When my soul wings her flight to the regions of

night,

And my corse shall recline on its bier,

As ye pass by the tomb where my ashes consume, Oh! moisten their dust with a Tear.

May no marble bestow the splendour of woe
Which the children of vanity rear;

No fiction of fame shall blazon my name,

All I ask all I wish -- is

Tear.

October 26th, 1806.

REPLY TO SOME VERSES OF J. M. B. PIGOT, ESQ., ON THE CRUELTY OF HIS MISTRESS.

WHY, Pigot, complain of this damsel's disdain,
Why thus in despair do you fret?

For months you may try, yet, believe me, a sigh
Will never obtain a coquette.

Would you teach her to love? for a time seem to

rove;

At first she may frown in a pet;

But leave her awhile, she shortly will smile,
And then you may kiss your coquette.

For such are the airs of these fanciful fairs,
They think all our homage a debt:
Yet a partial neglect soon takes an effect,
And humbles the proudest coquette.

Dissemble your pain, and lengthen your chain,
And seem her hauteur to regret;

If again you shall sigh, she no more will deny
That yours is the rosy coquette.

If still, from false pride, your pangs she deride,
This whimsical virgin forget;

Some other admire, who will melt with your fire,
And laugh at the little coquette.

For me, I adore some twenty or more,
And love them most dearly; but yet,

Though my heart they enthral, I'd abandon them all,
Did they act like your blooming coquette.

No longer repine, adopt this design,

And break through her slight-woven net;
Away with despair, no longer forbear
To fly from the captious coquette.

Then quit her, my friend! your bosom defend,
Ere quite with her snares you're beset:

Lest your deep-wounded heart, when incensed by the

smart,

Should lead you to curse the coquette.

October 27th, 1806.

TO THE SIGHING STREPHON.

YOUR pardon, my friend, if my rhymes did offend,
Your pardon, a thousand times o'er;

From friendship I strove your pangs to remove,
But I swear I will do so no more.

Since

your

beautiful maid your flame has repaid,

No more I your folly regret ;

She's now most divine, and I bow at the shrine
Of this quickly reformed coquette.

Yet still, I must own, I should never have known
From your verses, what else she deserved;
Your pain seem'd so great, I pitied your fate
As your fair was so devilish reserved.

Since the balm-breathing kiss of this magical miss Can such wonderful transports produce;

Since the "world you forget, when your lips once have met,"

My counsel will get but abuse.

You say, when "I rove, I know nothing of love;" 'Tis 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 afrown 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 'twould 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. (1)

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

resistance.

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.

(1) Miss Elizabeth Pigot, of Southwell, to whom several of Lord Byron's earliest letters were addressed. See vol. i. p. 100.

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 'tis 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."

66

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.

(1) 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 Lachin y Gair I spent some of the early part of my life, the recollection of which has given birth to these stanzas.