The gloomy tenants, Newstead! of thy cells, Vassals, within thy hospitable pale, Loudly carousing, bless their lord's return; Culture again adorns the gladdening vale, And matrons, once lamenting, cease to mourn. A thousand songs on tuneful echo float, Unwonted foliage mantles o'er the trees; And hark! the horns proclaim a mellow note, The hunters' cry hangs lengthening on the breeze. Beneath their coursers' hoofs the valleys shake: What fears, what anxious hopes, attend the chase! The dying stag seeks refuge in the Lake; (1) Ah happy days! too happy to endure ! Such simple sports our plain forefathers knew: No splendid vices glitter'd to allure; Their joys were many, as their cares were few. (1) During the lifetime of the fifth Lord Byron, there was found in this Lake-where it is supposed to have been thrown for concealment by the Monks a large brass eagle, in the body of which, on its being sent to be cleaned, was discovered a secret aperture, concealing within it a number of ancient documents connected with the rights and privileges of the foundation. At the sale of the old Lord's effects, in 1776, this eagle was purchased by a watchmaker of Nottingham; and it now forms, through the liberality Sir Richard Kaye, an appropriate ornament of the fine old church of Southwell, E. From these descending, sons to sires succeed; Time steals along, and Death uprears his dart; Another chief impels the foaming steed, Another crowd pursue the panting hart. Newstead! what saddening change of scene is thine! Now holds thy mouldering turrets in his sway Deserted now, he scans thy gray worn towers; Yet are his tears no emblem of regret: Cherish'd affection only bids them flow. Pride, hope, and love, forbid him to forget, But warm his bosom with impassion'd glow. Yet he prefers thee to the gilded domes Or gewgaw grottos of the vainly great; Yet lingers 'mid thy damp and mossy tombs, Nor breathes a murmur 'gainst the will of fate. (1) (1) "Come what may," wrote Byron to his mother, in March 1809, "Newstead and I stand or fall together. I have now lived on the spot; I have fixed my heart upon it; and no pressure, present or future, shall induce me to barter the last vestige of our inheritance. I have that pride within me which will enable me to support difficulties. I can endure privations; but could I obtain, in exchange for Newstead Abbey, the first fortune in the country, I would reject the proposition. Set your mind at ease on that score; I feel like a man of honour, and I will not sell Newstead." Haply thy sun, emerging, yet may shine, CHILDISH RECOLLECTIONS. (3) "I cannot but remember such things were, WHEN slow Disease, with all her host of pains, ; (1) "We cannot," said the Critical Review for September, 1807, "but hail, with something of prophetic rapture, the hope conveyed in the closing stanza "Haply thy sun, emerging, yet may shine," &c. (2) The reader who turns from this Elegy to the stanzas descriptive of Newstead Abbey and the surrounding scenery, in the thirteenth canto of Don Juan, cannot fail to remark how frequently the leading thoughts in the two pieces are the same; or to be delighted and instructed, in comparing the juvenile sketch with the bold touches and mellow colouring of the master's picture. -E] (3) These verses were composed while Lord Byron was suffering under severe illness and depression of spirits. "I was laid," he says, " on my back, when that schoolboy thing was written, or rather dictated — expecting to rise no more, my physician having taken his sixteenth fee." In the private volume the poem opened with the following lines: "Hence! thou unvarying song of varied loves, Not to the aching frame alone confined, While Hope retires appall'd, and clings to life. Those beauties, grateful to my ardent sight, Censure no more shall brand my humble name, I rest a perfect Timon, not nineteen. World! I renounce thee! all my hope's o'ercast : Gilds with faint beams the crystal dews of rain, Oft does my heart indulge the rising thought, To dazzle, though they please, my aching sight. (1) Again I mingle with thy playful quire ; (1) The next fifty-six lines, to "Here first remember'd be the joyous band," were added in the first edition of Hours of Idleness. - E. |