"And sleeping pangs awake-and- but away " (Confound me if I know what next to say). "Lo Hope reviving re-expands her wings," And Master G-recites what Doctor Busby sings! "If mighty things with small we may compare," (Translated from the grammar for the fair!) Dramatic" spirit drives a conquering car," And burn'd poor Moscow like a tub of " tar." "This spirit Wellington has shown in Spain," To furnish melodrames for Drury Lane. "Another Marlborough points to Blenheim's story,"

And George and I will dramatise it for yc.

more.

These, if we win the Graces, too, we gain Disgraces, too! "inseparable train!" [Cupid" "Three who have stolen their witching airs from (You all know what I mean, unless you're stupid): "Harmonious throng" that I have kept in petto, Now to produce in a "divine sestetto"!! "While Poesy," with these delightful doxies, "Sustains her part" in all the "upper" boxes! "Thus lifted gloriously, you'll soar along," Borne in the vast balloon of Busby's song; "Shine in your farce, masque, scenery, and play" (For this last line George had a holiday). "Old Drury never, never soar'd so high," So says the manager, and so say I.

"But hold, you say, this self-complacent boast;" Is this the poem which the public lost? [pride;" "True-true-that lowers at once our mounting But lo!-the papers print what you deride. "'Tis ours to look on you-you hold the prize," 'Tis twenty guineas, as they advertize! "A double blessing your rewards impart ".

I wish I had them, then, with all my heart. "Our twofold feeling owns its twofold cause," Why son and I both beg for your applause. "When in your fostering beams you bid us live," My next subscription list shall say how much you give! October, 1812.

VERSES FOUND IN A SUMMER HOUSE AT HALES-OWEN. 1

WHEN Dryden's fool, "unknowing what he sought,"
His hours in whistling spent, "for want of thought," 2
This guiltless oaf his vacancy of sense
Supplied, and amply too, by innocence;

Did modern swains, possess'd of Cymon's powers,
In Cymon's manner waste their leisure hours,
Th' offended guests would not, with blushing, see
These fair green walks disgraced by infamy.
Severe the fate of modern fools, alas!

When vice and folly mark them as they pass.
Like noxious reptiles o'er the whiten'd wall,
The filth they leave still points out where they crawl.

1 [In Warwickshire.] 2 [See Cymon and Iphigenia] 3["The sequel of a temporary liaison, formed by Lord Byron during his gay but brief career in London, occasioned the composition of this Impromptu. On the cessation of the connection, the fair one, actuated by jealousy, called one

REMEMBER THEE! REMEMBER THEE!

REMEMBER thee ! remember thee!

Till Lethe quench life's burning stream Remorse and shame shall cling to thee,

And haunt thee like a feverish dream! Remember thee! Ay, doubt it not.

Thy husband too shall think of thee: By neither shalt thou be forgot,

Thou false to him, thou fiend to me! 3

TO TIME.

TIME on whose arbitrary wing

The varying hours must flag or fly, Whose tardy winter, fleeting spring, But drag or drive us on to die

Hail thou! who on my birth bestow'd
Those boons to all that know thee known;
Yet better I sustain thy load,

For now I bear the weight alone.

I would not one fond heart should share The bitter moments thou hast given; And pardon thee, since thou couldst spare All that I loved, to peace or heaven.

To them be joy or rest, on me

Thy future ills shall press in vain : I nothing owe but years to thee. A debt already paid in pain.

Yet even that pain was some relief; It felt, but still forgot thy power: The active agony of grief

Retards, but never counts the hour.

In joy I've sigh'd to think thy flight

Would soon subside from swift to slow; Thy cloud could overcast the light,

But could not add a night to woe;

For then, however drear and dark,

My soul was suited to thy sky; One star alone shot forth a spark To prove thee. -not Eternity.

That beam hath sunk, and now thou art A blank; a thing to count and curse, Through each dull tedious trifling part, Which all regret, yet all rehearse.

One scene even thou canst not deform;
The limit of thy sloth or speed
When future wanderers bear the storm
Which we shall sleep too sound to heed:

And I can smile to think how weak

Thine efforts shortly shall be shown, When all the vengeance thou canst wreak Must fall upon-a nameless stone.

morning at her quondam lover's apartments. His Lordship was from home; but finding Vathek' on the table, the lady wrote in the first page of the volume the words Remember me! Byron immediately wrote under the ominous warning these two stanzas."-MEDWIN.]

Then to the things whose bliss or woe,
Like mine, is wild and worthless all,
That world resign—such scenes forego,
Where those who feel must surely fall.
Thy youth, thy charms, thy tenderness,

Thy soul from long seclusion pure;
From what even here hath pass'd, may guess
What there thy bosom must endure.
Oh! pardon that imploring tear,

Since not by Virtue shed in vain, My frenzy drew from eyes so dear;

For me they shall not weep again. Though long and mournful must it be,

The thought that we no more may meet; Yet I deserve the stern decree,

And almost deem the sentence sweet.

Still, had I loved thee less, my heart Had then less sacrificed to thine; It felt not half so much to part,

As if its guilt had made thee mine.

1813.

ON LORD THURLOW'S POEMS. 1 WHEN Thurlow this damn'd nonsense sent, (I hope I am not violent)

Nor men nor gods knew what he meant.

And since not ev'n our Rogers' praise
To common sense his thoughts could raise-
Why would they let him print his lays?

To me, divine Apollo, grant-O!
Hermilda's first and second canto,
I'm fitting up a new portmanteau ;
And thus to furnish decent lining,
My own and others' bays I'm twining-
So, gentle Thurlow, throw me thine in.

TO LORD THURLOW.

"I lay my branch of laurel down,
Then thus to form Apollo's crown
Let every other bring his own."

Lord Thurlow's lines to Mr. Rogers.
"I lay my branch of laurel down.”
THOU lay thy branch of laurel down!"
Why, what thou 'st stole is not enow;

["Among the many gay hours we passed together in the spring of 1813, I remember particularly the wild flow of his spirits one evening, when we had accompanied Mr. Rogers home from some early assembly. It happened that our host had just received a presentation copy of a volume of poems, written professedly in imitation of the old English writers, and containing, like many of these models, a good deal that was striking and beautiful, mixed up with much that was trifling, fantastic, and absurd. In vain did Mr. Rogers, in justice to the author, endeavour to direct our attention to some of the beauties of the work. In this sort of hunt through the volume, we at length lighted on the discovery that our host, in addition to his sincere approbation of some of its contents, had also the motive of gratitude for standing by its author, as one of the poems was a warm and, I need not add, welldeserved panegyric on himself. The opening line of the poem was, as well as I can recollect, When Rogers o'er this labour bent:' and Lord Byron undertook to read it aloud; but he found it impossible to get beyond the first two words

And, were it lawfully thine own,

Does Rogers want it most, or thou Keep to thyself thy wither'd bough,

Or send it back to Doctor Donne: Were justice done to both, I trow, He'd have but little, and thou-none.

"Then thus to form Apollo's crown."

A crown! why, twist it how you will,
Thy chaplet must be foolscap still.
When next you visit Delphi's town,

Inquire amongst your fellow-lodgers, They'll tell you Phoebus gave his crown, Some years before your birth, to Rogers.

"Let every other bring his own." When coals to Newcastle are carried, And owls sent to Athens, as wonders, From his spouse when the Regent's unmarried, Or Liverpool weeps o'er his blunders; When Tories and Whigs cease to quarrel,

When Castlereagh's wife has an heir, Then Rogers shall ask us for laurel, And thou shalt have plenty to spare.

KOORE

TO THOMAS MOORE.

WRITTEN THE EVENING BEFORE HIS VISIT TO MR. LEIGH HUNT IN HORSEMONGER-LANE GAOL, MAY 19. 1813.

Он you, who in all names can tickle the town, Anacreon, Tom Little, Tom Moore, or Tom Brown,For hang me if I know of which you may most brag, Your Quarto two-pounds, or your Two-penny Post

Bag;

But now to my letter- to yours 't is an answer—
To-morrow be with me, as soon as you can, sir,
All ready and dress'd for proceeding to spunge on
(According to compact) the wit in the dungeon -
Pray Phoebus at length our political malice
May not get us lodgings within the same palace!
I suppose that to-night you're engaged with some
codgers,

And for Sotheby's Blues have deserted Sam Rogers;
And I, though with cold I have nearly my death got,
Must put on my breeches, and wait on the Heathcote,
But to-morrow, at four, we will both play the Scurra,
And you'll be Catullus, the Regent Mamurra. 2

[First published, 1830.]

Our laughter had now increased to such a pitch that nothing could restrain it. Two or three times he began; but no sooner had the words When Rogers' passed his lips, than our fit burst forth afresh,- till even Mr. Rogers himself, with all his feeling of our injustice, found it impossible not to join A day or two after, Lord Byron sent me the following:My dear Moore, When Rogers' must not see the enclosed, which I send for your perusal. MOORE.]

us.

198

[The reader who wishes to understand the full force of this scandalous insinuation is referred to Muretus's notes on a celebrated poem of Catullus, entitled In Cæsarem; but consisting, in fact, of savagely scornful abuse of the favourite Mamurra: —

"Quis hoc potest videre? quis potest pati, Nisi impudicus et vorax et helluo? Mamurram habere quod comata Gallia Habebat unctum, et ultima Britannia ?" &c.

IMPROMPTU, IN REPLY TO A FRIEND.

WHEN, from the heart where Sorrow sits,

Her dusky shadow mounts too high, And o'er the changing aspect flits,

And clouds the brow, or fills the eye; Heed not that gloom, which soon shall sink: My thoughts their dungeon know too well; Back to my breast the wanderers shrink, And droop within their silent cell. 1 September, 1813.

SONNET, TO GENEVRA.

THINE eyes' blue tenderness, thy long fair hair, And the wan lustre of thy features-caught From contemplation - where serenely wrought, Seems Sorrow's softness charm'd from its despair — Have thrown such speaking sadness in thine air,

That-but I know thy blessed bosom fraught With mines of unalloy'd and stainless thought-I should have deem'd thee doom'd to earthly care. With such an aspect, by his colours blent,

When from his beauty-breathing pencil born, (Except that thou hast nothing to repent)

The Magdalen of Guido saw the mornSuch seem'st thou-but how much more excellent! With nought Remorse can claim-nor Virtue scorn. December 17. 1813. 2

SONNET, TO THE SAME.

THY cheek is pale with thought, but not from woe,
And yet so lovely, that if Mirth could flush
Its rose of whiteness with the brightest blush,
My heart would wish away that ruder glow:
And dazzle not thy deep-blue eyes - but, oh!

While gazing on them sterner eyes will gush,
And into mine my mother's weakness rush,
Soft as the last drops round heaven's airy bow.
For, through thy long dark lashes low depending,
The soul of melancholy Gentleness
Gleams like a seraph from the sky descending,
Above all pain, yet pitying all distress;
At once such majesty with sweetness blending,
I worship more, but cannot love thee less.
December 17. 1813.

[These verses are said to have dropped from the Poet's pen, to excuse a transient expression of melancholy which overclouded the general gaiety. It was impossible to observe his interesting countenance, expressive of a dejection belonging neither to his rank, his age, nor his success, without feeling an indefinable curiosity to ascertain whether it had a deeper cause than habit or constitutional temperament. It was obviously of a degree incalculably more serious than that alluded to by Prince Arthur

'I remember when I was in France Young gentlemen would be as sad as night, Only for wantonness.'

But, howsoever derived, this, joined to Lord Byron's air of mingling in amusements and sports as if he contemned them, and felt that his sphere was far above the frivolous crowd which surrounded him, gave a strong effect of colouring to a

3 ["I have lately written a wild, rambling, unfinished rhapsody, called The Devil's Drive,' the notion of which I took from Porson's Devil's Walk.'"-Byron Diary, 1812. "Of this strange, wild poem," says Moore, "the only copy that Lord Byron, I believe, ever wrote, he presented to Lord Holland. Though with a good deal of vigour and imagination, it is, for the most part, rather clumsily executed, wanting the point and condensation of those clever verses of Mr. Coleridge, which Lord Byron, adopting a notion long prevalent, has attributed to Professor Porson."]