Lord Byron - Delphi Poets Series
Page 3
Its querulous grief, when in anguish like this.
Was my eye, ‘stead of tears, with red fury flakes bright’ning,
Would my lips breathe a flame which no stream could assuage
On our foes should my glance launch in vengeance its lightning,
With transport my tongue give loose to its rage.
But now tears and curses, alike unavailing,
Would add to the souls of our tyrants delight;
Could they view us our sad separation bewailing
Their merciless hearts would rejoice at the sight.
Yet still, though we bend with a feign’d resignation,
Life beams not for us with one ray that can cheer;
Love and hope upon earth bring no more consolation,
In the grave is our hope, for in life is our fear.
Oh! when, my adored, in the tomb will they place me,
Since, in life, love and friendship for ever are fled?
If again in the mansion of death I embrace thee,
Perhaps they will leave unmolested the dead.
STANZAS TO A LADY, WITH THE POEMS OF CAMOËNS
This votive pledge of fond esteem,
Perhaps, dear girl! for me thou’lt prize;
It sings of Love’s enchanting dream,
A theme we never can despise.
Who blames it but the envious fool,
The old and dssappointed maid;
Or pupil of the prudish school,
In single sorrow doom’d to fade?.
Then read, dear girl! with feeling read,
For thou wilt ne’er be one of those;
To thee in vain I shall not plead
In pity for the poet’s woes.
He was in sooth a genuine bard;
His was no faint, fictitious flame.
Like his, may love be thy reward,
But not thy hapless fate the same.
THE FIRST KISS OF LOVE
Away with your fictions of flimsy romance,
Those tissues of falsehood which folly has wove!
Give me the mild beam of the soul-breathing glance,
Or the rapture which dwells on the first kiss of love.
Ye rhymers, whose bosoms with phantasy glow,
Whose pastoral passions are made for the grove;
From what blest inspiration your sonnets would flow,
Could you ever tasted the first kiss love!
If Apollo should e’er his assistance refuse,
Or the Nine be disposed from your service to rove,
Invoke them no more, bid adieu to the muse,
And try the effect of the first kiss of love.
I hate you, ye cold compositions of art!
Though prudes may condemn me, and bigots reprove,
I court the effusions that spring from the heart,
Which throbs with delight to the first kiss of love.
Your shepherds, your flocks, those fantastical themes,
Perhaps may amuse, yet they never can move:
Arcadia displays but a region of dreams;
What are visions like these to the first kiss of love.
Oh! cease to affirm that man, since his birth,
From Adam till now, has with wretchedness strove;
Some portion of paradise still is on earth,
And Eden revives in the first kiss of love.
When age chills the blood, when our pleasures are past —
For years fleet away with the wings of the dove —
The dearest remembrance will still be the last,
Our sweetest memorial the first kiss of love.
ON A CHANGE OF MASTERS AT A GREAT PUBUC SCHOOL
WHERE are those honours, Ida! once yow own,
When Probus 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 where your Probus sate.
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.
TO THE DUKE OF DORSET
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 ;
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, nor far beneath the throne.
Yet, Dorset, let not this seduce thy soul
To shun fair science, or evade control,
Though passive tutors, 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; ‘twill 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;
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.
‘Tis not enough, with other sons of power
To gleam tile 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 vault
s
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 play.
One, though a Courtier, lived a man of worth,
And call’d, proud boast! the British drama forth.
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 distingish’d ish’d from the glittering throng,
The pride of princes, and the boast of song.
Such were thy fathers; thus preserve their name;
Not heir to titles only, but to fame.
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
Shades where Hope, Peace, and Friendship all were mine:
Hope, that could vary like the rainbow’s hue,
And gild their pinions 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 hall 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 non more saain 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 arc not breathed in vain,
The guardian seraph who directs thy fate
Will leave thee glorious, as he found thee great.
1805
FRAGMENT
WRITTEN SHORTLY AFTER THE
MARRIAGE OF MISS 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.
1805
GRANTA
A MEDLEY
OH! could Le Sage’s 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 Palreerston 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, rnay 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.
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 meres 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 Latin 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.
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 be scarcely 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
The devil a soul had stay’d to hear.
But if I scribble longer now
The deuce 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.
1806
ON A DISTANT VIEW OF THE VILLAGE AND SCHOOL OF THE HARROW HILL
Oh! mihi præteritos referat si Jupiter annos. —
Virgil
Ye scenes of my childhood, whose lov’d recollection
Embitters the present, compar’d 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 retrace 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 deny’d!
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 sun’s 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 depriv’d;
Till, fir’d by loud plaudits and self-adulation,
I regarded myself as a Garrick reviv’d.
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,