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, formed for flying,

Love plumes his wing;

Then for this reason

Let's love a season;

But let that season be only Spring.

II.

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 linked together,

In every weather,

They pluck Love's feather

From out his wing—

He'll stay forever,

But sadly shiver

Without his plumage, when past the Spring.*

III.

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.

IV.

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:

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

Reflect but rapture

not least though last

* [V. L.

VI.

True, separations

Ask more than patience;

What desperations

From such have risen!

-"One last embrace, then, and bid good-night."]

But yet remaining,
What is 't but chaining

Hearts which, once waning,
Beat 'gainst their prison?
Time can but cloy love,
And use destroy love:
The winged boy, Love,
Is but for boys-

You'll find it torture

Though sharper, shorter,

To wean, and not wear out your joys.

1819.

ON MY WEDDING DAY.

HERE's a happy new year! but with reason
I beg you'll permit me to say -

Wish me many returns of the season,
But as few as you please of the day.

Jan. 2, 1820

EPITAPH FOR WILLIAM PITT.

WITH death doomed to grapple

Beneath this cold slab, he

Who lied in the Chapel

Now lies in the Abbey.

January, 1820.

EPIGRAM ON MY WEDDING DAY.

TO PENELOPE.

THIS day, of all our days, has done
The worst for me and you:

'Tis just six years since we were one,
And five since we were two.

January 2, 1821.

ON MY THIRTY-THIRD BIRTH-DAY.

JANUARY 22, 1821.*

THROUGH life's dull road, so dim and dirty,

I have dragged to three and thirty.
What have these years left to me?
Nothing

except thirty-three.

[In Byron's MS. Diary of the preceding day, the following entry:- "To-morrow is my birth-day- that is to say, at twelve o' the clock, midnight; i. e. in twelve minutes, I shall have completed thirty and three years of age!!!— and go to my bed with a heaviness of heart at having lived so long, and to so little purpose.

It is three minutes past twelve-'Tis the middle of night by the castle-clock,' and I am now thirty-three! —

but I don't regret them so much for what I have done, as for what I might have done."]