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Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away:
Something I know not what-does still uphold
A spirit of slight patience;-not in vain,
Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain.

Perhaps the workings of defiance stir
Within me, or perhaps a cold despair,
Brought on when ills habitually recur,-
Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air

(For even to this may change of soul refer,
And with light armour we may learn to bear),
Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not
The chief companion of a calmer lot.

I feel almost at times as I have felt

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In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and Which do remember me of where I dwelt Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books, Come as of yore upon me, and can melt My heart with recognition of their looks; And even at moments I could think I see Some living thing to love-but none like thee. Here are the Alpine landscapes which create A fund for contemplation;—to admire Is a brief feeling of a trivial date;

But something worthier do such scenes inspire :
Here to be lonely is not desolate,

For much I view which I could most desire,
And, above all, a lake I can behold
Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old.

Oh that thou wert but with me!-but I grow

The fool of my own wishes, and forget
The solitude which I have vaunted so
Has lost its praise in this but one regret ;
There may be others which I less may show ;
I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet
I feel an ebb in my philosophy,
And the tide rising in my alter'd eye.

I did remind thee of our own dear Lake,(1)
By the old Hall which may be mine no more.
Leman's is fair; but think not I forsake
The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore:
Sad havoc Time must with my memory make
Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before;
Though, like all things which I have loved, they
Resign'd for ever, or divided far.

The world is all before me; I but ask

Of Nature that with which she will comply—
It is but in her summer's sun to bask,
To mingle with the quiet of her sky,
To see her gentle face without a mask,
And never gaze on it with apathy.

(1) The Lake of Newstead Abbey.-E.

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(2) Sheridan died the 7th of July, 1816, and this monody was written at Diodati on the 17th, at the request of Mr. Douglas Kinnaird. "I did as well as I could," says Lord Byron, "but where I have not my choice, I pretend to answer for nothing." A proof-sheet of the poem, with the words "by request of a

She was my early friend, and now shall be My sister-till I look again on thee.

I can reduce all feelings but this one; And that I would not;-for at length I see Such scenes as those wherein my life begun. The earliest-even the only paths for me— Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun, I had been better than I now can be ; The passions which have torn me would have slept; I had not suffer'd, and thou hadst not wept.

With false Ambition what I to do?

Little with Love, and least of all with Fame; And yet they came unsought, and with me grew, And made me all which they can make-a name. Yet this was not the end I did pursue, Surely I once beheld a nobler aim. But all is over-I am one the more To baffled millions which have gone before. And for the future, this world's future may From me demand but little of my care; I have outlived myself by many a day ; Having survived so many things that were; My years have been no slumber, but the prey Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share Of life which might have fill'd a century, Before its fourth in time had pass'd me by. And for the remnant which may be to come I am content; and for the past I feel Not thankless,-for within the crowded sum Of struggles, happiness at times would steal, And for the present, I would not benumb My feelings farther.-Nor shall I conceal That with all this I still can look around And worship Nature with a thought profound. For thee, my own sweet sister! in thy heart I know myself secure, as thou in mine; We were and are—I am, even as thou art— Beings who ne'er each other can resign; It is the same, together or apart,

From life's commencement to its slow decline We are entwined—let death come slow or fast, The tie which bound the first endures the last!

MONODY ON THE DEATH OF THE RIGHT
HON. R. B. SHERIDAN. (2)

SPOKEN AT DRURY-LANE THEATRE. (3)
WHEN the last sunshine of expiring day
In summer's twilight weeps itself away,

friend" in the title-page having reached him,—“I request you," he says, "to expunge that name, unless you please to add, ‘by a person of quality,' or, ‘of wit and humour.' It is sad trash, and must have been done to make it ridiculous."-E.

(3) Sheridan's own monody on Garrick was spoken from the same boards, by Mrs. Yates, in March, 1779.-"One day," says

Who hath not felt the softness of the hour
Sink on the heart, as dew along the flower?
With a pure feeling which absorbs and awes
While Nature makes that melancholy pause,
Her breathing moment on the bridge where Time
Of light and darkness forms an arch sublime,
Who hath not shared that calm so still and deep,
The voiceless thought which would not speak but
A holy concord-and a bright regret, [weep.
A glorious sympathy with suns that set?
"T is not harsh sorrow-but a tenderer woe,
Nameless, but dear to gentle hearts below,
Felt without bitterness—but full and clear,
A sweet dejection- a transparent tear,
Unmix'd with worldly grief or selfish stain,
Shed without shame-and secret without pain.
Even as the tenderness that hour instils
When summer's day declines along the hills,
So feels the fulness of our heart and eyes,
When all of Genius which can perish dies.
A mighty Spirit is eclipsed-a Power
Hath pass'd from day to darkness--to whose hour
Of light no likeness is bequeath'd—no name,
Focus at once of all the rays of Fame!
The flash of Wit—the bright Intelligence,
The beam of Song, the blaze of Eloquence,
Set with their Sun-but still have left behind
The enduring produce of immortal Mind:
Fruits of a genial morn, and glorious noon,
A deathless part of him who died too soon.
But small that portion of the wondrous whole,
These sparkling segments of that circling soul.
Which all embraced-and lighten'd over all,
To cheer-to pierce-to please—or to appal.
From the charm'd council to the festive board,
Of human feelings the unbounded lord;
In whose acclaim the loftiest voices vied,

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His was the thunder-his the avenging rod,
The wrath-the delegated voice of God!
Which shook the nations through his lips-and
Till vanquish'd senates trembled as they praised.(2)
And here, oh! here where yet, all young and warm,
To gay creations of his spirit charm,
The matchless dialogue-the deathless wit,
Which knew not what it was to intermit;
The glowing portraits, fresh from life, that bring
Home to our hearts the truth from which they spring;
These wondrous beings of his Fancy, wrought
To fulness by the fiat of his thought,
Here in their first abode you still may meet,
Bright with the hues of his Promethean heat;
A halo of the light of other days,
Which still the splendour of its orb betrays.

But should there be to whom the fatal blight
Of failing Wisdom yields a base delight,
Men who exult when minds of heavenly tone
Jar in the music which was born their own,
Still let them pause-ah! little do they know
That what to them seem'd Vice might be but
Hard is his fate on whom the public gaze [Woe. (3)
Is fix'd for ever to detract or praise;
Repose denies her requiem to his name;
And Folly loves the martyrdom of Fame.
The secret enemy whose sleepless eye
Stands sentinel-accuser-judge-and spy,
The foe the fool-the jealous-and the vain,
The envious who but breathe in others' pain,
Behold the host! delighting to deprave.
Who track the steps of Glory to the grave,
Watch every fault that daring Genius owes
Half to the ardour which its birth bestows,
Distort the truth, accumulate the lie,
And pile the Pyramid of Calumny!
These are his portion-but if join'd to these

The praised-the proud-who made his praise their Gaunt Poverty should league with deep Disease,

pride.

When the loud cry of trampled Hindostan (1)
Arose to Heaven in her appeal from man,

If the high Spirit must forget to soar,

And stoop to strive with Misery at the door,(4)
To soothe Indignity-and face to face

Lord Byron, "I saw him take it up. He lighted upon the de-off an action.'-' Well', said I, ‘and what do you mean to do?' dication to the Dowager Lady Spencer. On seeing it, he flew into a rage and exclaimed, 'that it must be a forgery, as he had never dedicated any thing of his to such a d-d canting,' etc. etc. -and so he went on for half an hour, abusing his own dedication, or at least the object of it. If all writers were equally sincere, it would be ludicrous." B. Diary, 1821.-E.

(1) See Fox, Burke, and Pitt's eulogy on Sheridan's masterspeech on the charges exhibited against Mr. Hastings in the House of Commons.-E.

(2) "I heard Sheridan only once, and that briefly; but I liked his voice, his manner, and his wit. He is the only one of them I ever wished to hear at greater length." B. Diary, 1821.

(3) "I have more than once heard Sheridan say, 'that he never bad a shilling of his own.' To be sure, he contrived to extract a good many of other people's. In 1815, I found him at my lawyer's. After mutual greetings, he retired. Before recurring to my own business, I could not help inquiring that of Sheridan. 'Oh,' replied the attorney, the usual thing! to stave

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--Nothing at all for the present,' said he: 'would you have us proceed against old Sherry? what would be the use of it?' and here he began laughing, and going over Sheridan's good gifts of conversation. Such was Sheridan! he could soften an attorney! There has been nothing like it since the days of Orpheus." B. Diary, 1821.-E.

(4) This was not fiction. Only a few days before his death Sheridan wrote thus to Mr. Rogers:-" I am absolutely undone and broken-hearted. They are going to put the carpets out of window, and break into Mrs. S.'s room and take me: 1501 will remove all difficulty. For God's sake let me see you!" Mr. Moore was the immediate bearer of the required sum. This was written on the 15th of May. On the 14th of July, Sheridan's remains were deposited in Westminster Abbey,-his pall-bearers being the Duke of Bedford, the Earl of Lauderdale, Earl Mulgrave, the Lord Bishop of London, Lord Holland, and Eari Spencer.-E.

Meet sordid Rage-and wrestle with Disgrace,
To find in Hope but the renew'd caress,
The serpent-fold of further Faithlessness :--
If such may be the ills which men assail,
What marvel if at last the mightiest fail?
Breasts to whom all the strength of feeling given
Bear hearts electric-charged with fire from heaven,
Black with the rude collision, inly torn,
By clouds surrounded, and on whirlwinds borne,
Driven o'er the louring atmosphere that nurst
Thoughts which have turn'd to thunder-scorch―
and burst.

But far from us and from our mimic scene
Such things should be-if such have ever been;
Ours be the gentler wish, the kinder task,
To give the tribute Glory need not ask,

To mourn the vanish'd beam-and add our mite
Of praise in payment of a long delight.
Ye orators! whom yet our councils yield,
Mourn for the veteran Hero of your field!
The worthy rival of the wondrous Three! (1)
Whose words were sparks of Immortality!
Ye bards! to whom the Drama's Muse is dear,
He was your master-emulate him here!
Ye men of wit and social eloquence!
He was your brother-bear his ashes hence!
While powers of mind almost of boundless range, (2)
Complete in kind—as various in their change,
While Eloquence-Wit-Poesy-and Mirth,
That humbler harmonist of care on earth,
Survive within our souls--while lives our sense
Of pride in Merit's proud pre-eminence,
Long shall we seek his likeness-long in vain,
And turn to all of him which may remain,
Sighing that Nature form'd but one such man,
And broke the die—in moulding Sheridan!

THE DREAM.(3)

OUR life is twofold: Sleep hath its own world, A boundary between the things misnamed

(1) Fox-Pitt-Burke. "When Fox was asked, which he thought the best speech he had ever head, he replied, Sheridan's on the impeachment of Hastings, in the House of Commons.' When he made it, Fox advised him to speak it over again in Westminster Hall on the trial, as nothing better could be made of the subject; but Sheridan made his new speech as different as possible, and, according to the best judges, very inferior, notwithstanding the panegyric of Burke, who exclaimed during the delivery of some passages of it-There! that is the true style-something between poetry and prose, and better than either.'" B. Diary from Lord Holland), 1821.

(2) "Lord Holland told me a curious piece of sentimentality in Sheridan. The other night we were all delivering our respective and various opinions upon him and other hommes marquants, and mine was this:-'Whatever Sheridan has done or chosen to do has been par excellence always the best of its kind. He has written the best comedy (School for Scandal), the best drama (in my mind, far beyond that St. Giles's lampoon, the

Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world,
And a wide realm of wild reality,
And dreams in their development have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They take a weight from off our waking toils,
They do divide our being; they become
A portion of ourselves as of our time,
And look like heralds of eternity;
They pass like spirits of the past,-they speak
Like sibyls of the future; they have power-
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain;
They make us what we were not-what they will,
And shake us with the vision that's gone by,
The dread of vanish'd shadows-Are they so?
Is not the past all shadow? What are they?
Creations of the mind ?-The mind can make
Substance, and people planets of its own
With beings brighter than have been, and give
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.
I would recall a vision which I dream'd
Perchance in sleep-for in itself a thought,
A slumbering thought, is capable of years,
And curdles a long life into one hour.

I saw two beings in the hues of youth
Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,
Green and of mild declivity, the last
As 't were the cape of a long ridge of such,
Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
But a most living landscape, and the wave
Of woods and corn-fields, and the abodes of men
Scatter'd at intervals, and wreathing smoke
Arising from such rustic roofs;—the hill
Was crown'd with a peculiar diadem
Of trees, in circular array, so fix'd,
Not by the sport of nature, but of man:
These two a maiden and a youth, were there
Gazing-the one on all that was beneath
Fair as herself-but the boy gazed on her;
And both were young, and one was beautiful:
And both were young-yet not alike in youth.
As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge,

Beggars' Opera), the best farce (the Critic-it is only too good for a farce), and the best address (Monologue on Garrick, and, to crown all, delivered the very best oration (the famous Begum speech) ever conceived or heard in this country.' Somebody told Sheridan this the next day, and, on hearing it, Le burst into tears! Poor Brinsley! if they were tears of pleasure, I would rather have said these few, but most sincere, words, than have written the Iliad, or made his own celebrated pl. lippic. Nay, his own comedy never gratified me more than to hear that he had derived a moment's gratification from any praise of mine." B. Diary, Dec. 17, 1813.

(3) In the first draught of this poem, Lord Byron had entitled it "The Destiny." Mr. Moore says, "It cost him many a tear in writing" and justly characterises it as "the most mourn ful, as well as picturesque 'story of a wandering life' that ever came from the pen and heart of man." It was composed at Diodati, in July 1816.

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The maid was on the eve of womanhood;
The boy had fewer summers, but his heart
Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye
There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him; he had look'd
Upon it till it could not pass away;
He had no breath, no being, but in hers;
She was his voice; he did not speak to her,
But trembled on her words; she was his sight,(1)
For his eye follow'd hers, and saw with hers,
Which colour'd all his objects :- he had ceased
To live within himself; she was his life,
The ocean to the river of his thoughts,
Which terminated all: upon a tone,

A touch, of hers, his blood would ebb and flow,
And his cheek change tempestuously-his heart
Unknowing of its cause of agony.

But she in these fond feelings had no share :
Her sighs were not for him; to her he was
Even as a brother-but no more; 't was much,
For brotherless she was, save in the name
Her infant friendship had bestow'd on him;
Herself the solitary scion left

Of a time-honour'd race.(2)—It was a name [why?
Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not-and
Time taught him a deep answer-when she loved
Another; even now she loved another,
And on the summit of that hill she stood
Looking afar if yet her lover's steed
Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew.
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
There was an ancient mansion, and before
Its walls there was a steed caparison'd:
Within an antique Oratory stood
The Boy of whom I spake;-he was alone,
And pale, and pacing to and fro: anon

He sate him down, and seized a pen, and traced
Words which I could not guess of; then he lean'd
His bow'd head on his hands, and shook as 't were
With a convulsion-then arose again,
And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear
What he had written, but he shed no tears,
And he did calm himself, and fix his brow
Into a kind of quiet: as he paused,

The Lady of his love re-enter'd there;
She was serene and smiling then, and yet
She knew she was by him beloved,-she knew,
For quickly comes such knowledge, that his heart
(1) In the MS.—

-"she was his sight,

For never did he turn his glance until

Her own had led by gazing on an object."-E. (2)" Our union," said Lord Byron in 1821, "would have healed feuds in which blood had been shed by our fathers-it would have joined lands, broad and rich-it would have joined at least one heart and two persons not ill-matched in years (she is two years my elder)-and-and-and-what has been the resalt!"-E.

(3) "I had long been in love with M. A. C., and never told it,

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A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Boy was sprung to manhood in the wilds
Of fiery climes he made himself a home,
And his soul drank their sunbeams: he was girt
With strange and dusky aspects; he was not
Himself like what he had been; on the sea
And on the shore he was a wanderer;
There was a mass of many images
Crowded like waves upon me, but he was
A part of all; and in the last he lay
Reposing from the noontide sultriness,
Couch'd among fallen columns, in the shade
Of ruin'd walls that had survived the names
Of those who rear'd them; by his sleeping side
Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds
Were fasten'd near a fountain; and a man
Clad in a flowing garb did watch the while,
While many of his tribe slumber'd around:
And they were canopied by the blue sky,
So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful,
That God alone was to be seen in heaven. (4)

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Lady of his love was wed with one
Who did not love her better:-in her home,
A thousand leagues from his,―her native home,
She dwelt, begirt with growing Infancy,
Daughters and sons of Beauty,-but behold!
Upon her face there was the tint of grief,
The settled shadow of an inward strife,
And an unquiet drooping of the eye,

As if its lid were charged with unshed tears.
What could her grief be?—she had all she loved,
And he who had so loved her was not there
To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish,
Or ill-repress'd affliction, her pure thoughts.

though she had discovered it without. I recollect my sensations,
but cannot describe them, and it is as well." B. Diary, 1822.
-E.

(4) "This is true keeping-an Eastern picture, perfect in its foreground, and distance, and sky, and no part of which is so dwelt upon or laboured as to obscure the principal figure. It is often in the slight and almost imperceptible touches that the hand of the master is shown, and that a single spark, struck from his fancy, lightens with a long train of illumination that of the reader." Waller Scoll.-E.

What could her grief be?-she had loved him not,
Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved,
Nor could he be a part of that which prey'd
Upon her mind-a spectre of the past.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Wanderer was return'd:-I saw him stand
Before an altar-with a gentle bride;

Her face was fair, but was not that which made
The starlight of his boyhood;-as he stood
Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came
The selfsame aspect, and the quivering shock
That in the antique Oratory shook
His bosom in its solitude; and then-
As in that hour-a moment o'er his face
The tablet of unutterable thoughts

Was traced, and then it faded as it came,
And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke
The fitting vows, but heard not his own words,
And all things reel'd around him; he could see
Not that which was, nor that which should have
been-

But the old mansion, and the accustom'd hall,
And the remember'd chambers, and the place,
The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade,
All things pertaining to that place and hour,
And her who was his destiny, came back
And thrust themselves between him and the light:
What business had they there at such a time ?(1)
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Lady of his love;-Oh! she was changed
As by the sickness of the soul; her mind
Had wander'd from its dwelling, and her eyes
They had not their own lustre, but the look
Which is not of the earth; she was become
The queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughts
Were combinations of disjointed things;
And forms, impalpable and unperceived
Of others' sight, familiar were to hers.
And this the world calls frenzy ; but the wise
Ilave a far deeper madness, and the glance
Of melancholy is a fearful gift;
What is it but the telescope of truth?
Which strips the distance of its fantasies,
And brings life near in utter nakedness,
Making the cold reality too real! (2)

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Wanderer was alone as heretofore,

(1) "This touching picture agrees closely, in many of its circumstances, with Lord Byron's own prose account of the wedding in his Memoranda; in which he describes himself as waking, on the morning of his marriage, with the most melancholy reflections, on seeing his wedding-suit spread out before him. In the same mood, he wandered about the grounds alone, till he was summoned for the ceremony, and joined, for the first time, on that day, his bride and her family. He knelt down-he repeated the words after the clergyman; but a mist was before his eyes--his thoughts were elsewhere; and he was but awakened

The beings which surrounded him were gone,
Or were at war with him; he was a mark
For blight and desolation, compass'd round
With Hatred and Contention; Pain was mix'd
In all which was served up to him, until,
Like to the Pontic monarch of old days,(3)
He fed on poisons, and they had no power,
But were a kind of nutriment; he lived
Through what which had been death to many men,
And made him friends of mountains; with the stars
And the quick Spirit of the Universe

He held his dialogues; and they did teach
To him the magic of their mysteries;

To him the book of Night was open'd wide,
And voices from the deep abyss reveal'd
A marvel and a secret-Be it so.

My dream was past; it had no further change.
It was of a strange order, that the doom

Of these two creatures should be thus traced out
Almost like a reality-the one

To end in madness-both in misery.

DARKNESS.(4)

July, 1815.

I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air,
Morn came and went-and came, and brought no
And men forgot their passions in the dread [day,
Of this their desolation ; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watch-fires-and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings-the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
And men were gather'd round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:
A fearful hope was all the world contain'd;
Forests were set on fire-but hour by hour
They fell and faded-and the crackling trunks
Extinguish'd with a crash-and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits

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