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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 "ORIGIN 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 forebodes, my fears foresee,
He'll linger long in silent woe;

But live-until I cease to be.

STANZAS.

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.

(1) The poems in question, as Moore states, "were written professedly in imitation of the old English writers, and contained, 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 (to whom a copy of the work had been presented), in justice to the author, endeavour to direct our attention to some of the beauties of the work. One of the poems was a warm and, I need not add, well-deserved panegyric on himself. opening line of the poem was, as well as I can recollect,

The

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 woe,

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 frenzy 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.

ON LORD THURLOW'S POEMS.(1) WHEN Thurlow this damn'd nonsense sent (I hope I am not violent),

Nor men nor gods knew what he meant.

And since not even our Rogers' praise

1813.

To common sense his thoughts could raiseWhy would they let him print his lays?

To me, divine Apollo, grant-0!
Hermilda'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.

When Rogers o'er this labour bent.' And Lord Byron undertook to read it aloud; but he found it impossible to get beyond the 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, found it impossible not to join us; and had the author himself been of the party, I question much whether he could have resisted the infection."-P. E. 109

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; And, were it lawfully thine own,

Does Rogers want it most, or thou? Keep to thyself thy wither'd bough,

Or send it back to Doctor Donne: Were justice done to both, I trow,

He'd have but little, and thou-none.

"Then thus to form Apollo's crown."
A crown! why, twist it how you will,
Thy chaplet must be foolscap still.
When next you visit Delphi's town,

Inquire amongst your fellow-lodgers,
They'll tell you Phoebus gave his crown,
Some years before your birth, to Rogers.

"Let every other bring his own." When coals to Newcastle are carried,

And owls sent to Athens, as wonders, From his spouse when the Regent's unmarried, Or Liverpool weeps o'er his blunders; When Tories and Whigs cease to quarrel, When Castlereagh's wife has an heir, Then Rogers shall ask us for laurel,

And thou shalt have plenty to spare.

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(1) It was in Horsemonger-lane prison, and not in Cold Bath Fields.-P. E.

(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 Cæsarem; but consisting, in fact, of savagely scornful abuse of the favourite Mamurra:

"Quis hoc potest videre? quis potest pati,
Nisi impudicus et vorax et helluo?

Mamurram habere quod comata Gallia

Habebat unctum, et ultima Britannia?" etc.-L. E.

(3) "These verses are said to have dropped from the poet's pen, to excuse a transient expression of melancholy which overclouded the general gaiety. 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

And I, though with cold I have nearly my death, Must put on my breeches, and wait on the Heathose, But to-morrow, at four, we will both play the Scars, And you'll be Catullus, the Regent Mamurra.(2)

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. (3) September, 1813.

SONNET, TO GENEVRA. THINK 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 despairHave thrown such speaking sadness in thine air,

That-but I know thy blessed bosom fraught With mines of unalloy'd and stainless thoughtI should have deem'd thee doom'd to earthly care. With such an aspect, by his colours 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 nought Remorse can claim-nor Virtue scorn. December 17, 1813.(4)

SONNET, TO THE SAME. THY cheek is pale with thought, but not from wee, 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, 1812.

it had a deeper cause than habit or constitutional tempers ment. It was obviously of a degree incalculably more serous 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 frivoles crowd which surrounded him, gave a strong effect of co louring to a character whose tints were otherwise romanti Walter Scott.-L. E.

(4) "Redde some Italian, and wrote two sonnets never wrote but one sonnet before, and that was not i earnest, and many years ago, as an exercise-and never write another. They are the most puling, petrify stupidly platonic compositions." Diary, 1813.-L.B.

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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 for ever.

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. (1)

Tax Devil return'd to hell by two,

And he stay'd at home till five;

When he dined on some homicides done in ragoút,
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 favourites thrive.

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

I should mount in a waggon 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 favourite 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.

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!

(I) "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." B. Diary, 1813.—“ Of this strange wild poem," says Moore, "the only copy that Lord Byron, I believe, ever wrote, he presented to Lord Hol1

Then loudly, and wildly, and long laugh'd he: "Methinks they have here little need of me!"

*

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 frenzied 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!

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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."

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The Devil gat next to Westminster,

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 flat;

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;
And he saw the tears in Lord Eldon's eyes,
Because the Catholics would not rise,

In spite of his prayers and his prophecies;
And he heard-which set Satan himself a staring-
A certain Chief Justice say something like swearing.
And the Devil was shock'd-and quoth he, "I must
For I find we have much better manners below; [go,
If thus he harangues when he passes my border,
I shall hint to friend Moloch to call him to order."

land. Though with a good deal of vigour 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."-L. E.

WINDSOR POETICS. (1)

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.

ODE TO NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. (2) "Expende Annibalem :-quot libras in duce summo Invenies ?" Juvenal, Sat. X. (3) "The Emperor Nepos was acknowledged by the Senate, by the Italians, and by the Provincials of Gaul; his moral virtues, and military talents, were loudly celebrated; and those who derived any private benefit from his government announced in prophetic strains the restoration of public felicity.

By this shameful abdication, he protracted his life a few years, in a very ambiguous state, between an Emperor and an exile, till—”

Gibbon's Decline and Fall, vol. vi. p. 220. (4)

"T is done--but yesterday a king!
And arm'd with kings to strive-
And now thou art a nameless thing:
So abject-yet alive!

Is this the man of thousand thrones,

Who strew'd our earth with hostile bones,
And can he thus survive? (5)

(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 B. to Mr. Moore.

It

"I am accused of ingratitude to a certain personage. is pretended that, after his civilities, I should not have spoken of him disrespectfully. Those epigrams were written long before my introduction to him; which was, after all, entirely accidental, and unsought for on my part. I met him one evening at Colonel J-'s. As the party was a small one, he could not help observing me; and as I made a considerable noise at that time, and was one of the lions of the day, he sent General -- to desire I would be presented to him. I would willingly have declined the honour, but could not with decency. His request was in the nature of a command. He was very polite, for he is the politest man in Europe, and paid me some compliments, that meant nothing. This was all the civility he ever showed me, and it does not burthen my conscience much." Medwin.-P. E. (2) The reader has seen that Lord Byron, when publishing The Corsair, in January, 1814, announced an apparently quite serious resolution to withdraw, for some years at least, from poetry. His letters, of the February and March following, abound in repetitions of the same determination. On the morning of the ninth of April, he writes-"No more rhyme for or rather from-me. I have taken my leave of that stage, and henceforth will mountebank it no longer." In the evening, a Gazette Extraordinary announced the abdication of Fontainebleau, and the poet violated his vows next morning, by composing this Ode, which he immediately published, though without his name. His diary says:— "April 10. To-day I have boxed one hour-written an Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte-copied it-eaten six biscuits-drunk four bottles of soda water, and redde away the rest of my time."-L. E.

(3)

Since he, miscall'd the Morning Star,
Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far.
Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind
Who bow'd so low the knee?
By gazing on thyself grown blind,
Thou taught'st the rest to see.
With might unquestion'd,-power to save,—
Thine only gift hath been the grave

To those that worshipp'd thee:
Nor till thy fall could mortals guess
Ambition's less than littleness!

Thanks for that lesson-it will teach
To after-warriors more
Than high Philosophy can preach,
And vainly preach'd before.
That spell upon the minds of men
Breaks never to unite again,

That led them to adore
Those pagod things of sabre-sway,
With fronts of brass, and feet of clay.

The triumph, and the vanity,

The rapture of the strife (6)— The earthquake voice of Victory,

To thee the breath of life; The sword, the sceptre, and that sway Which man seem'd made but to obey,

Wherewith renown was rife

All quell'd!-Dark Spirit! what must be The madness of thy memory!

The desolator desolate!

The victor overthrown! The arbiter of others' fate

A suppliant for his own!

Is it some yet imperial hope

That with such change can calmly cope? Or dread of death alone?

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I know not that this was ever done in the old world; at least, with regard to Hannibal: but, in the Statistical Ac count of Scotland, I find that Sir John Paterson bad the curiosity to collect, and weigh, the ashes of a person, s covered a few years since in the parish of Eccles; which be was happily enabled to do with great facility, as the side of the coffin was smooth, and the whole body visibi Wonderful to relate, he found the whole did not exceed in weight one ounce and a half! AND IS THIS ALL! Alas! quot libras itself is a satirical exaggeration." Gifford -LE'

(4) "I send you an additional motto from Gibbon, which you will find singularly appropriate." Lord B. to Mr. M. April 12. 1814.-L. E.

(5) "I don't know-but I think I, even I (an insect com pared with this creature), have set my life on casts not a millionth part of this man's. But, after all, a crown may i not be worth dying for. Yet, to outlive Lodi for this Ob that Juvenal or Johnson could rise from the dead! Er pende-quot libras in duce summo invenies?' I knew they! were light in the balance of mortality; but I thought the living dust weighed more carats. Alas! this imperial da mond hath a flaw in it, and is now hardly fit to stick in glazier's pencil;-the pen of the historian won't rate worth a ducat. Psha! something too much of this I won't give him up, even now; though all his admin have, like the Thanes, fallen from him." B. Diary, Apri -L. E.

(6) "Certaminis gaudia”—the expression of Attila his harangue to his army, previous to the battle of Chal given in Cassiodorus.

To die a prince-or live a slave-
Thy choice is most ignobly brave!

He who of old would rend the oak (1)
Dream'd not of the rebound!
Chain'd by the trunk he vainly broke-

Alone-how look'd he round?
Thou, in the sternness of thy strength,
An equal deed hast done at length,
And darker fate hast found:
He fell, the forest prowlers' prey;
But thou must eat thy heart away!

The Roman, (2) when his burning heart
Was slaked with blood of Rome,
Threw down the dagger-dared depart,
In savage grandeur, home.
He dared depart, in utter scorn
Of men that such a yoke had borne,
Yet left him such a doom!

His only glory was that hour
Of self-upheld abandon'd power.

The Spaniard, when the lust of sway
Had lost its quickening spell, (3)
Cast crowns for rosaries away,
An empire for a cell;
A strict accountant of his beads,
A subtle disputant on creeds,
His dotage trifled well: (4)
Yet better had he neither known

A bigot's shrine nor despot's throne. (5)

But thou-from thy reluctant hand

The thunderbolt is wrung

Too late thou leav'st the high command
To which thy weakness clung;

All evil spirit as thou art,

It is enough to grieve the heart

To see thine own unstrung;

To think that God's fair world hath been
The footstool of a thing so mean!

And Earth hath spilt her blood for him,
Who thus can hoard his own!
And monarchs bow'd the trembling limb,
And thank'd him for a throne!

(I) "Out of town six days. On my return, find my poor little pagod, Napoleon, pushed off his pedestal. It is his own fault. Like Milo, he would rend the oak; but it closed again, wedged his hands, and now the beasts-lion, bear, down to the dirtiest jackall-may all tear him. That Muscovite winter wedged his arms;-ever since, he has fought with his feet and teeth. The last may still leave their marks; and I guess now' (as the Yankees say), that he will yet play them a pass." B. Diary, April 8.-L. E. (2) Sylla. [We find the germ of this stanza in the diary of the evening before it was written:-"Methinks Sylla did better; for he revenged, and resigned in the height of his sway, red with the slaughter of his foes-the finest instance of glorious contempt of the rascals upon record. Dioclesian did well too-Amurath not amiss, had he become aught except a dervise-Charles the Fifth but so so; but Napoleon worst of all." B. Diary, April 9.]—L. E.

After

(3) "Alter potent spell' to 'quickening spell:' the first (as Polonias says) is a vile phrase,' and means nothing, besides being common-place and Rosa Matildaish. the resolution of not publishing, though our Ode is a thing of little length and less consequence, it will be better altogether that it is anonymous." Lord B. to Mr. M. April II. -L. E.

(4) Charles the Fifth, Emperor of Germany, and King of Spain, resigned, in 1555, his imperial crown to his brother Ferdinand, and the kingdom of Spain to his son Philip, and retired to a monastery in Estremadura, where he conformed, in his manner of living, to all the rigour of monastic

Fair Freedom! we may hold thee dear,
When thus thy mightiest foes their fear

In humblest guise have shown.
Oh! ne'er may tyrant leave behind
A brighter name to lure mankind!
Thine evil deeds are writ in gore,
Nor written thus in vain-
Thy triumphs tell of fame no more,
Or deepen every stain:

If thou hadst died as honour dies,
Some new Napoleon might arise,

To shame the world again-
But who would soar the solar height,
To set in such a starless night? (6)

Weigh'd in the balance, hero-dust
Is vile as vulgar clay;
Thy scales, Mortality! are just
To all that pass away:

But yet methought the living great
Some higher sparks should animate,
To dazzle and dismay:

Nor deem'd Contempt could thus make mirth Of these, the conquerors of the earth.

And she, proud Austria's mournful flower,
Thy still imperial bride;

How bears her breast the torturing hour?
Still clings she to thy side?
Must she too bend, must she too share
Thy late repentance, long despair,

Thou throneless homicide?

If still she loves thee, hoard that gem,
'Tis worth thy vanish'd diadem!(7)

Then haste thee to thy sullen Isle,
And gaze upon the sea;
That element may meet thy smile-
It ne'er was ruled by thee!
Or trace with thine all-idle hand
In loitering mood upon the sand

That Earth is now as free!
That Corinth's pedagogue (8) hath now
Transferr'd his by-word to thy brow.

austerity. Not satisfied with this, he dressed himself in
his shroud, was laid in his coffin with much solemnity,
joined in the prayers which were offered up for the rest of
his soul, and mingled his tears with those which his attend-
ants shed, as if they had been celebrating a real funeral.-L.E.
(5) "I looked," says Boswell, "into Lord Kaimes's
Sketches of the History of Man, and mentioned to Dr. John-
son his censure of Charles the Fifth, for celebrating his
funeral obsequies in his life-time, which, I told him, I had
been used to think a solemn and affecting act." JOHNSON.
"Why, sir, a man may dispose his mind to think so of that
act of Charles; but it is so liable to ridicule, that if one man
out of ten thousand laughs at it, he'll make the other nine
thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine laugh too."-
Croker's Boswell, vol. iv. p. 102.-L. E.
(6) In the MS.-

"But who would rise in brightest day

To set without one parting ray?"-L. E.

(7) It is well known that Count Neipperg, a gentleman in the suite of the Emperor of Austria, who was first presented to Maria Louisa within a few days after Napoleon's abdication, became, in the sequel, her chamberlain, and then her husband. He is said to have been a man of remarkably plain appearance. The Count died in 1831.-L. E. (8) Dionysius the Younger, esteemed a greater tyrant than his father, on being for the second time banished from Syracuse, retired to Corinth, where he was obliged to turn schoolmaster for a subsistence.-L. E.

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