GREAT Jove, to whose almighty throne
Both gods and mortals homage pay,
Ne'er may my soul thy power disown,
Thy dread behests ne'er disobey.
Oft shall the sacred victim fall

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,
Since first Hesione thy bride,
When placed aloft in godlike state,

The blushing beauty/by thy side,
Thou satt'st, while reverend Ocean smiled,
And mirthful strains the hours beguiled!
The Nymphs and Tritons danced around,'
Nor yet thy doom was fix'd, nor Jove relentless
frown'd. (1)

Harrow, Dec. 1, 1804.

FROM ANACREON.

[Μεσονυκτίοις ποθ ̓ ὧραις, κ. τ.
T. λ.]

"Twas now the hour when Night had driven
Her car half round yon sable heaven;
Boötes, only, seem'd to roll

His arctic charge around the Pole;
While mortals, lost in gentle sleep,
Forgot to smile, or ceased to weep:
At this lone hour, the Paphian boy,
Descending from the realms of joy,
Quick to my gate directs his course,
And knocks with all his little force.
My visions fled, alarm'd I rose,—
"What stranger breaks my blest repose?"
"Alas!" replies the wily child,
In faltering accents sweetly mild,
"A hapless infant here I roam,
Far from my dear maternal home.
Oh! shield me from the wintry blast!
The nightly storm is pouring fast;
No prowling robber lingers here,
A wandering baby who can fear?"
I heard his seeming artless tale,
I heard his sighs upon the gale:
My breast was never pity's foe,
But felt for all the baby's woe.
I drew the bar, and by the light
Young Love, the infant, met my sight;
His bow across his shoulders flung,
And thence his fatal quiver hung

(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
Would rankle soon within my heart).
With care I tend my weary guest,
His little fingers chill my breast;
His glossy curls, his azure wing,
Which droop with nightly showers, I wring:
His shivering limbs the embers warm.
And now, reviving from the storm,
Scarce had he felt his wonted glow,
Than swift he seized his slender bow:-
"I fain would know, my gentle host,"
He cried, "if this its strength has lost;
I fear, relax'd with midnight dews,
The strings their former aid refuse."
With poison tipt, his arrow flies,
Deep in my tortured heart it lies;
Then loud the joyous urchin laugh'd:-

I WISH to tune my quivering lyre
To deeds of fame and notes of fire;
To echo, from its rising swell,
How heroes fought and nations fell,
When Atreus' sons advanced to war,
Or Tyrian Cadmus roved afar;
But still, to martial strains unknown,
My lyre recurs to love alone. :
Fired with the hope of future fame,
I seek some nobler hero's name;
The dying chords are strung anew,
To war, to war, my harp is due:
With glowing strings, the epic strain
To Jove's great son I raise again;
Alcides and his glorious deeds,
Beneath whose arm the Hydra bleeds;
All, all in vain! my wayward lyre
Wakes silver notes of soft desire.
Adieu, ye chiefs renown'd in arms!
Adieu the clang of war's alarms!
To other deeds my soul is strung,
And sweeter notes shall now be sung;
My harp shall all its powers reveal
To tell the tale my heart must feel;
Love, Love alone, my lyre shall claim,
In songs of bliss and sighs of flame.

TO EMMA.

SINCE now the hour is come at last,

When you must quit your anxious lover;
Since now our dream of bliss is past,
One pang, my girl, and all is over.

Alas! that pang will be severe,

Which bids us part to meet no more;
Which tears me far from one so dear,
Departing for a distant shore.

Well! we have pass'd some happy hours,
And joy will mingle with our tears

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,
The shelter of our infant years;
Where, from this Gothic casement's height,
We view'd the lake, the park, the dell,
And still, though tears obstruct our sight,
We, lingering, look a last farewell

O'er fields through which we used to run,
And spend the hours in childish play,
O'er shades where, when our race was done,
Reposing on my breast you lay;
Whilst I, admiring, too remiss,

Forgot to scare the hovering flies,
Yet envied every fly the kiss

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,
Their hue invites my fervent kiss;
Yet I forego that bliss divine,

Alas! it were unhallow'd bliss.
Whene'er I dream of that pure breast,
How could I dwell upon its snows!
Yet is the daring wish represt,

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
Hast seen my ardent flame too well;
And shall I plead my passion now,

To make thy bosom's heaven a hell?
No! for thou never canst be mine,
United by the priest's decree:
By any ties but those divine,
Mine, my beloved, thou ne'er shalt be.
Then let the secret fire consume,
Let it consume, thou shalt not know:
With joy I court a certain doom,

Rather than spread its guilty glow.

I will not ease my tortured heart,
By driving dove-eyed peace from thine;
Rather than such a sting impart,

Each thought presumptuous I resign.

Yes! yield those lips, for which I'd brave
More than I here shall dare to tell;
Thy innocence and mine to save,—

I bid thee now a last farewell.
Yes! yield that breast, to seek despair,
And hope no more thy soft embrace;
Which to obtain my soul would dare

All, all reproach, but thy disgrace.
At least from guilt shalt thou be free,
No matron shall thy shame reprove;
Though cureless pangs may prey on me,
No martyr shalt thou be to love.

TO CAROLINE.

THINK'ST thou I saw thy beauteous eyes,
Suffused in tears, implore to stay;
And heard unmoved thy plenteous sighs,
Which said far more than words can say?
Though keen the grief thy tears exprest,
When love and hope lay both o'erthrown;
Yet still, my girl, this bleeding breast

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.
Thou couldst not feel my burning cheek,
Thy gushing tears had quench'd its flame;
And as thy tongue essay'd to speak,

In sighs alone it breathed my name.
And yet, my girl, we weep in vain,
In vain our fate in sighs deplore;
Remembrance only can remain,—
But that will make us weep the more.
Again, thou best beloved, adieu!

Ah! if thou canst, o'ercome regret,
Nor let thy mind past joys review,—
Our only hope is to forget!

The hour draws nigh, a few brief days will close,
To me, this little scene of joys and woes;
Each knell of Time now warns me to resign [mine:
Shades where Hope, Peace, and Friendship all were
Hope, that could vary like the rainbow's hue,
And gild their pinious as the moments flew;
Peace, that reflection never frown'd away,
By dreams of ill to cloud some future day;
Friendship, whose truth let childhood only tell;
Alas! they love not long who love so well.
To these adieu! nor let me linger o'er
Scenes hail'd, as exiles hail their native shore,
Receding slowly through the dark-blue deep,
Beheld by eyes that mourn, yet cannot weep.
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.(1)

1805.

ON A CHANGE OF MASTERS AT A GREAT
PUBLIC SCHOOL.(2)

WHERE are those honours, Ida! once your own,
When Probus (3) fill'd 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 Pomposus (4) where your Probus sate.

(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,
Pomposus holds you in his harsh control;
Pomposus, by no social virtue sway'd,
With florid jargon, and with vain parade;
With noisy nonsense, and new-fangled rules,
Such as were ne'er before enforced in schools.
Mistaking pedantry 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.
July 1805.

GRANTA. A MEDLEY.

“ Αργυρίαις λόγχαισι μάχου καὶ πάντα κρατήσαις;"
On! could Le Sage's (5) demon's gift
Be realized 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. (6)
Lo! candidates and voters lie (7)

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!
Each to some eloquence pretends,
Though neither will convince by that.

"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
A soul, if well matured, to bless mankind.
Ah! though myself, by nature haughty, wild,
Whom Indiscretion hail'd her favourite child;
Though every error stamps me for her own,
And dooms my fall, I fain would fall alone;
Though my proud heart no precept now can tame,
I love the virtues which I cannot claim.

"T is not enough, with other sons of power,
To gleam the lambent meteor of an hour;
To swell some peerage page in feeble pride,
With long-drawn names that grace no page beside;
Then share with titled crowds the common lot-
In life just gazed at, in the grave forgot;
While nought divides thee from the vulgar dead,
Except the dull cold stone that hides thy head,
The mouldering 'scutcheon, or the herald's roll,
That well-emblazon'd but neglected scroll,
Where lords, unhonour'd, in the tomb may find
One spot, to leave a worthless name behind;
There sleep, unnoticed as the gloomy vaults
That veil their dust, their follies, and their faults,
A race, with old armorial lists o'erspread,
In records destined never to be read.
Fain would I view thee, with prophetic eyes,
Exalted more among the good and wise,
A glorious and a long career pursue,
As first in rank, the first in talent too:
Spurn every vice, each little meanness shun;
Not Fortune's minion, but her noblest son.
Turn to the annals of a former day;
Bright are the deeds thine earlier sires display.
One, though a courtier, lived a man of worth,
And call'd, proud boast! the British drama forth. (5)
Another view, not less renown'd for wit;
Alike for courts, and camps, or senates fit;
Bold in the field, and favour'd by the Nine;
In every splendid part ordain'd to shine;
Far, far distinguish'd from the glittering throng,
The pride of princes, and the boast of song. (6)
Such were thy fathers: thus preserve their name;
Not heir to titles only, but to fame.

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:
Or, as Lear, I pour'd forth the deep imprecation,
By my daughters of kingdom and reason deprived;
Till, fired by loud plaudits (4) and self-adulation,
I regarded myself as a Garrick revived.

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,(5)

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."

TO M. S. G.

1806.

WHEN I dream that you love me, you'll surely forgive;
Extend not your anger to sleep;

For in visions alone your affection can live,-
I rise, and it leaves me to weep.

Then, Morpheus! envelop my faculties fast,
Shed o'er me your languor benign;

Should the dream of to-night but resemble the last,
What rapture celestial is mine!

They tell us that Slumber, the sister of Death,
Mortality's emblem is given;

To fate how I long to resign my frail breath,
If this be a foretaste of heaven!

Ah! frown not, sweet lady! unbend your soft brow,
Nor deem me too happy in this;

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,
Oh! think not my penance deficient!
When dreams of your presence my slumbers beguile,
To awake will be torture sufficient.

TO M

On! 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 form'd 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 gleaming 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 wouldst so far outshine the seven.

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.