LINES

ON THE DEATH OF LORD BYRON.

BY W. G. THOMPSON.

"And he is gathered to the Kings of Thought,

"Who waged contention with their time's decay."

Bt from The Abbots Bootukif

To the

Emmortal Memory

Of Him who was the First of English Poets,

LORD OF THE LYRE! a long farewell! What clime o'ermounts thy genius now? Still of thy triumphs do they tell?

Still wreathes the laurel round thy brow? Say, is the magic of thy mind,

As erst with us, still unconfined?
Lord of the lyre! may passion's swell
Be yet thy wild discursive theme?
Mayst thou yet sound the tyrant's knell,
And sing of liberty supreme?

Still may thy spirit, flashing far,
The tocsin sound of freedom's war?
Or dost thou, in some brighter land,
The golden lyre of love assume;
And, mingling from thy mighty hand,...
Through all the unfading bowers of bloom;
Do love's soft song and friendship's strain
In balmy union breathe again?

Oh! vainly questioned

who shall say
Where the ethereal spirit turns,
When this our cold obstructed clay
The gaunt and greedy grave inurns?
Who shall its traceless dwelling show,
Or of its occupation know?

Thy harp of passion breathes not now
Its might its magic on our land;
No more its voiced numbers flow
Majestic from thy master-hand:
No more the veil is drawn apart
That shrouds the secrets of the heart.
The self-examinant no more,

In pride's or frenzy's burning hour,
Drags forth his bosom's buried store,
With all a spell-fraught wizard's power,
Giving to gazing millions' scan
The might and meannesses of man.
The living tale of love no more

Breathes beauty from some sunny isle,
As, wandering on the lonely shore,
The soul-sprung lovers sweetly smile,
Companioned with sea, rock, and sky,
And thine own feelings warm and high!
The song of freedom's youthful war
Is mute, as is its master now,
That, kindling in the climes afar,

Won new-formed chaplets for thy brow, And added to thy glorious lyre

The energies of patriot fire!

Ah me! all voiceless on his shore

The Greek, subdued by sorrow, sits, As o'er his mind the vision hoar Of his loved country's glories flitsOf Marathon-Colouri's seaThe Spartan's tomb, Thermopyla! Such is his gloom, such his despair, As filled his countrymen of yore, Who silent sought the Persians' lair, And steeped their swords in Persian gore, When royal Xerxes quailed beneath The midnight scene of blood and death!

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Yea, through that great and glorious clime
Grief walks in solemn sadness pale,
And all its energies sublime

Are palsied by the chilling tale,
That death hath grasped with griesly hand
The peerless One of all the land!

Oh! Son of Song! how many an eye
With them will shed the sacred tear-
How many a bosom's inmost sigh

Will soar above thy bannered bier-
Sunk, as thou art, in whelming night
From the full flood of glory's light!

Thy course hath been a meteor's path,
Revealing all a meteor's rays,
And all a meteor's scorching wrath,

When chance or cunning dimmed thy days;
Yea, in all, through all, thou hast been
As that which is but seldom seen!

Son of immortal Song! thy death

With victory's palm should have been crowned, Thou shouldst have yielded forth thy breath, In valour, as in song, renowned

Yea, on the battle field expired,
With thy ancestral glories fired!

Yet, as it is, the two-fold rays

Of song and fight blend round thy name,
And graced with all the added blaze

That Greece can fling around thy fame-
Yea, with thy lyre the sword is blent,
And GREECE must be thy monument !
Now, turn we to that northward shore

Where first thy muse essayed to sing-
'Mid flashing streams and mountains hoar,
Where first she plumed her upward wing
The eagle's cloudless course to run,
And burst at once against the sun!