Dorset, farewell! I will not ask one part
Of sad remembrance in so young a heart:
The coming morrow from thy youthful mind
Will sweep my name, nor leave a trace behind.
And yet, perhaps, in some maturer year,
Since chance has thrown us in the self-same sphere,
Since the same senate, nay, the same debate,
May one day claim our suffrage for the state,
We hence may meet and pass each other by,
With faint regard, or cold and distant eye.
For me, in future, neither friend nor foe,
A stranger to thyself, thy weal or woe,
With thee no more again I hope to trace
The recollection of our early race;
No more, as once, in social hours rejoice,
Or hear, unless in crowds, thy well-known voice,
Still if the wishes of a heart untaught
To veil those feelings which perchance it ought,
If these, but let me cease the lengthen'd strain,-
Oh! if these wishes are not breathed in vain,
The guardian seraph who directs thy fate
Will leave thee glorious, as he found thee great.
ON A CHANGE OF MASTERS AT A GREAT PUBLIC
WHERE are those honours, Ida! once your own,
When Probus filled your magisterial throne?
As ancient Rome, fast falling to disgrace,
Hail'd a barbarian in her Cæsar's place,
So you, degenerate, share as hard a fate,
And seat Pomposust where your Probus sate.
Of narrow brain, yet of a narrower soul,
Pomposus holds you in his harsh control;
Pomposes, by no social virtue sway'd,
With florid jargon, and with vain parade;
With noisy nonsense, and new-frangled rules,
Such as were ne'er before enforced in schools.
Mistaking pendantry for learning's laws,
He governs, sanction'd but by self-applause,
With him the same dire fate attending Rome,
Ill-fated Ida! soon must stamp your doom:
Like her o'erthrown, for ever lost to fame,
No trace of science left you, but the name.
Dr Drury, head master of Harrow.
Dr Butler, with whom Byron, when at Harrow, was constantly in collision; Byron was afterwards ashamed of his conduct to Dr B., and had he published another edition of the Hours of Idleness, would have avowed the wrong.
WRITTEN SHORTLY AFTER THE MARRIAGE OF MISS MARY
CHAWORTH.*
HILLS of Annesley! bleak and barren,
Where my thoughtless childhood stray'd,
How the northern tempests warring.
Howl above thy tufted shade!
Now no more the hours beguiling,
Former favourite haunts I see;
Now no more my Mary smiling,
Makes ye seem a heaven to me.
GRANTA. A MEDLEY.
̓Αργυρέαις λόγχαισι μάχου καὶ πάντα Κρατήσαις.
OH! Could Le Sage'st demon's gift
Be realised at my desire,
This night my trembling form he'd lift
To place it on St Mary's spire.
Then would, unroof'd, old Granta's halls
Pedantic inmates full display;
Fellows who dream on lawn or stalls,
The price of venal votes to pay.
Then would I view each rival wight,
Petty and Palmerston survey;
Who canvass there with all their might,
Against the next elective day.
Lo! candidates and voters lie
All lull'd in sleep, a goodly number:
A race renown'd for piety,
Whose conscience won't disturb their slumber.
Lord H, 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
While he was at Harrow in 1804 he fell deeply in love with this young lady, who resided at Annesley, in the immediate neighbourhood of Newstead. Byron was in his sixteenth year, while the lady was about two years older. She liked him as a younger brother, and treated and laughed at him as a boy.
The Diable Boiteux of Le Sage, where Asmodeus, the demon, places Don Cleofas on an elevated situation, and unroofs the houses for inspection.-B.
There, in apartments small and damp
The candidate for college prizes
Sits poring by the midnight lamp;
Goes late to bed, yet early rises.
He surely well deserves to gain them,
With all the honours of his college,
Who, striving hardly to obtain them,
Thus seeks unprofitable knowledge:
Who sacrifices hours of rest
To scan precisely metres attic;
Or agitates his anxious breast
In solving problems mathematic:
Who reads false quantities in Seale,*
Or puzzles o'er the deep triangle;
Deprived of many a wholesome meal;
In barbarous Latint doom'd to wrangle:
Renouncing every pleasing page
From authors of historic use;
Preferring to the letter'd sage,
The square of the hypothenuse.‡
Still, harmless are these occupations,
That hurt none but the hapless student,
Compared with other recreations,
Which bring together the imprudent;
Whose daring revels shock the sight,
When vice and infamy combine,
When drunkenness and dice invite,
As every sense is steep'd in wine.
Not so the methodistic crew,
Who plans of reformation lay:
In humble attitude they sue,
And for the sins of others pray :
Forgetting that their pride of spirit,
Their exultation in their trial,
Detracts most largely from the merit
Of all their boasted self-denial.
"Tis morn :-from these I turn my sight.
What scene is this which meets the eye?
A numerous crowd, array'd in white,§
Across the green in numbers fly.
Loud rings in air the chapel bell;
'Tis hush'd-what sounds are these I hear?
The organ's soft celestial swell
Rolls deeply on the list'ning ear.
*Seale's publication on Greek Metres displays considerable talent and inge. nuity; but, as might be expected in so difficult a work, is not remarkable for асстасу.-В.
The Latin of the Schools is of the canine species, and not very intelligible.-B. The discovery of Pythagoras, that the square of the hypothenuse is equal to the squares of the other two sides of a right-angled triangle.-B.
§ On a saint's day the students wear surplices in chapel.-B.
To this is join'd the sacred song,
The royal minstrel's hallow'd strain;
Though he who hears the music long
Will never wish to hear again.
Our choir would scarcely be excused,
Even as a band of raw beginners;
All mercy now must be refused
To such a set of croaking sinners.
If David, when his toils were ended,
Had heard these blockheads sing before him,
To us his psalms had ne'er descended,-
In furious mood he would have tore 'em.
The luckless Israelites, when taken
By some inhuman tyrant's order,
Were ask'd to sing, by joy forsaken,
On Babylonian river's border.
Oh! had they sung in notes like these,
Inspired by stratagem or fear,
They might have set their hearts at ease,
a soul had stay'd to hear.
But if I scribble longer now,
The - a soul will stay to read
My pen is blunt, my ink is low;
"Tis almost time to stop, indeed.
Therefore, farewell, Old Granta's spires!
No more, like Cleofas, I fly;
No more thy theme my muse inspires :
The reader's tired, and so am I.
ON A DISTANT VIEW OF THE VILLAGE AND
SCHOOL OF HARROW ON THE HILL.
Oh! mihi præteritos referat si Jupiter annos.-VIRGIL.
YE scenes of my childhood, whose loved recollection
Embitters the present, compared with the past;
Where science first dawn'd on the powers of reflection,
And friendships were form'd, too romantic to last;
Where fancy yet joys to trace the resemblance
Of comrades, in friendship and mischief allied; How welcome to me your ne'er fading remembrance, Which rests in the bosom, though hope is denied!
Again I revisit the hills where we sported,
The streams where we swam, and the fields where we fought; 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 I lay;
Or round the steep brow of the churchyard I wander'd,
To catch the last gleam of the suns setting ray.
I once more view the room, with spectators surrounded,
Where, as Zanga, I trod on Alonzo o'erthrown;
While to swell my young pride, such applauses resounded,
I fancied that Mossop* himself was outshone:
Or, as Lear, I pour'd forth the deep imprecation.
By my daughters, of kingdom and reason deprived;
Till, fired by loud plaudits and self-adulation,
I regarded myself as a Garrick revived.t
Ye dreams of my boyhood, how much I regret you!
Unfaded your memory dwells in my breast;
Though sad and deserted, I ne'er can forget you:
Your pleasures may still be in. fancy possest.
To Ida full oft may remembrance restore me,
While fate shall the shades of the future unroll!
Since darkness o'ershadows the prospect before me,
More dear is the beam of the past to my soul.
But if, through the course of the years which await me.
Some new scene of pleasure should open to view,
I will say, while with rapture the thought shall elate me,
"Oh! such were the days which my infancy knew!"
OH! did those eyes, instead of fire,
With bright but mild affection shine,
Though they might kindle less desire,
Love, more than mortal would be thine.
For thou art formed so heavenly fair,
Howe'er those orbs may wildly beam,
We must admire, but still despair;
That fatal glance forbids esteem.
When Nature stamp'd thy beauteous birth,
So much perfection in thee shone,
She fear'd that, too divine for earth,
The skies might claim thee for their own:
Therefore, to guard her dearest work,
Lest angels might dispute the prize,
She bade a secret lightning lurk
Within those once celestial eyes.
These might the boldest sylph appal.
When beaming with meridian blaze;
Thy beauty must enrapture all;
But who can dare thine ardent gaze?
"Tis said that Berenice's hair
In stars adorns the vault of heaven;
But they would ne'er permit thee there,
Thou would'st so far outshine the seven.
A cotemporary of Garrick, famous for his performance of Zanga.-B.
At Harrow, Byron was famous for his power of declamation.
|