TRANSLATION OF A ROMAIC LOVE SONG. AH! Love was never yet without Which rends my heart with ceaseless sigh, Without one friend to hear my wo, Birds, yet in freedom, shun the net Which Love around your haunts hath set; Your hearts shall burn, your hopes expire. A bird of free and careless wing Who ne'er have loved, and loved in vain, In flattering dreams I deem'd thee mine; My light of life! ah, tell me why And art thou changed, and canst thou hate? Mine eyes like wintry streams o'erflow: My curdling blood, my madd'ning brain, And still thy heart, without partaking My wounded soul, my bleeding breast, THOU ART NOT FALSE, BUT THOU ART THOU art not false, but thou art fickle, Are doubly bitter from that thought: 'Tis this which breaks the heart thou grievest, The wholly false the heart despises, To dream of joy and wake to sorrow We scarce our fancy can forgive, What must they feel whom no false vision, As if a dream alone had charm'd? Ah! sure such grief is fancy's scheming, And all thy change can be but dreaming! ON BEING ASKED WHAT WAS THE "ORI- THE "Origin of Love!"-Ah, why And shouldst thou seek his end to know: But live-until I cease to be. REMEMBER HIM, WHOM PASSION'S REMEMBER him, whom passion's power When neither fell, though both were loved. That yielding breast, that melting eye Oh let me feel that all I lost But saved thee all that conscience fears; And blush for every pang it cost To spare the vain remorse of years. Yet think of this when many a tongue, Think that, whate'er to others, thou Oh, God! that we had met in time, Our hearts as fond, thy hand more free; When thou hadst loved without a crime, And I been less unworthy thee! Far may thy days, as heretofore, From this our gaudy world be pass'd! This heart, alas! perverted long, Itself destroy'd might there destroy; Then to the things whose bliss or wo, Like mine, is wild and worthless all, That world resign-such scenes forego, Where those who feel must surely fall. Thy youth, thy charms, thy tenderness, Thy soul from long seclusion pure; From what even here hath pass'd, may guess What there thy bosom must endure. Oh! pardon that imploring tear, Since not by Virtue shed in vain, My phrensy drew from eyes so dear; For me they shall not weep again. Though long and mournful must it be, The thought that we no more may meet; Yet I deserve the stern decree, And almost deem the sentence sweet. Still, had I loved thee less, my heart It felt not half so much to part, 1813. ON LORD THURLOW'S POEMS.' WHEN Thurlow this damn'd nonsense sent, (I hope I am not violent,) Nor men nor gods knew what he meant. And since not ev'n our Rogers' praise To me, divine Apollo, grant-0! TO LORD THURLOW. "I lay my branch of laurel down, Lord Thurlow's lines to Mr. Rogers. 1["Among the many gay hours we passed together in the spring of 1813, I remember particularly the wild flow of his spirits one evening, when we had accompanied Mr. Rogers home from some early assembly. It happened that our host had just received a presentation copy of a volume of poems, written professedly in imitation of the old English writers, and containing, like many of these models, a good deal that was striking and beautiful, mixed up with much that was trifling, fantastic, and absurd. In vain did Mr. Rogers, in justice to the author, endeavor to direct our attention to some of the beauties of the work. In this sort of hunt through the volume, we at length lighted on the discovery that our host, in addition to his sincere approbation of some of its contents, had also the motive of gratitude for standing by its author, as one of the poems was a warm and, I need not add, well-deserved panegyric on himself. The opening line of the poem was, as well as I can recollect, "When Rogers o'er this labor bent:' and Lord Byron undertook to read it aloud;-but he found it impossible to get beyond the TO THOMAS MOORE WRITTEN THE EVENING BEFORE HIS VISIT TO MR. LEIGH HUNT IN HORSEMONGER-LANE JAIL, MAY 19, 1813. Oн you, who in all names can tickle the town, Anacreon, Tom Little, Tom Moore, or Tom Brown,For haug me if I know of which you may most brag, Your Quarto two-pounds, or your Two-penny Post Bag; But now to my letter,-to yours 'tis an answer- And for Sotheby's Blues have deserted Sam Rogers; And I, though with cold I have nearly my death got, Must put on my breeches, and wait on the Heathcote, But to-morrow, at four, we will both play the Scurra, And you'll be Catullus, the Regent Mamurra. [First published, 1830.3 first two words. Our laughter had now increased to such a pitch that nothing could restrain it. Two or three times he began; but no sooner had the words When Rogers passed his lips, than our fit burst forth afresh,-till even Mr. Rogers himself, with all his feeling of our injustice, forund it impossible not to join us. A day or two after, Lord Byron sent me the following:- My dear Moore. Wher Rogers" must not see the enclosed, which I send for your perusal."-MOORE.] 2 [The reader who wishes to understand the full force of this scandalous insinuation is referred to Muretus's notes on a celebrated poem of Catullus, entitled In Casarem; but consisting, in fact, of savagely scornful abuse of the favorite Mamurra: IMPROMPTU, IN REPLY TO A FRIEND. WHEN, from the heart where Sorrow sits, And o'er the changing aspect flits, And clouds the brow, or fills the eye; Heed not that gloom, which soon shall sink: My thoughts their dungeon know too well; Back to my breast the wanderers shrink, And droop within their silent cell.' September, 1813. SONNET TO GENEVRA. THINE eyes' blue tenderness, thy long fair hair, That-but I know thy blessed bosom fraught When from his beauty-breathing pencil born, (Except that thou hast nothing to repent,) The Magdalen of Guido saw the mornSuch seem'st thou-but how much more excellent! With naught Remorse can claim-nor Virtue scorn. December 17, 1813.2 SONNET, TO THE SAME. THY cheek is pale with thought, but not from wo, December 17, 1813. [These verses are said to have dropped from the Poet's pen, to excuse a transient expression of melancholy which Overclouded the general gayety. It was impossible to observe his interesting countenance, expressive of a dejection belonging neither to his rank, his age, nor his success, without feeling an indefinable curiosity to ascertain whether it had a deeper cause than habit or constitutional temperament. It was obviously of a degree incalculably more senous than that alluded to by Prince Arthur "I remember when I was in France Young gentlemen would be as sad as night, Only for wantonness." But, howsoever derived, this, joined to Lord Byron's air of mingling in amusements and sports as if he contemned them, and felt that his sphere was far above the frivolous crowd which surrounded him, gave a strong effect of color FROM THE PORTUGUESE. IN moments to delight devoted, To death even hours like these must roll, ANOTHER VERSION. You call me still your life.-Oh! change the word- THE DEVIL'S DRIVE; AN UNFINISHED RHAPSODY. THE Devil return'd to hell by two, "And," quoth he, "I'll take a drive. I walk'd in the morning, I'll ride to-night; "And what shall I ride in?" quoth Lucifer then- I should mount in a wagon of wounded men, But these will be furnish'd again and again, To see my manor as much as I may, And watch that no souls shall be poach'd away. "I have a state-coach at Carlton House, A chariot in Seymour Place; But they're lent to two friends, who make me amends And they handle their reins with such a grace, "So now for the earth to take my chance." And making a jump from Moscow to France, And rested his hoof on a turnpike road, ing to a character whose tints were otherwise romantic.SIR WALTER SCOTT.] 2 ["Redde some Italian, and wrote two sonnets. I never wrote but one sonnet before, and that was not in earnest, and many years ago, as an exercise-and I will never write another. They are the most puling, petrifying, stupidly platonic compositions."-Byron Diary, 1813.] 3 ["I have lately written a wild, rambling, unfinished rhapsody, called The Devil's Drive,' the notion of which I took from Porson's Devil's Walk.'"-Byron Diary, 1812. "Of this strange, wild poem," says Moore, "the only copy that Lord Byron, I believe, ever wrote, he presented to Lord Holland. Though with a good deal of vigor and imagination, it is, for the most part, rather clumsily executed, wanting the point and condensation of those clever verses of Mr. Coleridge, which Lord Byron, adopting a notion long prevalent, has attributed to Professor Porson."] But first as he flew, I forgot to say, To look upon Leipsic plain; And so sweet to his eye was its sulphury glare, That he perch'd on a mountain of slain; For the field ran so red with the blood of the dead, That it blush'd like the waves of hell! Then loudly, and wildly, and long laugh'd he: "Methinks they have here little need of me!" 著 But the softest note that soothed his ear And she look'd to heaven with that phrensied air, A child of famine dying: And the carnage begun, when resistance is done, And the fall of the vainly flying! But the Devil has reach'd our cliffs so white, If his eyes were good, he but saw by night But he made a tour, and kept a journal Of all the wondrous sights nocturnal, And he sold it in shares to the Men of the Row, The Devil first saw, as he thought, the Mail, So instead of a pistol he cock'd his tail, And seized him by the throat: "Aha!" quoth he, "what have we here? So he sat him on his box again, And bade him have no fear, But be true to his club and stanch to his rein, "Next to seeing a lord at the council board, The Devil gat next to Westminster, [flat; And he turn'd to "the room" of the Commons; He saw the Lord Liverpool seemingly wise, 1["I cannot conceive how the Vault has got about; but so it is. It is too farouche; but truth to say, my sallies are not very playful."-Lord Byron to Mr. Moore, March 12, 1814.] 2["Thou hast asked me for a song, and I enclose you an Lines composed on the occasion of his Royal Highness the Oh! thine be the gladness, and mine be the guilt! And stern to the haughty, but humble to thee, With thee by my side, than with worlds at our feet. One sigh of thy sorrow, one look of thy love, May, 1814. ADDRESS INTENDED TO BE RECITED AT WHO hath not glow'd above the page where fame experiment, which has cost me something more than trouble, and is, therefore, less likely to be worth your taking any in your proposed setting. Now, if it be so, throw it into the fire without phrase."-Lord Byron to Mr. Moore, May 10, 1814.] Whose bright claymore and hardihood of hand The humbler ranks, the lowly brave, who bled May, 1814. I saw him, last week, at two balls and a party,- * The Czar's look, I own, was much brighter and brisker, Who, lovely as ever, seem'd just as delighted June, 1814. CONDOLATORY ADDRESS 2 TO SARAH COUNTESS OF JERSEY, ON THE PRINCE RE- If thus, fair Jersey, our desiring gaze FRAGMENT OF AN EPISTLE TO THOMAS Heir of his father's crown, and of his wits, MOORE. "WHAT say I?"-not a syllable further in prose; Here goes, for a swim on the stream of old Time, We are smother'd, at least, in respectable mud, If his corrupted eye, and wither'd heart, What can his vaulted gallery now disclose? Long may thy yet meridian lustre shine, ["The newspapers have got hold (I know not how) of the Condolatory Address to Lady Jersey on the picture-abduction by our Regent, and have published them-with my name, too, smack-without even asking leave, or inquiring whether or no! D-n their impudence, and d-n every thing. It has put me out of patience, and so-I shall say no more about it."-Byron Letters.] |