To them be joy or rest-on me
Thy future ills shall press in vain ;
I nothing owe but years to thee,

A debt already paid in pain.

Yet even that pain was some relief;

It felt, but still forgot thy power:
The active agony of grief

Retards, but never counts the hour."
In joy I've sighed to think thy flight
Would soon subside from swift to slow;
Thy cloud could overcast the light,
But could not add a night to Woe;
For then, however drear and dark,
My soul was suited to thy sky;
One star alone shot forth a spark
To prove thee-not Eternity.
That beam hath sunk-and now thou art
A blank-a thing to count and curse
Through each dull tedious trifling part,
Which all regret, yet all rehearse.
One scene even thou canst not deform-
The limit of thy sloth or speed
When future wanderers bear the storm

Which we shall sleep too sound to heed.

And I can smile to think how weak

Thine efforts shortly shall be shown,
When all the vengeance thou canst wreak
Must fall upon-a nameless stone.

[MS. M. First published, Childe Harold, 1814 (Seventh Edition).]

not confessed thy power.-[MS. M. erased.]

ii.

still forgets the hour.-[MS, M. erased.]

AH! Love was never yet without

The pang, the agony, the doubt,

Which rends my heart with ceaseless sigh,
While day and night roll darkling by.

2.

Without one friend to hear my woe,
I faint, I die beneath the blow.
That Love had arrows, well I knew
Alas! I find them poisoned too.

3.

Birds, yet in freedom, shun the net
Which Love around your haunts hath set;

Or, circled by his fatal fire,

Your hearts shall burn, your hopes expire.

4.

A bird of free and careless wing

Was I, through many a smiling spring;

But caught within the subtle snare,

I burn, and feebly flutter there.

5.

Who ne'er have loved, and loved in vain,

Can neither feel nor pity pain,

The cold repulse, the look askance,
The lightning of Love's angry glance.

6.

In flattering dreams I deemed thee mine;
Now hope, and he who hoped, decline;

Like melting wax, or withering flower,
I feel my passion, and thy power.

7.

My light of Life! ah, tell me why
That pouting lip, and altered eye?
My bird of Love! my beauteous mate!
And art thou changed, and canst thou hate?

8.

Mine eyes like wintry streams o'erflow:
What wretch with me would barter woe?
My bird! relent: one note could give
A charm to bid thy lover live.

9.

My curdling blood, my madd'ning brain,
In silent anguish I sustain ;

And still thy heart, without partaking
One pang, exults-while mine is breaking,

10.

Pour me the poison; fear not thou!
Thou canst not murder more than now:
I've lived to curse my natal day,

And Love, that thus can lingering slay.

II.

My wounded soul, my bleeding breast,
Can patience preach thee into rest?
Alas! too late, I dearly know

That Joy is harbinger of Woe.

[First published, Childe Harold, 1814 (Seventh Edition).]

THOU ART NOT FALSE, BUT THOU ART

FICKLE.

I.

THOU art not false, but thou art fickle,
To those thyself so fondly sought;
The tears that thou hast forced to trickle

Are doubly bitter from that thought:

"Tis this which breaks the heart thou grievest,
Too well thou lov'st-too soon thou leavest.

2.

The wholly false the heart despises,
And spurns deceiver and deceit ;

But she who not a thought disguises,"

Whose love is as sincere as sweet,—
When she can change who loved so truly,
It feels what mine has felt so newly.

3.

To dream of joy and wake to sorrow
Is doomed to all who love or live;
And if, when conscious on the morrow,
We scarce our Fancy can forgive,
That cheated us in slumber only,
To leave the waking soul more lonely,

4.

What must they feel whom no false vision
But truest, tenderest Passion warmed?

1. ["I send you some lines which may as well be called 'A Song' as anything else, and will do for your new edition.”—B.—(MS. M.)]

ON THE QUOTATION,

AND MY TRUE FAITH," ETC.

Sincere, but swift in sad transition:

As if a dream alone had charmed?
Ah! sure such grief is Fancy's scheming,
And all thy Change can be but dreaming!

[First published, Childe Harold, 1814 (Seventh Edition).]

પ

65

ON BEING ASKED WHAT WAS THE ORIGIN
OF LOVE." i

THE "Origin of Love!"—Ah, why
That cruel question ask of me,
When thou mayst read in many an eye
He starts to life on seeing thee?

And shouldst thou seek his end to know:
My heart forebodes, my fears foresee,
He'll linger long in silent woe;

But live until-I cease to be.

[First published, Childe Harold, 1814 (Seventh Edition).]

ON THE QUOTATION,

"And my true faith can alter never,
Though thou art gone perhaps for ever."

I.

"

AND "thy true faith can alter never?
Indeed it lasted for a-week!
I know the length of Love's forever,
And just expected such a freak.
In peace we met, in peace we parted,
In peace we vowed to meet again,
And though I find thee fickle-hearted
No pang of mine shall make thee vain.

i. To Ianthe.-[MS. M. Compare "The Dedication"

VOL. III.

to Childe Harold.]

F