When PROBUS' praise repaid my lyric song,
Or plac'd me higher in the studious throng;
Or when my first harangue receiv'd applause,'
His sage instruction the primeval cause,

What gratitude, to him, my soul possest,

While hope of dawning honours fill'd my breast!"

i. 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 this 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;

Thy years of vice, on years of folly roll,

Till grinning death assigns the destin'd goal,

350

1. ["My qualities were much more oratorical than poetical, and Dr. Drury, my grand patron, had a great notion that I should turn out an orator from my fluency, my turbulence, my voice, my copiousness of declamation, and my action. I remember that my first declamation astonished Dr. Drury into some unwonted (for he was economical of such) and sudden compliments, before the declaimers at our first rehearsal."-Byron Diary. "I certainly was much pleased with Lord Byron's attitude, gesture, and delivery, as well as with his composition. To my surprise, he suddenly diverged from the written composition, with a boldness and rapidity sufficient to alarm me, lest he should fail in memory as to the conclusion. I questioned him, why he had altered his declamation? He declared he had made no alteration, and did not know, in speaking, that he had deviated from it one letter. I believed him, and from a knowledge of his temperament, am convinced that he was hurried on to expressions and colourings more striking than what his pen had expressed."-DR. DRURY, Life, p. 20.]

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,

These young effusions of my early days,

To him my Muse her noblest strain would give,
The song might perish, but the theme might live. 360
Yet, why for him the needless verse essay?

His honour'd name requires no vain display :

Where all are hastening to the dread abode,
To meet the judgment of a righteous God;
Mix'd in the concourse of a 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,

66

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.

[P. on V. Occasions.]

i. The song might perish, but the theme must live.—

[Hours of Idleness.]

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 clos'd 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,

370

380

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 has yet withheld her venom'd tooth; i 390
Say, if Remembrance days like these endears,
Beyond the rapture of succeeding years?
Say, can Ambition's fever'd dream bestow
So sweet a balm 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 belov'd to view,

As those where Youth her garland twin'd for you?
Ah, no! amid the gloomy calm of age

400

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,

Trac'd by the rosy finger of the Morn;

When Friendship bow'd before the shrine of truth,

And Love, without his pinion,1 smil'd on Youth.

i.

his venom'd tooth.-[Hours of Idleness.]

410

1. "L'Amitié est l'Amour sans ailes," is a French proverb. [See the lines so entitled, p. 220.]

ANSWER TO A BEAUTIFUL POEM, WRITTEN BY MONTGOMERY, AUTHOR OF "THE WANDERER OF SWITZERLAND," ETC., ENTITLED "THE COMMON LOT." "

I.

MONTGOMERY! true, the common lot

Of mortals lies in Lethe's wave;

Yet some shall never be forgot,

Some shall exist beyond the grave.

2.

"Unknown the region of his birth,"
The hero2 rolls the tide of war;

Yet not unknown his martial worth,
Which glares a meteor from afar.

3.

His joy or grief, his weal or woe,

1

Perchance may 'scape the page of fame ;

Yet nations, now unborn, will know

The record of his deathless name.

1. [Montgomery (James), 1771-1854, poet and hymn-writer, published Prison Amusements (1797), The Ocean; a Poem (1805), The Wanderer of Switzerland, and other Poems (1806), The West Indies, and other Poems (1810), Songs of Sion (1822), The Christian Psalmist (1825), The Pelican Island, and other Poems (1827), etc. (vide post, English Bards, etc., line 418, and note).]

2. No particular hero is here alluded to. The exploits of Bayard, Nemours, Edward the Black Prince, and, in more modern times, the fame of Marlborough, Frederick the Great, Count Saxe, Charles of Sweden, etc., are familiar to every historical reader, but the exact places of their birth are known to a very small proportion of their admirers.