TRANSLATION OF A ROMAIC LOVE SONG.

AH! Love was never yet without
The pang, the agony, the doubt,

Which rends my heart with ceaseless sigh,
While day and night roll darkling by.

Without one friend to hear my wo,
I faint, I die beneath the blow.
That Love had arrows, well I knew;
Alas! I find them poison'd too.

Birds, yet in freedom, shun the net

Which Love around your haunts hath set;
Or, circled by his fatal fire,

Your hearts shall burn, your hopes expire.

A bird of free and careless wing
Was I, through many a smiling spring;
But caught within the subtle snare
I burn, and feebly flutter there.

Who ne'er have loved, and loved in vain,
Can neither feel nor pity pain,
The cold repulse, the look askance,
The lightning of Love's angry glance.

In flattering dreams I deem'd thee mine;
Now hope, and he who hoped, decline;
Like melting wax, or withering flower,
I feel my passion, and thy power.

My light of life! ah, tell me why
That pouting lip, and alter'd eye?
My bird of love! my beauteous mate!

And art thou changed, and canst thou hate?

Mine eyes like wintry streams o'erflow:
What wretch with me would barter wo?
My bird! relent: one note could give
A charm, to bid thy lover live.

My curdling blood, my madd'ning brain,
In silent anguish I sustain;

And still thy heart, without partaking
One pang, exults-while mine is breaking.
Pour me the poison; fear not thou!
Thou canst not murder more than now:
I've lived to curse my natal day,
And Love, that thus can lingering slay.

My wounded soul, my bleeding breast,
Can patience preach thee into rest?
Alas! too late, I dearly know
That joy is harbinger of wo.

THOU ART NOT FALSE, BUT THOU ART
FICKLE.

THOU art not false, but thou art fickle,
To those thyself so fondly sought;
The tears that thou hast forced to trickle

Are doubly bitter from that thought:

'Tis this which breaks the heart thou grievest,
Too well thou lov'st-too soon thou leavest.

The wholly false the heart despises,
And spurns deceiver and deceit;
But she who not a thought disguises,
Whose love is as sincere as sweet,-
When she can change who loved so truly,
It feels what mine has felt so newly.

To dream of joy and wake to sorrow
Is doom'd to all who love or live;
And if, when conscious on the morrow,

We scarce our fancy can forgive,
That cheated us in slumber only,
To leave the waking soul more lonely,

What must they feel whom no false vision,
But truest, tenderest passion warm'd?
Sincere, but swift in sad transition;

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-
GIN OF LOVE."

THE "Origin of Love!"-Ah, why
That cruel question ask of me,
When thou mayst read in many an eye
He starts to life on seeing thee?

And shouldst thou seek his end to know:
My heart forbodes, my fears foresee,
He'll linger long in silent wo;

But live-until I cease to be.

REMEMBER HIM, WHOM PASSION'S
POWER.

REMEMBER him, whom passion's power
Severely, deeply, vainly proved:
Remember thou that dangerous hour

When neither fell, though both were loved.

That yielding breast, that melting eye
Too much invited to be bless'd:
That gentle prayer, that pleading sigh,
The wilder wish reproved, repress'd.

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,
Whose busy accents whisper blame,
Would do the heart that loved thee wrong,
And brand a nearly blighted name.

Think that, whate'er to others, thou
Hast seen each selfish thought subdued:
I bless thy purer soul even now,
Even now, in midnight solitude.

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!
And that too bitter moment o'er,
Oh! may such trial be thy last!

This heart, alas! perverted long,

Itself destroy'd might there destroy;
To meet thee in the glittering throng,
Would wake Presumption's hope of joy.

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
Had then less sacrificed to thine;

It felt not half so much to part,
As if its guilt had made thee mine.

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 common sense his thoughts could raise-
Why would they let him print his lays?

To me, divine Apollo, grant-0!
Hormilda's first and second canto,
I'm fitting up a new portmanteau;
And thus to furnish decent lining,
My own and others' bays I'm twining-
So, gentle Thurlow, throw me thine in.

TO LORD THURLOW.

"I lay my branch of laurel down,
Then thus to form Apollo's crown
Let every other bring his own."

Lord Thurlow's lines to Mr. Rogers.
"I lay my branch of laurel down.".
THOU "lay thy branch of laurel down!"
Why, what thou'st stole is not enow;

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-
To-morrow be with me, as soon as you can, sir,
All ready and dress'd for proceeding to spunge on
(According to compact) the wit in the dungeon-
Pray Phoebus at length our political malice
May not get us lodgings within the same palace!
I suppose that to-night you're engaged with some
codgers,

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,
Her dusky shadow mounts too high,

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,
And the wan lustre of thy features-caught
From contemplation-where serenely wrought,
Seems Sorrow's softness charm'd from its despair-
Have thrown such speaking sadness in thine air,

That-but I know thy blessed bosom fraught
With mines of unalloy'd and stainless thought-
I should have deem'd thee doom'd to earthly care.
With such an aspect, by his colors blent,

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,
And yet so lovely, that if Mirth could flush
Its rose of whiteness with the brightest blush,
My heart would wish away that ruder glow:
And dazzle not thy deep-blue eyes-but, oh!
While gazing on them sterner eyes will gush,
And into mine my mother's weakness rush,
Soft as the last drops round heaven's airy bow.
For, through thy long dark lashes low depending,
The soul of melancholy Gentleness
Gleams like a seraph from the sky descending,
Above all pain, yet pitying all distress;
At once such majesty with sweetness blending,
I worship more, but cannot love thee less.

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.
"TU MI CHAMAS."

IN moments to delight devoted,
"My life!" with tenderest tone, you cry;
Dear words! on which my heart had doted,
If youth could neither fade nor die.

To death even hours like these must roll,
Ah! then repeat those accents never;
Or change "my life!" into "my soul!"
Which, like my love, exists forever.

ANOTHER VERSION.

You call me still your life.-Oh! change the word-
Life is as transient as the inconstant sigh:
Say rather I'm your soul; more just that name,
For, like the soul, my love can never die.

THE DEVIL'S DRIVE;

AN UNFINISHED RHAPSODY.

THE Devil return'd to hell by two,
And he stay'd at home till five;
When he dined on some homicides done in ragoût,
And a rebel or so in an Irish stew,
And sausages made of a self-slain Jew-
And bethought himself what next to do,

"And," quoth he, "I'll take a drive.

I walk'd in the morning, I'll ride to-night;
In darkness my children take most delight,
And I'll see how my favorites thrive.

"And what shall I ride in?" quoth Lucifer then-
"If I follow'd my taste, indeed,

I should mount in a wagon of wounded men,
And smile to see them bleed.

But these will be furnish'd again and again,
And at present my purpose is speed;

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
By driving my favorite pace:

And they handle their reins with such a grace,
I have something for both at the end of their race.

"So now for the earth to take my chance."
Then up to the earth sprung he;

And making a jump from Moscow to France,
He stepp'd across the sea,

And rested his hoof on a turnpike road,
No very great way from a bishop's abode.

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,
That he hover'd a moment upon his way

To look upon Leipsic plain;

And so sweet to his eye was its sulphury glare,
And so soft to his ear was the cry of despair,

That he perch'd on a mountain of slain;
And he gazed with delight from its growing height,
Nor often on earth had he seen such a sight,
Nor his work done half as well:

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
Was the sound of a widow sighing:
And the sweetest sight was the icy tear,
Which horror froze in the blue eye clear
Of a maid by her lover lying-
As round her fell her long fair hair;

And she look'd to heaven with that phrensied air,
Which seem'd to ask if a God were there!
And, stretch'd by the wall of a ruin'd hut,
With its hollow cheek, and eyes half shut,

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,
And what did he there, I pray?

If his eyes were good, he but saw by night
What we see every day:

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,
Who bid pretty well—but they cheated him, though!

The Devil first saw, as he thought, the Mail,
Its coachman and his coat;

So instead of a pistol he cock'd his tail,

And seized him by the throat:

"Aha!" quoth he, "what have we here?
'Tis a new barouche, and an ancient peer!"

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,
His brothel, and his beer;

"Next to seeing a lord at the council board,
I would rather see him here."

The Devil gat next to Westminster,

[flat;

And he turn'd to "the room" of the Commons;
But he heard, as he purposed to enter in there,
That "the Lords" had received a summons;
And he thought, as a "quondam aristocrat,"
He might peep at the peers, though to hear them were
And he walk'd up the house so like one of our own,
That they say that he stood pretty near the throne.

He saw the Lord Liverpool seemingly wise,
The Lord Westmoreland certainly silly,
And Johnny of Norfolk-a man of some size-
And Chatham, so like his friend Billy;

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
Prince Regent being seen standing between the coffins of
Henry VIII. and Charles I, in the royal vault at Windsor.
FAMED for contemptuous breach of sacred ties,
By headless Charles see heartless Henry lies;
Between them stands another sceptred thing-
It moves, it reigns-in all but name, a king:
Charles to his people, Henry to his wife,
-In him the double tyrant starts to life:
Justice and death have mix'd their dust in vain,
Each royal vampire wakes to life again.
Ah, what can tombs avail!-since these disgorge
The blood and dust of both-to mould a George.1

Oh! thine be the gladness, and mine be the guilt!
Forgive me, adored one !-forsake, if thou wilt ;—
But the heart which is thine shall expire undebased,
And man shall not break it-whatever thou mayst

And stern to the haughty, but humble to thee,
This soul, in its bitterest blackness, shall be;
And our days seem as swift, and our moments more
sweet,

With thee by my side, than with worlds at our feet.

One sigh of thy sorrow, one look of thy love,
Shall turn me or fix, shall reward or reprove;
And the heartless may wonder at all I resign-
Thy lip shall reply, not to them, but to mine.

May, 1814.

ADDRESS INTENDED TO BE RECITED AT
THE CALEDONIAN MEETING.

WHO hath not glow'd above the page where fame
Hath fix'd high Caledon's unconquer'd name;
The mountain-land which spurn'd the Roman chain,
And baffled back the fiery-crested Dane,

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.]