WERE MY BOSOM AS FALSE AS THOU

And now on that mountain I stood on that day,

But I mark'd not the twilight beam melting away ; DEEM'ST IT TO BE.

Oh! would that the lightning had glared in its stead, WERE my bosom as false as thou deem'st it to be, And the thunderbolt burst on the conqueror's head! I need not bave wanderd from far Galilee ;

But the Gods of the Pagan shall never profane It was but abjuring my creed to efface

The shrine where Jehovah disdain'd not to reign; The curse which, thou say'st, is the crime of my race:

And scatter'd and scorn'd as thy people may be, If the bad never triumph, then God is with thee! Our worship, oh Father, is only for thee. If the slave only sin, thou art spotless and free ! If the Exile on earth is an Outcast on high, Live on in thy faith, but in mine I will die.

BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON WE SAT I have lost for that faith more than thou canst bestow,

DOWN AND WEPT.
As the God who permits thee to prosper doth know;

We sate down and wept by the waters
In his hand is my heart and my hope--and in thine
The land and the life which for him I resign.

Of Babel, and thought of the day
When our foe, in the hue of his slaughters,

Made Salem's high places his prey;

And ye, oh hor desolate daughters ! HEROD'S LAMENT FOR MARIAMNE.

Were scatter'd all weeping away. Oh, Mariamne! now for thee

While sadly we gazed on the river The beart for which thou blod'st is bleeding ;

Which rollid on in freedom below, Revenge is lost in agony,

They demanded the song; but, oh never And wild remorse to rage succeeding.

That triumph the stranger shall know! Oh, Mariamne! where art thou ?

May this right hand be wither'd forever, Thou canst not hear my bitter pleading.

Ere it string our high harp for the foe! Ah! couldst thou-thou wouldst pardon now,

On the willow that harp is suspended, Though Heaven were to my prayer unheeding.

Oh Salem ! its sound should be free; And is she dead?—and did they dare

And the hour when thy glories were ended

But left me that token of thee:
Obey my phrensy's jealous raving?
My wrath but doom'd my own despair:

And ne'er shall its soft tones be blended
The sword that smote her 's o'er me waving.-

With the voice of the spoiler by me! But thou art cold, my murder'd love !

And this dark heart is vainly craving For her who soars alone above,

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB. And leaves my soul unworthy saving.

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, She's gone, who shared my diadem;

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; She sunk, with her my joys entombing ;

And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, I swept that flower from Judah's stem,

When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. Whose leaves for me alone were blooming ;

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green, And mine's the guilt, and mine the hell,

That host with their banners at sunset were seen : This bosom's desolation dooming; And I have earn'd those tortures well,

Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown, Which unconsumed are still consuming!

That host on the morrow lay wither'd and strown.
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd;

And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill, ON THE DAY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew JERUSALEM BY TITUS.

still! from the last hill that looks on thy once holy dome And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, I beheld thee, oh Sion! when render'd to Rome: But through it there roll'd not the breath of his pride: Twas thy last sun went down, and the flames of thy fall And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, Flash'd back on the last glance I gave to thy wall. And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf. I look'd for thy temple, I look'd for my home, And there lay the rider distorted and pale, And forgot for a moment my bondage to come; With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail; I beheld but the death-fire that fed on thy fane, And the tents were all silent, the banners alone, And the fast fetter'd hands that made vengeance in vain. The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown. On many an eve, the high spot whence I gazed And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, Had reflected the last beam of day as it blazed ; And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal; While I stood on the height, and beheld the decline And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Of the rays from the mountain that shone on thy shrine. Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord !

(Mariamne, the wife of Herod the Great, falling under the suspicion of infidelity, was put to death by his order. She was a woman of unrivalled beauty, and a haughty spirit: unbappy in being the object of passionate attachment, which borderedon phrensy, to a man who had more or less concern in

the murder of her grandfather, father, brother, and uncle, and who had twice commanded her death, in case of his own. Ever after, Herod was haunted by the image of the murdered Mariamne, until disorder of the mind brought on disorder of the body, which led to temporary derangement.--MILMAN.)

These are words of deeper sorrow

Than the wail above the dead;
Both shall live, but every morrow

Wake us from a widow'd bed.
And when thou would solace gather,

When our child's first accents flow,
Wilt thou teach her to say

“ Father!"
Though his care she must forego ?
When her little hands shall press thee,

When her lip to thine is press'd,
Think of him whose prayer shall bless thee,

Think of him thy love had bless'd !

Fare thee well! and if forever,

Still forever, fare thee well: Even though unforgiving, never

'Gainst thee shall my heart rebel. Would that breast were bared before thee

Where thy head so oft hath lain, While that placid sleep came o'er thee

Which thou ne'er canst kuow again : Would that breast, by thee glanced over,

Every inmost thought could show! Then thou wouldst at last discover

'Twas not well to spurn it so. Though the world for this commend thee

Though it smile upon the blow,
Even its praises must offend thee,

Founded on another's wo:
Though my many faults defaced me,

Could no other arın be found,
Than the one which once embraced me,

To inflict a cureless wound?

Should her livcaments resemble

Those thou never more mayst see,
Then thy heart will softly tremble

With a pulse yet true to me.

All my faults perchance thou knowest,

All my madness none can know;
All my hopes, where'er thou goest,

Wither, yet with thee they go.
Every feeling hath been shaken ;

Pride, which not a world could bow,
Bows to thee—by thee forsaken,

Even my soul forsakes me now:

1[The Hebrew Melodies, though obviously inferior to opinion I consess my own to have, at first, strongly inchnel. Lord Byron's other works, display a skill in versification and suspicious as I could not help thinking the senti dett and a mastery in diction, which woull have raised an inse that could, at such a moment, indulge in such verses, Ibe rior artist to the very surnmit of distinction -JEFFREY.] taste that prompted or sanctioned their publication appie

2 [It was about the middle of April that hisiwo celebrated to me even suill more questionable. On realing, houeret, copies of verses, “ Fare thee well," and "- A Sketch," made his own account of all the circumstances in the Memorando their appearance in the newspapers: and while the latter I found that on both points I had, in common wub a iarze poem was generally, and, it must be owned, justly con portion of the public, done him injustice. He there descono demned, as a sort of literary assault on an obscure female, and in a manner whose sincerity there was no deb whose situation ought to have placed her is much beneath the swell of tender recollections under the infidence of his satire, as the undignified mole of his allack certainly which, as he sat one night, musing in his study, these stanzas raised her above it, with regard to the other poem, opinions were produced, --The lears, as he said, falling fast over the were a good deal more divided. To many it appeared a paper as he wrote them. Neither did it appear, from tha: strain of true conjugal tenderness,--a kind of appeal which account, to have been from any wish or intention of bus no woman with a heart could resist; while, by others, on own, but through the mjudicious zeal of a fneni sboan be the contrary, it was considered to be a mere showy effusion had suffered to take a copy, that the verses met ibe pidue of sentiment, as difficult for real feeling to have produced eye.- MOORE. The appearance of the MS. confirms the as it was easy for fancy and art, and altogether unworthy account of the circunstances under which it was written of the deep interests involved in the subject. To this latter It is blotted all over with the marks of tears.)

("I send you my last night's dream, and request to have use weltering in the wind,'' weltering on a gibbet?' I have ifty copies struck off, for private distribution. I wish Mr. no dictionary, so look. In the mean time, I have put festerGifford to look at them. They are from lise.”-- Lord Byron ing ;' which, perhaps, in any case is the best wor of the 10 M. Murray, March 30, 1816.)

two. Shakspeare bas it often, and I do not think it too * (lo first draughi-weltering."-"I doubt about wel. strong for the figure in this thing. Quick! quick: quick! lering. We say weitering in blood;' but do not they also quick!"--Lord Byron to Mr. Murray, April 2.)

"[The Poet's sister, the Honorable Mrs. Leigh-These says, “in printing the stanzas beginning, “Though the day of stanzas-the parting tribute to her, whose unshaken tender my destiny's,'&c., which I think well of as a composiboa") ness had been the author's sole consolation during the crisis

3 [" Though the days of my glory are orer, of domestic misery--were, we believe, the last verses writ

And the sun of my fame hath declined."-15) ten by Lord Byron in England. In a note to Mr. Rogers, dated April 16th, he says, "My sister is now with me, and

4 ["There is many a pang to pursue me, leaves town to-morrow : we shall not meet again for some

And many a peril to stem : time at all events,-if ever! and, under these circumstances,

They may torture, but shall not subdue me : I trust to stand excused to you and Mr. Sheridan, for being

They may crush, but they shall not contemn."-MS7 unable to wait upon him this evening.” On the 25th, the 5f" Though watchful, 'twas but to reclaim me, Poet took a last leave of his native country.]

Nor, silent, to sanction a lie."--MS.) 2 (These beautiful verses, so expressive of the writer's [These stanzas-Than which," says the Quarterly Re wounded feelings at the moment, were written in July, at the view, for January, 1831," there is, perbaps, noitung nore Campagne Diodati, near Geneva, and transmitted to England mournfully and desolately beautiful in the whole range of for publication, with some other pieces. “Be careful," he Lord Byron's poetry"--were also writien at Diodati; and