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

DAMÆTAS.

Ix law an infant,' and in years a boy,
In wind a slave to every vicious joy ;
From every sense of shame and virtue wean'd;
In les an adept, in deceit a fiend;
D'erred in hypocrisy, while yet a child ;
Fickle as wind, of inclinations wild ;
Wonan his dupe, his heedless friend a tool ;
Old in the world, though scarcely broke from school ;
Dametas ran through all the maze of sin,
And icand the goal when others just begin:
Eren 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 bliss appears his bane.*

All I shall therefore say (whate'er
I think, is neither here nor there)
Is, that such lips, of looks endearing,
Were forro'd for better things than sneering:
Of smoothing 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 like a brother's :
My heart is given to some others;
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 tcasing,
At once I'll tell thee our opinion
Concerning woman's soft doininion :
Howe'er we gaze with admiration
On eyes of blue or lips carnation,
Howe'er the flowing locks attract us,
Howe'er those beanties 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 biuds us in your humble train,
To hail you queens of all creation,
Know, in a word, 'tis ANIMATION.

TO A LADY

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

3 IN DECEMBER TO MEET UIM IN THE GARDEN.

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, Nanght but cool indifference thrills us. Wouldst thou wandering hearts beguile, Smile at least, or seem to smile. Eves 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 lips—but here my modest Muse Her impulse chaste must needs refuse : She blushes, curt'sies, frowns-in short she Dreads lest the subject should transport me; And flying off in search of reason, Brings prudence back in proper season.

These locks, which fondly thus entwine,
In firmer chains our hearts confine,
Than all th’ unmeaning protestations
Which swell with pousense 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 sot the precedent,
Since Juliet first declared her passion
To form the place of assignation."

are of twenty-one.

In law every person is an infant who has not attained *** When I went up to Trinity, in 1805, at the age of Seventeen and a half,' I was miserable and untoward to a degree

. I was wretched at leaving Harrow-wretched at Din to Cambridge instead of Oxford--wretched from some intale domestic circumstances of different kinds; and, Cursequently, abont as unsocial as a wolf taken from the troup"-- Dhary. Mr. Moore adds, " The sort of life which atuag Byron led at this period, between the dissipations of Laslon ard of Cambridge, without a home to welcome, or even the roof of a single relative to receive him, was but

No more her heroes urge the chase,

Or roll the criinson tide of war.

But who was last of Alva's clan ?

Why grows the moss on Alva's stone ? Her towers resound no steps of man,

They echo to the gale alone.

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
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 th’ 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 forever after.

And when that gale is fierce and high,

A sound is heard in yonder hall ; It rises hoarsely through the sky,

And vibrates o'er the mouldering wall.

Yes, when the eddying tempest sighs,

It shakes the shield of Oscar brave; But there no more his banners rise,

No more his plumes of sable wave.

Fair shone the sun on Oscar's birth,

When Angus hail'd his eldest born ; The vassals round their chieftain's hearth

Crowd to applaud the happy morn. They feast upon the mountain deer,

The pibroch raised its piercing note : To gladden more their highland cheer,

The strains in martial numbers float:

OSCAR OF ALVA."

A TALE.

And they who heard the war-notes wild

Hoped that one day the pibroch’s strain Should play before the hero's child

While he should lead the tartan train.

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.

Another year is quickly passid,

And Angus hails another son ; His natal day is like the last,

Nor soon the jocund feast was done.

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 :

Taught by their sire to bend tho bow,

On Alva's dusky hills of wind, The boys in childhood chased the roe,

And left their hounds in speed behind

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;

While many an eye which ne'er again

Could mark the rising orb of day, Turn'd feebly from the gory plain,

Beheld in death her fading ray.

But ere their years of youth are o'er,

They mingle in the ranks of war; They lightly wheel the bright claymore,

And send the whistling arrow far.

Once to those eyes the lamp of Love,

They bless'd her dear propitious light; But now she glimmerd from above,

A sad, funereal torch of night.

Dark was the flow of Oscar's hair,

Wildly it stream'd along the gale ; But Allan's locks were bright and fair,

And pensive seem'd his cheek, and pale.

But Oscar own'd a hero's soul,

His dark eye shone through beams of truth ; Allan had early learn'd control,

And smooth his words had been from youth.

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

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 ihe uncovered whole length of a warrior, a prudish-looking lady, who seemed to have touched the age of desperation, after having attentively surveyed it through her glass, observed to

her party, that there was a great deal of indecorum in this picture. Madame S. shrewdly whispered in my ear, tidak the indecorum was in the remark.'

2 The catastrophe of this tale was suggested by the story of " Jeronyme and Lorenzo," in the first volume of Sci: ler's “ Armenian, or the Ghost-Seer." It also bears some resemblance to a scene in the third act of Macbeth."

:[Lord Byron falls into a very common error, that of Tristaking pibroch, which means a particular sort of tune fort the instrument on which it is played, the bagpipe. Almos every foreign tourist, Nodier, for example, does the same, The reader will find this little slip nouced in the articie from the Edinburgh Review appended to these pages.]