And more on that recall'd resemblance pause,
Than all he shall not force on our applause.
Long may thy yet meridian lustre shine
With all that virtue asks of homage thine :
The symmetry of youth, the grace of mien,
The eye that gladdens and the brow serene,
The glossy darkness of that clust❜ring hair

Which shades, yet shows that forehead more than fair,
Each glance that wins us, and the life that throws
A spell that will not let our looks repose,
But turn to gaze again, and find anew

Some charm that well rewards another view.
These are not lessen'd, these are still as bright,
Albeit too dazzling for a dotard's sight;
And these must wait till ev'ry charm is gone,
To please the paltry heart that pleases none;
That dull, cold sensualist, whose sickly eye,
In envious dimness, pass'd thy portrait by ;
Who rack'd his little spirit to combine
Its hate of Freedom's loveliness, and thine.

August, 1814.

TO BELSHAZZAR.

BELSHAZZAR! from the banquet turn,
Nor in thy sensual fulness fall;
Behold! while yet before thee burn
The graven words, the glowing wall.
Many a despot men miscall

Crown'd and anointed from on high;
But thou, the weakest, worst of all-
Is it not written, thou must die?

Go! dash the roses from thy brow

Grey hairs but poorly wreathe with them
Youth's garlands misbecome thee now,
More than thy very diadem,

Where thou hast tarnish'd every gem
Then throw the worthless bauble by,
Which, worn by thee, ev'n slaves contemn;
And learn like better men to die!

Oh! early in the balance weigh'd,
And ever light of word and worth,
Whose soul expired ere youth decay'd,
And left thee but a mass of earth!

;

To see thee moves the scorner's mirth :
But tears in Hope's averted eye
Lament that even thou hadst birth-
Unfit to govern, live, or die.

ELEGIAC STANZAS ON THE DEATH OF SIR PETER PARKER, BART.*

THERE is a tear for all that die,

A mourner o'er the humblest grave;

But nations swell the funeral cry,

And Triumph weeps above the brave.

For them is Sorrow's purest sigh

O'er Ocean's heaving bosom sent :

In vain their bones unburied lie,

All earth becomes their monument !

A tomb is theirs on every page,
An epitaph on every tongue :
The present hours, the future age,
For them bewail, to them belong.

For them the voice of festal mirth

Grows hush'd, their name the only sound;
While deep Remembrance pours to Worth
The goblet's tributary round.

A theme to crowds that knew them not,
Lamented by admiring foes,

Who would not share their glorious lot?
Who would not die the death they chose?

And, gallant Parker! thus enshrined
Thy life, thy fall, thy fame shall be;
And early valour, glowing, find

A model in thy memory.

* This gallant officer fell in August, 1814, in his twenty-ninth year, whilst commanding, on shore, a party belonging to his ship, the Menelaus, and animating them in storming the American camp near Baltimore. He was Lord Byron's first cousin ; but they had never met since boyhood.-E.

But there are breasts that bleed with thee
In woe, that glory cannot quell;
And shuddering hear of victory,

Where one so dear, so dauntless, fell.

Where shall they turn to mourn thee less?
When cease to hear thy cherish'd name?
Time cannot teach forgetfulness,

While Grief's full heart is fed by Fame.

Alas! for them, though not for thee,
They cannot choose but weep the more ;
Deep for the dead the grief must be,
Who ne'er gave cause to mourn before.

October, 1814.

STANZAS FOR MUSIC.*

O lachrymaruin fons, tenero sacros
Ducentium ortus ex animo: quater
Felix! in imo qui scatentem

Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit.-GRAY.

THERE 's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away,
When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay;
'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone which fades so fast,
But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.

Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness
Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt or ocean of excess :

The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain
The shore to which their shiver'd sail shall never stretch again.

* These verses were given by Lord Byron to Mr. Power, of the Strand, who has published them, with very beautiful music by Sir John Stevenson. ["I feel merry enough to send you a sad song. An event, the death of poor Dorset, and the recollection of what I once felt, and ought to have felt now, but could not-set me pondering, and finally into the train of thought which you have in your hands. I wrote them with a view to your setting them, and as a present to Power, if he would accept the words, and you did not think yourself degraded, for once in a way, by marrying them to music. I don't care what Power says to secure the property of the song, so that it is not complimentary to me, nor any thing about condescending' or 'noble author'—both vile phrases,' as Polonius says."—Lord B. to Mr. Moore.]

Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself comes down ;
It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream its own;

That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our tears,
And though the eye may sparkle still, 't is where the ice appears.

Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast,
Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest;
'T is but as ivy-leaves around the ruin'd turret wreathe,
All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and

grey beneath.

Oh! could I feel as I have felt,-or be what I have been,
Or weep, as I could once have wept, o'er many a vanish'd scene;
As springs in deserts found, seem sweet, all brackish though they be,
So, midst the wither'd waste of life, those tears would flow to me.

March, 1815.

STANZAS FOR MUSIC.

THERE be none of beauty's daughters

With a magic like thee;

And like music on the waters

Is thy sweet voice to me :
When, as if its sound were causing
The charm'd ocean's pausing,
The waves lie still and gleaming,
And the lull'd winds seem dreaming.

And the midnight moon is weaving
Her bright chain o'er the deep;
Whose breast is gently heaving,
As an infant's asleep :

So the spirit bows before thee,

To listen and adore thee;

With a full but soft emotion,

Like the swell of summer's ocean.

HEBREW MELODIES.

I.

A PARAPHRASE OF PSALM CXXXVIII.

In the valley of waters we wept o'er the day
When the host of the stranger made Salem his prey,
And our heads on our bosoms all droopingly lay,
And our hearts were so full of the land far

away.

The song they demanded in vain-it lay still

In our souls, as the wind that hath died on the hill;
They call'd for the harp-but our blood they shall spill
Ere our right hands shall teach them one tone of their skill.

All stringlessly hung on the willow's sad tree,

As dead as her dead leaf those mute harps must be;
Our hands may be fetter'd-our tears still are free
For our God and our glory-and Sion! oh thee!

THEY say that hope is happiness;

But genuine love must prize the past,

And

memory wakes the thoughts that bless; They rose the first-they set the last;

And all that memory loves the most
Was once our only hope to be,
And all that hope adored and lost
Hath melted into memory.

Alas! it is delusion all :

The future cheats us from afar,

Nor can we be what we recall,

Nor dare we think on what we are.*

* Mr. Nathan, the composer of the music for the Hebrew Melodies, relates the following anecdote relative to these lines :-" Having been officiously taken up by a person who arrogated to himself some self-importance in criticism, and who made an observation upon their demerits, Lord Byron quaintly observed, "They were written in haste, and they shall perish in the same manner!" and immediately consigned them