by Byron
The Introduction is supplemented by a Table of Dates that situates a detailed chronology of Byron’s life and career in relation to prominent events in England and abroad, and indicates some of the other works of literature being published alongside his. The chronology extends past Bryon’s death to note the most important of the posthumous presentations of his life and works that preceded the publication of Murray’s landmark edition.
November 1995
A Fragment
When, to their airy hall, my fathers’ voice
Shall call my spirit, joyful in their choice;
When, pois’d upon the gale, my form shall ride,
Or, dark in mist, descend the mountain’s side:
5
Oh! may my shade behold no sculptur’d urns
To mark the spot where earth to earth returns!
No lengthen’d scroll, no praise-encumber’d stone;
My epitaph shall be my name alone:
If that with honour fail to crown my clay,
10
Oh! may no other fame my deeds repay!
That, only that, shall single out the spot;
By that remember’d, or with that forgot.
1803.
To Woman
Woman! experience might have told me
That all must love thee who behold thee:
Surely experience might have taught
Thy firmest promises are nought;
5
But, placed in all thy charms before me,
All I forget, but to adore thee.
Oh memory! thou choicest blessing
When join’d with hope, when still possessing;
But how much cursed by every lover
10
When hope is fled and passion’s over.
Woman, that fair and fond deceiver,
How prompt are striplings to believe her!
How throbs the pulse when first we view
The eye that rolls in glossy blue,
15
Or sparkles black, or mildly throws
A beam from under hazel brows!
How quick we credit every oath,
And hear her plight the willing troth!
Fondly we hope ’twill last for aye,
20
When, lo! she changes in a day.
This record will for ever stand,
‘Woman, thy vows are traced in sand.’
The Cornelian
No specious splendour of this stone
Endears it to my memory ever;
With lustre only once it shone,
And blushes modest as the giver.
5
Some, who can sneer at friendship’s ties,
Have, for my weakness, oft reproved me;
Yet still the simple gift I prize, –
For I am sure the giver loved me.
He offer’d it with downcast look,
10
As fearful that I might refuse it;
I told him when the gift I took,
My only fear should be to lose it.
This pledge attentively I view’d,
And sparkling as I held it near,
15
Methought one drop the stone bedew’d,
And ever since I’ve loved a tear.
Still, to adorn his humble youth,
Nor wealth nor birth their treasures yield;
But he who seeks the flowers of truth,
20
Must quit the garden for the field.
‘Tis not the plant uprear’d in sloth,
Which beauty shows, and sheds perfume;
The flowers which yield the most of both
In Nature’s wild luxuriance bloom.
25
Had Fortune aided Nature’s care,
For once forgetting to be blind,
His would have been an ample share,
If well proportion’d to his mind.
But had the goddess clearly seen,
30
His form had fix’d her fickle breast;
Her countless hoards would his have been,
And none remain’d to give the rest.
To Caroline
I
You say you love, and yet your eye
No symptom of that love conveys,
You say you love, yet know not why
Your cheek no sign of love betrays.
II
5
Ah! did that breast with ardour glow,
With me alone it joy could know,
Or feel with me the listless woe,
Which racks my heart when far from you.
III
Whene’er we meet, my blushes rise,
10
And mantle through my purpled cheek,
But yet no blush to mine replies,
Nor do those eyes your love bespeak.
IV
Your voice alone declares your flame,
And though so sweet it breathes my name,
15
Our passions still are not the same,
Though Love and Rapture still are new.
V
For e’en your lip seems steep’d in snow,
And, though so oft it meets my kiss,
It burns with no responsive glow,
20
Nor melts, like mine, in dewy bliss.
VI
Ah! what are words to love like mine,
Though uttered by a voice divine,
I still in murmurs must repine,
And think that love can ne’er be true,
VII
25
Which meets me with no joyous sign;
Without a sigh which bids adieu:
How different is that love from mine,
Which feels such grief when leaving you.
VIII
Your image fills my anxious breast,
30
Till day declines adown the West,
And when, at night, I sink to rest,
In dreams your fancied form I view.
IX
‘Tis then, your breast, no longer cold,
With equal ardour seems to burn,
35
While close your arms around me fold,
Your lips my kiss with warmth return.
X
Ah! would these joyous moments last!
Vain HOPE! the gay delusion’s past;
That voice! – ah! no, ’tis but the blast,
40
Which echoes through the neighbouring grove!
XI
But, when awake, your lips I seek,
And clasp, enraptur’d, all your charms,
So chills the pressure of your cheek,
I fold a statue in my arms.
XII
45
If thus, when to my heart embrac’d,
No pleasure in your eyes is trac’d,
You may be prudent, fair, and chaste,
But ah! my girl, you do not love!
ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS
A Satire
‘I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew!
Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers.’
SHAKSPEARE.
‘Such shameless bards we have; and yet ’tis true,
There are as mad, abandon’d critics too.’
POPE.
PREFACE1
All my friends, learned and unlearned, have urged me not to publish this Satire with my name. If I were to be ‘turned from the career of my humour by quibbles quick, and paper bullets of the brain,’ I should have complied with their counsel. But I am not to be terrified by abuse, or bullied by reviewers, with or without arms. I can safely say that I have attacked none personally, who did not commence on the offensive. An author’s works are public property: he who purchases may judge, and publish his opinion if he pleases; and the authors I have endeavoured to commemorate may do by me as I have done by them. I dare say they will succeed better in condemning my scribblings, than in mending t
heir own. But my object is not to prove that I can write well, but, if possible, to make others write better.
As the poem has met with far more success than I expected, I have endeavoured in this edition to make some additions and alterations, to render it more worthy of public perusal.
In the first edition of this satire, published anonymously, fourteen lines on the subject of Bowles’s Pope were written by, and inserted at the request of, an ingenious friend of mine,1 who has now in the press a volume of poetry. In the present edition they are erased, and some of my own substituted in their stead; my only reason for this being that which I conceive would operate with any other person in the same manner, – a determination not to publish with my name any production, which was not entirely and exclusively my own composition.
With regard to the real talents of many of the poetical persons whose performances are mentioned or alluded to in the following pages, it is presumed by the author that there can be little difference of opinion in the public at large; though, like other sectaries, each has his separate tabernacle of proselytes, by whom his abilities are overrated, his faults overlooked, and his metrical canons received without scruple and without consideration. But the unquestionable possession of considerable genius by several of the writers here censured renders their mental prostitution more to be regretted. Imbecility may be pitied, or, at worst, laughed at and forgotten; perverted powers demand the most decided reprehension. No one can wish more than the author that some known and able writer had undertaken their exposure; but Mr Gifford has devoted himself to Massinger, and, in the absence of the regular physician, a country practitioner may, in cases of absolute necessity, be allowed to prescribe his nostrum to prevent the extension of so deplorable an epidemic, provided there be no quackery in his treatment of the malady. A caustic is here offered; as it is to be feared nothing short of actual cautery can recover the numerous patients afflicted with the present prevalent and distressing rabies for rhyming. – As to the Edinburgh Reviewers, it would indeed require an Hercules to crush the Hydra; but if the author succeeds in merely ‘bruising one of the heads of the serpent,’ though his own hand should suffer in the encounter, he will be amply satisfied.
Still must I hear?1 – shall hoarse Fitzgerald2 bawl
His creaking couplets in a tavern hall,3
And I not sing, lest, haply, Scotch reviews
Should dub me scribbler and denounce my muse?
5
Prepare for rhyme – I’ll publish, right or wrong:
Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.
Oh! nature’s noblest gift – my grey goose-quill!
Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will,
Torn from thy parent bird to form a pen,
10
That mighty instrument of little men!
The pen! foredoom’d to aid the mental throes
Of brains that labour, big with verse or prose,
Though nymphs forsake, and critics may deride,
The lover’s solace, and the author’s pride.
15
What wits! what poets dost thou daily raise!
How frequent is thy use, how small thy praise!
Condemn’d at length to be forgotten quite,
With all the pages which ’twas thine to write.
But thou, at least, mine own especial pen!
20
Once laid aside, but now assumed again,
Our task complete, like Hamlet’s shall be free;
Though spurn’d by others, yet beloved by me:
Then let us soar to-day; no common theme,
No eastern vision, no distemper’d dream4
25
Inspires – our path, though full of thorns, is plain;
Smooth be the verse, and easy be the strain.
When Vice triumphant holds her sov’reign sway,
Obey’d by all who nought beside obey;
When Folly, frequent harbinger of crime,
30
Bedecks her cap with bells of every clime;
When knaves and fools combined oer all prevail,
And weigh their justice in a golden scale;
E’en then the boldest start from public sneers,
Afraid of shame, unknown to other fears,
35
More darkly sin, by satire kept in awe,
And shrink from ridicule, though not from law.
Such is the force of wit! but not belong
To me the arrows of satiric song;
The royal vices of our age demand
40
A keener weapon, and a mightier hand.
Still there are follies, e’en for me to chase,
And yield at least amusement in the race:
Laugh when I laugh, I seek no other fame;
The cry is up, and scribblers are my game.
45
Speed, Pegasus! – ye strains of great and small,
Ode, epic, elegy, have at you all!
I too can scrawl, and once upon a time
I pour’d along the town a flood of rhyme,
A schoolboy freak, unworthy praise or blame;
50
I printed – older children do the same.
‘Tis pleasant, sure, to see one’s name in print;
A book’s a book, although there’s nothing in’t.
Not that a title’s sounding charm can save
Or scrawl or scribbler from an equal grave:
55
This Lambe must own, since his patrician name
Fail’d to preserve the spurious farce from shame.1
No matter, Geore continues still to write,2
Though now the name is veil’d from public sight.
Moved by the great example, I pursue
60
The selfsame road, but make my own review
Not seek great Jeffrey’s, yet, like him, will be
Self-constituted judge of poesy.
A man must serve his time to ev’ry trade
Save censure – critics all are ready made.
65
Take hackney’d jokes from Miller got by rote
With just enough of learning to misquote;
A mind well skill’d to find or forge a fault;
A turn for punning, call it Attic salt;
To Jeffrey go, be silent and discreet,
70
His pay is just ten sterling pounds per sheet:
Fear not to lie, ’twill seem a sharper hit;
Shrink not from blasphemy, ’twill pass for wit;
Care not for feeling – pass your proper jest,
And stand a critic, hated yet caress’d.
75
And shall we own such judgment? no – as soon
Seek roses in December – ice in June;
Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff;
Believe a woman or an epitaph,
Or any other thing that’s false, before
80
You trust in critics, who themselves are sore;
Or yield one single thought to be misled
By Jeffrey’s heart, or Lambe’s Boeotian head.1
To these young tyrants,2 by themselves misplaced,
Combined usurpers on the throne of taste;
85
To these when authors bend in humble awe
And hail their voice as truth, their word as law -
While these are censors, ’twould be sin to spare;
While such are critics, why should I forbear?
But yet, so near all modern worthies run,
90
’Tis doubtful whom to seek, or whom to shun;
Nor know we when to spare, or where to strike,
Our bards and censors are so much alike.
Then should you ask me,1 why I venture o’er
The path which Pope and Gifford trod before;
95
If not yet sicken’d, you can still proceed:
Go on; my rhyme will tell you as you read
.
‘But hold!’ exclaims a friend, – ‘here’s some neglect:
This – that – and t’ other line seem incorrect.’
What then? the selfsame blunder Pope has got,
100
And careless Dryden – ‘Ay, but Pye has not:’ –
Indeed! – ’tis granted, faith! – but what care I?
Better to err with Pope, than shine with Pye.
Time was, ere yet in these degenerate days
Ignoble themes obtain’d mistaken praise,
105
When sense and wit with poesy allied,
No fabled graces, flourish’d side by side;
From the same fount their inspiration drew,
And rear’d by taste, bloom’d fairer as they grew.
Then in this happy isle a Pope’s pure strain
110
Sought the rapt soul to charm, nor sought in vain;
A polish’d nation’s praise aspired to claim,
And raised the people’s, as the poet’s fame.
Like him great Dryden pour’d the tide of song,
In stream less smooth, indeed, yet doubly strong.
115
Then Congreve’s scenes could cheer, or Otway’s melt –
For nature then an English audience felt.
But why these names, or greater still, retrace,
When all to feebler bards resign their place?
Yet to such times our lingering looks are cast,
120
When taste and reason with those times are past.
Now look around, and turn each trifling page,
Survey the precious works that please the age;
This truth at least let satire’s self allow;
No dearth of bards can be complain’d of now:
125
The loaded press beneath her labour groans,
And printers’ devils shake their weary bones;
While Southey’s epics cram the creaking shelves,
And Little’s lyrics shine in hot-press’d twelves.
Thus saith the preacher: ‘Nought beneath the sun
130
Is new;’ yet still from change to change we run:
What varied wonders tempt us as they pass!
The cow-pox, tractors, galvanism, and gas,
In turns appear, to make the vulgar stare,
Till the swoln bubble bursts – and all is air!
135
Nor less new schools of Poetry arise,
Where dull pretenders grapple for the prize:
O’er taste awhile these pseudo-bards prevail;