I've seen my bride another's bride,-
Have seen her seated by his side,-
Have seen the infant, which she bore,
Wear the sweet smile the mother wore,
When she and I in youth have smiled,
As fond and faultless as her child;-
Have seen her eyes, in cold disdain,
Ask if I felt no secret pain;

And I have acted well my part,
And made my cheek belie my heart,
Return'd the freezing glance she gave,
Yet felt the while that woman's slave; -
Have kiss'd, as if without design,

The babe which ought to have been mine,
And show'd, alas! in each caress

Time had not made me love the less. (1)

But let this pass-I'll whine no more,
Nor seek again an eastern shore;
The world befits a busy brain,-

I'll hie me to its haunts again.
But if, in some succeeding year,

When Britain's "May is in the sere,"

Thou hear'st of one, whose deepening crimes

Suit with the sablest of the times,

Of one, whom love nor pity sways,
Nor hope of fame, nor good men's praise,
One, who in stern ambition's pride,

Perchance not blood shall turn aside,

(1) [These lines will show with what gloomy fidelity, even while under the pressure of recent sorrow, the poet reverted to the disappointment of his early affection, as the chief source of all his sufferings and errors, present and to come. - MOORE.]

One rank'd in some recording page
With the worst anarchs of the age,
Him wilt thou know—and knowing pause,
Nor with the effect forget the cause.

(1)

Newstead Abbey, Oct. 11. 1811. (2)

TO THYRZA.

WITHOUT a stone to mark the spot,

And say, what Truth might well have said, By all, save one, perchance forgot,

Ah! wherefore art thou lowly laid?

By many a shore and many a sea
Divided, yet beloved in vain ;

The past, the future fled to thee
— no - ne'er again!

To bid us meet

(1) [The anticipations of his own future career in these concluding lines are of a nature, it must be owned, to awaken more of horror than of interest, were we not prepared, by so many instances of his exaggeration in this respect, not to be startled at any lengths to which the spirit of selflibelling would carry him. It seemed as if, with the power of painting fierce and gloomy personages, he had also the ambition to be, himself, the dark'sublime he drew,' and that, in his fondness for the delineation of heroic crime, he endeavoured to fancy, where he could not find in his own character, fit subjects for his pencil.- MOORE.]

(2) [Two days after, in another letter to Mr. Hodgson, the poet says,— "I am growing nervous (how you will laugh!) - but it is true,- really, wretchedly, ridiculously, fine-ladically nervous. Your climate kills me; I can neither read, write, nor amuse myself, or any one else. My days are listless, and my nights restless: I have seldom any society, and, when I have, I run out of it. I don't know that I sha'n't end with insanity; for I find a want of method in arranging my thoughts that perplexes me strangely."-E.]

Could this have been

a word, a look

That softly said, "We part in peace,” Had taught my bosom how to brook,

With fainter sighs, thy soul's release.

And didst thou not, since Death for thee Prepared a light and pangless dart, Once long for him thou ne'er shalt see, Who held, and holds thee in his heart?

Oh! who like him had watch'd thee here?
Or sadly mark'd thy glazing eye,
In that dread hour ere death appear,
When silent sorrow fears to sigh,

Till all was past? But when no more
'Twas thine to reck of human woe,
Affection's heart-drops, gushing o'er,

Had flow'd as fast

as now they flow.

Shall they not flow, when many a day
In these, to me, deserted towers,
Ere call'd but for a time away,

Affection's mingling tears were ours?

Ours too the glance none saw beside; The smile none else might understand; The whisper'd thought of hearts allied, The pressure of the thrilling hand;

The kiss, so guiltless and refined

That Love each warmer wish forebore ; Those eyes proclaim'd so pure a mind, Even passion blush'd to plead for more.

The tone, that taught me to rejoice,
When prone, unlike thee, to repine;
The song, celestial from thy voice,

But sweet to me from none but thine;

The pledge we wore I wear it still,

But where is thine? - Ah! where art thou?

Oft have I borne the weight of ill,

But never bent beneath till now!

Well hast thou left in life's best bloom
The cup of woe for me to drain.
If rest alone be in the tomb,

I would not wish thee here again;

But if in worlds more blest than this
Thy virtues seek a fitter sphere,
Impart some portion of thy bliss,

To wean me from mine anguish here.

Teach me too early taught by thee!
To bear, forgiving and forgiven:

On earth thy love was such to me;

It fain would form my hope in heaven!
October 11. 1811. (')

(1) [Mr. Moore considers "Thyrza" as if she were a mere creature of the poet's brain. "It was," he says, " about the time when he was thus bitterly feeling, and expressing, the blight which his heart had suffered from a real object of affection, that his poems on the death of an imaginary one were written; - nor is it any wonder, when we consider the peculiar circumstances under which these beautiful effusions flowed from his fancy, that, of all his strains of pathos, they should be the most touching and most pure. They were, indeed, the essence, the abstract spirit, as it were, of many griefs; - a confluence of sad thoughts from many sources of sorrow, refined and warmed in their passage through his fancy, and forming thus one deep reservoir of mournful feeling." It is a pity to disturb a sentiment thus

STANZAS.

["AWAY, AWAY," &c.]

AWAY, away, ye notes of woe!

Be silent, thou once soothing strain,

Or I must flee from hence

for, oh!
I dare not trust those sounds again.
To me they speak of brighter days
But lull the chords, for now, alas!
I must not think, I

On what I am

may not gaze

on what I was.'

The voice that made those sounds more sweet
Is hush'd, and all their charms are fled;
And now their softest notes repeat

A dirge, an anthem o'er the dead!
Yes, Thyrza! yes, they breathe of thee,
Beloved dust! since dust thou art;
And all that once was harmony

Is worse than discord to my heart!

beautifully expressed; but Lord Byron, in a letter to Mr. Dallas, bearing the exact date of these lines, viz. Oct. 11th, 1811, writes as follows:-"I have been again shocked with a death, and have lost one very dear to me in happier times: but 'I have almost forgot the taste of grief,' and 'supped full of horrors,' till I have become callous; nor have I a tear left for an event which, five years ago, would have bowed my head to the earth." In his reply to this letter, Mr. Dallas says, -"I thank you for your confidential communication. How truly do I wish that that being had lived, and lived yours! What your obligations to her would have been in that case is inconceivable." Several years after the series of poems on Thyrza were written, Lord Byron, on being asked to whom they referred, by a person in whose tenderness he never ceased to confide, refused to answer, with marks of painful agitation, such as rendered any farther recurrence to the subject impossible. The reader must be left to form his own conclusion. The five following pieces are all devoted to Thyrza. -E]