ON PARTING. THE kiss, dear maid! thy lip has left Untainted back to thine. Thy parting glance, which fondly beams, An equal love may see: The tear that from thine eyelid streams I ask no pledge to make me blest Nor one memorial for a breast, Whose thoughts are all thine own. Unless the heart could speak? March, 1811. EPITAPH FOR JOSEPH BLACKETT, LATE POET STRANGER! behold, interr'd together, Black-it." Malta, May 16, 1811. were otherwise tired of travelling; but I am so convinced of the advantages of looking at mankind, instead of reading about them, and the bitter effects of staying at home with all the narrow prejudices of an islander, that I think there should be a law amongst us to send our young men abroad, for a term, among the few allies our wars have left us. Here I see, and have conversed with, French, Italians, Germans, Danes, Greeks, Turks, Americans, etc. etc. etc.; and, without losing sight of my own, I can judge of the countries and manners of others. When I see the superiority of England (which, by the by, we are a good deal mistaken about in many things), I am pleased; and where I find her inferior, I am at least enlightened. Now, I might have stayed, smoked in your towns, or fogged in your country, a century, without being sure of this, and without acquiring any thing more useful or amusing at home. I keep FAREWELL TO MALTA. ADIEU, ye joys of La Valette! (How surely he who mounts you swears!) Of all that strut "en militaire!" I go-but God knows when, or why, To smoky towns and cloudy sky, To things (the honest truth to say) Farewell to these, but not adieu, And fallen chiefs, and fleets no more, And take my rhyme-because 't is "gratis." My praise was worth this drop of ink, And fashion's ease, without its art; no journal; nor have I any intention of scribbling my travels. I have done with authorship; and if, in my last production, I have convinced the critics or the world I was something more than they took me for, I am satisfied; nor will I hazard that reputation by a future effort. It is true I have some others in manuscript, but I leave them for those who come after me; and if deemed worth publishing, they may serve to prolong my memory, when I myself shall cease to remember. I have a famous Bavarian artist taking some views of Athens, etc. etc., for me. This will be better than scribbling-a disease I hope myself cured of. I hope, on my return, to lead a quiet recluse life; but God knows, and does best for us all."-E. (1) Some notice of this poetaster has been given, ante, p. 69. He died in 1810, and his works have followed him.-E. Her hours can gaily glide along, Nor ask the aid of idle song. And now, O Malta! since thou'st got us, I'll not offend with words uncivil, But only stare from out my casement, Return to scribbling, or a book, Or take my physic while I 'm able TO DIVES. A FRAGMENT. UNHAPPY DIVES! in an evil hour May 26, 1811. 'Gainst Nature's voice seduced to deeds accurst! 1811. ON MOORE'S LAST OPERATIC FARCE, OR FARCICAL OPERA. (1) GOOD plays are scarce, So Moore writes farce: The poet's fame grows brittle We knew before That Little's Moore, But now 't is Moore that's little. Sept. 14, 1811. EPISTLE TO A FRIEND, (2) IN ANSWER TO SOME LINES EXHORTING THE AUTHOR (1) The opera of M. P.; or the Blue Stocking, came out at the Lyceum Theatre, on the 9th of September.-E. (2) I. e. Mr. Francis Hodgson (not then the Reverend). See p. 72.-E (5) "The anticipations of his own future career in these con cluding lines are of 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 When all I loved is changed or gone, But, above all, if thou wouldst hold 'T were long to tell, and vain to hear, But let this pass-I'll whine no more, Of one, whom love nor pity sways, Newstead Abbey, Oct. 11, 1811.(4) 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. (4) Two days after, in another letter to Mr. Hodgson, the poet TO THYRZA. (1) WITHOUT a stone to mark the spot, 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, Who held, and holds thee in his heart? Had flow'd as fast-as now they flow. Affection's mingling tears were ours? That Love each warmer wish forebore; The tone, that taught me to rejoice, When pronę, unlike thee, to repine; 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."-E. (1) The reader will laugh," says Captain Medwin," 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."-E (2) Mr. Moore considers "Thyrza" as if she were a mere creature of the poet's brain; but Lord Byron, in a letter to Mr Dallas, bearing the exact date of these lines, viz. Oct. 11th, 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! 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, To wean me from mine anguish here. To bear, forgiving and forgiven: On earth thy love was such to me; It fain would form my hope in heaven! October 11, 1811.(2) 1811,writes as follows:-"I have been again shocked with a death, and have lost one very dear to me in happier times: but '1 have 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.-E. 908 ONE struggle more, and I am free Then back to busy life again. 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; It never would have been, but thou The smile that sorrow fain would wear On many a lone and lovely night It sooth'd to gaze upon the sky; When stretch'd on fever's sleepless bed, "T is comfort still," I faintly said, Like freedom to the time-worn slave, My life, when Thyrza ceased to live! Is silent-ah, were mine as still! It feels, it sickens with the chill. 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. WHEN Time, or soon or late, shall bring Wave gently o'er my dying bed! To feel, or feign, decorous woe. With no officious mourners near: In her who lives and him who dies. 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, 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, There is an eye which could not brook I will not ask where thou liest low, There flowers or weeds at will may grow, 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 to the last As fervently as thou, Who didst not change through all the past, The love where Death has set his seal, 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, The silence of that dreamless sleep Nor need I to repine That all those charms have pass'd away; The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd Than see it pluck'd to-day; I know not if I could have borne The night that follow'd such a morn 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, One vigil o'er thy bed ; Uphold thy drooping head; Yet how much less it were to gain, Returns again to me. And more thy buried love endears STANZAS. IF sometimes in the haunts of men The semblance of thy gentle shade : Oh, pardon that in crowds a while I waste one thought I owe to thee, That then I seem not to repine; I would not fools should overhear 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. |