire,

And seat her by a sea coal fire ;

Or had the bard at Christmas written,

And Jaid the scene of love in Britain,

He surely in commiseration,

Had changed the place of declaration,

BBYRBONS 3

In Italy I’ve no objettion :
Warm nights are Hee per for jretleetip ;
But here our climate is so r
That love itself is rather frigid :
Think on our silly si ituation,
And curb this rage for imitation ;
Then let us meet, as oft we've done
De the infiuence of the sun,
r, if at midnight I mus st meet you,
Within your mansion let me greet yeu,
There we can love for hours t ogether,
Much better in such snowy weather,
Than placed in all the Arcadian groves
That ever witnessed rural loves :
Then, if my passion fail to please,
Next night#Ill be content to freeze ;
No more Fl give a loose to laughter,
But curse my fate for ever after.

 
 

ae

 

 

 
 

OSCAR OF ALVA.

How sweetly shines through azure skies,
The lamp of heaven on Lorra’s shore ;
Where Alva’s hoary turrets rise,
And hear the din of arms no more.

But often as yon rolling moon,
On Alva’s casqtes of silver play’d,
He view’d, at midnight’s silent noon,
Her chiefs in eleami ning mail array ‘d.

And on the crimson’d rocks beneath,
Which scowl o’er ocean’s sullen flow,POEMS.

Pale in the seatter’d ranks of death,
She saw the gasping warrior low ;

While many an eye*which ne'er again
Could mark the rising orb of day,
Turn’d feebly from the gory plain,
Beheld in death the fading ray.
Once on those eyes the lamp of Love,
They blest her dear propitious light ;
But now she glimmer’d from above,
A sad funeral torch of night.

Faded is Alva’s noble race,
And grey her towers are seen afar ;
No more her heroes urge the chase,
Or roll the crimson tide of war.

But who was last of Alva’s clan ?
Why grows the moss on Alva’s stone?
Her towers resound no steps of man,
They echo to the gale alone.
And when that gale is fierce and high,
A sound is heard in yonder hall ;
It rises hoarsely through the sky,
And vibrates o’er the mould’ring wall.
Yes, when the eddying tempest sighs,
It shakes the shield of Oscar brave ;
But there no more his banners rise,
No more his plumes of sable wave.
_Fair shone the sun on Oscar’s birth,
When Angus hail’d his eldest born,BYRON 'S

The vassals round their chieftain’s hearth

Crowd to applaud the happy morn

They feast upon the mountain deer,
The pibroch raised its piercing note ;

To gladden more their highland cheer,
The strains in martial numbers float :

And they who heard the war-notes wild
Hoped that one day the pibroch’s strain
Should play before the hero's child,
While he should lead the tartan train.

Another year is quickly past,
And Angus hails another son:
His natal day is like the last,
Nor soon the jocund sound was done.

Taught by their.sire to bend the bow,
On Alva’s dusky hills to wind,

The boys in childhood chased the roe,
And left the hounds in speed behind.

But, ere their years of youth are o’er,
They mingle in the ranks of war:

They lightly wheel the bright claymore,
And send the whistling arrow far.

Dark was the flow of Cscar’s hair
Wildly it stream’d along the
But Allan’s locks were e bright aa fair,

And pensive seem’d his cheek, and pale.

But Osear own’d a hero’s soul,

His dark eye shone through beams of truth)POEMS,

Allan had early learn’d contro!,

Andsmooth his words had been from youth.

Both, both were brave ; the Saxon spear
Was shiver'd oft beneath their steel ;
And Osear’s bosom scorn’d to fear,
But Oscar’s bosom knew to feel ;

While Allan’s soul belied his form,
Unworthy with such charms to dwell ;
Keen as the lightning of the storm,
On foes his deadly vengeance fell.

From high Southannon’s distant tower,
Arrived a young and noble dame:

With Kenneth’s lands to form her dower,
Glenalvon’s blue-eyed daughter came ;

And Oscar claim’d the beauteous bride,
And Angus on his Oscar smiled ;

It soothed the father’s feudal pride,
Thus to obtain Glenalvon’s child.

Hark to the pibroch’s pleasing note !
Hark to the swelling nuptial song !

In joyous strains the voices float,
And still the choral peal prolong,

See how the heroes’ blood-red plumes,
Assembled wave in Alva’s hall ;

Each youth his varied plaid assumes,
Attending on their chieftain’s call.

It is not war their aid demands,
The pibroch plays the song of peace:YRON’S

To Oscar's nuptials throng the bands,
Nor yet the sounds of pleasure cease.

But where is Oscar? sure ’tis late :
Is this a bridegroom’s ardent flame ?
While thronging guests and ladies wait,
Nor Oscar nor his brother came.

At length young Allan joined the bride:
«Why comes not Oscar? Angus said :

“Ts he not here?’ the youth replied ;
«With me he roved not o’er the glade:

Perchance, forgetful of the day,
‘Tis his to chase the bounding roe:
Or ocean’s waves prolong his stay ;
Yet Oscar’s bark is seldom slow.”

 

“Oh, no !” the anguish’d sire rejoined,
“Nor chase, nor wave, my boy delay ;

Would he to Mora seem unkind?
Would aught to her impede his way !

 

“Oh, search, ye chiefs ! oh, search around !
Allan, with these through Alva fly ;

Till Oscar, till my son is found,
Haste, haste, nor dare attempt reply.”

All in confusion—through the vale
The name of Oscar hoarsely rings,
It rises on the murmuring gale,
. . y tl i e
Till night expands her dusky wings;

It breaks the stillness of the night,
But echoes through her shades in vain ;POEMS,

It sounds through mornine’s misty light,
But Ole comes not o’er the plain.

Three days, three sleepless nights, the chief
“or > Oscar searched each mountain cave ;
Then hope is lost in boundless grief,
His loéks in grey-torn ringlets wave.

& Cscae ; my son !—thou God of heay’n
Restore the prop of sinking age !
Or if that ho pe no more is given,
Yield his assassin to my rage.
«Yes, on some desert rocky shore
My ’ Ose ‘av’s whitened bones must lie:
Then grant thou God ! I ask no more,
With him-his frantic sire may die!

Yet he a live—away, despair !

Be calm, my soul ! he yet may live!
T’ arraign my fate, my soul forbear:

O God |! my impious prayer forgive.”

« What, if he lives for me no more,
T sink forgotten in the dust,
The hope of Alva’s age is o’er :
Alas! can pangs like these be just !”

Thus did the hapless parent mourn,
Till time, who sooths severest woe,
Had bade serenity return,
And made the tear-drop cease to flow.

For still some latent hope revived
That Oscar might once more appear ;2 BYRON'S
His hope now droop’d and now revived,
Till Time had told a tedious year.

Days roll’d along, the orb of light
Again had run his destined race ;

No Oscar bless’d his father’s sight,
And sorrow left a fainter trace.’

For youthfal Allan still remain’d
And now his father’s only joy:

And Mora’s heart was quickly eain’d
For beauty erown’d the fair-haird boy.

She thought that Oscar low was laid,
And Allan’s face was wond’rous fair,
If Oscar lived, some other maid
Had claim’d his faithless bosom’s care.

And Angus said, if one year more
In fruitless hope was passed away,
His fondest scruples should be o’er,
And he would name the nuptial day.

Slow roll’d the moons, but blest at last
Arrived the dearly destined morn !

The year of anxious trembling past,
What smiles the lover’s cheeks adorn !

Hark to the pibroch’s pleasing note !
Hark to the swelling nuptial song !

In joyous strains the voices float,
‘And still the choral peal prolong.

Again the clan, in festive crowd,
Throng through the gates of Alva’s hall,Y
s

POEMS,

The sounds of mirth re-echo loud,
And all their former joy recall.

         
 

But who is he, whose darken’d brow
Glooms in the midst of general mirth !

Before his eyes’ far fiercer glow

  
 

The blue flames curdle o’er the hearth.

  

Dark is the robe that wraps his form,
And tall his plume of glory red ;

His voice is like the rising storm,

  
 

But light and trackless is his tread.

 

"Tis noon of night, the pledge goes round,
The bridegroom’s health is deeply quati’d ;
With shouts the vaulted roofs resound,
And all combine to hail the draught.

Sudden the stranger chief arose,

    
  
 

And all the clamorous crowd are hush’d
And Angus, cheek with wonder glows,
And Mora’s tender bosom blush’d.

 
 
 

«Old man !” he cried, “this pledge is done ;
Thou saw’st twas duly drank, by me;

It hailed the nuptials of thy son :

  
 

Now will I claim a pledge for thee.

 

« While all around is mirth and joy,

To bless thy Allan’s happy lot,

 
 

Say had’st thou ne’er another boy?
Say, why should Oscar be forgot ?

« Alas !” the hapless sire replied,

  
    

The big tear starting as he spoke,BYRON’S

  

“When Oscar left my hall, or died,
This aged heart was almost broke.
QoQ

oe Thrice has the earth revolved her course

Since Oscar's form has bless’d my sight:
And Allan is my last recourse,
Since mortal Oscar’s death or flight.”

‘lis well,” replied the stranger stern,
And fiercely J Hash’d his rolling eye;

“hy Oscar's fate I fain would learn -
Perhaps the hero did not die.

ee EOPOHBNG if those whom most he loved
Would call, thy Oscar might,return ; ;
Benchen in the chief has only roved ;
For him ¢ the Beltane yet may burn.

 

“ Fill high the bowl the table round,
We will not claim the pledge by stealth
With wine let every cup be crown ad:
Pledge me departed Oscar’s health.”

 

“ With all my soul,” old Angus said,
And fill’d his g coblet to the brim ;
sf Here’ sto my boy ; alive or dead,
I ne’er shall find a son like him.”

 

4 Bravely, old man, this health has sped ;
But why does Allan trembling stand 2

Come, drink remembr ance of the dead,
And raise thy. cup with firmer hand.”

The crimson glow of Allan’s face
Was turn’d at once to ghastly hue;POEMS,

The drops of death each other chase
Adewn in agonising dew.

Mhrice did he raise the goblet high, 2 |
And thrice his lips refused to taste ; i

For thrice he caught the stranger's eye
On his with deadly fury placed.

« And is it thus a brother hails
A brother's foud remembrance here!
Tf thus affectio n’s strength prevails,
What might we not expect from fear ?

Roused by the sneer e rais ed the bow],
«“ Would Osear no a - could share our mirth !”
Internal fear appall’d his soul,

d sou
d the cup to earth.

He said, and a ash’
«Mis he! I hear ay murderer’

Loud shrieks a darkly gleam
«¢ A murderer’s voice the roof r

And deeply swells the burst

voice !”
y form,

g
plies,
storm.

S
nh
e}

ah

The tapers oh the chieftains shrink,
The stranger's gone—amid the crew ;
A form was seen in tartan green

And tall the shade terrific orew.

THis waist was bound witha broad belt round,
His plume of sable stream ’d on high;
But his breast was bare with the red wounds

there
And fixed was the glare of his glassy eye.

And thrice he smiled, with his eyes so wild
On Angus bending low the knee ;76 BYRON’?
-And thrice he frown’don a chief on the ground,
Whom shivering crowds with horror see.

The bolts loud roll, from pole to pole, ~
The thunders through the welkin ring,
And the gleaming form, through the midst of
the storm,
Was borne on high by the whirlwind’s win gs.

Cold was the feast, the revel ceased,
Who lies upen the stony floor 4
Oblivion press’d old Angus’ breast,
At length his life-pulse throbs once more.

“Away, away! let the leech essay
To pour the light on Allan’s eyes ;”

His sand is done,—his race is run ;
Oh! never more shall Allan rise !

 

But Oscar's breast is cold as clay,
His locks are lifted by the gale ;
And Allan’s barbed arrow lay
With him in dark Glentanar’s yale.

 

And whence the dreadful stranger came, |
Or who, no mortal wight can tell :

But no one doubts the form of flame,
Kor Alva’s sons knew Oscar well.

Ambition nerved young Allan’s hand,
Exulting demons wing’d his dart:

While envy waved her burning brand,
And pour’d her yenom round his heart.

Swift as the shaft from Allan’s bow ;
Whose streaming life-blood stains his side !POEMS.

Dark Oscar's sable crest is low,
The dart has drunk his vital tide.

And Mora’s eyes could Allan move,
She bade his wounded heart rebel !
Alas! that eyes which beam’d with love,
Should urge the soul to deeds of hell.

Lo ! seest thou not a lonely tomb
Which rises o’er a warrior dead ?

It glimmers through the twilight gloom ;
Oh ! that is Allan’s nuptial bed.

Far, distant far, the noble grave

Which held his clan’s great ashes stood ;
And o’er his corse no banner wave,

For they were stained with kindred blood.

What minstrel gay, with hoary bard,

Shall Allan’s deeds no harp strings raise?
The song is glory’s chief reward,

But who can strike the murderer's praise?

Unstrung, untouch’d, the harp must stand,
No minstrel dare the theme awake ;
Guilt would benumb his palsied hand,
His harp in shuddering chords would
break.

No lyre of fame, no hallow’d verse,
Shall sound his glories high in air;
A dying father’s bitter curse,
A brother's death groan echoes thereBYRON 'S
THE EPISODE OF NISUS AND EURYALUS.
A Paraphrase from the Aneid, Lib. ix.

Nisus, the oua nee of the portal, Rte ood
ry

Hager to gild his arms with hostile b! lood !

Wellskill’din fi e! a the « quay verin o lance to wield,
Or pour his arrows throu oe th’ embattled field;
From Ida torn, he lett his sylvan cave

And sought a forei ig n home, a cea orave,

To watch the movements of the Daunian host,

With him Huryalus sustains the post;

No lovelier mien adorn’d the ranks of Troy,

And beardless bloom yet graced the gallant boy,

Though few the scenes of his you thful life,

As yet a novice in the martial

‘Mywas his, with bear ty, valour’s gift to share—

A soul heroic as his form was fair ;

These burn with one pure flame of generous

love ;

In peace, in war, united still they move ;

Friendshi ip and elory form their joint reward :

And now combined they hold their martial
guard.

ane
Sti ile,

 

« What god,” exclaim’d the first, “instills this

fire ?

Or, in itself a god, what great desire?

My labouring soul, with anxious thought op-
press’'d

Abhors this station of inglorious rest ;

The love of fame with this can ill accord,

Be't mine to seek for glory with my sword.

   
  
 
 
 
  
 
 
  
 
 
 
  
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

nePOEMS, 99

Seest thou yon camp, with torches twinkling
dim,
Where drunken slumb ers wrap each lazy limb ?
Where confidence and ease the watch disda in,
And ary silence al ds her sable reign ?
Then hear my thou ait -—In deep and sullen
iu iCL
Our troops and leaders mourn their ab:
Now could the gifts and pr omised prize
(The deed, the danger, and the fa ume b
Were this decreed, beneath yon risin
Methinks, an cae path perchance w
Which past, I speed my | way to Palla

And lead AAimeas ran vander’s halls.

  

 

rt chief.
e thine
be mine).
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ere found:
is”
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W walls,

With equal ardour fired, and warlike Joy,
His glowing friend address’d the Dardan boy—
«These deeds 8, my Nisus, shalt thou dare alone?
Must all the fa me, the peril, be thine own!
And I by thee de ep yised, and left afar,
As one unfit to share the toils of war?
Not thus his son the at Opheltes taught ;
Not thus m y sire in iv e combats fought 5
Not thus, oe Ilion fell by heavenly hate
I track’d Aineas thr Gig the walks of fate :
Thou icnowest my dee eds, my breast devoid of

fear,

And hostile life-drops dim my gory sp
Here is a soul with hope immortal pee
And life—ignoble life, for glory spurns.
F ame—fame i is chiefly earn’d by fleeting breath :
The price of honour is the sleep of death.”

are
oe

re:
aye

Then, Nisus,—“ Calm thy bosom’s fond alarms
Thy heart beats fiercely to the din of arms.80 BYRON'S

More dear thy worth and valour than my own,
I swear by him who fills Olympus’ throne !

So may I triumph, as I speak the truth,

And clasp again the comrade of my youth !

But should | fall,—and he who dares advance,
Through hostile legions must abide by chance ;
If some Rutulian arm, with adverse blow,
Should lay the friend who ever loved thee low.
Live thou, such beauties I would fain preserve,
‘Thy budding years a lengthened term deserve.
When humbled in the dust let some one be,
Whose gentle eyes will shed one tear for me;
Whose manly arm may snatch me back by force,
Or wealth redeem from foes my captive corse ;
Or, if my destiny these last deny,

If in the spoiler’s power my ashes lie,

Thy pious care may raise a simple tomb,

‘To mark thy love, and signalize my doom.
Why should thy doting wretched mother weep
Her only boy, reclined in endless sleep 2

Who for thy sake the tempests fury dared,
Who, for thy sake, war’s deadly peril shared :
Who braved what woman ne’er braved before,
And left her native for the Latian shore?”

“In vain you damp the ardour of my soul,”
Rephed Euryalus; it scorns control !
Hence let us haste !’—their brother guards
arose ;
Roused by their call, nor court again repose ;
The pair, buoyed up on hope’s exulting wing,
The station’s leave, and speed to seek the king.

Now o’er the earth, a solemn stillness ran,
And Jull'd alike the cares of brute and nam ‘POEMS, 81
Save where the Dardan leaders nightly hold,
Alternate converse, aud their plans unfold.
On one great point the council are eee
An instant message to their king de
Bach leen’d upon the lance he wel
And poised with e asy arm his ancie
When Nisus and his friend their leave request
To offer something to their high behest.
With anxious tremors, yet ut
The faithful pair before the th
Inlus greets them ; at his ki
The elder first a addresse ed the hoary band.

Pr
feds
> ay
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oo

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2

“ With patience” (thus Hytacides b eee ny)

© Attend, nor judge from youth our humble
plan

Where e yonder beacons half expiring beam,

Our slumbering foes of future conquest dream,

Nor heed sy we a secret path have traced,

Between the ocean and th

e portal placed.
Beneath ee covert of the bl ackening smoke,
Whose shade securely our ae ion will cloak !
Jf you, ye chiefs, and fortune will allow,

Well bend our course to a nder mountain's
brow,

Where Pallas’ walls at distance ea

Seen o’er glade, when not obs

Then sh nall Aineas in his 2 ride r

While hostile matrons raise their offspring’s
urn ;

And Latian spoils and purpled heaps of dead

Shall mark the havoe of our hero’s tread.

Such is our pur rpose, not unknown the way :

Where yonder torrent’s devious waters stray,

EBBYRON S

Oft have we seen, when hunting by the stream,
The distant spires above the valleys gleam.”

Mature in years, for sober wisdom famed,
Moved by the speech, Alethes here exclaim’d,
“Ye parent gods ! who rule the fate of Troy,
Still swells the Dardan spirit in the boy; _
When minds like these in striplings thus ye

raise,
Yours is the godlike act, be yours the praise;
In gallant youth my fainting hopes revive,
And Ilion’s wonted glories still survive.”

Then in his warm embrace the boys he press’d,
And quivering, strain’d them to his aged breast :
With tears the burning cheek of each bedew’d,
And sobbing, thus his first discourse renew’d :
“What gift, my countrymen, what martial prize
Can we bestow, which you may not despise?
Our deities the first best boon have given
Internal virtues and the gift of heaven.
What poor rewards can bless our deeds on earth,
Doubtless awaits such young, exalted worth.
/ineas and Ascanius shall combine
To yield applause, far, far, surpassing mine,”
Tulus then :—By all the powers above !

By those Penates who my country love,

By hoary Vesta’s sacred fane, I swear,

My hopes are all in you, ye generous pair !
Restore my father to my grateful sight,

And all my sorrows yield to one delight.
Nisus, two silver goblets are thine own,

Saved from Arisha’s stately domes o’erthrown !
My sire secured them on that fatal day,

Nor left such bowls an Argive robber’s prey :POEMS,

T'wo massy tripods, also, shall be thine ;

Two talents polish’d from the glittering mine ;

An ancient cup, which Tyrian Dido gave,

While yet our vessels press'd the Punic wave:

But when the hostile chiefs at length bow
down,

When great /Eneas wears Hesperias crown,

The casque, the buckler, and the fiery steed

Which ‘Turnis guides with more than mortal
speed

Are thine ; no envious lot shall then be cast,

I pledge my word, irrevocably past !

Nay more, twelve slaves, and twice six captive

dames,

To soothe thy softer hours with amorous flames,

And all the realms which now the Latians sway

The labours of to night shall well repay.

But thou, my generous youth, whose tender
years

Are near my own, swhose worth my heart re-
veres,

Henceforth affection, sweetly thus begun,

Shall join our bosoms and our souls in one ;

Without thy aid no glory shall be mine:

Without thy dear advice, no great design ;

Alike through life esteem’d, thou godlike boy,

In war my bulwark, and in peace my jou?

To him Buryalus :—‘ No day shall shame
The rising glories which from this I claim.
Fortune, may favour, or the skies may frown,
Yet, ere from hence our eager steps depart,
One boon I beg, the nearest to my heart :84 BYRON S

My mother sprung from Priam’s royal Be
Like thine ennobled, hardly legs divin

Nor Troy nor king Acestes’ rea ims renee ain
Her oe age from dangers of the main.

ar
Jeu
i

Alone she came, all selfish fears above,
A bri anh exa} ple of maternal love
Unknow n the secret

Lest grief should |
From this alone n
My fainting mothe

?

   
 

ee VY
By gloomy night a ight |
Her par ‘Hae Shae woatd Sit dike" ae pur. pose

now :

Do ae my prince, her failing age sustai n,
In thee her much loved child 3 may
Her yi hours with pious conduct
Assist her w ants, relieve her fond dis

So dear a hope miust all my soul i inf] a
To rise in olory, or to fall in fame
Struck with a atilialic care so deeply ‘elt
Tn tears at 0: lee the Trojan warriors melt
Faster then all |, Inlus’ e eyes oe flow :
Such was his love, and such has been his woe.
“All that hast ask’d, receive,” the prince re-

plied

Nor this alone, but/many a gift beside.
To cheer thy mother’s 3 years shall be my aim,
Creusa’s sty! e's but wantin: ¢ to the dame.
Fortune an adverse wayward course may run,

 

 

Sak ach m
But pe thy ee rin So dear a son.
Now, by my life !—_my sire’s most sacred oath—-
c

To thee [ “pleas my Tull, my firmest troth,
All the rewards, which once‘to thee were vow’ d,
If thou should fall, on her shall be bestowed. ”85

my eer ae 1 eos = ae cat
Thus spoke the weeping prince, then forth to

A gleaming falchion from Bose sheath he drew;
Liycaon’s utmost skill nad graced the steel,

For friends to env my. and for ie to fee

A tawny hide the Mooris ‘ish lion’s spoil,

Slain ’mids at the forest, in the hunter’s toil,
Mnesthens to guard ie elder youth bestows,
And old Clethes’ casque defends his brows.
Arm’d thence they go, while all th’. assembled

oO

—

+
3

 

41 iv qW4° 3 a A
their cause, imp lore the gods
shan a boy, in wisdom and in er

kA

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Ft 4
Wao
peed te hd

Mc I aD a grace,
Tnlus holds amidst the chiefs his places:
His prayer he sends; but what can prayers avail,

4

uost in the murmurs of the sighing gale!

The trench is pass’d and favour’d by the night,
my 1 ae 1 e]
Through sleeping foes they whe herr wary
flight
flight,
When shall the sleep of ma y a foe be o’er?
Aloe some slumber a shall wake no more:
ant AY
ari k at

5
wna fons g flasks, anc een treops ceca j
Bacchus and Mars to rule the camp combine;
Amingled chaos this of war and wine.
ee Now, ” cries the first, “for deeds of blood
prepare
With me the conquest and the labour share:
Here lies our path : lest an}
Watch thou, while many a dreaming chieftain
dies 5 it
I'll carve our passage through the heedless foe,
And clear the road with many a deadly bow.”86 BYRON’S

His whispering accents then the youth repress’d
And pierced proud Rhamnes through his pant-
ing breast.

Stretch’d at his ease, th’ incautions king re-
posed ;

Debauch, and not fatigue, his eyes had closed
To Turnis dear, a prophet and a prince,
His omens more than angur’s skill evince;
But he, who thus foretold the fate of ail,
Could not advert his own untimely fall.
Next Rhemns’ armour-bearer, hapless fell,
And three unhappy slaves the carriage swell :
The charioteer along his courser’s side
Expires, the steel his sever’d neck divides ;
And, last, his lord is numbered with the dead ;
Bounding convulsive, flies the gasping head ;
From the swoll’n veins the black’ning torrents

pour,
Stain’d is the couch and earth with cl-tted gore, _
Young Lamyrus and Lamus next expire,
And gay Serranus, fill’d with youthful fire ;
Half the longnightin childishgameswas passed;
Lull’d by the potent grape, he slept at last ;

Ah! happier far had he the morn surveyed,

And till Aurora’s dawn his skill display’d.

In slaughter’d folds, the keepers lost in sleep,
His hungry fangs a lion thus may steep ;
‘Mid the sad flock, at dead of night he prowls,
With murder glutted, and in carnage rolls:
Insatiate still, through teeming herds he roams;
In seas of gore the lordly tyrants foams.

\POEMS. $7

Nor less the other’s deadly vengeance came,
But falls on feeble crowds without a name ;
His wound unconscious Fadus scarce can feel,
Yet wakeful Rheesus sees the threatning steel ;
His coward breast behind a jar he hides,
And vainly in the weak defence confides ;
Full in his heart the falchion searched his veins,
The reeking weapon bears alternate stains ;
Through wineand blood cominglingasthey flow
One feeble spirit seeks the shades below.
How where Mesapus dwelt they bend their way,
Whose fires emit a faint and trembling ray ;
There, unconfin’d, behold each grazing steed,
Unwatch’d, unheeded, on the herbage feed ;
Brave Nisus here arrests his comrade’s arm,
Too flush’d with carnage, and with conquest

warm ;

«Hence let us haste, the dangerous path is pass't,
Full foes enough to-night have breath’d their last,
Soon will the day those eastern clouds adorn :
Now let us speed, nor tempt the rising morn.”

What silver arms, with various art emboss’d,
What bowls and mantles in confusion toss’d,
They leave regardless ! yet one glittering prize:
Attracts the young hero’s wandering eyes ,

The gilded harness Rhamnes’ courses. felt,

The gems which stud the monarch’s golden belt ;

This from the pallid corse was quickly torn,

Once by a line of former chieftains worn,

Mh’ exulting boy the studded girdle wears,

Megapus’ helm his head in triumph bears ;

Then from their tents their cautions steps they
bend,

Mo seek the vale where safer paths extend.BYRON’S

i this hour, a band of Catian horse
i ss camp pursue their distant course :
While the slow foot their tardy march delay,
‘I'he knights, impatient, spur along the way :
“hree hundred mail-clad men, by Volscens led,
‘Yo Nurnis with their master’s promise sped :

9

~pproach the trench, and view the.

2

1en, on the left, a light reflection falls,
ne plunder’d helmet, through the waning nicht,
sheds forth a silver radiance, glancing bright.
‘olscens with question loud the pair alarms ;
Stand, stragglers, stand ! why early thus inarms
rom whence, to whom ;’—He meets with no

reply 2 ;
rusting the covert of the night they fly :
“he thicket’s depth, with hurried pace they tread,
Whileround the wood the hostile Squadron spread.

Lot
a} x
“t

With brakes entangled, scarce a path between, |
Dreary and dark appears the sylvan scene : |
Jiuryalus his heavy spoils impede, |
‘“he boughs and winding turns his steps mislead,
ut Nisus scours along the forest’s maze
‘Co where Latinns’ steeds in safety graze.,

"hen backwards o’er the plain his eyes extend,
On every side they seek his absent friend.

“‘O God! my boy,’? he cries,” of me bereft,

in what impending perils art thou left.”
Listening he runs—above the waving trees,
Tumultuous voices swell the passing breeze ;
‘The war-cry rises, thundering hoofs around
Wake the dark echoes of the trembling ground.POEMS, 89

Again he turns, of footsteps hears the noise ;
The sound elates, the sight his hopes destroys :
The hapless boy a ruffian train surround,
While lengthening shades his weary way con-
found ;
Him with loud shoutsthe furious knights pursue,
Struggling in vain a captive to the crew.
What can his friend ’gainst thronging numbers
dare?
Ah! must he rush, his comrade’s fate to share ?
What force, what aid, what stratagem essay,
Back to redeem the Latian spoiler’s prey ?
His life a votive ransom nobly give
Or die with him for whom he wish’d to live?
Poising with strength his lifted lance on high, _
On luna’s orb he cast his frenzied eye :—
“Goddess serene, transcending every star ;
Queen of the sky, whose beams are seen afar:
By night heaven owns thy sway, by day the grove,
When, as chaste Dian, here thou deign’st to rove;
If e’er myself, or sire, have sought to grace
Thine altars with the produce of the chase,
Speed, speed my cart to pierce yon vaunting crowd
To see my friend, and scatter far the proud.”
Thus having said, the hissing dart he flung ;
Through parted shades the hurling weapon sung;
he thirsty point on Sulmo’s entrails lay,
Mransfix’d his heart, and stretch’d him on theclay
He sobs, he dies,—the troop in wild amaze,
Unconscious whence the death, with horror gaze
While pale they stare, through Tagus’ temples
riven,
A second shaft with equal force is driven ;90 . BYReN’s

Pierce Volscens rolls around his lowering eyes,

Veil’d by the night, secure the Trajan Ties.

Burning with wrath, he view’d his soldiers fall,

“Thou youth accurst, thy life shall pay for all !”

Quick from the sheath, his flaming glaive he
drew,

And, raging, on the boy defenceless flew.

Nisus no more the blackening shade conceals,

Forth, forth he starts, and all his love reveals :

Aghast, confused, his fears to madness rise,

And pours these accents, shrieking as he flies:

“‘Me, me,—your vengeance hurl on me alone;

Here sheathe the steel, my blood is all your own,

Ye starry spheres! thou conscious Heaven !
attest !

He could not—durst not—lo! the guile confest !

All, all was mine,—his early fate suspend : |

He only loved too well his hapless friend : |

Spare, spare, ye chiefs! from him your rage |
remove, a

His fault was friendship, all his crime was love.” i

He pray’d in vain: the dark assassin’s sword

Pierced the fair side, the snowy bosom gored;

Lowly to earth inclines his plume clad crest,

And sanguine torrents mantle o’er his breast ;

As some young rose, whose blossom scents the air,

Languid in death, expires beneath the share ;

Or crimson poppy, sinking with the shower,

Declining gently, falls a ading flower :

Thus, sweetly drooping, bends his lovely head,

And lingering beauty hovers round the dead.

But fiery Nisus stems the battle’s tide, -
Revenge his leader, and despair his guide:POEMS. Ot

Volscens he seeks amidst the gathering host,
Volscens must soon appease his comrade’s ghost ;
Steel, flashing, pours on steel, foe crowds on foe ;
Rage nerves his arm; fate gleams iu every
blow ;
In vain beneath unnumbered wounds he bleeds,
Nor wounds, nor death, distracted Nisus heeds ;
In viewless cireles wheel’d, his falchion flies,
Nor quits the hero’s grasp, till Volscens dies ;
Deep in his throat its end the weapon found,
The tyrant’s soul fled groaning through the
wound.
Thus Nisus all his,fond affection proved—
Dying, revenged the fate of him he loved ;
Then on his bosom sought his wonted place,
And death was heavenly in his friend’s embrace.

Celestial pair! if aught my verse can claim,

Wafted on Time’s broad pinions, yours is fame !

Ages on ages shall your fate admire,

No further day shall see your name expire,

While stands the Capitol—immortal dome,

And vanquish’d millions hail their empress,
Rome.

cece

TRANSLATION FROM THE MEDEA OF
RURIPIDES.

Wuen fierce conflicting passions urge
The breast where love is wont to glow,

What mind can stem the stormy surge,

Which rolls the tide of human woe ?2 BYBON’s

The hope of praise, and dread of shame,
Can rouse the tortured breast no more ;

The wild desire, the guilty flame,
Absorbs each wish it felt before.

But if affection gently thrills

The soul by purer streams possest,
The pleasing balm of mortal ills

In love can soothe the aching breast ;
If thus thon comest in disguise,

Fair Venus ! from thy native heaven,
What heart unfeeling woula despise

The sweetest boon the gods have given?

But never, from the golden bow,
May I beneath the shafts expire,
Whose creeping venom, sure and slow,

Awakes an all-consuming fire :
Ye racking doubts ! ye jealous fears !
With others wage eternal war ;
Repentance, source of future tears,
From me be ever distant far !

«

 

May no distracting thonghts destroy
The holy calm of sacred love !

May all the hours be wing’d with joy,
Which hover faithful heartsabove!

Fair Venus! on thy myrtle shrine
May I with some ford lover sigh,

Whose heart ma mingle pure with mine—
With me to live, with me to die,

 

 

My native soil ! beloved before,
Now dearer as my peaceful home,

vPOEMS.

Ne’er may I quit thy rocky shore,

A

hs

This ve on day, this very hour,

May I resign this fleeting bre ath !
Nor qu ut my r siler nt, humble Be a
A doom to me far worse than ¢

Have I not heard the e ae sigh,
And seen the exile’s silent tear
Through distant climes senders sd to ily,

«A pensive wanderer here ?

Ab ! hapless doom ! no sire bewails,
No friend thy. wretched fate eet

No kindred voice with ra ipture
Ty

Perish the fiend, whose iron heart,
‘No. fair affection’s truth unknowa,

Bids her he fondly loved depart,
Unpitied, helpless, and alone !

Who ne'er unlocks, with silver key,
The milder treasures of his ¢ soul
Maysucha fy ‘iend be far from me,
And ocean’s storms between us roll!

TO A BEAUTIFUL QUA

Swezt girl! though only once we met,
That meeting | shall ne’er forget ;

And though we ne’er may meet again,
Remembrance will t] hy form retain.

Ah apless, banish’d wr etch to roam :

DY step S within as suranger’ 8BYRON S

I would not say, “I love,” but still

My senses struggle with my will:

In vain, to drive thee from my breast, \
My thoughts are more and more represt :
In vain I check the rising sighs,

Another to the last replies ;

Perhaps this is not love, but yet

Our meeting I can ne'er forget.

What though we never silence broke,
Our eyes a sweeter language spoke ;
The tongue in flattering falsehood deals,
And tells a tale it never feels ;
Deceit the guilty lips impart,
And hush the mandates of the heart ;
But soul’s interpreters, the eyes,
Spurn such restraint, and scorn disguise,
As thus our glances oft conversed,
And all‘our bosom felt rehearsed,
No spirit, from within, reproved us,
Say rather, ‘“’twas the spirit moved us,”
Though what they uttered, I repress,
Yet I conceive, thoul’t partly guess ;
For as on thee my memory ponders,
Perchance to me thine also wanders.
This for myself, at least I’ say,
Thy form appears, through night, through

 

if

ay ;

Awake, with it my fancy teems,
In sleep, it smiles in fleeting dreams ; :
The vision charms the hours away, .
And bids me curse Aurora’s ray,

For breaking slumbers of delight,
Which makes me wish for endless night,POEMS.

Since oh, whate'er my future fate,

Shall joy of woe my steps await,
Tempted by love, by storms beset,

Thine image 1 can ne’er forget.

Alas ! again, no more we meet,

No more our former looks repeat ;

Then let me breathe this parting pray’r,
The dictate of my bosom’s care :

“ May heaven so guard my lovely quaker,
That anguish never can o’ertake her ;
That peace and virtue ne’er forsake her ;
But bliss be aye her heart’s partaker ;
Oh ! may the happy mortal, fated

To be by dearest ties related,

For her each hour new joys discover,
And lose the husband in the lover ;

May that fair bosom never know

What ’tis to feel the restless woe

Which stings the soul with vain regret,
Of him who never can forget.”

eee

THOUGHTS SUGGESTED BY A COLLEGE
EXAMINATION.

Hien in the midst, surrounded by his peers,
Magnus his ample front sublime appears:
Placed on his chair of state, he seems a god,
While Sophs and Freshmen tremble at his nod.
As all around sit wrapt in speechless gloom,
His voice in thunder shakes the sounding dome;
Denouncing dire reproach to luckless fools,
Unskill’d to plod in mathematic’s rules.

/BYRON S

Happy the youth in Huclid’s axioms tried,~
Though little versed in any art beside ;
Who scarcely skilled an English line to pen,
Scans Attic metres with a critic’s ken,
What, though he knows not how his father’s
bled,
When civil discord piled the fields with dead,
When Edward bade his conquering bands ad-
vance,
Or Henry trampled on the crest of France ;
Though marvelling at the name of Magna
Charta, .
Yet well he recollects the laws of Sparta ;
Can tell what edicts sage Lycurgus made,
While Blackstone’s on the shelf neglected laid ;
Of Grecian dramas vaunts the deathless fame,
Of Avon’s bard remembers scarce the name.

Such is the youth whose scientific pate
Class honours, medals, fellowships await ;
Or even, perhaps, the declamation prize,
If to such glorious height he lifts his eyes.
But lo ! no common orator can hope
The envied silver cup within his scope.
Not that our heads much eloquence require,
Th’ Athenian’s glowing style, or Tully’s fire.

A manner clear or warm is useless, since

We do not try by speaking to convince.

Be other orators of pleasing proud,

We speak to please ourselves, and not the
crowd ;

Our gravity prefers themuttering tone,

A proper mixture of the squeak and groan.

 

   

 

 

Cais A A tie caPOEMS.

No borrow’d grace or action must be seen

The slightest motion would displease the Dean ;
Whilst every staring graduate would prate
Against what he ne’er could imitate,

The man who hopestoobtain the promised cup
Must in one posture stand, and ne’er look up ;
Nor stop, but rattle over every word—

No matter what, so it cannot be heard,

Thus let him hurry on, nor think to rest ;
Who speaks the fastest ’sure to speak the best ;
Who utters most within the shortest space

May safely hope to win the wordy race.

The sons of science these, who, thus repaid
Linger in ease in Granta’s sluggish shade
Where on Cam’s sedgy banks supine they lie
Unknown, unhonour’d live, unwept for die ;
Dull as the pictures which adorn their halls
They think all learning fix’d within their walls;
In manners rude, in foolish forms precise,
All modern arts affecting to despise ;
Yet prizing Bentley’s, Brunick’s, or Porson’s
note,
More than'the verse on which the critic wrote:
Vain as their honours, heavy as theirale,
Sad as their wit, and tedious as their tale;
To friendship dead, though not untaught to feel
When Self and Church demand a bigot zeal.
With eager haste they court the lord of power,
Whether ’tis Pitt or Petty rules the hour ;
To him, with suppliant smiles, they bend the
head,
While distant mitres to their eyes are spread.
&BYRON’s

eG

"1 18 their practice, such is their re ward ;

   

THE CORNELIAN.

No specious splendour of this stone
Endears it to my memory ever:

With lusture only once it shone,
And blushes modest of the giver.

Some, who can sneer at friendship’s ties
Have, for my weakness oft reprov'd me;
Yet still the simple gift I prize,—
For lam sure the giver loved me.

He offered it with downeast look,
As fearful that I might refuse it ;
I told him when the gift I took;
My only fear should be to lose it.
This pledge attentively I viewed,
And sparkling as I held i¢ near,
Methought one drop the stone bedew’d,
And ever since I’ve loved a tear.

!

Still, to adorn his humble youth,
Nor wealth nor birth their
But he who seeks the tlower of truth,
Must quit the garden for the field.

 

 
   
  
   
  
 
   
 
 
   
  
  
  
  
   
  
 
  
  
 
  
   

Butshould a storm o’erwhelm him with diserace,
They'd fly to seek the man who fill'd his place.
Such are the men who learnin g's treasure gaurd ;
aut

is much, at least, we may presume to say—
premium can’t exceed the price they pay.

 

 

 

pleasures yield sm4
~
ot
and
ro
oS
bod
CD

ig not the plant uy in sloth,
"Which beau by ane and sheds per rrume ;
}

he oe owers which shed the most of both
In Nature’s wild luxuriance bloom.

 

But had the goddess clearly seen,
His form had a her fickle breast ;
a “Gs uid his have been,

  
 

ive the rest.

N OCCASIONAL PROLOGUE

Delivered premous to the performance of the
Wheel of Fortune, at a Private Theatre.

 
  
 

oe y ie im,
she find not fame.
lone, we wish respect,
re conscious of defect ;

t, no veteran Roscii you b ehold,
In all ae hearts of scenic action old;100 BYRON’S

No Cookes, no Kemble, can salute you here :

No Siddons draw the sympathetic tear ;

To-night, you throng to witness the debut

Of embryo actors, to the Drama new ;

Here, then, our almost untlede’d wings we try,

Clip uot our pinions ere the birds can fly ;

Failing in this our first attempt to soar,

Drooping, alas ! we fall to rise no more.

Not one poor trembler only fear betrays,

Who hopes, yet almost dreads to meet your
praise ;

But all our dramatis personze wait

In fond suspense, the crisis of their fate.

No venal views our progress can retard,

Your generous plaudits are our sole reward ;

For those, each hero all his power displays, ’

Hach timid Heroine shrinks before your gaze.

Surely the last will some perfection find,

None to the softer sex can prove unkind ;

While Youth and Beauty from the female shield,

The sternest censor to the fair must yield.

Yet, should our feeble efforts nought avail,

Should, after all, our best endeavours fell ;

Still let some mercy in your bosoms live,

And, if you can’t applaud, at least forgive,

OF THE DEATH OF Mr. FOX,

Lhe following illiberal Impromptu appeared in,
a Morning Paper.

‘ Our nation’s foes lament on Fox’s death,
But bless the hour when Prrr resign’d his breathFORMS.

These feelings wide, let sense and truth wnelue’
We give the palm where Justice points its due.’

To which the Author of these pieces sent the,
following reply.

Ou, factious viper ! whose envenom’d tooth
Would mangle still the dead, perverting truth ;
What though our “nation’s foes” lament the fate
With generous feeling of the good and great,
Shall dastard tongues essay to blast the name
Of him whose meed exists in endless fame ;
When Pirr expin’d in plenitude of power,
Though ill-success obscur’d his dying hour ;
Pity, her dewy wings before him spread,
For noble spirits ‘ war not with the dead ;”
His friends, in tears, a sad requiem gave,
As all his errors slumber'’d in the grave ;
He sunk, an Atlas bending ‘neath the weight
Of cares o’erwhelming our conflicting state :
When, lo ! a Hercules in Fox appeared,
Who for a time the ruined fabric reared :
He, too, is fallen, who Britain’s loss supplied,
With him our fast reviving-hopes have died ;
Not one great people only raise his urn,
All Europe’s far extended regions mourn.
‘These feelings wide, let sense and truth un-
clue,
To give the palm where justice points it due ;”
Yet let not cankered calumny assail,
Or round our statesmen wind her gloomy veil.
Fox ! o’er whose corse a mourning world must
Weep : re
Whose dear remains in honoured marble sleep :BYRON’S

For whom, at last, e’en hostile nations groan,
While friends and foes alike his talents own ;
Fox shall, in Britain’s future annals « shine, |
Nor, e’en to Pirr the patriot’s palm resign ;
Which Envy, wearing iGandour 3 sacred mask ,
For Pritt, and Prrz alone, | has dared to e

THE THAR.

Wuen Friendship or Love our sympathies move,
When Truth in a gla eee should : Beat

The lips may beguile with a ae ple or smile,
But the test of Seto Tear.

Too oft is the smile but the hypocrite’s wile,
To mask detestation or fear ;

Give me the soft sigh, whilst the soul-telling eye
Is dimm’d for a time with a Tear.

Mild Charity’s glow, to us mortals be oe
Shows the soul from barbarity clear ;

Compassion will melt where “this virtue is felt,
And its dew is diffused in a Tear.

The man doom’d to sail with the blast ort the gale
Through billows Atlantic to steer
As he bends o’er the wave which may soon be
his grave
The green sparkles bright with a Tear.

The soldier braves death for a fanciful wreath,
Tn Glory’s romantic career ;POEMS. 103

But he raises the foe when in battle laid low,
And bathes every wound with a Tear.

If with high bounding pride he returns to his
bride,
Renouncing the gore-crimsoned spear,
All his toils are repaid, when embracing the
maid,
From her eyelid he kisses the Tear.

Some scene ofmy youth !seat of Friendship and
Truth,
Where love chas’d each fast fleeting year,
Loth to leave thee, I mourned, for a last look I
turn’d
But thy spire was scarce seen through a tear.

Though my vows I can pay tomy Mary no more
My Mary to LONG once so dear

In the shade of her bower I romemben the hour
She rewarded hele vows with a Tear.

By another possest, may she live ever blest
Her name my heart still must revere ;
With a sigh I resign what I thought once was
mine,
And forgive her deceit with a Tear.

Ye friends of my heart, ere from you 1 depart,
This hope to my breast is more near:

If again we shall meet in this rural retreat,
May we meet as we part, with a Tear.

When my soul wings her flight to the regions of
night,104 BYRON’S

And my corse shall recline on its bier,
And ye pass by the tomb where my ashes con-
sume; :
Oh? moisten their dust with a Tear.

May no marble bestow the splendour of woe
Which the children of vanity rear ;

No fiction of fame shall blazon my name,
All T ask—all I wish—is a Tear.

eee

REPLY TO THE VERSES OF J, PIGOT, Ese.
ON THE CRUELTY OF HIS MISTRESS.

Way, Pigot, complain of this damsel’s disdain,
Why thus in despair do you fret ?

For months you may try, yet, believe me a Sigh
Will never obtain a coquette.

 

Would you teach her to love? foratime seem /
to rove:
At first she may frown in a pet ;
But leave her awhile, she shortly will smile, |
And then you may kisy your coquette.

For such are the airs of these fanciful fairs,
They think all our homage a debt ;

Yet a partial neglect soon takes an effect,
And humbles the proudest coquette.

Dissemble your pain, and lengthen your chain,
And seem her hauteur to regret :

If again you shall sigh, she no more will deny
That your is the rosy coquette,POEMS. 105

If still from false pride, your pangs she deride,
This whimsical virgin forget ;

| Some other admire, who will melt at your fire,
And laugh at the little coquette.

For me, I adore some twenty or more,
And love them most dearly, but yet,
Though my heart they enthral, I’d abandon them

3
Did they act like your blooming coquette.

No longer repine, adopt this design,

And break through her slight-woven net ;
Away with despair, no longer forbear

To fly from the captious coquette.

Then quit her, my friend; your bosom defend,
Bre quite with her snares you're beset :
Lest your deep-wounded heart, when incensed
by the smart,
Should lead you to curse the coquette.

Sree ree

TO THE SIGHING STREPHON.

Your pardon, my friend, if my rhymes did of-
fend,
Your pardon a thousand time o’er ;
From friendship I strove your pangs to remove;
But I swear I will do so no more.

Since your beautiful maid your flame has repaid
No more I your folly regret ;106 BYRON’S

She’s now most divine, and I bow at the shrine
Of this quickly reformed coquette.

Yet still I must own, I should never have
known
From your verses, what else she deserved :
Your pain seemed so great, I pitied your fate ||
As your fair was so devilish reserved.

Since the balm-breaking kiss of this magical
miss
Can such wonderful transports produce ;
Since the “world you forget, when your lips
once have met,
My counsel will eet but abuse. |

 

You say, when “I rove, I know nothing of love;”
i ‘Tis true, I am given to range :
| If I rightly remember, I’ve loved a good num-
ber,
Yet there’s pleasure, at least, in a change.

 

 

I will not advance by the rules of romance,
To humour a whimsical fair ‘
Though a smile may delight, yet a frown wont
affright,
Or drive me to dreadful despair.

While my blood is thus warm I neer shall re-
form,
To mix in the Platonists’ schoo] ;
Of this I am sure, was my passion so pure,
Thy mistress would think me a fool,POEMS. 167

And if I should shun every woman for one,
Whose image must fill my whole breast—

Whom I rush prefer and sigh but for her-
What an insult *twould be to the rest.

Now, Strephon, poor b. bye; I cannot deny
Your passion appears most absurd ;

Such love as you plead dis pure love indeed ;
For it only consists in the word.

TO LIZA.

Errza, what fools are the Mussulman sect ;
Who to woman deny the soul’s future exist-

ence ;
Could they see thee, Eliza, they'd own their de-
fect,
And this doctrine would meet with a gener
resistance.

Had the prophet possessed half an atom of sense,
He ne’er would have woman from Paradise
driven
Instead of this houris, a flimsy pretence,
With women alone he had aint »d his heaven.

Yet still to increase your calamities more,
Nor content to deprive your bodies of spirit,
He allots one poor husband to share amongst
four ;
With souls you'd dispense ; but this last, who
could bear it ?

emate.. eoe108 BYRON’S

 
  

His religion to please neither party is made:

civil ;
Still I can’t contradict, what so oft has been said,
“Though women are angels, yet wedlock’s the
devil.”

 

‘ LACHIN Y GAIR.

Away, ye gay landscape, ye garden of roses :
In you let the minions of luxury rove;
Rostore me the rocks, where the snow-flake re-
poses,
Though still they are sacred to freedom and
love ;

One husband ’tis hard, to the wives most und |

 

 

Yet, Caledonia beloved are thy mountains,
Round their while summits though elements
war ;
Though cataracts foam ’stead of smooth-flowing
5) fountains,
I sigh for the valley of dark Loch na Gair.

   
   
 
   
   
   

der’d ;
My cap was the bonnet, my cloak was the
laid ;

der’d,
E As daily I strode through the pine-covered
glade :

ti Ah! there my young footsteps in infancy wan- |

p |
On chieftains leag perish’d my memory pon- |POEMS, 109

I sought not my home till the day’s dy
Gave place to the rays of the br
< Star ;
For fancy was cheered by traditional story,
Disclosed by the natives of dark Loch na
Gair.

ying glory
ight polar

“Shades of the dead: have I not heard your
voices
Rise on the knight-rolling breath of the gale?”
Surely the soul of the hero rejoices,
And rides on the wind o’er his own Highland
vale.
Round Loch na Gair while the stormy mist ga-
thers,
Winter presides in his cold icy car :
Clouds there encircle the forms of my fathers:

They dwell in the tempests of dark Loch an
Gair.

“Ill starr’d, though brave, did no visions fore-
boding.
Tell you that fate had forsaken your cause ?
Ah ! were you destined to die at Culloden,
Victory crown’d not your fall with applause .

Still were you happy in death’s earthly slum-
3
You rest with your clan in the caves of Brae -
mar :
The pibroch resounds, to the piper’s loud num-
ber,
Your deeds on the echoes of dark Loch na
Gair.7 1 as ¥ f.
Years have roll’d on, Loch na Gair, since I left
you,
Years must elapse ere I tread you again,

Nature of verdure and flowers have bereft you, ||

Yet stillare you dearer than Albion’s plain.

England ! thy beauties are tame and domestic

To one who has roved on the mountains afar:

Oh! for the crags that are wild and majestic:
The steep frowning glories of dark Loch na
Gair.
f

%
TO ROMANCE.

Parent of golden dreams, Romance ;
Auspicious queen of childish joys,
Who lead’st along, in airy dance,
Thy votive train of girls and boys.
At length in spells no longer bound,
I break the fetters of my youth;
No more I tread thy mystic round,
But leave thy realms for those of Truth,

And yet *tis hard to quit the dreams
Which haunt the unsuspicious soul,
Where every nymph a goddess seems,
Whose eyes through rays immortal roll :
While fancy holds her boundless reign,
And all assumes a varied hue:
When virgins seem no longer vain,
And even woman’s smiles are true.

 

)
'POEMS,

And must we own thee but a name,
And from thy hall of clouds descend 2
Nor find a sylph in every dame,
A Pylades in every friend ?
But leave at once thy realms of air
To mingling bands of fairy elves;
Confess that woman’s false as fair,
And friends have feeling for—themselves?

With shame I own I’ve felt thy sway
Repentant, now thy reign is o’er:
No more thy precepts I obey,
No more on fancied pinions soar.
Fond fool ! to love a Sparkling eye,
And think that eye to truth was dear 3
‘To trust a passing wanton’s sigh,
And melt beneath a wanton’s tear :

Romance ! discusted with deceit,
Far from thy motly court I tly,

Where affectation holds her seat,
And sickly sensibility ;

Whose silky tears can never flow
For any pangs excepting thine ;

Who turns aside from real woe,
To steep in dew thy shrine.

Now join in sable sympathy,
With cypress crown’d, array’d in weeds,
Who heaves with thee or simple sigh,
Whose breast for every bosom bleeds :
And call thy sylvan female choir,
To mourn a swain for ever gone,
Who once could glow with equal fire,
But bends now before thy throna,aa Pri Se eee

   

   
  
  

112 BYRON’S

  

Ye genial nymphs, whose ready tears
On all occasions swiftly flow ;

Whose bosoms heave with fancied fears,
With fancied flames and phrensy glow;

Say, will you mourn my absent name,
Apostate from your gentle train ?

An infant bard at least may claim

From you a sympathetic strain.

 
   
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 

‘| Adieu, fond race ; a long adieu ; |

The hour of fate is hovering nigh ;

H’en now the gulf appears in view,
Where unlamented you must lie:

Oblivion’s blackening lake is seen,
Convulsed by gales you cannot whether ;

Where you, and eke your gentle queen,
Alas ! must perish together.

(Stee eres Cn

ANSWER TO SOME ELEGANT VERSES

. Sent by a friend to the Author, complaining
| that one of his own Descriptions was rather too
warmly drawn.

Canpbour compels me, Becher, to commend

The verse which blends the censor with his
friend, '

Your strong but just reproof exhorts applause

From me, the heedles and imprudent cause,

For this wild error which pervades my strain,

I sue for pardon,—must 1 sue in vain ?

  

 

repr i a pinPOEMS, Pig
lhe wise sometimes from Wisdom’s ways de-

outh then hush the dictates of the heart ?

prudence curb, but can’t control,

"he fierce emotions of a fio owing soul,

When love’s deliri ium haunts the glowing mind,

ee ng decorum lingers far behind ; ;

a the dotard mends her prudish pace,

Outstripp’d and vanquished in the mental chase.

Th re young, the old, have worn the chains of love:

Let those whose souls contemn the pleasing

power,

Their censures on the hapless victim shower.

} Oh! how I hate the nerveles 8s, frigid song,

| The ceaseless echo of the rhyming throng,

| Whose labour’d lines in chilling “numbers flow,

To paint a pang the author ne’er can know ;

The heartless Helicon I boast his youth ;—

My lyre, the heart ; my muse, the simple truth.

| Har be’t from me the “virgin’s mind to train ;”

| Seduction’s dread is here no slight restraint.

_ The maid whose virgin breast is void of guile,

| Whose wishes dimple in a modest smile,

| Whose downcast eyes disdains the wanton leer,

: Firm in her virtue’sstrength, yet not severe—

1S] he, whom acon eae grace shall thus refine,

| Will ne’er be Hiei bya a strain of mine.

i But for the nymph whose premature desires

| Torment her sosom wit h unt holy fires,

| No net to snare her willing heart is spread ;

‘She would have fallen, though she ne’er ‘had
read.

For me, I fain would please the chosen few,

| Whose souls, to feeling and to nature true,

H

 

 

    

yyPe igh Ck Mee eit

  

BYRON A

 
  
 

i Will spare the childish verse, and not destroy
| The light effusions of a heedless boy, ,

| 1 seek not glory from the senseless crowd ;
Of fancied laurels I shall ne’er be proud ;
Their warmest plaudits I would scarcely prize,
Their sneers or censures I alike despise,

 
 
  
 
  
  
   
    
 
 
 
  
 
 
  
   
 
 
  

{ ELEGY ON NEWSTEAD ABBBRY.
Newstwan : fast falling, once resplendent dome,
‘ciigion’s shrime: tepentant Uxnry’s pride ,
3f warriors, monks, and dames the cloister’d
tomb,

Whose pensive shades around thy ruin glide.

 

Hail to thy pile! more honour’d in thy fall
Than modern mansions in their pillar’d state ;

Proudly majestic frowns thy vaulted hall,
Scowling defiance on the blasts of fate.

 

No mail clad serfs obedient to their lord,
In grim array, the crimson cross demand ;
Or gay assemble round the festive board
Their chief retainers, an immortal band.

Else might inspiring Fancy’s magic eye
Retrace their progress through the lapse of
time ;
Making each ardent youth ordain’d to die,
A votive pilgrim in Judea’s clime.

 

But not from thee, dark pile : departs the chief:
His feudal realm in other regions lay ;POEMS.

In thee the wounded conscience seeks relief,
Retiring from the garish blaze of day.

Yes; in the gloomy cells and shades profound,
The monk abjured a world be ne’er could
view ;
Or blood stained guilt repenting solace found,
Or innocence from stern oppression flew.

A monarch bade thee from that wild arise, j sae
Where Sherwood’s outlaws once were wont to ee
prowl,
And Superstition’s crimes of various dyes,
Sought shelter in the priest’s protecting cowl.

Where now the grass exhale a murkey dew,
The humid pall of life extinguished clay,

In sainted fame the sacred fathers grew,
Nor raised their pious voices but to pray.

Where now the bats their wavering wings ex-
tend
Soon as the gloaming spreads her waning
shade,
The choir did oft their mingled vespers bend,
Or matin orisons to Mary paid.

Years roll on years ; to ages, ages yield;
Abbots to abbots, in a line, succeed ;
Religion’s charter their protecting shield,

Till royal sacrilege their doom decreed.

One Henry rear’d the gothic walls,
And bade the pious inmates rest in peace ;BYRON’S

  
  
 
   
    
  
   
   
    
  
     
   
   
  
  

Another Henry the kind gift recalls,
And bids deyotion’s hallowed echoes cease.

Vain is each threat or supplicating prayer ;

He drives them exiles from their blest abode,
oa weary world in deep despair—

No friend, no home, no refuge, but their God.

Hark now the hall, resounding to the strain,
f Shakes with the martial music’s novel din ;
The heralds of a warrior’s haughty reign,

: High crested banners wave thy wall within.

Of changing sentinels the distant hum,
The mirth of feasts, the clan of burnish’d
arms,
ot The braying trumpet, and the hoarser drum, :

Unite in concert with increased alarms.

An abbey once, a royal fortress now, ;
Eneircled by insulting rebel powers, )

Wars dread machines o’erhang thy threat’ning

i} brow

And dart destruction in sulphureous showers.

Ah vain defence ! the hostile traitor’s Siege,

Though oft repuls’d, by guile o’ercomes the
brave,

His thronging foes oppress the faithful liege,

Rebellion’s recking standards o’er him wave

Not unavenged the raging baron yields ;
The blood of traitors smears the purple plain;
Unconquer'd sfill, his falchion there he wields,
And days of glory yet for him remains,POEMS,

Still in that hour the warrior wished to strew
Self gathered laurels on a self sought grave;
But Charles’ protecting genius hither flew,
The monarch’s s friend, { the monarch’s hope, to
save

Trembling s atch’d him from the unequal
strife,
In other fields the torrents to repel ;
For noble combats, here, reserved his life,
To lead the band where godlike Falkland fell.

From thee, poor pile! to lawless plunder given
While dying groans their painful requiem
sound,
Far different incense now ascends to heaven,
Such victims wallow on the gory ground.

There many a pale and ruthless robber’s corse
Noisome and ghast defies the sacred sod:
O’er mingling man, and horse commix’d with
horse,
Corruption’s heap, the savage spoilers trod.

Graves, long with rank and sighing weeds o’er-
spread,
Ransack’d, resign perforce their mortal mould;
From ruffian fangs sSeape not e’en the dead,
Raked from Tepore t to search for buried gold.

Hush’d is the h harp, unstrung the warlike lyr
The minstrel’s palsied ha and reclines in de oh
No more he strikes the quivering chords with
fire,
Or sings the glories of the martial wreath.{is BYRON

At length the sated murderers gorged with prey
Retire: the clamour of the fight is o’er:
Silence again resumes her awful sway,
And sable horror guards the massy door.

Here desolation holds her dreary court:
What satalites declare her dismal reign ;

Shrieking the dirge, ill-omen’d birds resort,
To flirt their vigils in the hoary fane.

Soon a new morn’s restorning beams dispel
The clouds of anarchy from Britain’s skies;
The fierce usurper seeks his native hell,
And nature triumphs as the tyrant dies.

With storms she welcomes his inspi ring groans ;
Whirlwinds, responsive, greet his labouring
breath ; .
Earth shudders as her caves receives his bones,
Loathing the offering of so dark a death.

The legal ruler now assumes the helm,
He guides through gentle seas the prow of

State ;
Hope cheers, with wonted smiles, the peaceful
realm,
And heals the bleeding wounds of wearied
hate.

The gloomy tenants, Newstead! of thy cells,
owling, resign their violated nest :
Again, the master on his tenure dwells,

Enjoy’d from absence with enraptur’d rest.

Vassals, within thy hospitable pale,
Loudly carousing, bless their lord’s return ;PoRMS, 11g

Culture again adorns the gladdening vale,
And matyrons, once lamenting, cease to mourn.

A thousand songs on tuneful echo float,
Unwonted foliage mantles o’er the trees ;
a3: 4 a a ‘
And hark! the horn proclaims a mellow note,
The hunter’s cry hangs lengthening on the
breeze.

Beneath their coursers’ hoofs the valleys oo. :
hat fears, what anxious hopes attend tk

The dying stag seeks refuge in the an :
isi shouts announce the finished race.

Ah! happy days! too happy to endure!
Such simple ‘sports our plain forefathers knew,
No splendid vices glittered to allure ;
Their joys were many as their ¢ a vere few.

}

From these descending, sons to sires succeed ;
i é i death uprears his dart ;
Another chief impels the foaming steed,
Another browd pursues the panting hart.

Newstead! what saddening change of scené is
thine!
The yawning arch beteken slow decay,
The last and youngest of a noble line, .
Now holds thy mouldering turrets 1 in his sway.

Deserted now, he scans thy gay-worn towers ;
Thy vaults, where dead of feudal ages sleep ;
Thy cloisters, pervious to the wintry showers ;
These, these, he views, and views them but to

weep.120 BYRON’S

Yet are his tears no emblem of regret ;
Cherish’d affection only bids them flow,
Pride, hope, and love, forbids him to forget,
But warm his bosom with impassion’d glow.
Yet he prefers thee to the gilded domes,
Or gew-gaw grottes of the vainly great ;
Yet lingers ’mid thy damp and mossy tombs,
Nor breathes a murmur ’gainst the will of
fate.

Haply thy sun, emerging, yet may shine,
Thee to irradiate with meridian ray;

Hours splendid as the past may still be thine,
And bless thy future as thy former day.

 

CHILDISH RECOLLECTIONS.

Wuen slow disease, with all her host of pains,
Chills the warm tide that flows along the veins;
When health affrighted, Spreads her rosy wing,
And flies with every changing gale of spring;
Not to the aching frame alone confined,
Unyielding pangs assail the drooping mind;
What grisly forms, tlte spectre train of woe,
Bid shuddering nature shrink beneath the blow,
With resignation wage relentless strife,
While hope retires appall’d, and clings to life,
Yet less the pang, when through the tedious
hour

Remembrance sheds around her genial power,

  
    
  
  
  
  
    
 
  
  
 
 
   
   
   
  
 
 
  
   
   

alae<

      
 
   
    
 
  
 
 
  
    
 
  
  
  
 
  
  
  
  
  
  
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 

PeEMS, 123

Calls back the vanished days to rapture civen,

When love was bliss, and beauty formed our
heavn ;

* dear to youth, pourtrays each childish scene,

208¢ fairy bowers, where all in turns have been,
As when through clouds that pour the summer

storm, |

The orb of day unveils his distant form, \
Gilds with faint beams the crystal dews of rain,
And dimly twinkles o’er the watery plain;
Thus, while the future dark and chéerless gleams
The sun of memory, glowi g through my dreams,
Though sunk the radiance of his former blaze,
To scenes far distant points his paler rays ; ‘
Still rules my senses with unbounded sway,

The past confounding with the present day.

heen

Ne

4iU

Oft does my heart indulge the rising thought,
Which still occurs, unlook’d fi xr, and unsought ;
My soul to Fancy’s fond suggestion yields,

And roams romantic o’er the airy fields.

Scenes of my youth, developed, drown’d to view, :
To which I long have bade a last adieu: *
Seats of delight, inspiring youthful themes: .
Friends lost to me for aye, except in dreams ;

Some ones in marble prematurely sleep,
Whose forms I now remember but to weep:
Some who yet urge the same scholastic course }
Of early science, future fame the source; ’
Who still contending in the studious race,

In quick rotation fill the senior place.

These, with a thousand visions now unite,

Lo dazzle, though they please my aching sight.122 BYRON’S

{pa ! blest spot, where science holds her reign,
How joyous once I joined thy youthful train ;
Bright in idea gleams thy lofty spire,

Again I mingle in thy tuneful quire ;

Our tricks of mischief, every childish game,
Unchanged by time or distance, seem the same; |
Through winding paths along the glade I trace
The social smile of every welcome face ;

My wonted haunts, my scenes of joy and woe,
Hach early boyish friend, or youthful foe,
Our feuds dissolved, but not my friendship past, }
I bless the former, and forgive the last. |
Hours of my youth ! when nurturediin my breast,
‘To love a stranger, friendship made me blest ;—
Friendship, the dear peculiar bond of youth, |
When every artless bosom burns with truth;
Untaught by worldly wisdom how to feign,
And check each impulse with prudential reign; |
When all we feel, our honest gouls disclose—

in love to friends, in open hate to foes:

No varnished tale the lips of youth repeat,

No dear bought knowledge purchased by deceit,
Hypocrisy, the gift of lengthened. years

 

eS
Matured by age, the garb of prudence wears. |
When now the boy is ripen’d into man,
His careful sire chalks forth some wary plan;
Instructs his son from candour’s path to shrink,
Smoothly to speak, and cautiously to think ;
Still to assent, and never to deny—
«A patron’s praise can well reward the lie:
And who, when fortune’s warning voice is heard,
Would lose his opening prospects for a word 2
Although against that word his heart rebel,
And truth indignant all his bosom swell.POEMS. 1s

Away with themes like this; not mine the task
From flattering fiends to tear the hateful mask ;
Let keener bards delight in satire’s sting ;

My fancy soars not on Detraction’s wing :
Once, and but once, she aim’d a deadly blow,
To hurl defiance on a secret foe:

But when that foe, from feeling or from shame,
The cause unknown, but still to me the same,
Warn’d by some friendly hint, perchance retired,
With this submission all her rage expired,
From dreadful pangs that feeble foe to save,
She hush’d her young resentment, and forgave ;
Or, if my muse a pedane’s portrait drew,
Pompoeus’ virtues are known but to few ;

I never fear’d the young usurper’s nod,

Aud he who wields must sometimes feel the rod.
If since on Granta’s failings, known to all
Who share the converse of a college hall,

She sometimes trifled on a lighter strain,

"Tis past, and thus she will not sin again,

Soon must her early song for ever cease,

And all may rail when I shall rest in peace.

Here first remember’d be the joyous band,
Who hail’d me chief, obedient to command ;
Who join’d with me in every boyish sport—
Their first adviser, and their last resort ;

Nor shrunk beneath the upstart pedant’s frown,
Or all the sable glories of his gown ;

Who thus transplanted from his father’s school—

Unfit to govern, ignorant of rule—
Succeeded him, whom all unite in praise,
The dear preceptor of my early days;124

Probus, the pride of science, and the boast,

To Ida now, alas! for ever lost.
With him, for years, we search’d the classic page,
And fear’d the master, though we lov’d the sage |
Retired at last, his. small yet peaceful seat
From learning’s labour is the blest retreat.
Pomposus governs,—but, my muse, forbear ;
Contempt, in silence, be the pedant’s lot;
His name and precepts be alike forgot ; +
No more his mention shall my verse degrade,—!
To him my tribute is already paid. } |

Sis aif DE

High through those elms with hoary branches|
coo) 3
drown’d,
Fair Ida’s bower adorns the landscape round ;
There Science, from her favour’d seat surveys
The yale where rural nature claims her praise;
To her awhile resigns her youthful train,
Who move in joy, and dance along the plain ;
JOYS ee as
In scattered groups each favour’d haunt pursue ;
Repeat old pastimes, and discover new:
Flush’d with his rays, beneath the noontide sun, _ })
In rival bands, between the wickets run
. ° ¢ . . 2
Drive o’er the sward the ball with active force
17 . . « 7
Or chase with nimble feet its rapid course.
But these with slower steps direct their way,
Where Brent's cool waves in limpid currents

stray ; i
While yonder few search out some green re-

treat, '
And arbours shade them from the summer’s |

heat ; l

Others, again, a pert and lively crew,
Some rough and thoughtless stranger placed in
view ;With frolic qqraintt their antic jests e

And teach th

Tradition treasures

ee ae

"fo ught,

And here we earn’d the

Here have we

2
was here the ga ther’c

POEMS.

expose,

grumbling rustic as he goes;
Nor rest with this, but m:

ny a passing fay
pure ns
Swains for vengeance

£.

a7

al
¥ fr
tor il
z
a

conquest dearly bought;

e fled before superior might,

And here renewed the wild, tumultuous fight.”
While thus our sou

In lin gern

The alloted | hour of
And Learning beckons fan her temple’ s door,
No sph lendid tablets grace her simple hall,

But ruder records fill
There, deeply car v ue behold ! each tyro’s

Seeure’s its owne

Here mingling view th
one lon g eraved,

The

These shall survive
Beneath one common stroke of fate expire;

Perhaps their last

De ented 1 in death a

g tones resound t

c

alee

; memorial these

ls with ea rly passion 8 swell,
a distant bell:

daily sy rt is o'er,

the dusky wall;

S name
academic fame;

names of sire and son,
the other just beoun;
when son and sire

e alone,
onumental stone,

in mournful cadence wave,

m

Whilst to the gale i

The sighing weeds
orave.

And here

that hide their nameless

my name, and many an early friend’s,

Along the wall in lengthened line extends,
Though still our deeds amuse the youthful race,

Who tread our ste
Who young obeyec

Dp
i
d

S,
+
uU

and fill our ene place,
heir lords in silent awe,

Whose nod commanded, and whose will was

law ;BYRON’S

 

126

 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

And now, in turn, possess the reins of power,
To rule—the little tyrants of an hour ;
Though sometime, with the tales of ancient |
day,
They pass the dreary. winter’s eve away—
“ And thus our former rulers stemm’d the tide,
And thus they dealt the combat side by side ;
Just in this place the mouldering walls they |
scaled, i
Nor bolts nor bars against their strength avail’d.
Here Probus came, the rising fray to quell,
And here he faltered forth his last farewell ;
And here one night abroad they dared to roam, |
While bold Pomposus bravely stay’d at home :”
. While thus they speak the hour must soon ar- |
rive,
When names of these, like ours, alone survive;
Yet a few years, one general wreck will whelm
The faint resemblance of our fairy realm.

Dear honest race! though now we meet no
| more
One last long look on what we were before—
Our first kind greetings, and our last adieun—
Drew tears from eyes unused to weep with you.
Through splendid circles, fashion’s gaudy world,
Where Folly’s glaring standard waves unfurl’d,
I plunged to drown in noise and fond regret,
And all I sought or hoped was to forget.
Vain wish! if chance some well-remembered
face,
Some old companion of my early race,
| Advanced to claim his friend with honest joy,
| My eyes, my heart, proclaimed me still a boy ;fhe glittering scene—the fluttering groups
around,

Were quite forgotten when my friend was found.

The smiles of beauty—(for, alas! I’ve known

What ’tis to bend before Love’s mighty throne,)

The smiles of beauty, though these smiles were
dear,

Could hardly charm me, when this friend was
near ;

My thoughts bewildered in the fond surprise,

The woods of [da danced before my eyes:

I saw the sprightly wanderers pour along,

I saw and join’d again the joyous throng ;

Panting, again I traced her lofty grove,

And friendship’s feelings triumph'd over love.

Yet, why should I alone with such delight,
Retrace the cireuit of my former flight ?
Is there no cause beyond a common claim,
Endeared to all in childhood’s very name?
Ah ! sure some stronger impulse vibrates here,
Which whispers friendship must be doubly dear
To one who thus for kindred hearts must roam,
And seek abroad the love denied at home.
hose hearts, dear Ida, I have found in thee—
A home, a world, a paradise to me.
Stern Death forbade my orphan youth te share
The tender guidance of a father’s care.
Can rank, or e’en a guardian’s name supply
The love which glistens in a father’s eye ?
For this can wealth or title’s sound atone,
Made, by a parent’s early loss my own ?
What brother springs a brother's love to seek ?
What sister’s gentle kiss has prest my cheek ?128 BYRON S

To no fond bosom link’d by kindred ties,

Oft in the progress of some fleeting dream

Hraternal smiles collected round me seem:

While still the visions to my heart are prest,

The voice of love will murmur in my rest ;

I hear—I wake—and in the sound rejoice ;

I hear again—but ah! no brother's voice.

A hermit, midst of crowds, I fain must stray

Alone, though thousand pilgrim’s fill the way ;

While these a thousand kindred wreath’s en-
twine,

I cannot call onesingle blossom mine:

What then remains? in solitude to groan,

‘lo mix in friendship, or to sigh alone.

Thus must I cling to some endearing hand,

And none more dear than Ida’s social band.

Hor me how dull the vacant moments rise,

Alonzo, best and dearest of my friends,

Thy name enobles him who thus commends:
From this fond tribute thou’ canst gain no
praise ;

The praise is his who now that tribute pays.

Oh! inthe promise of thy early youth,

If hope anticipate the word of truth,

Some loftier bard shall sing thy glorious name,

To build his own upon thy deathless fame.

Friend of my heart, and foremost of the list,

Of those with whom I lived, supremely blest,

Oft have we drain’d the font of ancient lore ;

Though drinking deeply, thirsting still the
more,

Yet, when confinement’s lingering hour was
done ;

Oursports, our studies, and our souls were one;

 

ci al aa aia etPOEMS,

Together we impelledthe flying ball ;
| Together waited in our tut: ors hall ;
Tos ether Joined the cricket’s m anly toil,
ed e ce 0 e S spol.
| Or shared the produce of the river's il
Or, plunging from the green declining shore,
Our ‘pliant limbs the b uoyant billows bore ;
Inevery element, unchanged, the same,
All, all that brothers should be, but the name.
Nor yet are you forgot, miy jocund boy:
Davus, the harbinger of Bue Jo ;
For ever foremost in the ranks of fun
2
The laughing herald of the harmless foe ‘
Yet with a breast of such materials made—
Anxious to please, of pleasing half afraid :
> i 2
Candid and bee al oe a ee of sti eel
In danger’s path, tive ot untanght to feel.
Still | pemeniber. in th ae tious strif .,
‘The rustic’s gsc vim’d against my life:
High poised in air the massy weapon hung,
A cry of horror Haake from every tongue ;
ef
While I, in combat with e nother foe,
Fought on, unconscious of th’ impending blow;
S
Your arm, brave boy, arrested his career —
Forward you sprung, insensible to fear ;
Disarm’d and bafiled by your conquering hand,
The grovelling savage roll’d upon the sand :
An act like this, can simple thanks repay ?
Or all the labours of a gi rateful lay ?
Oh no! whene’er my breast forgets the deed,
That instant, Davus, it deserves to bleed:

 

—

Lycus! to me thy claims are doubly great :
Thy milder virtues could my muse relate, ,
I130 BYRON’S

To thee alone, unrivall’d, would belong
The feeble efforts of my lengthen’d song.
Well canst thou boast, to lead in senates fit,
A Spartan firmness with Athenian wit:
‘hough yet in embryo these perfections shine,
Lycus ! thy father’s fame will soon be thine,
Where learning nurtures the superior mind,
What may we hope from genius thus refined ?
When time at length matures thy growing years,
How wilt thon tower above thy fellow peers !
Prudence and sense, a spirit bold and free,
With honour’s sonlunited beam in thee.

Shall fair Eurylus pass unsung
From ancient lineage, not unworthy sprung ;
What thongh one sad dissension bade us part,
That name is yet embalmed within my heart ;
Yet at the mention does that heart rebound,
And palpitate responsive to the sound.
Envy dissolved our ties, and not our will;
We once were friends—I'll think we are sostill.
A form unma'ch’d in nature’s partial mould,
A heart untainted, we in thee behold:
Yet not the senate’s thunder thou shalt wield,
Nor seek for glory in the tented field ;
To minds of ruder texture these be given—
Thy soul shall nearer soar its native heaven.
Haply, in polish’d courts, might be thy seat,
But that thy tongue could never forge deceit :
The courtier’s supple bow and sneering smile,
The flow of compliment, the slippery wile,
Would make that breast in indignation burn,
And all the glittering snares to tempt thee

spurn,Domestic happiness will stamp thy fate ;
Sacred to love, unclouded e’er by hate ;
The world admires thee, and thy friends adore:
Ambition’s slave alone would toil for more.

Now last, but nearest, of the social band,
See honest, open, generous Cleon stand ;
With scarce one speck to cloud the pleasing

scene,

No vice degrades that purest soul serene.
On the same day our studious race begua,
On the same day our studious race was run ;
Thus side by side we pass‘d our first career,
Thus side by side we strove for many an year ;
At last concluded our scholastic life,
As speakers e1ch support an equal name,
And crowds allow to both a partial fame.
To soothe a youthful rival’s early pride,
Though Cleon’s candour would the palm divide,
Yet candour’s self compeis me not to own
Justice awards it to my friend alone.

Oh ! friends reeretted, scenes for ever dear,
Remembrance hails you with her warmest tear:
Drooping she bends o’er pensive Fancy’s urn,
To trace the hours which never can return :
Yet with retrospection loves to dwell,

And soothe the sorrows of his last farewell,
Yet greets the triumph of a boyish mind,

As infant laurels round my head were twined,
When Probus’ praise repaid my lyri¢ song,
Or placed mehigher in the studious throng ;
Or when my first harangue receive applause,
His sage instruction my primeval cause.BYRON’S

What gratitude to him my soul possest,

While hope of dawning honours filled my breast ;

For all my humble fame to him alone

The praise is due, who made that fame my own,

Oh; could I soar above these feeble lays,

These young effusions of my early days,

To him my muse her noblest strain would give;

The song might perish, but the theme might
live. .

Yet why for him the needless verse essay 2

Tlis honour’d name requires no vain display ;

By every grateful son of Ida blest,

Jt finds an echo in each youthful breast ;

A fame beyond the glories of the proud,

Orall the plaudits of the venal crowd.

Ida ! not yet exhausted is the theme,
Nor closed the progress of my youthful dream,
How many a friend deserves the grateful strain:
What scenes of childhood yet unsung remain,
Yet let me hush the echo of the past,
‘his parting song, the dearest and the last ;
And brood in secret o’er those hours of joy,
To me a silent anda sweet employ,
While future bope and fear alike unknown,
I think with pleasure on the past alone;
Yes, to the past my heart alone confine,
And chase the phantom of what once was mine,

Ida! still o’er thy hills in joy preside,
And proudly steer through times eventful tide,
Still may thy blooming sons thy home revere,
Smile in thy bower, but quit thee witha tear :POEMS»

That tear, perhaps, the fondest which willfiow,
O’er this last scene of happiness below,
Tell me ye hoary few, who glide along,
The feeble veterans of some former throng,
Whose friends, like autumn leaves by tempests
whirl’d

. Are swept for ever from this busy world ;

. Revolve the fleeting moments of her youth,
While care has yet withheld her venom’d tooth;

| Say if remembrance days like these endears

_ Beyond the rapture of succeeding years ?

| Say, can ambition’s fever’d dream bestow

' So sweet a balm to soothe your hours of woe ?

) Can treasures hoarded for some thankless son,

) On royal smiles, or wreaths by slaughter won,

) Can stars of ermine, man’s maturer toys,

| (For glittering baubles are not left to boys,)

_ Recall one scene so much beloved to view,

. As those where youth her garland twined for

ou.

. Ab, no! amidst the gloomy calm of age

| You turn with faltering hand life’s varied page ;

| Peruse the record of your days on earth,

| Unsullied only where it works your birth ;

| Still lingering pause above each chequer’d leaf,

. And blot with tears the sable lines of grief ;

' Where Passion o’er the theme her mantle threw,

} Or weeping virtue sigh’d a faint adieu; ©

| But blest the scroll which fairer words adorn,

' Traced by the rosy finger of the morn :

' When Friendship. bowed before the shrine of

truth
. And Love, without his pinion, smiled on youth.

lBY AON’S

ANSWER TO A BEAUTIFUL POEM,
ENTITLED “ THE COMMON LOT.”

Monteomery ! true the common lot
Of mortals lies in Lethe’s wave;

Yet some shall never be forgot—
Some shall exist beyond the grave.

“ Unknown the region of his birth,”
The hero rolls the tide of war;
Yet not unknown his martial worth,
Which glares a meteor from afar.

His joy, or grief, his weal or woe,
Perchance may ’scape the page of fame ;
Yet nations now unborn will know
The record of his deathless name.

The patriot’s and the poet’s frame,
Must share the common tomb of all :

Their glory will not sleep the same;
That will arise, though empires fall.

The lustre of a beauty’s eye

Assumes the ghastly stare of death ;

The fair, the brave, the good must die;
And sink the yawning grave beneath.

Once more the speaking eye revives,

Still speaking through the lover’s strain,
For Petrarch’s Laura still survives :
She died, but ne’er will die again,POEMS.

‘he rolling seasons pass away,
And time, untiring, weaves his wing;
Whilst honour’s laureis ne'er decay,
But bloom in fresh, unfading spring.

And ali must sleep in grim repose,
Collected in the silent tomb ;

The old and young, with friends and foes,
Festering alike in shrouds, consume.

The mouldering marble lasts its day,
Yet falls at length a useless fane ;
To ruin’s ruthless fangs a prey.
The wrecks of pillar’d pride remain.

What, though the sculpture be destroy’d,
From dark oblivion meant to guard;
A bright renown shali be enjoy d
By those whose virtue claims reward.

Then do not say the common lot
Of all lies deep in Lethe’s wave ;
Some few who ne’er shall be forgot
Shall burst the bondage of the grave.

LINES

Addressed to the Rev. J. T. Becher, on his advis-

ing the Author lo mex more with socrety.

  

Dear Becher, you tell me to mix with man-

-kind ;—
I cannot deny such a precept is wise ;BYRON’?

 
   
  
  
    
  
  
    
  
 
 
    
 
 
  
    
  
  
   

But retirement accords wit!
mind :
I will not descend to a world I despise.

1 the tone of my

Did the senate or camp my exertions require,
Ambition might prompt me
forth ;

» av one, to go
When Infancy’s years

of probation expire,
Perchance I may strive to distinguish my
birth,

The fire in the cavern of Etna conceal’d
Still mantles unseen in its secret recess :-—
At length in a volume terrific reveal’d,

No current can quench it, no bounds can re-

dress.
Oh ! thus the desire in my bosom for fame
Bids me live but to hope for posterity’s praise,
Could

i
I soar with the phoenix on pinions of

Vith hix

Hor the life of a Fox, of a Chatham, the death,
What censure, what danger, what woe would
brave ;
Their lives did not end when they yielded their
reath ;
glory illumines the gloom of their
grave.

ene
Their

Yet why should I mingle in Fashion’s full herd?
hy crouch to her leaders, or cringe to her
rules ?POEMS, 187

Why bend to the proud, or applaud the absurd?
Why search for delight in the friendship of
fools?

I have tasted the sweets and the bitters of love;
In friendship I early was taught to believe ;
My passion the matrons of prudence reprove ;
I have found that a friend may profess, yet
deceive.

| To me what is wealth? it may pass in an hour,
If tyrants prevail, or if Fortune should
frown ;
' To me what is title ? the phantom of power:
To me what is fashion?—I seek but renown.

{ Deceit is a stranger as yet to my soul;
I still am unpractised to varnish the truth:
| Then why shoutd I live in a hateful control ?
Why waste upon folly the days of my youth?

ere

THE DEATH OF CALMAR AND ORLA,
In Imitation of Macpherson's Ossian.

| Dear are the days of youth! Age dwells on
(their remembrance through the midst of time.
]In the twilight he recails the sunny hours of
¢morn. He lifts his spear with trembling hand.
'“ Not thus feebly did I raise the steel before my
‘fathers ;” Past his the race of heroes! But
i their fame rises on the harp; their souls ride
(on the wings of the wind; they bear the sound

   
   
  
 
  
  
 
 
 
  
 
 
  
 
 
  
  
 
 
  
 
 
 

°Spaceinenanticiamens

 

 

 

 

SRE ee

38 BY LUN’s

their hall of clouds! Such is Calmay. The
grey stone marks his narrow house. He luokg
down from eddy tempests; he rolls his form in
the whirlwind, and hovers on the blast of the
mountain.

In Morven dwelt the chief; a beam of war
to Fingal. His steps in the field were marked
in blood. Lochlin’s sons had fled before his
angry spear: but mild was the eye of Calmar :
soft was the How of his yellow locks: they
streamed like the meteor of night. No maid
was the sigh of his soul; his thoughts were
given to friendship,—to dark haired Orla, des-
troyer of heroes! Equal were their swords in
battle; but fierce was the pride of Orla ;—gentle
alone to Calmar. ‘Together they dwelt in the
cave of Oithona.

From Lochlin, Swaran bounded o’er the blue
waves. Hrin’s sons fell beneath hig might.
Fingal roused his chiefs to combat. Their
ships, cover the ocean. Their hosts throng on
the green hills. They come to the aid of Erin.

Night rose in clouds. Darkness yeils the ar.
mies: but the blazing oak gleams through the
valley. The sons of Lochlin slept: their
dreams were of blood. ‘They lift the spear in
thought and Fingal flies. Not so the host of
Morven. To watch was the post of Orla. Cal-
mar stood by his side. Their spears were in
their hands. . Fingal called his chiefs ; they
stood around. The king was in the midst.
Grey were his locks, but strong was the arm of
the king. Age withered not his powers. “Son

through the sichs of the storm, and rejoice in
oO ePoEMS. 139

of Morven.” said the hero, “to-morrow we meet
the foe. But where is Cahulin, the shield of
Brin? He rests in the halls of Tura? he knows
not of our coming. Who will speed through
Lochlin to the hero, and call the chief to arms?
The path is by the swords of foes; butmanyare
my heroes. ‘They are thunderbolts of war.
Speak ye chiefs? Who will arise?”

Son of Trenmor! mine be the deed,” said
dark-haired Orla, “and mine alone. What is
death to me? 1 love the sleep of the mighty,
but little is the danger. The sons of Lochlin
dream, I will seek car borne Cathullin. If I
fall, raise the song of bards ; and Jay me by the
stream of Lubar.”-—* And shalt thou fall aloue?’
said fair-haired Calmar. “ Wilt thou leave thy
friend afar? Chief of Oithona! not feeble is my
arm in fight? Could see thee die, and not lift
the spear? No, Orla! ours has been the chase
of the roebuck, and the feast of shell; ours be
the path of danger; ours has been the cave of
Oithona; ours be the narrow dwelling on the
banks of Lubar.” “Calmar,” said the chief of
Oithona, “why should thy yellew locks be
darkened in the dust of Erin? Let me fall
alone. My father dwells in the hall of air; he
will rejoice in his boy; but the blne-eyed Mora
spreads the feast for her son in Morven. She
listens to the steps of the hurter on the hearth,
and thinks it is the thread of Calmar. Let her
not say, “Calmar has. fallen by the steel of
Lochlin : he died with gloomy Orla, the chief
of the dark brow.” Why should tears dim the
azure eye of Mora? Why should her voice

2Eero pentane

 

 

 

 

BYRONS’s

  
 
  
  
  
  
 
 
 
   
  
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
   
   
 
  
  
 
 
 
  
 
  
  
 
   
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
  
  
 
  
 
 

curse Orla, the destroyer of Calmar? Live ,
calmar ; Live to raise my stone of mogs; live to
revenge me in the blood of Lochlin. Join the
Song of the bards above my grave. Sweet will
be the song of death to Orla, from the voice of
Calmar. My ghost shall smile on the notes of
praise,” “Orla,” ‘said the son of Mora, “could
T raise the song of death to my friend? Could
I give his fame to the winds? No, my heart
would speak in sighs: faint and broken are the
sounds of sorrow. Orla, our souls shall hear the
Song together. One cloud shall be ours on high:
the bards will mingle the names of Orla and
Calmar,”
They quit the circle of the chiefs. Their
steps are to the host of Lochlin. The dying
blaze of oak dim twinkles through the night,
The northern star points the path to Tura,
Swaran, the king, rests on his lonely hill. Here
the troops are mixed: they frown in Bleep,
their shields beneath their heads, Their swords
gleam at a distance in heaps. The fires are
faint : their embers fail in smoke, All ig hush-
ed; but the-pale sighs on the rocks above.
Lightly wheel the heroes through the slumber-
ing band. Half the Journey is past, when Ma-
thon, resting on his shield, meets the eye of
Orla. It rolls in flame, and glistens through
the shade. His spear is raised on high. Why
dost thou bend thy brow, chief of Oithona ?”
said fair haired Calmar: “we are in the midst
of foes. Is this a time for delay?” “It isa time
for vengeance,” said Orla of the gloomy brow.
“Mathon of Lochlin sleeps; seest thou hisPOEMS, 141

spear? Its point is dim with the gore of my
father. The blood of Mathon shall reek on
mine; but shall I slay him sleeping? son of
Mora. No; he shall feel his wound: my fame
shall not soar on the blood of slumber. Rise !
Mathon, rise! The son of Conna calls; thy
life is his—rise to combat.” Mathon starts from
Sleep ! but did herise alone? No: the gather-
ing chiefs bound on the plain. -“ Fly! Calmar,
fly ! said dark haired Orla. Mathon is mine.
I shall die in joy: but Lochlin crowds around.
Fly through the shades of night.” Orla turns.
The helm of Mathon is cleft, his shield falls from
his arm: he shudders in his blood. He rolls by
the side of the blazing oak. Srumon sees him
fall: his wrath rises: his weapon glitters on
the head of Orla: but a spear pierced his eye.
His brain gushes through the wound and foams
on the spear of Calmar. As roll the waves of
‘the ocean on two mighty barks of the north, so
pour the men of Lochlin on the chiefs. As,
breaking the surge in foam, proudly steer the
barks of the north, so rise the chiefs of Morven
on the scattered crests of Lochlin. The din of
arms came to the ears of Fingal. He strikes
his shield ; his sons throng around; the people
pour along the heath. Ryno bounds in joy.
Ossian stalks in his arms, Oscar shakes the
spear. The eagle wing of Fillian floats on the
wind. Dreadful is the clang of death ! many
are the widows of Lochlin! Morven prevails.
in its strength.
Morn glimmers on the hills; no living foe is
seen; but the sleepers are many; grim they lieBYRON’S

 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
   
 
  
 
   
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
    

in Erin. The breeze of ocean lifts their locks,
yet they do not awake. The hawks scream
above their prey.

Whose yellow locks wave o’er the breast of a
chief? Bright as the gold of the stranger, they
mingle with the dark hair of his friend. ’Tis
Calmar; he lies on the bosom of Orla. Theirs
is one stream of blood. Fierce is the look of
the gloomy Orla. He breathes not ; but his eye
is still a flame. It glares in death unclosed.
His hand is grasped in Calmar’s; but Calmar
lives! he lives though low. “ Rise,” said the
king, “rise, son of Mora: ’tis mine to heal the
wounds of heroes. Calmar may yet bound on
the hills of Morven.

“Never more shall Calmar chase the deer of
Morven with Orla,” saidthe hero. “ What were
the chase to me alone? Who could share the
Spoils of battle with Calmar? Orla is at rest!
rough was thy soul, Orla ! yet soft to me as the
dew of morn. I¢ glared on others in lightning :
to me a sliver beam of night. Bear my sword
to blue-eyed Mora: let it hang in my empty
hall. Itis not. pure from blood: but it could
not save Orla. Lay me with my friend.

They are laid by the stream of Luber. Four
grey stones mark the dwelling of Orla and Cal-
mar. When-Swaran was bound, our sails rose
on the blue waves. The winds gave our bark
to Morven—the bards raised the song.

“What form rises on the roar of clouds?
Whose dark ghost gleams on the red streams of
tempests? His voice rolls on the thunder.
‘Tis Orla’s, the brown chief of Oithona, HePOEMS. 143

was unmatched in war. Peace to thy soul,
Orla! thy fame will not perish. -Nor thine,
Calmar ! Lovely wast thou, thou son of blue-
eyed Mora; but not harmless was thy sword.
It hangs in thy cave. The ghosts of Lochlin
shriek around its stecl. “Hear thy praise, Cal-
mar! It dwells on the voice of the mighty.
Thy name shakes on the echoes of Morven.
Then raise thy fair locks, son of Mora. Spread
them on the arch of the rainbow; and smile
through the tears of the storm.

LVAMITIE EST LiAMOUR SANS AILES.

Why should my anxious breast repine,
Because my youth is fled ?

Days of delight may still be mine ;
Affection is not dead.

In tracing back the years of youth

One firm record, one lasting truth,
Celestial consolation brings ;

Bear it, ye breezes, to the seat,

Where first my heart responsive beat,—
‘Friendship is Love without his wings.”

Through few but deeply chequered years,
What moments have been mine ;

Now half obscured by clouds of tears,
Now bright in rays divine ;

Howe’er my future doom be cast,

>My sou! enraptur'd with the past,BYRON’S

To one idea fondly clings ;
Friendship, that thought is all thine own,
Worth worlds of bliss that thought alone—
“ Friendship is Love without his wings’”

Where yonder yew trees lightly wave
Their branches on the gale,
Unheeded heaves a simple grave,
Which tells the common tale :
Round this unconscious schoolboys stray,
Till the dull knell of childish play
From yonder studious mansion rings :
But here whene’er my footsteps move,
My silent tears too plainly prove,
“Friendship is Love without his wings.”

. \
shrine

O Love! before thy glowing
My early vows were paid ;
My hopes, my dreams, my heart was thine,

But these are now decay’d ;

For thine are pinions like the wind,
No trace of thee remains behind}

Except, alas! thy jealous stin
Away, away! delusive power,
Thou shalt not haunt the coming hour;
Unless, indeed, without thy wings.

gs.

Seat of my youth; thy distant spire
Recalls each scene of joy;

My bosom burns with former fire,—

fn mind again a boy.

hy grove of elms, thy verdant hill,

Thy every path delights me still,

ulPOLMS.

Each flower a double fr paraner flings ;
Again, a8 once in converse gay,
Each dear associate seems , to SAY,

“Friendship is Love without its wings.”
My Lycus! wherefore dost thou weep ?

Thy falling tears restrain ;

Affection for a time may sleep,

But, oh! ‘twill wake again.

Think, think, my friend, when next we meet.
Our long-wished interview, how sweet !

From this my hope of rapture springs;
While youthful hearts thus fondly swell,
Absence, my friend, can only tell,

«Friendshi ip is Love without its wings.”
I once, and once alone deceived,

Did [I my error mourn?

No—from oppressive bonds relieved,

I left the wretch to scorn,

J turn’d to those my childhood knew,
With feelings warm, with bosom true,

Twined with my heart’s accor ding strings:
And till those vital chords shall break,

For none but these my breast shall wake

Friendship, the power deprived of wings.

Ye few; my soul, my life is yours,
My memory and my hope!
Your worth a lasting love insures,
_ Unfetter’d in its scope ;
From smooth deceit and terror sprung,
With aspect fair, and honey’d tongue,
K146 BYRON’S
Let adulation wait on kings;
With joy elate, by snares beset,
We, we, my friends, can ne’er forget
“Friendship is Love without his wings.”

. Fictions and dreams inspire the bard
Who rolls the Epic song ;
Friends and truth be my reward— :
To me no bays belong;
If laurell’d Fame but dwells with lies,
Me, the enchantress ever flies,
Whose heart and not my fancy sings!
Simple and young, I dare not feign:
Mine be the rude yet heart-felt strain,
“Friendship is Love without his wings,”

 

THE PRAYER OF NATURE,

Fatner of Light! great God of Heaven !
Hear’st thou the accents of despair ?

Can guilt like man’s be e’er forgiven ?
Can vice atone for crimes by prayer ?

Father of light, on thee I call:
Thou seest my soul is dark within :
Thou who can’st mark the Sparrow’s fall,
Avert from me the death of sin.

No shrine T seek, to sects unknown :
Oh, point to me the path of truth ;

Thy dread omnipotence I own:
Spare, yet amend, the faults of youth,POEMS.

| Let bigot's rear a gloomy fane,
Let superstition hail the pile,

_ Let priests, to spread their sable reign,
With tales of mystic right beguile.

- Shall man confine his Maker's sway
To Gothic domes of mouldering stone?
| Thy temple is the face of day;
Harth, ocean, heaven, thy boundless throne.

Shall man condemn his race to hell
Unless they bend in pompous form ;

| Tell us that all, for ofie who fell,
Must perish in the mingling storm ?

Shall each pretend to reach the skies,

_ Yet doom his brother to expire,

| Whose soul a different hope supplies,
Or doctrines less severe inspire ?

‘Shall these, by creeds they can’t expound,
_ Prepare a fancied bliss or woe?
‘Shall reptiles, grovelling on the ground,
Their great Creator’s purpose know?

Shall those, who live for self alone,
Whose years float on in daily crime—

‘Shall they by Faith for guilt atone,
And live beyond the bounds of Time?

Father! no prophetic’s laws I seek,
Thy laws in Nature’s works appear ;—

Town myself corrupt and weak,

Yet will [ pray, for Thou wilt hear.BYRON’S

   
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
   

Thou, who can’st guide the wandering star
Through trackless realms of sether’s space;
Who calm’st the elemental war,
Whose hand from pole to pole I trace:

Thou, who in wisdom placed me here,
Who, when thon wilt, can’st take me hence
Ah! while I tread this earthly sphere
Extend to me thy mild defence.

To 'Thee, my God, to thee I call !
Whatever weal or woe betide,

By thy command J rise or fall,
In thy protection I confide.

2

If, when this dust to dust’s restored,
My soul shall float on airy wing,
How shall thy glorious name adored
Inspire her feeble voice to sing !

But, if this fleeting spirit share
With clay the grave’s eternul bed,
While life yet throbs I raise my prayer,
Tho’ doom’d no more to quit, the dead.

To thee 1 breathe my humble strain,
Grateful for thy mercies past,
And hope, my God, to thee again

* 2 sf z
This erring life may fly at last.POEMS.

TO EDWARD NOEL LONG, ESQ.

Dear Lone, in this sequester’d scene
While all around in slumber lie,

The joyous days which ours have been
Come rolling fresh on Fancy’s eye ;

Thus if amid the gathering storm,

While clouds the darken’d noon deform,

Yon heaven assumes a varied glow,

T hail the sky’s celestial bow,

Whieh spreads the signs of future peace,

And bids the war of tempest cease.

Ah ! though the present bring but pain,

I think those days may come again ;

Or if, in melancholy mood,

Some lurking, envious fear intrude,

lo check my bosom’s fondest thought,
And interrupt the golden dream,

1 crush the fiend with malice fraught,
And still indulge my wonted theme.

Although we ne’er again can trace,
In Granta’s vale, the pedant’s lore ;

Nor through the groves of Ida chase
Our raptured visions as before ;

Though youth has flown on rosy pinion,

And manhood claims his stern dominion—

Age will not every hope destroy,

But yield some hours uf sober joy.

Yes, I will hope that Time's broad wing,

Will shed around some dews of spring ;

But if his scythe must sweep the flowers,

Which bloom among the fairy bowers ;=

 

 

ION ee te

 

150 BYRON’s

Where smiling youth delights to dwell,
‘And hearts with early raptures swell ;
If frowning age, with cold controul,
Confines the current of the soul;
Congeals.the tear of Pity’s eye,
Or checks the Sympathetic sigh ;
Or hears unmov’d, misfortune’s groan,
And bids me sigh for self alone ;
Oh ! may my bosom never learn
To sooth its wonted heedless flow ;
Still,—still despise the censor stern,
But ne’er forget another’s woe.
Yes, as you knew me in the days,
O’er which remembrance yet delays;
Still may I rove, untutor’d—wild_—
And even in age, at heart, a child:
Though now on airy visions borne,
To you my soul is still the same,
Oft has it béen my fate to mourn,
And all my former Joys are tame,
But hence ! ye hours of sable hue -
Your frowns are Sone, my sorrows o’er 5
By every bless my childhood knew,

Pll think upon your shade no more.
Thus, when the whirlwind’s rage is past,
And caves their sullen roar enclose,

We heed no more the wintry blast.
When lull’d by zephyr to repose,
Full often has my infant Muse
Attun’d to Love her languid lyre:
But now, without a theme to choose,
The strains in stolen sighs expire.
My youthful nymphs, alas ! are flown ;
is a wife, and C___ a mother ;

>P@EMS.

And Caroline sighs alone,
And Mary’s given to another ;
And Cora’s eyes which roll’d on me,
Can now no more my love recall; -
In truth, dear Lone, ’twas time to flee,
For Cora’s eyes will shine on all.
And though the sun with genial rays,
His beams alike to ail displays,
And every lady’s eye’s a sun,
These last should be confin’d to one.
‘The soul’s meridian don’t become her,
Whose sun displays a general summer !
Thus faint is every former flame,
And passion’s self is now a name,
As, when the ebbing flames are low,
The aid which once improv’d their light
And bade them burn with fiercer glow,
Now quenches all their sparks in night :
Thus has it been with passion’s fires,
As many a boy and girl remembers,
While all the force of Love expires,
Extinguish’d with the dying embers.
But now, dear Lone, ’tis midnight’s noon,
And clouds obscure the watery moon,
Whose beauties I shall not rehearse,
Describ’d in every stripling’s verse ;
For why should I the path go over,
Which every bard has trod before?
Yet ere yon silver lamp of night :
Has thrice perform’d her stated round,
Has thrice retrac’d her path of light,
And chas’d away the gloom profound,
I trust that we, my gentle friend,
Shall see her rolling orbit wendBYRON 'S

Above the dear-lov'd peaceful seat

Which once contain’d our youth’s retreat
And then with those our childhood knew,
We'll mingle in the festive crew:
While many a tale of former days
Shall wing the langhing hours away
And all the How ofsoul shall pour
The sacred intellectual shower,

Nor cease, till Luna’s waning horn
wtill glitters through the mist of morn,

>

TO A LADY,

Ox! had my fate been join’d with thine, -
As once this pledge apppear’d a token,
These follies, then, had not been mine,
For then my peace had not been broken.

To thee, these early faults I owe,

To thee, the wise and old reproving :
They know my sins, but do not know

‘Twas thine to break the bounds of loving.

For once my soul, like thine was pure,
And all his rising fires could smother ;

But now thy vows no more endure,
Bestow’d by thee upon another.

Perhaps his peace I could destroy,
And spoil the blisses that await him :
Yet let my rival smile in jo

For thy dear sake I cannot hate him,POEMS.

Ah ! since thy angel form is gone,

~~. My heart no more can rest with any ;
But what is sought in thee alone,
Attempt, alas ! to find in many.

Then fare thee well, deceitful maid !
were vain and fruitless to regret thee ;

Nor hope, nor memory yield their aid,
But pride may teach me to forget thee.

Yet all this giddy waste of years,
[his tiresome round of palling pleasures ;
These varied loves, these matron’s fears, ©
These thoughtless strains to passion’s mea-
sures.

Tf thou wert mine, all had been hush’d—
This cheek, now pale from early riot,

With passion’s hectic ne'er had flush’d
But bloom’d in calm domestic quiet.

Yet, once the rural scene was sweet,
For nature seem’d to smile before thee :
And once my breast abhorr’d deceit,—
For then it beat but to adore thee.

But now I seek for other joys ;

fo think would drive my soul to madness ;
In thoughtless throngs and empty noise,

I conquer half my bosom’s sadness.

Yet even in these arthought will steal
In spite of every vain endeavour,—

And fiends might pity what i feel

To know that thou art lost for ever.BYRON’S

  
 
 
  
 
 
  
  
 
  
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
  
  
  
  
 
   
 
 
   
  
   
   

I WOULD I WERE A CARELESS CHILD,

I woutn I were a careless child,
Still dwelling in my Highland caye,
Or roaming through the dusky wild,
Or bounding o’er the dark blue wave ;
The cumbrous pomp of Saxon pride
Accords not with the freeborn soul,
Which loves the mountain’s cragey side,
And Seeks the rocks where billows roll.

Fortune ! take back these cultured lands,
Take back this name of splendid sound !
I hate the touch of servile hands, .
I hate the slaves that cringe around.
Place me"among the rocks I love,
Which sound to ocean’s wildest roar ;
T ask but this—again to rove

Through scenes my youth had known before,

Few are my years, and yet I feel
The world was ne’er designed for me ;
Ah! why do dark’ning shades conceal
The hour when man must cease to be?
Once I beheld a splendid dream,
A visionary scene of bliss ;
Truth ;—wherefore did thy hated beam
Awake me to a world like this !

I loved—but these I loved are gone;
Had friends—my early friends are fled :
How cheerless feels the heart alone
When all its former hopes are dead !POEMS.

Though gay companions o’er the bowls
Dispel awhile the sense of ill;

Though pleasure stirs the maddening soul,

The heart—the heart— is lonely still.

How dull! to hear the voice of those

 
 
 

Whom rank, or chance, whom wealth, or

power,

 
 

Have made though neither friends or foe

Associates of the festive hour,
Give me again a faithful few,
In years and feelings still the same,
And | will fly the midnight crew,
Where boisterous joy is but a name.

And woman, lovely waman ! thou,
My hope, my comforter, my all ;
How cold must be my bosom now,
When e’en thy smiles begin to pall !
Without a sigh would I resign
This busy scene of splendid woe,
To make that calm contentment mine,

 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Which virtue knows, or seems to know.

Fain would I fly the haunts of men—
I seek to shun not hate mankind !
My breast requires the sullen gien,

 
 
 
 

Whose gloom may suit a darkened mind,

Oh ! that to me the wings were given
Which bear the turtle to her nest ?

 
 
 

Then would I cleave the vaults of heaven,

To flee away and be at rest.oak

 
 
 

BYRON'S

WHEN IROVED A YOUNGHIGHLANDER.

 
   
  
  
  
   
 
 
 
  
   
  
   
   

Wuen I roved a young Highlander o’er the dark
heath, :
And climb’d thy steep summit, Oh Morven of
snow,
To gaze on the torrent that thunder’d beneath,
On the mist of the tempest that gather'd be-
low,
Ututored by science, a stranger to fear,
And rude as the rocks where my infancy grew,
No feeling, save one, to my bosom was dear ;
Need I say, my sweet Mary, ’twas centered
in you?

Yet it could not be love, for I know not the
name,
What passion can dwell in the heart of achild?
But still I perceive an emotion the same
As I felt when a boy on the crag-covered wild;
One image alone on my bosom impressed,
1 loved my bleak regions, nor panted for new ;
And few were my wants, for my wishes were
bless’d
And pure were my thoughts, for my soul was
with you.

I arose with the dawn; with my dog as my guide,
From mountain to mountain I bounded
along ;
I breathed the billows of Dee’s rushing tide,
And heard at a distance the Highlander’s
song ;

ery ee

SnPOEMS.

/A¢ eve, on my heath-cover’d couch of repose,
No dreams save of Mary, were spread to my
view,
nd warm to the skies my devotions arose,
For the first of my prayers was & blessing for
you.

) I left my bleak home, and my Visions are gone ;
The mountains are yanish’d, my youth is no
more,
Asthe last of my race, I must wither alone,
And delight but in days I have witness’
before ;
Ah! splendour has raised, but embitter’d my lot;
More dear were the scenes which my infancy
knew ;
Though my hopes may have fail’d, yet they are
not forgot ; -
Though cold is my heart, still it lingers with
you,
When I see some dark nill point its crest to the
sky,
T think of the rocks that o’ershadow Colbeen;
When I see the soft blue of a love-speaking eye,
[think of those eyes that endeared the rude
: scene ; :
When, haply, some light-waving locks I behold,
_ That faintly resemble my Mary’s in hue,
J think on the long flowing ringlets of gold,
he locks that were sacred to beauty and you.

Yet the day may arrive when these mountains

once more

Shall rise tomy sight in their mantles of snow ;

   

ee Sas =

eee
a ey

eetBYRON’
But while these soar above me, unchang’d as bes

ore
Will Mary be there to receive me ?—ah, no !

Adieu, then, ye hills, where my childhood was
bred,
Thou sweet flowing Dee to thy waters adieu :
No home in the forest shall shelter my head,—
Ah! Mary, what home could be mine. but
with you?

wewesscs

TO GHORGE, EARL DELAWARR,

Ox ! yes, I will own we were dear to each other ;

The friendships of childhood, though fleeting,

are true ;

The love which you felt was the love ofa brother,
Nor less the affection I cherish’d for you,

But friendship can vary her gentle dominion :
The attachment of years in a moment expires ;
Like Love, too, she moves on a swift-waving
pinion,
But glows not, like Love, with unquenchable
fires.
Full oft have we wander’d through Ida together,
And blest were the scenes of our youth, I allow;
In the spring of our life, how serene is the
weather,

But-winter’s rude tempests are gathering now.

No more with affection

shall memory blending,
The wonted delights

of our childhood retrace ;POEMS, 159

When pride steels the bosom, the heart is un-
bending,
And what would be justice appears a disgr: ace.

However, dear George, for I still must esteem

you,
The few whom I love I can never upbraid—
The chance which has lost may in future redeem
you,
Repentance will cancel the vow you have
made. :

I will not complain, and though chill’d is affec-
tion,
With me no corroding resentment shall live
My bosom is calm’d by the simple reflection, —
That both may be wrong, and that both should
forgive.

You knew that my soul, that my heart, my ex-
istence,
If danger demanded, were wholly your own ;
You knew me unalter’d by years or by distance,
Devoted to love and to friendship alone.

You knew,—but away with the vain retrospec-
tion !
The bond of affection no longer endures:
Too late vou may droop o’er the fond recollec-
tion,
And sigh for the friend who was formerly
your's.

For the present, we part, will hop
ever;
For time and re

ye not tor

gret will restore you at last;BYRON 'S

To forget our dissensions we both should en-

deavour,
I ask no atonement, but days like the past,

TO. THE EARL OF CLARE.

Tu semper armoris

Sis memor, et ari comotis ne abscedat imago—Val. Flac.

Frrenp of my youth ! when young weroved,
Like stri plings, naturally beloved,

With friendship’s pur est glow,
The bliss which wing’d those rosy hours
Was such as pleasure seldom showers

On mortals here below.

The recollection seems alone

Dearer than all the j Joys I’ve known,
When distant far from you.

Though pain, ‘tis still a pleasing pain,

To trace those days and hours again,
And sigh again, adieu ?

My pensive memory lingers o’er
Those scenés to be enjoy’d no more,
Those scenes regretted ever ;
"he measure of our youth is full,
Life’s evening dream is dark and dull,
And we may meet—ah ! never !

As when one parent spring supplies,
Two streams which from one fountain rise,
Together join’d in one ;x POEMS.
How soon, diverging from their source,
Hach, murmuring, seeks another course,
Till mingled in the main !

Our vital streams of weal or woe,

Though, near, alas! distinctly flow,
Nor mingle as before ;

Now swift or slow, now black or clear

Till death’s unfathom’d gulf appear,
And both shall quit the shore.

Our souls, my friend ! when once supplied
One wish, nor breathed a thought beside,
Now flow in different channels:
Disdaining humbler rural sports,
"Tis yours to mix in polish’d courts,
And shine in fashion’s annals;

"Tis mine to waste on love my time,

Or vent my reveries in rhyme,
Without the aid of reason !

For sense and reason (critics know it)

Have quitted every amorous poet,
Nor left a thought to seize on.

Poor Little ! sweet, melodious bard !

Of late esteem’d it monstrous hard
That he, who sang before all,—

He who the lore of love expanded,

By dire reviewers should he branded
As void of wit and moral.

And yet, while Beauty’s praise is thine,

Harmonious favourite of the Nine!
Repine not at thy lot,

L*BYRON’S

 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
 

g lays may still be read,
’erseciition’s arm is dead,

itics ave forgot.

Still I must yield those worthies merit,
Who chasten, with unsparing spirit,

Bad rhymes, and those who write them:
And though myself may be the next
By critic sarcasm to be vext,

I really will not fight them.

Perhaps they would do quite as well
To break the rudely sounding shell
Of such a young beginner.
He now offends at. pert nineteen,
Hre thirty, may become, I ween,
A very harden’d sinner.
Now, Clare, I must return to you ;
And, sure, apologies are due;
Accept, then, my concession.
In truth, dear Clare, in fancy’s flight
I soar.along from left to right ;
My muse admires digression.

i think I said ’twould be your fate
To add one star to regal state ;—
May regal smiles attend you!
And should a noble monarch reign,
r : * * ° os
You will not seek his smiles in valn,
If worth can recommend you.

Yet, since in danger courts abound,
Where specious rivals glitter round,
From snares may saints preserve you;POEMS.

And grant your love or friendship ne’er
From any claim a kind care,
But those who best deserve you.

t

Not for a moment may you stray

irom truth’s secure, unerring way :
May no delights decoy :

O’er roses may your footsteps move,

Your smiles be ever smiles of love,

Your tears be tears of joy.

Ob ! if you wish that happiness

Your coming days and years may bless,
And virtues crown your brow !

Be still as you were wont to be,

Spotless as you've been known to me,—
Be still as you are now.

And though some trifling share of praise,
‘'o cheer my last declining days,
‘To me were doubly dear ;
Whilst blessing your beloved.name,
I'd waive at once a poet’s fame,
To prove a prophet here.

LINES.

Wretten beneath an Elm in the Church-yard at

Harrows.

Spor of my youth ! whose hoary branches sigh,

  
 

Swept by the breeze that fans thy cloudless aky ;BYRON’S

Where now alone I muse, who oft have trod, _
With those I loved, thy soft and verdant sod ;
With those, who scatter’d far perchance de-
plore,

Like me, the happy scenes they knew before;
Oh! as I trace again thy winding hill,

Mine eyes admire, mine heart adores thee still,
Though drooping Elm! beneath whose boughs

ay,
And frequent mused the twilight hours away ;
Where, as they once were wont, my limbs re-
cline,
But ah! without the thoughts which then were
mine
_How do thy branches, moaning to the blast,
Invite the bosom to recall the past,
And seem to whisper, as they gently swell,
«“ Take, while thou can’st, a lingering, last fare-
well !”
When fate shall chill, at length this fever’d
breast,
And calm its cares and passions into rest,
Oft have I thought, ’twould soothe my dying —
hour,— F
If aught may soothe when life resigns her)
power,—
To know some humbler grave, some narrow cell,
Would hide my bosom where it loved to dwell;
With this fond dream, methinks, ’twere sweet |
to die— |
And ere it linger’d, here my heart might le ; ‘|
Here might I sleep where all my hopes arose,
Scene of my youth, and couch of my repose ;POEMS.

_ For ever stretch’d beneath this mantling shade,

_ Press’d by the turf where once my childhood

play’d,

_ Wrapt by the soil that veils the spot I loved,

_ Mix’d with the earth, o’er which my footsteps
movd;

Blest by the tongues that charm’d my youthful

ear,
_ Mourn’d bythe few my soulacknowledged here !

Deplored by those in early days allied,
And unremember’d by the world besides.

|AND

SCOTCH REVIEW

A SATIRE.

I had rather be a kitten and cry mew,

ENGLISH BARDS

 

Than one of those same meteor ballad mongers.

SHAKSPEAR®,

Such shameless bards we have; and yet ’tis true,

There are as mad, abandoned critics too.—Poprs.ENGLISH BARDS

AND

SCOTCH REVIEWERS.

Sinz must I hear !—shall hoarse Fitzgerald .
bawl

His creaking couplets in a tavern hall,

And I not sing, lest haply, Scotch Reviews

Shall dub me scribbler, and denounce my muse :

Prepare for rhyme—Il1l publish right or wrong?

Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.
Oh! nature’s noblest gift—my gray goose

quill !

Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will ;

Torn from thy parent bird to form a pen,

That mighty instrument of little men.

The pen ! foredoom’d to aid the mental throes

Of brains that labour, big with verse or prose,

Though nymphs forsake, and critic’s may de-

ride,

The lover’s solace, and the author’s pride ;

What wits, what poets dost thou daily raise ;

How frequent is thy use, how small thy praise.

Condemn’d at length to be forgotten quite,

With all the pages which ‘twas thine to write,BYRON’S

 

But thou, at least, mine own especial pen:
Once laid aside, but now resumed again,
Our task complete, like Hamlet’s shall be
free :
Though spurn’d by others, yet beloved by me;
Then let us soar to-day, no common theme,
No éastern vision, no distemper’d dream
Inspired —our path, though full of thorns, is
plain ;
Smooth be the verse, and easy be the strain.
When vice’ triumphant, holds her sovoreign
sway,
And men, through life her willing slaves obey ;
When Folly, frequent harbinger of crime,
Unfolds her motley store to suit the clime ;
When knayes and fools combined o’er all pre-
vail,
When justice halts, and rights begin to fail.
Een then the boldest start from public sneers,
Afraid of shame, unknown to other fears,
More darkly sin, by satire kept in awe,
And shrink from ridicule though not from law.
Such is the force of wit: but not belong
To me the sorrows of satiric song :
The royal vices of our age demand
A keener weapon and a mightier hand,
Still there are follies, e’en for me to chase,
And yield, at least, amusement in the race :
Laugh when I laugh, I seek no other fame ;
The cry is up, and scribblers are my game.
Speed, Pegasus; ye strains of great and small,
Ode, epic, elegy, have at ye all;
I, too, can scrawl, and once upon a time
I poured along the town a flood of rhyme,

uU
C
tPOEMS, 171

A schoolboy freak, unworthy praise or blame ;
I printed—older children do the same.
“Tis pl. asant, sure, to see one’s name in print ;
A book's a book, although there’s nothing in’t, :
Not that a title’s sounding charm can save 1 wee <
Or scrawl or seribbler from an equal grave : :
This Lambe must own, since his patrician
name,
Fail’d to preserve the spurious face from shame.
No matter, George continues still to write,
Though now the name is veil’d from public
sight.

Mov’d by the great example, I pursue
The self same road, but make my own review ;
Not seek great Jeffrey’s yet, like him will be
Self constituted judge of poesy.

A man must serve his time to trade
Save censure—as critics all are ready made.
Take hackney’é jokes from Miller, got by rote,
With just enough of learning to misquote ;
And mind well skill’d to find or forge a fault :
A turn for punning, call it Attic salt ;
To Jeffrey go, be silent and discreet
His pay is just ten sterling pounds per sheet;
Fear not to lie, ’twill seem a lucky hit;
Shrink not from blasphemy, ’twill pass for wit ;
Care not for feeling—pass your proper jest,
And stand a critic, hated yet caress’d.

And shall we own such judgment? no—as

soon

Seek roses in December—ice in June:
Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff,
Believe a woman, or an epitaph172 BYRON’S
Or any other thing that’s false, before
You trust in critics, who themselves are sore ;
Or yield one single thought to be misled
By Jeffrey’s heart or Lambe’s Beeatian héad.
To these young tyrants, by themselves mis-
placed,
Combined usurpers on the throne of taste ;
To these when authors bend in humble awe,
And hail their voice aS truth, their work as
law—
While these are censors, ’twould be sin to spare:
While such are critics, why should I forbear ?
But yet so near all modern worthies run,
Tis doubtless whom to seek, or whom to shun ;
Nor know we when to spare, or where to strike,
Our bards and. censors are so much like. -
Then should you ask me, why I venture o’er
The path that Pope and Gifford trod before !
If not yet sicken’d, you can still proceed :
Go on: my rhyme will tell you as you read.
Time was, as yet, in those degen’rate days
Ignoble themes obtained mistaken praise,
When sense and wit, with poesy allied,
No fabled graces, tlourish’d side by side,
From the same fount their inspiration drew,
And, rear’d by taste, bloom’d fairer as they
orew ;
Then, in this happy isle, a Pope’s pure strain
Sought the wrapt soul to charm, nor sought in
vain ;
A polish’d nation’s praise aspir’d to claims,
And rais’'d the peoples, as the poet’s fame, a
Like him, great Dryden poured the tide of song, ©
In streams, less smooth, indeed, yet doubly
strong,POEMS.

Then Congreve’s scenes could cheer, or Otway's
melt,

For nature then, an English audience felt—

But why these names, or greater still, retrace,

When all to feebler bards resign their place?

Yet to such times our lingering looks are cast,

When taste and reason with their times are
past,

Now look around, and turn each trifling page,

Survey the precious works that please the age ;

This truth, at least, let Satire’s self allow,

No death of bards can be complain’d of now ;

The loaded press beneath her labour groans,

And printer’s devils shake their weary bones :

While Southey epics cram the creaking shelves,

And Little’s lyrics shine in hot-press'd twelves.

Thus saith the preacher; “nought beneath the
sun

Is new,” yet still from change to change we run:

What varied wonders tempt us as they pass:

The cow-pox, tractors, galvanism and gas

In turns appear to make the vulgar stare

Till the swoln bubble burst—and all is air.

Nor less new schools of poetry arise,

Where dull pretenders grapple at the prize :

O’er taste awhile these pseudo-bards prevail :

Bach country book club bows the knee to Baal,

And, hurling lawful genius from the throne,

Erects a shrine and idol of its own ;

Some leaden calf—but whom it matters not,

From soaring Southey down to grovelling Scott.

Behold! in various throngs the scribbling
crew,
For notice eager, pass in long review ;174 BYRON’S

Hach spurs his jaded Pegasus apace,

And rhyme and blank maintain an equal race ;

Sonnets on sonnets crowd, and ode on ode;

And tales of terror jostle on the road :

Immeasurable measures move along ;

For simpering folly loves a varied song,

To strange mysterious dullness still the friend,

Admires the strain she cannot comprehend,

Thus lays of Minstrels—may they be the last =

On half-strung harps whine mournful to the

blast,

While mountain spirits prate to river sprites,

That dames may listen to the sounds at nights ;

And goblin brats, of Gilpin Horner’s brood,

Decoy young border nobles through the wood,

And skip at every step, Lord knows how high,

And frighten foolish babes, the Lord knows why,

While high-born ladies in their magic cell,

Forbidding knights to read iho cannot spell,

Despatch a courier to a wizard’s grave,

And fight with honest men to shield a knave.
Next view in state, proud prancing on his

roan,

The golden-crested haughty Marmion,
Now forging scrolls, now foremost in the fight,
Not-quite a felon, yet but half a knight,
The gibbet or the field prepared to grace ;
A mighty mixture of the great and base,
And think’st thou, Scott ! by vain conceit per-

chance
On public taste to foist thy stale romance,
Though Murray with his Miller may combine
Zo yield thy muse just half a crown a line?PUBMS.

No! when the sons of song descend to trade,
Their bays are sears, their former laurels fade.
Let such forego the poet’s sacred name,

Who rack their brains for lucre, not for fame ;
Low may they sink to merited contempt,

And scorn remunerate the mean attempt !
Such be their meed, such still the just reward,
Of prostituted muse and hireling bard !

For this we spurn Apollo’s venal son,

And bid a long “ good night to Marmion.”

These are the themes that claim our plaudits

now ;
These are the bards to whom the muse must
bow:
While Milton, Dryden, Pope, alike forgot,
tesion their hallow’d days to Walter Scott.

The time has been, when yet the muse was

young,

When Homer swept the lyre, and Maro sung,
An epic searce ten centuries could claim,
While awe-struck nations hail’d the magic name.
The work of each immortal bard appears
The single wonder of a thousand years.

Empires have moulder’d from the face of earth,
Tongues have expired with those that gave them
birth,
Without the glory such a strain can give,
As even in ruin bids the language live.
Not so with us, oe ugh minor bards content
On one great work a life of labour spent :
Vith eagle pinion soaring to the skies,
Behold the ballad- monger Southey rise :
To him let Cameons, Milton, Tasso, yield,
ee nes strains, like armies, take the
od,BYRON’S

First in the ranks see Joan of Arc advance,
The scourge of England, and the boast of France;
Though burnt by wicked Bedford for a witch,
Behold her statue placed in glory’s niche ;
Her fetters burst, and just released from prison,
A virgin Phoenix from her ashes risen.
Next see tremendous Thalaba come on,
Arabia’s monstrous, wild, and wondrous son :
Domdaniel’s dread destroyer, who o’erthrew.
More mad magicians than the world e’er knew.
Immortal hero ! all thy foes o’ercome,
For ever reign*—the rival of Tom Thumb :
Sincé startled metre fled before thy face,
Well wert thou doom’d the last of all thy race :
Well might triumphant Genii bear thee hence,
Illustrious conqueror of common sense ;
Now, last and greatest, Madoc spreads his sails,
Cacique in Mexico, and prince in Wales ;
Tell us strange tales, as other travellers do,
More old than Mandeville’s, and not so true.
Oh, Southey, Southey ! cease thy varied song !
A bard may chant too often and too long ;
As thou art strong in verse, in mercy spare:
A fourth, Alas! were more than we could bear.
But if, in spite of all the world can say,
Thou still wilt verseward plod thy weary way ;
If still in Berkeley ballads most uncivil,
Thou wilt devote old women to the devil,
The babe unborn thy dread intent may rue;
** God help thee,” Southey, and thy readers too,
Next comes the dull disciple of thy school,
The mild apostate from poetic rule,
The simple Wordsworth, framer of a lay
As soft as evening in his favourite May ;POEMS. 177

Who warns his friend “to, shake off toil and
trouble,

And quit his books, for fear of growing double ;”
Who both by precept and example, shews
That prose is verse and verse is merely prose.
Convincing all, by demonstration plain,
Poetic souls delight in prose insane ;
And Christmas stories tortur’d into rhyme,
Contain the essence of the true sublime.
Thus, when he tells the tale of Betty Foy, .
The idiot mother of “ «un idiot boy,”
A moon-struck, silly lad who lost his way,
And, like his bard, confounded night with day ;
So close on each pathetic part he dwells,
And each adventure so sublimely tells.
That all who view the “idiot in his glory,”
Conceive the bard the hero of the story.

Shall gentle Coleridge pass unnoticed here,
To turgid ode, and tumid stanza dear?
Though themes of innocence amuse him best,
Yet still obscurity’s a welcome guest.
If inspiration should her aid refuse
To him who takes a proxy for a muse,
Yet none in lofty numbers can surpass
The bard who svu.rs to eulogise an ass.
How well the su’ ject suits his noble mind:

“ A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind.”
Oh ! wonder working Lewis: monk or bard,
Who fain woulc’st make Parnassus a ehureh-

yard; :
Lo! wreaths of yew, not laurel, bind thy brow,
Thy muse a sprite, Apolle’s sexten theu ;
aL

rea eer SEBYRON 'S

Whether on ancient tombs thou takest thy
stand,

By gibb’ring spectres hail’d, thy kindred band ;

Or tracest chaste descriptions on thy page,

To please the females of our modest age ;

All hail, M.P.! from whose infernal br ain

'hin-sheeted phantoms glide, a gri isly train ;

At whose command “ erim women” tl hrong in
crowds,

And kings of ‘fire, of water, a and of clouds,
With “small gray men,” “ wild ,yagers,” and
what-not, c
o crown with honour thee and Walter Scott ;
gain all hail! if tales like these may please,

St. Luke alone can vanquish the disease :
ven Satan’s self with thee might fear to dwell,
And in thy skull diseern a deeper hell.
. e, surrounded by a choir
Sins 1 Hot co Vesta’s fire,
sparkly yes, and cheeks by passio.a

3

ee

i

bs wn b

Strikes his wild lyre, while listening dames are
aoe Se d

Mis. Lit x Catullus of his day,

As, seat. but as aon | in his ei

Griev’'d to condemn, the muse must still be just,

Nor spare more melodious advocates of lust.

Pure is the flame which o’er her altar burns,

From grosser incense with disgust she turns;

Yet kind to youth, this expiation o'er,

She bids thee “mend thy line, and sin no
more.”

Hibernian Strangford ! with thine eyes of blue,

Nnd boasted locks of red or auburn hue,POEMS,

Whose boasted strain each love-sick miss ad-
mires,

And o’er harmonious fustian half expires ;

Learn, if thou canst, to yield thine author's

- Sense,

Nor vend shy sonnets on a false pretence.

Think’st thou to gain thy verse a higher place,

By dressing Cameons in a suit of lace?

Mend, Strangford! mend thy morals and thy
taste,

Be warm, but pure ; be amorous, but be chaste;

Cease to deceive ; thy pilfer’d harp restore,

Nor teach the Lussan bard to copy Moore.

In many marble-covered volumes view

Hayley, in vain, attempting new;

Whether he spin his comedies in rhyme,

Or scrawl, as Wood and Barclay walk, ’gainst
time,

His style in youth or age is still the same.

Triumphant first see ‘Temper’s Triumphs”
shine ! :

At least I’m sure they triump@’d over mine.

Of “Music’s Triumphs,” all who read may
swear,

That luckless music never triumph’d there.

Moravians rise ! bestow some sweet reward
On dull devotion—Lo! the Sabbath bard,
Sepulchral Grahame pours his notes sublime,
In mangled prose, nor e’en aspires to rhyme ;
Breaks into blank the Gospel of St. Luke,
And boldly pilfers from the Pentateuch ;180 BYRON ’S

And, undisturb'd by conscientious qualms,
Pervert’s the Prophets, and purloins the Psalms.

Hail, Sympathy ! thy soft idea brings
A thousand visions of a thousand things,
“And shews, disturbed in thine own melting
tears,
The maudlin prince of mournful sonneteers.
And art thou not their prince, harmonious
Bowles,
Thou first great oracle of tender souls?
Whether in sighing winds thou seek’st relief,
Or consolation in a yellow leat;
Whether thy muse most lamentable tells
What merry sounds proceed from Oxford bells ;
Or, still in bells delighting, finds a friend
In every chime that mingled from Ostend ;
Ah! how much juster werethy muse’s hap,
1f to thy bells thou wouldst but add a cap:
Delightful Bowles ! still blessing and still blest,
All love thy strajg, but children like it best.
"Tis thine, with gentle Little’s moral song
To soothe the mania of thy amorous throng :
With thee our nursery damsels shed their tears,
Ere Miss, as yet, completes her infant years :
But in her teens thy whining powers are vain
She quits poor Bowles for Little's purer strain.
Now to soft themes thou scornest to confine
The lofty numbers of a harp like thine.
« Awake a louder and a loftier strain,”
Such as none heard before, or will again :
Where all discoveries jumbled from the flood,
Since first the leaky ark reposed in mud,Mba
POEMS,

By more or less are sung in every book,

From Captain Noah down to Captain Cook,

Nor this alone ; but passing on the road,

The bard sighs forth a gentle episode !

And gravely tells—attend each beauteous Miss,

When first Madeira trembled to a kiss.

Bowles ! in thy memory let this precept dwell,

Stick to thy sonnets, man—at least they sell.

But if some new-born whim, or larger bribe,

Prompt thy crude brain, and claim thee for a
scribe,

If chance some bard, though once by dunces
fear’d,

Now, prone in dust, can only be revered ;

If Rope, whose fame and genuis from the first,

Have foil’d the best of critics, needs the worst,

Do thou essay ; each fault, each failing scan,

The first of poets was, alas! but man.

Rake from each ancient dunghill every pearl,

Consult Lord Fanny, and confide in Curll:

Let all the scandals of another age

Perch on thy pen, and flutter o’er thy page :

Affect a candour which thou canst not feel,

Clothe envy in the garb of honest zeal :

Write, as if St. John's soul could still inspire,

And do for hate what Mallet did for hire.

Oh ! hadst thou lived in that congenial time,

To rave with Dennis, and with Ralph to rhyme,

Throng’d with the rest around his living head,

Not raised thy hoof against the lion dead ;

‘A meet reward had crown’d thy glorious strains,

‘And link’d thee to the Dunciad for thy pains.

Another epic! Who inflicts again
More books of blank upon the sons of men!198 os BYRON’S

Beetian Cottle, rich Bristowa's boast,
Imports old stories from the Cambrian coast,
And sends his goods to market—all alive !
Lines forty thousand, canto’s twenty-five :
Fresh fish from Helicon! who'll buy ! who'll
buy ?
The precious bargain’s cheap—in faith, not I.
Too much in turtle Bristol's sons delight,
Too much o’er bowls of rack prolong the night ;
If Commerce fills the purse, she clogs the brain,
«nd Amos Cottle strikes the lyre in vain.
In him an author’s luckless lot behold,
Condemned to make the books which once he
sold, :
Oh, Amos Cottle !—Phcoebus! what a name
To fill the speaking trump of future fame !
Oh, Amos Cottle! for a moment think
hat meagre profits spring from pen and ink;
When thus devoted to poetic dreams,
Who will pursue thy prostituted reams?
Oh pen perverted ! paper misapplied; -
Had Cottle still adorn’d the counter’s side,
Bent o'er the desk, or, born to use toils,
Been taught to make the paper which he soils,
Plough’d, delv’d or plied the oar with lusty limb,
He had not sung of Wales, nor I of him.
As Sisyphus against the infernal steep
Rolls the huge rock whose motions ne’er may
slee
So up the hill, ambrosial Richmond heaves
Dull Maurice all his granite weight of leaves ;
Smooth, solid monuments of mental pain ;
The petrifactions of a plodding brain,
That, ere they reach the top, fall lumbering back
again,POEMS.

With broken lyre and cheeks se
Lo! sad Aleseus wanders down
Though fair they r i
at las
hopes |
Nipp’d in the |
His blossoms withe iT ils.

O’er his lost works.let classic Sheffield weep
May no rude hand disturb their earl) sleep ;

Yet say: why should the bard at once resign
His claim to favour from the sacred Nine!

For ever startled by the mingled howl ;
Of northern wolves that still in darkness prow] ;

A coward brood, which
By hellish instinct, all
Aged or young, the livi
No mercy find—these |
Why do the injured un
The calm possession 0

Y
f

Why tamely thus before th

re
t

mangle as their prey,
i

}
i

at cross their way ;
or

x
g
arpies must be fed.
ing yield
heir native field?
eir fangs retreat,

Ag
eo]

Nor hunt the bloodhounds back to Arthur’s

Seat 2

Health to immortal Jeffrey ; once in name,
England could boast a judge almost the same ;
In soul, so like, so merciful, yet just,

Some think that satan has resign’d his trust,
And gives the spirit to the world again,

Mo sentence letters, as he sentenced men.

With hands less mighty but with heart as blaek,
With voice as willing to decree the rack ;

Bred in the courts betimes, though all that law
As yet hath taught him, is to find a flaw:BYRON’S

Since, well instructed in the patriot school

To rail at party, though a party tool,

Who knows, if chance his patron should restore,
Back to the sway they forfeited before,

His scribbing toils, some recompense may meet
And raise this Daniel to the judgment seat ?
Let Jeffrey’s shade indulge the pious hope,
And greeting thus, present him with a rope;

“‘ Heir to my virtues! man of equal mind:
Skill’d to condemn as to traduce mankind;
This cord receive ; for thee reserv’d with care,
To wield in judgment, and at length to wear.”

Health to great Jeffrey; Heaven preserve his
life, :

To flourish on the fertile shores of Fife,

And guard it sacred in his future wars,

Since authors sometimes seek the field of Mars;

Can none remember that eventful day,

That ever glorious, almost fatal fray,

When Little’s loadless pistol met his eye,

And Bow-street myrmidons stood laughing by ?

Oh, day disastrous ! on a firm set rock,

Dunedin’s castle felt a sacred shock ;

Dark roll’d the sympethetic waves of Forth,

Low groan’d the startling whirlwinds of the

North,
Tweed rutiled half his waves to form a tear,

‘The other half pursued its calm career ;

Arthur's steep summit nodded to its base,
The surly Tolbooth scarcely kept her place ;
The Tolbooth felt—for marble sometimes can,
On such occasions feel as much as man— -POEMS. 185

The Tolbooth felt defrauded on her charms,

If Jeffrey died, except within her arms;

Nay, last, not least, on that portentous morn,

The sixteenth story, where himself was born,
His patrimonial garret, fell to the ground, - |
And pale Edina shudder’d at the sound;

Strew’d were the streets around with milk white
| reams,
_Flow’d all the Canongate with inky streams;
| This of his candour seemed the sable dew,

That of his valour show’d the bloodless hue:
And all, with justice, deemed the two combin’d
The mingled emblems of his mighty mind.
But Caledonia’s goddess hover’d o’er
‘The field, and sav’d him from the wrath of
Moore ;
From either pistol snatch’d the vengeful lead,
And straight restored it to her favourite’s head,

That head, with greater than magnetic power,

Caught it, as Dane caught the golden shower,

And, though the thickening dross will scarce

refine,

Augments its ore, and is itself a mine.

“ My son,” she cried, ne’er thirst for gore again,
Resign the pistol, and resume the pen ;

O’er politics and poesy preside,

Boast of the country, and Britannia’s guide;
For long as Albion’s heedless sons submit,

Or Scottish taste decides on English wit,
So long shall last thy unmolested reign,
Nor any dare to take thy name in vain.
Behold a chosen band shall aid thy plan,
And own thee chieftain of the critic clan,BYRON'S |

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

First in the ranks illustrious shall be seen

The travelled Thane, Athenian Aberdeen.

Herbert shall wield Thor’s hammer, and some-
times

In gratitude thou lt praise his rugged rhymes.

Snug Sydney, too, thy bitter page ‘shall seek,

And Classic Hallam, much renowned for Greek,

Scott may perchance his name and influence

lend,
And paltry Pillans shall traduce his friend,
While gay Thalia’s luckless votary Lambe,
As he himself was damn’d shall try to damn.
Known be thy name, unbounded be thy sway !
Thy Holland’s banquets shall each toil repay !
While grateful Britain yields the praise she owes |
To Holland’s hirelings, and to learning’s foes;
Yet mark one caution, ere the next review
Spreads its light wings of saffron and of blue,
Beware lest thund’ ring Brougham destroy the |
sale,

nn: beef to bannocks, .cauliflowers+o hail.” |
Thus having said, the kilted goddess kiss’d
Her son, and vanish’d in a Scottish mist. ‘|

Illustrious Holland ! hard would be his lot, .
His hirelings mention’d, and himself forgot,
Holland, with Henry Petty at his back,
The whipper-in and huntsman of the pack.

lest be the banquets spread at, Holland house, |
Where Scotchmen feed, and oritics may carouse ! |
Long, long beneath the hospitable roof,
Shall Grub street dine, while duns are kept aloof
See honest Hallam lay aside his fork,
And grateful to the funder of the feast,
Declare his landlord can translate, at least !POEMS. 187

Dunedin? view thy children with delight,
They write for food, and feed because they write ;
And lest when heated with this unusual grape,
Some glowing thought should to the press escape,
And tinge with red the female reader's cheek,
My lady skims the cream of each critique ;
Breathes o’er the page her purity of soul,
Reforms each error, and refines the whole.
Now to the drama turn—oh motly sight !
What precious scenes the wond’ring eyes invite;
Puns and a prince within a barrel pent,
And Dib din’s nonsense yields complete content.
Though now thank Heaven ! the Roscimonia’s
o'er,
And full-grown actors are endur’d once more F
Yet what avails their vain attempts to please,
While British critics suffer scenes like these ?
While Reynolds vents his “ dammes,” and
“‘poohs,” and “ zounds, ”
And common-place,and eommon sense confound?
While Lenny’s “ World,” just suffered to proceed,
Proclaims the audience very kind indeed,
And Beaufort’s pilfer’'d Caratach affords
A tragedy complete in all but words?
Who but must mourn while these are all rage,
The degradation of our vaunted stage ?
Heavens ! is all sense of shame and talent gone?
Have we no living bard of merit? none !
Awake George Colman ! Cumberland, awake ;
Ring the alarm bell, let folly quake 2
Oh, Sheridan, if aught can move thy pen,
Let Comedy resume her throne again,
Adjure the mummery of German schools,
Leave new Pizarros to translating fools ;

¢- And worship Catalini’s pantaloons,

 

BYRON’S

Give, as thy last memorial to the age,
One classic drama, and reform the stage. |
Gods! o’er whose boards shall Folly rear her
head, |
Where Garrick trod, and Kemble lives to tread ? |
Oh those shall farce display buffoon’ry’s mask, |
And Hook conceal his heroes in a cask ?
Shall sapient manager new scenes produce
From Cherry, Sheffington, and Mother Goose
While Shakespeare, Otway, Massinger forgot,!
On stalls must moulder, or in closets rot?
Lo! with what pomp the daily prints complain |
The rival candidates for attic fame !
In grim array though Lewis spectres rise,
Still Sheffington and Goose divide the prize ;
And sure yreat Sheffington must claim our praise
For skirtless coats, and skeletons of plays.
Renown’d alike ; whose genius ne’er confines
Her flight to garnish Greenwood’s gay designs ; |
Nor sleep with “Sleeping Beauties” but anon
In five facetious acts comes thundering on,
While poor John Bull, bewilder’d with the scene,
Stares, wondering what the devil it can mean ;
But as some hands applaud, a venal few !
Rather than sleep, why John applauds it too.
Such we are now—ah! wherefore should we
turn,
To what our farthers were, unless to mourn ?
Degen’rate Britons! are ye dead to shame,
Or kind to dullness, do you fear to blame ;
Well may the nobles of our present race |
Watch each distortion of a Naidi’s face ; |
Well may we smile on Italy’s buffoons,POEMS. 189

For fops, fools, gamesters, knaves, and lords

combine ;

| Each to his humour—Comus all allows ;

Champaign, dice, music, or your neighbour's
spouse. -

Talk not-to us, ye starving sons of trade !

Of piteous, ruin, which yourselves have made ;

In plenty’s sunshine fortuae’s minions bask,

Nor think of poverty, except “en masque,”

When, for the night, some lately titled ass

Appears the beggar which his grandsire was.

The curtain dropped, the gay burletta over,

The audiance take this turn upon the floor:

Now round the room the circling dow’gers
sweep,

Now in loose waltz the thin clad daughters
leap;

The first in lengthen’d line majestic swim,

he last display the free unfettered limb

Those for Hibernia’s lusty sons repair,

With art, the charms which nature could not
spare ;

Raise not your scythe, suppressors of our vice !

Reforming saints !| too delicately nice!

By whose decrees, our sinful souls to save,

No sunday tankards foam, no barbers shave ;

And beer undrawn, and beards unmown, display

Your holy reverence for the Sabbath-day.

Or hail at once the patron and the pile

Of vice and folly, Greville and Argyle.

Where yon proud palace, Fashion's hallow’d
fane,

Spreads wide her portals for her motley train,BYRON’S

 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
  
  
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
  
 
 
 
  

Behold the new Petronins of the day,

The arbiter of pleasure and of play! .

There the hired ennuch, the Hesperian chair,

The melting lute, the soft lascivious lyre,

The song from Italy, the step from France,

The midnight orgy and the mazy dance,

The smile of beauty, and the flush of wine.

Since their own drama yields no fairer trace

Of wit than puns, of humour than grimace
Then let Ausonsia, skill’d in every art

To softeg, manners, but corrupt the heart,

Pour her evotic follies o’er the town,

To sanction vice, and hunt decorum down ;

Let wedded strumpets languish o’er Deshayes

And bless the promise which his form displays ;

While Gayton bounds before th’enraptur’d look

Of hoary marquises and stripling dukes ;

Let high-born lechers eye the lively Presle

Twirl her light limbs, and spurn her needless

veil ;

Let Angiolini bare her brest of snow

Wave the white arm, and point the pliant toe ;

Collini trill her love inspiring song,

Strain her fair neck;* and charm the list’ning

throng!

These after husbands wing their eagle flight,

Nor leave much mystery for the nuptial night.
Oh ! blest retreat of infamy and ease !

Where all forgotten but the power to please,

Hach maid may give a loose to genial thought :

Each swain may teach new systems to be taught:

There the blithe youngster just returned from

Spain,
Cuts the light pack, or calls the rattling main ;as 8 5

a

me a a ae pias ae) :

    
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

POEMS,

| The jovial caster’s set, and seven’s the nick,
; Or—done !—a thousand on the coming trick !
| If men with lost existence ’gins to tire,
; And all your hope and wish is to expire;
| Here Powell’s ready for your life,
| And, kinder still, a Paget for your wife ;
| Fit consummation of an earthlyace,
1 Begun in folly, ended in disgrace,
| While none but menials o’er the bed of death,
' Wash thy red wound, or watch thy wavering
breath,
| Traduced by hars, and forgot by all,
| The mangled victim of a drunken brawl,
| To live like Clodius, and like Falkland fall.
Truth, rouse thy genuine bard, and guide his
hand,
| To drive this pestilence from out the land.
{ Even I—least thin} ing ofa ceaseless throng.
| Just skilled to know the right and choose the
wrong,
| Freed at that age when reason’s shield is lost,
' To fight my course through passion’s counsels, |
host
| Whom every path of pleasure’s flowery way
| Has lured in turn, and all have led astray—
. E’en I must raise my voice, e’en I must feel, |
i Such scenes, such men, destroy the public weal :
, Although some kind, censorious friend will say,
' « What art thou better, meddling fool, than they ?
| And every brother rake will smile to see
' That miracle, a moralist in me. :
_ No matter—when some bard in virtue strong,
| Gifford, perchance, shall raise the chastening
song,BYRON S
es

Then sleep my pen for ever! and my voice
Be only heard to hail him and rejoice ;

Rejoice, and yield my feeble praise, though I
May feel the lash that virtue must apply.
As for the smaller fry who swarm in shoals,

From silly Hafiz up to simple Bowles,

Why should we call them from their dark abode?
In broad St. Giles’s, or in Totttenham Road?
Or (since some men of fashion nobly dare

To scrawl in verse) from Bond-street or the.

Square ?
If things of ton their harmless lays indite,
Most wisely doom’d to shun the public sight,
What arm ? in spite of every critic elf,
Sir T. may read his stanzas to himself ;

Miles Andrews still his strength in couplets try, |,

And live in prologues though his dramas die.

Lords too are bards, such things at times befall, |

And ’tis some praise in peers to write at all.
Yet, did not taste or reason sway the times,

Ah! who would take their titles with their |

rhymes ?
Roscommon ! Sheffield! with your spirits fled,
No future laurels deck a. noble head ;
No muse will cheer, with renovating smile,
The paralytic pulling of Carlisle:
The puny schoolboy and his early lay
Men pardon if his follies pass away,
But who forgives a senior’s ceaseless verse,
Whose hairs grow hoary as his rhymes grow

worse ?

What heterogeneous honours deck the peer:
Lord, rhymester, petit-maiter, pamphleteer,So dull in youth, s g
fis scenes alone had dam’d our sin
But managers for once cried “Hold enough !”
Nor drugg’d their audience with the tragic stuff,
Yet at goes judgment let his lordship jaugh,
‘And case his volumes in cox ngenial calf:

Yes! doff that co vering w here Morocco shines,

“And nee a calf-skin on those recreant lines.”

With you, ye druids! rich in native lead,
Who daily Reauble for your eae bee
With you I war not; Gifford’

crush’d without

band.
On “ali the talents” vent your venal spleen ;
Ws ant your defence, let pity be your screen :
Let monodies on Fox regale your crew,

And Melville’s m: Ae prove a blanket too !
One common Lethe awaits each hapless bard,
And peace be with you! ‘tis your best rew ard,
Such dan.ning fame as Dunciads 8 only give
Could bid your lines bey y nd a morning live;
But now at once your Hee g labours. close,
With names of greater n eae repose.
Har be’et from me rink J

The l love aly Ros:

t on ah eae
Though Bell lost his nightingales and owls,
Matilda snivel

And Crusca’s : , Tising m the Bo
Revives in L ara, Quis, wad XA Yow

When. some brisk youth, the tenant ofa stall,
Employs a pen less pointed than his awl,

N1S4

    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Leaves his snug shop, forsakes his store of shoes,
St. Crispin quits, and cobbles for the muse,
Heav’ns, how the vulgar stare, how crowds ap-
i plaud,
if How ladies read, and literati laud !
Tf chance some witty wag should pass his jest,
"Tis sheer ill nature; doth the world know best?
Genius must guide when wits admire the rhyme,
And Capel Loft declares tis buite sublime.
' Hear, then, ye happy sons of needless trade ;
Swains! quit the plough, resign the useless
spade.
Lo! Burns and Bloomfield, nay, but greater far,
Gifford was born beneath an adverse star,
i Forsook the labours of a servile state,
He | Stemm’d the rude storm, and triumph’d over

Then why uo more? if Pheebus smiled on you,
Bloomfield ! why not on brother Nathan too?
Him too the mania, not the muse has seized ;
i Not inspiration, but a mind diseased :
Ps And now, no boor can seek his last abode,
No common be enclosed without an ode.
. Oh! since increased refinement deigns to smile,
t On Britain’s sons, and bless our genial isle,
| Let poesy go forth, pervade the whole,
Alike the rustic, and mechanic soul:
Ye tuneful cobblers! still your notes prolong,
Compose at onee a slipper and a song ;
So shall the fair your handywork peruse,
Your sonnets gure shall please, perhaps your
. shoes.
May Moorland weavers boast Pindaric skill,
And tailors’ lays be longer than their bill!POHRMS, 195

While punctual beaux reward the grateful notes,
And pay for poems—when they pay for coats.
To the famed throng now paid the tribute due,

Neglected genius; let me turn to you.

Come forth, oh Campbell! give thy talents
scope ;

Who dares aspire if thou must.cease to hope ?

And thou, melodious Rogers! rise at last,

Recall the pleasing memory of the past;

Arise! let blest remembrance still inspire,

And strike to wonted tones thy hallow’d lyre:

Restore Apollo to his vacant throne,

Assert thy country’s honour and thine own.

What !. must deserted poesy still weep,

Where her last hopes with pious Cowper sleep ?

Unless, “perchance, from his cold grave she
turns,

To deck the turf that wraps her minstrel
Burns?

No! though contempt hath mark’d the spu-
rious brood,

To men who rhyme from folly or for food :

Yet still some genuine sons ’tis her’s to boast,

Who still affecting, sti’l affects the most;

Feel as they write, and write but asthey feel—

Bear witness Gifford, Sotheby, Macneil.

“Why slumbers Gifford?’ once was asked in
vain ;

““ Why slumbers Gifford? let me ask again.

Are there no follies for his pen to purge ?

Are there no fools whose backs demand the
scourge ?

Are there no sins for Satire’s bards to greet ?

Stalks not gigantic vice in every street ?196 BYRON'S

Shall peers or princes tread pollution’s path,

And ’scape alike the law’s and Muse’s wrath ?

Nor blaze with guilty glare through future
time,

Eternal beacons of eonsummate crime?

Arouse thee, Gifford: be the promise claim’d,

Make bad men better, or at least ashamed.

a
u

Unhappy White ! whose life was in its spring,
And thy young Muse just wavd her joyous
wing, ‘
The spoiler came; and all thy promise fair
Has sought the grave tosleep for ever there.
Oh, what a noble heart was here undone, .
When Science’ self betray’d her favourite son.
Yes, she too much indule’d thy fond pursuit ;
She sow’d the seeds, but death has reap’d the
fruit.

. Twas thine own genius gave D
Ve I genius gave the final blow,

And help’d to plant the wound that laid thee
low;

So the struck eagle, stretch’d upon the plain,

No more through rolling clouds to soar again,

View’d his own feathers on the fatal dart,

Vhich wing’d the shaft that quiver’d in his
heart ;

Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel

fe nursed the pinion which impell’d the steel

While the same plumage that had warm’d his
nest,

Drank the last life blood of his bleeding breast.

There be, who say, in these degenerate days,
That splendid lies are all the poet’s praise ;POEMS,

That strain’d invention, ever on the wing,
Alone impels the modern bard to sing ;

"Tis true,that all whorhyme, nay, all whe verte
Shrink from that fatal word to genius—Trite ;
Yet truth sometimes will lend her noblest fires,
And decorate the verse herself inspires ;

This fact in virtue’s name let Crabbe attest,
Though nature’s sternest painter, yet the best.

And here let Shee and ge enius find a place,
Whose pencil y aed an € :
To guide whose hane ie sister arts combine,
‘And trace the poet's s or the painter is line:
Whose magic touch can bid the canvas glow,
Or pour the easy rhyme’s harmonious flow ;
While honours, doubly merited, attend

The poet’s rival, but the painter’s friend.
3

Blest is the man who dares approach the

bower,

Where dwell the Muses at their natalhour; ,

Whose steps have pressd, whose eye has seen
afar

The clime that nurs’d the song and war,

The scenes which glory still must hover o’er ;

Her place of birth, her own Achaian shore.

But doubly blest is he, whose heart expands

With hallow’d feclings for those classic lands :

Who rends the veil of ages long gone by,

And views their remnants with a poet’s eye.

Wright ! ’twas thy happy lot at once to view

Those shores of glory, and to sing them too ;

And sure no common muse inspired thy pen

To hail the land of Gods and Godlike men,

 

Li nt ih il tcc tM ca at
nee Ne a i NY a Fed nN -ea

ea A il

BYRON 'S

And you, associate bards! who snatch’d to
‘light
These gems too long withheld from modern
sight :
Whose mingling taste combine tocull the wreath
Where attice flowers Aonion odours breathe,
And all their renovated fragrance flung,
To grace the beauties of our native tongue ;
Now let those minds, that noble could trans-
fuse ;
The glorious spirit of the Grecian muse,
Though soft the echo, scorn a borrow’d tone :
Resign Achaia’s lyre, and strike your own.
Let these, or such as these, with just applause,
Restore the muse’s violated laws ;
But now in flimsy Darwin’s pompous chime,
That mighty master of unmeaning rhyme;
Whose gilded cymbals, more adorn’d than clear,
The eye delighted, but fatigued the ear ;
In show the simple lyre could once surpass,
But now, worn down, appear in native brass ;
While all his train of hovering sylphs around,
Evaporate in smiles and sound;
Him let them shun, with him let tinsel die ;
False glare attracts but more offends the eye.
Yet let them not to vulgar Wordsworth stoop.
The meanest object of the lowly group,
Whose verse of all but childish’ prattle void,
Seems blessed harmony to Lambe and Lloyd:
Set them—but hold, my muse, nor dare to teach
A strain far, far beyond thy humble reach ;
The native genius with their feeling given,
Will point the path, and peal their notes to
heaven.POEMS.

And thou, too, Scott ! resign to minstrels rude
The wilder Slogan of a border feud ;
's spin their meagre lines for hire ;
h for genius if itself inspire.
uthey sing, although his teeming muse,

every spring, be too profuse ;

Let simple Wordsworth chime his foolish verse,
And brother Coleridge lull the babe at nurse ;
Let spectremongering Lewis aim, at most,

To rouse the galleries, or to raise ». ghost ;

Let Moore be lewd; let Strangford steal from
Moore

And swear that Cameons sung such notes of
yore }

Let Hayley hobble on ; Montgomery rave ;

And godly Grahame chant ie5

Let sonneteering Bowles his

-And whine and whimpertothe fourteenth line ;
Let Scott, Carlisle, Matilda and the rest
Of Grub-straen and of Grosvenor-place the best,
Serawl on till d elease us from the strain,
Or common sense assert her rights again ;

I thou, with powers that mock the aid of
praise,
to humble bards ignoble lays
country’s voice, the voice of all the nine,

Demand a hallow’d harp—that harp is ;

Say ! will not Caledonia’s annals yield

The glorious record of some nobler field.

Than the wild foray of a plundering clan,

W hose proudest deeds disgrace the name of man ;

Of Marmion’s acts of kindness, fitter food

For outlaw Sherwood’s tales of Robin Hood 3200 BYRON'S

Scotland ! still proudly claim thy native bard
And-be thy praise his first, and best reward !
Yet not with thee alone his name should live,
But own’d the vast renown a world can give,
Be known, perchance when Albion is no more,
And tell-the tale of what she was before:
To future times her faded fame recall,
And save her glory, though his country fall.

Yet what avails the sanguin’d poet's hope
To conquer ages, and with time to cope?
New eras spread their wings, new nations rise,
And other victors fill th’ applauding skies :
A few brief generations fieet along,
Whose sons forget the poet and his song ;
Hen now, what once-lov'd minstrels scarce may

claim,
The transient mention of a dubious name?
When fame’s loud trump hath blown its noblest
blast,

Though long the sound, the echo sleeps at last,
And glory, like the phoenix midst her fires,
Exhales her odours, blazes, and expires,

Shall hoary Granta call her sable sons,
Expert in science, more expert at puns?
Shall these approacl’the muse ? ah, no, she flies,
And even spurns the great Seatonian prize,
Though printers condescend to soil,
With rhyme by Hoare, and epic blank by Hoyle;
Not him whose page, if still upheld by whist,
Requires no sacred theme to bid us list.

He, who in Granta’s honours would surpass,
Must mount her Pegasus, a full grown ass ;
A foal well worthy of her ancient dam,
Whose Helicon is duller than her cam.

I

as:

‘ »
aesa rset Seatete! Ueeeseety
nee |

POEMS,

There Clarke still striving.piteously “to

in

   

please,”
pa doggere el le
A would b
A mont ily §
Condemn'

Deve tor sea
Himself a lvin
Oh, dark asy]
At once the boast of
So sunk in ‘dullness,
That Smythe a
fame,
But where fair Isis ro e
The partial muse delighted loves to lave
On her green banks ag reener wreath is wove,
To crown the bards that haunt her classic grove.
Where Richards wakes a genui me e poetis fires,
Bo modern Britons justly praise th neir sires.
For me, who thus unask’ acto ave dar’d to tell
My country, what her sons should know too well,
Zeal for her honour bade me here e1 cage
The host of Idiots that infest age.
No just applause her honour’
As first in freedom, dearest to the 3 eine
Oh! would thy bards but emulate thy fame,
And rise more worthy, Albion, of thy’ name !
What Athens was in science, Rome in power
What Tyre appear’d in her meridian hour,
Tis thine at once, fair Albion, to have been
Earth’s chief dict atress, Ocean’s mighty queen :
But Rome decay’d and Athens strewed the plain ;
And Tyre’s proud piers lay scatter’d in the
main ;

 

Te hay 7 1
7 ner purer wave,

bers
8. tm

esd Lea,BYRON’S

 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Like these thy strength may sink, in ruin hurl’d,

And Britain, all, the bulwark of the world.

But let me cease, the dread Cassandra’s fate,

With warning ever scoff’d at till too late;

To themes legs lofty, still my lay confine,

And urge thy bards to gain a name like thine.

Then, hapless Britain ! be thy rulers blest,

The senate’s oracle, the people’s jest !

Still here thy motley orators dispense

The flowers of rhetoric, though not of sense,

While Canning’s colleagues hate him for his wit,

And old dame Portland fills the place of Pitt.
Yet once again, adieu ! ere this the sail

That wafts me hence, is shivering in the gale ;

And Afric’s coast, and Calpe’s adverse height,

And Stamboul’s minarets must greet my sight;

‘Thence shail I stray through beauty’s native

clime,
Where Kaff is clad in rock, and crown’d su-
blime.
But should I back return, no letter’d rage
Shall drag my common place book on the stage ;
Let vain Valentia rival luckless Carr,
And equal him whose work he sought to mar,
Let Aberdeen and Elgin still pursue
The shade of fame through regions of virtue :
Waate useless thousands on their Phidian freak,
Mis-shapen monuments, and maim’d antiques ;
And make their grand saloons a general mart

. For all the mutilated works of art :

Of Dardan tours let Dillettanti tell,
I leave topography to classic Gell ;

And, quite content, no more shall interpose,
To stun mankind with poesy or prose.POEMS. 908

 

Thus far I’ve held my undisturb’d career,
Prepared for rancour, steel’d ’gainst selfish fear ;
This thing of rhyme, I ne’er disdained to own—
Though not obstrusive, yet not quite unknown ;
My voice was heard again, though not se loud,
My page, though nameless, never disavow’'d ;
And now at once I tear the veil away:

Cheer on the pack ! the quarry stands at bay,

Unsear’d by all the dint of Melbourne’s house,

By Lambe’s resentment, or by Holland’s spouse.

By Jeffrey’s harmless pistol, Hallam’s rage,

Edina’s brawny sons and brimstone page.

Our men in buckram shall have blows enough,

And feel they too are penetrable stuff :”

And though I hope not hence unscath’d to go,

Who conquers me shall meet a stubborn foe.

‘The time has been, when no harsh sound would
fall

From lips that now.may seem embued with gall :

Nor fools, nor follies tempt me to despise

The meanest worm that crawled beneath my

eyes :
But now so callous grown, so changed since
youth,
I’ve learned to think and sternly speak the
truth ;

Learned to deride the critic’s starch decree,

And break him on the wheel he meant for me¢

To spurn the rod a scribbler bids me kias,

Nor care if courts and crowds applause or hiss,

Nay, more, though all my rival rhymesters
frown,

T too can hunt a poetaster down :204 BYRON S

«

And, armed in proof, the gauntlet cast at once

To Scotch marauder, and the southern dunce.

Thus much I’ve dared to do, how far my lay

Hath wrong’d the righteous times, let others say.
: : ;

This let the world, which knows not how tospare,

Yet rarely blames unjustly, now declare.SELECT POEMS.2%

{MS.

e

SELECT PO

FAREWELL TO ENGLAND.

Ox! land of my fathers and mine,

The noblest, the best, and the bravest ;
Heart-broken, and lorn, I resign

The joys and the hopes which thou gavest !

Dear mother of Freedom ! farewell !
Even freedom is irksome tome:

‘Be calm, throbbing heart, nor rebel, .
For reason approves the decree.

Did I love?—Be my witness, high heaven ;
That mark’d all my frailties and fears;

T ador’d—but the magic is riven ;
Be the memory expunged by my tears!

The moment of rapture, how bright,
How dazzling, how transient its glare !
A comet in splendour and flight,
The herald of darkness and care.

Recollections of tenderness gone,
Of pleasure no more to return ;
A wanderer, an outeast alone,
Oh! leave me untortured, to mourn.4

out the fabulous stream, -
washes remembrance away,

A gain mig] ut the eye of hope gleam

Mhe dawn of a happier ey,

Hath wine an oblivious power ? 2
Can it pluck out the sting from the brain?
The draught might beguile for an hour ;
But still leave behind it the pain.

a

Can distance or time heal the heart
That bleeds from the innermost pore ?
Or intemperance lessen the smart ?
Ora cerate apply to its sore?

If I rush to the ultimate pole,

The form I adore will be there,
A phantom to torture my soul,

And mock at my bootless despair.

‘The zephyr of eve as it flies,
W ill whisper her voice in mine ear,
And mo ee with her sorrows and sighs,

Deman r love’s altar a tear.

And still in the dreams of the day,
And still in the visions of night,

Will fancy her beauties display,

Disordering, deceiving the sight.ee eet

POEMS;

Hence, vain fleeting images—hence !
Grim phantoms that ’wilder my brain:

Mere frauds upon reason and sense,
Engender’d by folly and pain!

Did I swear on the altar of Heaven,
My fealty to her I adored?

Did she give back the vows I had given,
And plight back the plight of her lord 2

If I err’d for a moment from love,
The error I flew to retrieve ;

Kiss’d the heart I had wounded, and strove
To sooth, ere it ventured to grieve.

Did I bend who had ne’er bent before ?
Did I sue, who was used to command?

Love forced me to weep and implore.
And pride was too weak to withstand.

Then why should one frailty like mine,
Repented, and wash’d by my tears,
Erase those impressions divine,
The faith and affection of years?

Was it well, between anger and love,
That pride the stern umpire should be;

And that heart should its flintiness prove
On none, till it proved it on me/

And, ah ! was it well, when I knelt,
Thy tenderness so to conceal,
That witnessing all which I felt,
Thy sternness forbade thee to feel 2 Ti
°BYRON’S

   
 
 
  
 
 
  
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
  
 
 
   

Then when the dear fruit of our love
Look’d up to hér mother and smiled,

Say, was there no impulse that strove
to back the appeal of the child ?

 

That bosom, so callous and chill?
So teacherous to love and to me;
Ah ! felt it no heart-rending thrill,
As it turn’d from the innocent’s plea ?

That ear which was open to all,
Was ruthlessly closed to its lord ;
Those accents which fiends would enthral,
Refus’d a sweet peace-giving word.

And think’st thou, dear objects—for still
To my bosom thou only art life,

And spite of my pride and my will,
I bless thee, I woo thee, my life !

Oh! think’st thou that absence shall bring
The blame which will give thee relief:
Or time, on its life-wasting wing,
An antidote yield for thy grief?

Thy hopes will be frail as the dream
Which cheats the long moments of night,
But melts in the glare of the beam
Which breaks the portal of light.

For when on my babe’s smiling face
Thy features and mine were entwined,

The finger of fancy shall trace,

The spell shall resistlessly bind,POEMS,

The dimple that dwells on her cheek,
The glances that beam from her eye,

The lisp as she struggles to speak,
Shall dash every smile witha sigh.

Then I, though whole oceans between
Their billowy barriers may rear,

Still triumph, though far and unseen,
Unconscious, uneall’d, shall be there.

e cruelty sprang not from thee,
T'was foreign and foul to thy heart,
That levell’d its arrows at me,

And fixed the incurable smart.

Ah, no ! twas another than thine,

The hand which assail’d my repose,
It struck—and too fata ally mine

The wound, and the oiispring of woes.
They hated us |] both who des troy’ ‘d

The buds and the promise of Spring,
Or what, to the bow over-bent

The spring which it carried before?

The rent heart will fester‘ and bleed,

-And fade like the leafin the blast ;
The crack’d yew, no more will recede,
Though vigorous and tough to the last,

 

n it matters not wher«
No bliin can restore me to peace,
Or snatch from the frown of despair,
A cheering—a fleeting release.

 

I wea eT ee

  

212 BYRON S

 

How slowly the moments will move !
How tedious the footsteps of years !

When valley and mountain and grove
Shall change but the scene of my tears.

The classic memorials will nod,
The spot dear to science and lore,
Sarcophagus, temple, and sod,
Excite me and ravish no more.

The stork on the perishing-wall

Is better and happier than I,
Content in his ivy-built hall,

He hangs out his home in the sky.

But houseless and heartless I rove,
My bosom all bared to the wind,
The victim of pride and of love,
I seek— but, ah! where can I find ?

I seek what no tribe can bestow ;
I ask what no clime can impart ;
A charm which can neutralize woe,
And dry up the tears of the heart.

I ask it—I seek it—in vain—

From Ind to the northernmost pole,
Unheeded—unpitied—complain,

And pour out the grief of my soul.

What bosom shall heave when I sigh ?
What tears shall respond when | weep ?

To my wailings what wails shall reply

What eye mark the vigils I keep?POEMS.

Even thou, as thou learnest to prate,
Dear babe—while remotely | rove—
Shall count it a duty to hate,
Where nature commands thee to love.

The foul tongue of malice shall peal
My vices, my faults, in thine ear,
And teach thee, with demon like zeal,

A father’s affection to fear.

And oh ! if in some distant day,

Thine ear may be struck with my lyre,
And nature’s true index may say,

«It may—it must be my sire !”

 

Perhaps to thy prejudiced eye,
My form may obnoxious appear,

Even nature be deaf to my sigh,
And duty refuse me a tear.

Yet sure in this isle, where my songs
Have echoed from mountain and dell,

Some tongue the sad tale of my wrongs
With grateful emotion may tell.

Some youth, who had valued my lay,
And warmed o’er the tale as it ran,
To thee e’en may venture to say,
His frailties were those of a man.

They were ; they were human, but swelled
By envy and malice and scorn,

Bach feeling of nature rebelled,
And hated the mask it had wern.O14 BYRON’S

Though human the fault—how severe,
How harsh the stern sentence pronounced :
Even pride dropped a niggardly tear,
My love as it grimly denounced.

"Tis past, the great struggle is o'er ;
The war of my bosom subsides :
And passion’s strong current no more

Impels its impetuous tides.

‘Tis past ; my affections give way,
The ties of my nature are broke,
The summons of pride I obey,
And brave love’s degenerate yoke.

I fly, like a bird in the air,
In search ofa home and a rest ;
A balm for the sickness of care,
A bliss for a bosom unblesy’d :

And swift as the swallow that floats,
And bold as the eagle that soars,
Yet dull as the owlet, whose notes
The dark fiend of midnight deplores !

Where gleam the gay splendours of Hast,
The dance and the bountiful board :
Py bear me to Luxury’s feast,
To exile the form I adored.

In full brimming goblets Pll quaff ;
The sweets of the Lethean spring,

And join in the Bacchanal’s laugh,
And trip in the fairy-formed ring,POEMS.

Where pleasure invites will I roam,
To drown the dull memory of care,

An exile from hope and from home,
A fugitive chased by despair.

Farewell to thee, land of the brave !
Farewell to thee, land of my birth !

When tempests around thee shall rave,
Still—still may they homage thy worth.

Wife, infant, and country, and friend,
Ye wizard my fancy no more,

I fly from your solace and wend
fo weep on some kindlier shore.

The grim-visaged fiend of the storm
That waves in the agonised breast,
Still raises his pestilent form,
Mill death calm the tumult to rest.

TO MY DAUGHTER,
ON THE MORNING QF HER BIRTH.

Harr to this teeming stage of strife !
Hail, lovely miniature.of hfe!

Pilgrim of many cares untold !

Lamb of the world’s extended fold !
Fountain of hopes and doubts and fears !
Sweet promise of ecstatic year's !

How could I faintly bend the knee,

‘And turn idolator to thee !216 BYHON'S

"Tis nature’s worship—tfelt—confegs’d,
Far as the life which warms the breast ;
The sturdy savage, midst his clan,

The rudest portraiture of man ;

In trackless woods and boundless plains
Where everlasting wildness reigns,
Owns the still throb—the secret star}—
The hidden impulse of the heart.

Dear babe ! ere yet upon thy years

The soil of human vice appears ;

Ere passion hath disturb’d thy cheek,

And prompted what thou dar’st not speak ;
Ere that pale lip is blanch’d with care,

Or from those eyes shoot fierce despair,
Would I could wake thy untun’d ear,

And greet it with a father’s prayer !

But little reck’st thou, oh, my child !
Of travail on life’s thorny wild !

Of all the dangers, all the Woes,

Each tottering footstep which enclose ;
Ah ! little reck’st thou of the scene

So darkly wrought, that Spreads between
The little all we here can find,

And the dark mystic sphere behind !

Little reck’st thou, my earliest born,

Of clouds which gather round thy morn,
Of acts to lure thy soul astray,

Of snares that intersect thy way,

Of secret foes, of friends uatrue,

Of fiends who stab the heart they woo—
Little thou reck’st of this sad store-—
Would thou might’st never reek them more !POEMS.

But thou wilt burst this transient sleep,
And thou wilt wake, my babe ! to weep ;
The tenant of a frail abode,

Thy tears must flow, as mine have flow’d ;
Beguil’d by follies every day,

Sorrow must wash the faults away,

And thou must wake, perchance, to prove
The pangs of unrequited love. Z

Unconsious babe ! though on that brow,
No half-fledg’d misery nestles now,
Scarce round thy placid lips a smile,
Maternal fondness shall beguile.

Ere the moist footsteps of a tear

Shall plant their dewy traces there,
And prematurely point the way

For sorrows of a riper day !

Oh ! could a father’s prayer repel

The eye’s sad grief, the bosom's swell ;

Or coulda father hope to bear

A darling child’s allotted care,

Then thou, my babe ! should’st slumber still,
Exempted from all human ill,

A parent’s love thy peace should free,

And ask its wounds again for thee!

Sleep on my child ! thy slumber brief
Too soon shall melt away in grief;

Too soon the dawn of woe shall break,
And briny rills bedew thy cheek ;

Too soon shall sadness quench these eyes,
That breast be agonis’d with sighs,

And anguish o’er the beams of noon
Leave clouds of eare,==ah, much too #60n !BYRON 'S

 
  
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
 

Soon wilt thou reck of cares unknown, |
Of wants and sorrows all their own,

Of many a pang,—of many a woe,

That thy dear sex alone can know—

Of many an ill, untold, unsung,

That will not—may not find a tongue,

But kept conceal’d without control,

Spread the fell cankers of the soul.

Yet be thy lot, my babe, more blest !
May joy still animate thy breast;
Still ‘midst thy least propitious days,
Shedding its rich inspiring rays ;

A father’s heart shall dearly bear
Thy name upon its secret prayer,
And as he seeks his last repose,
Thine image ease life's parting throes.

 

Then hail ! sweet miniature of life t
Hail, to this teeming stage of strife !
Pilgrim of many cares untold !

Lamb of the world’s extended fold !
Fountain of hopes, and doubts, and fears !
Sweet promise of ecstatic years !

Now could I faintly bend the knee,

And turn idolator to thee !

TO JESSY.

The following Stanzas were addressed by Lord Byron to
his Lady a few months before their separation.

THERE is a mystic thread of life

So dearly wreath’d with mine alone,POEMS. # 219

That Destiny’s relentless knife
At once must sever both or none.

There is a form on which these eyes
Have often gaz’d with fond delight ;
By day that form their joy supplies,
And dreams restore it through the night.

There is a voice whose tones inspire

Such thrills of rapture through my breast ;
I would not hear a seraph choir

Unless that voice could join the feast.

There is a face whose blushes tell
Affection’s tale upon the cheek ;
But pallid at one fond farewell,
Proclaims more love than worlds can speak,

There is a lip which mine hath press’d,
And none hath ever press’d before ;

It vow’d to make me sweetly bless’d,
And mine—mine only, press’'d it more.

There is a bosom, all my own—
Hath pillow’d oft this aching head !
A mouth which smiles on me alone,
An eye whose tears with mine are shed.

There are two hearts whose movements thrill
In unison so closely sweet ;

That pulse to pulse, responsive still,
They both must heave, or cease to beat.

There are two souls whose equal flow
In gentle streams so calmly run,220 * BYKON’S

That when they part—they part /—ah, no—
They cannet part—those souls are one.

a

FARE THEE WELL. |

Fare thee well, and if for ever—
Still for ever, fare thee well—
H’en though unforgiving, never
o a a?

Gainst thee shall my heart rebel.

Would that breast were bared before thee,
Where thy head go oft hath lain,

When that placid sleep came o’er thee
Which thou ne'er canst know again ;

Would that breast by thee glanced over,
Every inmost thought could show !

Then thou wouldst at last discover
“T'was not well to spurn it so.

Though the world for this commend thee—
Though it smile upon the blow.

E’en its praises must offend thee,
Founded on another's woe.

Though my many faults defaced me,
Could no other arm be found,

Than the one which once embrae’d me,
To intlict a cur’ ess wound !

Yet—oh, yet—thyself deceive not—

Love may sink by slow decay,POEMS.

But by sudden wrench believe not,
Hearts can thus be torn away !

And the undying thought which pain
Is—that we no more may meet.

There are words of deeper sorrow
Than the wail above the dead ;

Both shall live—but every morrow—
Wake us from a widow'd |}

And when thou woul
When our child’s nt

Wilt thou teach her to say—Fa
Though kis care she must forego -

When her lips to t
Think of him whose p
Think of him thy love

Should her lineaments resen
Those thou never mor

Then thy heart will softl:
With a pulse still true t¢

All my faults—perchance thou know
All my madness—none can know ;

All my hopes—where’er thuu goest,
Whither—yet with thee the go.

Every feeling hath been shaken ;
Pride, which not a world could bow,BYRON’S

   
  
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
  
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
  
  
 

Bows to thee—by thee forsaken, |
Even my soul forsakes me now.

But ’tis done—all words are idle—
Words from me are vainer still;
For the thoughts we cannot bridle
Force ther way without the will.

Fare thee well !—thus disunited,
Torn from every nearer tie—

Seared in heart—and lone—and blighted,
More than this, I scarce can die.

A SKETCH FROM PRIVATE LIFE.

Honest—honest Iago !
If thou be’st a devil, I cannot kill thee.—SHAKSPEARE.

Bern in the garret, in the kitchen bred,
Promoted thence to deck her mistress’ head ;
Next—for some gracious service, unexpress’d,
And from its wages only to be guess’d,

Raised from the toilet to the table—where
Her wondering betters wait behind her chair
Vith eye unmov’d, and forehead unabash’d,

She dines from off the plate she lately wash’d.

Quick with the tale, and ready with the lie—

The genial confidante, and general spy—

Who could, ye gods! her next employment
guess +—

An only infant's earliest governess !POEMS.

She taught the child to read, and taught so

well,

That she herself, by teaching, learn’d to spell.

An adept next in penmanship she grows,

As many a nameless slander deftly shows:

What she had made the pupil of her art,

None know, but that high soul secured the
heart,

And panted for the truth it could not hear,

With longing breast, and undeluded ear.

Foil’d was perversion by that youthful mind,
Which flattery fool’d not—baseness could not
blind,
Deceit infect not—nor contagion soil—
Nor master’d science teach her to look down
On humbler habits with a pitying frown—
Nor genius swell—nor beauty render vain—
Nor envy ruffle to retaliate pain—
Nor fortune change—pride raise—nor passion
. bow—
Nor virtue teach austerity—till now.
Serenely purest of her sex that live,
But wanting one great sweetness—to forgive.
Nor shock’d at faults her soul can never know,
She deems that all could be like her below;
Foe to all vice, yet hardly virtue’s friend,
For Virtue pardons those she would amend.

But to the theme—now laid aside too long—
The baleful burden of this honest song—
Though all her former functions are no more,
She rules the circle which she serv’d before.224 BYRON’S

If mothers—none know why—before her quake, |

If daughters dread her for their mother’s sake ;||

If early habits—those false links which bind |

At times the loftiest to the meanest mind—

Have given her power too deeply to instil

The angry essence of her deadly will;

If like a snake she steal within your walls,

Till the black slime betray her as she crawls ;

If like a viper to the heart she wind,

And leave the venom there she did not find ;—

What marvel that this hag of hatred works

Eternal evil, latens as she lurks,

To make a Pandemonium where she dwells,

And reign the Hecate of domestic hells !

Skill’d by a touch to deepen scandal’s tints

With all the deep mendacity of hints,

While mingling truth with falsehood—sneers
with smiles

A thread of candour with a web of wiles;

A plain, blunt show of briefly spoken seeming,

To hide her bloodless heart’s soul-harden’d
scheming ;

A lip of lies—a face form’d to conceal ;

And without feeling, mock at all who feel :

With a vile mask the Gorgon would disown—

A cheek of parchment, and an eye of stone.

Mark how the channels of her yellow blood

Voze to her skin, and stagnate there to mud,

Cased like the centipede in saffron mail,

Or darker greenness of the scorpion’s scale—

(For drawn from reptiles only may we trace

Congenial colours in that soul or face,)

Look on her features, and behold her mind,

As in a mirror of itself defined ;POEMS, $95
Look on the picture! deem it not o ercharg’d—
There is no trait which mi ight not be enlarge’ d—
Yet true to “ Nature’s journeymen,” who made
This monster Hen their mistress left off trade.
This female dog-star of her little sky
Where all beneath her influence dr oop or die.

Oh! wretch, without a tear !—without a

thought,

Save j Joy above the ruin thou hast wrought—

The time shall come, nor lo ng
thou

Shalt feel far more than thou inflictest now;

Feel for thy vile, self loving self in vain,

And turn thee how ling in wapitied pain.

May the strong curse of crush’d affections light

Back on ¢ thy bosom with refiected blight !

And make thee in thy leprosy of mind,

As loathsome to thyself as to mankind !

Till all thy self-thoughts cur dle into hat

Black—as thy will for others could Sente

Till thy hard heart be calcined into dust,

And thy soul welter in its hideous crust.

Oh, may thy grave be sleepless as the bed,—

The widowd couch of fire which thou hast

spread :

Then, when thou fain wouldst weary heaven

am prayer,
400k on thy earthly victims, and despair ;

Bowel to the dust !—and, as thou rott'st away.

Even worms shall perish on thy poisonous clay.

But for the love I bore, and still must bear,

To her thy malice from all ties would tear—

5

o r

remote, whenae a cae

   

226 BYRON S
har sme. + bk wWiTkKan name t¢ Very

Thy name—thy human name—to every eye,
The climax of all scora, shall hang on high,
Exalted o’er thy less abhorr’d compeers—
And festering in the infamy of years.

 

 

  

TO

When we two parted
In silence and tears,

Half broken hearted,
To sever for years

Pale be thy cheek and cold—
Colder thy kiss ;

Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on thy brow—

It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.

Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame,

I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.

They name thee before me—
A knell in mine ear;

A shudder comes o’er me—
Why wert thou so dear ?
They know not I knew thee,

Who knew thee too well:
Love, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell,POEM 4.

In secret we meet—
In silence I grieve,

That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.

If I should meet thee,
After long years,

How I should gréet thee !
With silence and tears.

FAREWE

FakewE.u ! if ever fe lest prayer
For other’s weal ayail’d on high,

Mine will not all be lost in air,
But waft thy name beyond the s

ak
Twas vain to speak, to weep, to sigh:
Oh! more than tears of blood can tell,

Who wrung from guilt’s expiring eye,
‘Are in that word—Farewell | Farewell !

Those lips are mute, these eyes are dry ;
But in my breast, and in my brain,
‘ Awake the pangs that pass not by,
The thoughts that ne'er shall ‘sleep again.
My soul nor ‘deigns nor dares complain,
Though grief and passion there rebel ;
J only . know we lov'd in vain—
I only feel—Farewell !—Farewell !See ee

;
SYRONS

   
  
    
 
   
  
   
  
 
 
  
    
  
  
  
  
   

SONG TO INEZ.

Wuen late Isaw
I thought ue tee oa] on
tg when the unconsciot
I kise’d it—for its m
I kissed it—a

ae
Its father .

y fa vourite child,
s heart would break ;
infant smil’d,

us
17 aya ag
otners § ake,

a

    

1
5

 

13
e€press a

rt

So Sy

1 its face to see;
sut then ne ad its 1 asl 1ers eyes—
And they were all to love and me.

 

oes

On A {DMT
SONG OF A GREEK.

Tu isles of Greece, the isles of Greece !
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,

Where grew the arts of war an id poneo
Where Delos ro se, snd Phoebus:sprung !

Eternal summers gild them yet,

But all, except their sun, is set

The Scian and the Teian muse,
The hero’ 8 harp, the lover’s lute
Have found Ve fame your shores refuse !
Their place of Co th alone is mute,
To sound which echo further west
Than your sires, “ Islands of the Blest.”’The mountians look on Marathon—
And Marathon looks on thesea :
And musing there an hour al
I dream’d that Gré i
For standing on the
1 could not de
A king sate on the rocky |
Which looks o’er sea born Salamis ;
And ships, by thousands, far below,
And men in nations ;—all were his!
He counted them at break of day—
And when the sun set where were they ?

And where are they, and where art thou,
My country? On thy voiceless shore

The heroic lay is tuneless now—
The heroic bosom beats no more ;

And must thy lyre, so long divine,

Degenerate into hands like mine!

"Tis something, in the death of fame,
Though link’d among the fetter’d race
To feel at least a patriot’s shame,
Even as I sing suffuse my face ;
For what is left the poet here?
For Greeks a blush—for Greece a tear.

x

Must we but weep o’er days more blest !
Must we but blush ~—Our fathers bled,

Earth ! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead !

Of the three hundred grant but three,

To make a new Thermopylee,BYRON &

What, silent still? what silent all?
Ah! no: the voices of the dead
Sound like a distant torrent’s fall,
And answer, ‘“ Let one living head.
But one arise—we come, we come;
"Tis but the living who are dumb.”

In vain—in vain ; strike other chords ;
Fill high the cup with Samian wine !

Leave battle to the Turkish hordes,
And the blood of Scio’s wine ;

Hark ! rising to the ignoble call—

How answers each Bacchanal.

You have the Phyrrhic dance as yet,
Where is the Phyrrhic plalanx gone?
Of two such lessons why forget
The nobler and the manlier one?
You have the letters Cadmus gave—
Think ye he meant them for a slave ?

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine;
We will not think of themes like these ?
It made Anacreon’s song divine :
He served—but served Polycrates—
A tyrant; but our masters then
Were still, at least, our countrymen.

The tyrant of the Cheronese

Was freedom’s best and bravest friend ;
That tyrant was Miltiades:

Oh! that the present hour would lend
Another despot of the kind:

Puch chains as his were sure to bind.POEMS.

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine !
On Suli’s rock, and Parga’s shore,
Exists the remnant of a line
Such as the Doric mothers bore :
And there, perhaps some seed is sown,
The Heracleidan blood might own.

Trust not for freedom. to the Franks—
They have a king who buys and sells ;
In native swords, and native ranks,
The only hope of courage dwells ;
But Turkish force, and Latin fraud,
Would break your shield, however broad.

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine,
Our virgins dance beneath the shade,

I see their glorious black eyes shine ;
But gazing on each glowing maid,

My own the burning tear-drops laves,

To think such breasts must suckle slaves.

Place me on Suni rbled steep—
e@ Vy

Where nothing, save the waves and I
May hear our m Murmurs sweep 5

There, swan-like, tet me sing and die ;
A land of slaves shalk ne’er be mine—
Dash down your cup of Samian wine !

THE SULTANA GULBEYAZ.

Wuewn he was gone, there was a sudden change;
1 know not what might be the lady's thought,itepenseteects is

  
  
 
 
 
  
  
  
  
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
  
  
  
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
  

BYRON'S

But o’er her bright brow flush’d a tumult strange,
And into her clear cheek the blood was
brought,
Giood- ved as sun set summer clouds which range
The verge of Heaven; and in her large eyes
wroucht
saxtue of sensation might be scann’d,
Jt balf volaptuousness and half command.

a er fe 9

¢ form gad all the softness of her Sex,
Her features all the sweetness of the devil,
When he put on the cherub to perplex
Hye, and paved (God knows how) the road to
evil ;
The sun himself was scarce more free from specks
Than she from aught at which the eye could

 

cavil,
Yet somehow there was something somewhere
wanting,

A> if she rather order’d than was granting.

Something imperial, or imperious threw
A chain o’er all she did! that 18, a chain
Was thrown as ’twere about the neck of you—
And rapture’s self will‘seem almost a pain
With aught which looks like despotism in view,
Our souls at least are free, and ’tis in vain
We would against them make the flesh obey—
The spirit in the end wil? have its way.

Her very smile was haughty, though go sweet ;
Her very nod was not an inclination :

There was a self-will even in her small feet,
As though they were quite conscious of her
station—FOEMS,

hey trod as upon necks ; and to complete
Her state, (it is the custo: of her nation)
A poinard deck’t her girdle, as the sign
She was a sultan’s bride, (thank heaven, not
mine.)

«To hear and to obey” had been from birth
The law of all around her; to fulfil
All phantasies which yielded joy or mirth,
Had been her slaves’ chief pleasure, as her
will :
Her blood was high, her beauty scarce of earth :
Judge, then, if her caprices e’er stood still :
Had she but been a christian, I’ve a notion
We should have found out the ‘perpetual mo-
tion.’
Whate’er she saw and coveted was brought ;
Whate’er she did not see, if she supposed
It might beseen, with diligence was sought,
And when ’twas found straightway the bargain
closed :
There was no end unto the things she bought,
Nor to the trouble which her fancies caused ;
Yet even her tyranny had such a grace,
The women pardon’d all except her face.

HAIDEE DISCOVERING JUAN.

Turre, breathless, with his digging nails heclung
Fast to the sand, lest the returning wave,

From whose reluctant roar his life he wrung,

Should suck him back to her insatiate grave:eae ae
ea

 

 

 

234 BYRON’S

And there he lay, full length, where he waa |i

flung,
Before the entrance of a cliff worn cave,
With just enough ot life to feel its pain,
And deem that it was gaved, perhaps, in vain.

With slow and staggering effort he arose,
But sunk again upon his bleeding knee

And quivering hand: and then he looked for

those
Who long had been his mates upon the sea,
Gut none of them appeared to share his woes,
Save one, a corpse, trom out the famish’d three,
Who died two days*before, and now had found
An unknown barren beach for burial ground,

And, as he gazed, his dizzy brain spun fast,
And down he sunk, and as he sunk, the sand

Swam round and round, and all his senses pass’d,
He fell upon his side, and his stretch’d hand

Droop’d, dripping on the oar (their jury mast,)
And like a wither’d lily, on the land

His slender frame and pallid aspect lay,

As fair a thing as e’er was formed of clay.

How long in his damp trance young Juan lay,
He knew not, for the earth was gone from
him,
And Time had nothing more of night or day
For his congealing blood, and senses dim -
And how his heavy faintness pass'd away
He knew not, till each painful pulse and limb,
And tingling vein, seem’d trobbing back to life,
For death, though vanquish’d still, retir’d with
strife,

      
 

|
|
|

   
  
  
 
 
  
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
  
   
  
 
 
    
 
 
  
  
 
  

ItPOEMS.

His eyes he open’d, shut, again unciosed,
For all was doubt and dizziness ; 31 methought
He still was in the boat, and had but dozed,
And felt again with his despai vir o'erw rought,
And wish’d it death in which he had repo: sed,
And then once more his feclings back were
brought,
And slowly by. his swimming eyes were seen
A lovely female face of sever hits sen.

ne
seat

'Nwas bending close o’er his, and the small
mouth

Seem’d almost prying into his for breath ;

And chafing him, the soft warm hand of youth
Recall’ his answering spirit back from death :

And, bathing his chill temples s, tried to soothe
Bach pulse to animation, till beneath

Its gentle touch and trembling

Mo ¢hese kind efforts made a low

 

 
 

Then was the cordial pour’d, a and mantle flung
Around his scarce clad limbs; ; an id the fair arm
Raised higher the faint head which over it hung,
And her transparent cheek, ail | pure and warm,
Pillow’d his death like forehead; then she wrung
His dewy curls long drench’d by every storm:
And watch’d with eagerness each thi ‘obt hat drew
A sigh from his heave 2d bosom—and hers too.
And lifting him with care into the
The genile girl, and her at
Young, yet her elder, and of brow |
And more robust of figur eo then beste
To kindle fire, and as the new flames gave
Light to the rocks that roof'd them, which
the sur

 

  
  

ea

|

1
ex
=]
o

2 LV EG,6° ie

woo BYRON’

Had never seen, the maid, or whatsoe’er
She was, appear’d distinct, and tall, and fair.

Her brow was overhung with coins of gold,

That sparkled o’er the auburn of her hair,
Her clustering hair, whose longer locks were

roll’d

In braids behind, and though her stature were ©
Eyen of the highest for a female mould,

They nearly reach’d her heel : and in her air
There was a something which bespoke command,
AAs one who was a lady in the land.

ter hair, I said, was auburn; but her eyes
Were black as death, the lashes the same hue.

Of downcast length, in whose silk shadow lies
Deepest attraction, for when to the view

Far from its raven fringe the full glance flies,
Ne’er with such force the swiftest arrow flew :

Tis as the snake late coil’d, who pours his length,

And hurls at once his venom and his strength. |

Her brow was white and low, her cheeks puredye
Like twilight rosy still with the set sun:
Short upper lip—sweet lips! that make us sigh
Ever to have seen such; for she was one
Fit for the model of a statuary,
(A race of mere impostors, when all’s done—
I’ve seen much finer women, ripe and real,
‘han all the nonsense of their stone ideal.)

Pll tell you why I say so, for ’tis just™
One should not rail without a decent cause !

There was an Irish lady, to whose bust

I ne’er saw justice done, and yet she wasA frequent model ; and if e’er she must

Yield to stern Time and Nature’s wrinkling
laws,

They will destroy a face which mortal thought

Ne’éer compass’d, nor less mortal chisel wrought.

And such was she, the lady of the cave:
| Her dress was very different from the Spanish,
Simpler, and yet of colours not so grave
For as you know the Spanish women banish
Bright hues when out of doors, and yet, while
wave
Around them (what I hope will never vanish)
‘he basqunah and the mantilla, they
Seem af the same time mystical and gay.

But with our damsel this was not the case ;
Her dress was many colour’d, finely spun;
Her locks curl’d negligently around her face,
But through them gold and pearl profusely
shone ;
Her girdle sparkled, and the richest lace
Flow’d in her veil, and many a precious stone ;
Plash’d on her little hand; but what was shock-
ing,
Her small snow feet had slippers, but no stock-
ing,
The other female’s dress was not unlike,
But of inferior materials; she
Had not so many ornaments to strike,
er hair had silver only, bound to be.
Her dowry; and her veil, in form alike,
Was coarser; and her air, though firm, less
free ;They turn’d to r
Yielde

They ¢

   

238 BYRON'S

   

Her hair was thicker, but less long; her.eyes
As black, but quicker, and of smaller size.

    

_ HAIDEE WANDERING WITH JUAN.

 
 

It was the cooling hour, just when the rounded
Red sun sinks down behind the azure hill,

 
 
   
 
  
  
 
  
  
  
  
  
  
 
  
   
  
 
 
 
 
    
   
 
  

Which then seems ag if. the whole earth it

bounded
Circling all nature, hush’d the dim and still
oO ? 3 a

With the fair mountain crescent half surrounded

On one side, and the deep sea calm and chill

Upon the other, and the rosy sky,
With one star sparkling through it like an eye.

And thus they wander’d forth, and hand in hand

Over the shining pebbles and the shells

Gliding along the smooth and harden’d sand,

And in the worn and wild receptacles

Work’d by the storm, yet work’d as it were

plann’d
Tn hollow halls, with sparry roofs and cells,
est ; and each clasp’d by an arm
d to the deep twilight’s purple charm.

They look’d up to the sky, whose brilliant

glow
Spread like a rosy ocean, vast and bright :

C

az wpon the glittering sea below,

Whence the broad moon rose circling into sight;
They heaz
rhey h

eard the waves splash, and the wind so
7
LOW,

A gets, z x . ; * .
And saw each other's dark eyes darting lichtPOEMS.

Into each other—and beholding this,
Their lips drew near, and clung into a kiss.

=

HAIDER’S DREAM.

Juan and Haidee gazed upon each other
With swimming looks of speechless tenderness,
Which mix’d all feelings, friend, child, lover
brother,
All that the best can mingle and express
When two pure hearts are “pour’d in one ano-
ther,
And love too much, and yet cannot love less ;
But almost sanctify the sw eet excess
By the immortal wish and power to bless.

Mix’d in each other’s arms, and heart in heart,
Why did they not then die ?—they had lived
too long
Should an hour come to bid them breathe apart ;
Years could but bring them cruel things or
wrong,
The world was not for them, nor the world’s art
For beings passionate as Sappho’s song ;
hs was born with them, in them, so intense,
It was their very spirit—not a sense.

They should have lived tog eo Ler see in woods,

   

x 1 t
Unseen as sings the n ngale; they were
Tees ah Sera kts Ay ts
Unfit to mix in these thick s es

ere all vice and hat tred ar
How Teas y eve oe freeborn creature broods be
3
A

Tu f \ is 7. AP
The sweetest song birds ne stle n @ pair:

°
@)
fc
toned
Ch
a
pale
~o
Sind
<240 BYRON’S

‘The eagle soars alone ; the gull and crow
Flock o’er the carrion, just as mortals do.

   

 

 
   
 
  
  
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 

Now pillow’d cheek to cheek, in loving sleep,
Haidee and Juan their siesta take, |
A gentle slumber, but it was not deep, |
For ever and anon a something shook |
Juan, and shuddering o’er his frame would
creep ;
And Haidee’s sweet lips murmur’d like a
brook |
A worldless music, and her face so fiir
Stirr’d with her dxeam as rose-leaves with the
air.

Or as the stirring of a deep clear stream
Within an Alpine hollow, when the wind
Walks over it, was she shaken by the dream,
The mystical usurper of the mind—
O’erpowering us to be whate’er may seem
Good to the‘soul which we no more can bind ;
Strange state of being : (for ’tis still to be)
Senseless to feel, and with seal’d eyes to see.

She dream’d of being alone on the sea-shore,
Chain’d to arock: she knew not how, but stir

She could not from the spot, and the loud roar
Grew, and each wave rose roughly, threaten-

ing her.

And o’er her upper lip they seem’d to pour,

Until she sobbed for breath, and soon they
were
Foaming o’er her lone head, so fierce and high
ach broke to drown het, yet she could not die.POEMS. 941

Anon—she was released, and then she stray'd
O’er the sharp shingles with her bleeding feet,

And stumbled almost every step she made ,
And something roll’d before her in a sheet,

Whichshe must still pursue howe’er afraid ;
"Nwas white and indistinct, nor stopp’d to

meet
Her glance nor grasp, for still she gazed and
grasp'd

And ran, but it escaped her as she clasp’d.

ged : in a cave she stood, its

The dream chan
walls
Were hung with marble icicles; the work
Of ages on its water fretted halls.
Where waves might wash, and seals might
breed and lurk ;
Her hair was dripping, and the very balls
Of her black eyes seemed turn’d to tears, and
murk,
The sharp rocks look’d below each drop the
Which froze to marble as it fell, she thought.

And wet, and cold, and lifeless at her feet,
Pale as the form that froth’d on his dead
brow,
Which she essay’d in vain to clear, (how sweet
Were once her cares, how idle seemed they
\
iE

now !
Lay Juan, nor could aught renew the beat
Of his quenched heart; and the sea dirges

low
Rang in her sad ears like a mermaids Song,
: a * hd 3 a 2 3 3 a
And that brief dream appear'd a life too jong.

F

ry

dT peAve Don Jua

 
 

 

   
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

BRT elena < :
Not sound, bis sev oe wo
oS
ed; |
1 et ha Sears NAT GS . slit
Yet could his corporeal pangs amount to half

his Haidee’s bosom |
bounded : |
She was not one to weep, and rave, and chafe,
And then give way, subdued, because sur~
rounde ed,
Her mother was a Moorish maid from Fez,
Where all is Eden, of a wilderness.

There the large olive rains its amber store
In m arble “founts : there grain, and flower,
and fruit
Gush from the earth until the land runs o’er ;
There too many a po tree has root,
And midnight listens to the lion’s roar,
And long, long deserts scorch the camel's
foot,POEMS.

 
  
  
 
  
 
 
   
  
 
  
  
    
 
  
   
  
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  

Or heaving whelm the he elpless caravan,
And as the soil is, so the heart of man

Africa is all the sun’s, and as her earth
Her human clay i is ki ape full of power
For good or evil, burning from its birth,
The Moorish blood par yikes the planet’s hour,
And like the soil pete ath it, will bring forth :
Beauty and love were Haidee’s mother’s dow-

er:

And her large dark eye show'd deep passion’s
force,

mnt ikke

Nous h sleeping like a lion near a source.

Her daughter, temp ver'd with a milder ray,
Like summer ¢ clouds, all silvery, smooth and
fair,
Till slowly charged with thunder they display
Terror to earth, and tempest in the air,
Had held till now her soft and milky way;
But overwrought with ae and de espalr.
The fire burst forth from her Numidian v veins,
Even as the Simoon sweeps the blasted plains.

The last sight which she saw was Juan’s gore,
And he himself o’ermaster’d an d cut down ni;
His blood was running on the very floor
Where late he trod, er beauti ful, her own;
Thus much she view as an instant and no more—
Her struggles ceased with one convulsive
groan ;
On her sire’s arm, which until now scarce held
Her writhing tell she like a cedar fell’d.

itsO44 BY RON'S

Hi i : A vein had burst—aud her sweet lips’ pure dyes
Bl i Were dabbled with the deep blood which ran
oer

d
ee And her head droop’d as when the lily lies
Hi O’ercharged*with rain: her summon’d hand- |
ae maids bore |
Their lady to her couch with gushing eyes : |
Of herbs and cordials they produced their
store, |
But she defied all means they could employ,
Like one life could not hold, nor death destroy.

 

still
With nothing livid, still her lips were red ;
She had no pulse, but death seem’d absent still ;
No hideous sign proclaim’d her surely dead ;
Corruption came not in each mind to kill
All hope ; to look upon her sweet face bred

Days lay she in that state, unchang’d, though |

 

‘ New thoughts of life, for it seem’d full of soul
‘ She had so much, earth could not claim the
whole.

: The ruling passion, such as marble shews
i When exquisitely chisell’d, still lay there,
Pal But fix’d as marble’s unchanged aspect throws
re} O’er the fair Venus, but for ever fair ;
O’er the Laccoon’s all eternal-throes,
And never-dying Gladiator's air, |
Their energy like life forms all their ‘oe, |
|
|
|
|

 

 

Yet looks not life, for still they are tne same.

She woke at length—but not as sleepers wake—
Rather the dead, for life seem’d something |
new, |POEMS. 945

A strange sensation which she must partake
Perforce, since whatsoever met her view
Struck not on memory, though a heavy ache
Lay at her breast, whose earliest beat, still
true, :
Brought back the sense of pain without the
cause,
For, for a while the furies made a pause.

She looked on many a face with vacant eye,
On many a token without knowing what ;
She saw them watch her, without asking why,
And reck’d not who around her pillow sat;
Not speechless, though she spoke not, nota sigh
Relieved her thoughts; dull silence and quick
chat
Were tried in vain by those who served—she
gave
No sign, save breath, of having left the grave.

Her handmaids tended, but she heeded not;
Her father watched, she turned her eyes
away—
She recognised no being, and no spot ;
However dear or cherished in their day ;
They changed from room to room, but all for-
got
Gentle, but without memory, she lay ;
And yet those eyes which they would fain be
weaning
Back to old thoughts, seem’d full of fearful
meaning.
At last a slave bethought her of her harp :
The harper came, and tuned his instrument ;BYRONS.

At the first notes—irregular and sharp—
On him her flashing eyes a moment bent;
Then to the wall she turn’d as if to warp
Her thoughts from sorrow through her heart
Reva ey
re-senu,
And he began a long low island song,
Of ancient days—ere tyranny grew strong.

Anon her thin wan fingers beat the wall
In time to his old tune; he changed the

theme,
Andsung oflove: the fierce name struck through
a
ail

Her recollection; on her flash'd the dream
Of what she was, and is, if you could call
To he so,, being—in a gushing stream
The tears rush’ forth from her o’erclouded
brain,
Like mountain mists at length dissolved in rain.

Short solace !—vain relief ! thought came too
quick,
And whirl’d her brain to madness : she arose
As one who ne’er had dwelt among the sick,
And flew at all she met as on her foes ;
But no one ever heard her speak or shriek,
Although her paroxysm drew near its close :
Her’s was a frenzy which disdain’d to rave
y ,
= é
siven when they smote her—in a hope to save.

Yet she betrayed at times a gleam of sense ;
Nothing could make her meet her father’s

. face,
Though on all other things with looks intense
She gazed, but none she ever could retrace ;Food she refused, and raiment ; no pretence
Availed for either : neither change of place,

Nor time, nor skill, nor remedy c uld

Senses to sleep—the power seem’d gone i

c

Sg
rs oe
oo
ey as
eb
oO

Twelve days and nights she withered thus: at
ast

ich, a glance, to show

irit from her pass'd;

vd her nearest could not

A parting

   

She died—but not al
A second principle of

Have dawned a fair and sinles
But closed its little being without light,

4)

And went down to the grave unborn, wherein
Blossom and bough lie wither’d with one
blight ;
In vain the dews of heaven de

scend above
ted fruit of love.

The bleeding flower and blast
oO 3

 

thus died she; never more on her
Shall sorrow light, or shame,—She was not

made

Through years or moons the inner weight to
hear
year,

Which colder hearts endure till they are laid
By age in earth ; her pleasure ever were
Brief, but delightful—such as had not staida see

 

 

  

BYRON S

 
  
 
 
 
  
  
  
  
 
  
 
  
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
 

Long with her destiny ; but she sleeps well
By the sea shore, whereon she loved to dwell.

That isle is now all desolate and bare,
_ Its dwellings down—its tenants pass’d away ;

None but her own and father’s grave is there,
And nothing outward tells of human clay ;

Ye could not think where lies a thing so fair—
No stone is there to shoty—no tongue to say

What was ; no dirge, except the hollow seas,

Mourns o’er the beauty of the Cyclades.

But many a Greek maid, in a loving song,
Sighs o’er her name: and many an islander
With her sire’s story makes the night less long;
Valour was his, and beauty dwelt with her:

If she loved rashly, her life paid for wrong—
A heavy price must all pay who thus err,

In some shape; let none think to fly the danger,

For soon or late Love is his own avenger.

ODE TO THE ISLAND OF ST. HELENA.

Praos to thee, isle of the ocean !
Hail to thy breezes and billows!
Where, rolling its tides in perpetual devotion ;
The white wave its plumy surf pillows !
Rich shall the chaplet be, history shall weave

thee !
Whose undying verdure shall bloom on thy
brow,

When nations that now, in obscurity leave thee,
To the wand of oblivion alternately bow !POEMS, QAG

Unchanged in thy glory——unstain’d in thy
fame—
The homage of ages shall hallow thy name.

Hail to the chief who reposes
On thee the rich weight of his glory !
When filled to its limit, life’s chronicle closes,
| His deeds shall be sacred in story !
Wis prowess shall rank with the first of all ages,
And monarchs hereafter shall bow to his
wrath—
The songs of the poets—the lessons of sages—
Shall hold him the wonder and grace of the
earth.
The meteor of history before thee shall fall,

Py,

Eclipsed by the splendour, chou meteor of Gaul.

Hygeian breezes shall fan thee,
Island of glory resplendent !
Pilgrims from nations far distant shall man
thee,
Tribes, as thy waves, independent ! :
On thy fair gleaming strand shall the wanderer
stay him,
To snatch a brief glance at a spot 80 renown’d
Fach turf and each stone and each cliff shall de-
lay him,
Where the step of the exile hath hallow’d thy
round ;
From him shalt thou borrow a lustre divine,
The wane of his sun was the rising of thine.

Whose were the hands that enslaved him ?
Hands that had weakly withstood him—had oftentimes

    

 

 

le now droop-

ueCNnCH With thelr sternness e ray of

 

dais
in new splendour thy slory
In new splenaoul AY ory aps
years,

 

rules the a2

; Fa ME ee ip :
ascenda nt, the pianet ox years.
»

 

) - el sd aa ie} a i : i
Pure be the health of thy moun mins f
Rich ha thea orean F +] y pastures
AviLCllh VE ULLe ei COCrn ot bY | past ures:
FaaT A Yeates 4} Be
Limpid and lasting the streams of the founs
wy '
valns :
Thine annals ee 1 ey disasters !

supreme is the ocean a ri iltar swelling,

ail by the prayers
the tempest repell-

of. waves and of

 

A ae Be a Bee 2 wit ~ ot ake wale
Aloft on the battlements tong be unfurl’d
ry} ] that darke tha, 4 Set
‘he eagle that decks thee, the priae of the
ax | ?
Vy AAs

~
a
~
=
S
aca

py
©
=o
ae
“>

ing x,

Intimely mildews shaPOEMS, 251

{hen shall the violet that blooms in the vallies
Impart to the gale its reviving perfume,
[hen when the spirit of liberty rallies,
To chant forth its anthems on tyranny’s tomb,
Wide Europe shall fear lest thy star shall break
forth,
Eclipsing the pestilent orbs of the north.

TO —.
Wuew all around grew drear and dark,
And reason half withheld her ray—
And hope but shed a dying spark,
Which more misled my lonely way.

In that deep midnight of the mind.
And that internal strife of heart,
When dreading to be deem’d too kind,

The weak despair, the cold depart ;

When fortune changed and love fled far,
And hatred’s shafts flew thick and fast,
Thou wert the solitary star
Which rose and set not to the last.

Oh! blest be thine unbroken light !
That watched me as a seraph’s eye,

And stood between me and the night,
For ever shining sweetly nigh.

And when the cloud upon us came,
Which strove to blacken o’er the ray—

Then purer spread its gentle flame,

And dagh’d the darkness all away,

ES. ee
oe

 

Sa aaa AR
eeBYRON 'S

Still may thy spirit dwell on mine, _
And teach me what to brave or brook—

There’s more in one soft word of thine,
Than in the world’s defied rebuke.

Thou stood’st, as stands a lovely tree,
eed Whose branch unbroke, but gently bent, | |
ale Still waves with fond Adelity

4 Its boughs above a monument.

 

The winds might rend, the skies might pour,
But there thou wert, and still would’st bo
Devoted in the stormiest hour,
To shed the weeping leaves o’er me.

But thou and thine shall know no blight,
a: | Whatever fate on me may fall;
ee For heaven in sunshine will requite

he The kind—and thee the most of all.

i Then let the ties of baffied love

we, Be broken—thine will never break ;

be Thy heart can feel—but will not move;
Thy soul, though soft, will never shake.

 

 

‘. And these, when all was lost beside,

mt | Were found and still are fixed in thee—
And bearing stiil a breast so tried,

ne Earth is no desert—even to me.POEMS,

INSCRIPTION.

ON THE MONUMENT OF A NEWFOUNDLAND DOG,

Near this spot, are deposited the remains of one who pos-
sessed Beauty without Vanity, Strength without [nso
lence, Courage without Ferocity, and all the Virtues of
Man without his Vices. This Praise, which would be
unmeaning Flattery, if inscribed over human ashes, is
but a just tribute to the Memory of BoaTswaIN, a Dog,
who waég born at Newfoundland May, 1903, and died at
Newstead Abbey, Noy. 8, 1808.

Wuen some proud son of man returns to earth,
Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth,
The sculptur'd art exhausts the pomp of woe,
And storied urns record who rests below ;
When all is done, upon the tomb is seen,
Not what he was, but what he should have been!
But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend,
The first to welcome, foremost to defend,
Whose honest heart is still his master’s own,
Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone.
Unhonour’d falls, unnoticed all his worth,
Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth ;
While man, vain insect ; hopes to be forgiven,
And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.
Oh man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,
Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power, ,
Who knows thee well must quit thee with dis-
gust,
Degraded mass of animated dust !
Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,
Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit !BYRON’S

By nature vile, ennobled but by name,

Hach kindred brute might bid thee blush for |
shame,

Ye! who perchance behold this simple urn,

Pass on—it honours none you wish to mourn ;

‘To mark a friend’s remains these stones arise :

T never knew but one—and here he lies,

 

Wire all its sinful doings, I must say,
That Italy’s a pleasant place to me,

, Who love to see the sunshine every day,
And vines (not nail’d to walls) from tree to |

tree

Festoon’d, much like the back scene of a play,
Or a melo-drama, which people flock to see,

When the first act is ended by a dance

In vineyards copied from the south of France,

|
ITALY. |
|

I like on Autumn evenings to ride out,

Without being forced to bid my groom be
such,

My cloak is round his middle strapp’d about,
Because the skies are not the most secure ;

I. know too that, if stopp’d upon my route,
Where the green alleys windingly allure,

Reeling with grapes red waggons choke the way,

In England *twould be dung, dust, or a dray.

I also like to dine on becaficas,

To see the Sun Set, sure he'll rise to-morroyv,,v4
reeking

mers.

And gentle
That not

 

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Soft as hee chee: and i suny as h ¢ tied
Hye of the land which still is Paradise !
re

Italian beauty ! didst thou not insp1
Raphael, who a in thy embrace, anc
With all we know of heaven, or ¢206 BYRON'S
In what he hath bequeathed us !—in what guise,

Though flashing from the fervour of the lyre,
Would words describe the past and present glow,
“While yet Canova can create below ?

| ent eeen me ey

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB.

Tar Assyrian came dowa like a wolfon the fold,

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and
gold . |

‘And the sheen of their spears was like the stars |
on the sea,

When the blue wave rolls highly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is
green,

That hosts with their banner at-sunset were seen: |

Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath |
blown, \

That host on the morrow Jay wither’d and strewn.

For the angel of death spread his wings on the
blast,

And breathed in the face of the foe as he pase’d :

And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and
chill,

And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever
grew still !

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there roll’d not the breath of
his prideAnd the foam of his grasping lay white on the
surf,

And cold as the spray on the rock-beating turf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,

With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his,
mail : rant

And the tents were all silent, the banners a lone

The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the windows of Ashur were loud in their
wail

And the idols are broken in the temples of Baal:

And the might of the Gentile, unsmoie by the
sword,

Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord:

 

LINES.
INSORIBED UPON A CUP FORMED FROM A SKULL

Srart not—nor deem my spirit fled:
In me behold the only skull,

From which unlike a living head,
Whatever flows is never dull.

I lived, I loved, I quaff’d like thee ;

I died : let earth my bones resign :
Fill up—thou canst not injure me:

The worm hath fouler lips than thine.
Better to hold the sparkling grape,

Than nurse the earth-worm’s slimy brood
BRBYRON'S

   
   
    
   
  
   
 
 
 
 
   
   
   
    
  
 
 
   

And circle in the goblet’s shape
FL

he drink of Gods, than reptile’s food.
Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone,
In aid of others” let me shine ;
And when, alas! our brain are gone,
What nobler substitute than wine?

Quaff while thou canst : another race,
When thou and thine like thee are sped,

May rescue thee from earth’s embrace,
And rheme and revel with the dead.

Why not? since through life’s little day
Our heads such sad effects produce;
Redeem’d from worms and wasting clay,
This chance is theirs, to be of use.

 

ON THE STAR,
OF
“THE LEGION OF HONOUR.”

Star of the brave !—whose light hath shed
Such glory o'er the quick and dead,—
Thou radiant and adored deceit !

Which millions rush’d in arms to greet.—
Wild meteor of immortal birth! -

Why rise in Heaven to set on earth?

Souls of slain heroes formed thy rays;

Eternity flashed through thy blaze:

®* @

  

POEMS.

The music of the martial sphere
Was fame on high, and honour here:
And thy light broke on human eyes,
Like a voleano on the skies.

Like lava rolled thy stream of blood,
And swept down empires with its flood ;
Earth rocked beneath thee to her base
As thou didst lighten through all space;
And the shorn Sun grew dim in air,
And set while thou wert dwelling there,

Before thee rose and with thee grew,
A rainbow of the lovelist hue,

Of three bright colours, each divine,
And fit for that celestial sign: .

For freedom’s hand had blended them
Like tints of immortal gem.

One tint was of the sunbeam’s dyes :

. One, the blue depth of Seraphis he

One, the pure, Spirit’s veil of white
Had robed in ‘yadiance of its light :
The three so mingled did beseem
The texture'of a heavenly dream.

Star of the brave; thy ray is pale,
And darkness must again prevail 5

But, oh, thou rainbow of the free ;
Our tears and blood must flow for thee,
When thy bright promise fades away,
Our life is but a load of clay.

And freedom hallows with her tread
The silent cities of the dead ;EYRON 'S

For beautiful in death are they
Who proudly fall in her array ;

But soon, oh, Goddesses ; may we be
For ever more with them or thee.

STANZAS.
Ir sometimes in the haunts of men,
Thine image from my breast may fade,
This lonely hour presents again
The semblance of the gentle shade ;
And now that sad and silent hour
Thus much of thee can still restore,

And sorrow unobserved may pour
The plaint she dare not speak before.

|

Oh, pardon that in crowds awhile,
I waste one thought I owe to thee,
And, self condemn’d, appear to smile,
Unfaithful to thy memory !
Nor deem that memory less dear,
Than then I seem not to repine :
I would not fools should overhear
One sigh that should be wholly thine.

If not the goblet pass unquaff’d,
It is drain’d to banish care;
The cup must hold a deadlier draught,
That brings a Lethe for despair.
And could oblivion set my soul
From all her troubled visions free,
I’d dash to earth the sweetest bowl,
That drown’d a single thought of thee.POEMS,

For wert thou banish’d from my mind,
Where could my vacant bosom turn ?

And who would then remain behind
To honour thine abandon’d urn?

No, no—it is my sorrow’s pride
That last dear duty to fulfil,

Though all the world forget beside,
‘Tis meet that I remember still.

For well I know, that such had been
Thy gentle care for him, who now,
Unmourn’d shall quit this mortal scene,
Where none regarded him but thou.
And, ob! I feel in that was given,
A blessing never meant for me;
Thou wert too like a dream from Heaven,
For earthly love to merit thee.

WATERLOO.
(From the French )

We do not curse thee, Waterloo ;
Though freedom’s blood thy plains bedew
There ’twas shed, but is not sunk—
Rising from each gory trunk—

Like the water spout from ocean,

With a strong and growing motion—
It soars, and mingles in the air;

With that of lost Labedoyere—

With that of him whose honour’d grave
Contains the “bravest of the brave ;”
‘A crimson cloud it spreads and glows,BYRON’S

But shall return to whence it rose:

When ’tis full *twill burst asunder

As then shall shake the world with wonder
Never yet was seen such light’ning

As o’er heaven shall then be bright’ning
Like the wormwood star fortold

By the sainted seer of old,

Showering down a fiery flood,

Turning rivers into blood.

°
3

The chief has fallen but not you,
Vanquishers of Waterloo !
When the soldier citizen,
Sway'd not o’er his fellow men—
Save in deeds that led them on
Where glory smil’d on freedom’s son—
Who of all the despots banded
With that youthful chief competed ?
Who could boast o’er France defeated,
‘Till lone tyranny commanded ?
Till goaded by ambition’s sting,
The hero sunk into the king?
Then he fell—so perish all,
Who would men by man enthral !

And thou too of the snow white plume!
Whose realms refused thee even a tomb ;
Better hadst thou still been leading
France o’er hosts of hirelings bleeding,
Than sold thyself to death and shame
For a meanly royal name ;

Such as he of Naples wears,

Who to the blood bought title bears
Little didst thou dream, when dashingPOEMS.

On thy war-horse throug
Like a stream that bursts its

Shone and shivered fast aroun
f the fate at last which four
Was that haughty plume laic
By a slave’s dishonest blow :
Once it onward bore th
Like foam upon the highest w
There, where death’s brief pang was q ick
And the battle’s wreck lay thickest,
Strew'd beneath the advancing banner
Of the eagle’s burning er
: 41 : aT 4 1
There (with thunder clouds to tan ner,
Who could then her wing arrest,
Victory beaming from her breast 2
While the broken line enlarging,
Fell or fled along the plain ;
There be sure was Murat charging !
a ray

There he ne’er shal! charge again !
O’er glories gone, the invader’s march,
Weeps triumph o’er each levelled arc
But let freedom rejoice,

With her heart in her voice ;

But her hand on her sword,

Doubly shall she be adored.

France hast twice too. well taught
The “moral lesson” dearly bought-—
Her safety sits not ona throne,

With Capet or Napoleon ;

But in equal rights and laws,

Hearts and hands in one great cause—
Freedom such as God hath given.
Unto all beneath this heaven,BYRON’

With their breath and from their birth,
Though guilt would sweep it from the earth,
With a fire and lavish hand,
Scattering nation’s wealth like sand !
_ Pouring nation’s blood like water,
In imperial seas of slaughter ;
But the heart and the mind,
And the voice of mankind,
Shall arise in communion—
And whall resist the proud union?
The time is past when swords subdued—
Man may die—the soul’s renewed ;
Even in this low world of care,
Freedom shall never want on heir,
Millions breathe, but to inherit
Her unconquerable spirit—
When once more her hosts assemble
Let the trants only tremble :—
Smile they at this idle threet ?
Crimson tears will follow yet.

es

ADIEU TO MALTA.

Avixv the joys of La Valette ;
Adieu siroceo, sun and sweat :
Adieu thou palace, rarély enter’d
Adieu ye mansions, where Ive ventured ;
Adieu ye cursed street of stairs—

Who ever mounts them surely swears :
Adieu ye merchants, often failing ;

Adieu thou mob for ever railing ! ‘
Adieu ye packets without letters;
Adieu ye fools who ape your betters ?

i ¢POEMS.

Adieu thou d dest quarantine,

That give me fever and the spleen:

Adieu that stage which makes us yawn, sirs,

Adieu his Excellency’s dancers !

Adieu to Peter, whom no fault’s in,

But could not teach a Colonel waltzing ;

Adieu you females, fraught with graces ;

Adieu red coats, and redder faces ;

Adieu the supercilious air

Of that staut en mlttarie ;

I go—but God knows where or why—

To smoky towns and cloudy sky ;

To things, the honest truth to say,

As bad but in a different way :—

Farewell to thee, but not adieu

Triumphant sons of truest blue,

While either Adriatis shore,

And fallen chiefs, and fleets no more, °

And nightly smiles, and daily dinners,

Proclaim your war, and women’s winners.
Pardon my muse, who apt to prate is,

And take my rhyme because ’tis gratis :

And now I’ve got to Mrs. Fraser,

Perhaps you think J mean to praise her ;

And were I vain enough to think

My praise was worth a drop of ink,

A line or two were no hard matter,

As here, indeed, I need not flatter ;

But she must be content to shine

In better praises than in mine ;

With lively air and honest heart,

And fashion’s ease without its art,

Her hours ean gaily glide along,

Nor ask the aid of idle song.BYRON’S

And now, Oh, Malta! Since thou’st
Thou little military hot-house !
Pll not offend with words uncivil,

And wish thee rudely at the devil—

But only stare from out my casement,
And ask—for what is such a place meant?
Then in my solitary nook,
Return to scribbling, or a book ;_
Or take my physic, while I’m able.
Two spoonfuls, hourly, by this label ;
Prefer my nightcap to my beaver,
And bless my stars, I’ve got a fever.

STANZAS FOR MUSIC.

Ture be none of beauty’s daughters,

With a magic like thee;
And like music on the waters
Is thy sweet voice to me.

When, as if its sounds were causing

The charmed ocean’s pausing,

The waves lie still and gleaming,
And the lull’d winds seem dreaming ;

And the midnight moon is weaving *
Her bright chain o’er the deep,
Whose breast is gently heaving,

As an infant’s asleep :—
So the spirit bows before thee,
To listen and adore thee,
With a full but soft emotion,

 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   

Like the swell of Summer’s ocean,

got U8, |POEMS,

THE DEATH OF MEDORA.

‘Hx reached his turret door—he paused—no
sound as

Broke from within ; and all was night around.

He knocks, and loudly—footsteps no reply

Announced that any heard or deemed him nigh ;

He knocked—but faintly—for his trembling
hand ’

Refused to aid this heavy heart’s demand.

The portal opens—tis a well-known face—

But not the form he panted to embrace.

lts lips are silent—twice his own essayed,

And failed, to frame the question they delayed;

. Hesnatched the lamp—its light will answer all—

it quits his grasp, expiring in the fall

He would not wait for that reviving ray—

As soon could he have lingered there to-day ;

But glimmering through the dusky corridore,

Another chequers o’er the shadowed floor :

His steps and chamber gain—his eyes behold

All that his eyes believed—yet foretold :

He ag not—spoke not—sunk not—fixed his
ook

And the anxious frame that lately shook

He gazed—how long we gaze, despite of pain,

And know, but dare not own, we gaze in vain !

In life itself she was so still and fair,

| That death with gentle aspect withered there :

And the cold flowers her colder hand contained

As if she scarcely felt, but feigned asleep,

And made it almost mockery yet to weep,ae

 

 

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kong

Seow home Siac peterton

  

    
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
    
    
  

268 BYRON S

The long dark lashes fringed her lids of snow,
And yéil’d—though shrinks from all that lurk’d
below—
Oh ! o’er the eye, Death most exerts his might,
And hurls the spirit from her throne of light § ©
Sinks these blue orbs in that long last eclipse,;
But spares, as yet, the charm around her lips=-
Yet,—yet they seem as they forebore to smile,
And wished repose—but only for awhile ;
But the white shroud, and each extended tresses,
Long—fair—but spread in ‘utter lifelessness,
Which, late the sport of every summer wind,,
Escaped the baffled wreath that strove to bind;
These, and the pale pure cheek became the bier, |
But she is nothing—wherefore is he here? E

I
|

WAR SONG.

Tampourci ! Tampourer! thy ‘larum afar
Gives hope to the valiant, and promise of war}
All the sons of the mountains arise at the note;
Chimariot, Illyrian, and dark Suliote !

Oh ! who is more brave than a dark Suliote,

In his snowy camese and his shaggy capote?

To the wolf and the vulture he leaves his wild
flock,

And descends to th: plain like the stream from
the rock.

Shall the sons of Chimari, who never forgive
The fault of a friend, bid aw enemy Live?PouUMS, 969

02

a those guns so unerring such vengeance fore-
.
What mark isso fair as the breast ofa foe?

“Macedonia sends forth her invincible race ;
For atime they abandon the cave and the chase 3 4
But those scarfs of blood-red shall be redder,

- before
The sabre is sheathed and the battle is o'er.

Then the pirates of Parga that dwell by the
waves,

And teach the pale Franks what it is to be
slaves,

"Shall leave on the beach the long galley and oar

And track to his covert the captive on shore.

I ask not the pleasures that riches supply,

My sabre must win what the feeble must buy ;

Shall win the young bride, with her long flow-
ing hair, A

And many a maid from her mother shall tear.

1 love the fair face of the maid in her youth—

Her caresses shall lull me, her music shall
soothe ;

Let her bring from her chamber the many-
toned lyre.

And sing mea song on the fall of her sire.

Rememher the moment when Pervisa fell,
The shrieks of the conquered, the conquerors

a ERNE ERASE INIT

ell;
The sha ‘that we fired, and the plunder we
shared,
The wealthy we slaughtered—the lovely W
spared,BYRON’S

I talk not of mercy, I talk not of feat

He neither must know who would serve the
Vizier ;

Since the days of our prophet the Crescent ne’er
saw

A chief ever glorious like Ali Bashaw.

Dark Muchtar his son to the Danube is shed,

Let this yellow hair'd Giaours view his horse

tail with dread ,
When his Delhis come dashing in blood o’er the
the banks,

How shall they escape from the Muscovite

ranks !

Selicta unsheath then our chief’ scimitarr ;
Tambourgi ! thy ‘larum gives promise of war,

Ye mountains, that see us descend to the shore,
Shall view us victors or view us no more!

Ree
To——
(From the French)

Must thou go, my glorious chief,
Sever’d from thy faithful few ;
Who can tell thy warriors's grief,
Maddening o’er that long adieu?
Woman’s love and frienship’s zeal,
Dear’as both have been to me—
What are they to all I feel,
With a soldier's faith to thee?

oan

isonet} ROEMS.
| Idol of the soldier's soul ;
\ First in flight but mightiest now;
» Many could a world controul ;
Thee alone no doom can bow.
By thy side for years I dar’d
Death, and envied those who fell,
When.their dying shout was heard,
Blessing him they serv’d so well.

, Would that’ he were cold with those,

! Since this hour | lived to see!

| When the doubts of coward foes

_ Scarce dare trust a man with thee,

| Dreading each should set thee free,
Oh ! although in dungeon pent,

| All their chains were light to me,
Gazing on thy soul unbent.

Would the sycophants of him,
Now sodeafto duty’s prayer,
Were his borrow’d glories dim,
In his native darkness seare ?
Were that world this hour his own,
All thou calmly dost design,
Could he purchase with that throne
Hearts like those which still are thine?

My chief, my king, my friend, adieu ;
Never did I droop before !
Never to my sovereign sue,
As his foes I now implore,
All Task is to divide
Every peril he must brave—
Sharing by the hero’s side,
His fall, his exile, and his grave.BYRON’

NAPOLEAN’S FAREWELL TO FRANCE,

 

FareweE tt to the land, where the gloom of my
glory
Arose and o’ershadow’d the earth with her
name ;
She abandons me now, but the page of her story,
The brightest or blackest, is fill’d with my
fame.
{ have warr’d with a world which vanquish’d
~ me thus only
When the meteor of conquest allur’d me too
far.
I have coped with the nations which dread me
lonely
The last single captive to millions in war.

 

 

Farewell to thee, France,—when thy diadem
crown’d me,
I made thee the gem and the wonder of earth,
But thy weakness decrees I should leave as I
found thee,
Decay’d in thy glory, and sunk in thy worth.
Oh! for the veteran hearts that were wasted
In strife with the storm, when their battles
were won,—
Then the eagle, whose gaze in that moment was
blasted
| Had still soar’d with eyes fix’d on victory’s
| sun !
|

Farewell to thee, France, but when liberty rallies
Once morein thy regions, remember me then—~POEMS,

The violet still grows in the depth of thy valleys,
Though wither'd, thy tears will unfold it
again—
Yet, yet I may baffle the hosts that surround 8,
And yet may thy heart leap awake to thy
voice—
- There are links which must break in the chain
that has bound us,
Then turn thee and call on the chief of thy
choice, é

ee

TO THE LILY OF FRANCE.
Hinz thou scatterest thy leaf to the wind,
False emblem of innocence stay,
And yield as thou fad’st for the use of mankind,
The lesson that marks thy decay.

Thou wert false as the beam of the morn,
And rich as the pride of the mine:

Thy charms are ail faded, and hatred and scorn,
The curses of freedom are thine.

Thou wert gay in the smiles of the world,
Thy shadow, protection and power,
But now thy bright blossom is shrivell’d and
curl’d,
The grace of thy country no more,

For corruption hath fed on thy leaf,
And bigotry weaken’d thy stem,
Now those who have fear’d thee shall smile at
thy grief,
And those who ador’d thee condemn,
8BYRON 'S

‘Phe valley that gave thee thy birth
Shall weep for the hope of its soil,
The legions that fought for thy beauty and
worth,
Shall hasten to share in thy toil.

As a bye word thy blossoms shall be
A mock and a jest among men,

The proverb of slaves, and the sneer of the free,
In city, and mountain and glen. l

Oh ! ’twas tyranny’s pestilent gale
That scatter’d thy buds on the ground,
That threw the blood-stain on thy virgin white

vei
And pierced thee with many a wound.

Then thy puny leaf shook to the wind, |
Thy stem gave its strength to the biast,
Thy full bursting blossom its promise resign’d,
And fell to the storm as it pass’d.

For no patriot vigour was there, |
No arm to support the weak flow’, |

Destruction pursued its dark herald—Despair,
And wither’d its grace in an hour.

Y et there were who pretended to grieve,
"Phere were who pretended to save,
Mere shallow empyrics, who came to deceive,
To revel and sport on its grave.

O thou land of the lily, in vain

Thou strugglest to raise its pale head 2
The faded bud never shall blossom again,
The violet will bloom in its stead.POEMS,

As thou scatterest thy leaf to the wind,
False emblem of innocence, stay,

And yield, as thou fad’st for the tse of mankind
This lesson to mark thy decay! —

oo

MADAME LAVALETTE,

Lut Edinbro’ critics oerwhelm with their praises,
Their Madame de Stael and their fam’d
E’Epinasse : ;
Like.a meteor, at best, proud philosophy blazes,
And the fame of a Wit is as brittle as glass :
But cheering the beam, and unfading the splens
dour
Of my torch, Wedded Love! and it never has

ye

Shone with lustre more holy, more pure, or more
tender,

Than it sheds on the name of the fair Lavalette,

Then fill high the wine cup, e’en virtue shall
bless it,
And hallow the goblet which foams to her
name ;
The warm lip of beauty shall piously bless it,
And hymen shall honour the pledge of her

fame ;
To the health of the woman, who freedom and
life too,
Has risk’d for her Husband, we'll pay the just

debt,
And hail with applauses the heroine and wife too,
The constant, the noble, the fair Eavalette.Se Se et

BYRON'S

Her foes have awarded, in impotent malice, |
To their captive a doom which’ all Europe |
abhors,
And turns from the slaves of the priest-haunted
palace,
While those who replaced them there, blush
for their cause.
But in ages to come, when the blood-tarnished |

glory, |
Of Dukes and of Marshals in darkness hath |

set ;
Hearts shall throb, eyes shall glisten, at reading |
the story |

Of the fond self-devotion of their Lavalette.

TO A YOUHFUL FRIEND,

Few years have pass’d since thou and I
Were firmest friends, at least in name,
And childhood’s gay sincerity
Preserved our feelings long the same.

But now, like me, too well thou knowest
What trifles oft the heart recal ;

And those who once have lov’d the most,
Too soon forget they lov’d at all.

And such the change the heart displays,
So frail in earthly friendship’s reign ;

A month’s brief space, perhaps a day’s,
‘Will-view thy mind estrang’d again,POEMS.

If so, it never shall be mine
To mourn the loss of such a heart :
The fault was Nature’s fault, not thine,
Which made thee fickle as thou art.

As rolls the ocean’s changing tide,
So human feelings ebb and flow ;

And who would in a breast confide,
Where stormy passions ever glow ?

It boots not, that together bred,
Our childish days, were days of joy ;
My spring of life has quickly fled ;
Thou, too, hast ceas’d to be a boy.

And when we bid adieu to youth, .
Slaves to the specious world’s controul ;
We sigh a long farewell to truth,
That world corrupts the noblest soul.

Ah, joyous season, when the mind
Dares all things boldly but to lie ;
When thought, ere spoke, is unconfin’d,

And sparkles in the placid eye.

Not so in man’s maturer years,
When man himself is but a tool ;
When interest sways our hopes and fears,
And all must love and hate by rule.

With fools in kindred vice the same,
We learn at length our faults to blend ;
And those, and those alone may claim,
The prostituted name of friend, .BYRON’S

Such is the common lot of man :

Can we then scape from folly free 2
Can we reverse the general plan,

Nor be what all in turn must be?’

No ! for myself, so dark my fate,
Through every turn of life hath been ;
Man and the world I so much hate,
I care not when I quit the scene.

But thou, with spirit frail and light,
Wilt shine awhile and pass away :

As glow-worms sparkle through the night,
But dare not stand the test of day.

“Alas ! whenever folly calls,
Where parasites and princes meet f
(For cherish’d first in royal halls,)
The welcome voices kindly greet.

Ev’n now thou’rt nightly seen to add
One insect to the flattering crowd ;

And still thy fluttering heart is glad,
To join the vain and court the proud.

There dost thou glide from fair to fair,
Still simpering on with eager haste,

As flies along the gay parterre,
That stain the flower they scarcely taste.

But say what nymph will praise the flame
Which seems, as marshy vapours move,
To halt along from dame to dame,
An ignus-fatuus gleam 6f love?eo
Or aah aaa

POEMS,

What friend for thee, howe’er inclin’d,
Will deign to hold a kindred care?
Who will debase his manly mind,
For friendship every fool may share ?

In time forbear ; amidst the throng,
No more so base a2 thing be seen ;
No more so idly pass along:
Be something— anything, but—mean.

STANZAS.

Anp art thou dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth ;

And form so soft, and charms £0 rare,
Too soon return’d to earth?

Thongh earth receiv'd them in their bed,

And o’er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness of mirth ;

There is an eye which could not brook,

A moment on that grave to look.

[ will not ask where thou liest low,
Nor gaze upon the spot;

There flowers or weeds at will may grow,
So I behold them not:

It is enough for me to prove,

That what I lov’d and long must love,
Like common earth can fot ;

To me there needs no stone to tell ;

‘Ts nothing that I lov’d so well.BYRON S

Yet did I love thee to the last
As fervently as thou,
Who didst not change through all the past,
And canst not alter now.
The love where death has set. his seal,
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,
Nor falsehood disavow;
And what were worst thou canst not see,
Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.

The better days of life were ours ;
The worst can be but mine,

The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,
Shall never more be thine.

The silence of that dreamlesg sleep,

I envy now too much to weep;
Nor need I to repine,

That all those charms have pass’d away ;

T might have watch’d throngh long decay.

The flower in ripened bloom unmatch’d
Must fall the earliest prey ;

Though by no hand untimely snatch’d,
The leaves must droop away ;

And yet it were a geater grief,

To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it pluck’d to-day ;

Since earthly eye can but ill bear

To trace the change from foul to fair.

3

I know not if I could have borne
To s¢e thy beauties fade ;

The night that follow’d such a morn

Had worn a deeper shadePOEMS.

Thy day without a eloud hath past,

And thou wert lovely to the last ;
Eixtinguish’d—not decay’d ;

As stars that shoot along the sky,

Shine brightest as they fall from high.

As once I wept, if I could weep,
My tears might well be shed,

To think I was not near to keep
One vigil o’er thy bed ;

To gaze, how fondly ! on thy face,

To fold thee in a faint embrace,
Uphold thy drooping head ;

And show that love, however vain,

Nor thou, nor I can feel again.

Yet how much less were it to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,

The loveliest things that still remain,
Than thusremember thee !

_ The all of thine that cannot die,

Through dark and dread eternity,
Returns again to me,

And more thy buried love endears

Than aught, except its living years.

ODE.

Ox, shame to thee, Land of the Gaul!
Shame to thy children and thee !
Unwise in thy glory, and base in thy fall,

How wretched thy portion shall be!BYRON’S

Derision shall strike thee forlorn,
A mock’ry that never shall die:
The curses of Hate, and the hisses of Scorn.
Shall burthen the winds of the sky ;
And, proud o’er thy ruin, for ever be hurl’d '
The laughter of Triumph—the jeers of the |
world ! |
Oh, where is thy spirit of yore, i
The spirit that breath’d in thy dead,
When gallantry’s star was the beacon before,
And honour the passion that led 2
Thy storms have awaken’d their sleep,
They groan from the place of theirrest, _|
And wrathfully murmur, and sullenly weep,
To see the foul stain on thy breast ;
For where is the glory they left thee in trust ?
’Tis scattered in darkness—'tis trampled in |
dust ! |
Go look through the kingdoms of earth,
From Indus all round to the Pole, |
And something of goodness, and honour, and |
worth, |
Shall brighten the sins of the soul ;
But thou art alone in thy shame,
The world cannot liken thee there ;
Abhorrence and vice have disfigured thy name
Beyond the low reach of compare;
Stupendous in guilt, thou shalt lend us through
time,
A proverb, a byé-word, for falsehood and cxime t

While conquest illumined his sword,
While yet in his prowess he stood,FORMS. 288

Thy praises still follow’d the steps of thy lord,
_ And welcom’d the torrent of blood !°
. Though tyranny sat on his crown,

And wither’d the nations afar,

Yet bright in thy view was that despot’s re-
nown,

Till fortune deserted his car ;
'Then back from thy chieftain thou slunkest
away—
| The foremost t’insult, and the first to betray !

Forgot were the feats he had done,

The toils he had borne in the cause :
| Thou turned’st to worship a new rising sun,
. And waft other songs of applause ;

But the storm was beginning to lour,

Adversity clouded the beam ; .

And honour and faith were the brag of an hour,

And loyalty’s self but a dream :

To him thou hadst banish’d thy .vows were re-
stor’d, ;

And the first that had scofi’d, were the first
that ador’d !

What tumult thus burthens the air,
What throng that encircles his throne?
"Tis the shout of delight, ’tis the millions that—
swear.
His sceptre shall rule them alone.
| Reverses shall brighten their zeal,
| Misfortune shall hallow his name,
And the world that pursues him shall mourn-
fully feel, eke Sip anaes
How quenchless the spirit and flame284

 
 

BYRON’s

That Frenchmen will breathe, when their hearts)

    
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
   
 
 
 
 

are on fire,
For the hero they love, and the chief they ad.
mire. |
F |
The hero has rush’d to the field— :

His laurels are covered with shade—
But where is the spirit that never should yield,
The loyalty never to fade !
In a moment desertion and guile
Abandoned him up to the foe !
The dastards that flourish’d and grew at hig
smile,
Forsook and renounced him in woe;
And the millions that swore they would perish
to save,
Beheld him a fugitive, captive, and slave !

The savage all wild in his den
Is nobler and better than thou;
Thou standest a wonder, a marvel to men,
Such perfidy blackens thy brow !
If thou wert the place of my birth,
At once from thy arms would I sever;
I'd fly to the uttermost ends of the earth,
And quit thee for ever and ever;
And thinking of thee in my long after years ;
Should but kindle my blushes, and waken my
tears.

Oh, shame to thee, Land of the Gaul !
Oh, shame to thy children and thee !
Unwise in thy glory, and base in thy fall,
How wretched thy portion shall be!POUMS.

Derision shall strike thee forlorn,
: A mock’ry that never shall die ;
| The curses of Hate, and the hisses of Scorn,
Shall burthen the winds of the sky ;
And, proud o’er thy ruin, for ever be hurl’d
The laughter of Triumph—the jeers of the
world !

STANZASs

_ Rrver that rollest by the ancient walls
Where dwells the lady of my love, when she
Walks by the brink, and there perchance re-
calls
A faint and fleeting memory of me.

What, if thy deep and ample stream should be
A mirror of my heart, where she may read

The thousand thoughts I now betray to thee,
Wild as thy wave, and headlong as thy speed,

What do I say— a mirror of my heart?
Are not thy waters sweeping, dark and strong,
Such as my feelings were and are, thou art:
And such as thou art, were my passions long.

Time may have somewhat tamed them, not for

ever ;

Thou overflow’st thy banks, and not for aye 5
Thy bosom overboils, congenial river ;

Thy floods subdue ; and mine have sunk away,sweep ; :
Both tread thy banks, both wander on the shore ge iii

 
   
  
 
 
  
 
 
  
 
 
  
   
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
 
 
 

BYRON’

But left long wrecks behind them, and again
Borne on our old unchang’d career we moye
Thou tendest wildly onward to the main,
And I to loving one I should not love.

The current I behold will sweep beneath
Her native walls, and murmur at her feet; ||
Her eyes will look on thee, when she shall |
breathe
The twilight air ; unharm’d by summer’s heat. IF

She will look on thee; [ have looked on thee,
Full of that thought, and from that moment |:

’er

ey
M

i
Thy water cold I dream of, name, or gee, }

Without th’ inseparable sigh for her.

Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream; |
Yes, they will meet the wave I gaze on now; |

Mine cannot witness, even ina dream,
That happy wave repass me in its flow.

That wave that bears my tears returns no more :
Will she return by whom that wave shall ||

I near thy source, she by the dark blue deep.

But that which keepeth us apart is not
Distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of |
earth,
But the distraction of a various lot,
As various as the climates of our birth.

A stranger loves a lady of the land,
Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood| Is all meridian, as if never fann’d
| By the bleak wind that chills the polar ficod.
.

My blood is all meridian; were it not,

I had not left my clime: I shall not be,
In spite of tortures ne’er to be forgot,

A slave again of love, at least of thee.

| "Tis vain to struggle—let me perish young—
| Live as I lived, and love as I have loved ;
- To dust if I return, from dust I sprung,
And then at least, my heart can ne’er be
moved.

reo

TO ——

On Lady ! when I left the shore,
The distant shore which gaveme birth,
T hardly thought to grieve once more,
To quit another spot on earth :
Yet here, amidst this barren isle,
Where panting nature droops the head,
Where only thou art seen to smile,
1 view my parting hour with dread.
Though far from Albion’s craggy shore,
Divided by the dark blue main ;
A few, brief, rolling seasons o’er,
Perchance I view her cliffs again ;
But wheresoe’er | now may roam,
Through scorching clime, and varied sea,
Though time restore me to my home,
1 ne’er shall bend my eyes on thee ;288 BYRON’S

On thee in whom at once corispire

All charms which heedless hearts can move,
| | Whom but to see is to admire,
a And, oh ! forgive the word—to love,
Forgive the word, in one who ne’er

With such a word can more offend;
And since thy heart I cannot share,

Believe me, what I am, thy friend.
And who so cold as look on thee,

Thou, lovely wanderer, and be less?
Nor be, what man should ever be,

Fi The friend of Beauty in distress 2
ia Ah ! who could think that form had past
Y Through Danger’s most destructive path,

Had braved the death wing’d tempest’s blast,,
_ And ’scaped a tyrant’s fiercer wrath ?
Lady ! when shall I view the walls

Wise free Byzantium once arose ;:
And Sfmboul’s Oriental halls

The Turkish tyrants now enclose ;
Though mightiest in the lists of fame,

That glorious city still shall be;
On me it will hold a dearer claim,

As spot of thy nativity ;
And though I bid thee now farewell,

When I behold that wond’rous scene}
Since where thou art I may not dwell,

‘Twill soothe, to see, where thou hast Beex:.

 

 

 

 

 

STANZAS.

| Chill and mirk is the mighty blast,
a Where Pindus’ mountains rise,POEMS.

And angry clouds are pouring fast,
The vengeance of the skies,

Our guides are gone, our hopes is lost,
And light’nings as they play,

But show where rocks our path have crost,
Or gild the torrent’s spray.

Is yon a cot I saw, though low?
When lightning broke the gloom—
How welcome were its shade t—ah, no?
‘Tis but a Turkish tomb,

Through sound of foaming water-falls,
I hear a voice exclaim——

My way-worn countryman who calls
On distant England’s name.

A shot is tired—by foe or friend? ss
Another— tis to tell

The mountain peasant to descend,
And lead us where they dwell.

Oh! who in such a night will dare
To tempt the wilderness ;

And who ‘mid thunder peals can hear
Our'signals of distress?

And who that heard our shouts would rise
To try the dubious road ?

Nor rather deem from nightly cries
That outlaws were abroad?

Clouds burst, skies flash, oh dreadful hour?
More fiercely pours the storm ;
T

.BYRON’S

   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 

Yet here one thought has still the power
To keep my bosom warm.

While wand’ring through each troken path,
O'er brake and craggy brow ; |

While elements exhaust their wrath,
Sweet Florence, where art thou ?

Not on the sea, not on the sea,
Thy bark hath long been gone:
Oh, may the storm that pours on me,
Bow down my head alone ! :

Full swiftly blew the swift Siroc,
When I last press'd thy lip ;

And long ere now, in foaming shock,
Impehl’d thy foaming ship.

Now thou are safe; nay, long ere now
Has trod the shore of Spain ;

were hard if aught so fair as thou
Should linger on the main.

And since [ now remember thee
In darkness and in dread,

As in those hours of revelry
Which mirth and music sped ;

Do you amidst the fair white walls
Of Cadiz yet be free,

At times from out her latticed halls
Look o’er the dark blue sea :

Then look upon Calypso’s isles,
Endear’d by. day’s gone by:To others give a thousand Smiles,
To me a single sigh.

And when the admiring circle mark
The pale of thy fair face:

A half-form’d tear, a transient Spark
Of melancholy grace.

Again thou'lt smile, and blushing shun
» _. Some coxcomb’s raillery ;
Nor own for once thou thought’st of one
Who ever thinks on thee.

Though smile and sigh alike are vain,
When sever'’d hearts repine,

My spirit flies o’er mount and main,
And mourns in search of thina

=o

A SONG.

TxHov art not false, but thou art fickle,
T'o those thyself so fondly sought;
The tears that thou hast forced to trickle,
Are doubly bitter from that thought ;
“Tis this which breaks the heart thou grievest,
Too well thou lov’st—too soon thou leavest,

The wholly false the heart despises,
And spurns deceiver and deceit ;

But she who not a thought disguises,
Whose love is as sincere as sweet,—
When she can change who loved so truly,

Tt feels what mine has felt so newly,BYRON 8

 

To dream of joy and wake to sorrow,
Is doom’d to all who love or live ;
And if, when conscious on the morrow,
We scarce our fancy can forgive,

That cheated us in slumber only,
To leave the waked soul more lonely.

What must they feel whom no false vision,
But truest, tenderest passion warm’d ?
Sincere, but swift in sad transition,
As if a dream alone bad charm’d ?
Ah ! sure such grief is fancy’s scheming,
And all thy change’can be but dreaming !

¢

EUTHANASIA.

Wuun Time, or soon or late shall bring
The dreamless sleep that lulls the dead,
Oblivion, may thy languid wing:
Wave gently o’er my dying bed!

No band of friends or heirs be there,
To weep, or wish the coming blow,
No maiden with dishevelled hair,
To feel, or feign, decorous woe.

But silent let me sink to earth,
With no officious mourners near ;

I would not mar one hour of mirth,
Nor startle friendship with a tear.

Yet love, if love in such an. hour
Could nobly check its useless sighs,FORMS,

Might then exert its latest power
On her who lives and him who dies.

"T'were sweet, my Psyche ! to the last,
Thy features still serene to see ;

Forgetful of its struggle past, :
Fen pain itself should smile on thee.

But vain the wish—for Beauty still
Will shrink, as shrinks the ebbing breath ;
And woman’s tears, produced at will,
Deceive in life, unman in death.

Then lonely be my latest hour!
Without regret, without a groan!

For thousands Death has ceased to lower,
And pain been transient or unknown.

“ Ay, but to die, and go,” alas!

Where all have gone, and all must go,
To be the nothing that I was,

’Ere born to life and living woe!

Count o’er the joys thine hours have seen,
Count o’er thy days from anguish free,
And know, whatever thou hast been,
"Tis something better not to be.

STANZAS TO

Troveu the day of my destiny’s over,
And the star of my fate hath declined,BYRON’S

 
  
  
  
  
 
 
  
 
 
 
   
 
   
  
   
 
 
 
   
  
  
 
  
 
  
   

Thy soft heart refused to discover,
The faults which so many could find :
Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted,
Tt shrunk not to share it with me,
And the love which my spirit hath planted
It never hath found but in thee,

‘Then when nature around me is smiling,
The last smile which answers to mine,

I do not believe it beguiling,
Because it reminds me of thine;

And when winds are at war with the ocean,
As the breast I believed in with me,

If their billows excite an emotion
It is that they bear me from thee.

Though the rock of my last hope is shiver’d
And its fragments are sunk in the wave,
Though I feel that my soul is deliver’d,
To pain—it shall not be its slave.
There is many a. pang to pursue me:
They may curb, but they shall not contemn—
They may torture, but shall not subdue me ;
‘Tis of thee that I think—not of them.

3

Though human, thou didst not deceive me
Though woman, thou didst not forsake,
Though loved, thon forborest to grieve me,
Though slander’d, thou never could’st shake,—
Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me,
Though parted, it was not to fly,
Though watchful, twas not to detame me,
Nor mute, that the world might belie.POBMS,

Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it,
Nor the war of the many with one—__

If my soul was not fitted to prize it
"Twas folly not sooner to shun:

And if, dearly that error has cost me,
And, more than once I could foresee,

I have found that, whatever it cost me.
It could not deprive me of thee.

From the wreck of the past which hath perish’d
Thus much | at least may recall,

It hath taught me that what I most cherish’d
Deserved to be dearest of all:

In the desert a fountain is springing,
In the wide waste there still is a tree,

And a bird in the solitude singing.
Which speaks to my spirit of thez.

THE PARTING KISS.

Tur kiss, dear maid! thy lip has left,
Shall never part from mine,

Till happier hours restore the gift.
Untainted back to thine.

Thy parting glance, which fondly beams,
An equal love may see:

The tear that from thy eye-lid streams
Can weep no change in me.

I ask no pledge to make me blest,
In gazing when alone ;BYRON’s

Nor oné memorial for a breast,
Whose thoughts are all thine own.

Nor need J write to tell the tale—
My pen were doubly weak !

Oh! what can idle worus avail,
Unless the heart can speak ?

By day or night, in weal: or woe,
That heart no longer free,

Must bear the love it cannot show,
And silent ache for thee,

<p aeeee

STANZAS FOR MUSIC.
Brreut be the place of thy soul,
No lovelier spirit than thine
Ever burst from its mortal control,
In the orbs of the blessed to shine.

On earth thou wert all but divine,

As thy soul shall immortally be ;
And our sorrow may cease to repine,
When we know that thy soul is with thee.

Light be the turf of thy tomb !
May its verdure like emeralds be :
Thexe should not be the shadow of gloom,
In aught that reminds us of thee,

Young flowers and an evergreen tree

May spring from the spot of thy rest:
But not cypress or yew let us see;

For why should we mourn for the Dbleas’d?PP ie:
m4 Me.

TO THYRZA.

WirHovt a stone to mark the spot,

And say what truth might well have said,
By all, save one, perchance forgot,

Ah, wherefore art thou lowly laid?

By many ashore and many a sea
Divided, yet beloved in vain ;

The past, the future, fled to thee,
To bid us meet—no—ne’er again !

Could this have been—a word, a look,
That softly said, “ We part in peace,”

Had taught my bosom how to brook,
With fainter sighs thy soul’s release.

And didst thou not, since death for thee
Prepared a light and pangless dart,

Once long for him thou ne’er shalt see,
Who held and holds thee in his heart?

Oh, who like him had watch’d thee here ;
Or sadly mark’d the glazing eye‘

In that dread hour ere death appear,
When silent sorrow fears to sigh.

Tillall was past? But when no more .
*T was thine to wreck of human woe,

Affection’s heart drops, gushing o’er,
Had flow’d as fast—as now they flow.

Shall they not flow, when many a day
In these, to me, deserted towers,298 BYRON'S

 

Hre call’d for but 4 time away,
Aifection’s mingling tears were ours ?

Ours too the glance none saw besides !

| The smile none else might understand ;

A ‘The whisper’d thooght of hearts allied,
The pressure of the thrilling hand :

 

 

The kiss so guiltiess and refined,
That love each warmer with forebore ;
‘Those eyes proclaim’d so pure a mind,
Even passion blushed to plead for more.

 

‘the tone that taught me to rejoice,
When prone, unlike thee, to repine;
‘The song, celestial, from thy voice,
But sweet to me from none but thine;

The pledge we wore—I wear it still,

But where is thine ?~—ah, where art thou?
Oft have I bore the weight of ill,

But never bent beneath till now !

 

i, Well hast thou left to life's best bloom
Onl The cup of woe for me to drain,

ty if rest alone be in the tomb,

I would not wish thee here again ;

But if in worlds more blest than this,
Thy virtues seek a fitter sphere, .
Impart some portion of thy bliss,
To wean me from my anguish here,

Teach me—too early taught by thee—
To bear, forgiving and forgiven :|

POEMS,

On earth thy love was such to me,
| It fain would form my hope in heaven !

STANZA FOR MUSIC.

Pane S nota joy the world can give like that it
takes away,

| When the glow of early thought declines in

feeling’s dull decay ;

| 'Pis not on ‘youth’s smooth cheek the blush

alone which fades so fast,
But the tender bloom: of youth is gone, ere
youth itself be past.

oo the few whose spirits float above the wreck ‘

of hap piness,

| Are driven o’er the shoals of guilt or ocean of

eXCESS ;

‘Whe magnet of their course is gone, or “only

points in vain

Whe shore to which their shivered sail shall

 

never stretch again.

| Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death

itself comes down ;
It cannot feel for other’s woes, it dare not dream
i its own ;
‘That heavy chill has frozen o’er the fountain of
our tears,
Ana though the eye may sparkle still, ’tis where
the ice appears.

|
|
|500 BYRON’«

Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and
mirth distract the breast,

Through midnights hours that yield no more,
their former hopes of rest ; |

‘Tis but as ivy leaves around the ruin’d turret
wreathe,

All green and wildly fresh without, but worn
gray beneath.

Oh! could I feel ag I have felt—or be what |
have been,

Or weep as I would once have wept, o’er many
a vanish’d scene,

iq

  
  
 
 
 
  
 
  
 
 
 

As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all

brackish though they be, :
So, midst the wither’d waste of life, those tears
would flow to me.

res

WRITTEN AFTER SWIMMING FROM
SESTOS TO ABYDOT.

May 9th, 1810.

Iz, in the dark month of December,
Leander, who was nightly wont,

(What maid will not the tale remember 4
To cross thy stream, broad Hellespont !

Tf, when the wintry tempest roar’d,
He sped to Hero, nothing loth,

And thus of old thy current pourd,

Fair Venus ! how I pity both !

i

_POBMS.

For me, degenerate modern wretch,
Thongh in the genial month of May,

My dripping limbs I faintly stretch,
‘And think I’ve done.a feat to day.

But since he cross’d the rapid tide,
According to the doubtful story,

To woo— and—Lord knows what beside,
Swam for love and I for glory.

Twere hard tosay who fared the best :
Sad mortals ! thus the gods still plague !
He lost his labour, I my jest :
For he was drown’d, and I the ague.

WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF

OF

THE PLEASUES OF MEMORY.

Assent or present still to thee

My friend, what magic spells belong !
As allean tell, who share like me

In turn thy converse and thy song,
But when the dreaded hour shall come,

By friendship ever deems to nigh,
And “ Memory” o’er her Druid’s tomb

Shall weep that aught of thee can die,
How fondly will she then repay

Thy homage offered at her shrine ;
And blend, while ages roll away,

Her name immortality with thine /BYRON’S

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
 
 

THE CURSE OF MINERVA.

Stow sinks, more slowly ere his race be run,
Along Morea’s hills the setting sun;
For as in nothern climes, obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light !
O’er the hush’d deed the yellow beam he throws
Gilds the green wave, and trembles as it glows;
On old digina’s rock, and Idra’s isle,
The god of Gladness sheds his parting smile:
O’er his own regions lingering love to shine,
Though there his altars are no more divine,
Descending fast the mountain shadows kiss
Thy glorious gulf, unconquered Salamis !
Their azure arches through the long expanse,
More deeply purpled, meet his mellowing

glanee,

And tenderest tints, along their summits driven,
Mark his gay course, and.own the hues of hea.
ven,

Till darkly shaded from the land and deep,
Behind his Delphian cliffs he sinks to sleep.
On such an eve, his palest beam he cast,
When Athens ! here thy wisest look’d his last;
How watch, thy better sons his farewell ray,
That clos’d their murder’d sage’s latest breath 2
Not yet—not yet—Sol pauses on the hill—
The precious hour for parting lingers still:
But sad his light to agonizing eyes,
And dark the mountain’s once delightful dyes
Gloom o’er the lovely land he seems to pour,
The land where Phoebus never frown’d before ;POEMS.

But here he sunk below Citheron’s head,

The cup of woe was quaft’d—the spirit fled ;

The soul of him that scorn’d to fear and fly :-—

Who lived and died as none can live and die!
But, lo ! ‘from high Hymetus to the plain,

The queen of night asserts her silent reign ;

Hides her fair face, nor girds her glowing form 5

With cornice glimmering as the moonbeams

play,

Therethe white column greets her cheerful ray,-

And bright around, with quivering beams beset,
Her emblem sparkles o’er the minaret :

The groves of olive scattered dark and wide

Where meek Cephisus shed his scanty tide.

The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque,

The gleaming turret of the gay Kiosk,

And, dun, and sombre, ‘mid the holy calm,

Near Theseus’ fane one solitary palm,

All ting’d with various hues, arrest the eye—

And dull were his that pass’d them heedless by.
Again ’the Aigean. no more afar,

Lull’s his chaf'd breast from elemental war ;

Again his waves in r tints unfolds

Their long array of sapphire and of gold,

Mix’d with the shades of many a distantisle,

That frown—where gentler ocean seems to smile,
As thus within the walls of Pallas’ fane

I marked the beauties of the land and main,

Alone and friendless, on the magic shore

Whose arts and arms but live in poet’s lore,

Oft asthe matchles dome I turn to scan,

Sacred to gods, but not secure to man,

The past return’d, the present seem’d to. cease,

And glory Imew no clime beyond her Greece.304 BYRON 8

Hours roll’d along, and Diana’s orb on high

Had gain’d the centre of her softest sky,

And yet unwearied yet my footsteps trod

O’er the vain shrine of many a vanish’d god ;

But chiefly Pallas ! thine, when Hecate’s glare |

Check’d by thy columns, fell more sadly fair, _ |

O’er the chill marble, where the startllng tread |

Thrills thelone heart like echoes from the dead. |

Long had I mus’d and measur’d every trace,

The wreck of Greece recorded of her race,

When lo! a giant form before me strode,

And Pallas hail’d me in her own abode.

Yes, twas Minerva’s self, but, ah ! how chang’d |

Since o’er the Dardan field in arms she rang’d !

Not such as erst, by her divine command, _ |

Her form appear’d from Phidas’ plastic hand; |

Gone were the terrors of her awful brow,

Her idol Agis bore no gorgon now 5

Her helm was deep indented, and her lance

Seem’d weak and shaftless, e’en to mortal. |
glance ; |

The olive branch, which still she deign’d to |
clasp

Shrunk from her touch and wither’d in her

grasp,
And, ah ! dhoiigh still the brightest of the sky,
Celestial tears bedimm’d her large blue eye ;
Round the rent casque her owlet circled slow,
And mourn’d his mistress with ashriek of woe.
“Mortal! (‘twas thus she spake) that blush of |

shame : |
Proclaims thee Briton—once a noble name— |
First of the mighty, foremost of the free,
Now honour'd less by all—and least by me;Chief of thy foes s
Seek’st thou aie & C2
Lo! here, dé ;
I saw auecees
Scap’d from e
Thy country se
Survey this v
Recount th
These Gentups plac’
Tha: Hadrian re
mourn’d ;
What more | ewe let
Know, Alaric and
that ay sss learn f

Por Ki af
Below, his name—

Be ever hail’d with
The Gothic monarch an

Arms gave the first his 1
But basely stole what
So when the lion quits
Next prowls the wolf—the
Flesh, limbs and blood, th«

own ;
The last base brute securel y gnaws the bone,
Yet still the gods are just, and crimes ar BO
See here what H—— won and what he los
Another name with his pollutes my shr ee
Behold where Diana’s beams di to shine
Some retribution still might
When Venus half aveng’d Mi

E306 BYAONS

She ceas’'d awhile, and thus I dared reply,
To soothe the vengeance kindling in her eye !
* Daughter of Jove! in BHtOAS 4 injured name,
A true-born Britain may the deed disdain !
Athena, no: the plund’rer was a Scot!
“Ask’st thou the difference? From fair Phyle’s }
towers |
Survey Boetia—Caledonia’s ours,
And well I knew within that bastard land
Hath wisdom’s goddess never held command,
A barren soil, where nature’s germs confin’d,
| To green sterilit Bie stint the mind, i
Whose thistle well betrays the nigeard earth, -4}
Emblem of all to whom the land gives bir th. |
Each genial influence nurtured to. resist, |
‘A land of meanness, sophistry, and mist:
Hach breez: from foowy mount and marshy plain |
Dilutes with drivel every drizzling brain,
Till burst at length, each watery head o ‘erflows,
aoe as their soil, and frigid as their snows;
an thousand schemes of ‘petulance and pride
ie Dispatch her scheming children far and wide ;
a Some east, some west, some—every where but
- | north, |
Tn quest of lawless gain SHY § issue forth ;
And thus, accursed be the day and year,
She sent a Pict to play the felon here
Yet Caledonia claims some native worth, |
. As dull Boetia gave a Pindar birth—
_. 8) may her few, the letter’d and the brave,
ay to the clime, and victors o’er the grave,
nike off the sordid dust of such a land,
sade hine like children of a happier strand :

> |HPOEMS. 307

As once of yore, in some obnoxious place,

Ten names (if found) had saved a wretched
race !’

‘ Mortal !’ the blue-eyed maid resumed, ‘ oncé

more,

Bear back thy mandate to thy native shore ;

Though fallen, alas! this vengeance still is mine,

To turn thy counsels far from land like thine,

Hear then in silence Pallas’ stern behest ;

Hear and believe, for time shall tell the rest.

First on the head of him that did the deed

My curse shall light—on him and all his seed ;

Without one spark of intellectual fire,!

Be all the sons as senseless as the sire;

If one with wit the parent brood disgrace,

Believe him bastard of a brighter race ;

Still with his hireling artists let him prate,

And folly’s praise repay for wisdom’s hate !

Song of their patron’s guests let them tell,

Whose noblest native guesto is to sell;

To sell, and make (may shame record the day !)

The state receiver of his pilfer’d prey !

Meantime, the flattering feeblé dotard, West,

Europe's worst dauber and poor Britain’s best,

With palsied hand shali turn each model o’er,

And own himself an infant of fourscore;

Be all the bruisers called from all St. Giles’,

That art and nature may compare their styles ;

While brawny brutes in stupid wonder stare,

And marvel at his lordship’s stone shop there.

Round the throng’d gate shall sauntering cox«
combs creep,

To lounge and lucubrate, to prate and peep :3808 BYRON’S

While many a languid maid, with laughing |
sigh,

On giant ne casts the curious eye : |

The room with transient glance appear to kim, |

But marks the mighty back and length oflimb;

Mourns o'er the difference of now and then :

Exclaims, ‘Those Greeks indeed were proper |
men ; |

Draws slight comparisons of these with those,

And envies Lais of all her Attic beaux :

When shalla modern maid have swains like |
these ?

Alas, Sir Harry is no Hercules ;

. And last of all amidst the gaping crew, |
Some calm spectator, as he takes his view,
In silent indignation mixed with grief,
Admires the plunder but abhors (he thief, a
Loath’d throughout life—scarce pardon’d in the |

dust, |
Shall vengeance follow far beyond the tomb, — |
Erostratus and**** e’er shall shine |
In many a branding page and burning line! |
Alike condemn’d for aye to stand accursed— __|
Perchance the second viler than the first ;
So let him stand through aves yet unborn,
Fix’d statue on the pedestal of scorn !
Though not for him alone revenge shall-wait, |
But fits thy country for her coming fate :
Here were the deeds that taught her lawless |

son
To do what oft Britannia’s selt had done.
Look to the the Baltic blazing from afar—

Your old alley yet mourns perfidious warPOEMS, 808

Not to such deeds did Ballus lend her aid,

Or break the compact which herself has made ;

Far from such councils, from the faithless field

She fled—but left behind her gorgon shield ;

A fatal gift that turned your friends to stone,

And left lost Albion hated and alone.

Look to the east, were Ganges swarthy race

Shall shake your usurpation to its base;

Lo! there rebellion rears her ghastly head,

And glares the Nemesis of native dead,

Till Indus rolls a deep purpureal flood,

And claims his long arrear of northern blood.

So may ye perish ! Pallas, whenshe gave

Your free-born rights, forbad ye to enslave.

Look on your Spain, she clasps the hand she
hates,

But coldly clasps, and thrusts you from her
gates ;

‘Bear witness, bright Barossa, thou canst tell

Whose were the sons that bravely fought and
fell.

While Lusitania, kind and dear ally,

Can spare a few to fight and sometimes fly,

Oh glorious field ! by famine fiercely won :

The Gaul retires for once, and all is done!

But when did Pallas teach that one retreat,

Retriev’d three long Olympiads of defeat.

Look last at home—ye love not to look there,

On the grim smile of comfortless despair :

Your city saddens, loud though revel howls,

Her famine faint and yonder rapine prowls,

See all alike of more or less bereft—

No misers tremble when there’s nothing left,© Blest paper credit, who shall dare to ging ?
Tt clogs like lead corruption’s weary wing :
Yet Pallas pluck’d each Premier by the ear,
ho gods and men alike disdain’d to hear ;
But one, repentant o’er a bankrupt state,
Oa Pallos calls, but calls, alas; too late:
‘Then raves for***: to that Mentor bends,
Though he and Pallas never yet were friends:
Him senates hear whom never yet they heard.
Contemptuous once, and now no less absurd :
So once of yore each reasonable frog
Swore faith and fealty to his sov reign log;
Thus hail’d your rulers their patrician clod,
As Egypt chose an onion for a god.
“ Now fare ye well, enjoy your little hour:
Go, grasp the shadow of your vanquish’d power: |
Gloss o’er the failure of each fondest scheme, |
Your strength a name, your bloated wealth a
dream,
Gone is that gold, the marvel of mankind, |
And pirates barter all that’s left behind : |
No more the hirelings, purchas’d near and far, |
Crowd to the ranks of mercenary war; |
The idle merchant on the useless quay |
Droops o’er the bales no bark may bear away, |
Or, back returning, sees rejected stores
Rot piecemeal on his own encumber'd shores ;
The starv’d mechanic breaks his rustling loom,
And desperate mans him ‘gainst the common
loom,
Then in the senate of your sinking state, |!
Shew me the man whose counsels may have |
weight,FORMS. 31

Vain is each voice which tones could once com-
“mand ;
Bren factions cease to charm a factious land :
While j jarring sects convulse a sister isle,
And light with madd’ ning hands the mutual
pile.

“Tis done, ’tis past, since Pallas warns in vain,
The furies cease her abdicated reign;
Wide o’er the realm they wave their kindling

brands,

And wring her vitals with their fiery hands.
But one convulsive strugele still remains
And Gaul shall weep ere Albion wear her chains,
The banner’d pomp of war, the glittering files,
O’er whose gay trappings stern Bellona smiles ; ;
The brazen trump, the spirit stirring drum,
That bid the foe defiance ere they come ;
The hero bounding at his country’s call,
The glorious death that decorates 1 his fe all,
Swell the young heart with visionary c charms,
And bid it antedate the joys of arms.
Bat know, a lesson ye may yet be taught—
With death alone are laurels cheaply bought :
Not in the conflict havoc seeks delights,
His day of mercy is the day of fight ;
But when the field is fought, the battle won,
Tho’ drenched with gore his woes are but begun.
His deeper deeds ye yet knew but my name,—
The slaughter’d peasant and the ravish’d dame,
The rifled mansion and the foe reap’d field,
Ill suit with souls at home untaught to yield.
Say with what eye, along the distant down,
Would flying burghers mark the blazing town ?212 r \ BYRON’S

How view the column of ascending flames
Shake his red shadow o’er the startled Thames?
- Nay, frown not, Albion! for the torch was thine
That lit such pyres from Tagus to the Rhine?
Now should they burst on thy devoted coast,
Go, ask thy bosom, who deserves them most?
The law of he ven and earth is life for life,
And she who raised in vain regrets the strife.

i

EAUTIFUL FEMALES SLEEPING.

er

TaERE was a deep silence in the chamber; dim
And distant from each other burned the
lights,
And slumber hover’d o’er each lovely limb
Uf the fair occupants ; if there be sprites,
They would have walked there in their sprite-
liest trim,
By way of change from their sepulchral sites,
And show themselves as ghosts of better taste,
Than haunting some old ruin or wild waste.
Many and beautifal lay those around,
' Like flowers-of different hue, and clime and
root,
Ta some exotic garden sometimes found,
With cost and care and warmth induc’d to
shoot.
One with her auburn tresses lightly bound,
And fair brows gently drooping, as the fruit
Nods from the tree, was slumbering with soft
breath,
And lips apart, that showed the pearls beneath.PORMS, 315

One with her flush'd cheek laid on her white
- arm
And raven ringlets gather’d in dark crowd
Above her brow, lay dreaming soft and warm ;
And smiling through her dream, as through
: a cloud
The moon, breaks, half unveil’d each further
charm
As, slightly stirring in her snowy shroud,
Her beauties seized the unconscious hour of
nicht
All bashfully to struggle into light.

This is no ball, although it sounds so; for
“Twas night, but there were lamps, as hath
been said,
A third’s all pallid aspect offered more

The traits of sleeping sorrow, and betrayed,
Through the heaved breast, the dream of some
far shore
Beloved and deplored ; while slowly strayed
(As night dew, on a cypress glittering, tinges
The black bough) tear drops through her
eye’s dark fringes.
A fourth as marble statue like and still, :
Lay in a breathless, hush’d, and stony sleep;
While cold and pure, as looks a frozen rill, :
Or the snow minaret on Alpine steep,
Or Lot’s wife done in salt,—or what you will :-—
My smiles are gather’d in a heap,
So pick aud choose—perhaps you'll be content
With a carved lady on a monument.BYRON §

THE PRISONER OF CHILLON.

But he the favourite and the flower,
Most cherished since his natal hoar,
His mother’s image in her face,

The infant love of all his race,

His martyr’d father’s dearest thought,
My latest care, for whom I sought

To hoard my life, that his might be
Less wretched now, and one day free,
He, too, who yet had held untired

A spirit natural or inspired—

He, too, was struck, and day by day
Was withered on the stalk away.

Oh God! It is a fearful thing

To see the human soul take wing

In any shape, in any mood:
I’ve seen it rushing forth in blood,

I’ve seen it on the breaking ocean

Strive with the swoll’n convulsive motion,
I’ve seen the sick and ghastly bed

Of sin, delirious with its dread :

But these were horrors—this was woe
Unmix’d with such—but sure and slow:
He faded, and so calm and meek,

So softly worn, so sweetly weak,

So tearless, yct so tender—kind,

And grieved for those he left behind,
With all the while a cheek whose bloom
Was asa mockery of the tomb,

Whose tints as gently sink away

As a departing rainbow’s ray—POEMS.

An eye of most transparent light,
That almost made the dungeon bright,
And not a word of murmur—not
A groan o’er his untimely lot,—
A little talk of better days,
» A little hope my own to raise,
For I was sunk in silence—lost
In this sad loss, of all the most ;
And then the sighs he would suppress
Of fainting nature’s feebleness,
More slowly drawn, grew less and less :
I listened but I could not hear—
I called? for I was wild with fear ;
{ knew ‘twas hopeless, but my dread
Would not be thus admonished ;
I called, and thought I heard a sound—
I burst my chain with one strong bound,
And rushed to him ; ~I found him not,
I only stirred in this black spot.
I only lived—tI only drew .
The accursed breath of dungeon dew;
The last, the sole, the dearest link
Between me and the eternal brink,
Which bound me to my falling race,
Was broken to this fatal place.
One on the earth, and one beneath—
My brothers—both have ceased to breathe;
I took that hand which lay so still,
Alas! my own was full as chill;
I had not strength to stir or strive,
But felt that 1 was still alive—
A frantic feeling,— when we know
That what we love shall ne’er be go.

I know not why P

1 could not die,BYRON’S

J had no earthly hope—but faith,
And that forbade a selfish death.

CONRAD THE CORSAIR.

They make obedience, and retire in haste,

Too goon again to seek the watery waste;

Yet they repine not—so that Conrad guides,

And who dare question ought that he decides ;

That man of loneliness and mystery,

Scarce seen to smile, and seldom heard to sigh :

Whose name appals the fiercest of his crew,

And tents each swarthy cheek with sallow 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 ?

What should it be, that thus their faith can
bind 2

The power of thought—the magic of the mind ;°

Link’d with success, assum’d and kept with
skill,

That moulds another’s weakness to his will ;

Wields with their hands, but, still to these un-
known,

Makes even their mightiest deeds appear his
own.

Such hath been—shall be—beneath the sun

The many still must labour for the one !

‘Tis nature's doom-—-but let the wreteh who
toils .

Accuse not, hate not him who wears the spoils.

Oh! if he knew the weight of splendid chains,

How like the balance of his humbler paina !

aPOEMS.

Unlike the heroes of each ancient race,
Demons in act, but gods at least in face,
In Conrad’s form seems little to admire,
Though his dark eyebrows shade a glance of

fire’;

Robust but not Herculean to the sight

No giant frame set forth his common height ;

Yet, inthe whole, who paused to look again,

Saw more than marks the crowd of vulgarmen:

They gaze and marvel how—and still confess

That thus it is, but why they cannot guess,

Sun-burnt his cheek, his forehead high and
pale

The sable curls in high profusion veil ;

And oft perforce his rising lip reveals

The haughtier thought it curbs but scarce con-
ceals.

Though smooth his voice, and calm his gentle
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 muskiness of mind

Work’d feelings fearful, and yet undefined ;

Such might it be—that none can truly tell—

To close inquiry his stern glance could quell.

There breathe but few, what aspect might defy

he full encounter of his searching eye:

He had the skill, when cunning’s gaze would

seek

To probe his heart and watch his changing cheek,

At once the observer’s purpose to espy,

And on himself roll back his scrutiny,BYRON S

Lest he to Conrad rather should betray,

Some secret thought, than drag that chief’s to
day.

There was a laughing Devil in his sneer,

That raised emotions both of rage and fear ;

And where his frown of hatred darkly fell,

Hope withering fled—and mercy sigh’d fare-
well !

Slight are the outward signs of evil thought,
Within—within—’twastherethe Spirit wrought;
Love shows all changes—Hate, Ambition,Guile,
Betray no further than the bitter smile ;

The lip’s least curl, the lightest paleness thrown

Along the govern’d aspect, Speak alone

Of deeper passion, and to judge their mien,

He who would see, must be himself unseen.

Then with the hurried tread the upward eye,

The clenched hand, the pause of agony,

That listens, starting, lest the step too near

Approach intrusive on that mood of fear :

Then—with each future working from the heart,

With feelings loosed to strengthen—not depart ;

That rise—convulsive—contend—that freeze,
or glow,

Flush in the cheek, or damp upon the brow:

Then—Stranger ! if thou canst, and tremblest
not.

Behold his soul—the rest that soothes his lot !

Mark—how that lone and blighted bosom sears.

The scathing thought of execrating years !

Behold—but who hath seen, or e’er shall see.

May as hin.self— the secret spirit free!

Yet was not Conrad thus by Nature sent
To lead the guilty ~guilt’s worse instrument—POEMS, 3lg

His soul was chang’d, before his deeds had driven

Him forth to war with man and forfeit heaven,

Warp’d by the world in Disappointment’s school

Tp. words too wise, in conduct there a fool;

Too firm to yield, and far too proud to stoop,

Doom’d by his very virtues for a dupe,

He curs’d those virtues as the cause of ill,

And not the traitors who betray’d him still :

Nor deem’d that gifts bestow’d on better men _

Had left him joy, and means to give again.

Fear'd—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 deem’d

The rest no better than the thing he seem’d,

And scorn’d the best as hypocrites who hid

Those deeds the bolder spirits plainly did.

He knew himself detested, but he knew

The hearts that loath’d him, crouch’d and

dreaded too,

Lone, wild, and strange, he stood alike axempt

From all affection, and from all contempt;

His name could sadden, and his acts surprise,’

But they that fear'd him dared not to despise ;

Man spurns the worm, but pauses ere he wake,

The slumbering venom of the sleeping snake ;

The first may turn, but not avenge the biow ;

The last expires—but leaves no living foe:

Fast to the domm’d offender's form it clings -

And he may crush—not conquer—still it stings,
None are all quickening round his heart,

One softer feeling would no i$20 BYRON S POEMS,

By passions worthy of a f fool or chi d;

Yes, ’gainst that passion vainly still he strove,

And even in him it asks the name of Love!

Yet, it was love—unch angeab! le—unchang’d
> My

Felt but fe: one from whom he never rang’d :

Though fairest captives d daily met his eye,

Oft would he sneer at othe ers, as Deouiled
& 3
h :
at

He shunned nor sought, but coldly passed them
by ;
Though yey a beauty drooped in prisoned
5 b J } I
owe

None ever soothed his mos st unguarded hour ;
. Yes,—it was love—if thoughts of tenderness

Tried in temptation, strengthened 3 in distress,
Unmov’d by absence, firm in every clime,

And. yet—oh, more than all Waasntated by time;
Which nor defeate 4 hope, nor baffied wile,
Could render sullen, were she near to smile;
Nor rage could fire, nor sickness fret to veht
On her one murmur of his discontent ;

Which still would meet with joy, with calmness
part,

Lest that his look of grief should reach her
heart :

Which nought removed--nor menaced to re-
move—

If there be love in mortals—this was love

He was a villain- ape eproaches shower

On him—but not the passion, nor its power,

Which only prove er virtues gone,

Not g guilt itself could quench this lovely one!

 

            

THE END.

 

d. S, Pratt, Printer, Stokesley, Yorkshire,

  
   
  
 
  
   
 
  
 
  
  
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
  
  
  

EDT O ARE I,ee ea Cee ION