But let this pass-I'll whine no more, Thou hear'st of one, whose deepening crimes Him wilt thou know—and knowing pause, Newstead Abbey, Oct. 11, 1811.3 TO THYRZA. WITHOUT a stone to mark the spot, And say, what Truth might well have said, By all, save one, perchance forgot, Ah! wherefore art thou lowly laid? By many a shore and many a sea To bid us meet-no- ne'er again! With fainter sighs, thy soul's release. And didst thou not, since Death for thee Prepared a light and pangless dart, Once long for him thou ne'er shalt see, Who held, and holds thee in his heart? [These lines will show with what gloomy fidelity, even while under the pressure of recent sorrow, Lord Byron reverted to the disappointment of his early affection, as the chief source of all his sufferings and errors, present and to come. MOORE.] [The anticipations of his own future career in these concluding lines are of a nature, it must be owned, to awaken more of horror than of interest, were we not prepared, by so many instances of his exaggeration in this respect, not to be startled at any lengths to which the spirit of self-libelling would carry him. It seemed as if, with the power of painting Serce and gloomy personages, he had also the ambition to be, himself, the dark sublime he drew,' and that, in his fondness for the delineation of heroic crime, he endeavoured to fancy, where he could not find in his own character, fit subjects for his pencil. - MOORE.] [Two days after, in another letter to Mr. Hodgson, Lord Byron says," I am growing nervous (how you will laugh!) but it is true, really, wretchedly, ridiculously, fineladically nervous. Your climate kills me; I can neither read, write, nor amuse myself, or any one else. My days are Lstless, and my nights restless: I have seldom any society, and, when I have, I run out of it. I don't know that I sha'n't end with insanity; for I find a want of method in arranging my thoughts that perplexes me strangely."] [Mr. Moore considers " Thyrza" as if she were a mere Shall they not flow, when many a day Affection's mingling tears were ours? But sweet to me from none but thine; The pledge we wore I wear it still, But where is thine ?-Ah! where art thou? Oft have I borne the weight of ill, But never bent beneath till now! Well hast thou left in life's best bloom I would not wish thee here again; To wean me from mine anguish here. Teach me too early taught by thee! creature of the Poet's brain. "It was," he says, " about the time when he was thus bitterly feeling, and expressing, the blight which his heart had suffered from a real object of affection, that his poems on the death of an imaginary one were written; nor is it any wonder, when we consider the peculiar circumstances under which these beautiful effusions flowed from his fancy, that, of all his strains of pathos, they should be the most touching and most pure. They were, indeed, the essence, the abstract spirit, as it were, of many griefs; a confluence of sad thoughts from many sources of sorrow, refined and warmed in their passage through his fancy, and forming thus one deep reservoir of mournful feeling." It is a pity to disturb a sentiment thus beautifully expressed; but Lord Byron, in a letter to Mr. Dallas, bearing the exact date of these lines, viz. Oct. 11th, 1811, writes as follows:-"I have been again shocked with a death, and have lost one very dear to me in happier times: but I have almost forgot the taste of grief,' and supped full of horrors,' till I have become callous; nor have I a tear left for an event which, five years ago, would have bowed my head to the earth." In his reply to this letter, Mr. Dallas says, “I thank you for your confidential communication. How truly do I wish that that being had lived, and lived yours! What your obligations to her would have been in that case is inconceivable." Several years after the series of poems on Thyrza were written, Lord Byron, on being asked to whom they referred, by a person in whose tenderness he never ceased to AWAY, AWAY, YE NOTES OF WOE. AWAY, away, ye notes of woe! Be silent, thou once soothing strain, On what I am-on what I was. The voice that made those sounds more sweet Is hush'd, and all their charms are fled; And now their softest notes repeat A dirge, an anthem o'er the dead! Yes, Thyrza! yes, they breathe of thee, Beloved dust! since dust thou art; And all that once was harmony Is worse than discord to my heart! 'Tis silent all!-but on my ear The well remember'd echoes thrill; I hear a voice I would not hear, A voice that now might well be still : Sweet Thyrza! waking as in sleep, Thou art but now a lovely dream; A star that trembled o'er the deep, Then turn'd from earth its tender beam. That scatter'd gladness o'er his path. "That Thyrza cannot know my pains:" My life, when Thyrza ceased to live! My Thyrza's pledge in better days, When love and life alike were new! How different now thou meet'st my gaze! How tinged by time with sorrow's hue! The heart that gave itself with thee Is silent-ah, were mine as still! Though cold as e'en the dead can be, It feels, it sickens with the chill. Thou bitter pledge ! thou mournful token! Though painful, welcome to my breast! Still, still, preserve that love unbroken, Or break the heart to which thou 'rt press'd! Time tempers love, but not removes, More hallow'd when its hope is fled: Oh! what are thousand living loves To that which cannot quit the dead? ONE STRUGGLE MORE, AND I AM FREE. From pangs that rend my heart in twain; With things that never pleased before: What future grief can touch me more? Then bring me wine, the banquet bring; It never would have been, but thou In vain my lyre would lightly breathe! The smile that sorrow fain would wear But mocks the woe that lurks beneath, Like roses o'er a sepulchre. confide, refused to answer, with marks of painful agitation, such as rendered any farther recurrence to the subject impossible. The reader must be left to form his own conclusion. The five following pieces are all devoted to Thyrza.] EUTHANASIA. WHEN Time, or soon or late, shall bring The dreamless sleep that lulls the dead, Oblivion ! may thy languid wing Wave gently o'er my dying bed! No band of friends or heirs be there, With no officious mourners near: Could nobly check its useless sighs, Might then exert its latest power In her who lives and him who dies. "T were sweet, my Psyche! to the last Thy features still serene to see : Forgetful of its struggles past, E'en Pain itself should smile on thee. 1["I wrote this a day or two ago, on hearing a song of former days."-Lord Byron to Mr. Hodgson, December & 1811.] But vain the wish-for Beauty still Will shrink, as shrinks the ebbing breath; And woman's tears, produced at will, Deceive in life, unman in death. Then lonely be my latest hour, Without regret, without a groan; For thousands Death hath ceased to lower, And pain been transient or unknown. "Ay, but to die, and go,” alas! Where all have gone, and all must go! To be the nothing that I was Ere born to life and living woe! Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, AND THOU ART DEAD, AS YOUNG AS FAIR. Heu, quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse ! AND thou art dead, as young and fair As aught of mortal birth; And form so soft, and charms so rare, There is an eye which could not brook I will not ask where thou liest low, There flowers or weeds at will may grow, So I behold them not: It is enough for me to prove That what I loved, and long must love, Yet did I love thee to the last As fervently as thou, Who didst not change through all the past, The love where Death has set his seal, Nor falsehood disavow : And, what were worse, thou canst not see The better days of life were ours; The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers, The silence of that dreamless sleep That all those charms have pass'd away; Since earthly eye but ill can bear I know not if I could have borne The night that follow'd such a morn Had worn a deeper shade: Thy day without a cloud hath pass'd, And thou wert lovely to the last; Extinguish'd, not decay'd; As stars that shoot along the sky My tears might well be shed, Uphold thy drooping head; Yet how much less it were to gain, And more thy buried love endears February, 1812. IF SOMETIMES IN THE HAUNTS OF MEN. If sometimes in the haunts of men The lonely hour presents again The semblance of thy gentle shade: The plaint she dare not speak before. Oh, pardon that in crowds awhile I waste one thought I owe to thee, I would not fools should overhear If not the goblet pass unquaff'd, It is not drain'd to banish care; The cup must hold a deadlier draught, That brings a Lethe for despair. And could Oblivion set my soul From all her troubled visions free, I'd dash to earth the sweetest bowl That drown'd a single thought of thee. For wert thou vanish'd from my mind, Where could my vacant bosom turn? And who would then remain behind To honour thine abandon'd Urn? No, no-it is my sorrow's pride That last dear duty to fulfil : Though all the world forget beside, 'Tis meet that I remember still. For well I know, that such had been Thy gentle care for him, who now Unmourn'd shall quit this mortal scene, Where none regarded him, but thou: And, oh! I feel in that was given A blessing never meant for me; Thou wert too like a dream of Heaven, For earthly Love to merit thee. March 14, 1812. ON A CORNELIAN HEART WHICH WAS BROKEN. 1 ILL-FATED Heart! and can it be, That thon shouldst thus be rent in twain? Yet precious seems each shatter'd part, These gifts were charm'd by secret spell, Thy truth in absence to divine; And they have done their duty well,— Alas! they could not teach thee thine. That chain was firm in every link, But not to bear a stranger's touch; That lute was sweet-till thou could'st think In other hands its notes were such. Let him who from thy neck unbound The chain which shiver'd in his grasp, Who saw that lute refuse to sound, Restring the chords, renew the clasp. When thou wert changed, they alter'd too; The chain is broke, the music mute. 'Tis past to them and thee adieuFalse heart, frail chain, and silent lute. FROM THE FRENCH. March 16, 1812. EGLE, beauty and poet, has two little crimes; She makes her own face, and does not make her rhymes. LINES TO A LADY WEEPING. 2 WEEP, daughter of a royal line, A Sire's disgrace, a realm's decay; Ah! happy if each tear of thine Could wash a father's fault away! Weep for thy tears are Virtue's tearsAuspicious to these suffering isles; And be each drop in future years Repaid thee by thy people's smiles ! 3 LINES WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF OF "THE PLEASURES OF MEMORY." ABSENT or present, still to thee, My friend, what magic spells belong! As all can tell, who share, like me, In turn thy converse and thy song. But when the dreaded hour shall come By Friendship ever deem'd too nigh, And" MEMORY" o'er her Druid's tomb 5 Shall weep that aught of thee can die, How fondly will she then repay Thy homage offer'd at her shrine, Her name immortally with thine! March, 1812. THE CHAIN I GAVE. From the Turkish. THE chain I gave was fair to view, The lute I added sweet in sound; The heart that offer'd both was true, And ill deserved the fate it found. [We know not whether the reader should understand the cornelian heart of these lines to be the same with that of which some notices are given at p. 398.] [This impromptu owed its birth to an on dit, that the late Princess Charlotte of Wales burst into tears on hearing that the Whigs had found it impossible to put together a cabinet, at the period of Mr. Perceval's death. They were appended to the first edition of "The Corsair," and excited a sensation, as it is called, marvellously disproportionate to their length, or, we may add, their merit. The ministerial prints raved for two months on end, in the most foulmouthed vituperation of the poet, and all that belonged to him the Morning Post even announced a motion in the House of Lords" and all this," Lord Byron writes to Mr. Moore," as Bedreddin in the Arabian Nights remarks, for making a cream tart with pepper: how odd, that eight lines should have given birth, I really think, to eight thousand!"] ADDRESS, SPOKEN AT THE OPENING OF DRURY-LANE THEATRE, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10. 1812.6 In one dread night our city saw, and sigh'd, In one short hour beheld the blazing fane, Apollo sink, and Shakspeare cease to reign. 1812. They are daily at it still:- some of the abuse good. -all of it hearty. They talk of a motion in our House upon it-be it so." Byron Diary, 1814.] 4["When Rogers does talk, he talks well; and, on all subjects of taste, his delicacy of expression is pure as his poetry. If you enter his house-his drawing-room- his library -you of yourself say, this is not the dwelling of a common mind. There is not a gem, a coin, a book thrown aside on his chimney-piece, his sofa, his table, that does not bespeak an almost fastidious elegance in the possessor."Byron Diary, 1813.] 5 [The reader will recall Collins's exquisite lines on the tomb of Thomson: "In yonder grave a Druid lies," &c.] 6 [The theatre in Drury Lane, which was opened, in 1747with Dr. Johnson's masterly address, beginning, "When Learning's triumph o'er her barbarous foes First rear'd the Stage, immortal Shakspeare rose," and witnessed the last glories of Garrick, having fallen into decay, was rebuilt in 1794. The new building perished by fire in 1811; and the Managers, in their anxiety that the opening of the present edifice should be distinguished by some composition of at least equal merit, advertised in the newspapers for a general competition. Scores of addresses, not one tolerable, showered on their desk, and they were in sad despair, when Lord Holland interfered, and, not without ון 1 Ye who beheld, (oh! sight admired and mourn'd, Whose radiance mock'd the ruin it adorn'd!) Through clouds of fire the massy fragments riven, Like Israel's pillar, chase the night from heaven; Saw the long column of revolving flames Shake its red shadow o'er the startled Thames, 1 While thousands, throng'd around the burning dome, Dear are the days which made our annals bright, difficulty, prevailed on Lord Byron to write these versesat the risk," as he said, “ of offending a hundred scribblers and a discerning public." The admirable jeu d'esprit of the Messrs. Smith will long preserve the memory of the Rejected Addresses."] ["By the bye, the best view of the said fire (which I myself saw from a house-top in Covent Garden) was at Westminster Bridge, from the reflection of the Thames."Lord Byron to Lord Holland.] [Originally, "Ere Garrick died," &c.-"By the bye, one of my corrections in the copy sent yesterday has dived into the bathos some sixty fathom — 'When Garrick died, and Brinsley ceased to write.' Ceasing to live is a much more serious concern, and ought not to be first. Second thoughts in every thing are best; but, in rhyme, third and fourth don't come amiss. I always scrawl in this way, and smooth as fast as I can, but never sufficiently; and, latterly, I can weave a nine-line stanza faster than a couplet, for which measure I have not the cunning. When I began Childe Harold,' I had never tried Spenser's measure, and now I cannot scribble in any other." -Lord Byron to Lord Holland.] [The following lines were omitted by the Committee:- Pause-ere their feebler offspring you condemn, Reflect how hard the task to rival them! Friends of the stage! to whom both Players and Plays Must sue alike for pardon or for praise, Whose judging voice and eye alone direct The boundless power to cherish or reject; If e'er frivolity has led to fame, And made us blush that you forbore to blame; This greeting o'er, the ancient rule obey'd, Still may we please-long, long may you preside! 4 PARENTHETICAL ADDRESS 5 BY DR. PLAGIARY, Half stolen, with acknowledgments, to be spoken in an inarticulate voice by Master P. at the opening of the next new theatre. Stolen parts marked with the inverted commas of quotation-thus "-". "WHEN energising objects men pursue," Then Lord knows what is writ by Lord knows who. "A modest monologue you here survey," Hiss'd from the theatre the "other day," As if Sir Fretful wrote "the slumberous" verse, And gave his son "the rubbish" to rehearse. "Yet at the thing you'd never be amazed," Knew you the rumpus which the author raised; "Nor even here your smiles would be represt," Knew you these lines. the badness of the best. "Flame! fire! and flame!!" (words borrow'd from Lucretius,) "Dread metaphors which open wounds" like issues! If you decree, the stage must condescend The past reproach let present scenes refute, Nor shift from man to babe, from babe to brute." "Is Whitbread," said Lord Byron, " determined to castrate all my cavalry lines? I do implore, for my own gratification, one lash on those accursed quadrupeds—'a long shot, Sir Lucius, if you love me.'"] 4 ["Soon after the Rejected Addresses' scene in 1812, I met Sheridan. In the course of dinner, he said, Lord Byron, did you know that amongst the writers of addresses was Whitbread himself?' I answered by an inquiry of what sort of an address he had made. Of that,' replied Sheridan, I remember little, except that there was a phoenix in it. A phoenix!! Well, how did he describe it?''Like a poulterer,' answered Sheridan: it was green, and yellow, and red, and blue: he did not let us off for a single feather.'"- - Byron Letters, 1821.] [Among the addresses sent in to the Drury Lane Committee was one by Dr. Busby, entitled "A Monologue," of which the above is a parody. It began as follows: "When energising objects men pursue, Shot from the ruins of the other day," &c.] |