Sixteen was then our utmost age, Two years have lingering past away, love! And now new thoughts our minds engage, At least I feel disposed to stray, love! 'Tis I that am alone to blame, I, that am guilty of love's treason; Since your sweet breast is still the same, Caprice must be my only reason. I do not, love! suspect your truth, No, no, my flame was not pretended; No more we meet in yonder bowers; But older, firmer hearts than ours Your check's soft bloom is unimpair'd, The forge of love's resistless lightning. Arm'd thus, to make their bosoms bleed, Many will throng to sigh like me, love! More constant they may prove, indeed; Fonder, alas they ne'er can be, love! LINES ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG LADY. [As the author was discharging his pistols in a garden, two ladies passing near the spot were alarmed by the sound of a bullet hissing near them; to one of whom the following stanzas were addressed the next morning.]1 DOUBTLESS, Sweet girl! the hissing lead, Surely some envious demon's force, Yes! in that nearly fatal hour The ball obey'd some hell-born guide; Yet, as perchance one trembling tear Say, what dire penance can atone [The occurrence took place at Southwell, and the beautiful lady to whom the lines were addressed was Miss Houson.] 2 This word is used by Gray, in his poem to the Fatal Sisters: "Iron sleet of arrowy shower Hurtles through the darken'd air." Might I perform the judge's part, Which but belong'd to thee before. The least atonement I can make But thou, perhaps, may'st now reject Choose then, relentless! and I swear Let it be aught but banishment. LOVE'S LAST ADIEU. Αει, δ' αει με φευγει. ANACREON. THE roses of love glad the garden of life, In vain with endearments we soothe the sad heart, Still Hope, breathing peace through the grief-swollen breast, Will whisper, "Our meeting we yet may renew: With this dream of deceit half our sorrow's represt, Nor taste we the poison of love's last adieu! Oh! mark you yon pair: in the sunshine of youth Love twined round their childhood his flow'rs as they grew; They flourish awhile in the season of truth, Till chill'd by the winter of love's last adieu ! Sweet lady! why thus doth a tear steal its way Down a cheek which outrivals thy bosom in hue? Yet why do I ask? — to distraction a prey, Thy reason has perish'd with love's last adieu ! Oh! who is yon misanthrope, shunning mankind? Now hate rules a heart which in love's easy chains How he envies the wretch with a soul wrapt in steel! Who laughs at the pang that he never can feel, Youth flies, life decays, even hope is o'ercast; In this life of probation for rapture divine, Who kneels to the god, on his altar of light DAMÆTAS. In law an infant, 1 and in years a boy, Versed in hypocrisy, while yet a child; Old in the world, though scarcely broke from school; In law every person is an infant who has not attained the age of twenty-one. 2["When I went up to Trinity, in 1805, at the age of seventeen and a half, I was miserable and untoward to a degree. I was wretched at leaving Harrow-wretched at going to Cambridge instead of Oxford- wretched from some private domestic circumstances of different kinds; and, consequently, about as unsocial as a wolf taken from the troop."-Diary. Mr. Moore adds, "The sort of life which young Byron led at this period, between the dissipations of London and of Cambridge, without a home to wel |