Admire their justice, which would fain deny The debt of nations:-pray, who made it high? XV. Or turn to sail between those shifting rocks, There Fortune plays, while Rumor holds the stake, 66 XVI. Strange sight this congress! destined to unite But those who sway the puppets, pull the strings, *The head of the illustrious house of Montmorenci has usually been designated "le premier baron Chrétien;" his ancestor having, it is supposed, been the first noble convert to Christianity in France. Lord Byron perhaps alludes to the well-known joke of Talleyrand, who, meeting the Duke of Montmorenci at the same party with M. Rothschild, soon after the latter had been ennobled by the emperor of Austria, is said to have begged leave to present M. le premier baron Juif to M. le premier baron Chrétien. + Monsieur Chateaubriand, who has not forgotten the au Enough of this-a sight more mournful woos The martial Argus, whose not hundred eyes vain, A sway surpassing that of Charlemagne, Which swept from Moscow to the southern seas! Of all her beams-while nations gaze and mourn- (If e'er those awful ashes can grow cold;- But, tired of foreign follies, I turn home, Here, reader, will we pause:-if there's no harm in This first you'll have, perhaps, a second "Car men. thor in the minister, received a handsome compliment at Verona from a literary sovereign: “Ah! Monsieur C., are you related to that Chateaubriand who-who-who has written something?" (écrit quelque chose!) It is said that the author of Atala repented him for a moment of his legitimacy. Count Capo d'Istrias, afterwards president of Greece. The count was murdered in September, 1831, by the brother and son of a Mainote chief whom he had imprisoned. The Duke de Montmorenci-Laval. [From Pope's verses on Lord Peterborough.] OCCASIONAL PIECES. 1807-1824. THE ADIEU. WRITTEN UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT THE ADIEU, thou Hill!* where early joy No more through Ida's paths we stray; Adieu, ye hoary Regal Fanes, Ye spires of Granta's vale, Ye comrades of the jovial hour, On Cama's verdant margin placed, Why did my childhood wander forth Why did I quit my Highland cave, Marr's dusky heath, and Dee's clear wave, Hall of my Sires! a long farewell- Thy vaults will echo back my knell, Thy towers my tomb will view: The faltering tongue which sung thy fall, Forgets its wonted simple note- Fields, which surround yon rustic cot, Streamlet along whose rippling surge At noontide heat their pliant course; And shall I here forget the scene, And thou, my Friend!|| whose gentle love Still near my breast thy gift I wear Of Love the pure, the sacred gem; All, all is dark and cheerless now! Can warm my veins with wonted glow, Not e'en the hope of future fame Or crown with fancied wreaths my head. Oh, Fame! thou goddess of my heart; But me she beckons from the earth, When I repose beneath the sod, § Mary Duff. See ante, p. 337, note. I Eddlestone, the Cambridge chorister. By nightly skies, and storms alone; No mortal eye will deign to steep With tears the dark sepulchral deep Which hides a name unknown. Forget this world, my restless sprite, To bigots and to sects unknown, Bow down beneath the Almighty's Throne; Father of Light! to thee I call; Thou, who canst mark the sparrow's fall, Thou, who canst guide the wandering star, Whose mantle is yon boundless sky, My thoughts, my words, my crimes forgive; And, since I soon must cease to live, Instruct me how to die. [1807. First published, 1832.] TO ANNE. Он, Anne! your offences to me have been grievous: I thought from my wrath no atonement could save you; But woman is made to command and deceive usI look'd in your face, and I almost forgave you. I vow'd I could ne'er for a moment respect you, Yet thought that a day's separation was long; When we met, I determined again to suspect youYour smile soon convinced me suspicion was wrong. I swore, in a transport of young indignation, And now all my wish, all my hope, 's to regain you. With beauty like yours, oh, how vain the contention! Thus lowly I sue for forgiveness before you; At once to conclude such a fruitless dissension, Be false, my sweet Anne, when I cease to adore you! [January 16, 1807. First published, 1832.] TO A VAIN LADY. Ан, heedless girl! why thus disclose What ne'er was meant for other ears? Why thus destroy thine own repose, And dig the source of future tears? Oh, thou wilt weep, imprudent maid, While lurking envious foes will smile, For all the follies thou hast said Of those who spoke but to beguile. Vain girl! thy ling'ring woes are nigh, If thou believ'st what striplings say: Oh, from the deep temptation fly, Nor fall the specious spoiler's prey. Dost thou repeat, in childish boast, While now amongst thy female peers Thou tell'st again the soothing tale, Canst thou not mark the rising sneers Duplicity in vain would veil? These tales in secret silence hush, Nor make thyself the public gaze: Will not the laughing boy despise Her who relates each fond conceitWho, thinking heaven is in her eyes, Yet cannot see the slight deceit ? For she who takes a soft delight These amorous nothings in revealing, [January 15, 1807. First published, 1832.] TO THE SAME. OH, say not, sweet Anne, that the Fates have decreed The heart which adores you should wish to dissever; Such Fates were to me most unkind ones indeed,- Your frowns, lovely girl, are the Fates which alone As the ivy and oak, in the forest entwined, Then say not, sweet Anne, that the Fates have decreed Your lover should bid you a lasting adieu; Till Fate can ordain that his bosom shall bleed, His soul, his existence, are centred in you. [1807. First published, 1852.] THY verse is "sad" enough, no doubt: A devilish deal more sad than witty! Why we should weep I can't find out, Unless for thee we weep in pity. Yet there is one I pity more; And much, alas! I think he needs it; For he, I'm sure, will suffer sore, Who, to his own misfortune, reads it. Thy rhymes, without the aid of magic, May once be read-but never after: Yet their effect 's by no means tragic, Although by far too dull for laughter. But would you make our bosoms bleed, ON FINDING A FAN. IN one who felt as once he felt, As when the ebbing flames are low, The aid which once improved their light, And bade them burn with fiercer glow, Now quenches all their blaze in night. Thus has it been with passion's firesAs many a boy and girl remembersWhile every hope of love expires, Extinguish'd with the dying embers. The first, though not a spark survive, Some careful hand may teach to burn; The last, alas! can ne'er survive; No touch can bid its warmth return. Or, if it chance to wake again, Not always doom'd its heat to smother, It sheds (so wayward Fates ordain) Its former warmth around another. [1807. First published, 1832.] FAREWELL TO THE MUSE. THOU Power! who hast ruled me through infancy's days, Young offspring of Fancy, 't is time we should part; The rise on the gale this the last of my lays, The coldest effusion which springs from my heart. This bosom, responsive to rapture no more, Shall hush thy wild notes, nor implore thee to sing; The feelings of childhood, which taught thee to soar, Are wafted far distant on Apathy's wing. Though simple the themes of my rude-flowing Lyre, My visions are flown, to return,-alas! never. When drain'd is the nectar which gladdens the bowl, How vain is the effort delight to prolong! When cold is the beauty which dwelt in my soul, What magic of Fancy can lengthen my song? Can the lips sing of Love in the desert alone, Of kisses and smiles which they now must resign? Or dwell with delight on the hours that are flown? Ah, no! for those hours can no longer be mine. Can they speak of the friends that I lived but love? Ah, surely affection ennobles the strain! But how can my numbers in sympathy move, When I scarcely can hope to behold them again! Can I sing of the deeds which my Fathers have done, And raise my loud harp to the fame of my Sires? For glories like theirs, oh, how faint is my tone! For Heroes' exploits how unequal my fires! Untouch'd, then, my Lyre shall reply to the blast"Tis hush'd; and my feeble endeavors are o'er; And those who have heard it will pardon the past. When they know that its murmurs shall vibrate They are past, and I water thy stem with my tears.— Thy decay not the weeds that surround thee can hide. I left thee, my Oak, and, since that fatal hour, But thou wert not fated affection to share- Ah, droop not, my Oak! lift thy head for a while; Ere twice round yon Glory this planet shall run, The hand of thy Master will teach thee to smile, When Infancy's years of probation are done. Oh, live then, my Oak! tow'r aloft from the weeds, That clog thy young growth, and assist thy decay, For still in thy bosom are life's early seeds, And still may thy branches their beauty display. cut down, as it grows in an improper place."-"I hope not, sir," replied the man; "for it's the one that my lord was so fond of, because he set it himself." The colonel, of course, took every possible care of it. It is inquired after, by strangers, as "THE BYRON OAK," and promises to share, in after times, the celebrity of Shakspeare's mulberry, and * Lord Byron, on his first arrival at Newstead, in 1798, planted an oak in the garden, and nourished the fancy, that as the tree flourished so should he. On revisiting the abbey, during Lord Grey de Ruthven's residence there, he found the oak choked up by weeds, and almost destroyed;-hence these lines. Shortly after Colonel Wildman (the proprietor) took possession, he one day noticed it, and said to the servant | Pope's willow. who was with him, “Here is a fine young oak; but it must be Oh! yet, if maturity's years may be thine, For centuries still may thy boughs lightly wave Remembrance still hallows the dust of the dead. And here, will they say, when in life's glowing prime, Perhaps he has pour'd forth his young simple lay, And here must he sleep, till the moments of time Are lost in the hours of Eternity's day. [1807. First published, 1832.] ON REVISITING HARROW.* HERE once engaged the stranger's view Young Friendship's record simply traced; Few were her words,-but yet, though few, Resentment's hand the line defaced. Deeply she cut-but not erased, The characters were still so plain, That Friendship once return'd, and gazed,— Till Memory hail'd the words again. Repentance placed them as before; Forgiveness join'd her gentle name; So fair the inscription seem'd once more, That Friendship thought it still the same. Thus might the Record now have been; But, ah, in spite of Hope's endeavor, Or Friendship's tears, Pride rush'd between, And blotted out the line for ever! * Some years ago, when at Harrow, a friend of the author engraved on a particular spot the names of both, with a few additional words, as a memorial. Afterwards, on receiving some real or imagined injury, the author destroyed the frail record before he left Harrow. On revisiting the place in 1807, he wrote under it these stanzas. "Whether these verses are, in any degree, founded on facts, I have no accurate means of determining. Fond as Lord Byron was of recording every particular of his youth, such an event, or rather era, as is here commemorated, And thou canst lisp a father's name- Her lowly grave the turf has prest, Why, let the world unfeeling frown, Oh, 't will be sweet in thee to trace, Although so young thy heedless sire, would have been, of all others, the least likely to pass unmentioned by him; and yet neither in conversation nor in any of his writings do I remember even an allusion to it. On the other hand, so entirely was all that he wrote,-making allowance for the embellishments of fancy,-the transcript of his actual life and feelings, that it is not easy to suppose a poem, so full of natural tenderness, to have been indebted for its origin to imagination alone."-MOORE. But see post, Don Juan, canto xvi., stanza lxi. |