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. (1)
"Nil ego contulerim jucundo 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,

(I) This young gentleman, who was with Lord Byron both at Harrow and Cambridge, afterwards entered the Guards, and served with distinction in the expedition to Copenhagen. He was drowned early in 1809, when on his way to join the army in the Peninsula; the transport in which he sailed being run foul of in the night by another of the convoy. "Long's father," says Lord Byron, "wrote to me to write his son's epitaph. I promised - but I had not the heart to complete it. He was such a good, amiable being as rarely remains long in this world; with talent and accomplishments, too,

to make him the more regretted." Diary, 1821.-E

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,

In 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. Thus, when the whirlwind's rage is past, And caves their sullen roar enclose, We heed no more the wintry blast, When lull'd by zephyr to repose.

Full often has my infant Muse

Attuned to love her languid lyre; But now, without a theme to choose, The strains in stolen sighs expire. My youthful nymphs, alas! are flown;

E

is a wife, and C

And Carolina sighs alone,

a mother,

And Mary's given to another; And Cora's eye, which roll'd on me,

Can now no more my love recall:

In truth, dear LONG, 'twas time to flee;
For Cora's eye will shine on all.
And though the sun, with genial rays,
His beams alike to all displays,

And every lady's eye's a sun,

These last should be confined to one.
The soul's meridian don't become her,
Whose sun displays a general summer!
Thus faint is every former flame,
And passion's self is now a name.
As, when the ebbing flames are low,
The aid which once improved their ligh
And bade them burn with fiercer glow,
Now quenches all their sparks in night;
Thus has it been with passion's fires,

As many a boy and girl remembers,
While all the force of love expires,
Extinguish'd with the dying embers.

But now, dear LONG, 'tis midnight's noon,
And clouds obscure the watery moon,
Whose beauties I shall not rehearse,
Described in every stripling's verse;
For why should I the path go o'er,
Which
every bard has trod before?
Yet ere yon silver lamp of night

Has thrice perform'd her stated round,
Has thrice retraced her path of light,
And chased away the gloom profound,
I trust that we, my gentle friend,
Shall see her rolling orbit wend

Above the dear-loved peaceful seat

Which once contain❜d our youth's retreat; (1)
And then with those our childhood knew,
We'll mingle in the festive crew;
While many a tale of former day
Shall wing the laughing hours away;
And all the flow of souls shall pour
The sacred intellectual shower,
Nor cease till Luna's waning horn
Scarce glimmers through the mist of morn.

TO A LADY. (2)

OH! had my fate been join'd with thine,
As once this pledge appear'd a token,
These follies had not then been mine,
For then my peace had not been broken. (3)

To thee these early faults I owe,

To thee, the wise and old reproving: They know my sins, but do not know

'Twas thine to break the bonds of loving.

For once my soul, like thine, was pure,

And all its rising fires could smother;

(1) The two friends were both passionately attached to Harrow; and sometimes made excursions thither together, to revive their school-boy recollections.-E.

(2) Mrs. Musters.

(3) "Our union would have healed feuds in which blood had been shed by our fathers-it would have joined lands broad and rich—it would have joined at least one heart, and two persons not ill matched in years (she is two years my elder), and-and-and-what has been the result?"Diary, 1821.