The Poetical Works of Lord Byron

Oh! could I soar above these feeble lays,
These young effusions of my early days,

To him my inuse her noblest strain would give : The song might perish, but the theme might live.

Yet why for him the needless verse essay?
His honour'd name requires no vain display:
By every son of grateful Ida blest,

It finds an echo in each youthful breast;
A fame beyond the glories of the proud,
Or all the plaudits of the venal crowd.

Ida! not yet exhausted is the theme,
Nor closed the progress of my youthful dream.
How many a friend deserves the grateful strain!
What scenes of childhood still unsung remain !
Yet let me hush this echo of the past,
This parting song, the dearest and the last;
And brood in secret o'er those hours of joy,
To me a silent and a sweet employ,
While, future hope and fear alike unknown,
I think with pleasure on the past alone;
Yes, to the past alone my heart confine,
And chase the phantom of what once was mine.

Ida! still o'er thy hills in joy preside,
And proudly steer through time's eventful tide;
Still may thy blooming sons thy name revere,
Smile in thy bower, but quit thee with a tear,-
That tear, perhaps, the fondest which will flow
O'er their last scene of happiness below.
Tell me, ye hoary few, who glide along,
The feeble veterans of some former throng,
Whose friends, like autumn leaves by tempests
whirl'd,

Are swept for ever from this busy world;
Revolve the fleeting moments of your youth,
While Care as yet withheld her venom'd tooth;
Say if remembrance days like these endears
Beyond the rapture of succeeding years?
Say, can ambition's fever'd dream bestow
So sweet a balm to soothe your hours of woe?
Can treasures, hoarded for some thankless son,
Can royal smiles, or wreaths by slaughter won,
Can stars or ermine, man's maturer toys
(For glittering baubles are not left to boys),
Recall one scene so much beloved to view
As those where Youth her garland twined for you?
Ah, no! amidst the gloomy calm of age
You turn with faltering hand life's varied page;
Feruse the record of your days on earth,
Unsullied only where it marks your birth;
Still lingering pause above each chequer'd leaf,
And blot with tears the sable lines of grief;
Where Passion o'er the theme her mantle threw,
Or weeping Virtue sigh'd a faint adieu;
But bless the scroll which fairer words adorn,
Traced by the rosy finger of the morn;
When Friendship bow'd before the shrine of
Truth,

And Love, without his pinion, smiled on youth.*

• 'L'Amitié est l'Amour sans ailes' is a French proverb.

ANSWER TO A BEAUTIFUL POEM,

ENTITLED THE COMMON LOT.'*
MONTGOMERY! true, the common lot
Of mortals lies in Lethe's wave;
Yet some shall never be forgot,
Some shall exist beyond the grave
'Unknown the region of his birth,'
The hero rolls the tide of war; +
Yet not unknown his martial worth,
Which glares a meteor from afar.
His joy or grief, his weal or woe,
Perchance may 'scape the page of fame;
Yet nations now unborn will know

The record of his deathless name.
The patriot's and the poet's frame
Must share the common tomb of all.
Their glory will not sleep the same;

That will arise, though empires fall.
The lustre of a beauty's eye

Assumes the ghastly stare of death;
The fair, the brave, the good must die,
And sink the yawning grave beneath.
Once more the speaking eye revives,

Still beaming through the lover's strain;
For Petrarch's Laura still survives :
She died, but ne'er will die again.
The rolling seasons pass away,

And Time, untiring, waves his wing;
Whilst honour's laurels ne'er decay,

But bloom in fresh, unfading spring.
All, all must sleep in grim repose,

Collected in the silent tomb:
The old and young, with friends and foes,
Festering alike in shrouds, consume.

The mouldering marble lasts its day,
Yet falls at length a useless fane;
To ruin's ruthless fangs a prey,

The wrecks of pillar'd pride remain.
What, though the sculpture be destroy'd,
From dark oblivion meant to guard;
A bright renown shall be enjoy'd

By those whose virtues claim reward.
Then do not say the common lot

Of all lies deep in Lethe's wave;
Some few who ne'er will be forgot

Shall burst the bondage of the grave.

TO A LADY

WHO PRESENTED THE AUTHOR WITH THE

VELVET BAND WHICH BOUND HER TRESSES.
THIS Band, which bound thy yellow hair,
Is mine, sweet girl! thy pledge of love;

Written by James Montgomery, author of The Wanderer in Switzerland, &c.

No particular hero is here alluded to. The exploits of Bayard, Nemours, Edward the Black Prince, and in more modern times the fame of Marlborough, Frederick the Great, Count Saxe, Charles of Sweden, etc., are familiar to every historical reader; but the exact places of their birth are known to a very small proportion of their admirers.

It claims my warmest, dearest care,
Like relics left of saints above.
Oh! I will wear it next my heart;
Twill bind my soul in bonds to thee:
From me again 'twill ne'er depart,
But mingle in the grave with me.
The dew I gather from thy lip
Is not so dear to me as this;
That I but for a moment sip,
And banquet on a transient bliss:

This will recall each youthful scene,

E'en when our lives are on the wane;
The leaves of Love will still be green
When Memory bids them bud again.
Oh! little lock of golden hue,

In gently waving ringlet curl'd,
By the dear head on which you grew,
I would not lose you for a world.

Not though a thousand more adorn

The polish'd brow where once you shone, Like rays which gild a cloudless morn, Beneath Columbia's fervid zone.

WITH SOCIETY.

LINES

My passion the matrons of prudence reprove ; I have found that a friend may profess, yet deceive.

To me what is wealth ?-it may pass in an hour,

If tyrants prevail, or if Fortune should frown: To me what is title ?-the phantom of power; To me what is fashion?-I seek but renown. Deceit is a stranger as yet to my soul;

I still am unpractised to varnish the truth: Then why should I live in a hateful control? Why waste upon folly the days of my youth?

REMEMBRANCE.

'Tis done!-I saw it in my dreams;
No more with hope the future beams;
My days of happiness are few :
Chill'd by misfortune's wintry blast,
My dawn of life is overcast ;

Love, Hope, and Joy, alike adieu !
Would I could add Remembrance too!

THE DEATH OF CALMAR AND ORLA.* AN IMITATION OF MACPHERSON'S OSSIAN. DEAR are the days of youth! Age dwells on their remembrance through the mist of time. ADDRESSED TO THE REV. J. T. BECHER, ON In the twilight he recalls the sunny hours of HIS ADVISING THE AUTHOR TO MIX MORE morn. He lifts his spear with trembling hand. 'Not thus feebly did I raise the steel before my fathers! Past is the race of heroes. fame rises on the harp; their souls ride on the wings of the wind; they hear the sound through the sighs of the storm, and rejoice in their hall of clouds! Such is Calmar. The grey stone marks his narrow house. He looks down from eddying tempests: he rolls his form in the whirlwind, and hovers on the blast of the mountain.

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.
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.
The fire in the cavern of Etna conceal'd,

Still mantles unseen in its secret recess :
At length in a volume terrific reveal'd, [press.
No torrent can quench it, no bounds can re-
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,

But their

In Morven dwelt the chief; a beam of war to Fingal. His steps in the field were marked in blood. Lochlin's sons had fled before his angry spear; but mild was the eye of Calmar; soft was the flow of his yellow locks: they streamed like the meteor of the night. No maid was the friendship,-to dark-haired Orla, destroyer of sigh of his soul: his thoughts were given to heroes! Equal were their swords in battle; but Calmar. Together they dwelt in the cave of fierce was the pride of Orla :-gentle alone to

Qithona.

With him I would wish to expire in the blaze.
For the life of a Fox, of a Chatham the death,
What censure, what danger, what woe would From Lochlin, Swaran bounded o'er the blue
I brave!
[breath; waves. Erin's sons fell beneath his might.
Their lives did not end when they yielded their Fingal roused his chiefs to combat. Their ships
Their glory illumines the gloom of their grave. cover the ocean. Their hosts throng on the
green hills. They come to the aid of Erin.

Yet why should I mingle in Fashion's full herd Why crouch to her leaders, or cringe to her rules?

Why bend to the proud, or applaud the absurd?
Why search for delight in the friendship of
fools?

I have tasted the sweets and the bitters of love;
In friendship I early was taught to believe;

armies: but the blazing oaks gleam through the
Night rose in clouds. Darkness veils the
valley. The sons of Lochlin slept : their dreams
were of blood.
and Fingal flies. Not so the host of Morven.
They lift the spear in thought,

is taken from Nisus and Euryalus, of which episode a transThis story, though considerably varied in the catastrophe, lation is already given.

To watch was the post of Orla. by his side. Their spears were Fingal called his chiefs: they The king was in the midst. Grey were his locks, but strong was the arm of the king. Age withered not his powers. 'Sons of Morven,' said the hero, to-morrow we meet the foe. But where is Cuthullin, the shield of Erin? delay? It is a time for vengeance,' said Oila He rests in the halls of Tura; he knows not of our coming. Who will speed through Lochlin to the hero, and call the chief to arms? The path is by the swords of foes; but many are my heroes. They are thunderbolts of war. Speak, ye chiefs! Who will arise?'

Calmar stood the heroes through the slumbering band. Half in their hands. the journey is past, when Mathon, resting on his stood around. shield, meets the eye of Orla. It rolls in flame, and glistens through the shade. His spear is raised on high. Why dost thou bend thy brow, chief of Oithona?' said fair-haired Calmar: we are in the midst of foes. Is this a time for

of the gloomy brow. Mathon of Lochlin sleeps: seest thou his spear? Its point is dim with the gore of my father. The blood of Mathon shall reek on mine; but shall I slay him sleeping, son of Mora? No! he shall feel his wound: my fame shall not soar on the blood of slumber. 'Son of Trenmor! mine be the deed,' said Rise, Mathon, rise! The son of Conna calls; dark-haired Orla, 'and mine alone. What is thy life is his; rise to combat.' Mathon starts death to me? I love the sleep of the mighty, from sleep; but did he rise alone? No: the but little is the danger. The sons of Lochlin gathering chiefs bound on the plain. Fly! dream. I will seek car-borne Cuthullin. If I Calmar, fly!' said dark-haired Orla. Mathon fall, raise the song of bards; and lay me by the is mine. I shall die in joy: but Lochlin crowds stream of Lubar.' And shalt thou fall alone?' around. Fly through the shade of night.' Orla said fair-haired Calmar. 'Wilt thou leave thy turns. The helm of Mathon is cleft; his shield friend afar? Chief of Oithona! not feeble is falls from his arm: he shudders in his blood. my arm in fight. Could I see thee die, and not He rolls by the side of the blazing oak. Strulift the spear? No, Orla! ours has been the mon sees him fall: his wrath rises: his weapon chase of the roe-buck, and the feast of shells; glitters on the head of Orla : but a spear pierced ours be the path of danger: ours has been the his eye. His brain gushes through the wound, cave of Oithona; ours be the narrow dwelling and foams on the spear of Calmar. As roll the on the banks of Lubar.' 'Calmar,' said the waves of the ocean on two mighty barks of the chief of Oithona, 'why should thy yellow locks north, so pour the men of Lochlin on the chiefs. be darkened in the dust of Erin? Let me fall As, breaking the surge in foam, proudly steer alone. My father dwells in his hall of air: he the barks of the north, so rise the chiefs of Morwill rejoice in his boy; but the blue-eyed Mora ven on the scattered crests of Lochlin. The din spreads the feast for her son in Morven. She of arms came to the ear of Fingal. He strikes listens to the steps of the hunter on the heath, his shield; his sons throng around; the people and thinks it is the tread of Calmar. Let her pour along the heath. Ryno bounds in joy. not say, "Calmar has fallen by the steel of Ossian stalks in his arms. Oscar shakes the Lochlin he died with gloomy Orla, the chief spear. The eagle wing of Fillan floats on the of the dark brow." Why should tears dim the wind. Dreadful is the clang of death! many azure eyes of Mora? Why should her voice are the widows of Lochlin! Morven prevails in curse Orla, the destroyer of Calmar? Live, its strength. Calmar! Live to raise my stone of moss; live to revenge me in the blood of Lochlin. Join the song of bards above my grave. Sweet will be the song of death to Orla, from the voice of Calmar. My ghost shall smile on the notes of praise.' 'Orla,' said the son of Mora, 'could I Whose yellow locks wave o'er the breast of a raise the song of death to my friend? Could I chief? Bright as the gold of the stranger, they give his fame to the winds? No, my heart would mingle with the dark hair of his friend. "Tis speak in sighs: faint and broken are the sounds Calmar: he lies on the bosom of Orla. Theirs of sorrow. Orla! our souls shall hear the song is one stream of blood. Fierce is the look of the together. One cloud shall be ours on high gloomy Orla. He breathes not; but his eye is the bards will mingle the names of Orla and still a flame. It glares in death unclosed. His Calmar.' | hand is grasped in Calmar's; but Calmar lives! They quit the circle of the chiefs. Their steps he lives, though low. Rise,' said the king, 'rise, are to the host of Lochlin. The dying blaze of son of Mora: 'tis mine to heal the wounds of oak dim twinkles through the night. The heroes. Calmar may yet bound on the hills of northern star points the path to Tura. Swaran, Morven.' the king, rests on his lonely hill. Here the troops are mixed: they frown in sleep; their shields beneath their heads. Their swords gleam at distance in heaps. The fires are faint; their embers fail in smoke. All is hushed; but the gale sighs on the rocks above. Lightly wheel

Morn glimmers on the hills: no living foe is seen; but the sleepers are many; grim they lie on Erin. The breeze of ocean lifts their locks; yet they do not awake. The hawks scream above their prey.

'Never more shall Calmar chase the deer of Morven with Orla,' said the hero. What were the chase to me alone? Who shall share the spoils of battle with Calmar? Orla is at rest! Rough was thy soul, Orla! yet soft to me as the dew of morn. It glared on others in lightning:

Raise

to me a silver beam of night. Bear my sword For thine are pinions like the wind, to blue-eyed Mora; let it hang in my empty No trace of thee remains behind, hall. It is not pure from blood: but it could Except, alas! thy jealous stings. not save Orla. Lay me with my friend. Away, away! delusive power, the song when I am dark !' Thou shalt not haunt my coming hour; Unless, indeed, without thy wings. Seat of my youth! thy distant spire My bosom glows with former fire,— Recalls each scene of joy;

Four

They are laid by the stream of Lubar. grey stones mark the dwelling of Orla and Calmar. When Swaran was bound, our sails rose

on the blue waves. The winds gave our barks

to Morven :-the bards raised the song.

'What form rises on the roar of clouds? Whose dark ghost gleams on the red streams of tempests? His voice rolls on the thunder. 'Tis Orla, the brown chief of Oithona. He was un

matched in war. Peace to thy soul, Orla! thy fame will not perish. Nor thine, Calmar! Lovely wast thou, son of blue-eyed Mora; but not harmless was thy sword. It hangs in thy cave. The ghosts of Lochlin shriek around its steel. Hear thy praise, Calmar! It dwells on the voice of the mighty. Thy name shakes on the echoes of Morven. Then raise thy fair locks, son of Mora. Spread them on the arch of the rainbow; and smile through the tears of the

storm.

L'AMITIE EST L'AMOUR SANS AILES.

WHY should my anxious breast repine,
Because my youth is fled?
Days of delight may still be mine;
Affection is not dead.

In tracing back the years of youth,
One firm record, one lasting truth,
Celestial consolation brings;
Bear it, ye breezes, to the seat,
Where first my heart responsive beat,-
'Friendship is Love without his wings!'
Through few, but deeply chequer'd years,
What moments have been mine!
Now half obscured by clouds of tears,
Now bright in rays divine;
Howe'er my future doom be cast,
My soul, enraptured with the past,
To one idea fondly clings;
Friendship! that thought is all thine own,
Worth worlds of bliss, that thought alone-
'Friendship is Love without his wings!'
Where yonder yew-trees lightly wave
Their branches on the gale,
Unheeded heaves a simple grave,

Which tells the common tale;

Round this unconscious schoolboys stray,
Till the dull knell of childish play

From yonder studious mansion rings;
But here whene'er my footsteps move,
My silent tears too plainly prove
'Friendship is Love without his wings!'
Oh, Love! before thy glowing shrine
My early vows were paid;

My hopes, my dreams, my heart was thine,
But these are now decay'd;

In mind again a boy. Thy grove of elms, thy verdant hill, Thy every path delights me still, Each flower a double fragrance flings; Again, as once, in converse gay, Each dear associate seems to say, 'Friendship is Love without his wings!' My Lycus! wherefore dost thou weep? Thy falling tears restrain; Affection for a time may sleep,

But, oh, 'twill wake again. Think, think, my friend, when next we meet, Our long-wish'd interview, how sweet!

From this my hope of rapture springs; While youthful hearts thus fondly swell, Absence, my friend, can only tell,

Friendship is Love without his wings!' In one, and one alone deceived, Did I my error mourn? No-from oppressive bonds relieved,

I left the wretch to scorn.

I turn'd to those my childhood knew,
With feelings warm, with bosoms true,

Twined with my heart's according strings
And till those vital chords shall break,
For none but these my breast shall wake
Friendship, the power deprived of wings!
Ye few! my soul, my life is yours,
My memory and my hope;
Your worth a lasting love insures,
Unfetter'd in its scope;

From smooth deceit and terror sprung,
With aspect fair and honey'd tongue,
Let Adulation wait on kings;
With joy elate, by snares beset,
We, we, my friends, can ne'er forget

'Friendship is Love without his wings!
Fictions and dreams inspire the bard
Who rolls the epic song ;
Friendship and truth be my

To me no bays belong;

reward

If laurell'd Fanie but dwells with lies,
Me the enchantress ever flies,

Whose heart and not whose fancy sings
Simple and young, I dare not feign;
Mine be the rude yet heartfelt strain,
'Friendship is Love without his wings!'

THE PRAYER OF NATURE. FATHER of Light! great God of Heaven! Hear'st thou the accents of despair?

Can guilt like man's be e'er forgiven?
Can vice atone for crimes by prayer?
Father of Light, on thee I call!

Thou seest my soul is dark within ;
Thou who canst mark the sparrow's fall,
Avert from me the death of sin.
No shrine I seek, to sects unknown;
Oh, point to me the path of truth!
Thy dread omnipotence I own;

Spare, yet amend, the faults of youth.
Let bigots rear a gloomy fane,

Let superstition hail the pile,
Let priests, to spread their sable reign,
With tales of mystic rites beguile.
Shall man confine his Maker's sway

To Gothic domes of mouldering stone?
Thy temple is the face of day;

Earth, ocean, heaven, thy boundless throne. Shall man condemn his race to hell,

Unless they bend in pompous form?
Tell us that all, for one who fell,

Must perish in the mingling storm?
Shall each pretend to reach the skies,
Yet doom his brother to expire,
Whose soul a different hope supplies,
Or doctrines less severe inspire?
Shall these, by creeds they can't expound,
Prepare a fancied bliss or woe?
Shall reptiles, grovelling on the ground,
Their great Creator's purpose know?
Shall those, who live for self alone,

Whose years float on in daily crime-
Shall they by Faith for guilt atone,

And live beyond the bounds of Time? Father! no prophet's laws I seek,-

Thy laws in Nature's works appear ;— I own myself corrupt and weak,

Yet will I pray, for thou wilt hear! Thou, who canst guide the wandering star Through trackless realms of æther's space; Who calm'st the elemental war,

Whose hand from pole to pole I trace:
Thou, who in wisdom placed me here,
Who, when thou wilt, canst take me hence,
Ah! whilst I tread this earthly sphere,
Extend to me thy wide defence.

To Thee my God, to thee I call!
Whatever weal or woe betide,
By thy command I rise or fall,
In thy protection I confide.

If, when this dust to dust's restored,
My soul shall float on airy wing,
How shall thy glorious name adored
Inspire her feeble voice to sing!
But, if this fleeting spirit share

With clay the grave's eternal bed,
While life yet throbs I raise my prayer,

Though doom'd no more to quit the dead.

To Thee I breathe my humble strain, Grateful for all thy mercies past, And hope, my God, to thee again This erring life may fly at last.

TO EDWARD NOEL LONG, ESQ.
'Nil ego contulerim jocundo sanus amico.'-HOR.
DEAR LONG, in this sequester'd scene,
While all around in slumber lie,
The joyous days which ours have been,
Come rolling fresh on Fancy's eye;
Thus if amidst the gathering storm,
While clouds the darken'd noon deform,
Yon heaven assumes a varied glow,
I hail the sky's celestial bow,
Which spreads the sign of future peace,
And bids the war of tempests cease.
Ah! though the present brings but pain,
I think those days may come again;
Or if, in melancholy mood,
Some lurking envious fear intrude,
To check my bosom's fondest thought,
And interrupt the golden dream,

I crush the fiend with malice fraught,
And still indulge my wonted theme.
Although we ne'er again can trace,

I Granta's vale, the pedant's lore;
Nor through the groves of Ida chase

Our raptured visions as before, Though Youth has flown on rosy pinion, And Manhood claims his stern dominion, Age will not every hope destroy, But yield some hours of sober joy.

Yes, I will hope that Time's broad wing Will shed around some dews of spring: But if his scythe must sweep the flowers Which bloom among the fairy bowers, Where smiling Youth delights to dwell, And hearts with early rapture swell; If frowning Age, with cold control, Confines the current of the soul, Congeals the tear of Pity's eye, Or checks the sympathetic sigh, Or hears unmoved misfortune's groan, And bids me feel for self alone; Oh may my bosom never learn

To soothe its wonted heedless flow, Still, still despise the censor stern, But ne'er forget another's woe. Yes, as you knew me in the days O'er which Remembrance yet delays, Still may I rove, untutor'd, wild, And even in age at heart a child. Though now on airy visions borne, To you my soul is still the same. Oft has it been my fate to mourn, And all my former joys are tame. But, hence ye hours of sable hue ! Your frowns are gone, my sorrows o'er : By every bliss my childhood knew, I'll think upon your shade no more.

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Libros

The Poetical Works of Lord Byron: Reprinted from the Original Editions, with ...