I am ashes where once I was fire,

And the bard in my bosom is dead;
What I loved I now merely admire,
And my heart is as gray as my head.

My life is not dated by years·

There are moments which act as a plough, And there is not a furrow appears

But is deep in my soul as my brow.

Let the young and brilliant aspire

To sing what I gaze on in vain ;
For sorrow has torn from my lyre

The string which was worthy the strain.

ON THIS DAY I COMPLETE MY THIRTY-SIXTH

YEAR.

I.

Missolonghi, Jan. 22, 1824.*

"Tis time this heart should be unmoved,
Since others it hath ceased to move :
Yet, though I cannot be beloved,

Still let me love!

[This morning Lord Byron came from his bedroom into the apartment where Colonel Stanhope and some friends were assembled, and said with a smile -"You were complaining, the other day, that I never write any poetry now. This is my birthday, and I have just finished something which, I think, is better than what I usually write." He then produced these noble and affecting verses. — - COUNT GAMBA.]

II.

My days are in the yellow leaf;

The flowers and fruits of love are gone;

The worm, the canker, and the grief

Are mine alone!

III.

The fire that on my bosom preys
Is lone as some volcanic isle;
No torch is kindled at its blaze -
A funeral pile!

IV.

The hope, the fear, the jealous care,
The exalted portion of the pain

And

power of love, I cannot share,

But wear the chain.

V.

But 'tis not thus - and 'tis not here

Such thoughts should shake my soul, nor now, Where glory decks the hero's bier,

Or binds his brow.

VI.

The sword, the banner, and the field,
Glory and Greece, around me see!
The Spartan, borne upon his shield,
Was not more free.

VII.

Awake! (not Greece

she is awake!)

Awake, my spirit! Think through whom
Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake,

And then strike home!

If thou regret'st thy- youth, why live?
The land of honorable death

-

Is here: - up to the field, and give
Away thy breath!

X.

Seek out less often sought than found -
A soldier's grave, for thee the best;
Then look around, and choose thy ground,
And take thy rest.*

these

* [Taking into consideration every thing connected with the last tender aspirations of a loving spirit which verses, they breathe, the self-devotion to a noble cause which they so nobly express, and that consciousness of a near grave glimmer ing sadly through the whole, there is perhaps no producti within the range of mere human composition, round which th circumstances and feelings under which it was written cast so touching an interest.-MOORE.]

END OF VOL. I.

ENGLISH BARDS

AND

SCOTCH REVIEWERS,

A SATIRE.

"I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew!
Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers."

SHAKSPEARE

"Such shameless bards we have; and yet 't is true,
There are as mad, abandoned critics too."

POPE.

[The first edition of this satire, which then began with what is now the ninety-seventh line ("Time was, ere yet," etc.), appeared in March, 1809. A second, to which the author prefixed his name, followed in October of that year; and a third and fourth were called for during his first pilgrimage, in 1810 and 1811. On his return to England, a fifth edition was prepared for the press by himself, with considerable care, but suppressed, and, except one copy, destroyed, when on the eve of publication. The text is now printed from the copy that escaped; on casually meeting with which, in 1816, he reperused the whole, and wrote on the margin some annotations, which in this edition are distinguished by the insertion of their date, from those affixed to the prior editions.

The first of these MS. notes of 1816 appears on the fly-leaf, and runs thus: :-"The binding of this volume is considerably too valuable for the contents; and nothing but the consideration of its being the property of another, prevents me from consigning this miserable record of misplaced anger and indiscriminate acrimony to the flames."]

VOL. II

1

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