Yet with the retrospection loves to dwell,
And soothe the sorrows of her last farewell!
Yet greets the triumph of my boyish mind,'
As infant laurels round my head were twined,
When Probus' praise repaid my lyric song,
Or placed me higher in the studious throng;
Or when my first harangue received applause,
His sage instruction the primeval cause,
What gratitude to him my soul possest,
While hope of dawning honours fill'd my breast!
For all my humble fame, to him alone *
The praise is due, who made that fame my own.
Oh! could I soar above these feeble lays,
young effusions of my early days,
*The first copy of this poem continued and concluded thus:
When, yet a novice in the mimic art,
I feign'd the transports of a vengeful heart;
When as the Royal Slave I trod the stage,
To vent in Zanga more than mortal rage;
The praise of Probus made me feel more proud
Than all the plaudits of the list'ning crowd.
Ah! vain endeavour in this childish strain
To soothe the woes of which I thus complain!
What can avail the fruitless loss of time.
To measure sorrow in a jingling rhyme?
No social solace from a friend is near,
And heartless strangers drop no feeling tear.
I seek not joy in woman's sparkling eye:
The smiles of beauty cannot check the sigh.
Adieu! thou world! thy pleasure 's still a dream,
Thy virtue but a visionary theme;
The years of vice on years of folly roll,
Till grinning Death assigns the destined goal,
Where all are hastening to the dread abode,
To meet the judgment of a righteous God;
Mix'd in the concourse of the thoughtless throng,
A mourner midst of mirth, I glide along;
A wretched, isolated, gloomy thing,
Curst by reflection's deep-corroding sting:
But not that mental sting which stabs within,
The dark avenger of unpunish'd sin;
The silent shaft which goads the guilty wretch
Extended on a rack's untiring stretch:
Conscience that sting, that shaft to him supplies-
His mind the rack from which he ne'er can rise.
For me,
whate'er my folly or my fear,
One cheerful comfort still is cherish'd here:
No dread internal haunts my hours of rest,
No dreams of injured innocence infest;
Of hope, of peace, of almost all bereft,
Conscience, my last but welcome guest, is left.
Slander's empoison'd breath may blast my name;,
Envy delights to blight the buds of fame;
Deceit may chill the current of my blood,
And freeze affection's warm impassion'd flood;
Presaging horror darken every sense ;
Even here will conscience be my best defence.
My bosom feeds no "worm which ne'er can die :"
Not crimes I mourn, but happiness gone by.
Thus crawling on with many a reptile vile,
My heart is bitter, though my cheek may smile;
No more with former bliss my heart is glad;
Hope yields to anguish, and my soul is sad:
From fond regret no future joy can save;
Remembrance slumbers only in the grave.-E.
To him my muse her noblest strain would give :
The song might perish, but the theme must 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 balin 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;
Peruse 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.
Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico.
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,
In Granta's vale, the pedant's lore,
Nor through the groves of Ida chase
Our raptured visions as before;
*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.-E.
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 sorrow's 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 chuse,
The strains in stolen sighs expire.
My youthful nymphs, alas! are flown:
E- is a wife, and C- a mother,
And Carolina sighs alone,
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, 't was time to flee,
For Cora's eye will shine on all.
And though the sun, with genial rays,
His beams alike to all displays,
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 light,
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, 't is 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;
And then, with those our childhood knew,
We'll mingle with 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. [MRS. MUSTERS.]
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.
|