Behold! while yet before thee burn
The graven words, the glowing wall,"
Many a despot men miscall

Crowned and anointed from on high;
But thou, the weakest, worst of all—
Is it not written, thou must die ? ii.

2.

Go! dash the roses from thy brow-
Grey hairs but poorly wreathe with them;
Youth's garlands misbecome thee now,
More than thy very diadem,.

Where thou hast tarnished every gem :-
Then throw the worthless bauble by,
Which, worn by thee, ev'n slaves contemn;
And learn like better men to die!

3.

Oh! early in the balance weighed,
And ever light of word and worth,
Whose soul expired ere youth decayed,
And left thee but a mass of earth.

And who, on earth, dare mar the mirth
Of that high festival?

The prophet dares-before thee glows-
Belshazzar rise, nor dare despise
The writing on the wall!

2.

Thy vice might raise th' avenging steel,

Thy meanness shield thee from the blowAnd they who loathe thee proudly feel.—[MS.] i. The words of God along the wall.-[MS. erased.] The word of God-the graven wall.—[MS.]

To see thee moves the scorner's mirth :
But tears in Hope's averted eye
Lament that even thou hadst birth-

Unfit to govern, live, or die.

February 12, 1815. [First published, 1831.]

STANZAS FOR MUSIC.1

"O Lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros
Ducentium ortus ex animo: quater
Felix! in imo qui scatentem

Pectore te, pía Nympha, sensit."
GRAY'S Poemata.

[Motto to "The Tear," Poetical Works, 1898, i. 49.]

I.

THERE'S not a joy the world can give like that it takes

away,

When the glow of early thought declines in Feeling's dull

decay;

'Tis not on Youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast,i.

But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere Youth itself be past.

i. 'Tis not the blush alone that fades from Beauty's cheek.-[MS.]

1. [Byron gave these verses to Moore for Mr. Power of the Strand, who published them, with music by Sir John Stevenson. "I feel merry enough," he wrote, March 2, "to send you a sad song." And again, March 8, 1815, " An event-the death of poor Dorset and the recollection of what I once felt, and ought to have felt now, but could not-set me pondering, and finally into the train of thought which you have in your hands." A year later, in another letter to Moore, he says, "I pique myself on these lines as being the truest, though the most melancholy, I ever wrote." (March 8, 1816.)—Letters, 1899, iii. 181, 183, 274.]

2.

Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness

Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt or ocean of excess : The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in

vain

The shore to which their shivered sail shall never stretch

again.

3.

Then the mortal coldness of the soul like Death itself

comes down ;

It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream its

own ;

That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our tears, And though the eye may sparkle still, 'tis where the ice appears.

4.

Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast,

Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest;

'Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruined turret wreath,1 All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and grey beneath.

i. As ivy o'er the mouldering wall that heavily hath crept.—[MS.] 1. [Compare

"And oft we see gay ivy's wreath

The tree with brilliant bloom o'erspread,
When, part its leaves and gaze beneath,

We find the hidden tree is dead.'

"To Anna," The Warrior's Return, etc., by

Mrs. Opie, 1808, p. 144.]

5.

Oh, could I feel as I have felt,—or be what I have been, Or weep as I could once have wept, o'er many a vanished

scene;

As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though they be,

So, midst the withered waste of life, those tears would flow

to me.

March, 1815.

[First published, Poems, 1816.]

ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF DORSET.1

I.

I HEARD thy fate without a tear,
Thy loss with scarce a sigh;
And yet thou wast surpassing dear,
Too loved of all to die.

I know not what hath seared my eye-

Its tears refuse to start;

But every drop, it bids me dry,

Falls dreary on my heart.

2.

Yes, dull and heavy, one by one,

They sink and turn to care,

1. [From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for the first time printed. The MS. is headed, in pencil, "Lines written on the Death of the Duke of Dorset, a College Friend of Lord Byron's, who was killed by a fall from his horse while hunting." It is endorsed, “ Bought of Markham Thorpe, August 29, 1844." (For Duke of Dorset, see Poetical Works, 1898, i. 194, note 2; and Letters, 1899, iii. 181, note 1.)]

As caverned waters wear the stone,
Yet dropping harden there:
They cannot petrify more fast,
Than feelings sunk remain,
Which coldly fixed regard the past,
But never melt again.

STANZAS FOR MUSIC.

[1815.]

I.

BRIGHT be the place of thy soul !
No lovelier spirit than thine
E'er burst from its mortal control,
In the orbs of the blessed to shine.
On earth thou wert all but divine,
As thy soul shall immortally be; i

And our sorrow may cease to repine

When we know that thy God is with thee.

2.

Light be the turf of thy tomb!ii. 1

May its verdure like emeralds be!.
There should not be the shadow of gloom

i.

In aught that reminds us of thee.

shall eternally be.-[MS. erased.]

ii. Green be the turf - -.- -[MS.]

iii. May its verdure be sweetest to see.—[MS.]

1. [Compare "O lay me, ye that see the light, near some rock of my hills: let the thick hazels be around, let the rustling oaks be near. Green be the place of my rest."-"The War of InisThona," Works of Ossian, 1765, i. 156.]