8. Where shall they turn to mourn thee less? While Grief's full heart is fed by Fame. 9. Alas! for them, though not for thee, They cannot choose but weep the more; Who ne'er gave cause to mourn before. October 7, 1814. [First published, Morning Chronicle, October 7, 1814.] JULIAN [A FRAGMENT].1 I. THE Night came on the Waters—all was rest 2. There is no vestige, in the Dawning light, Of those that shrieked thro' shadows of the Night. 1. [From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for the first time printed.] In him there still is Life, the Wave that dashed The one of Many whom the withering Gale 3. The naked Stranger rose, and wrung his hair, He was on Earth—but what was Earth to him, His fate-his folly-but himself the worst. What was his hope? he looked upon the Wave— 4. He rose and with a feeble effort shaped 5. He raised young Julian. "Is thy Cup so full "Of bitterness-thy Hope-thy heart so dull "That thou shouldst from Thee dash the Draught of Life, "So late escaped the elemental strife! "Rise-tho' these shores few aids to Life supply, 6. He raised young Julian from the sand, and such Dec. 12, 1814. i. BELSHAZZAR! from the banquet turn, I. The red light glows, the wassail flows, Behold! while yet before thee burn Crowned and anointed from on high; 2. Go! dash the roses from thy brow— Where thou hast tarnished every gem :- 3. Oh! early in the balance weighed, And who, on earth, dare mar the mirth The prophet dares-before thee glows- 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: Unfit to govern, live, or die. February 12, 1815. [First published, 1831.] STANZAS FOR MUSIC.1 "O Lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros Pectore te, pía Nympha, sensit." [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,1. 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.] |