The school where, loud warn'd by the bell, we resorted, To pore o'er the precepts by pedagogues taught. Again I behold where for hours I have ponder'd,

As reclining, at eve, on yon tombstone (1) I lay; Or round the steep brow of the churchyard I wander'd, To catch the last gleam of the sun's setting ray. I once more view the room, with spectators surrounded, Where, as Zanga (2), I trod on Alonzo o'erthrown; While, to swell my young pride, such applauses resounded,

I fancied that Mossop (3) himself was outshone: Or, as Lear, I pour'd forth the deep imprecation,

By my daughters of kingdom and reason deprived;
Till, fired by loud plaudits (4) and self-adulation,
I regarded myself as a Garrick revived.

Ye dreams of my boyhood, how much I regret you!
Unfaded your memory dwells in my breast;
Though sad and deserted, I ne'er can forget you:
Your pleasures may still be in fancy possest.
To Ida full oft may remembrance restore me,(5)
While fate shall the shades of the future unroll!
Since darkness o'ershadows the prospect before me,
More dear is the beam of the past to my soul.
But if, through the course of the years which await me,
Some new scene of pleasure should open to view,
I will say, while with rapture the thought shall elate me,
"Oh! such were the days which my infancy knew.”

TO M. S. G.

1806.

WHEN I dream that you love me, you'll surely forgive;
Extend not your anger to sleep;

For in visions alone your affection can live,-
I rise, and it leaves me to weep.

Then, Morpheus! envelop my faculties fast,
Shed o'er me your languor benign;

Should the dream of to-night but resemble the last,
What rapture celestial is mine!

They tell us that Slumber, the sister of Death,
Mortality's emblem is given;

To fate how I long to resign my frail breath,
If this be a foretaste of heaven!

Ah! frown not, sweet lady! unbend your soft brow,
Nor deem me too happy in this;

If I sin in my dream, I atone for it now,

Thus doom'd but to gaze upon bliss.

(1) They show a tomb in the churchyard at Harrow, commanding a view over Windsor, which was so well known to be his favourite resting-place, that the boys called it " Byron's Tomb;" and here, they say, he used to sit for hours, wrapt in thought.-L. E.

(2) For the display of his declamatory powers, on the speech-days, he selected always the most vehement passages; such as the speech of Zanga over the body of Alonzo, and Lear's address to the storm.-L. E.

(3) Mossop, a contemporary of Garrick, famous for his performance of Zanga.

(4) "My grand patron, Dr. Drury, had a great notion that I should turn out an orator, from my fluency, my turbulence, my voice, my copiousness of declamation, and my action." -Diary.

(5) In the private volume the two last stanzas ran—

Though in visions, sweet lady! perhaps you may smile, Oh! think not my penance deficient!

When dreams of your presence my slumbers beguile, To awake will be torture sufficient.

TO M.

Oa! did those eyes, instead of fire,

With bright but mild affection shine,
Though they might kindle less desire,
Love, more than mortal, would be thine.
For thou art form'd so heavenly fair,

Howe'er those orbs may wildly beam,
We must admire, but still despair;

That fatal glance forbids esteem.
When Nature stamp'd thy beauteous birth,
So much perfection in thee shone,
She fear'd that, too divine for earth,

The skies might claim thee for their own:
Therefore, to guard her dearest work,
Lest angels might dispute the prize,
She bade a secret lightning lurk

Within those once-celestial eyes.

These might the boldest sylph appal,
When gleaming with meridian blaze;
Thy beauty must enrapture all;

But who can dare thine ardent gaze? "Tis said that Berenice's hair

In stars adorns the vault of heaven;
But they would ne'er permit thee there,
Thou wouldst so far outshine the seven.

For did those eyes as planets roll,

Thy sister-lights would scarce appear: E'en suns, which systems now control, Would twinkle dimly through their sphere.(6)

TO MARY,

ON RECEIVING HER PICTURE.(7) THIS faint resemblance of thy charms, Though strong as mortal art could give, My constant heart of fear disarms,

Revives my hopes, and bids me live. Here I can trace the locks of gold

1806.

Which round thy snowy forehead wave, The cheeks which sprung from beauty's mould, The lips which made me beauty's slave.

"I thought this poor brain, fever'd even to madness, Of tears, as of reason, for ever was drain'd; But the drops which now flow down this bosom of sadness Convince me the springs have some moisture retain'd. "Sweet scenes of my childhood! your blest recollection Has wrung from these eyelids, to weeping long dead, In torrents the tears of my warmest affection,

The last and the fondest I ever shall shed."-L. E.

(6) "Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, Having some business, do intreat her eyes

To twinkle in their spheres till they return."-Shaksp. (7) Of this "Mary," who is not to be confounded with the heiress of Annesley, or "Mary" of Aberdeen, all that has been ascertained is, that she was of an humble, if not equivocal, station in life,-and that she had long light golden hair, "of which," says Moore, "he used to show a lock, as well as her picture, among his friends."-L. E.

Here I can trace-ab, no! that eye,
Whose azure floats in liquid fire,
Must all the painter's art defy,

And bid him from the task retire.

Here I behold its beauteous hue;

But where's the beam so sweetly straying (1) Which gave a lustre to its blue,

Like Luna o'er the ocean playing? Sweet copy! far more dear to me, Lifeless, unfeeling as thou art, Than all the living forms could be,

Save her who placed thee next my heart. She placed it, sad, with needless fear,

Lest Time might shake my wavering soul, Unconscious that her image there

Held every sense in fast control.

Thro' hours, thro' years, thro' time, 'twill cheer;
My hope, in gloomy moments, raise;

In life's last conflict 't will appear,
And meet my fond expiring gaze.

TO LESBIA.

LESBIA! since far from you I've ranged, Our souls with fond affection glow not; You say 'tis I, not you, have changed, I'd tell you why, but yet I know not. Your polish'd brow no cares have crost;

And, Lesbia! we are not much older, Since, trembling, first my heart I lost,

Or told my love, with hope grown bolder. Sixteen was then our utmost age,

love!

Two years have lingering past away, And now new thoughts our minds engage, At least I feel disposed to stray, love!

Tis I that am alone to blame,

I, that am guilty of love's treason; Since your sweet breast is still the same, Caprice must be my only reason.

I do not, love! suspect your truth,

With jealous doubt my bosom heaves not; Warm was the passion of my youth,

One trace of dark deceit it leaves not.

No, no, my flame was not pretended;
For, oh! I loved you most sincerely;
And though our dream at last is ended-
My bosom still esteems you dearly.

(1) In the private volume

But where's the beam of soft desire?
Which gave a lustre to its blue,

Love, only love, could e'er inspire."-L. E.

(2) The last line is almost a literal translation from a Spanish proverb.

(3) The occurrence took place at Southwell, and the beautiful lady to whom the lines were addressed was Miss Houson.-L. E.

Pistol-firing at a mark seems to have been a favourite pastime of Lord Byron. "He laways," says Captain Medwin, in his Conversations, "has pistols in his holster, and eight or ten pair, by the first makers in London, carried by his courier." Moore, in his Life says-"Such a passion, indeed had he for arms of every description, that there generally lay a small sword by the side of his bed, with which he used to amase himself, as he lay awake in the morning, by thrusting it through the bed-hangings. The person who purchased

No more we meet in yonder bowers; Absence has made me prone to roving; But older, firmer, hearts than ours

Have found monotony in loving.

Your cheek's soft bloom is unimpair'd, New beauties still are daily bright'ning, Your eye for conquest beams prepared,

The forge of Love's resistless lightning. Arm'd thus, to make their bosoms bleed, Many will throng to sigh like me, love! More constant they may prove, indeed; Fonder, alas! they ne'er can be, love!

TO WOMAN.

WOMAN! experience might have told me
That all must love thee who behold thee:
Surely experience might have taught
Thy firmest promises are nought;

But, placed in all thy charms before me,
All I forget, but to adore thee.

Oh memory! thou choicest blessing,

When join'd with hope, when still possessing;
But how much cursed by every lover
When hope is fled and passion's over!
Woman, that fair and fond deceiver,
How prompt are striplings to believe her!
How throbs the pulse when first we view
The eye that rolls in glossy blue,
Or sparkles black, or mildly throws
A beam from under hazel brows!
How quick we credit every oath,
And hear her plight the willing troth!
Fondly we hope 't will last for aye,
When, lo! she changes in a day.

This record will for ever stand,

"Woman, thy vows are traced in sand."(2)

LINES ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG LADY.

[As the author was discharging his pistols in a garden, two ladies passing near the spot were alarmed by the sound of a bullet hissing near thein; to one of whom the following stanzas were addressed the next morning.] (3)

DOUBTLESS, Sweet girl! the hissing lead,
Wafting destruction o'er thy charms,
And hurtling (4) o'er thy lovely head,

Has fill'd that breast with fond alarms.

the bed at the sale of Mrs. Byron's furniture, on her removal to Newstead, gave out, with the view of attaching a stronger interest to the holes in the curtains, that they were pierced by the same sword with which the old Lord had killed Mr. Chaworth, and which his descendant always kept as a memorial by his bed-side. Such is the ready process by which fiction is often engrafted upon fact."

"Lord Byron had one little hobby which he has shared, I believe, with many distinguished men. He had a great fondness for curious arms of every description. He never saw a handsome or a useful sabre, a curious or a good pair of pistols, or a carbine of a peculiar construction, but he coveted it, and generally contrived to obtain it, at however great a cost. He had, consequently, a perfect magazine of curious and extraordinary, but at the same time useful, weapons.”— Parry.-P. E.

(4) This word is used by Gray, in his poem of The Fatal Sisters

"Iron sleet of arrowy shower
Hurtles through the darken'd air.”

Surely some envious demon's force,
Vex'd to behold such beauty here,
Impell'd the bullet's viewless course,
Diverted from its first career.

Yes! in that nearly fatal hour

The ball obey'd some hell-born guide; But Heaven, with interposing power, In pity turn'd the death aside. Yet, as perchance one trembling tear Upon that thrilling bosom fell; Which I, the unconscious cause of fear, Extracted from its glistening cell: Say, what dire penance can atone

For such an outrage done to thee? Arraign'd before thy beauty's throne,

What punishment wilt thou decree? Might I perform the judge's part,

The sentence I should scarce deplore; It only would restore a heart

Which but belong'd to thee before.
The least atonement I can make

Is to become no longer free;
Henceforth I breathe but for thy sake,
Thou shalt be all in all to me.
But thou, perhaps, may'st now reject
Such expiation of my guilt:
Come then, some other mode elect;

Let it be death, or what thou wilt. Choose then, relentless! and I swear Nought shall thy dread decree prevent; Yet hold-oue little word forbear!

Let it be aught but banishment.

LOVE'S LAST ADIEU.
δεί, δ' αεί με φεύγει.-ANACREON.

THE roses of love glad the garden of life,
Though nurtured 'mid weeds dropping pestilent dew,
Till time crops the leaves with unmerciful knife,
Or prunes them for ever, in love's last adieu!

In vain with endearments we soothe the sad heart,
In vain do we vow for an age to be true;
The chance of an hour may command us to part,
Or death disunite us in love's last adieu!

Still Hope, breathing peace through the grief-swollen breast,

Will whisper, "Our meeting we yet may renew:" With this dream of deceit half our sorrow's represt, Nor taste we the poison of love's last adieu! Oh! mark you yon pair: in the sunshine of youth Love twined round their childhood his flow'rs as

they grew;

They flourish awhile in the season of truth,

Till chill'd by the winter of love's last adieu! Sweet lady! why thus doth a tear steal its way Down a cheek which outrivals thy bosom in hue? Yet why do I ask?-to distraction a prey,

Thy reason has perish'd with love's last adieu!

(1) See ante, p. 12, col. 2, note 7.-P. E.

(2) In the above little piece the author has been accused by some candid readers of introducing the name of a lady from whom he was some hundred miles distant at the time this was written; and poor Juliet, who has slept so long in "the tomb of all the Capulets," has been converted, with a tri

Oh! who is yon misanthrope, shunning mankind?
From cities to caves of the forest he flew :
There, raving, he howls his complaint to the wind;
The mountains reverberate love's last adieu!
Now hate rules a heart which in love's easy chains
Once passion's tumultuous blandishments knew;
Despair now inflames the dark tide of his veins;
He ponders in frenzy on love's last adieu!

How he envies the wretch with a soul wrapt in steel!
His pleasures are scarce, yet his troubles are few,
Who laughs at the pang that he never can feel,
And dreads not the anguish of love's last adieu!
Youth flies, life decays, even hope is o'ercast;

No more with love's former devotion we sue:
He spreads his young wing, he retires with the blast;
The shroud of affection is love's last adieu!
In this life of probation, for rapture divine
Astrea declares that some penance is due;
From him who has worshipp'd at love's gentle shrine,
The atonement is ample in love's last adieu!
Who kneels to the god, on his altar of light

Must myrtle and cypress alternately strew:
His myrtle, an emblem of purest delight;
His cypress, the garland of love's last adieu!

TO A LADY,

WHO PRESENTED TO THE AUTHOR A LOCK OF DAIR
BRAIDED WITH HIS OWN, AND APPOINTED A NIGHT

IN DECEMBER TO MEET HIM IN THE GARDEN. (1)
THESE locks, which fondly thus entwine,
In firmer chains our hearts confine
Than all the unmeaning protestations
Which swell with nonsense love orations.
Our love is fix'd, I think we've proved it,
Nor time, nor place, nor art, have moved it;
Then wherefore should we sigh and whine,
With groundless jealousy repine,

With silly whims and fancies frantic,
Merely to make our love romantic?

Why should you weep, like Lydia Languish,
And fret with self-created anguish?
Or doom the lover you have chosen,
On winter nights to sigh half-frozen;
In leafless shades to sue for pardon,
Only because the scene's a garden?
For gardens seem, by one consent,
Since Shakspeare set the precedent,
Since Juliet first declared her passion,
To form the place of assignation. (2)
Oh! would some modern muse inspire,
And seat her by a sea-coal fire;

Or had the bard at Christmas written,
And laid the scene of love in Britain,
He surely, in commiseration,

Had changed the place of declaration.
In Italy I've no objection;

Warm nights are proper for reflection;
But here our climate is so rigid,
That love itself is rather frigid!

fling alteration of her name, into an English damsel, walking
in a garden of their own creation, during the month of De
cember, in a village where the author never passed a winter.
Such has been the candour of some ingenious critics.
would advise these liberal commentators on taste and arbiters
of decorum to read Shakspeare.

Wc

Think on our chilly situation,

And curb this rage for imitation;
Then let us meet, as oft we've done,
Beneath the influence of the sun;
Or, if at midnight I must meet you,
Within your mansion let me greet you:
There we can love for hours together,
Much better, in such snowy weather,
Than placed in all the Arcadian groves
That ever witness'd rural loves.
Then, if my passion fail to please,
Next night I'll be content to freeze;
No more I'll give a loose to laughter,
But curse my fate for ever after. (1)

TO MARION.

MARION! why that pensive brow?
What disgust to life hast thou?
Change that discontented air;
Frowns become not one so fair.
'Tis not love disturbs thy rest,
Love's a stranger to thy breast;
He in dimpling smiles appears,
Or mourns in sweetly timid tears,
Or bends the languid eyelid down,
But shuns the cold forbidding frown.
Then resume thy former fire,
Some will love, and all admire;
While that icy aspect chills us,
Nought but cool indifference thrills us.
Wouldst thou wandering hearts beguile?
Smile at least, or seem to smile.
Eyes like thine were never meant
To hide their orbs in dark restraint;
Spite of all thou fain wouldst say,
Still in truant beams they play.
Thy Fips-but here my modest Muse
Her impulse chaste must needs refuse:
She blushes, curtsies, frowns,-in short she
Dreads lest the subject should transport me;
And, flying off in search of reason,
Brings prudence back in proper season.
All I shall therefore say (whate'er
I think, is neither here nor there)
Is, that such lips, of looks endearing,
Were form'd for better things than sneering.
Of soothing compliments divested,
Advice at least's disinterested:
Such is my artless song to thee,
From all the flow of flattery free.
Counsel like mine is as a brother's,
My heart is given to some others;

(1) Having heard that a very severe and indelicate censure has been passed on the above poem, I beg leave to reply in a quotation from an admired work, Carr's Stranger in France. -“As we were contemplating a painting on a large scale, in which, among other figures, is the uncovered whole-length of a warrior, a prudish-looking lady, who seemed to have touched the age of desperation, after having attentively sur. veyed it through her glass, observed to her party, that there was a great deal of indecorum in that picture. Madame S. shrewdly whispered in my ear, that the indecorum was in the remark.""

(2) In law every person is an infant who has not attained the age of twenty-one.

(3) "When I went up to Trinity, in 1805, at the age of seventeen and a half, I was miserable and untoward to a detree. I was wretched at leaving Harrow-wretched at going

That is to say, unskill'd to cozen,
It shares itself among a dozen.
Marion, adieu! oh, pr'ythee slight not
This warning, though it may delight not;
And, lest my precepts be displeasing
To those who think remonstrance teasing,
At once I'll tell thee our opinion
Concerning woman's soft dominion:
Howe'er we gaze with admiration
On eyes of blue or lips carnation,
Howe'er the flowing locks attract us,
Howe'er those beauties may distract us,
Still fickle, we are prone to rove,
These cannot fix our souls to love:
It is not too severe a stricture
To say they form a pretty picture;
But wouldst thou see the secret chain
Which binds us in your humble train,
To hail you queens of all creation,
Know, in a word, 'tis ANIMATION.

DAMÆTAS.

In law an infant (2), and in years a boy,

In mind a slave to every vicious joy;

From every sense of shame and virtue wean d;
In lies an adept, in deceit a fiend;

Versed in hypocrisy, while yet a child;
Fickle as wind, of inclinations wild;

Woman his dupe, his heedless friend a tool;
Old in the world, though scarcely broke from school;
Damætas ran through all the maze of sin,
And found the goal when others just begin:
Even still conflicting passions shake his soul,
And bid him drain the dregs of pleasure's bowl;
But, pall'd with vice, he breaks his former chain;
And what was once his biiss appears his bane. (3)

OSCAR OF ALVA. (4)

A TALE.

How sweetly shines, through azure skies,
The lamp of heaven on Lora's shore!
Where Alva's hoary turrets rise,
And hear the din of arms no more.

But often has yon rolling moon

On Alva's casques of silver play'd; And view'd, at midnight's silent noon, Her chiefs in gleaming mail array'd: And on the crimson'd rocks beneath, Which scowl o'er ocean's sullen flow, Pale in the scatter'd ranks of death,

She saw the gasping warrior low;

to Cambridge instead of Oxford-wretched from some private domestic circumstances of different kinds; and, consequently, about as unsocial as a wolf taken from the troop." Diary. -Mr. Moore adds, "The sort of life which young Byron led at this period, between the dissipations of London and of Cambridge, without a home to welcome, or even the roof of a single relative to receive him, was but little calculated to render him satisfied either with himself or the world. Unrestricted as he was by deference to any will but his own, even the pleasures to which he was naturally most inclined prematurely palled upon him, for want of those best zesta of all enjoyment-rarity and restraint."-L. E.

(4) The catastrophe of this tale was suggested by the story of "Jeronymo and Lorenzo," in the first volume of Schiller's Armenian, or the Ghost-Seer. It also bears some resemblance to a scene in the third act of Macbeth.