George Gordon Byron

1.

Away, ye gay landscapes, ye gardens of roses!
In you let the minions of luxury rove:
Restore me the rocks, where the snow-flake reposes,
Though still they are sacred to freedom and love:
Yet, Caledonia, belov'd are thy mountains,
Round their white summits though elements war:
Though cataracts foam 'stead of smooth-flowing fountains,
I sigh for the valley of dark Loch na Garr.


2.

Ah! there my young footsteps in infancy, wander'd:
My cap was the bonnet, my cloak was the plaid; [2]
On chieftains, long perish'd, my memory ponder'd,
As daily I strode through the pine-cover'd glade;
I sought not my home, till the day's dying glory
Gave place to the rays of the bright polar star;
For fancy was cheer'd, by traditional story,
...

As the author was discharging his Pistols in a Garden, Two Ladies passing near the spot were alarmed by the sound of a Bullet hissing near them, to one of whom the following stanzas were addressed the next morning. [2]


1.

Doubtless, sweet girl! the hissing lead,
Wafting destruction o'er thy charms
And hurtling o'er [3] thy lovely head,
Has fill'd that breast with fond alarms.


2.

Surely some envious Demon's force,
Vex'd to behold such beauty here,
Impell'd the bullet's viewless course,
Diverted from its first career.


3.

Yes! in that nearly fatal hour,
The ball obey'd some hell-born guide;
But Heaven, with interposing power,
In pity turn'd the death aside.


4.

Yet, ...

1.

Start not - nor deem my spirit fled:
In me behold the only skull,
From which, unlike a living head,
Whatever flows is never dull.


2.

I lived, I loved, I quaff'd, like thee:
I died: let earth my bones resign;
Fill up - thou canst not injure me;
The worm hath fouler lips than thine.


3.

Better to hold the sparkling grape,
Than nurse the earth-worm's slimy brood;
And circle in the goblet's shape
The drink of Gods, than reptile's food.

4.

Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone,
In aid of others' let me shine;
And when, alas! our brains are gone,
What nobler substitute than wine?


5.

Quaff while thou canst: another race,
When thou and thine, like me, are sped,

And thou wert sad - yet I was not with thee;
And thou wert sick, and yet I was not near;
Methought that Joy and Health alone could be
Where I was not - and pain and sorrow here!
And is it thus? - it is as I foretold,
And shall be more so; for the mind recoils
Upon itself, and the wrecked heart lies cold,
While Heaviness collects the shattered spoils.
It is not in the storm nor in the strife
We feel benumbed, and wish to be no more,
But in the after-silence on the shore,
When all is lost, except a little life.

I am too well avenged! - but 'twas my right;
Whate'er my sins might be, thou wert not sent
To be the Nemesis who should requite - [92]
Nor did Heaven choose so near an instrument.
Mercy is for the merciful! - if thou
Ha...

Spot of my youth! whose hoary branches sigh,
Swept by the breeze that fans thy cloudless sky;
Where now alone I muse, who oft have trod,
With those I loved, thy soft and verdant sod;
With those who, scatter'd far, perchance deplore,
Like me, the happy scenes they knew before:
Oh! as I trace again thy winding hill,
Mine eyes admire, my heart adores thee still,
Thou drooping Elm! beneath whose boughs I lay,
And frequent mus'd the twilight hours away;
Where, as they once were wont, my limbs recline,
But, ah! without the thoughts which then were mine:
How do thy branches, moaning to the blast,
Invite the bosom to recall the past,
And seem to whisper, as they gently swell,
"Take, while thou canst, a lingering, last farewell!"

When Fate shall chill, at length,...

"Away, away, - your flattering arts
May now betray some simpler hearts;
And you will smile at their believing,
And they shall weep at your deceiving."

1.

Dear BECHER, you tell me to mix with mankind;
I cannot deny such a precept is wise;
But retirement accords with the tone of my mind:
I will not descend to a world I despise.


2.

Did the Senate or Camp my exertions require,
Ambition might prompt me, at once, to go forth;
When Infancy's years of probation expire,
Perchance, I may strive to distinguish my birth.


3.

The fire, in the cavern of Etna, conceal'd,
Still mantles unseen in its secret recess;
At length, in a volume terrific, reveal'd,
No torrent can quench it, no bounds can repress.


4.

Oh! thus, the desire, in my bosom, for fame
Bids me live, but to hope for Posterity's praise.
Could I soar with the Phoenix on pinions of flame,
W...

QUESTION.

Nose and Chin that make a knocker,[hx]
Wrinkles that would puzzle Cocker;
Mouth that marks the envious Scorner,
With a Scorpion in each corner
Curling up his tail to sting you,[hy]
In the place that most may wring you;
Eyes of lead-like hue and gummy,
Carcase stolen from some mummy,
Bowels - (but they were forgotten,
Save the Liver, and that's rotten),
Skin all sallow, flesh all sodden,
Form the Devil would frighten G - d in.
Is't a Corpse stuck up for show,[580]
Galvanized at times to go?
With the Scripture has't connection,[hz]
New proof of the Resurrection?
Vampire, Ghost, or Goul (sic), what is it?
I would walk ten miles to miss it.



ANSWER.

Many p...

[Greek: Aeì d' aeí me pheugei.] - [Pseud.] ANACREON, [Greek: Eis chruson].


1.

The roses of Love glad the garden of life,
Though nurtur'd 'mid weeds dropping pestilent dew,
Till Time crops the leaves with unmerciful knife,
Or prunes them for ever, in Love's last adieu!


2.

In vain, with endearments, we soothe the sad heart,
In vain do we vow for an age to be true;
The chance of an hour may command us to part,
Or Death disunite us, in Love's last adieu!


3.

Still Hope, breathing peace, through the grief-swollen breast,
Will whisper, "Our meeting we yet may renew:"
With this dream of deceit, half our sorrow's represt,
Nor taste we the poison, of Love's last adieu!


4.

Oh! mark you yon pair,...

When the last sunshine of expiring Day
In Summer's twilight weeps itself away,
Who hath not felt the softness of the hour
Sink on the heart, as dew along the flower?
With a pure feeling which absorbs and awes
While Nature makes that melancholy pause -
Her breathing moment on the bridge where Time
Of light and darkness forms an arch sublime -
Who hath not shared that calm, so still and deep,
The voiceless thought which would not speak but weep,
A holy concord, and a bright regret,
A glorious sympathy with suns that set?[98]
'Tis not harsh sorrow, but a tenderer woe,
Nameless, but dear to gentle hearts below,
Felt without bitterness - but full and clear,
A sweet dejection - a transparent tear,
Unmixed with worldly grief or selfish stain -
Shed wi...

I.

Oh Venice! Venice! when thy marble walls
Are level with the waters, there shall be
A cry of nations o'er thy sunken halls,
A loud lament along the sweeping sea!
If I, a northern wanderer, weep for thee,
What should thy sons do? - anything but weep:
And yet they only murmur in their sleep.
In contrast with their fathers - as the slime,
The dull green ooze of the receding deep,
Is with the dashing of the spring-tide foam,
That drives the sailor shipless to his home,
Are they to those that were; and thus they creep,
Crouching and crab-like, through their sapping streets.
Oh! agony - that centuries should reap
No mellower harvest! Thirteen hundred years[235]
Of wealth and glory turned to dust and tears;
And every monument the stranger meet...

Motto.

On peut trouver des femmes qui n'ont jamais eu de galanterie, mais il est rare d'en trouver qui n'en aient jamais eu qu'une. - [Réflexions ... du Duc de la Rochefoucauld, No. lxxiii.]

1.

Lady! in whose heroic port
And Beauty, Victor even of Time,
And haughty lineaments, appear
Much that is awful, more that's dear -
Wherever human hearts resort
There must have been for thee a Court,
And Thou by acclamation Queen,
Where never Sovereign yet had been.
That eye so soft, and yet severe,
Perchance might look on Love as Crime;
And yet - regarding thee more near -
The traces of an unshed tear
Compressed back to the heart,
And mellowed Sadness in thine air,
Which shows that Love hath once been there,
To those who w...

Where are those honours, IDA! once your 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 controul;
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 enforc'd 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...

    Oh! mihi præteritos referat si Jupiter annos.[1]

    - Virgil.


1.

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; [2]

2.

Where fancy, yet, joys to retrace the resemblance
Of comrades, in friendship and mischief allied; [3]
How welcome to me your ne'er fading remembrance,
Which rests in the bosom, though hope is deny'd!


3.

Again I revisit the hills where we sported,
The streams where we swam, and the fields where we fought; [4]
The school where, loud warn'd by the bell, we resorted,
To pore o'er the precep...

1.

In one who felt as once he felt,
This might, perhaps, have fann'd the flame;
But now his heart no more will melt,
Because that heart is not the same.


2.

As when the ebbing flames are low,
The aid which once improved their light,
And bade them burn with fiercer glow,
Now quenches all their blaze in night.


3.

Thus has it been with Passion's fires -
As many a boy and girl remembers -
While every hope of love expires,
Extinguish'd with the dying embers.


4.

The first, though not a spark survive,
Some careful hand may teach to burn;
The last, alas! can ne'er survive;
No touch can bid its warmth return.


5.

Or, if it chance to wake again,
Not always doom'd it...

Through the cracks in these battlements loud the winds whistle,
For the hall of my fathers is gone to decay;
And in yon once gay garden the hemlock and thistle
Have choak'd up the rose, which late bloom'd in the way.

Of the barons of old, who once proudly to battle
Led their vassals from Europe to Palestine's plain;
The escutcheon and shield, which with ev'ry blast rattle,
Are the only sad vestiges now that remain.

No more does old Robert, with harp-stringing numbers,
Raise a flame in the breast, for the war laurell'd wreath,
Near Askalon's Towers John of Horiston[1] slumbers,
Unnerv'd is the hand of his minstrel by death.

Paul and Hubert too sleep in the valley of Cressy,
For the safety of Edward and ENGLAND they fell,
My fathers! the tears...

Why dost thou build the hall, Son of the winged days? Thou lookest from thy tower to-day: yet a few years, and the blast of the desart comes: it howls in thy empty court.-OSSIAN. [1]


I.

Through thy battlements, Newstead, [2] the hollow winds whistle:
Thou, the hall of my Fathers, art gone to decay;
In thy once smiling garden, the hemlock and thistle
Have choak'd up the rose, which late bloom'd in the way.


2.

Of the mail-cover'd Barons, who, proudly, to battle,
Led their vassals from Europe to Palestine's plain, [3]
The escutcheon and shield, which with ev'ry blast rattle,
Are the only sad vestiges now that remain.


3.

No more doth old Robert, with harp-stringing numbers,
Raise a flame, in t...

1.

Here once engaged the stranger's view
Young Friendship's record simply trac'd;
Few were her words, - but yet, though few,
Resentment's hand the line defac'd.


2.

Deeply she cut - but not eras'd -
The characters were still so plain,
That Friendship once return'd, and gaz'd, -
Till Memory hail'd the words again.


3.

Repentance plac'd them as before;
Forgiveness join'd her gentle name;
So fair the inscription seem'd once more,
That Friendship thought it still the same.


4.

Thus might the Record now have been;
But, ah, in spite of Hope's endeavour,
Or Friendship's tears, Pride rush'd between,
And blotted out the line for ever.