VOL. I.

6.

It boots not that, together bred,

Our childish days were days of joy :
My spring of life has quickly fled;

Thou, too, hast ceas'd to be a boy.

7.

And when we bid adieu to youth,

Slaves to the specious World's controul,

We sigh a long farewell to truth;

That World corrupts the noblest soul.

8.

Ah, joyous season! when the mind1

Dares all things boldly but to lie ; When Thought ere spoke is unconfin'd, And sparkles in the placid eye.

9.

Not so in Man's maturer years,

When Man himself is but a tool;

When Interest sways our hopes and fears,
And all must love and hate by rule.

IO.

With fools in kindred vice the same,1

We learn at length our faults to blend;

And those, and those alone, may claim
The prostituted name of friend.

i. Each fool whose vices are the same
Whose faults with ours may blend.—[MS. L.]
1. [Stanzas 8-9 are not in the MS.]

T

II.

Such is the common lot of man :

Can we then 'scape from folly free?

Can we reverse the general plan,

Nor be what all in turn must be?

12.

No; for myself, so dark my fate
Through every turn of life hath been
Man and the World so much I hate,
I care not when I quit the scene.

13.

But thou, with spirit frail and light,
Wilt shine awhile, and pass away;
As glow-worms sparkle through the night,
But dare not stand the test of day.

14.

Alas! whenever Folly calls

Where parasites and princes meet, (For cherish'd first in royal halls, The welcome vices kindly greet,)

15.

Ev'n now thou'rt nightly seen to add
One insect to the fluttering crowd;

And still thy trifling heart is glad

To join the vain and court the proud.

16.

There dost thou glide from fair to fair,
Still simpering on with eager haste,

As flies along the gay parterre,

That taint the flowers they scarcely taste.

17.

But say, what nymph will prize the flame

Which seems, as marshy vapours move,

To flit along from dame to dame,

An ignis-fatuus gleam of love?

18.

What friend for thee, howe'er inclin'd,
Will deign to own a kindred care?
Who will debase his manly mind,

For friendship every fool may share?

19.

In time forbear; amidst the throng
No more so base a thing be seen;
No more so idly pass along;

Be something, any thing, but-mean.

August 20th, 1808. [First published, 1809.]

LINES INSCRIBED UPON A CUP FORMED FROM A SKULL.1

I.

START not-nor deem my spirit fled :

In me behold the only skull,

From which, unlike a living head,
Whatever flows is never dull.

2.

I lived, I loved, I quaff'd, like thee:
I died let earth my bones resign;
Fill up thou canst not injure me;
The worm hath fouler lips than thine.

3.

Better to hold the sparkling grape,

Than nurse the earth-worm's slimy brood;

And circle in the goblet's shape

The drink of Gods, than reptile's food.

1. [Byron gave Medwin the following account of this cup: "The gardener in digging [discovered] a skull that had probably belonged to some jolly friar or monk of the abbey, about the time it was dis-monasteried. Observing it to be of giant size, and in a perfect state of preservation, a strange fancy seized me of having it set and mounted as a drinking cup. I accordingly sent it to town, and it returned with a very high polish, and of a mottled colour like tortoiseshell."-Medwin's Conversations, 1824, p. 87.]