Whose bright claymore and hardihood of hand "Tis Heaven-not man-must charm away the woe, May, 1814. FRAGMENT OF AN EPISTLE TO THOMAS MOORE. "WHAT say I?"—not a syllable further in prose; I'm your man" of all measures," dear Tom,-so here goes! Here goes, for a swim on the stream of old Time, flood, We are smother'd, at least, in respectable mud, man saw. The papers have told you, no doubt, of the fusses, The fêtes, and the gapings to get at these Russes, 1— Of his Majesty's suite, up from coachman to Hetman, And what dignity decks the flat face of the great man. ["The newspapers will tell you all that is to be told of emperors, &c. They have dined and supped, and shown their flat faces in all thoroughfares and several saloons. Their uniforms are very becoming, but rather short in the skirts; and their conversation is a catechism, for which, and the answers, I refer you to those who have heard it."- Lord Byron to Mr. Moore, June 14, 1814.] TO SARAH COUNTESS OF JERSEY, ON THE PRINCE If thus, fair Jersey, our desiring gaze Search for thy form, in vain and mute amaze, What can his vaulted gallery now disclose? Long may thy yet meridian lustre shine, With all that Virtue asks of Homage thine : The symmetry of youth- the grace of mien. The eye that gladdens and the brow serene; The glossy darkness of that clustering hair, Which shades, yet shows that forehead more than fair! Each glance that wins us, and the life that throws A spell which will not let our looks repose, 2["The newspapers have got hold (I know not how) of the Condolatory Address to Lady Jersey on the picture-abduction by our Regent, and have published them-with my name, too, smack-without even asking leave, or inquiring whether or no! D-n their impudence, and d-n every thing. It has put me out of patience, and so I shall say no more about it." -Byron Letters.] Grey hairs but poorly wreathe with them; Youth's garlands misbecome thee now, More than thy very diadem, Where thou hast tarnish'd every gem: Then throw the worthless bauble by, Which, worn by thee, ev'n slaves contemn; And learn like better men to die! Oh! early in the balance weigh'd, ELEGIAC STANZAS ON THE DEATH OF THERE is a tear for all that die, For them is Sorrow's purest sigh O'er Ocean's heaving bosom sent: A tomb is theirs on every page, For them bewail, to them belong. [This gallant officer fell in August, 1814, in his twentyninth year, whilst commanding, on shore, a party belonging to his ship, the Menelaus, and animating them, in storming the American camp near Baltimore. He was Lord Byron's first cousin; but they had never met since boyhood.] [These verses were given by Lord Byron to Mr. Power, of the Strand, who has published them, with very beautiful music by Sir John Stevenson. "I feel merry enough to send you a sad song. An event, the death of poor Dorset, (see ante, p. 384.) and the recollection of what I once felt, and For them the voice of festal mirth Grows hush'd, their name the only sound; While deep Remembrance pours to Worth The goblet's tributary round. A theme to crowds that knew them not, And, gallant Parker! thus enshrined But there are breasts that bleed with thee Where shall they turn to mourn thee less? When cease to hear thy cherish'd name? Time cannot teach forgetfulness, While Grief's full heart is fed by Fame. Alas! for them, though not for thee, They cannot choose but weep the more; Deep for the dead the grief must be, Who ne'er gave cause to mourn before. October, 1814. STANZAS FOR MUSIC. 2 "O Lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros THERE's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away, When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay; 'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast, But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past. Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt or ocean of ex cess: The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain The shore to which their shiver'd sail shall never stretch again. Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself comes down ; It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream its own; ought to have felt now, but could not-set me pondering, and finally into the train of thought which you have in yo hands. I wrote them with a view to your setting them, and as a present to Power, if he would accept the words, and pus did not think yourself degraded, for once in a way, by mar rying them to music. I don't care what Power says to secu the property of the song, so that it is not complimentary la me, nor any thing about 'condescending or 'noble a iter' -both vile phrases,' as Polonius says."- Lord Byron is Mr. Moore.] That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our tears, And though the eye may sparkle still, 't is where the ice appears. Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast, Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest; 'Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruin'd turret wreath, All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and grey beneath. Oh could I feel as I have felt.-or be what I have been, Or weep as I could once have wept, o'er many a vanish'd scene; As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though they be, So midst the wither'd waste of life, those tears would flow to me.1 STANZAS FOR MUSIC. March, 1815. THERE be none of Beauty's daughters Is thy sweet voice to me : And the midnight moon is weaving So the spirit bows before thee, Like the swell of Summer's ocean. ON NAPOLEON'S ESCAPE FROM ELBA. ONCE fairly set out on his party of pleasure, Making balls for the ladies, and bows to his foes. 2 !["Do you remember the lines I sent you early last year? I don't wish (like Mr. Fitzgerald) to claim the character of 'Vates,' in all its translations, but were they not a little prophetic? I mean those beginning, There's not a joy the world can give,' &c., on which I pique myself as being the fruest, though the most melancholy, I ever wrote." — Byron Letters, March, 1816.] ["I can forgive the rogue for utterly falsifying every line of mine Ode-which I take to be the last and uttermost stretch of human magnanimity. Do you remember the story of a certain abbé, who wrote a treatise on the Swedish constitution, and proved it indissoluble and eternal? Just as he had corrected the last sheet, news came that Gustavus the Third had destroyed this immortal government. Sir,' quoth the abbé, 'the King of Sweden may overthrow the constitution, but not my book!! I think of the abbé, but not with him. Making every allowance for talent and most consummate daring, there is, after all, a good deal in luck or destiny. He might have been stopped by our frigates, or wrecked in the Gulf of Lyons, which is particularly tempestuous-or-a ODE FROM THE FRENCH. I. We do not curse thee, Waterloo ! As o'er heaven shall then be bright'ning! II. The Chief has fallen, but not by you, With that youthful chief competed? III. And thou, too, of the snow-white plume! 4 France o'er hosts of hirelings bleeding, Such as he of Naples wears, On thy war-horse through the ranks, thousand things. But he is certainly fortune's favourite."Byron Letters, March, 1815.] 3 See Rev. chap. viii. v. 7, &c. "The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood," &c. v. 8. "And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea; and the third part of the sea became blood," &c. v. 10. "And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp; and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters." v. 11. *** And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter." 4 ["Poor dear Murat, what an end! His white plume used to be a rallying point in battle, like Henry the Fourth's. He refused a confessor and a bandage; so would neither suffer his soul nor body to be bandaged."- Byron Letters.] 5 Murat's remains are said to have been torn from the grave and burnt. O'er glories gone the invaders march, With her heart in her voice; France hath twice too well been taught With their breath, and from their birth, Scattering nations' wealth like sand; In imperial seas of slaughter! V. But the heart and the mind, And the voice of mankind, Shall arise in communion — And who shall resist that proud union The time is past when swords subdued - Man may die-the soul's renew'd: Even in this low world of care "["Talking of politics, as Caleb Quotem says, pray look at the conclusion of my Ode on Waterloo,' written in the year 1815, and, comparing it with the Duke de Berri's catastrophe in 1820, tell me if I have not as good a right to the character of Vates,' in both senses of the word, as Fitzgerald and Coleridge?— 'Crimson tears will follow yet;' and have they not?"-Byron Letters, 1820.] "All wept, but particularly Savary, and a Polish officer FROM THE FRENCH. MUST thou go, my glorious Chief, * Sever'd from thy faithful few? Who can tell thy warrior's grief, Maddening o'er that long adieu? Woman's love, and friendship's zeal, Dear as both have been to meWhat are they to all I feel, With a soldier's faith for thee? Idol of the soldier's soul! First in fight, but mightiest now: Thee alone no doom can bow. Scarce dare trust a man with thee, Oh! although in dungeons pent, All their chains were light to me, Gazing on thy soul unbent. Would the sycophants of him Now so deaf to duty's prayer, Were his borrow'd glories dim, In his native darkness share? Were that world this hour his own, All thou calmly dost resign, Could he purchase with that throne Hearts like those which still are thine? My chief, my king, my friend, adieu! Never did I droop before; Never to my sovereign sue, As his foes I now implore: All I ask is to divide Every peril he must brave; Sharing by the hero's side His fall, his exile, and his grave. ON THE STAR OF "THE LEGION OF HONOUR." FROM THE FRENCH. STAR of the brave!-whose beam hath shed Wild meteor of immortal birth! Why rise in Heaven to set on Earth? Souls of slain heroes form'd thy rays; who had been exalted from the ranks by Buonaparte. He clung to his master's knees; wrote a letter to Lord Ke entreating permission to accompany him, even in the m menial capacity, which could not be admitted." 3" At Waterloo, one man was seen, whose left arm was shattered by a cannon ball, to wrench it off with the other. and throwing it up in the air, exclaimed to his comrades Vive l'Empereur, jusqu'à la mort !' There were tw other instances of the like: this, however, you may depend on as true."-Private Letter from Brussels. The music of thy martial sphere Like lava roll'd thy stream of blood, One tint was of the sunbeam's dyes; Star of the brave! thy ray is pale, And Freedom hallows with her tread NAPOLEON'S FAREWELL. FROM THE FRENCH. FAREWELL to the Land where the gloom of my Glory The last single Captive to millions in war. The tricolour. 2 [In the original MS." A Dream."] 3 [In this poem Lord Byron has abandoned the art, so peculiarly his own, of showing the reader where his purpose tends, and has contented himself with presenting a mass of powerful ideas unarranged, and the meaning of which it is not easy to attain. A succession of terrible images is placed before us, flitting and mixing, and disengaging themselves, as in the dream of a feverish man-chimeras dire, to whose existence the mind refuses credit, which confound and weary the ordinary reader, and baffle the comprehension, even of those more accustomed to the flights of a poetic muse. The subject is the progress of utter darkness, until it becomes, in Shakspeare's phrase, the "burier of the dead ;" and the assemblage of terrific ideas which the poet has placed before us only Oh! for the veteran hearts that were wasted Then turn thee and call on the Chief of thy choice! ENDORSEMENT TO THE DEED OF SEPAR- A YEAR ago you swore, fond she! DARKNESS. 2 I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream. 3 The flashes fell upon them; some lay down fail in exciting our terror from the extravagance of the plan. To speak plainly, the framing of such phantasms is a dangerous employment for the exalted and teeming imagination of such a poet as Lord Byron, whose Pegasus ever required rather a bridle than a spur. The waste of boundless space into which they lead the poet, the neglect of precision which such themes may render habitual, make them, in respect to poetry, what mysticism is to religion. The meaning of the poet, as he ascends upon cloudy wing, becomes the shadow only of a thought, and having eluded the comprehension of others, necessarily ends by escaping from that of the author himself. The strength of poetical conception, and the beauty of diction, bestowed upon such prolusions, is as much thrown away as the colours of a painter, could he take a cloud of mist, or a wreath of smoke, for his canvass.- SIR WALTER SCOTT.] |