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Gods! What may not come true, what dream divine,

If thus we are to drink the Delphic wine!

Remember too elsewhere a certain town,

Whose fame, you know, Cæsar will not hand down.

And pray, my Lord, in Italy take care,
You that are poet, and have pains to bear,
Of lovely girls, that step across the sight,
Like Houris in a heaven of warmth and light,
With rosy-cushioned mouths, in dimples set,
And ripe dark tresses, and glib eyes of jeta
The very language, from a woman's tongue,
Is worth the finest of all others sung.

And so adieu, dear Byron,-dear to me
For many a cause, disinterestedly;
First, for unconscious sympathy, when boys,
In friendship, and the Muse's trying joys ;-

Next for that frank surprise, when Moore and

you

Came to my cage, like warblers kind and true,

And told me, with your arts of cordial lying,
How well I looked, when you both thought me

dying ;

Next for a rank worn simply, and the scorn
Of those who trifle with an age free-born ;—
For early storms, on Fortune's basking shore,
That cut precocious ripeness to the core ;-
For faults unhidden, other's virtues owned;
Nay, unless Cant's to be at once enthroned,
For virtues too, with whatsoever blended,

And e'en were none possessed, for none pretended ;-
Lastly, for older friends,-fine hearts, held fast
Through every dash of chance, from first to last ;-
For taking spirit as it means to be,—

For a stretched hand, ever the same to me,-
And total, glorious want of vile hypocrisy.

Adieu, adieu :—I say no more.-God speed you! Remember what we all expect, who read you.

Hampstead, April, 1816.

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DEAR Tom, who enjoying your brooks and your bowers,

Live just like a bee, when he's flushest of flowers,— A maker of sweets, busy, sparkling, and singing,

Yet armed with an exquisite point too for stinging,

I owe you a letter, and having this time

A whole series to write to you, send them in rhyme ; For rhyme, with its air, and its step-springing tune, Helps me on, as a march does a soldier in June'; And when chattering to you, I've a something about

me,

That makes all my spirits come dancing from out me.

I told you, you know, you should have a detail
Of Hampstead's whole merits,-heath, wood, hill,

and vale,

And threatened in consequence (only admire

The metal one's turned to by dint of desire)
To draw you all near me,―vain dog that I was,-
As the bees are made swarm by the clinking of brass.

(By the bye, this comparison, well understood,— Is, modestly speaking, still better than good;

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