by Lord Byron
Thy patrons wave a duodecimo!
(Best form for letters from a distant land,
It fits the pocket, nor fatigues the hand.)
Then go, once more the joyous work commence
With stores of anecdote, and grains of sense,
Oh may Mammas relent, and Sires forgive!
And scribbling Sons grow dutiful and live!
Constantinople, June 7th, 1810.
First published, Murray’s Magazine, 1887, vol. i. pp. 290, 291.
TO THE HONBLE MRS GEORGE LAMB.
1.
The sacred song that on mine ear
Yet vibrates from that voice of thine,
I heard, before, from one so dear —
‘T is strange it still appears divine.
2.
But, oh! so sweet that look and tone
To her and thee alike is given;
It seemed as if for me alone
That both had been recalled from Heaven!
3.
And though I never can redeem
The vision thus endeared to me;
I scarcely can regret my dream,
When realised again by thee.
1812.
First published in The Two Duchesses, by Vere Foster, 1898, p. 374.
ON A ROYAL VISIT TO THE VAULTS.
OR CÆSAR’S DISCOVERY OF C. I. AND H. 8. IN YE SAME VAULT.
Famed for their civil and domestic quarrels
See heartless Henry lies by headless Charles;
Between them stands another sceptred thing,
It lives, it reigns — “aye, every inch a king.”
Charles to his people, Henry to his wife,
In him the double tyrant starts to life:
Justice and Death have mixed their dust in vain.
The royal Vampires join and rise again.
What now can tombs avail, since these disgorge
The blood and dirt of both to mould a George!
ICH DIEN.
From this emblem what variance your motto evinces,
For the Man is his country’s — the Arms are the Prince’s!
c. 1814.
From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. A. H. Hallam Murray, first printed in 1904.
ANSWER TO — S PROFESSIONS OF AFFECTION.
In hearts like thine ne’er may I hold a place
Till I renounce all sense, all shame, all grace —
That seat, — like seats, the bane of Freedom’s realm,
But dear to those presiding at the helm —
Is basely purchased, not with gold alone;
Add Conscience, too, this bargain is your own —
‘T is thine to offer with corrupting art
The rotten borough of the human heart.
?1814.
From an autograph MS., first printed in 1904.
QUEM DEUS VULT PERDERE PRIUS DEMENTAT.
God maddens him whom’t is his will to lose,
And gives the choice of death or phrenzy — choose.
First published, Letters, 1900, iv. 93.
E NIHILO NIHIL
OR
AN EPIGRAM BEWITCHED.]
Of rhymes I printed seven volumes —
The list concludes John Murray’s columns:
Of these there have been few translations
For Gallic or Italian nations;
And one or two perhaps in German —
But in this last I can’t determine.
But then I only sung of passions
That do not suit with modern fashions;
Of Incest and such like diversions
Permitted only to the Persians,
Or Greeks to bring upon their stages —
But that was in the earlier ages
Besides my style is the romantic,
Which some call fine, and some call frantic;
While others are or would seem as sick
Of repetitions nicknamed Classic.
For my part all men must allow
Whatever I was, I’m classic now.
I saw and left my fault in time,
And chose a topic all sublime —
Wondrous as antient war or hero —
Then played and sung away like Nero,
Who sang of Rome, and I of Rizzo:
The subject has improved my wit so,
The first four lines the poet sees
Start forth in fourteen languages!
Though of seven volumes none before
Could ever reach the fame of four,
Henceforth I sacrifice all Glory
To the Rinaldo of my Story:
I’ve sung his health and appetite
(The last word’s not translated right —
He’s turned it, God knows how, to vigour)
I’ll sing them in a book that’s bigger.
Oh! Muse prepare for thy Ascension!
And generous Rizzo! thou my pension.
February, 1818.
From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, first printed in 1904.
BALLAD TO THE TUNE OF “SALLEY IN OUR ALLEY.”
1.
Of all the twice ten thousand bards
That ever penned a canto,
Whom Pudding or whom Praise rewards
For lining a portmanteau;
Of all the poets ever known,
From Grub-street to Fop’s Alley,
The Muse may boast — the World must own
There’s none like pretty Gally!
2.
He writes as well as any Miss,
Has published many a poem;
The shame is yours, the gain is his,
In case you should not know ‘em:
He has ten thousand pounds a year —
I do not mean to vally —
His songs at sixpence would be dear,
So give them gratis, Gaily!
3.
And if this statement should seem queer,
Or set down in a hurry,
Go, ask (if he will be sincere)
His bookseller — John Murray.
Come, say, how many have been sold,
And don’t stand shilly-shally,
Of bound and lettered, red and gold,
Well printed works of Gally.
4.
For Astley’s circus Upton writes,
And also for the Surry; (sic)
Fitzgerald weekly still recites,
Though grinning Critics worry:
Miss Holford’s Peg, and Sotheby’s Saul,
In fame exactly tally;
From Stationer’s Hall to Grocer’s Stall
They go — and so does Gally.
5.
He rode upon a Camel’s hump
Through Araby the sandy,
Which surely must have hurt the rump
Of this poetic dandy.
His rhymes are of the costive kind,
And barren as each valley
In deserts which he left behind
Has been the Muse of Gally.
6.
He has a Seat in Parliament,
Is fat and passing wealthy;
And surely he should be content
With these and being healthy:
But Great Ambition will misrule
Men at all risks to sally, —
Now makes a poet — now a fool,
And we know which — of Gally.
7.
Some in the playhouse like to row,
Some with the Watch to battle,
Exchanging many a midnight blow
To Music of the Rattle.
Some folks like rowing on the Thames,
Some rowing in an Alley,
But all the Row my fancy claims
Is rowing — of my Gally.
April 11, 1818.
ANOTHER SIMPLE BALLA
T.
1.
Mrs. Wilmot sate scribbling a play,
Mr. Sotheby sate sweating behind her;
But what are all these to the Lay
Of Gally i.o. the Grinder?
Gally i.o. i.o., etc.
2.
I bought me some books tother day,
And sent them down stairs to the binder;
But the Pastry Cook carried away
My Gally i.o. the Grinder.
Gally i.o. i.o., etc.
3.
I wanted to kindle my taper,
And called to the Maid to remind her;
And what should she bring me for paper
But Gally i.o. the Grinder.
Gally i.o. i.o., etc.
4.
Among my researches for Ease
I went where one’s certain to find her:
The first thing by her throne that one sees
Is Gally i.o. the Grinder.
Gally i.o. i.o., etc.
5.
Away with old Homer the blind —
I’ll show you a poet that’s blinder:
You may see him whene’er you’ve a mind
In Gally i.o. the Grinder.
Gally i.o. i.o., etc.
6.
Blindfold he runs groping for fame,
And hardly knows where he will find her:
She don’t seem to take to the name
Of Gally i.o. the Grinder.
Gally i.o. i.o., etc.
7.
Yet the Critics have been very kind,
And Mamma and his friends have been kinder;
But the greatest of Glory’s behind
For Gally i.o. the Grinder.
Gally i.o. i.o., etc.
April 11, 1818.
From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray,
first printed in 1904.
EPILOGUE.
1.
There’s something in a stupid ass,
And something in a heavy dunce;
But never since I went to school
I heard or saw so damned a fool
As William Wordsworth is for once.
2.
And now I’ve seen so great a fool
As William Wordsworth is for once;
I really wish that Peter Bell
And he who wrote it were in hell,
For writing nonsense for the nonce.
3.
It saw the “light in ninety-eight,”
Sweet babe of one and twenty years!
And then he gives it to the nation
And deems himself of Shakespeare’s peers!
4.
He gives the perfect work to light!
Will Wordsworth, if I might advise,
Content you with the praise you get
From Sir George Beaumont, Baronet,
And with your place in the Excise!
1819.
First published, Philadelphia Record, December 28, 1891.
MY BOY HOBBIE O.
New Song to the tune of:
“Whare hae ye been a’ day,
My boy Tammy O.!
Courting o’ a young thing
Just come frae her Mammie O.”
1.
How came you in Hob’s pound to cool,
My boy Hobbie O?
Because I bade the people pull
The House into the Lobby O.
2.
What did the House upon this call,
My boy Hobbie O?
They voted me to Newgate all,
Which is an awkward Jobby O.
3.
Who are now the people’s men,
My boy Hobbie O?
There’s I and Burdett — Gentlemen
And blackguard Hunt and Cobby O.
4.
You hate the house — why canvass, then?
My boy Hobbie O?
Because I would reform the den
As member for the Mobby O.
5.
Wherefore do you hate the Whigs,
My boy Hobbie O?
Because they want to run their rigs,
As under Walpole Bobby O.
6.
But when we at Cambridge were
My boy Hobbie O,
If my memory don’t err
You founded a Whig Clubbie O.
7.
When to the mob you make a speech,
My boy Hobbie O,
How do you keep without their reach
The watch within your fobby O?
8.
But never mind such petty things,
My boy Hobbie O;
God save the people — damn all Kings,
So let us Crown the Mobby O!
Yours truly,
(Signed) Infidus Scurra
March 23d, 1820.
First published Murray’s Magazine, March, 1887, vol. i. pp. 292, 293.
A VOLUME OF NONSENSE.
Dear Murray, —
You ask for a “Volume of Nonsense,”
Have all of your authors exhausted their store?
I thought you had published a good deal not long since.
And doubtless the Squadron are ready with more.
But on looking again, I perceive that the Species
Of “Nonsense” you want must be purely “facetious;”
And, as that is the case, you had best put to press
Mr. Sotheby’s tragedies now in M.S.,
Some Syrian Sally
From common-place Gally,
Or, if you prefer the bookmaking of women,
Take a spick and span “Sketch” of your feminine He-Man.
Sept. 28, 1820.
First published, Letters, 1900, v. 83.
LUCIETTA. A FRAGMENT.
Lucietta, my deary,
That fairest of faces!
Is made up of kisses;
But, in love, oft the case is
Even stranger than this is —
There’s another, that’s slyer,
Who touches me nigher, —
A Witch, an intriguer,
Whose manner and figure
Now piques me, excites me,
Torments and delights me —
Cætera desunt.
From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, first printed in 1904.
JOURNAL IN CEPHALONIA.
The dead have been awakened — shall I sleep?
The World’s at war with tyrants — shall I crouch?
The harvest’s ripe — and shall I pause to reap?
I slumber not; the thorn is in my Couch;
Each day a trumpet soundeth in mine ear,
Its echo in my heart — —
June 19, 1823.
First published, Letters, 1901, vi. 238.
SONG TO THE SULIOTES.
1.
Up to battle! Sons of Suli
Up, and do your duty duly!
There the wall — and there the Moat is:
Bouwah! Bouwah! Suliotes!
There is booty — there is Beauty,
Up my boys and do your duty.
2.
By the sally and the rally
Which defied the arms of Ali;
By your own dear native Highlands,
By your children in the islands,
Up and charge, my Stratiotes,
Bouwah! — Bouwah! — Suliotes!
3.
As our ploughshare is the Sabre:
Here’s the harvest of our labour;
For behind those battered breaches
Are our foes with all their riches:
There is Glory — there is plunder —
Then away despite of thunder!
From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, first printed in 1904.
LOVE AND DEATH.
1.
I watched thee when the foe was at our side,
Ready to strike at him — or thee and me.
Were safety hopeless — rather than divide
Aught with one loved save love and liberty.
2.
I watched thee on the breakers, when the rock
Received our prow and all was storm and fear,
And bade thee cling to me through every shock;
This arm would be thy bark, or breast thy bier.
3.
I watched thee when the fever glazed thine eyes,
Yielding my couch and stretched me on the ground,
When overworn with watching, ne’er to rise
From thence if thou an early grave hadst found.
4.
The earthquake came, and rocked the quivering wall,
And men and nature reeled as if with wine.
Whom did I seek around the tottering hall?
For thee. Whose safety first provide for? Thine.
5.
And when convulsive throes denied my breath
The faintest utterance to my fading thought,
To thee — to thee — e’en in the gasp of death
My spirit turned, oh! oftener than it ought.
6.
Thus much and more; and yet thou lov’st me not,
And never wilt! Love dwells not in our will.
Nor can I blame thee, though it be my lot
To strongly, wrongly, vainly love thee still.
First published, Murray’s Magazine, February, 1887, vol. i. pp. 145, 146.
LAST WORDS ON GREECE.
What are to me those honours or renown
Past or to come, a new-born people’s cry?
Albeit for such I could despise a crown
Of aught save laurel, or for such could die.
I am a fool of passion, and a frown
Of thine to me is as an adder’s eye.
To the poor bird whose pinion fluttering down
Wafts unto death the breast it bore so high;
Such is this maddening fascination grown,
So strong thy magic or so weak am I.
First published, Murray’s Magazine, February, 1887, vol. i. p. 146.
The Poems
Burgage Manor in Southwell, Nottinghamshire, where Byron lived with his mother in his early years
LIST OF POEMS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG LADY
TO E—
TO D—
EPITAPH ON A BELOVED FRIEND
A FRAGMENT
ON LEAVING NEWSTEAD ABBEY
LINES
ADRIAN’S ADDRESS TO HIS SOUL WHEN DYING
TRANSLATION FROM CATULLUS
TRANSLATION OF THE EPITAPH ON VIRGIL AND TIBULLUS
IMITATION OF TIBULLUS
TRANSLATION FROM CATULLUS
IMITATED FROM CATULLUS
TRANSLATION FROM HORACE
FROM ANACREON
FROM ANACREON
FROM THE PROMETHEUS VINCTUS OF ÆSCHYLUS
TO EMMA
TO M. S. G.
TO CAROLINE
TO CAROLINE
TO CAROLINE