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Thus Pope by Curl and Dennis was destroyed,
Thus Gray and Mason yield to furious Loyd;1
From Dryden, Milbourne 2 tears the palm away,
And thus I fall, though meaner far than they.
As in the field of combat, side by side,
A Fabius and some noble Roman died.

Dec. 1806.

L'AMITIÉ EST L'AMOUR SANS AILES.3

I.

WHY should my anxious breast repine,

Because my youth is fled?

Days of delight may still be mine;

Affection is not dead.

In tracing back the years of youth,
One firm record, one lasting truth
Celestial consolation brings;

Bear it, ye breezes, to the seat,

Where first my heart responsive beat,—

"Friendship is Love without his wings!"

1. [Robert Lloyd (1733-1764). The following lines occur in the first of two odes to Obscurity and Oblivion-parodies of the odes of Gray and Mason :

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2. [The Rev. Luke Milbourne (died 1720) published, in 1698, his Notes on Dryden's Virgil, containing a venomous attack on Dryden. They are alluded to in The Dunciad, and also by Dr. Johnson, who wrote (Life of Dryden), "His outrages seem to be the ebullitions of a mind agitated by stronger resentment than bad poetry can excite."]

3. [The MS. is preserved at Newstead.]

2.

Through few, but deeply chequer'd years,

What moments have been mine!

Now half obscured by clouds of tears,

Now bright in rays divine;

Howe'er my future doom be cast,

My soul, enraptured with the past,
To one idea fondly clings;

Friendship! that thought is all thine own,

Worth worlds of bliss, that thought alone

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Where yonder yew-trees lightly wave

Their branches on the gale, Unheeded heaves a simple grave,

Which tells the common tale; Round this unconscious schoolboys stray, Till the dull knell of childish play

From yonder studious mansion rings; But here, whene'er my footsteps move,

My silent tears too plainly prove,

"Friendship is Love without his wings!"

4.

Oh, Love! before thy glowing shrine,

My early vows were paid;

My hopes, my dreams, my heart was thine,

But these are now decay'd;

For thine are pinions like the wind,
No trace of thee remains behind,

Except, alas! thy jealous stings.
Away, away! delusive power,

Thou shalt not haunt my coming hour;
Unless, indeed, without thy wings.

5.

Seat of my youth ! thy distant spire
Recalls each scene of joy ;

My bosom glows with former fire,-
In mind again a boy.

Thy grove of elms, thy verdant hill,

Thy every path delights me still,

Fach flower a double fragrance flings;

Again, as once, in converse gay,

Each dear associate seems to say,

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Friendship is Love without his wings!"

6.

My Lycus ! wherefore dost thou weep?
Thy falling tears restrain;

I. [Harrow.]

2. [Lord Clare had written to Byron, "I think by your last letter that you are very much piqued with most of your friends, and, if I am not much mistaken, a little so with me. In one part you say, 'There is little or no doubt a few years or months will render us as politely indifferent to each other, as if we had never passed a portion of our time together.' Indeed, Byron, you wrong me; and I have no doubt, at least I hope, you are wrong yourself."-Life, p. 25.]

Rose whom the Deities above,

From Jove to Hebe, dearly love,
When Cytherea's blooming Boy,

Flies lightly through the dance of Joy,
With him the Graces then combine,

And rosy wreaths their locks entwine.
Then will I sing divinely crown'd,

With dusky leaves my temples bound--
Lyæus! in thy bowers of pleasure,
I'll wake a wildly thrilling measure.
There will my gentle Girl and I,

Along the mazes sportive fly,

Will bend before thy potent throne

Rose, Wine, and Beauty, all my own.

1805.

[OSSIAN'S ADDRESS TO THE SUN IN
"CARTHON." ]

OH! thou that roll'st above thy glorious Fire,
Round as the shield which grac'd my godlike Sire,
Whence are the beams, O Sun! thy endless blaze,
Which far eclipse each minor Glory's rays?

Forth in thy Beauty here thou deign'st to shine!
Night quits her car, the twinkling stars decline;

1. [From an autograph MS. at Newstead, now for the first time printed. (See Ossian's Poems, London, 1819, pp. xvii. 119.)]

Pallid and cold the Moon descends to cave
Her sinking beams beneath the Western wave;
But thou still mov'st alone, of light the Source-
Who can o'ertake thee in thy fiery course?
Oaks of the mountains fall, the rocks decay,
Weighed down with years the hills dissolve away.

A certain space to yonder Moon is given,

She rises, smiles, and then is lost in Heaven.
Ocean in sullen murmurs ebbs and flows,

But thy bright beam unchanged for ever glows!
When Earth is darkened with tempestuous skies,
When Thunder shakes the sphere and Lightning flies,
Thy face, O Sun, no rolling blasts deform,

Thou look'st from clouds and laughest at the Storm.
To Ossian, Orb of Light! thou look'st in vain,
Nor cans't thou glad his agèd eyes again,

Whether thy locks in Orient Beauty stream,
Or glimmer through the West with fainter gleam-
But thou, perhaps, like me with age must bend;
Thy season o'er, thy days will find their end,

No more yon azure vault with rays adorn,
Lull'd in the clouds, nor hear the voice of Morn.
Exult, O Sun, in all thy youthful strength!

Age, dark unlovely Age, appears at length,

As gleams the moonbeam through the broken cloud While mountain vapours spread their misty shroudThe Northern tempest howls along at last,

And wayworn strangers shrink amid the blast.

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