So shall Affection
To recollection
The dear connexion

Bring back with joy :
You had not waited
Till, tired or hated,
Your passions sated
Began to cloy.
Your last embraces
Leave no cold traces-
The same fond faces

As through the past;

And eyes, the mirrors

Of your sweet errors

Reflect but rapture—not least though last.

True, separations

Ask more than patience;

What desperations

From such have risen!

But yet remaining,

What is 't but chaining

Hearts which, once waning,

Beat 'gainst their prison?

Time can but cloy love,
And use destroy love:
The winged boy, Love,
Is but for boys-
You'll find it torture

Though sharper, shorter,

To wean, and not wear out your joys.

STANZAS

WRITTEN ON THE ROAD BETWEEN FLORENCE AND PISA.

Oн, talk not to me of a name great in story;
The days of our youth are the days of our glory;
And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty
Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.

What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled?
'T is but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled.
Then away with all such from the head that is hoary!
What care I for the wreaths that can only give glory?

Oh FAME!—if I e'er took delight in thy praises,
'T was less for the sake of thy high sounding phrases,
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover
She thougnt that I was not unworthy to love her.

There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee;
Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee;
When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story,
I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory.

IMPROMPTU

TO THE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON.*

BENEATH Blessington's eyes

The reclaim'd Paradise

Should be free as the former from evil;
But if the new Eve

For an apple should grieve,
What mortal would not play the Devil?

TO THE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON.

You have ask'd for a verse-the request,
In a rhymer, 't were strange to deny ;
But my Hippocrene was but my breast,
And my feelings (its fountain) are dry.

Were I now as I

was,

I had sung
What Lawrence had painted so well!
But the strain would expire on my tongue,
And the theme is too soft for my shell.

I am ashes where once I was fire,
And the bard in my bosom is dead;

What I loved I now merely admire,

And heart is as grey as my head.
my

"This was called forth by Lady Blessington's expressing her intention of taking the villa called 'Il Paradiso,' near Genoa. The Genoese wits had already applied this threadbare jest to Lord Byron himself. Taking it into their heads that this villa had been fixed on for his own residence, they said, 'Il Diavolo e ancora entrato in Paradiso.'"-MOORE's Notices.

My life is not dated by years;

There are moments which act as a plough;
And there is not a furrow appears

But is deep in my soul as my brow.

Let the young and the brilliant aspire
To sing what I gaze on in vain ;
For sorrow has torn from my lyre

The string which was worthy the strain.*

STANZAS:

TO A HINDOO AIR.†

Oh! my lonely-lonely-lonely-Pillow!
Where is my lover? where is my lover?
Is it his bark which my dreary dreams discover?
Far-far away ! and alone along the billow?

Oh! my lonely-lonely-lonely-Pillow!
Why must my head ache where his gentle brow lay?
How the long night flags lovelessly and slowly,
And my head droops over thee like the willow.-

*The following was Lady Blessington's answer :—

When I ask'd for a verse, pray, believe,

'T was not vanity urged the desire;
For no more can my mirror deceive,
And no more can I poets inspire.

Time has touch'd with rude fingers my brow,
And the roses have fled from my cheek;

Then it surely were folly, if now

I the praise due to beauty should seek.

But as pilgrims who visit the shrine

Of some saint, bear a relic away,

I sought a memorial of thine,

As a treasure when distant I stray.

Oh! say not that lyre is unstrung

Whose cords can such rapture bestow,
Or that mute is that magical tongue
From whence music and poetry flow.

And though sorrow, ere yet youth has fled,
May have alter'd the lock's jetty hue,

The bays that encircle the head

Hide the ravisher's marks from our view.

†These verses were written by Lord Byron a little before he left Italy for Greece. They were meant to suit the Hindostanee air-" Alla Malla Punca," which the Countess Guiccioli was fond of singing.-E.

Oh! thou, my sad and solitary Pillow!
Send me kind dreams to keep my

heart from breaking,
In return for the tears I shed upon thee waking;
Let me not die till he comes back o'er the billow.-

Then if thou wilt-no more my lonely Pillow,
In one embrace let these arms again enfold him,
And then expire of the joy-but to behold him!
Oh!
my lone bosom!-oh! my lonely Pillow!

ON THIS DAY I COMPLETE MY THIRTY-SIXTH YEAR.

1.

'T is time this heart should be unmoved,

Since others it hath ceased to move:
Yet, though I cannot be beloved,

Still let me love!

2.

My days are in the yellow leaf;

The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone!

3.

The fire that on my bosom preys

Is lone as some volcanic isle;
No torch is kindled at its blaze—
A funeral pile!

4.

The hope, the fear, the jealous care,
The exalted portion of the pain
And power of love, I cannot share,
But wear the chain.

5.

But 't is not thus-and 't is not here

Such thoughts should shake my soul, nor now,
Where glory decks the hero's bier,

Or binds his brow.

6.

The sword, the banner, and the field,
Glory and Greece, around me see!
The Spartan, borne 'upon his shield,
Was not more free.

7.

Awake! (not Greece-she is awake!)
Awake, my spirit! Think through whom
Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake,

And then strike home!

8.

Tread those reviving passions down,
Unworthy manhood! unto thee
Indifferent should the smile or frown
Of beauty be.

9.

If thou regret'st thy youth, why live?
The land of honourable death
Is here:-up to the field, and give
Away thy breath!

10.

Seek out-less often sought than found-
A soldier's grave, for thee the best;
Then look around, and choose thy ground,

And take thy rest.

Missolonghi, Jan. 22, 1824.*

* On the morning of the 22d of January, his birthday,-the last my poor friend was ever fated to see, he came from his bed-room into the apartment where Colonel Stanhope and some others were assembled, and said with a smile, "You were complaining the other day that I never write any poetry now. This is my birthday, and I have just finished something which, I think, is better than what I usually write." He then produced to them these beautiful stanzas. Taking into consideration every thing connected with them,-the last tender aspirations of a loving spirit which they breathe, the self-devotion to a noble cause which they so nobly express, and that consciousness of a near grave glimmering sadly through the whole, there is perhaps no production within the range of mere human composition round which the circumstances and feelings under which it was written cast so touching an interest.— MOORE.