awful scepticism into the darkness of another world, and the second breathing all that is most natural and tender in the affections of this,-were also written at this time, and have never before been published.

'EXTRACT FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM.

Could I remount the river of my years

To the first fountain of our smiles and tears,

'I would not trace again the stream of hours
Between their outworn banks of wither'd flowers,
'But bid it flow as now—until it glides
'Into the number of the nameless tides.
'What is this Death?-a quiet of the heart?

* *

The whole of that of which we are a part?

For Life is but a vision-what I see

Of all which lives alone is life to me,
And being so-the absent are the dead,
'Who haunt us from tranquillity, and spread
'A dreary shroud around us, and invest
With sad remembrances our hours of rest.

The absent are the dead-for they are cold,

And ne'er can be what once we did behold;

'And they are changed, and cheerless,-or if yet
'The unforgotten do not all forget,

Since thus divided-equal must it be

If the deep barrier be of earth, or sea;

It may be both-but one day end it must

In the dark union of insensate dust.

The under-earth inhabitants-are they
But mingled millions decomposed to clay?
'The ashes of a thousand ages spread
'Wherever man has trodden or shall tread?
'Or do they in their silent cities dwell

Each in his incommunicative cell?

'Or have they their own language? and a sense

Of breathless being?-darken'd and intense

not quite so generous, of which a few of the opening lines is all I shall

give :

'And thou wert sad-yet I was not with thee!

And thou wert sick-and yet I was not near.
'Methought that Joy and Health alone could be
Where I was not, and pain and sorrow here.
And is it thus ?-it is as I foretold,

And shall be more so:-' &c. &c.

'As midnight in her solitude?-Oh Earth!

'Where are the past?-and wherefore had they birth?
The dead are thy inheritors-and we

'But bubbles on thy surface; and the key

Of thy profundity is in the grave,

The ebon portal of thy peopled cave,
'Where I would walk in spirit, and behold
Our elements resolved to things untold,
And fathom hidden wonders, and explore
The essence of great bosoms now no more.'

'TO AUGUSTA.

'My sister! my sweet sister! if a name
'Dearer and purer were, it should be thine.
'Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim
'No tears, but tenderness to answer mine:
'Go where I will, to me thou art the same-
A loved regret which I would not resign.
There yet are two things in my destiny,-
'A world to roam through, and a home with thee.

'The first were nothing-had I still the last,

It were the haven of my happiness;

'But other claims and other ties thou hast,

And mine is not the wish to make them less. 'A strange doom is thy father's son's, and past 'Recalling, as it lies beyond redress;

Reversed for him our grandsire's* fate of yore,'He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore.

• Admiral Byron was remarkable for never making a voyage without a tempest. He was known to the sailors by the facetious name of Foul-weather Jack."

6.66

Still his bark could not be lost.

'He returned safely from the wreck of the Wager (in Anson's Voyage), and subsequently circumnavigated the world, many years after, as com'mander of a similar expedition.'

VOL. II.

S

Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward. 'My whole life was a contest, since the day 'That gave me being, gave me that which marr'd "The gift,—a fate, or will that walk'd astray; And I at times have found the struggle hard, And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay: 'But now I fain would for a time survive,

If but to see what next can well arrive.

Kingdoms and empires in my little day

'I have outlived, and yet I am not old;

' And when I look on this, the petty spray 'Of my own years of trouble, which have roll'd 'Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away: Something I know not what-does still uphold A spirit of slight patience;-not in vain, Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain.

'Perhaps the workings of defiance stir

Within me, or perhaps a cold despair, 'Brought on when ills habitually recur,

Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air,

(For even to this may change of soul refer,

And with light armour we may learn to bear,) 'Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not 'The chief companion of a calmer lot.

'I feel almost at times as I have felt

In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks, 'Which do remember me of where I dwelt

Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books, 'Come as of yore upon me, and can melt 'My heart with recognition of their looks; 'And even at moments I could think I see 'Some living thing to love-but none like thee.

Here are the Alpine landscapes which create

'A fund for contemplation;-to admire

Is a brief feeling of a trivial date;

'But something worthier do such scenes inspire: 'Here to be lonely is not desolate,

For much I view which I could most desire, 'And, above all, a lake I can behold

" Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old.

'Oh that thou wert but with me!--but I
The fool of my own wishes, and forget
The solitude which I have vaunted so
Has lost its praise in this but one regret;

grow

1816.]

LIFE OF LORD BYRON.

There may be others which I less may show ;—

I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet

I feel an ebb in my philosophy,

And the tide rising in my alter'd eye.

'I did remind thee of our own dear lake*, By the old hall which may be mine no more. 'Leman's is fair; but think not I forsake 'The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore: 'Sad havoc Time must with my memory make 'Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before; 'Though, like all things which I have loved, they are 'Resign'd for ever, or divided far.

'I can reduce all feelings but this one;

And that I would not;-for at length I see

Such scenes as those wherein my life begun.
The earliest-even the only paths for me—
'Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun,
'I had been better than I now can be;

The passions which have torn me would have slept; 'I had not suffer'd, and thou hadst not wept.

With false ambition what had I to do?

'Little with love, and least of all with fame;

And yet they came unsought, and with me grew,

And made me all which they can make-a name.

'Yet this was not the end I did pursue;

'Surely I once beheld a nobler aim.

But all is over-I am one the more

To baffled millions which have gone before.

And for the future, this world's future may
From me demand but little of my care;
I have outlived myself by many a day;
'Having survived so many things that were;

The lake of Newstead Abbey.

My years have been no slumber, but the prey
'Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share

Of life which might have fill'd a century,
Before its fourth in time had pass'd me by.

For thee, my own sweet sister, in thy heart

I know myself secure, as thou in mine:

We were and are-I am, even as thou art—
'Beings who ne'er each other can resign;
It is the same, together or apart,

From life's commencement to its slow decline
'We are entwined-let death come slow or fast,
The tie which bound the first endures the last!'

In the month of August, Mr. M. G. Lewis arrived to pass some time with him; and he was soon after visited by Mr. Richard Sharpe, of whom he makes such honourable mention in the Journal already given, and with whom, as I have heard this gentleman say, it now gave him evident pleasure to converse about their common friends in England. Among those who appeared to have left the strongest impressions of interest and admiration on his mind was (as easily will be believed by all who know this distinguished person) Sir James Mackintosh.

Soon after the arrival of his friends, Mr. Hobhouse and Mr. S. Davies, he set out, as we have seen, with the former on a tour through the Bernese Alps,-after accomplishing which journey, about the beginning of October he took his departure, accompanied by the same gentleman, for Italy.