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FAREWELL TO MALTA.

ADIEU, ye joys of La Valette!
Adieu, sirocco, sun, and sweat!

Adieu, thou palace rarely enter'd!

Adieu, ye mansions where I've ventured!
Adieu, ye cursed streets of stairs!

(How surely he who mounts you swears !)
Adieu, ye merchants often failing!
Adieu, thou mob for ever railing!
Adicu, ye packets without letters!
Adicu, ye fools-who ape your betters!
Adieu, thou damned'st quarantine,
That gave me fever, and the spleen!
Adieu that stage which makes us yawn, Sirs,
Adieu his Excellency's dancers !
Adieu to Peter-whom no fault's in,

But could not teach a colonel waltzing;

Adieu, ye females fraught with graces!
Adieu red coats, and redder faces!
Adieu the supercilious air

Of all that strut "en militaire !"

I go but God knows when, or why,

To smoky towns and cloudy sky,
To things (the honest truth to say)
As bad- but in a different way.

Farewell to these, but not adieu,
Triumphant sons of truest blue!
While either Adriatic shore,

And fallen chiefs, and fleets no more,
And nightly smiles, and daily dinners,
Proclaim you war and women's winners.
Pardon my Muse, who apt to prate is,

And take my rhyme- because 'tis "gratis."

And now I've got to Mrs. Fraser,
Perhaps you think I mean to praise her-
And were I vain enough to think
My praise was worth this drop of ink,
A line or two-were no hard matter,
As here, indeed, I need not flatter:
But she must be content to shine
In better praises than in mine,
With lively air, and open heart,
And fashion's ease, without its art;
Her hours can gaily glide along,
Nor ask the aid of idle song.

And now, O Malta! since thou'st got us,
Thou little military hothouse !
I'll not offend with words uncivil,
And wish thee rudely at the Devil,

But only stare from out my casement,

And ask, for what is such a place meant?
Then, in my solitary nook,
Return to scribbling, or a book,
Or take my physic while I'm able
(Two spoonfuls hourly by the label),
Prefer my nightcap to my beaver,
And bless the gods—I've got a fever!

May 26. 1811. [First published, 1832.]

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TO DIVES.

A FRAGMENT.

UNHAPPY DIVES! in an evil hour

'Gainst Nature's voice seduced to deeds accurst! Once Fortune's minion, now thou feel'st her power; Wrath's viol on thy lofty head hath burst.

In Wit, in Genius, as in Wealth the first,
How wond'rous bright thy blooming morn arose !
But thou wert smitten with th' unhallow'd thirst
Of Crime un-named, and thy sad noon must close
In scorn, and solitude unsought, the worst of woes.
1811. [First published, 1832.]

ON MOORE'S LAST OPERATIC FARCE, OR FARCICAL OPERA.

Good plays are scarce,

So Moore writes farce :

The poet's fame grows brittle-
We knew before

That Little's Moore,

But now 'tis Moore that's little.

Sept. 14. 1811. [First published, 1830. ']

EPISTLE TO A FRIEND,

IN ANSWER TO SOME LINES EXHORTING THE AUTHOR
TO BE CHEERFUL, AND TO "BANISH CARE."

"OH! banish care "9 - such ever be
The motto of thy revelry!

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Perchance of mine, when wassail nights
Renew those riotous delights,
Wherewith the children of Despair
Lull the lone heart, and "banish care."
But not in morn's reflecting hour,
When present, past, and future lower,
When all I loved is changed or gone,
Mock with such taunts the woes of one,
Whose every thought—but let them pass-
Thou know'st I am not what I was.
But, above all, if thou wouldst hold
Place in a heart that ne'er was cold,
By all the powers that men revere,
By all unto thy bosom dear,
Thy joys below, thy hopes above,
Speak speak of any thing but love.

'T were long to tell, and vain to hear,
The tale of one who scorns a tear;
And there is little in that tale
Which better bosoms would bewail.
But mine has suffer'd more than well
'T would suit philosophy to tell.
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;

came out at the Lyceum Theatre, on the 9th of September.]

2 [Mr. Francis Hodgson (not then the Reverend). See ante, p. 512.]

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;
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. 2
Newstead Abbey, Oct. 11. 1811.3
[First published, 1830.]

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,

To bid us meet-no- ne'er again!
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?

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

2 [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 self-libelling 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.]

3 [Two days after, in another letter to Mr. Hodgson, Lord Byron says, "I am growing nervous (how you will laugh!)

but it is true, really, wretchedly, ridiculously, fineladically 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."]

4 [Mr. Moore considers " Thyrza" as if she were a mere

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
'T was 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 forbore; 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. 1811.4

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 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

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'Tis silent all!-but on my ear

The well remember'd echoes thrill;

I hear a voice I would not hear,

A voice that now might well be still:
Yet oft my doubting soul 't will shake;
Even slumber owns its gentle tone,
Till consciousness will vainly wake
To listen, though the dream be flown.

Sweet Thyrza! waking as in sleep,

Thou art but now a lovely dream; A star that trembled o'er the deep,

Then turn'd from earth its tender beam.
But he who through life's dreary way
Must pass, when heaven is veil'd in wrath,
Will long lament the vanish'd ray

That scatter'd gladness o'er his path.
December 6. 1811.1

Though gay companions o'er the bowl
Dispel awhile the sense of ill;
Though pleasure fires the maddening soul,
The heart-the heart is lonely still!

On many a lone and lovely night
It soothed to gaze upon the sky;
For then I deem'd the heavenly light
Shone sweetly on thy pensive eye:
And oft I thought at Cynthia's noon,

When sailing o'er the Ægean wave, "Now Thyrza gazes on that moon — Alas, it gleam'd upon her grave!

When stretch'd on fever's sleepless bed,
And sickness shrunk my throbbing veins,
""Tis comfort still," I faintly said,

"That Thyrza cannot know my pains:"
Like freedom to the time-worn slave,
A boon 'tis idle then to give,
Relenting Nature vainly gave

My life, when Thyrza ceased to live!

My Thyrza's pledge in better days,

When love and life alike were new! How different now thou meet'st my gaze ! How tinged by time with sorrow's hue! The heart that gave itself with thee

Is silent-ah, were mine as still!
Though cold as e'en the dead can be,
It feels, it sickens with the chill.

Thou bitter pledge ! thou mournful token!
Though painful, welcome to my breast!
Still, still, preserve that love unbroken,
Or break the heart to which thou 'rt press'd !
Time tempers love, but not removes,

More hallow'd when its hope is fled:
Oh! what are thousand living loves

To that which cannot quit the dead?

ONE STRUGGLE MORE, AND I AM FREE.
ONE struggle more, and I am free

From pangs that rend my heart in twain
One last long sigh to love and thee,
Then back to busy life again.

It suits me well to mingle now

With things that never pleased before:
Though every joy is fled below,

What future grief can touch me more?

Then bring me wine, the banquet bring;
Man was not form'd to live alone:
I'll be that light, unmeaning thing,

That smiles with all, and weeps with none.
It was not thus in days more dear,

It never would have been, but thou
Hast fled, and left me lonely here;
Thou'rt nothing,-all are nothing now.
In vain my lyre would lightly breathe!
The smile that sorrow fain would wear
But mocks the woe that lurks beneath,
Like roses o'er a sepulchre.

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.],

EUTHANASIA.

WHEN Time, or soon or late, shall bring The dreamless sleep that lulls the dead, Oblivion may thy languid wing

Wave gently o'er my dying bed!

No band of friends or heirs be there,
To weep or wish the coming blow:
No maiden, with dishevell'd hair,

To feel, or feign, decorous woe.
But silent let me sink to earth,

With no officious mourners near:
I would not mar one hour of mirth,
Nor startle friendship with a tear.
Yet Love, if Love in such an hour
Could nobly check its useless sighs,
Might then exert its latest power

In her who lives and him who dies.
'T were sweet, my Psyche! to the last
Thy features still serene to see:
Forgetful of its struggles past,

E'en Pain itself should smile on thee.

["I wrote this a day or two ago, on hearing a song of former days."- Lord Byron to Mr. Hodgson, December 8. 1811.]

But vain the wish-for Beauty still

Will shrink, as shrinks the ebbing breath; And woman's tears, produced at will, Deceive in life, unman in death. Then lonely be my latest hour,

Without regret, without a groan; For thousands Death hath ceased to lower, And pain been transient or unknown. "Ay, but to die, and go," alas !

Where all have gone, and all must go! To be the nothing that I was

Ere born to life and living woe! Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, Count o'er thy days from anguish free, And know, whatever thou hast been. 'Tis something better not to be.

AND THOU ART DEAD, AS YOUNG AS FAIR.

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Heu, quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse !

AND thou art dead, as young and fair,

As aught of mortal birth;

And form so soft, and charms so rare,
Too soon return'd to Earth!
Though Earth received them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,

There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.

I will not ask where thou liest low,
Nor gaze upon the spot;

There flowers or weeds at will may grow,

So I behold them not:

It is enough for me to prove
That what I loved, and long must love,
Like common earth can rot;
To me there needs no stone to tell,
'Tis Nothing that I loved so well.

Yet did I love thee to the last

As fervently as thou,

Who didst not change through all the past,
And canst not alter now.

The love where Death has set his seal,
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,

Nor falsehood disavow:

And, what were worse, thou canst not sce Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.

The better days of life were ours;

The worst can be but mine:

The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,
Shall never more be thine.

The silence of that dreamless sleep
I envy now too much to weep;
Nor need I to repine

That all those charms have pass'd away;
I might have watch'd through long decay.
The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd
Must fall the earliest prey;
Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,
The leaves must drop away:

And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it pluck'd to-day;

Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.
I know not if I could have borne
To see thy beauties fade;

The night that follow'd such a morn

Had worn a deeper shade:

Thy day without a cloud hath pass'd, And thou wert lovely to the last;

Extinguish'd, not decay'd;

As stars that shoot along the sky
Shine brightest as they fall from high.
As once I wept, if I could weep,

My tears might well be shed,
To think I was not near to keep
One vigil o'er thy bed;
To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,
Uphold thy drooping head;
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.

Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain,
Than thus remember thee!
The all of thine that cannot die
Through dark and dread Eternity
Returns again to me,

And more thy buried love endears
Than aught, except its living years.

February, 1812.

IF SOMETIMES IN THE HAUNTS OF MEN.

If sometimes in the haunts of men
Thine image from my breast may fade,

The lonely hour presents again

The semblance of thy gentle shade:
And now that sad and silent hour
Thus much of thee can still restore,
And sorrow unobserved may pour

The plaint she dare not speak before.

Oh, pardon that in crowds awhile

I waste one thought I owe to thee,
And, self-condemn'd, appear to smile,
Unfaithful to thy memory!
Nor deem that memory less dear,
That then I seem not to repine;

I would not fools should overhear
One sigh that should be wholly thine.

If not the goblet pass unquaff'd,
It is not drain'd to banish care;
The cup must hold a deadlier draught,
That brings a Lethe for despair.
And could Oblivion set my soul

From all her troubled visions free,
I'd dash to earth the sweetest bowl

That drown'd a single thought of thee.
For wert thou vanish'd from my mind,
Where could my vacant bosom turn?
And who would then remain behind
To honour thine abandon'd Urn?
No, no-it is my sorrow's pride
That last dear duty to fulfil;
Though all the world forget beside,
'Tis meet that I remember still.

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[We know not whether the reader should understand the cornelian heart of these lines to be the same with that of which some notices are given at p. 398.]

2 [This impromptu owed its birth to an on dit, that the late Princess Charlotte of Wales burst into tears on hearing that the Whigs had found it impossible to put together a cabinet, at the period of Mr. Perceval's death. They were appended to the first edition of "The Corsair," and excited a sensation, as it is called, marvellously disproportionate to their length, or, we may add, their merit. The ministerial prints raved for two months on end, in the most foulmouthed vituperation of the poet, and all that belonged to him the Morning Post even announced a motion in the House of Lords" and all this," Lord Byron writes to Mr. Moore," as Bedreddin in the Arabian Nights remarks, for making a cream tart with pepper: how odd, that eight lines should have given birth, I really think, to eight thousand !"]

3 ["The Lines to a Lady weeping' must go with 'The Corsair. I care nothing for consequences on this point. My politics are to me like a young mistress to an old man; the worse they grow, the fonder I become of them."- Lord Byron to Mr. Murray, Jan. 22. 1814. “On my return. I find all the newspapers in hysterics, and town in an uproar, on the avowal and republication of two stanzas on Princess Charlotte's weeping at Regency's speech to Lauderdale in

ADDRESS,

SPOKEN AT THE OPENING OF DRURY-LANE THEATRE,
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10. 1812.6

In one dread night our city saw, and sigh'd,
Bow'd to the dust, the Drama's tower of pride;

In one short hour beheld the blazing fane,

Apollo sink, and Shakspeare cease to reign.

1812. They are daily at it still:- some of the abuse good, -all of it hearty. They talk of a motion in our House upon it-be it so."— Byron Diary, 1814.]

"When Rogers does talk, he talks well; and, on all subjects of taste, his delicacy of expression is pure as his poetry. If you enter his house- his drawing-room- his library-you of yourself say, this is not the dwelling of a common mind. There is not a gem, a coin, a book thrown aside on his chimney-piece, his sofa, his table, that does not bespeak an almost fastidious elegance in the possessor."— Byron Diary, 1813.]

5 [The reader will recall Collins's exquisite lines on the tomb of Thomson: "In yonder grave a Druid lies," &c.]

6 [The theatre in Drury Lane, which was opened, in 1747, with Dr. Johnson's masterly address, beginning,

"When Learning's triumph o'er her barbarous foes First rear'd the Stage, immortal Shakspeare rose," and witnessed the last glories of Garrick, having fallen into decay, was rebuilt in 1794. The new building perished by fire in 1811; and the Managers, in their anxiety that the opening of the present editice should be distinguished by some composition of at least equal merit, advertised in the newspapers for a general competition. Scores of addresses, not one tolerable, showered on their desk, and they were in sad despair, when Lord Holland interfered, and, not without

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