You say, when " I rove, I know nothing of love;"
'T is true, I am given to range;

If I rightly remember, I 've loved a good number,
Yet there's pleasure, at least, in a change.

I will not advance, by the rules of romance,
To humour a whimsical fair;

Though a smile may delight, yet a frown won't affright,
Or drive me to dreadful despair.

While my blood is thus warm I ne'er shall reform,
To mix in the Platonists' school;

Of this I am sure, was my passion so pure,
Thy mistress would think me a fool.

And if I should shun every woman for one,
Whose image must fill my whole breast -
Whom I must prefer, and sigh but for her-
What an insult 't would be to the rest!

Now, Strephon, good bye; I cannot deny
Your passion appears most absurd;
Such love as you plead is pure love indeed,
For it only consists in the word.

TO ELIZA.

ELIZA, what fools are the Mussulman sect,

Who to woman deny the soul's future existence; Could they see thee, Eliza, they'd own their defect, And this doctrine would meet with a general resist

ance.

Had their prophet possess'd half an atom of sense, He ne'er would have women from paradise driven; Instead of his houris, a flimsy pretence,

With women alone he had peopled his heaven.

Yet still, to increase your calamities more,

Not content with depriving your bodies of spirit, He allots one poor husband to share amongst four! With souls you'd dispense; but this last, who could bear it?

His religion to please neither party is made;

On husbands 't is hard, to the wives most uncivil; Still I can't contradict, what so oft has been said, Though women are angels, yet wedlock's the devil."

[Miss Elizabeth Pigot, of Southwell, to whom several of Lord Byron's earliest letters were addressed.]

LACHIN Y GAIR.1

AWAY, ye gay landscapes, ye gardens of roses!
In you let the minions of luxury rove;
Restore me the rocks, where the snow-flake reposes,
Though still they are sacred to freedom and love:
Yet, Caledonia, beloved are thy mountains,

Round their white summits though elements war; Though cataracts foam 'stead of smooth-flowing fountains,

I sigh for the valley of dark Loch na Garr.

Ah! there my young footsteps in infancy wander'd;
My cap was the bonnet, my cloak was the plaid; 2
On chieftains long perish'd my memory ponder'd,
As daily I strode through the pine-cover'd glade.
I sought not my home till the day's dying glory
Gave place to the rays of the bright polar star;
For fancy was cheer'd by traditional story,

Disclosed by the natives of dark Loch na Garr.

"Shades of the dead! have I not heard your voices Rise on the night-rolling breath of the gale?" Surely the soul of the hero rejoices,

And rides on the wind, o'er his own Highland vale.

Lachin y Gair, or, as it is pronounced in the Erse, Loch na Garr, towers proudly pre-eminent in the Northern Highlands, near Invercauld. One of our modern tourists mentions it as the highest mountain, perhaps, in Great Britain. Be this as it may, it is certainly one of the most sublime and picturesque amongst our "Caledonian Alps." Its appearance is of a dusky hue, but the summit is the seat of eternal snows. Near Lachín y Gair I spent some of the early part of my life, the recollection of which has given birth to these stanzas.

2 This word is erroneously pronounced plad: the proper pronunciation (according to the Scotch) is shown by the orthography.

Round Loch na Garr while the stormy mist gathers, Winter presides in his cold icy car:

Clouds there encircle the forms of my fathers;

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They dwell in the tempests of dark Loch na Garr.

'Ill-starr'd,' though brave, did no visions foreboding Tell you that fate had forsaken your cause?" Ah! were you destined to die at Culloden, 2

Victory crown'd not your fall with applause : Still were you happy in death's earthy slumber,

You rest with your clan in the caves of Bræmar; 3 The pibroch resounds, to the piper's loud number, Your deeds on the echoes of dark Loch na Garr.

Years have roll'd on, Loch na Garr, since I left you,
Years must elapse ere I tread you again :
Nature of verdure and flow'rs has bereft you,

Yet still are you dearer than Albion's plain.
England! thy beauties are tame and domestic

To one who has roved on the mountains afar : Oh for the crags that are wild and majestic !

The steep frowning glories of dark Loch na Garr.4

1 I allude here to my maternal ancestors, "the Gordons," many of whom fought for the unfortunate Prince Charles, better known by the name of the Pretender. This branch was nearly allied by blood, as well as attachment, to the Stuarts. George, the second Earl of Huntley, married the Princess Annabella Stuart, daughter of James the First of Scotland. By her he left four sons: the third, Sir William Gordon, I have the honour to claim as one of my progenitors.

Whether any perished in the battle of Culloden, I am not certain; but, as many fell in the insurrection, I have used the name of the principal action, "pars pro toto."

3 A tract of the Highlands so called. There is also a Castle of Bræmar.

4 [In the "Island," a poem written a year or two before Lord Byron's death, we have these lines:

"He who first met the Highlands' swelling blue
Will love each peak that shows a kindred hue,

TO ROMANCE.

PARENT of golden dreams, Romance !
Auspicious queen of childish joys,
Who lead'st along, in airy dance,
Thy votive train of girls and boys;
At length, in spells no longer bound,
I break the fetters of my youth;
No more I tread thy mystic round,
But leave thy realms for those of Truth.

And yet 't is hard to quit the dreams
Which haunt the unsuspicious soul,
Where every nymph a goddess seems,
Whose eyes through rays immortal roll;
While Fancy holds her boundless reign,
And all assume a varied hue;

Hail in each crag a friend's familiar face,

And clasp the mountain in his mind's embrace.

Long have I roam'd through lands which are not mine,
Adored the Alp, and loved the Apennine,
Revered Parnassus, and beheld the steep
Jove's Ida and Olympus crown the deep :
But 't was not all long ages' lore, nor all
Their nature held me in their thrilling thrall;
The infant rapture still survived the boy,
And Loch na Garr with Ida look'd o'er Troy,
Mix'd Celtic memories with the Phrygian mount,
And Highland linns with Castalie's clear fount."

"When very young," (he adds in a note) "about eight years of age, after an attack of the scarlet fever at Aberdeen, I was removed, by medical advice, into the Highlands, and from this period I date my love of mountainous countries. I can never forget the effect, a few years afterwards, in England, of the only thing I had long seen, even in miniature, of a mountain, in the Malvern Hills. After I returned to Cheltenham, I used to watch them every afternoon, at sunset, with a sensation which I cannot describe."