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Still, still despise the censor stern,
But ne'er forget another's woe.
Yes, as you knew me in the days
O'er which Remembrance yet delays,
Still may I rove, untutor'd, wild,
And even in age at heart a child.

Though now on airy visions borne,
To you my soul is still the same.
Oft has it been my fate to mourn,
And all my former joys are tame.
But, hence! ye hours of sable hue!
Your frowns are gone, my sorrows o'er:
By every bliss my childhood knew,

I'll think upon your shade no more. Thus, when the whirlwind's rage is past, And caves their sullen roar enclose, We heed no more the wintry blast, When lull'd by zephyr to repose.

Full often has my infant Muse
Attuned to love her languid lyre;
But now, without a theme to choose,
The strains in stolen sighs expire.
My youthful nymphs, alas! are flown;
E- is a wife, and C- a mother,
And Carolina sighs alone,

And Mary's given to another;
And Cora's eye, which roll'd on me,
Can now no more my love recall :
In truth, dear LONG, 't was time to flee;
For Cora's eye will shine on all.
And though the sun, with genial rays,
His beams alike to all displays,

And every lady's eye's a sun,

These last should be confined to one.
The soul's meridian don't become her,
Whose sun displays a general summer!
Thus faint is every former flame,
And passion's self is now a name.
As, when the ebbing flames are low,
The aid which once improved their light,
And bade them burn with fiercer glow,
Now quenches all their sparks in night;
Thus has it been with passion's fires,

As many a boy and girl remembers,
While all the force of love expires,

Extinguish'd with the dying embers.

But now, dear LONG, 't is midnight's noon,
And clouds obscure the watery moon,
Whose beauties I shall not rehearse,
Described in every stripling's verse;
For why should I the path go o'er,
Which every bard has trod before?
Yet ere yon silver lamp of night

Has thrice perform'd her stated round,
Has thrice retraced her path of light,
And chased away the gloom profound,
I trust that we, my gentle friend,
Shall see her rolling orbit wend
Above the dear-loved peaceful seat,

Which once contain'd our youth's retreat; 1
And then with those our childhood knew,

We'll mingle in the festive crew;

[The two friends were both passionately attached to Harrow; and sometimes made excursions thither together, to revive their schoolboy recollections.]

While many a tale of former day
Shall wing the laughing hours away;
And all the flow of souls shall pour
The sacred intellectual shower,
Nor cease till Luna's waning horn
Scarce glimmers through the mist of morn.

2

TO A LADY.1

OH! had my fate been join'd with thine,
As once this pledge appear'd a token,
These follies had not then been mine,
For then my peace had not been broken.?

To thee these early faults I owe,

To thee, the wise and old reproving: They know my sins, but do not know 'Twas thine to break the bonds of loving.

For once my soul, like thine, was pure,
And all its rising fires could smother;
But now thy vows no more endure,
Bestow'd by thee upon another.

Perhaps his peace I could destroy,

And spoil the blisses that await him;

Yet let my rival smile in joy,

For thy dear sake I cannot hate him.

[Mrs. Musters. See antè, p. 42.]

Our union would have healed feuds in which blood had been shed by our fathers it would have joined lands broad and richit would have joined at least one heart, and two persons not illmatched in years (she is two years my elder), and-and-andwhat has been the result?" Byron Diary, 1821.]

Ah! since thy angel form is gone,
My heart no more can rest with any;
But what it sought in thee alone,
Attempts, alas! to find in many.

Then fare thee well, deceitful maid!
'T were vain and fruitless to regret thee;
Nor hope, nor Memory yield their aid,
But Pride may teach me to forget thee.

Yet all this giddy waste of

years,

This tiresome round of palling pleasures; These varied loves, these matron's fears,

These thoughtless strains to passion's measures

If thou wert mine, had all been hush'd: -
This cheek now pale from early riot,
With passion's hectic ne'er had flush'd,
But bloom'd in calm domestic quiet.

Yes, once the rural scene was sweet,

For Nature seem'd to smile before thee; 1
And once my breast abhorr'd deceit, -
For then it beat but to adore thee.

But now I seek for other joys:

To think would drive my soul to madness; In thoughtless throngs and empty noise,

I conquer half my bosom's sadness.

1["Our meetings," says Lord Byron in 1822, "were stolen ones, and a gate leading from Mr. Chaworth's grounds to those of my mother was the place of our interviews. But the ardour was all on my side. I was serious; she was volatile: she liked me as a younger brother, and treated and laughed at me as a boy; she, however, gave me her picture, and that was something to make verses upon. Had I married her, perhaps the whole tenour of my life would have been different."]

Yet, even in these a thought will steal
In spite of every vain endeavour,
And fiends might pity what I feel,·

To know that thou art lost for ever.

I WOULD I WERE A CARELESS CHILD.

I WOULD I were a careless child,
Still dwelling in my Highland cave,
Or roaming through the dusky wild,
Or bounding o'er the dark blue wave;
The cumbrous pomp of Saxon 1 pride

1

Accords not with the freeborn soul, Which loves the mountain's craggy side,

And seeks the rocks where billows roll.

Fortune! take back these cultured lands,
Take back this name of splendid sound!
I hate the touch of servile hands,

I hate the slaves that cringe around.
Place me along the rocks I love,

Which sound to Ocean's wildest roar;

I ask but this again to rove

Through scenes my youth hath known before.

Few are my years, and yet I feel

The world was ne'er design'd for me: Ah! why do dark'ning shades conceal

The hour when man must cease to be?

1 Sassenach, or Saxon, a Gaelic word, signifying either Lowland or English.

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