by Lord Byron
Wait not till teasing
All passion blight:
If once diminish’d,
Love’s reign is finish’d—
Then part in friendship-and hid goodnight.
So shall Affection
To recollection
The dear connexion
Bring back with joy:
You had not waited
Till, tired or hated,
Your passions sated
Began to cloy.
Your last embraces
Leave no cold traces—
The same fond faces
As through the past:
And eyes, the mirrors
Of your sweet errors,
Reflect but rapture—not least though last.
True, separations
Ask more than patience;
What desperations
From such have risen!
But yet remaining,
What is’t but chaining
Hearts which, once waning,
Beat ‘gainst their prison?
Time can but cloy love
And use destroy love:
The winged boy, Love,
Is but for boys—
You’ll find it torture,
Though sharper, shorter
To wean, and not wear out your joys.
On My Wedding-Day
Here’s a happy new year! but with reason
I beg you’ll permit me to say
Wish me many returns of the season,
But as few as you please of the dy.
January 2, 1820.
Epitaph For William Pitt
With death doom’d to grapple,
Beneath this cold slab, he
Who lied in the Chapel
Now lies in the Abbey.
Epigram
In digging up your bones, Tom Paine,
Will. Cobbett has done well:
You visit him on earth again,
He’ll visit you in hell.
Stanzas: When A Man Hath No Freedom
When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home,
Let him combat for that of his neighbours;
Let him think of the glories of Greece and of Rome,
And get knock’d on the head for his labours.
To do good to mankind is the chivalrous plan,
And, is always as nobly requited;
Then battle for freedom wherever you can,
And, if not shot or hang’d, you’ll get knighted.
Epigram: The World Is A Bundle Of Hay
The world is a bundle of hay,
Mankind are the asses who pull;
Each tugs it a different way,
And the greatest of all is John Bull.
The Charity Ball
What matter the pangs of a husband and father,
If his sorrows in exile be great or be small,
So the Pharisee’s glories around her she gather,
And the saint patronizes her ‘charity ball!’
What matters—a heart which, though faulty, was feeling,
Be driven to excesses which once could appal—
That the sinner should suffer is only fair dealing,
As the saint keeps her charity back for ‘the ball’!
Epigram, On The Braziers’ Company Having Resolved To Present An Address To Queen Caroline
The braziers, it seems, are preparing to pass
An address, and present it themselves all in brass,—
A superfluous pageant-for, by the Lord Harry!
They’ll find where they’re going much more than they carry.
Epigram On My Wedding- Day To Penelope
This day, of all our days, has done
The worst for me and you :-
‘Tis just six years since we were one,
And five since we were two.
On My Thirty-Third Birthday, January 22, 1821
Through life’s dull road, so dim and dirty,
I have dragg’d to three-and-thirty.
What have these years left to me?
Nothing—except thirty-three.
Martial, Lib. I, Epig. I.
‘Hic est, quem legis, ille, quern requiris, Tota notus in orbe Martialis,’ &c.
He unto whom thou art so partial,
Oh, reader is the well-known Martial,
The Epigrammatist: while living,
Give him the fame thou wouldst be giving;
So shall he hear, and feel, and know it—
Post obits rarely reach a poet.
Bowles And Campbell
To the tune of ‘Why, how now, saucy jade?’
Why, how now, saucy Tom?
If you thus must ramble,
I will publish some
Remarks on Mister Campbell.
ANSWER
Why, how now, Billy Bowles?
Sure the priest is maudlin!
(To the public) How can you, d—n your souls!
Listen to his twaddling?
Epigrams
Oh, Castlereagh! thou art a patriot now;
Cato died for his country, so didst thou:
He perish’d rather than see Rome enslaved,
Thou cutt’ st thy throat that Britain may be saved!
So Castlereagh has cut his throat!—The worst
Of this is, – that his own was not the first.
So He has cut his throat at last Who?
The man who cut his country’s long ago.
Epitaph
Posterity will ne’er survey
A nobler grave than this:
Here lie the bones of Castlereagh:
Stop, traveler—
John Keats
Who killed John Keats?
‘I,’ says the Quarterly,
So savage and Tartarly;
‘‘Twas one of my feats.’
Who shot the arrow?
‘The poet-priest Milman
(So ready to kill man),
Or Southey or Barrow.
The Conquest
The Son of Love and Lord of War I sing;
Him who bade England bow to Normandy
And left the name of conqueror more than king
To his unconquerable dynasty.
Not fann’d alone by Victory’s fleeting wing,
He rear’d his bold and brilliant throne on high:
The Bastard kept, like lions, his prey fast,
And Britain’s bravest victor was the last.
To Mr. Murray (For Oxford And For Waldegrave)
For Oxford and for Waldegrave
You give much more than me you gave;
Which is not fairly to behave,
My Murray.
Because if a live dog, ‘tis said,
Be worth a lion fairly sped,
A live lord must be worth two dead,
My Murray.
And if, as the opinion goes,
Verse hath a better sale than prose—
Certes, I should have more than those,
My Murray.
But now this sheet is nearly cramm’d,
So, if you will, I shan’t be shamm’d,
And if you won’t, you may be damn’d,
My Murray.
The Irish Avatar
‘And Ireland, like a bastinadoed elephant,
kneeling to receive the paltry rider.’~Curran.
Ere the daughter of Brunswick is cold in her grave,
And her ashes still float to their home o’er the tide,
Lo! George the triumphant speeds over the wave,
To the long-cherish’d isle which he loved like his—bride!
True, the great of her bright and brief era are gone,
The rainbow-like epoch where Freedom could pause
For the few little years, out of centuries won,
Which betray’d not, or crush’d not, or wept not he
r cause.
True, the chains of the Catholic clank o’er his rags,
The castle still stands, and the senate’s no more,
And the famine which dwelt on her freedomless crags
Is extending its steps to her desolate shore.
To her desolate shore—where the emigrant stands
For a moment to gaze ere he flies from his hearth;
Tears fall on his chain, though it drops from his hands,
For the dungeon he quits is the place of his birth.
But he comes! the Messiah of royalty comes!
Like a goodly Leviathan roll’d from the waves;
Then receive him as best such an advent becomes,
With a legion of cooks, and an army of slaves!
He comes in the promise and bloom of threescore,
To perform in the pageant the sovereign’s part
But long live the shamrock, which shadows him o’er!
Could the green in his hat be transferr’d to his heart!
Could that long-wither’d spot but be verdant again,
And a new spring of noble affections arise
Then might freedom forgive thee this dance in thy chain,
And this shout of thy slavery which saddens the skies.
Is it madness or meanness which clings to thee now?
Were he God—as he is but the commonest clay,
With scarce fewer wrinkles than sins on his brow
Such servile devotion might shame him away.
Ay, roar in his train! let thine orators lash
Their fanciful spirits to pamper his pride
Not thus did thy Grattan indignantly flash
His soul o’er the freedom implored and denied.
Ever glorious Grattan! the best of the good!
So simple in heart, so sublime in the rest!
With all which Demosthenes wanted endued,
And his rival or victor in all he possess’d.
Ere Tully arose in the zenith of Rome,
Though unequall’d, preceded, the task was begun—
But Grattan sprung up like a god from the tomb
Of ages, the first, last, the saviour, the one!
With the skill of an Orpheus to soften the brute;
With the fire of Prometheus to kindle mankind
Even Tyranny listening sate melted or mute,
And Corruption shrunk scorch’d from the glance of his mind.
But back to our theme! Back to despots and slaves!
Feasts furnish’d by Famine! Rejoicings by Pain!
True freedom but welcomes, while slavery still raves,
When a week’s saturnalia hath loosen’d her chain.
Let the poor squalid splendour thy wreck can afford
(As the bankrupt’s profusion his ruin would hide),
Gild over the palace, Lo! Erin, thy lord!
Kiss his foot with thy blessing, his blessings denied!
Or if freedom past hope be extorted at last,
If the idol of brass find his feet are of clay,
Must what terror or policy wring forth be class’d
With what monarchs ne’er give, but as wolves yield their prey?
Each brute hath its nature; a king’s is to reign,
To reign! in that word see, ye ages, comprised
The cause of the curses all annals contain,
From Caesar the dreaded to George the despised!
Wear, Fingal, thy trapping! O’Connell, proclaim
His accomplishments! Hist!!! and thy country convince
Half an age’s contempt was an error of fame,
And that ‘Hal is the rascaliest, sweetest young prince!’
Will thy yard of blue riband, poor Fingal, recall
The fetters from millions of Catholic limbs?
Or, has it not bound thee the fastest of all
The slaves, who now hail their betrayer with hymns?
Ay! ‘Build him a dwelling!’ let each give his mite!
Till, like Babel, the new royal dome hath arisen!
Let thy beggars and helots their pittance unite –
And a palace bestow for a poor-house and prison!
Spread—spread, for Vitellius, the royal repast,
Till the gluttonous despot be stuff’d to the gorge!
And the roar of his drunkards proclaim him at last
The fourth of the fools and oppressors call’d ‘George!’
Let the tables be loaded with feasts till they groan!
Till they groan like thy people, through ages of woe!
Let the wine flow around the old Bacchanal’s throne,
Like their blood which has flow’d, and which yet has to flow.
But let not his name be thine idol alone
On his right hand behold a Sejanus appears!
Thine own Castlereagh! let him still be thine own!
A wretch never named but with curses and jeers!
Till now, when the isle which should blush for his birth,
Deep, deep as the gore which he shed on her soil,
Seems proud of the reptile which crawl ‘d from her earth,
And for murder repays him with shouts and a smile.
Without one single ray of her genius, without
The fancy, the manhood, the fire of her race
The miscreant who well might plunge Erin in doubt
If she ever gave birth to a being so base.
If she did—let her long-boasted proverb be hush’d,
Which proclaims that from Erin no reptile can spring
See the cold-blooded serpent, with venom full flush’d,
Still warming its folds in the breast of a king!
Shout, drink, feast, and flatter! Oh! Erin, how low
Wert thou sunk by misfortune and tyranny, till
Thy welcome of tyrants hath plunged thee below
The depth of thy deep in a deeper gulf still!
My voice, though but humble, was raised for thy right,
My vote, as a freeman’s, still voted thee free,
This hand, though but feeble, would arm in thy fight,
And this heart, though outworn, had a throb still for thee!
Yes, I loved thee and thine, though thou art not my land,
I have known noble hearts and great souls in thy sons,
And I wept with the world, o’er the patriot band
Who are gone, but I weep them no longer as once.
For happy are they now reposing afar,
Thy Grattan, thy Curran, thy Sheridan, all
Who, for years, were the chiefs in the eloquent war,
And redeem’d, if they have not retarded, thy fall.
Yes, happy are they in their cold English graves!
Their shades cannot start to thy shouts of today—
Nor the steps of enslavers and chain-kissing slaves
Be, stamp’d in the turf o’er their fetterless clay.
Till now I had envied thy sons and their shore,
Though their virtues were hunted, their liberties fled
There was something so warm and sublime in the core
Of an Irishman’s heart, that I envy—thy dead.
Or, if aught in my bosom can quench for an hour
My contempt for a nation so servile, though sore,
Which though trod like the worm will not turn upon power,
‘Tis the glory of Grattan, and genius of Moore!
Stanzas Written On The Road Between Florence And Pisa
Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story;
The days of our youth are the days of our glory;
And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty
Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.
What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled?
‘Tis but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled:
Then aw
ay with all such from the head that is hoary!
What care I for the wreaths that can only give glory?
O Fame! — if I e’er took delight in thy praises,
‘Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases,
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover
She thought that I was not unworthy to love her.
There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee;
Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee;
When it sparkled o’er aught that was bright in my story,
I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory.
Stanzas To A Hindoo Air
Oh! my lonely—lonely—lonely—Pillow!
Where is my lover? where is my lover?
Is it his bark which my dreary dreams discover?
Far—far away! and alone along the billow?
Oh! my lonely-lonely-lonely-Pillow!
Why must my head ache where his gentle brow lay?
How the long night flags lovelessly and slowly,
And my head droops over thee like the willow!
Oh! thou, my sad and solitary Pillow!
Send me kind dreams to keep my heart from breaking,
In return for the tears I shed upon thee waking;
Let me not die till he comes back o’er the billow.
Then if thou wilt—no more my lonely Pillow,
In one embrace let these arms again enfold him,
And then expire of the joy-but to behold him!
Oh! my lone bosom my lonely Pillow!
Impromptu
Beneath Blessington’s eyes
The reclaimed Paradise
Should be free as the former from evil;
But if the new Eve
For an Apple should grieve,
What mortal would not play the Devil.
To The Countess Of Blessington
You have ask’d for a verse:—the request
In a rhymer ‘twere strange to deny;
But my Hippocrene was but my breast,
And my feelings (its fountain) are dry.
Were I now as I was, I had sung
What Lawrence has painted so well;
But the strain would expire on my tongue,
And the theme is too soft for my shell.
I am ashes where once I was fire,
And the bard in my bosom is dead;
What I loved I now merely admire,
And my heart is as grey as my head.
My life is not dated by years—
There are moments which act as plough;
And there is not a furrow appears
But is deep in my soul as my brow.
Let the young and the brilliant aspire
To sing what I gaze on in vain;
For sorrow has torn from my lyre
The string which was worthy the strain.
On this Day I Complete my Thirty-Sixth Year
‘Tis time the heart should be unmoved,