ELEGIAC STANZAS ON THE DEATH OF SIR PETER
PARKER, BART.9

THERE is a tear for all that die,

A mourner o'er the humblest grave;
But nations swell the funeral

cry,

And Triumph weeps above the brave.

For them is Sorrow's purest sigh

O'er Ocean's heaving bosom sent:
In vain their bones unburied lie,

All earth becomes their monument !

A tomb is theirs on every page,
An epitaph on every tongue :

The present hours, the future age,
For them bewail, to them belong.

For them the voice of festal mirth

Grows hush'd, their name the only sound;
While deep Remembrance pours to Worth
The goblet's tributary round.

A theme to crowds that knew them not,
Lamented by admiring foes,

Who would not share their glorious lot?
Who would not die the death they chose ?

And, gallant Parker! thus enshrined

Thy life, thy fall, thy fame shall be;

And early valour, glowing, find

A model in thy memory.

9 [This gallant officer fell in August, 1814, in his twenty-ninth year, whilst animating on shore a party from his ship at the storming of the American camp near Baltimore. He was Lord Byron's first cousin; but they had never met since boyhood.]

But there are breasts that bleed with thee

In woe, that glory cannot quell;
And shuddering hear of victory,

Where one so dear, so dauntless, fell.

Where shall they turn to mourn thee less?
When cease to hear thy cherish'd name?
Time cannot teach forgetfulness,

While Grief's full heart is fed by Fame.

Alas! for them, though not for thee,
They cannot choose but weep the more;
Deep for the dead the grief must be,
Who ne'er gave cause to mourn before.

October, 1814.

STANZAS FOR MUSIC.1

"O Lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros
Ducentium ortus ex animo: quater
Felix in imo qui scatentem
Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit."

GRAY'S Poemata.

THERE's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away,
When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay;
'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast,
But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.

Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness
Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt or ocean of excess :

The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain
The shore to which their shiver'd sail shall never stretch again.

1 [These verses were given to Moore by Lord Byron for Mr. Power of the Strand, who published them, with beautiful music by Sir John Stevenson.-"I feel merry enough," Lord Byron wrote, "to send you a sad song. An event, the death of poor Dorset, and the recollection of what I once felt, and ought to have felt now, but could not-set me pondering, and finally into the train of thought which you have in your hands." In another letter to Moore he says, "I pique myself on these lines as being the truest though the most melancholy I ever wrote." (March, 1816.)]

Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself comes down;
It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream its own;
That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our tears,

And though the eye may sparkle still, 'tis where the ice appears.

Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast, Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest; 'Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruin'd turret wreath,

All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and grey beneath.

Oh, could I feel as I have felt,-or be what I have been,
Or weep as I could once have wept, o'er many a vanish'd scene;
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.

March, 1815.

STANZAS FOR MUSIC.

THERE 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 sound 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.

ON NAPOLEON'S ESCAPE FROM ELBA.

ONCE fairly set out on his party of pleasure,
Taking towns at his liking, and crowns at his leisure,
From Elba to Lyons and Paris he goes,

Making balls for the ladies, and bows to his foes.

March 27, 1815.

ODE FROM THE FRENCH.

I.

WE do not curse thee, Waterloo !

Though Freedom's blood thy plain 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 Labedoyère-
With that of him whose honour'd grave
Contains the "bravest of the brave."
A crimson cloud it spreads and glows,
But shall return to whence it rose;
When 'tis full 'twill burst asunder-
Never yet was heard such thunder

As then shall shake the world with wonder-
Never yet was seen such lightning

As o'er heaven shall then be bright'ning!
Like the Wormwood Star foretold

By the sainted Seer of old,
Show'ring down a fiery flood,
Turning rivers into blood."

2 See Rev. chap. viii. v. 7, &c. "The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood," &c. v. 8. "And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea; and the third part of the sea became blood," &c. v. 10. "And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters." v. 11. "And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters because they were made bitter."

II.

The Chief has fallen, but not by 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 smiled 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!

III.

And thou, too, of the snow-white plume!
Whose realm refused thee ev'n 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 thy blood-bought title bears.
Little didst thou deem, when dashing

On thy war-horse through the ranks,
Like a stream which burst its banks,
While helmets cleft, and sabres clashing,
Shone and shiver'd fast around thee-
Of the fate at last which found thee:
Was that haughty plume laid low
By a slave's dishonest blow?

Once-as the Moon sways o'er the tide,

It roll'd in air, the warrior's guide;
Through the smoke-created night
Of the black and sulphurous fight,

3 Murat's remains are said to have been torn from the grave and burnt. ["Poor dear Murat, what an end! His white plume used to be a rallying point in battle, like Henry the Fourth's. He refused a confessor and a bandage; so would neither suffer his soul nor body to be bandaged."-B. Letters.]