GREAT Jove, to whose almighty throne In sea-girt Ocean's mossy hall; My voice shall raise no impious strain 'Gainst him who rules the sky and azure main. How different now thy joyless fate, The blushing beauty/by thy side, Harrow, Dec. 1, 1804. FROM ANACREON. [Μεσονυκτίοις ποθ ̓ ὧραις, κ. τ. "Twas now the hour when Night had driven His arctic charge around the Pole; (1) Lord Byron in one of his diaries says, "My first Har. row verses (that is, English, as exercises), a translation of a chorus from the Prometheus of Eschylus, were received by (Ah! little did I think the dart I WISH to tune my quivering lyre TO EMMA. SINCE now the hour is come at last, When you must quit your anxious lover; Alas! that pang will be severe, Which bids us part to meet no more; Well! we have pass'd some happy hours, Dr. Drury, my grand patron (our head master) but coolly. No one had, at that time, the least notion that I should subside into poesy."-L. E. When thinking on these ancient towers, O'er fields through which we used to run, Forgot to scare the hovering flies, It dared to give your slumbering eyes: See still the little painted bark, In which I row'd you o'er the lake; See there, high waving o'er the park, The elm I clamber'd for your sake. These times are past-our joys are gone, You leave me, leave this happy vale; These scenes I must retrace alone: Without thee what will they avail? Who can conceive, who has not proved, The anguish of a last embrace, When, torn from all you fondly loved, You bid a long adieu to peace? This is the deepest of our woes, For this these tears our cheeks bedew; This is of love the final close, Oh, God! the fondest, last adieu! TO M. S. G. WHENE'ER I view those lips of thine, Alas! it were unhallow'd bliss. For that would banish its repose. A glance from thy soul searching eye Can raise with hope, depress with fear; Yet I conceal my love-and why? I would not force a painful tear. I ne'er have told my love, yet thou To make thy bosom's heaven a hell? Rather than spread its guilty glow. I will not ease my tortured heart, Each thought presumptuous I resign. Yes! yield those lips, for which I'd brave I bid thee now a last farewell. All, all reproach, but thy disgrace. TO CAROLINE. THINK'ST thou I saw thy beauteous eyes, Throbb'd with deep sorrow as thine own. But when our cheeks with anguish glow'd, When thy sweet lips were join'd to mine, The tears that from my eyelids flow'd Were lost in those which fell from thine. In sighs alone it breathed my name. Ah! if thou canst, o'ercome regret, The hour draws nigh, a few brief days will close, Since chance has thrown us in the self-same sphere; Or hear, unless in crowds, thy well-known voice. To veil those feelings which perchance it ought; 1805. ON A CHANGE OF MASTERS AT A GREAT WHERE are those honours, Ida! once your own, (1) "I have just been, or rather ought to be, very much shocked by the death of the Duke of Dorset. We were at school together, and there I was passionately attached to him. Since, we have never met, but once, I think, since 1805-and it would be a paltry affectation to pretend that I had any feeling for him worth the name. But there was a time in my life when this event would have broken my heart; and all I can say for it now is, that-it is not worth breaking. The recollection of what I once felt, and ought to have felt now, but could not, set me pondering, and finally into the train of thought which you have in your hands."- Byron's Letters, 1815. (The verses referred to were those melancholy ones, beginning, There's not a joy the world can give, like that it takes away." -L. E. (2) In March, 1805, Dr. Drury retired from his situation of head-master at Harrow, and was succeeded by Dr. Butler. -L. E. (3) Dr. Drury, whom I plagued sufficiently, was the best, the kindest (and yet strict, too) friend I ever had; and I look upon him still as a father."-Diary. (4) "At Harrow I was a most unpopular boy, but led latterly, and have retained many of my school friendships, and all my dislikes except to Dr. Butler, whom I treated rebelliously, and have been sorry ever since."--Diary. Of narrow brain, yet of a narrower soul, GRANTA. A MEDLEY. “ Αργυρίαις λόγχαισι μάχου καὶ πάντα κρατήσαις;" Petty and Palmerston survey; All lull'd in sleep, a goodly number: A race renown'd for piety, Whose conscience won't disturb their slumber. Lord H, (8) indeed, may not demur; Fellows are sage reflecting men: They know preferment can occur But very seldom,-now and then. They know the Chancellor has got Some pretty livings in disposal: Each hopes that one may be his lot, And therefore smiles on his proposal. Now from the soporific scene I'll turn mine eye, as night grows later, To view, unheeded and unseen, The studious sons of Alma Mater. The reconciliation which took place between him and Dr. Butler, before his departure for Greece, in 1809, is (says Moore) "one of those instances of placability and pliableness with which his life abounded. Not content with this private atonement to the Doctor, it was his intention, had he published another edition of the Hours of Idleness, to substitute, for the offensive verses against that gentleman, a frank avowal of the wrong he had been guilty of in giving vent to them."-L. E. (5) The Diable Boiteux of Le Sage, where Asmodeus, the demon, places Don Cleofas on an elevated situation, and unroofs the houses for inspection. (6) On the death of Mr. Pitt, in January, 1806, Lord Henry Petty and Lord Palmerston were candidates to represent the University of Cambridge in Parliament.-L. E. (7) The fourth and fifth stanzas ran, in the private volume, thus: "One on his power and place depends, The other on the Lord knows what! "The first, indeed, may not demur; Fellows are sage reflecting men," etc.-L. E. (8) Edward-Harvey Hawke, third Lord Hawke.-L. E. Now no more, the hours beguiling, Former favourite haunts I see; Now no more my Mary smiling Makes ye seem a heaven to me. (1) 1805. TO THE DUKE OF DORSET.(2) DORSET! whose early steps with mine have stray'd, Exploring every path of Ida's glade; Whom still affection taught me to defend, And made me less a tyrant than a friend, Though the harsh custom of our youthful band Bade thee obey, and gave me to command; (3) Thee, on whose head a few short years will shower The gift of riches and the pride of power; E'en now a name illustrious is thine own, Renown'd in rank, not far beneath the throne. Yet, Dorset! let not this seduce thy soul To shun fair science, or evade control; Though passive tutors, (4) fearful to dispraise The titled child, whose future breath may raise, View ducal errors with indulgent eyes, And wink at faults they tremble to chastise. When youthful parasites, who bend the knee To wealth, their golden idol, not to thee,And even in simple boyhood's opening dawn Some slaves are found to flatter and to fawn,When these declare, “that pomp alone should wait On one by birth predestined to be great; That books were only meant for drudging fools, That gallant spirits scorn the common rules;" Believe them not;-they point the path to shame, And seek to blast the honours of thy name. Turn to the few in Ida's early throng, Whose souls disdain not to condemn the wrong; Or if, amidst the comrades of thy youth, None dare to raise the sterner voice of truth, Ask thine own heart; 't will bid thee, boy, forbear; For well I know that virtue lingers there. Yes! I have mark'd thee many a passing day, But now new scenes invite me far away; (1) The circumstances which lent so peculiar an interest to Lord Byron's introduction to the family of Chaworth are sufficiently explained in Moore's Life. "The young lady herself combined," says the writer, "with the many worldly advantages that encircled her, much personal beauty, and a disposition the most amiable and attaching. Though already fully alive to her charms, it was at this period (1804) that the young poet seems to have drunk deepest of that fascination whose effects were to be so lasting; six short weeks which he passed in her company being sufficient to lay the foundation of a feeling for all life. With the summer holidays ended this dream of his youth. He saw Miss Chaworth once more in the succeeding year, and took his last farewell of her on that hill near Annesley, which, in his poem of The Dream, he describes so happily as 'crowned with a peculiar diadem.'" In August, 1805, she was married to John Musters, Esq.; and died at Wiverton Hall, in February, 1832, in consequence, it is believed, of the alarm and danger to which she had been exposed during the sack of Colwick Hall by a party of rioters from Nottingham. The unfortunate lady had been in a feeble state of health for several years, and she and her daughter were obliged to take shelter from the violence of the mob in a shrubbery, where, partly from cold, partly from terror, her constitution sustained a shock which it wanted vigour to resist. -L. E. (2) In looking over my papers to select a few additional poems for this second edition, I found the above lines, which I had totally forgotten, composed in the summer of 1805, a short time previous to my departure from Harrow. They were addressed to a young schoolfellow of high rank, who had been my frequent companion in some rambles through Yes! I have mark'd within that generous mind "T is not enough, with other sons of power, the neighbouring country: however, he never saw the lines, and most probably never will. As, on a re-perusal, I found them not worse than some other pieces in the collection, I have now published them, for the first time, after a slight revision. [George-John-Frederick, fourth Duke of Dorset, born November 15, 1793. This amiable nobleman was killed by a fall from his horse, while hunting near Dublin, February 22, 1815, being on a visit at the time to his mother, the duchessdowager, and her second husband, Charles Earl of Whitworth, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. —LE] (3) At every public school the junior boys are completely subservient to the upper forms, till they attain a seat in the higher classes. From this state of probation, very properly, no rank is exempt; but, after a certain period, they command in turn those who succeed. (4) Allow me to disclaim any personal allusions, even the most distant. I merely mention generally what is too often the weakness of preceptors. (5) "Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, created Earl of Dorset by James I. was one of the earliest and brightest ornaments to the poetry of his country, and the first who produced a regular drama."-Anderson's Poets. (6) "Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset, esteemed the most accomplished man of his day, was alike distinguished in the voluptuous court of Charles II. and the gloomy one of William III. He behaved with great gallantry in the sea-fight with the Dutch in 1665; on the day previous to which he com. posed his celebrated song, To all you ladies now at land.' His character has been drawn in the highest colours by Dryden, Pope, Prior, and Congreve."-Anderson's Poets. The school where, loud warn'd by the bell, we resorted, To pore o'er the precepts by pedagogues taught. Again I behold where for hours I have ponder'd, As reclining, at eve, on yon tombstone (1) I lay; Or round the steep brow of the churchyard I wander'd, To catch the last gleam of the sun's setting ray. I once more view the room, with spectators surrounded, Where, as Zanga (2), I trod on Alonzo o'erthrown; While, to swell my young pride, such applauses resounded, I fancied that Mossop (3) himself was outshone: Ye dreams of my boyhood, how much I regret you! While fate shall the shades of the future unroll! TO M. S. G. 1806. WHEN I dream that you love me, you'll surely forgive; For in visions alone your affection can live,- Then, Morpheus! envelop my faculties fast, Should the dream of to-night but resemble the last, They tell us that Slumber, the sister of Death, To fate how I long to resign my frail breath, Ah! frown not, sweet lady! unbend your soft brow, If I sin in my dream, I atone for it now, Thus doom'd but to gaze upon bliss. (I) They show a tomb in the churchyard at Harrow, commanding a view over Windsor, which was so well known to be his favourite resting-place, that the boys called it "Byron's Tomb ;" and here, they say, he used to sit for hours, wrapt in thought.-L. E. (2) For the display of his declamatory powers, on the speech-days, he selected always the most vehement passages; such as the speech of Zanga over the body of Alonzo, and Lear's address to the storm.-L. E. (3) Mossop, a contemporary of Garrick, famous for his performance of Zanga. (4) "My grand patron, Dr. Drury, had a great notion that I should turn out an orator, from my fluency, my turbulence, my voice, my copiousness of declamation, and my action." -Diary. (5) In the private volume the two last stanzas ran→→ Though in visions, sweet lady! perhaps you may smile, TO M On! did those eyes, instead of fire, With bright but mild affection shine, Howe'er those orbs may wildly beam, That fatal glance forbids esteem. The skies might claim thee for their own: Within those once-celestial eyes. These might the boldest sylph appal, But who can dare thine ardent gaze? "Tis said that Berenice's hair In stars adorns the vault of heaven; For did those eyes as planets roll, Thy sister-lights would scarce appear: E'en suns, which systems now control, Would twinkle dimly through their sphere.(6) TO MARY, ON RECEIVING BER PICTURE.(7) THIS faint resemblance of thy charms, Though strong as mortal art could give, My constant heart of fear disarms, Revives my hopes, and bids me live. Here I can trace the locks of gold 1806. Which round thy snowy forehead wave, The cheeks which sprung from beauty's mould, The lips which made me beauty's slave. "I thought this poor brain, fever'd even to madness, Of tears, as of reason, for ever was drain'd; But the drops which now flow down this bosom of sadness Convince me the springs have some moisture retain'd. "Sweet scenes of my childhood! your blest recollection Has wrung from these eyelids, to weeping long dead, In torrents the tears of my warmest affection, The last and the fondest I ever shall shed."-L. E. (6) "Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, Having some business, do intreat her eyes To twinkle in their spheres till they return."-Shaksp. (7) Of this "Mary," who is not to be confounded with the heiress of Annesley, or "Mary" of Aberdeen, all that has been ascertained is, that she was of an humble, if not equivocal, station in life, -and that she had long light golden hair, "of which," says Moore, "he used to show a lock, as well as her picture, among his friends."-L. E. |