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But turn to gaze again, and find anew

For them the voice of festal mirth

Some charm that well rewards another view.
These are not lessen'd, these are still as bright,
Albeit too dazzling for a dotard's sight;
And those must wait till ev'ry charm is gone,
To please the paltry heart that pleases none: -
That dull cold sensualist, whose sickly eye
In envious dimness pass'd thy portrait by ;
Who rack'd his little spirit to combine
Its hate of Freedom's loveliness, and thine.

August, 1814.

TO BELSHAZZAR.
BELSHAZZAR! from the banquet turn,
Nor in thy sensual fulness fall;
Behold! while yet before thee burn
The graven words, the glowing wall.
Many a despot men miscall

Crown'd and anointed from on high;
But thou, the weakest, worst of all-
Is it not written, thou must die?

Go! dash the roses from thy brow

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,
And ever light of word and worth,
Whose soul expired ere youth decay'd,
And left thee but a mass of earth.
To see thee moves the scorner's mirth :
But tears in Hope's averted eye
Lament that even thou hadst birth-
Unfit to govern, live, or die.

ELEGIAC STANZAS ON THE DEATH OF
SIR PETER PARKER, BART. 1
THERE is a tear for all that die,

A mourner o'er the humblest grave;
But nations swell the funeral cry,
And Triumph weeps above the brave.

For them is Sorrow's purest sigh
O'er Ocean's heaving bosom sent:
In vain their bones unburied lie,
All earth becomes their monument !

A tomb is theirs on every page,
An epitaph on every tongue :
The present hours, the future age,

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.]

2 [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 antè, p. 384.) and the recollection of what I once felt, and

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ought to have felt now, but could not-set me pondering, and finally into the train of thought which you have in your hands. I wrote them with a view to your setting them, and as a present to Power, if he would accept the words, and you did not think yourself degraded, for once in a way, by mar rying them to music. I don't care what Power says to secure the property of the song, so that it is not complimentary to me, nor any thing about condescending' or -both vile phrases,' as Polonius says."-Lord Byron to Mr. Moore.]

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!["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 de-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 albe, 'the King of Sweden may overthrow the constitution, that not my book !!! I think of the abbé, but not with him. Making every allowance for talent and most consummate laring, 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 !
Though Freedom's blood thy plain bedew;
There 't was shed, but is not sunk
Rising from each gory trunk,
Like the water-spout from ocean,
With a strong and growing motion
It soars, and mingles in the air,
With that of lost Labedoyère-
With that of him whose honour'd grave
Contains the "bravest of the brave."
A crimson cloud it spreads and glows,
But shall return to whence it rose;
When 't is full 't will burst asunder.
Never yet was heard such thunder,

As then shall shake the world with wonder
Never yet was seen such lightning

As o'er heaven shall then be bright'ning!
Like the Wormwood Star foretold
By the sainted Seer of old,
Show'ring down a fiery flood,
Turning rivers into blood. 3

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thousand things. But he is certainly fortune's favourite.". Byron Letters, March, 1815.]

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3 See Rev. chap. viii. v. 7, &c. "The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood," &c. 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." 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.

Shone and shiver'd fast around thee
Of the fate at last which found thee:
Was that haughty plume laid low
By a slave's dishonest blow?

Once - as the Moon sways o'er the tide,
It roll'd in air, the warrior's guide;
Through the smoke-created night
Of the black and sulphurous fight,
The soldier raised his seeking eye
To catch that crest's ascendency
And as it onward rolling rose,

So moved his heart upon our foes.
There, where death's brief pang was quickest,
And the battle's wreck lay thickest,
Strew'd beneath the advancing banner
Of the eagle's burning crest—
(There with thunder-clouds to fan her,
Who could then her wing arrest -
Victory beaming from her breast?)
While the broken line enlarging
Fell, or fled along the plain;

There be sure was Murat charging!
There he ne'er shall charge again!
IV.

O'er glories gone the invaders march,
Weeps Triumph o'er each levell'd arch
But let Freedom rejoice,

With her heart in her voice;

But, her hand on her sword,
Doubly shall she be adored;

France hath twice too well been taught
The "moral lesson dearly bought -
Her safety sits not on a throne,
With Capet or Napoleon!
But in equal rights and laws,

Hearts and hands in one great cause
Freedom, such as God hath given

Unto all beneath his heaven,

With their breath, and from their birth,

Though Guilt would sweep it from the earth; With a fierce and lavish hand

Scattering nations' wealth like sand;

Pouring nations' blood like water,

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
Freedom ne'er shall want an heir;
Millions breathe but to inherit
Her for ever bounding spirit—
When once more her hosts assemble,
Tyrants shall believe and tremble-
Smile they at this idle threat?
Crimson tears will follow yet.1

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["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, 2 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 me — What 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 : Many could a world control;

Thee alone no doom can bow. By thy side for years I dared

Death; and envied those who fell, When their dying shout was heard, Blessing him they served so well. 3 Would that I were cold with those, Since this hour I live to see; When the doubts of coward foes

Scarce dare trust a man with thee, Dreading each should set thee free!

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
Such glory o'er the quick and dead —
Thou radiant and adored deceit !
Which millions rush'd in arms to greet,-
Wild meteor of immortal birth!
Why rise in Heaven to set on Earth?

Souls of slain heroes form'd thy rays;
Eternity flash'd through thy blaze;

who had been exalted from the ranks by Buonaparte. Tie clung to his master's knees; wrote a letter to Lord Keith. entreating permission to accompany him, even in the most 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 many other instances of the like: this, however, you may depend on as true."-Private Letter from Brussels.

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The music of thy martial sphere
Was fame on high and honour here;
And thy light broke on human eyes,
Like a volcano of the skies.

Like lava roll'd thy stream of blood,
And swept down empires with its flood;
Earth rock'd beneath thee to her base,
As thou didst lighten through all space;
And the shorn Sun grew dim in air,
And set while thou wert dwelling there.
Before thee rose, and with thee grew,
A rainbow of the loveliest hue
Of three bright colours, each divine,
And fit for that celestial sign;
For Freedom's hand had blended them,
Like tints in an immortal gem.

One tint was of the sunbeam's dyes;
One, the blue depth of Seraph's eyes;
One, the pure Spirit's veil of white
Had robed in radiance of its light:
The three so mingled did bescem
The texture of a heavenly dream.

Star of the brave! thy ray is pale,
And darkness must again prevail !
But, oh thou Rainbow of the free!
Our tears and blood must flow for thee.
When thy bright promise fades away,
Our life is but a load of clay.

And Freedom hallows with her tread
The silent cities of the dead;
For beautiful in death are they
Who proudly fall in her array;
And soon, oh Goddess! may we be
For evermore with them or thee!

NAPOLEON'S FAREWELL.

PROM THE PRENCH.

FAREWELL to the Land, where the gloom of my Glory
Arose and o'ershadow'd the earth with her name—
She abandons me now-but the page of her story,
The brightest or blackest, is fill'd with my fame.
I have warr'd with a world which vanquish'd me only
When the meteor of conquest allured me too far;
I have coped with the nations which dread me thus
lonely,

The last single Captive to millions in war.
Farewell to thee, France! when thy diadem crown'd me,
I made thee the gem and the wonder of earth,-
But thy weakness decrees I should leave as I found thee,
Decay'd in thy glory, and sunk in thy worth.

The tricolour.

* [In the original MS." A Dream."]

[In this poem Lord Byron has abandoned the art, so peculiarly his own. of showing the reader where his purpose tenis, and has contented himself with presenting a mass of powerful aleas unarranged, and the meaning of which it is not easy to attain. A succession of terrible images is placed before us, fitting 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 baille the comprehension, even of those more accustomed to the flights of a poetic muse. The adject 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
In strife with the storm, when their battles were won-
Then the Eagle, whose gaze in that moment was blasted,
Had still soar'd with eyes fix'd on victory's sun!
Farewell to thee, France!- but when Liberty rallies
Once more in thy regions, remember me then-
The violet still grows in the depth of thy valleys;
Though wither'd, thy tear will unfold it again—
Yet, yet, I may baffle the hosts that surround us,
And yet may thy heart leap awake to my voice-
There are links which must break in the chain that
has bound us,

Then turn thee and call on the Chief of thy choice!

ENDORSEMENT TO THE DEED OF SEPAR-
ATION, IN THE APRIL OF 1816.

A YEAR ago you swore, fond she!
"To love, to honour," and so forth:
Such was the vow you pledged to me,
And here's exactly what 't is worth.

DARKNESS. 2

I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream. 3
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires-and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings- the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,

And men were gather'd round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:
A fearful hope was all the world contain'd;
Forests were set on fire--but hour by hour
They fell and faded — and the crackling trunks
Extinguish'd with a crash- and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits

The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,

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 asce ds upon cloudy wing, becomes the shadow only of a thought, and having cluded the comprehension of others, necessarily ends by escaping from that of the author himself. The strength of poctical 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 Scorr.]

The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds
shriek'd,

And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless- they were slain for food:
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again; a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought—and that was death,
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang

Of famine fed upon all entrails-men

Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devour'd,
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answer'd not with a caress- he died.
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,

And they were enemies: they met beside

The dying embers of an altar-place

Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things

For an unholy usage; they raked up,

And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath

Blew for a little life, and made a flame

Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld

Each other's aspects. - saw, and shriek'd, and died-
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless
A lump of death-a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sca,

And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropp'd
They slept on the abyss without a surge —
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The Moon, their mistress, had expired before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,

["Darkness" is a grand and gloomy sketch of the supposed consequences of the final extinction of the Sun and the heavenly bodies: executed, undoubtedly, with great and fearful force, but with something of German exaggeration, and a fantastical solution of incidents. The very conception is terrible above all conception of known calamity, and is too oppressive to the imagination to be contemplated with pleasure, even in the faint reflection of poetry. JEFFREY.]

2 [On the sheet containing the original draught of these lines, Lord Byron has written:-"The following poem (as most that I have endeavoured to write) is founded on a fact; and this detail is an attempt at a serious imitation of the style of a great poet-its beauties and its defects: I say the style; for the thoughts I claim as my own. In this, if there be any thing ridiculous, let it be attributed to me, at least as much as to Mr. Wordsworth; of whom there can exist few greater admirers than myself. I have blended what I would deem to be the beauties as well as defects of his style; and it ought to be remembered, that, in such things, whether there be praise or dispraise, there is always what is called a compliinent, however unintentional."]

And the clouds perish'd! Darkness had no need Of aid from them She was the Universe. ' Diodati, July, 1916

CHURCHILL'S GRAVE?

I STOOD beside the grave of him who blazed
The comet of a season, and I saw
The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed
With not the less of sorrow and of awe
On that neglected turf and quiet stone,
With name no clearer than the names unknown,
Which lay unread around it; and I ask 'd

The Gardener of that ground, why it might be That for this plant strangers his memory task'd

Through the thick deaths of balf a century? And thus he answer'd" Well, I do not know Why frequent travellers turn to pilgrims so; He died before my day of Sextonship,

And I had not the digging of this grave."
And is this all? I thought, and do we rip
The veil of Immortality? and crave

I know not what of honour and of light
Through unborn ages, to endure this blight ?
So soon, and so successless? As I said,
The Architect of all on which we tread,
For Earth is but a tombstone, did essay
To extricate remembrance from the clay,
Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's thought,
Were it not that all life must end in one,
Of which we are but dreamers; -as he caught
As 't were the twilight of a former Sun,
Thus spoke he," I believe the man of whom
You wot, who lies in this selected tomb,
Was a most famous writer in his day,
And therefore travellers step from out their way
To pay him honour,—and myself whate'er

Your honour pleases," then most pleased I shook
From out my pocket's avaricious nook
Some certain coins of silver, which as 't were
Perforce I gave this man, though I could spare
So much but inconveniently: - Ye smile,
I see ye, ye profane ones! all the while,
Because my homely phrase the truth would tell.
You are the fools, not I-for I did dwell
With a deep thought, and with a soften'd eye,
On that Old Sexton's natural homily,
In which there was Obscurity and Fame,-
The Glory and the Nothing of a Name, 3

Diodati, 1816

3 ["The Grave of Churchill might have called from Lord Byron a deeper commemoration; for, though they generally differed in character and genius, there was a resemblance be tween their history and character. The satire of Churchill flowed with a more profuse, though not a more embittered, stream; while, on the other hand, he cannot be compared to Lord Byron in point of tenderness or imagination. But both these poets held themselves above the opinion of the world, and both were followed by the fame and popularity which they seemed to despise. The writings of both exhibit an inborn, though sometimes ill-regulated, generosity of mind, and a spirit of proud independence, frequently pushed to extremes. Both carried their hatred of hypocrisy beyond the verge of prudence, and indulged their vein of satire to the borders of licentiousness. Both died in the flower of their age in a foreign land."- SIR WALTER SCOTT.Churchill died at Boulogne, November 4. 1764, in the thirty-third year of his age." Though his associates obtained Christian burial for him, by bringing the body to Dover, where it was interred in the old cemetery which once belonged to the collegiate church of St. Martin, they inscribed upon his tombstone, in

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