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(1)

But not in morn's reflecting hour,
When present, past, and future lower,
When all I loved is changed or gone,
Mock with such taunts the woes of one
Whose every thought-but let them pass-
Thou know'st I am not what I was.
But, above all, if thou wouldst hold
Place in a heart that ne'er was cold,
By all the powers that men revere,
By all unto thy bosom dear,
Thy joys below, thy hopes above,
Speak-speak of any thing but love.

'T were long to tell, and vain to hear,
The tale of one who scorns a tear;
And there is little in that tale
Which better bosoms would bewail.
But mine has suffer'd more than well
'Twould suit philosophy to tell.
I've seen my bride another's bride,-
Have seen her seated by his side,-
Have seen the infant, which she bore,
Wear the sweet smile the mother wore,
When she and I in youth have smiled,
As fond and faultless as her child;-
Have seen her eyes, in cold disdain,
Ask if I felt no secret pain;
And I have acted well my part,
And made my cheek belie my heart,
Return'd the freezing glance she gave,
Yet felt the while that woman's slave;-
Have kiss'd, as if without design,
The babe which ought to have been mine,
And show'd, alas! in each caress
Time had not made me love the less. (1)

But let this pass-I'll whine no more,
No seek again an Eastern shore;
The world befits a busy brain,
I'll hie me to its haunts again.
But if, in some succeeding year,
When Britain's "May is in the sere,"
Thou hear'st of one, whose deepening crimes
Suit with the sablest of the times,
Of one, whom love nor pity sways,
Nor hope of fame, nor good men's praise,
One who, in stern ambition's pride,
Perchance not blood shall turn aside,
One rank'd in some recording page
With the worst anarchs of the age,

Him wilt thou know-and knowing pause,
Nor with the effect forget the cause. (2)

Newstead Abbey, Oct. 11, 1811. (3)

These lines will show with what gloomy fidelity, even while under the pressure of recent sorrow, the poet reverted to the disappointment of his early affection, as the chief source of all his sufferings and errors, present and to come." Moore.-L. E.

(2) "The anticipations of his own future career in these concluding lines are of a nature, it must be owned, to awaken more of horror than of interest, were we not prepared, by so many instances of his exaggeration in this respect, not to be startled at any lengths to which the spirit of self-libelling would carry him. It seemed as if, with the power of painting fierce and gloomy personages, he had also the ambition to be, himself, the dark sublime he drew;' and that, in his fondness for the delineation of heroic crime, he endeavoured to fancy, where he could not find in his own character, fit subjects for his pencil." Moore.-L. E.

TO THYRZA. (4)

WITHOUT 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 a shore 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 thy glazing eye,
In that dread hour ere death appear,
When silent sorrow fears to sigh,
Till all was past? But when no more
"Twas thine to reck 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,
Ere call'd but for a time away,

Affection's mingling tears were ours?
Ours too the glance none saw beside;

The smile none else might understand; The whisper'd thought of hearts allied, The pressure of the thrilling hand;

The kiss, so guiltless and refined,

That Love each warmer wish forebore; Those eyes proclaim'd so pure a mind,

Even Passion blush'd 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 borne the weight of ill, But never bent beneath till now!

(3) Two days after, in another letter to Mr. Hodgson, the poet says, "I am growing nervous (how you will laugh!) -but it is true,-really, wretchedly, ridiculously, fine-ladically nervous. Your climate kills me; I can neither read, write, nor amuse myself, or any one else. My days are listless, and my nights restless: I have seldom any society. and, when I have, I run out of it. I don't know that I sha'n't end with insanity; for I find a want of method in arranging my thoughts that perplexes me strangely.* -L. E.

(4) "The reader will laugh when I tell him, that it was asserted to a friend of mine, that the lines To Thyrza," published with the first Canto of Childe Harold, were addressed to his bear! There is nothing so malignant that Hatred will not invent or Folly believe." Medwin.-P. E.

Well hast thou left, in life's best bloom,

The cup of woe for me to drain:

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 mine anguish here.
Teach me too early taught by thee!
To bear, forgiving and forgiven:
On earth thy love was such to me;

It fain would form my hope in heaven!
October 11, 1811. (1)

STANZAS. (2)

AWAY, away, ye notes of woe!

Be silent, thou once-soothing strain, Or I must flee from hence-for, oh!

I dare not trust those sounds again. To me they speak of brighter days-

But lull the chords, for now, alas! I must not think, I may not gaze

On what I am-on what I was.

The voice that made those sounds more sweet Is hush'd, and all their charms are fled; And now their softest notes repeat

A dirge, an anthem o'er the dead! Yes, Thyrza! yes, they breathe of thee, Beloved dust! since dust thou art; And all that once was harmony

Is worse than discord to my heart!

'Tis silent all!-but on my ear

The well-remember'd echoes thrill;
I hear a voice I would not hear,

A voice that now might well be still:
Yet oft my doubting soul 'twill shake;
Even slumber owns its gentle tone,
Till consciousness will vainly wake
To listen, though the dream be flown.

Sweet Thyrza! waking as in sleep,

Thou art but now a lovely dream; A star that trembled o'er the deep,

Then turn'd from earth its tender beam.
But he who through life's dreary way
Must pass, when heaven is veil'd in wrath,
Will long lament the vanish'd ray

That scatter'd gladness o'er his path.
December 6, 1811.

(1) Mr. Moore considers "Thyrza" as if she were a mere creature of the poet's brain. "It was," he says, "about the time when he was thus bitterly feeling, and expressing, the blight which his heart had suffered from a real object of affection, that his poems on the death of an imaginary one were written;-nor is it any wonder, when we consider the peculiar circumstances under which these beautiful effusions flowed from his fancy, that, of all his strains of pathos, they should be the most touching and most pure. They were, indeed, the essence, the abstract spirit, as it were, of many griefs;-a confluence of sad thoughts from many sources of sorrow, refined and warmed in their passage through his fancy, and forming thus one deep reservoir of mournful feeling." It is a pity to disturb a sentiment thus beautifully expressed; but Lord Byron, in a letter to Mr. Dallas, bearing the exact date of these lines, viz. Oct. 11th, 1811, writes as follows:-"I have been again shocked with a death, and have lost one very dear to me in happier times: but I have

STANZAS.

ONE struggle more, and I am free
From pangs that rend my heart in twain;
One last long sigh to love and thee,
Then back to busy life again.

It suits me well to mingle now

With things that never pleased before: Though every joy is fled below,

What future grief can touch me more?

Then bring me wine, the banquet bring;
Man was not form'd to live alone:
I'll be that light unmeaning thing

That smiles with all, and weeps with none. It was not thus in days more dear,

It never would have been, but thou
Hast fled, and left me lonely here;
Thou'rt nothing,-all are nothing now.

In vain my lyre would lightly breathe!
The smile that sorrow fain would wear
But mocks the woe that lurks beneath,
Like roses o'er a sepulchre.
Though gay companions o'er the bowl
Dispel awhile the sense of ill;
Though pleasure fires the maddening soul,
The heart-the heart is lonely still!

On many a lone and lovely night

It sooth'd to gaze upon the sky;
For then I deem'd the heavenly light
Shone sweetly on thy pensive eye:
And oft I thought at Cynthia's noon,
When sailing o'er the Ægean wave,
"Now Thyrza gazes on that moon”—
Alas, it gleam'd upon her grave!

When stretch'd on fever's sleepless bed,
And sickness shrunk my throbbing veins,
'Tis comfort still," I faintly said,
"That Thyrza cannot know my pains:"
Like freedom to the time-worn slave,
A boon 'tis idle then to give,
Relenting Nature vainly gave
My life, when Thyrza ceased to live!
My Thyrza's pledge in better days,
When love and life alike were new!
How different now thou meet'st my gaze!
How tinged by time with sorrow's hue!
The heart that gave itself with thee

Is silent-ah, were mine as still!
Though cold as e'en the dead can be,
It feels, it sickens with the chill.

almost forgot the taste of grief,' and 'supped full of horrors,' till I have become callous; nor have I a tear left for an event which, five years ago, would have bowed my head to the earth." In his reply to this letter, Mr. Dallas says, "I thank you for your confidential communication. How truly do I wish that that being had lived, and lived yours! What your obligations to her would have been in that case is inconceivable." Several years after the series of poems on Thyrza were written, Lord Byron, on being asked to whom they referred, by a person in whose tenderness he never ceased to confide, refused to answer, with marks of painful agitation, such as rendered any farther recurrence to the subject impossible. The reader must be left to form his own conclusion. The five following pieces are all devoted to Thyrza.-L. E.

(2) "Now take a dose in another style. I wrote it a day or two ago, on hearing a song of former days." Lord B. te Mr. Hodgson. London, 1811.—P. E.

Thou bitter pledge! thou mournful token!
Though painful, welcome to my breast!
Still, still, preserve that love unbroken,

Or break the heart to which thou'rt press'd! Time tempers love, but not removes,

More hallow'd when its hope is fled : Oh! what are thousand living loves

To that which cannot quit the dead?

EUTHANASIA.(1)

WHEN 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 dishevell'd 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 fear.
Yet Love, if Love in such an hour
Could nobly check its useless sighs,
Might then exert its latest power

In her who lives and him who dies.
"Twere sweet, my Psyche! to the last
Thy features still serene to see:
Forgetful of its struggles past,

E'en 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 hath 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.

"Heu, quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui

meminisse!"

AND thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;
And form so soft, and charms so rare,
Too soon return'd to Earth!

Though Earth received them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,

(I) In the first edition of Lord Byron's works this poem was omitted, at the suggestion, it appears, of a gentleman whom Mr. Moore bas aptly designated one of the poet's "officious self-satisfied advisers." His Lordship, however,

There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.

I 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 loved, and long must love,

Like common earth can rot;

To me there needs no stone to tell, 'Tis Nothing that I loved so well.

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 worse, 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 dreamless sleep
I envy now too much to weep;
Nor need I to repine

That all those charms have pass'd away;
I might have watch'd through long decay.

The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd
Must fall the earliest prey;
Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,
The leaves must drop away;
And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it pluck'd to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.

I know not if I could have borne
To see thy beauties fade;
The night that follow'd such a morn

Had worn a deeper shade:
Thy day without a cloud hath pass'd,
And thou wert lovely to the last;

Extinguish'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 it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,

to quote the adviser himself, "had not resolution enough to persist in suppressing" the verses, which have accordingly been published in subsequent editions.-P. E

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IF sometimes in the haunts of men
Thine image from my breast may fade,
The lonely hour presents again

The semblance of thy gentle shade:
And now that sąd 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 a while

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,

That 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 not 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. For wert thou vanish'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, oh! I feel in that was given

A blessing never meant for me; Thou wert too like a dream of heaven, For earthly Love to merit thee.

March 14, 1812.

(1) We know not whether the reader should understand the cornelian heart of these lines to be the same with that of which some notices are given, antè, p. 23.-P. E.

(2) This impromptu owed its birth to an on dit, that the late Princess Charlotte of Wales burst into tears on hearing that the Whigs had found it impossible to put together a cabinet, at the period of Mr. Perceval's death. They were appended to the first edition of the Corsair, and excited a sensation, as it is called, marvellously disproportionate to their length,-or, we may add, their merit. The ministerial prints raved for two months on end, in the most foul-mouthed vituperation of the poet, and all that belonged to him-the Morning Post even announced a motion in the House of Lords" and all this," Lord Byron writes to Mr. Moore, "as Bedreddin in the Arabian Nights remarks, for making a

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THE chain I gave was fair to view,
The lute I added sweet in sound;
The heart that offer'd both was true,
And ill deserved the fate it found.
These gifts were charm'd by secret spell
Thy truth in absence to divine;
And they have done their duty well,—
Alas they could not teach thee thine.
That chain was firm in every link,

But not to bear a stranger's touch;
That lute was sweet-till thou couldst think
In other hands its notes were such.
Let him, who from thy neck unbound

The chain which shiver'd in his grasp, Who saw that lute refuse to sound,

Restring the chords, renew the clasp. When thou wert changed, they alter'd too; The chain is broke, the music mute. 'Tis past-to them and thee adieuFalse heart, frail chain, and silent lute.

cream tart with pepper: how odd, that eight lines should have given birth, I really think, to eight thousand!"-L. E. "The 'Lines to a Lady weeping' must go with the Corsair. I care nothing for consequences on this point. My politics are to me like a young mistress to an old man; the worse they grow, the fonder I become of them." Lord B. to Mr. Murray, Jan, 22, 1814. "On my return, I find all the newspapers in hysterics, and town in an uproar, on the avowal and republication of two stanzas on Princess Charlotte's weeping at Regency's speech to Lauderdale in 1812. They are daily at it still:-some of the abuse good,--all of it hearty. They talk of a motion in our House upon itbe it so." Byron's Diary, 1814.-P. E.

(3) In a letter to Mr. Moore, Lord Byron designates this couplet as a "literal translation."-P. E.

LINES WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF OF THE "PLEASURES OF MEMORY."

ABSENT or present, still to thee,

My friend, what magic spells belong!
As all can tell, who share, like me,

In turn thy converse, (1) and thy song.
But when the dreaded hour shall come

By Friendship ever deem'd too nigh,
And Memory o'er her Druid's tomb (2)
Shall weep that aught of thee can die,

How fondly will she then repay

Thy homage offer'd at her shrine,
And blend, while ages roll away,
Her name immortally with thine!

ADDRESS,

April 19, 1812.

SPOKEN AT THE OPENING OF DRURY-LANE THEATRE,
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1812. (3)

IN one dread night our city saw, and sigh'd,
Bow'd to the dust, the Drama's tower of pride;
In one short hour beheld the blazing fane,
Apollo sink, and Shakspeare cease to reign.

Ye who beheld (oh! sight admired and mourn'd, Whose radiance mock'd the ruin it adorn'd!) Through clouds of fire the massy fragments riven, Like Israel's pillar, chase the night from heaven; Saw the long column of revolving flames

Shake its red shadow o'er the startled Thames,(4)
While thousands, throng'd around the burning dome,
Shrank back appall'd, and trembled for their home,
As glared the volumed blaze, (5) and ghastly shone
The skies, with lightnings awful as their own,
Till blackening ashes and the lonely wall
Usurp'd the Muse's realm, and mark'd her fall;
Say-shall this new, nor less aspiring pile,
Rear'd where once rose the mightiest in our isle,

(1)" When Rogers does talk, he talks well; and, on all subjects of taste, his delicacy of expression is pure as his poetry. If you enter his house-his drawing-room-his library-you of yourself say, this is not the dwelling of a common mind. There is not a gem, a coin, a book thrown aside on his chimney-piece, his sofa, his table, that does not bespeak an almost fastidious elegance in the possessor." B. Diary, 1813.-L. E.

(2) The reader will recall Collins's exquisite lines on the tomb of Thomson: "In yonder grave a Druid lies," etc.L. E.

(3) The theatre in Drury Lane, which was opened, in 1747, with Dr. Johnson's masterly address, beginning,—

"When Learning's triumph o'er her barbarous foes First rear'd the Stage, immortal Shakspeare rose,” and witnessed the last glories of Garrick, having fallen into decay, was rebuilt in 1794. The new building perished by are in 1811; and the managers, in their anxiety that the opening of the present edifice should be distinguished by some composition of at least equal merit, advertised in the newspapers for a general competition. Scores of addresses, not one tolerable, showered on their desk, and they were in sad despair, when Lord Holland interfered, and, not without difficulty, prevailed on Lord Byron to write these versesat the risk," as he said, "of offending a hundred scribblers and a discerning public." The admirable jeu d'esprit of the Messrs. Smith will long preserve the memory of the Rejected Addresses.-L. E.

(4) "By the by, the best view of the said fire (which I myself saw from a house-top in Covent Garden) was at

Know the same favour which the former knew,
A shrine for Shakspeare-worthy him and you?
Yes-it shall be-the magic of that name
Defies the scythe of time, the torch of flame;
On the same spot still consecrates the scene,
And bids the Drama be where she hath been:
This fabric's birth attests the potent spell-
Indulge our honest pride, and say, How well!

As soars this fane to emulate the last,
Oh! might we draw our omens from the past,
Some hour propitious to our prayers may boast
Names such as hallow still the dome we lost.
On Drury first your Siddons' thrilling art
O'erwhelm'd the gentlest, storm'd the sternest heart.
On Drury Garrick's latest laurels grew;
Here your last tears retiring Roscius drew,
Sigh'd his last thanks, and wept his last adieu:
But still for living wit the wreaths may bloom
That only waste their odours o'er the tomb.
Such Drury claim'd and claims-nor you refuse
One tribute to revive his slumbering Muse;
With garlands deck your own Menander's head,
Nor hoard your honours idly for the dead!

Dear are the days which made our annals bright, Ere Garrick fled, or Brinsley (6) ceased to write.(7) Heirs to their labours, like all high-born heirs, Vain of our ancestry as they of theirs; While thus Remembrance borrows Banquo's glass To claim the sceptred shadows as they pass, And we the mirror hold, where imaged shine Immortal names, emblazon'd on our line, Pause-ere their feebler offspring you condemn, Reflect how hard the task to rival them!

Friends of the stage! to whom both players and plays Must sue alike for pardon or for praise; Whose judging voice and eye alone direct The boundless power to cherish or reject; If e'er frivolity has led to fame,

And made us blush that you forbore to blame;

Westminster Bridge, from the reflection of the Thames." B. to Lord H.-L. E.

(5) Originally, "As glared each rising flash.”—P. E. (6) Originally, "Ere Garrick died," etc.-"By the by, one of my corrections in the copy sent yesterday has dived into the bathos some sixty fathom

When Garrick died, and Brinsley ceased to write." Ceasing to live is a much more serious concern, and ought not to be first. Second thoughts in every thing are best; but, in rhyme, third and fourth don't come amiss. I always scrawl in this way, and smooth as fast as I can, but never sufficiently; and, latterly, I can weave a nine-line stanza faster than a couplet, for which measure I have not the cunning. When I began Childe Harold, I had never tried Spenser's measure, and now I cannot scribble in any other. B. to Lord H.-L. E.

(7) Previously to the correction alluded to in the preceding note, the couplet stood thus:

"Such are the names that here your plaudits sought.
When Garrick acted and when Brinsley wrote.”

To these lines on Sheridan, Byron had proposed to add the following:

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