OCCASIONAL PIECES.

1807-1824.

INTRODUCTION TO OCCASIONAL PIECES.

THE "Hours of Idleness" contain the whole of the poems comprised in the different editions the author prepared of that work, together with several pieces which were written at the same period, and remained in MS. till after his death. All his subsequent miscellaneous productions, which extend beyond a page or two, are arranged in the order of their composition, and there now remain over a number of minor poems, which we have grouped together under the title of "Occasional Pieces." They embrace specimens of almost every date, commencing from the publication of "Hours of Idleness," and concluding with the latest verses which came from his pen—of almost every variety of style, from the terrible gloom of the poem on "Darkness,"-down to his gayest effusions,-and of almost every grade of quality, from the inspirations of genius to the designed doggerel interspersed among his letters. Of these numerous poems "Darkness" is the grandest and the most original. Campbell's "Last Man " is sublime from his lofty faith in the midst of ruin,-proudly defying a perishing world to shake his trust in God. Lord Byron, after the manner of his genius, can discover in the situation only horror and despair, but he paints his picture with such power that we are transferred for the moment from the world about us to the world he has conjured up. There are several pungent pieces in the collection, which must not be literally understood. Satirists rarely feel half the indignation they express, and Lord Byron was especially prone to dip his pen in gall when he had little bitterness in his heart. His "Windsor Poetics" and "Irish Avatar" are signal examples of this dissembled invective. He meant, no doubt, to irritate George IV. and his minister, but the real animosity was very slight. Those who shoot arrows in sport are apt to forget that the wound is proportioned to the strength with which the bow is drawn, and is none the less because the malice of the marksman was rather playful than deadly. In the tender portion of the occasional strains there is an unmistakeable sincerity of sorrow. A poet's grief finds a voice in verse, and Lord Byron seldom spoke with deeper and simpler pathos than in the address to Mrs. Musters, "Well! thou art happy;" in some of the stanzas to Thyrza; in the Lines "There's not a joy the world can give," and in the dying dirge which he composed upon his birth-day. Each poem expresses a different phase of that distress which darkened a life full of triumphs and full of anguish,—the pangs produced by unsuccessful love, by the early death of some fair friend whose name is unknown, by the sense that his heart was withering at the core, and by the regrets for past unworthy deeds, with a speedy grave his brightest hope for the future. It is impossible to read these melancholy musings without something of wonder mingling with our pity, that a being who could feel so justly and strongly should have sought relief from the sorrows of his better nature in the delirious dictates of the worser part.

OCCASIONAL PIECES.

1807-1824.

THE ADIEU.

WRITTEN UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT THE AUTHOR WOULD SOON DIE.

ADIEU, thou Hill!' where early joy
Spread roses o'er my brow;

Where Science seeks each loitering boy

With knowledge to endow.

Adieu, my youthful friends or foes,
Partners of former bliss or woes;

No more through Ida's paths we stray;
Soon must I share the gloomy cell,
Whose ever-slumbering inmates dwell
Unconscious of the day.

Adieu, ye hoary Regal Fanes,

Ye spires of Granta's vale,

Where Learning robed in sable reigns,

And melancholy pale.

Ye comrades of the jovial hour,

Ye tenants of the classic bower,

1 [Harrow.]

On Cama's verdant margin placed, Adieu! while memory still is mine, For, offerings on Oblivion's shrine, These scenes must be effaced.

Adieu, ye mountains of the clime
Where grew my youthful years;
Where Loch na Garr in snows sublime
His giant summit rears.

Why did my childhood wander forth
From you, ye regions of the North,
With sons of pride to roam?
Why did I quit my Highland cave,
Marr's dusky heath, and Dee's clear wave,
To seek a Sotheron home?

Hall of my Sires! a long farewell

Yet why to thee adieu ?

Thy vaults will echo back my knell,
Thy towers my tomb will view :
The faltering tongue which sung thy fall,
And former glories of thy Hall,

Forgets its wonted simple note-
But yet the Lyre retains the strings,
And sometimes, on Æolian wings,
In dying strains may float.

Fields, which surround yon rustic cot,
While yet I linger here,

Adieu! you are not now forgot,
To retrospection dear.

Streamlet! along whose rippling surge
My youthful limbs were wont to urge,
At noontide heat, their pliant course;
Plunging with ardour from the shore,
Thy springs will lave these limbs no more,
Deprived of active force.

2 [The river Grete, at Southwell.]

And shall I here forget the scene,
Still nearest to my breast?
Rocks rise and rivers roll between

The spot which passion blest;
Yet Mary, all thy beauties seem
Fresh as in Love's bewitching dream,
To me in smiles display'd;
Till slow disease resigns his prey
To Death, the parent of decay,
Thine image cannot fade.

4

And thou, my Friend! whose gentle love
Yet thrills my bosom's chords,
How much thy friendship was above
Description's power of words!

Still near my breast thy gift I wear
Which sparkled once with Feeling's tear,
Of Love the pure, the sacred gem;

Our souls were equal, and our lot
In that dear moment quite forgot;
Let Pride alone condemn!