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;
Exulting shouts announce the finish'd race.
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.
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! Thy yawning arch betokens slow decay;
The last and youngest of a noble line
Now holds thy mouldering turrets in his sway.
Deserted now, he scans thy gray worn towers;
Thy vaults, where dead of feudal ages sleep;
Thy cloisters, pervious to the wintry showers;
These, these he views, and views them but to weep.
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.
Haply thy sun, emerging, yet may shine,
Thee to irradiate with meridian ray;
*Hours splendid as the past may still be thine,
And bless thy future as thy former day.
*Hours splendid, &c. In the private volume and the first edition of Hours of Idleness, the stanza ended with the following lines:
"Fortune may smile upon a future line,
And Heaven restore an ever-cloudless day."-ED.
ON A CHANGE OF MASTERS AT A GREAT PUBLIC
SCHOOL*.
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 control;
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 enforced 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 of science left you but the name.
*These lines were only printed in the private volume. Lord Byron most sincerely regretted having written this and the subsequent attack on Dr. Butler contained in the poem called Childish Recollections. A reconciliation took place between them before Lord Byron's first departure for Greece; and Mr. Moore informs us that, "not content with this private atonement to Dr. Butler, it was Lord Byron's intention, had he published another edition of the Hours of Idleness, to substitute for the offensive verses against that gentleman, a frank avowal of the wrong he had been guilty of, in giving vent to them."-Life of Byron, vol. i. p. 188.-ED.
"I cannot but remember such things were,
And were most dear to me."
+ WHEN Slow Disease, with all her host of pains,
Chills the warm tide which flows along the veins;
When Health, affrighted, spreads her rosy wing,
And flies with every changing gale of spring;
This poem was published in the private volume; and with many additions and corrections in the first edition of Hours of Idleness; but was afterwards suppressed.-ED.
In the private volume the poem opened with the following lines:
"Hence! thou unvarying song of varied loves,
Which youth commends, maturer age reproves;
Which every rhyming bard repeats by rote,
By thousands echo'd to the self-same note!
Tired of the dull, unceasing, copious strain,
My soul is panting to be free again.
Farewell! ye nymphs propitious to my verse,
Some other Damon will your charms rehearse;
Some other paint his pangs, in hope of bliss,
Or dwell in rapture on your nectar'd kiss.
Those beauties, grateful to my ardent sight,
No more entrance my senses in delight;
Those bosoms, form'd of animated snow,
A like are tasteless, are unfeeling now.
These to some happier lover I resign-
The memory of those joys alone is mine.
Censure no more shall brand my humble name,
The child of passion and the fool of fame.
Weary of love, of life, devour'd with spleen,
I rest a perfect Timon, not nineteen.
World! I renounce thee! all my hope's o'ercast: One sigh I give thee, but that sigh 's the last. VOL. V.
Not to the aching frame alone confined,
Unyielding pangs assail the drooping mind:
What grisly forms, the spectre-train of woe,
Bid shuddering Nature shrink beneath the blow,
With Resignation wage relentless strife,
While Hope retires appall'd, and clings to life.
Yet less the pang when through the tedious hour
Remembrance sheds around her genial power,
Calls back the vanish'd days to rapture given,
When love was bliss, and Beauty form'd our heaven;
Or, dear to youth, portrays each childish scene,
Those fairy bowers, where all in turn have been.
As when through clouds that pour the summer storm
The orb of day unveils his distant form,
Gilds with faint beams the crystal dews of rain,
And dimly twinkles o'er the watery plain;
Thus, while the future dark and cheerless gleams,
The sun of memory, glowing through my dreams,
Though sunk the radiance of his former blaze,
To scenes far distant points his paler rays;
Still rules my senses with unbounded sway,
The past confounding with the present day.
Friends, foes, and females, now alike adieu !
Would I could add, remembrance of you too!
Yet though the future dark and cheerless gleams,
The curse of memory, hov'ring in my dreams,
Depicts with glowing pencil all those years,
Ere yet my cup, empoison'd, flow'd with tears;
Still rules my senses with tyrannic sway,
The past confounding with the present day.
"Alas! in vain I check the maddening thought;
It still recurs, unlook'd for and unsought:
My soul to Fancy's," &c. &c. &c. as at line twenty-nine.
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