III. Farewell to thee, France!-but when Liberty rallies There are links which must break in the chain that has bound us, ENDORSEMENT TO THE DEED OF SEPARATION, A YEAR ago, you swore, fond she! I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream. Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; And men forgot their passions in the dread Of this their desolation; and all hearts And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones, The habitations of all things which dwell, Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed, And men were gather'd round their blazing homes 8 ["Here is an epigram I wrote for the Endorsement of the Deed of Separation in 1816; but the lawyers objected to it, as superfluous. It was written as we were getting up the signing and sealing."-Lord B. to Mr. Moore.] [In the original MS.-"A Dream."] VOL. 11. BB To look once more into each other's face; The flashes fell upon them; some lay down With curses cast them down upon the dust, And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes Of famine fed upon all entrails-men Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh; Till hunger clung them,' or the dropping dead 1 ["If thou speak'st false, Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive, Till famine cling thee."-Macbeth. Fruit is said to be clung when the skin shrivels, and a corpse when the face becomes wasted and gaunt.] Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food, And they were enemies: they met beside Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things For an unholy usage; they raked up, And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands Blew for a little life, and made a flame Each other's aspects-saw, and shriek'd, and died- And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp'd They slept on the abyss without a surge― The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave, The moon, their mistress, had expired before; And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need Diodati, July, 1816. 2 [ "Darkness" is a grand and gloomy sketch of the supposed consequences of the final extinction of the Sun and the heavenly bodies; executed, undoubtedly, with great and fearful force, but with something of German exaggeration, and a fantastical solution of incidents. The very conception is terrible above all conception of known calamity, and is too oppressive to the imagination to be contemplated with pleasure even in the faint reflection of poetry.-JEFFREY.] CHURCHILL'S GRAVE; A FACT LITERALLY RENDERED.3 I STOOD beside the grave of him who blazed With not the less of sorrow and of awe The Gardener of that ground, why it might be And I had not the digging of this grave." 3 [On the sheet containing the original draught of these lines Lord Byron has written :-"The following poem (as most that I have endeavoured to write) is founded on a fact; and this detail is an attempt at a serious imitation of the style of a great poet - its beauties and its defects: I say the style; for the thoughts I claim as my own. In this, if there be anything ridiculous, let it be attributed to me, at least as much as to Mr. Wordsworth; of whom there can exist few greater admirers than myself. I have blended what I would deem to be the beauties as well as defects of his style; and it ought to be remembered, that, in such things, whether there be praise or dispraise, there is always what is called a compliment, however unintentional."] Was a most famous writer in his day, And therefore travellers step from out their way Your honour pleases: "-then most pleased I shook' Some certain coins of silver, which as 'twere In which there was Obscurity and Fame,- 5 ["The Grave of Churchill might have called from Lord Byron a deeper commemoration; for, though they generally differed in character and genius, there was a resemblance between their history and character. The satire of Churchill flowed with a more profuse, though not a more embittered, stream; while, on the other hand, he cannot be compared to Lord Byron in point of tenderness or imagination. But both these poets held themselves above the opinion of the world, and both were followed by the fame and popularity which they seemed to despise. The writings of both exhibit an inborn, though sometimes ill-regulated, generosity of mind, and a spirit of proud independence, frequently pushed to extremes. Both carried their hatred of hypocrisy beyond the verge of prudence, and indulged their vein of satire to the borders of licentiousness." -SIR WALTER SCOTT. Churchill, like Lord Byron, breathed his last in a foreign land. He died at Boulogne, but was buried at Dover, and this sensual line of his own was engraved upon his tomb : "Life to the last enjoy'd, here Churchill lies."] |