Nor Fortune change-Pride raise-nor Passion bow,
Nor Virtue teach austerity-till now.
Serenely purest of her sex that live,
But wanting one sweet weakness-to forgive,
Too shock'd at faults her soul can never know,
She deems that all could be like her below :
Foe to all vice, yet hardly Virtue's friend,
For Virtue pardons those she would amend.
But to the theme :-now laid aside too long
The baleful burthen of this honest song-
Though all her former functions are no more,
She rules the circle which she served before.
If mothers-none know why-before her quake;
If daughters dread her for the mothers' sake;
If early habits-those false links, which bind
At times the loftiest to the meanest mind-
Have given her power too deeply to instil
The angry essence of her deadly will;
If like a snake she steal within your walls,
Till the black slime betray her as she crawls;
If like a viper to the heart she wind,
And leave the venom there she did not find;
What marvel that this hag of hatred works
Eternal evil latent as she lurks,
To make a Pandemonium where she dwells,
And reign the Hecate of domestic hells?
Skill'd by a touch to deepen scandal's tints
With all the kind mendacity of hints
While mingling truth with falsehood-sneers with smiles
A thread of candour with a web of wiles;
A plain blunt show of briefly spoken seeming,
To hide her bloodless heart's soul-harden'd scheming;
A lip of lies-a face form'd to conceal ;
And, without feeling, mock at all who feel :
With a vile mask the Gorgon would disown;
A cheek of parchment-and an eye of stone.
Mark, how the channels of her yellow blood
Ooze to her skin, and stagnate there to mud,
Cased like the centipede in saffron mail,
Or darker greenness of the scorpion's scale-
(For drawn from reptiles only may we trace
Congenial colours in that soul or face)—
Look on her features! and behold her mind
As in a mirror of itself defined:
Lock on the picture! deem it not o'ercharged—
There is no trait which might not be enlarged:
Yet true to "Nature's journeymen," who made
This monster when their mistress left off trade-
This female dog-star of her little sky,
Where all beneath her influence droop or die.
Oh! wretch without a tear-without a thought,
Save joy above the ruin thou hast wrought—
The time shall come, nor long remote, when thou
Shalt feel far more than thou inflictest now;
Feel for thy vile self-loving self in vain,
And turn thee howling in unpitied pain.
May the strong curse of crush'd affections light
Back on thy bosom with reflected blight!
And make thee in thy leprosy of mind
As loathsome to thyself as to mankind!
Till all thy self-thoughts curdle into hate,
Black-as thy will for others would create :
Till thy hard heart be calcined into dust,
And thy soul welter in its hideous crust.
Oh, may thy grave be sleepless as the bed,—
The widow'd couch of fire, that thou hast spread!
Then, when thou fain wouldst weary Heaven with prayer,
Look on thine earthly victims-and despair!
Down to the dust!—and, as thou rott'st away,
Even worms shall perish on thy poisonous clay.
But for the love I bore, and still must bear,
To her thy malice from all ties would tear-
Thy name-thy human name-to every eye
The climax of all scorn should hang on high,
Exalted o'er thy less abhorr'd compeers—
And festering in the infamy of
ENDORSEMENT FOR THE DEED OF SEPARATION FROM LADY BYRON.
A YEAR ago you swore, fond she !
"To love, to honour," and so forth:
Such was the vow you pledged to me,
And here's exactly what 't is worth.
WHEN all around grew drear and dark,
And reason half withheld her ray,
And hope but shed a dying spark
Which more misled my lonely way;
In that deep midnight of the mind,
And that internal strife of heart,
When, dreading to be deem'd too kind,
The weak despair-the cold depart;
When fortune changed—and love fled far,
And hatred's shafts flew thick and fast
Thou wert the solitary star
Which rose and set not to the last.
Oh! blest be thine unbroken light!
That watch'd me as a seraph's eye,
And stood between me and the night,
For ever shining sweetly nigh.
And when the cloud upon us came,
Which strove to blacken o'er thy ray-
Then purer spread its gentle flame,
And dash'd the darkness all away.
Still may thy spirit dwell on mine,
And teach it what to brave or brook-
There's more in one soft word of thine,
Than in the world's defied rebuke.
Thou stoodst, as stands a lovely tree,
That still unbroke, though gently bent,
Still waves with fond fidelity
Its boughs above a monument.
The winds might rend-the skies might pour,
But there thou wert-and still wouldst be
Devoted in the stormiest hour
To shed thy weeping leaves o'er me.
*His sister, the Honourable Mrs. Leigh. These stanzas-the parting tribute to her, whose unshaken tenderness had been the author's sole consolation during the crisis of domestic misery,-were, we believe, the last verses written by Lord Byron in England.-E.
But thou and thine shall know no blight,
Whatever fate on me may fall;
For heaven in sunshine will requite
The kind-and thee the most of all.
Then let the ties of baffled love
Be broken-thine will never break
Thy heart can feel-but will not move;
Thy soul, though soft, will never shake.
And these, when all was lost beside,
Were found, and still are fixed, in thee-
And bearing still a breast so tried,
Earth is no desert-ev'n to me.
STANZAS TO AUGUSTA.
THOUGH the day of my destiny 's over,
And the star of my fate hath declined,
Thy soft heart refused to discover
The faults which so many could find ; Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted, It shrunk not to share it with me,
And the love which my spirit hath painted.
It never hath found but in thee.
Then when nature around me is smiling,
The last smile which answers to mine,
I do not believe it beguiling,
Because it reminds me of thine :
And when winds are at war with the ocean,
As the breasts I believed in with me,
If their billows excite an emotion,
It is that they bear me from thee.
Though the rock of my last hope is shiver'd,
And its fragments are sunk in the wave,
Though I feel that my soul is deliver'd
To pain-it shall not be its slave.
There is many a pang to pursue me :
They may crush, but they shall not contemnThey may torture, but shall not subdue me : 'Tis of thee that I think-not of them.
Though human, thou didst not deceive me,
Though woman, thou didst not forsake,
Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me,
Though slander'd, thou never couldst shake,
Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me,
Though parted, it was not to fly,
Though watchful, 't was not to defame me,
Nor, mute, that the world might belie.
Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it,
Nor the war of the many with one;
my soul was not fitted to prize it,
'T was folly not sooner to shun.
And if dearly that error hath cost me,
And more than I once could foresee,
I have found that, whatever it lost me,
It could not deprive me of thee.
From the wreck of the past, which hath perish'd
Thus much I at least may recall,
It hath taught me that what I most cherish'd
Deserved to be dearest of all.
In the desert a fountain is springing,
In the wide waste there still is a tree,
And a bird in the solitude singing,
Which speaks to my spirit of thee.
I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air.
Morn came, and went-and came, and brought no day, And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light :
And they did live by watch-fires-and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings-the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
And men were gather'd round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face :
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanos and their mountain-torch.
A fearful hope was all the world contain'd;
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