For it hath been by sorrow nursed,

SONG OF SAUL BEFORE HIS LAST BATTLE. WARRIORS and chiefs! should the shaft or the sword Pierce me in leading the host of the Lord,

And ached in sleepless silence long; And now 'tis doom'd to know the worst, And break at once-or yield to song.

I SAW THEE WEEP.

I SAW thee weep—the big bright tear
Came o'er that eye of blue;
And then methought it did appear

A violet dropping dew:

I saw thee smile the sapphire's blaze
Beside thee ceased to shine;

It could not match the living rays
That fill'd that glance of thine.

As clouds from yonder sun receive
A deep and mellow dye,

Which scarce the shade of coming eve

Can banish from the sky,

Those smiles unto the moodiest mind
Their own pure joy impart;
Their sunshine leaves a glow behind
That lightens o'er the heart.

THY DAYS ARE DONE.

THY days are done, thy fame begun ;
Thy country's strains record

The triumphs of her chosen Son,
The slaughters of his sword!
The deeds he did, the fields he won,
The freedom he restored!

1

Though thou art fall'n, while we are free
Thou shalt not taste of death!
The generous blood that flow'd from thee
Disdain'd to sink beneath :
Within our veins its currents be,

Thy spirit on our breath!

Thy name, our charging hosts along,

Shall be the battle-word!

Thy fall, the theme of choral song
From virgin voices pour'd!

To weep would do thy glory wrong;
Thou shalt not be deplored.

[It was generally conceived that Lord Byron's reported singularities approached on some occasions to derangement; and at une period, indeed, it was very currently asserted that bis intellects were actually impaired. The report only served to amuse his Lordship. He referred to the circumstance, and declared that he would try how a madman could write: seizing the pen with eagerness, he for a moment fixed his eyes in majestic wildness on vacancy; when, like a flash of inspiration, without erasing a single word, the above verses were the result."NATHAN.]

2 (Haunted with that insatiable desire of searching into the secrets of futurity, inseparable from uncivilised man, Saul knew not to what quarter to turn. The priests, outraged by his cruelty, had forsaken him: the prophets stood aloof; no dreams visited his couch; he had persecuted even the unlawful diviners. He hears at last of a female necromancer, a woman with the spirit of Ob; strangely similar in sound to the Obeah women in the West Indies. To the cave-dwelling of this woman, in Endor, the monarch proceeds in disguise. He commands her to raise the spirit of Samuel. At this daring demand, the woman first recognises, or pretends to reengnise, her royal visitor. "Whom seest thou?" says the king." Mighty ones ascending from the earth."-" Of what form?"-" An old man covered with a mantle." Saul, in

Heed not the corse, though a king's, in your path: Bury your steel in the bosoms of Gath!

Thou who art bearing my buckler and bow, Should the soldiers of Saul look away from the foe, Stretch me that moment in blood at thy feet! Mine be the doom which they dared not to meet.

Farewell to others, but never we part,

Heir to my royalty, son of my heart!
Bright is the diadem, boundless the sway,

Or kingly the death, which awaits us to-day!

SAUL. 2

THOU whose spell can raise the dead,
Bid the prophet's form appear.
"Samuel, raise thy buried head!

King, behold the phantom seer!"
Earth yawn'd; he stood the centre of a cloud :
Light changed its hue, retiring from his shroud.
Death stood all glassy in his fixed eye;
His hand was wither'd, and his veins were dry;
His foot, in bony whiteness, glitter'd there,
Shrunken and sinewless, and ghastly bare;
From lips that moved not and unbreathing frame,
Like cavern'd winds, the hollow accents came.
Saul saw, and fell to earth, as falls the oak,
At once, and blasted by the thunder-stroke.
"Why is my sleep disquieted?
Who is he that calls the dead?
Is it thou, O King? Behold,
Bloodless are these limbs, and cold:
Such are mine; and such shall be
Thine to-morrow, when with me:
Ere the coming day is done,
Such shalt thou be, such thy son.
Fare thee well, but for a day,
Then we mix our mouldering clay.
Thou, thy race, lie pale and low,
Pierced by shafts of many a bow;
And the falchion by thy side
To thy heart thy hand shall guide:
Crownless, breathless, headless fall,
Son and sire, the house of Saul!" 9

terror, bows down his head to the earth; and, it should seem, not daring to look up, receives from the voice of the spectre the awful intimation of his defeat and death. On the reality of this apparition we pretend not to decide: the figure, if fi gure there were, was not seen by Saul; and, excepting the event of the approaching battle, the spirit said nothing which the living prophet had not said before, repeatedly and publicly. But the fact is curious, as showing the popular belief of the Jews in departed spirits to have been the same with that of most other nations.- MILMAN.]

3 ["Since we have spoken of witches," said Lord Byron, at Cephalonia, in 1823, what think you of the witch of Endor? I have always thought this the finest and most finished witchscene that ever was written or conceived; and you will be of my opinion, if you consider all the circumstances and the actors in the case, together with the gravity, simplicity, and dig nity of the language. It beats all the ghost scenes I ever read. The finest conception on a similar subject is that of Goethe's Devil, Mephistopheles; and though, of course, you will give the priority to the former, as being inspired, yet the latter, if you know it, will appear to you at least it does to me - one of the finest and most sublime specimens of human conception."]

Hh

"ALL IS VANITY, SAITH THE PREACHER.”

FAME, wisdom, love, and power were mine,
And health and youth possess'd me;
My goblets blush'd from every vine,
And lovely forms caress'd me;
I sunn'd my heart in beauty's eyes,
And felt my soul grow tender;
All earth can give, or mortal prize,
Was mine of regal splendour.

I strive to number o'er what days
Remembrance can discover,
Which all that life or earth displays
Would lure me to live over.

There rose no day, there roll'd no hour
Of pleasure unembitter'd;

And not a trapping deck'd my power
That gail'd not while it glitter'd.

VISION OF BELSHAZZAR. THE King was on his throne, The Satraps throng'd the hall; A thousand bright lamps shone O'er that high festival. A thousand cups of gold,

In Judah deem'd divine—
Jehovah's vessels hold

The godless Heathen's wine.
In that same hour and hall,
The fingers of a hand
Came forth against the wall,

And wrote as if on sand:
The fingers of a man ; —

A solitary hand Along the letters ran,

And traced them like a wand.

The monarch saw, and shook,
And bade no more rejoice;
All bloodless wax'd his look,

And tremulous his voice.
"Let the men of lore appear,
The wisest of the earth,
And expound the words of fear,
Which mar our royal mirth."

Chaldea's seers are good,

But here they have no skill;
And the unknown letters stood
Untold and awful still.
And Babel's men of age

Are wise and deep in lore;
But now they were not sage,
They saw-but knew no more.

A captive in the land,

A stranger and a youth, He heard the king's command, He saw that writing's truth, The lamps around were bright, The prophecy in view; He read it on that night,—

The morrow proved it true.

"Belshazzar's grave is made.
His kingdom pass'd away,
He, in the balance weigh'd,
Is light and worthless clay,
The shroud, his robe of state,
His canopy the stone:
The Mede is at his gate!

The Persian on his throne!"

SUN OF THE SLEEPLESS!

SUN of the sleepless! melancholy star!
Whose tearful beam glows tremulously far,
That show'st the darkness thou canst not dispel,
How like art thou to joy remember'd well!
So gleams the past, the light of other days,
Which shines, but warms not with its powerless rays;

A night-beam Sorrow watcheth to behold,
Distinct, but distant—clear—but oh, how cold!

WERE MY BOSOM AS FALSE AS THOU
DEEM'ST IT TO BE.

WERE my bosom as false as thou deem'st it to be,
I need not have wander'd from far Galilee;
It was but abjuring my creed to efface

The curse which, thou say'st, is the crime of my race:

If the bad never triumph, then God is with thee!
If the slave only sin, thou art spotless and free!
If the Exile on earth is an Outcast on high,
Live on in thy faith, but in mine I will die.

I have lost for that faith more than thou canst bestow,
As the God who permits thee to prosper doth know;
In his hand is my heart and my hope—and in thine
The land and the life which for him I resign.

HEROD'S LAMENT FOR MARIAMNE. 1 OH, Mariamne! now for thee

The heart for which thou bled'st is bleeding; Revenge is lost in agony,

And wild remorse to rage succeeding. Oh, Mariamne! where art thou?

Thou canst not hear my bitter pleading. Ah: couldst thou-thou wouldst pardon now, Though Heaven were to my prayer unheeding. And is she dead?—and did they dare Obey my frenzy's jealous raving? My wrath but doom'd my own despair:

The sword that smote her's o'er me waving. But thou art cold, my murder'd love!

And this dark heart is vainly craving For her who soars alone above,

And leaves my soul unworthy saving.

She's gone, who shared my diadem ;

She sunk, with her my joys entombing;
I swept that flower from Judah's stem,
Whose leaves for me alone were blooming;
And mine's the guilt, and mine the bell,
This bosom's desolation dooming;
And I have earn'd those tortures well,

Which unconsumed are still consuming!

ON THE DAY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF
JERUSALEM BY TITUS.

From the last hill that looks on thy once holy dome
I beheld thee, oh Sion! when render'd to Rome :
"T was thy last sun went down, and the flames of thy fall
Flash'd back on the last glance I gave to thy wall.

I look'd for thy temple, I look'd for my home,
And forgot for a moment my bondage to come;
I beheld but the death-fire that fed on thy fane,
And the fast fetter'd hands that made vengeance in vain.
On many an eve, the high spot whence I gazed
Had reflected the last beam of day as it blazed;
While I stood on the height, and beheld the decline
Of the rays from the mountain that shone on thy shrine.

[Mariamne, the wife of Herod the Great, falling under the suspicion of infidelity, was put to death by his order. She was a woman of unrivalled beauty, and a haughty spirit: unhappy in being the object of passionate attachment, which burdered on frenzy, to a man who had more or less concern in

And now on that mountain I stood on that day,
But I mark'd not the twilight beam melting away;
Oh! would that the lightning had glared in its stead,
And the thunderbolt burst on the conqueror's head!
But the Gods of the Pagan shall never profane
The shrine where Jehovah disdain'd not to reign;
And scatter'd and scorn'd as thy people may be,
Our worship, oh Father, is only for thee.

BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON WE SAT
DOWN AND WEPT.

WE sate down and wept by the waters
Of Babel, and thought of the day
When our foe, in the hue of his slaughters,
Made Salem's high places his prey;
And ye, oh her desolate daughters!
Were scatter'd all weeping away.
While sadly we gazed on the river

Which roll'd on in freedom below,
They demanded the song; but, oh never
That triumph the stranger shall know !
May this right hand be wither'd for ever,
Ere it string our high harp for the foe!
On the willow that harp is suspended,

Oh Salem! its sound should be free;
And the hour when thy glories were ended
But left me that token of thee:
And ne'er shall its soft tones be blended
With the voice of the spoiler by me!

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB. THE Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen : Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow lay wither'd and strown. For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd; And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heav'd, and for ever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there roll'd not the breath of his pride:
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

the murder of her grandfather, father, brother, and uncle, and who had twice commanded her death, in case of his own. Ever after, Herod was haunted by the image of the murdered Mariamne, until disorder of the mind brought on disorder of body, which led to temporary derangement. - MILMAN.]

[The Hebrew Melodies, though obviously inferior to Lord Byron's other works, display a skill in versification and a mastery in diction, which would have raised an inferior artist to the very summit of distinction. — JEFFREY.]

2 [It was about the middle of April that his two celebrated copies of verses, "Fare thee well," and "A Sketch," made their appearance in the newspapers; and while the latter poem was generally, and, it must be owned, justly condemned, as a sort of literary assault on an obscure female, whose situation ought to have placed her as much beneath his satire, as the undignified mode of his attack certainly raised her above it, with regard to the other poem, opinions were a good deal more divided. To many it appeared a strain of true conjugal tenderness, a kind of appeal which no woman with a heart could resist; while, by others, on the contrary, it was considered to be a mere showy effusion of sentiment, as difficult for real feeling to have produced as it was easy for fancy and art, and altogether unworthy of the deep interests involved in

Yet, oh yet, thyseif deceive not; Love may sink by slow decay, But by sudden wrench, believe not Hearts can thus be torn away:

Still thine own its life retaineth -
Still must mine, though bleeding, beat;
And the undying thought which paincth
Is that we no more may meet.
These are words of deeper sorrow
Than the wail above the dead;
Both shall live, but every morrow
Wake us from a widow'd bed.

And when thou would solace gather,

When our child's first accents flow, Wilt thou teach her to say "Father!" Though his care she must forego? When her little hands shall press thee, When her lip to thine is press'd, Think of him whose prayer shall bless thee, Think of him thy love had bless'd! Should her lineaments resemble

Those thou never more may'st see,
Then thy heart will softly tremble
With a pulse yet true to me.

All my faults perchance thou knowest,
All my madness none can know ;
All my hopes, where'er thou goest,
Wither, yet with thee they go.

Every feeling hath been shaken;

Pride, which not a world could bow, Bows to thee-by thee forsaken,

Even my soul forsakes me now:

the subject. To this latter opinion I confess my own to have, at first, strongly inclined; and suspicious as I could not help thinking the sentiment that could, at such a moment, indulge in such verses, the taste that prompted or sanctioned thetr publication appeared to me even still more questionable. On reading, however, his own account of all the circumstances in the Memoranda, I found that on both points I had, in common with a large portion of the public, done him injustice He there described, and in a manner whose sincerity there was no doubting, the swell of tender recollections under the influence of which, as he sat one night musing in bis study, these stanzas were produced, the tears, as he said, falling fast over the paper as he wrote them. Neither did it appear, from that account, to have been from any wish or intention of his own, but through the injudicious zeal of a friend whom he had suffered to take a copy, that the verses met the pubbe eye. MOORE. The appearance of the MS. confirms this account of the circumstances under which it was written. It is blotted all over with the marks of tears.]

BORN in the garret, in the kitchen bred,
Promoted thence to deck her mistress' head;
Next for some gracious service unexpress'd,
And from its wages only to be guess'd-
Raised from the toilet to the table, where
Her wondering betters wait behind her chair.
With eye unmoved, and forehead unabash'd,
She dines from off the plate she lately wash'd.
Quick with the tale, and ready with the lie-
The genial confidante, and general spy-
Who could, ye gods! her next employment guess—
An only infant's earliest governess!

She taught the child to read, and taught so well,
That she herself, by teaching, learn'd to spell.
An adept next in penmanship she grows,
As many a nameless slander deftly shows:
What she had made the pupil of her art,
None know-but that high Soul secured the heart,
And panted for the truth it could not hear,
With longing breast and undeluded ear.
Foil'd was perversion by that youthful mind,
Which Flattery fool'd not-Baseness could not blind,
Deceit infect not-near Contagion soil-
Indulgence weaken-nor Example spoil-
Nor master'd Science tempt her to look down
On humbler talents with a pitying frown-
Nor Genius swell-nor Beauty render vain-
Nor Envy ruffle to retaliate pain-

Nor Fortune change- Pride raise-nor Passion bow,
Nor Virtue teach austerity- till now.
Serenely purest of her sex that live,

But wanting one sweet weakness-to forgive,
Too shock'd at faults her soul can never know,
She deems that all could be like her below:
Foe to all vice, yet hardly Virtue's friend,
For Virtue pardons those she would amend.

But to the theme: - now laid aside too long, The baleful burthen of this houest song Though all her former functions are no more, She rules the circle which she served before. If mothers-none know why-before her quake; If daughters dread her for the mothers' sake; If early habits-those false links, which bind At times the loftiest to the meanest mind

"["I send you my last night's dream, and request to have fifty coples struck off, for private distribution. I wish Mr. Gifford to look at them. They are from life."- Lord Byron Mr. Murray, March 30. 1816.]

[In first draught "weltering."-"I doubt about 'weltering. We say weltering in blood;' but do not they also

Have given her power too deeply to instil
The angry essence of her deadly will;
If like a snake she steal within your walls,
Till the black slime betray her as she crawls;
If like a viper to the Heart she wind,
And leave the venom there she did not find;
What marvel that this hag of hatred works
Eternal evil latent as she lurks,

To make a Pandemonium where she dwells,
And reign the Hecate of domestic hells?
Skill'd by a touch to deepen scandal's tints
With all the kind mendacity of hints,
While mingling truth with falsehood-sneers with
A thread of candour with a web of wiles;

[smiles

A plain blunt show of briefly-spoken seeming,
To hide her bloodless heart's soul-harden'd scheming;
A lip of lies-a face form'd to conceal;
And, without feeling, mock at all who feel:
With a vile mask the Gorgon would disown;
A cheek of parchment- and an eye of stone.
Mark, how the channels of her yellow blood
Ooze to her skin, and stagnate there to mud,
Cased like the centipede in saffron mail,
Or darker greenness of the scorpion's scale-
(For drawn from reptiles only may we trace
Congenial colours in that soul or face)—
Look on her features! and behold her mind
As in a mirror of itself defined:

Look on the picture! deem it not o'ercharged
There is no trait which might not be enlarged:
Yet true to "Nature's journeymen," who made
This monster when their mistress left off trade-
This female dog-star of her little sky,
Where all beneath her influence droop or die.

Oh! wretch without a tear- - without a thought, Save joy above the ruin thou hast wroughtThe time shall come, nor long remote, when thou Shalt feel far more than thou inflictest now; Feel for thy vile self-loving self in vain, And turn thee howling in unpitied pain. May the strong curse of crush'd affections light Back on thy bosom with reflected blight! And make thee in thy leprosy of mind As loathsome to thyself as to mankind! Till all thy self-thoughts curdle into hate, Black as thy will for others would create: Till thy hard heart be calcined into dust, And thy soul welter in its hideous crust. Oh, may thy grave be sleepless as the bed,The widow'd couch of fire, that thou hast spread! Then, when thou fain wouldst weary Heaven with

prayer,

Look on thine earthly victims and despair!
Down to the dust!-and, as thou rott'st away,
Even worms shall perish on thy poisonous clay.
But for the love I bore, and still must bear,
To her thy malice from all ties would tear-
Thy name-thy human name- to every eye
The climax of all scorn should hang on high,
Exalted o'er thy less abhorr'd compeers—
And festering in the infamy of years.

March 29. 1816.

use weltering in the wind,' weltering on a gibbet?' I have no dictionary, so look. In the mean time, I have put festering; which, perhaps, in any case is the best word of the two. Shakspeare has it often, and I do not think it too strong for the figure in this thing. Quick! quick! quick! quick!" - Lord Byron to Mr. Murray, April 2.]