All which women or which men do,
Glides forth in an innuendo,
Clothed in odds and ends of humour
Herald of each paltry rumour,
From divorces down to dresses,
Women's frailties, men's excesses,
All which life presents of evil
Make for him a constant revel.
You're his foe, for that he fears you,
And in absence blasts and sears you:
You're his friend - for that he hates you,
First caresses, and then baits you
Darting on the opportunity

When to do it with impunity:
You are neither - then he 'Il flatter,
Till he finds some trait for satire;
Hunts your weak point out, then shows it
Where it injures to disclose it,
In the mode that 's most invidious,
Adding every trait that 's hideous-
From the bile, whose blackening river
Rushes through his Stygian liver.
Then he thinks himself a lover-
Why? I really can't discover,
In his mind, age, face, or figure;
Viper-broth might give him vigour, -
Let him keep the cauldron steady,
He the venom has already.
For his faults - he has but one,
'Tis but envy, when all 's done.
He but pays the pain he suffers,
Clipping, like a pair of snuffers,

Lights which ought to burn the brighter
For this temporary blighter.
He's the cancer of his species,
And will eat himself to pieces, -
Plague personified, and famine,
Devil, whose sole delight is damning.

For his merits, would you know 'em?
Once he wrote a pretty Poem.
[1818.]

THE DUEL

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'Tis fifty years, and yet their fray
To us might seem but yesterday.
'T is fifty years, and three to boot,
Since, hand to hand, and foot to foot,
And heart to heart, and sword to sword,
One of our Ancestors was gored.
I've seen the sword that slew him; he,
The slain, stood in a like degree
To thee, as he, the Slayer, stood
(Oh had it been but other blood!)
In kin and Chieftainship to me.
Thus came the Heritage to thee.

To me the Lands of him who slew
Came through a line of yore renown'd;
For I can boast a race as true

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Since things like these are best forgot: Perhaps thou mayst imagine now

Who loved thee, and who loved thee not. And thou wert wedded to another,

And I at last another wedded:

I am a father, thou a mother,

To Strangers vow'd, with strangers bedded.

For land to land, even blood to blood-
Since leagued of yore our fathers were -
Our manors and our birthright stood;
And not unequal had I woo'd,

If to have woo'd thee I could dare.
But this I never dared even yet
When nought is left but to forget.
I feel that I could only love:
To sue was never meant for me,
And least of all to sue to thee;
For many a bar, and many a feud,
Though never told, well understood,
Roll'd like a river wide between
And then there was the Curse of blood,
Which even my Heart's cannot remove.
Alas! how many things have been !
Since we were friends; for I alone
Feel more for thee than can be shown.

How many things! I loved thee - thou
Lovedst me not: another was
The Idol of thy virgin vow,
And I was, what I am, Alas!

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And what he is, and what thou art,
And what we were, is like the rest:
We must endure it as a test,
And old Ordeal of the Heart.
VENICE, December 29, 1818.

STANZAS TO THE PO

[These stanzas were first published in 1824 by Medwin in the Conversations. According to a statement of the Countess Guiccioli they were composed by Byron in April, 1819, while actually sailing on the Po from Venice to Ravenna, where he was to join her. The stanzas were supposed by the earlier editors to have been transmitted to London in a letter to Murray (May 8, 1820), with the direction: "They must not be published: pray recollect this, as they are mere verses of society, and written upon private feelings and passions.' Mr. E. H. Coleridge points out several incongruities in these statements, and suggests that the poem alluded to as mere verses of society' is not this address to the Po, but the somewhat cynical rhymes, 'Could Love forever, Run like a river.' The theory is plausible, but no more. In a letter to the Athenæum, August 24, 1901, Mr. Richard Edgcumbe suggests that the poem is to the river Trent, and is concerned with Mrs. Chaworth Musters.]

RIVER, that rollest by the ancient walls, Where dwells the lady of my love, when

Mine cannot witness, even in a dream,

That happy wave repass me in its flow!

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The wave that bears my tears returns no

more:

Will she return by whom that wave shall sweep? Both tread thy banks, both wander on thy shore,

I by thy source, she by the dark-blue deep.

But that which keepeth us apart is not Distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth,

SONNET ON THE NUPTIALS OF THE MARQUIS ANTONIO CAVALLI WITH THE COUNTESS CLELIA RASPONI OF RAVENNA

[First published in the Edition of 1901 from a manuscript in the possession of the Lady Dorchester.]

A NOBLE Lady of the Italian shore,

Lovely and young, herself a happy bride, Commands a verse, and will not be denied, From me a wandering Englishman; I tore One sonnet, but invoke the muse once more To hail these gentle hearts which Love has tied,

In Youth, Birth, Beauty, genially allied, And blest with Virtue's soul and Fortune's store.

A sweeter language and a luckier bard Were worthier of your hopes, Auspicious Pair!

And of the sanctity of Hymen's shrine,

But, since I cannot but obey the Fair, To render your new state your true reward, May your Fate be like Hers, and unlike

mine.

RAVENNA, July 31, 1819.

SONNET TO THE PRINCE REGENT

ON THE REPEAL OF LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD'S FORFEITURF

To be the father of the fatherless,

To stretch the hand from the throne's height, and raise

His offspring, who expired in other days To make thy sire's sway by a kingdom less,This is to be a monarch, and repress

[A friend of Lord Byron's, who was with him at Ravenna when he wrote these Stanzas, says: They were composed, like many others, with no view of publication, but merely to relieve himself in a moment of suffering. He had been painfully excited by some circumstances which appeared to make it necessary that he should immediately quit Italy, and in the day and the hour that he wrote the song was labouring under an access of fever.' So reads the note in the Edition of 1831. It is to be remarked, however, that Byron was not at Ravenna but at Venice on the date of the poem.]

COULD Love for ever
Run like a river,
And Time's endeavour
Be tried in vain -
No other pleasure
With this could measure,
And like a treasure
We'd hug the chain.
But since our sighing
Ends not in dying,
And, form'd for flying,
Love plumes his wing;
Then for this reason
Let's love a season;
But let that season be only Spring.

When lovers parted
Feel broken-hearted,
And, all hopes thwarted,
Expect to die;

A few years older,
Ah! how much colder
They might behold her

For whom they sigh!
When link'd together,
In every weather,

Like Chiefs of Faction,

His life is action

A formal paction

That curbs his reign,
Obscures his glory,
Despot no more, he
Such territory

Quits with disdain.
Still, still advancing,
With banners glancing,
His power enhancing,

He must move on — Repose but cloys him, Retreat destroys him, Love brooks not a degraded throne.

Wait not, fond lover!
Till years are over,
And then recover,

As from a dream.
While each bewailing
The other's failing,
With wrath and railing,
All hideous seem —
While first decreasing,
Yet not quite ceasing,
Wait not till teasing
All passion blight:
If once diminish'd

Love's reign is finish'd

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Then part in friendship, and bid good

night.

So shall Affection

To recollection

The dear connection

Bring back with joy:

You had not waited
Till, tired or hated,
Your passions sated
Began to cloy.
Your last embraces
Leave no cold traces
The same fond faces

As through the past; And eyes, the mirrors Of your sweet errors,

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Reflect but rapture not least though

last.

To wean, and not wear out your joys. December 1, 1819. [First published, 1832.]

[First published in the Edition of 1901 from a manuscript in the possession of Mr. Murray.] LADY! in whose heroic port

And Beauty, Victor even of Time,
And haughty lineaments, appear
Much that is awful, more that 's dear -
Wherever human hearts resort

There must have been for thee a Court,
And Thou by acclamation Queen,
Where never Sovereign yet had been.
That eye so soft, and yet severe,

Perchance might look on Love as
Crime;

And yet regarding thee more near
The traces of an unshed tear

Compress'd back to the heart,

And mellow'd Sadness in thine air, Which shows that Love hath once been

there

To those who watch thee will disclose
More than ten thousand tomes of woes

Wrung from the vain Romancer's art. With thee how proudly Love hath dwelt ! His full Divinity was felt,

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THE IRISH AVATAR

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And Ireland, like a bastinadoed elephant, kneeling to receive the paltry rider.'-CURRAN.

[This satire was sent in a letter to Moore (September 17, 1821), then in Paris, with the comment: The enclosed lines, as you will directly perceive, are written by the Rev. W. L. Bowles. Of course, it is for him to deny them, if they are not.' Mr. E. H. Coleridge explains that the word "Avatar" is not only applied ironically to George IV. as the "Messiah of Royalty," but metaphorically to the poem, which would descend in the "Capacity of Preserver." The occasion of the satire was an attack on Moore in John Bull, and the servility of the Irish when George IV. 'entered Dublin in triumph within ten days of the death of Queen Caroline.']

ERE the daughter of Brunswick is cold in her grave,

And her ashes still float to their home