For the Journal you hint of, As ready to print off, No doubt you do right to commend it; But as yet I have writ off The devil a bit of Our "Beppo : "—when copied, I'll send it. Then you've * * * *'s Tour, No great things, to be sure, You could hardly begin with a less work ; For the pompous rascallion, Who don't speak Italian Nor French, must have scribbled by guesswork. You can make any loss up With "Spence" and his gossip, A work which must surely succeed; Then Queen Mary's Epistle-craft, With the new "Fytte" of "Whistlecraft," [The fourth Canto of "Childe Harold."] Then you've General Gordon, Who girded his sword on, To serve with a Muscovite master, And help him to polish A nation so owlish, They thought shaving their beards a disaster. For the man, "poor and shrewd," With whom you'd conclude A compact without more delay, Perhaps some such pen is Still extant in Venice; But please, sir, to mention your pay. Venice, January 8, 1818. TO MR. MURRAY. STRAHAN, Tonson, Lintot of the times, To thee, with hope and terror dumb, Upon thy table's baize so green Along thy sprucest bookshelves shine My Murray. 5 Vide your letter. Tours, Travels, Essays, too, I wist, And Heaven forbid I should conclude, My Murray. Venice, March 25, 1818. ON THE BIRTH OF JOHN WILLIAM RIZZO HOPPNER. His father's sense, his mother's grace, February, 1818. STANZAS TO THE PO.” RIVER, that rollest by the ancient walls," 6 [These lines, which were written by Lord Byron on the birth of the son of the British vice-consul at Venice, are no otherwise remarkable, than that they were thought worthy of being metrically translated into ten languages: namely, Greek, Latin, Italian (also in the Venetian dialect), German, French, Spanish, Illyrian, Hebrew, Armenian, and Samaritan. The original lines, with the different versions, were printed, in a small neat volume, in the seminary of Padua.] [About the middle of April, 1819, Lord Byron travelled from Venice to Ravenna, at which last city he expected to find the Countess Guiccioli. The above stanzas, which have been as much admired as anything of the kind he ever wrote, were composed during the journey, while he was sailing on the Po. In transmitting them to England, in May, 1820, he says, "They must not be published: pray recollect this, as they are mere verses of society, and written upon private feelings and passions." They were first printed in 1824.] 8 [Ravenna-a city to which Lord Byron afterwards declared himself more attached than to any other place, except Greece.] What if thy deep and ample stream should be What do I say a mirror of my heart? Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong? Time may have somewhat tamed them,-not for ever; Thou overflow'st thy banks, and not for aye Thy bosom overboils, congenial river! Thy floods subside, and mine have sunk away: But left long wrecks behind, and now again, The current I behold will sweep beneath. Her native walls, and murmur at her feet; She will look on thee,-I have look'd on thee, Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream,- Mine cannot witness, even in a dream, That happy wave repass me in its flow! The wave that bears my tears returns no more: But that which keepeth us apart is not Distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth, As various as the climates of our birth. A stranger loves the lady of the land, Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood By the black wind that chills the polar flood. My blood is all meridian; were it not, I had not left my clime, nor should I be, A slave again of love,—at least of thee. 'Tis vain to struggle-let me perish young- To dust if I return, from dust I sprung, April, 1819. EPIGRAM. FROM THE FRENCH OF RULHIÈRES.9 IF, for silver or for gold, You could melt ten thousand pimples Then your face we might behold, Looking, doubtless, much more snugly; Yet even then 'twould be d-d ugly. August 12, 1819. 9 ["Would you like an epigram-a translation? It was written on some Frenchwoman, by Rulhières, I believe.”—Lord B. to Mr. Murray, Aug. 12, 1819.] |