Like Chiefs of Faction, That curbs his reign, Quits with disdain. He must move on- Retreat destroys him, Love brooks not a degraded throne. Wait not, fond lover! As from a dream. All passion blight: If once diminish'd Love's reign is finish'd Then part in friendship,—and bid good-night. ' So shall Affection To recollection The dear connection Bring back with joy: You had not waited Till, tired or hated, As through the past: And eyes, the mirrors Of your sweet errors Reflect but rapture-not least though last. True, separations Ask more than patience; What desperations From such have risen ! But yet remaining, Is but for boys You'll find it torture Though sharper, shorter, To wean, and not wear out your joys. 1819. [V. L." One last embrace, then, and bid good-night."] 2 [Or, "You come to him on earth again, He'll go with you to hell."] 3["Pray let not these versiculi go forth with my name, [In Lord Byron's MS. Diary of the preceding day, we find the following entry:-" January 21. 1821. Dined-visited-came home-read. Remarked on an anecdote in Grimm's Correspondence, which says, that Regnard et la plupart des poëtes comiques étaient gens bilieux et mélancoliques; et que M. de Voltaire, qui est très-gai, n'a jamais fait que des tragédies-et que la comédie gaie est le seul genre où il n'ait point réussi. C'est que celui qui rit et celui qui fait rire sont deux hommes fort différens!' At this moment I feel as bilious as the best comic writer of them all (even as Regnard himself, the next to Molière, who has written some of the best comedies in any language, and who is supposed to have committed suicide), and am not in spirits to continue my proposed tragedy. To-morrow is my birthday 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 I 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-'T is the middle of night by the castle-clock,' and I am now thirty three! THE CONQUEST. [This fragment was found amongst Lord Byron's papers, after his departure from Genoa for Greece.] March 8-9. 1823. THE Son of Love and Lord of War I sing; Eheu, fugaces, Posthume, Posthume, but I don't regret them so much for what I have done, as for what I might have done."] 2 [The procession of the Braziers to Brandenburgh House was one of the most absurd fooleries of the time of the late Queen's trial.] 3["There is an epigram for you, is it not? — worthy 4 ["Excuse haste,-I write with my spurs putting on."Lord Byron to Mr. Moore, Feb. 22. 1821.] ["Are you aware that Shelley has written an elegy on Keats, and accuses the Quarterly of killing him."-Lord Byron to Mr. Murray, July 30. 1821.] "And Ireland, like a bastinadoed elephant, kneeling to receive the paltry rider."— Curran. ERE the daughter of Brunswick is cold in her grave, True, the great of her bright and brief era are gone, cause. True, the chains of the Catholic clank o'er his rags, Like a goodly Leviathan roll'd from the waves ! Then receive him as best such an advent becomes, With a legion of cooks, and an army of slaves ! He comes in the promise and bloom of threescore, To perform in the pageant the sovereign's part 1 [Horace Walpole's Memoirs of the last nine Years of the Reign of George II.] ? [Memoirs by James Earl Waldegrave, Governor of George III. when Prince of Wales.] 3["Can't accept your courteous offer. These matters must be arrauged with Mr. Douglas Kinnaird. He is my trustee, and a man of honour. To him you can state all your mercantile reasons, which you might not like to state to me personally, such as heavy season flat public'-' don't go offlordship writes too much '-' won't take advice' declining popularity'-deduction for the trade'-' make very little generally lose by him '-'pirated edition "— And this shout of thy slavery which saddens the Is it madness or meanness which clings to thee now? Ay, roar in his train ! let thine orators lash Ever glorious Grattan! the best of the good! Ere Tully arose in the zenith of Rome, Though unequall'd, preceded, the task was begun— But Grattan sprung up like a god from the tomb Of ages, the first, last, the saviour, the one! With the skill of an Orpheus to soften the brute; With the fire of Prometheus to kindle mankind; Even Tyranny listening sate melted or mute, And Corruption shrunk scorch'd from the glance of his mind. But back to our theme! Back to despots and slaves! Feasts furnish'd by Famine! rejoicings by Pain! True freedom but welcomes, while slavery still raves, When a week's saturnalia hath loosen'd her chain. Let the poor squalid splendour thy wreck can afford (As the bankrupt's profusion his ruin would hide) Gild over the palace, Lo! Erin, thy lord! Kiss his foot with thy blessing, his blessings denied! Or if freedom past hope be extorted at last, If the idol of brass find his feet are of clay, Each brute hath its nature, a king's is to reign, — convince Half an age's contempt was an error of fame, And that "Hal is the rascaliest, sweetest young prince!" 'foreign edition '-'severe criticisms,' &c., with other hints and howls for an oration, which I leave Douglas, who is an orator, to answer."—Lord Byron to Mr. Murray, Aug. 23. 1821.] ["The enclosed lines, as you will directly perceive. are written by the Rev. W. L. B. Of course it is for him to deny them, if they are not."- Lord Byron to Mr. Moore, Sept. 17. 1821.] ["After the stanza on Grattan, will it please you to cause insert the following addenda, which I dreamed of during today's siesta."-Lord Byron to Mr. Moore, Sept. 20. 1821.] On his right hand behold a Sejanus appears! Thine own Castlereagh! let him still be thine own! A wretch never named but with curses and jeers! 1 Till now, when the isle which should blush for his birth, Deep, deep as the gore which he shed on her soil, Seems proud of the reptile which crawl'd from her earth, And for murder repays him with shouts and a smile. Without one single ray of her genius, without The fancy, the manhood, the fire of her raceThe miscreant who well might plunge Erin in doubt If she ever gave birth to a being so base. If she did let her long-boasted proverb be hush'd, Which proclaims that from Erin no reptile can spring See the cold-blooded serpent, with venom full flush'd, ["The last line - A name never spoke but with curses or jeers' must run, either * A name only uttered with curses or jeers,' or, A wretch never named but with curses or jeers,' becase as how spoke' is not grammar, except in the House of Commons. So pray put your poetical pen through the MS., and take the least bad of the emendations. Also, if there be any further breaking of Priscian's head, will you apply a plaster?" - Lord Byron to Mr. Moore, Sept. 19.f 2 ["I composed these stanzas (except the fourth, added now) a few days ago, on the road from Florence to Pisa."— Byron Diary, Pisa, 6th Nov. 1821.] 3 [In the same Diary, we find the following painfully in. teresting passage:-"As far as FAME goes (that is to say, living Fame), I have had my share, perhaps indeed, certainly-more than my deserts. Some odd instances have occurred to my own experience of the wild and strange places to which a name may penetrate, and where it may impress. Two years ago (almost three, being in August, or July, 1819) I received a letter in English verse from Drontheim in Norway, written by a Norwegian, and full of the usual compliments, &c. &c. In the same month I received an invitation into Holstein, from a Mr. Jacobson, I think, of Hamburgh; also (by the same medium) a translation of Yes, I loved thee and thine, though thou art not my land, [sons, I have known noble hearts and great souls in thy And I wept with the world o'er the patriot band Who are gone, but I weep them no longer as once. For happy are they now reposing afar, — Thy Grattan, thy Curran, thy Sheridan, all Who, for years, were the chiefs in the eloquent war, And redeem'd, if they have not retarded, thy fall. Yes, happy are they in their cold English graves ! Their shades cannot start to thy shouts of to-day — Nor the steps of enslavers and chain-kissing slaves Be stamp'd in the turf o'er their fetterless clay. Till now I had envied thy sons and their shore, Though their virtues were hunted, their liberties fled; There was something so warm and sublime in the core Of an Irishman's heart, that I envy thy dead. Or, if aught in my bosom can quench for an hour My contempt for a nation so servile, though sore, Which though trod like the worm will not turn upon power, 'Tis the glory of Grattan, and genius of Moore ! September, 1821. STANZAS WRITTEN ON THE ROAD BETWEEN FLORENCE AND Oн, talk not to me of a name great in story; 'Tis but as a dead-flower with May-dew besprinkled. I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory. November, 1821. Medora's song in the Corsair,' by a Westphalian baroness (not Thunderten-tronck'), with some original verses of hers (very pretty and Klopstockish), and a prose translation annexed to them, on the subject of my wife. As they concerned her more than me, I sent them to her with Mr. Jacobson's letter. It was odd enough to receive an invitation to pass the summer in Holstein, while in Italy, from people I never knew. The letter was addressed to Venice. Mr. J. talked to me of the wild roses growing in the Holstein summer why, then, did the Cimbri and the Teutones emigrate? What a strange thing is life and man! Were I to present myself at the door of the house where my daughter now is, the door would be shut in my face, unless (as is not impossible) I knocked down the porter; and if I had gone in that year (and perhaps now) to Drontheim (the furthest town in Norway), or into Holstein, I should have been received with open arms into the mansions of strangers and foreigners attached to me by no tie but that of mind and rumour. As far as Fame goes, I have had my share: it has, indeed, been leavened by other human contingencies; and this in a greater degree than has occurred to most literary men of a decent rank in life; but, on the whole, I take it that such equipoise is the condition of humanity."] Oh my lonely-lonely-lonely-Pillow! Why must my head ache where his gentle brow lay? How the long night flags lovelessly and slowly, And my head droops over thee like the willow! Oh! thou, my sad and solitary Pillow! Send me kind dreams to keep my heart from breaking, Then if thou wilt - no more my lonely Pillow, IMPROMPTU. 2 BENEATH Blessington's eyes The reclaim'd Paradise Should be free as the former from evil; But, if the new Eve For an Apple should grieve, What mortal would not play the Devil? 3 1823. TO THE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON. You have ask'd for a verse : — the request Were I now as I was, I had sung What Lawrence has painted so well; I am ashes where once I was fire, And my heart is as grey 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. [These verses were written by Lord Byron a little before he left Italy for Greece. They were meant to suit the Hindostanee air" Alla Malla Punca," which the Countess Guiccioli was fond of singing.] 2 [With a view of inducing Lord and Lady Blessington to prolong their stay at Genoa. Lord Byron suggested their taking a pretty villa called "Il Paradiso," in the neighbourhood of his own, and accompanied them to look at it. Upon that occasion it was that, on the lady expressing some intentions of residing there, he produced this impromptu.-MOORE.] 3 [The Genoese wits had already applied this threadbare jest to himself. Taking it into their heads that this villa (which was also, I believe, a Casa Saluzzo) had been the one fixed on for his own residence, they said "Il Diavolo è ancora entrato in Paradiso."-MOORE.] Let the young and the brilliant aspire For sorrow has torn from my lyre The string which was worthy the strain. ON THIS DAY I COMPLETE MY THIRTY SIXTH YEAR. Missolonghi, Jan. 22. 1824.4 My days are in the yellow leaf; The fire that on my bosom preys The sword, the banner, and the field, Awake! (not Greece-she is awake!) If thou regret'st thy youth, why live? Seek out-less often sought than found- 4 [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.] [Taking into consideration every thing connected with these verses, the last tender aspirations of a loving spirit which they breathe, the self-devotion to a noble cause which they so nobly express, and that consciousness of a near grave glimmering sadly through the whole, there is perhaps no production within the range of mere human composition, round which the circumstances and feelings under which it was written cast so touching an interest.-MOORE.] PP |