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Attributed Poems.

[Although never publicly acknowledged by Lord Byron, the following have been generally attributed to his pen: and, aware of the interest attached to his most trifling efforts, the Publishers, without vouching for their authenticity, have not hesitated to add them to this edition.]

CHILDISH RECOLLECTIONS.

ODE

I cannot but remember such things were, And were most de r to me.

-et dulces moriens reminiscitur Aros.

MACBETH.

VIRGIL.

WHEN Slow Disease, with all her host of pains,
Chills the warm tide which flows along the veins;
When Health, affrighted, spreads her rosy wing,
And flies with every changing gale of spring;
Not to the aching frame alone coufined,
Unyielding pangs assail the drooping mind.
What grisly forms, the spectre train of woe,
Bids shuddering Nature shrink beneath the blow;
With Resignation wage relentless strife,
While Hope retires appail'd, and clings to life!
Yet less the pang, when, through the tedious hour,
Remembrance sheds around her genial power,
Calls back the vanish'd days to rapture given,
When love was bliss, and beauty form'd our heaven :
Or, dear to youth, portrays each childish scene,
Those fairy bowers, where all in turn have been.
As when, through clouds that pour the summer storm,
The orb of day unveils his distant form,
Gilds with faint beams the crystal dews of rain,
And dimly twinkles o'er the watery plain;
Thus, while the future dark and cheerless gleams,
The sun of memory, glowing through my dreams,
Though sunk the radiance of his former blaze,
To scenes far distant points his paler rays,
Still rules my senses with unbounded sway,
The past confounding with the present day.

Oft does my heart indulge the rising thought, Which still recurs, unlook'd for and unsought; My soul to Fancy's fond suggestion yields, And roams romantic o er her airy fields; Scenes of my youth developed crowd to view, To which I long have paid a last adieu!

LORD BYRON TO HIS LADY,

ON THE SIXTH ANNIVERSARY OF THEIR MARRIAGE.

How strangely time his course has run,
Since first I pair'd with you;

Six years ago we made but ONE,
Now five have made us two.

ΤΟ

THE ISLAND OF ST HELENA.

PEACE to thee, isle of the ocean!

Hail to thy breezes and billows!
Where, rolling its tides in perpetual devotion,
The white wave its plumy surf pillows!
Rich shall the chaplet be history shall weave thee!
Whose undying verdure shall bloom on thy brow,
When nations, that now in obscurity leave thee,

To the wand of oblivion alternately bow!
Unchanged in thy glory-unstain'd in thy fame-
The homage of ages shall hallow thy name!

Hail to the chief who reposes

On thee the rich weight of his glory!
When, fill'd to its limit, life's chronicle closes,
His deeds shall be sacred in story!
His prowess shall rank with the first of all ages,
And monarchs hereafter shall bow to his worth-
The songs of the poets-the lessons of sages-

Shall hold him the wonder and grace of the earth. The meteors of history before thee shall fallEclipsed by thy splendour-thou meteor of Gaul!

Hygeian breezes shall fan thee-
Island of glory resplendent!

Pilgrims from nations far distant shall man thee-
Tribes, as thy waves independent!

On thy far gleaming strand the wanderer shall stay him
To snatch a brief glance at a spot so renown'd--
Each turf, and each stone, and cach cliff, shall delay him
Where the step of thy exile hath hallow'd thy ground.
From him shalt thou borrow a lustre divine;
The wane of his sun was the rising of thine!

Whose were the hands that enslaved him?
Hands which had weakly withstood him-
Nations which, while they had oftentimes braved

him,

Never till now had subdued him!
Monarchs-who oft to his clemency stooping,
Received back their crowns from the plunder of war-
The vanquisher vanquish'd-the eagle now drooping-
Would quench with their sternness the ray of his star!
But cloth'd in new splendour thy glory appears—
And rules the ascendant-the planet of years!

Pure be the heath of thy mountains!
Rich be the green of thy pastures!

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Adieu, thou damn'dest 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 where 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 't is 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, oh Malta! since thou'st got us,
Thou little military hot-house,

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 this label ;
Prefer
my nightcap to my beaver,
And bless my stars I've got a fever.

ENIGMA,

T WAS whisper'd in heaven, 't was mutter'd in hell,
And echo caught faintly the sound as it fell:
On the confines of earth 't was permitted to rest,
And the depths of the ocean its presence confest.

'T will be found in the sphere when 't is riven asunder,
Be seen in the lightning, and heard in the thunder.
'T was allotted to man with his earliest breath,
Attends at his birth, and awaits him in death;
It presides o'er his happiness, honour, and health,
Is the prop
of his house, and the end of his wealth:
Without it the soldier, the seaman may roam,
But woe to the wretch who expels it from home.
In the whispers of conscience its voice will be found,
Nor e'en in the whirlwind of passion be drown'd:

T will not soften the heart, and, though deaf to the ear, 'T will make it acutely and instantly hear.

But in shade let it rest, like a delicate flowerOh breathe on it softly-it dies in an hour.

THE TRIUMPH OF THE WHALE. Io Paan! Io! sing

To the finny people's king

Not a mightier whale than this

In the vast Atlantic is;
Not a fatter fish than he
Flounders round the Polar sea;
See his blubber-at his gills
What a world of drink he swills!
From his trunk as from a spout,
Which next moment he
Such his person: next declare,
Muse! who his companions are.
Every fish of

pours out.

generous kind
Scuds aside or slinks behind,
But about his person keep
All the monsters of the deep;
Mermaids, with their tales and singing,
His delighted fancy stinging;-
Crooked dolphins, they surround him;
Dog-like seals, they fawn around him :
Following hard, the

progress mark
Of the intolerant salt sea shark-
For his solace and relief

Flat fish are his courtiers chief;

Last and lowest of his train,
Ink-fish, libellers of the main,

Their black liquor shed in spite

(Such on earth the things that write.)

In his stomach, some do say,

No good thing can ever stay;

Had it been the fortune of it

To have swallow'd the old prophet,
Three days there he 'd not have dwell'd,
But in one have been expell'd.
Bapless mariners are they,
Who, beguiled, as seamen say,
Deeming it some rock or island,
Footing sure, safe spot, and dry land,
Anchor in his scaly rind;

Soon the difference they find,
Sudden, plump, he sinks beneath them-

Does to ruthless waves bequeath them.
Name or title, what has he?

Is he regent of the sea?
From the difficulty free us,
Buffon, Banks, or sage Linnæus!
With his wondrous attributes
Say-what appellation suits?
By his bulk and by his size,
By his oily qualities,

This, or else my eye-sight fails,

This should be the-Prince of Whales!

TO JESSY.

The following Stanzas were addressed by Lord Byron to his Lady, a few months before their separation. THERE is a mystic thread of life

So dearly wreathed with mine alone,

That destiny's relentless knife

At once must sever both or none.

There is a form, on which these eyes
Have often gazed with fond delight-
By day that form their joy supplies,

And dreams restore it through the night.

There is a voice, whose tones inspire

Such thrills of rapture through my breastI would not hear a seraph choir,

Unless that voice could join the rest.

There is a face, whose blushes tell
Affection's tale upon the cheek—
But pallid at one fond farewell,

Proclaims more love than words can speak.

There is a lip, which mine hath prest,
And none had ever prest before,
It vow'd to make me sweetly blest,
And mine-mine only, prest it more.

There is a bosom-all my own—

Hath pillow'd oft this aching head; A mouth which smiles on me alone,

An eye, whose tears with mine are shed.

There are two hearts, whose movements thrill
In unison so closely sweet,
That, pulse to pulse responsive still,

They both must heave-or cease to beat.

There are two souls, whose equal low
In gentle streams so calmly run,
That when they part-they part!-ah, no!
They cannot part-those souls are one.

TO MY DAUGHTER,

ON THE MORNING OF HER BIRTH.

HAL-to this teeming stage of strife!
Hail, lovely miniature of life!
Pilgrim of many cares untold!
Lamb of the world's extended fold!

Fountain of hopes, and doubts, and fears!
Sweet promise of ecstatic years!
How could I fainly bend the knee,
And turn idolater to thee!

"T is uature's worship-felt-confest,
Far as the life which warms the breast:-
The sturdy savage, 'midst his clan,
The rudest portraiture of man,
In trackless woods and boundless plains,
Where everlasting wildness reigns,
Owns the still throb-the secret start-
The hidden impulse of the heart.

Dear babe! ere yet upon thy years
The soil of human vice appears-
Ere passion hath disturb'd thy cheek,
And prompted what thou durst not speak-
Ere that pale lip is blanch'd with care,
Or from those eyes shoot fierce despair,
Would I could wake thine untuned ear,
And gust it with a father's prayer.

But little reck'st thou, oh my child!
Of travel on life's thorny wild;
Of all the dangers-all the woes
Each tottering footstep which inclose-
Ah, little reck'st thou of the scene
So darkly wrought that spreads between
The little all we here can find,
And the dark mystic sphere behind!

Little reck'st thou, my earliest born,
Of clouds which gather round thy morn-
Of arts to lure thy soul astray-
Of snares that intersect thy way-
Of secret foes-of friends untrue-
Of fiends, who stab the hearts they woo:
Little thou reck'st of this sad store-
Would thou might'st never reck them more!

But thou wilt burst this transient sleep, And thou wilt wake, my babe, to weepThe tenant of a frail abode,

Thy tears must flow, as mine have flow'd;
Beguiled by follies, every day,

Sorrow must wash the faults away;
And thou mayst wake, perchance, to prove
The
pang of unrequited love.

Unconscious babe! though on that brow
No half-fledged misery nestles now—
Scarce round those placid lips a smile
Maternal fondness shall beguile,
Ere the moist footsteps of a tear
Shall plant their dewy traces there,
And prematurely pave the way
For sorrows of a riper day.

Oh! could a father's prayer repel

The eye's sad grief, the bosom's swell!

Or could a father hope to bear

A darling child's allotted care,

Then thou, my babe, shouldst slumber still,
Exempted from all human ill,

A parent's love thy peace should free,
And ask its wounds again for thee.

Sleep on, my child! the slumber brief
Too soon shall melt away to grief;
Too soon the dawn of woe shall break,
And briny rills bedew that cheek:
Too soon shall sadness quench those eyes-
That breast be agonized with sighs-
And anguish o'er the beams of noon
Lead clouds of care-ah! much too soon!

Soon wilt thou reck of cares unknown,
Of wants and sorrows all their own
Of
many a pang, and many a woe,
That thy dear sex alone can know-
Of many an ill, untold, unsung,
That will not, may not find a tongue-
But, kept conceal'd, without control,
Spread the fell cancers of the soul!

Yet be thy lot, my babe, more blest
May joy still animate thy breast!
Still, midst thy least propitious days,
Shedding its rich inspiring rays!

A father's heart shall daily bear
Thy name upon its secret prayer,
And as he seeks his last repose,
Thine image ease life's parting throes.
Then hail, sweet miniature of life!
Hail to this teeming stage of strife!
Pilgrim of many cares untold!
Lamb of the world's extended fold!
Fountain of hopes and doubts and fears!
Sweet promise of ecstatic years!
How could I fainly bend the knee,
And turn idolater to thee!

TO LADY CAROLINE LAMB.

AND say'st thou that I have not felt,
Whilst thou wert thus estranged from me?

Nor know'st how dearly I have dwelt

On one unbroken dream of thee? But love like ours must never be,

And I will learn to prize thee less; As thou hast fled, so let me flee,

And change the heart thou mayst not bless. They'll tell thee, Clara! I have seem'd, Of late, another's charms to woo, Nor sigh'd, nor frown'd, as if I deem'd

That thou wert banish'd from my view. Clara! this struggle to undo

What thou hast done too well, for me--
This mask before the babbling crew-
This treachery-was truth to thee!

I have not wept while thou wert gone,
Nor worn one look of sullen woe;
But sought, in many, all that one

(Ah! need I name her?) could bestow. It is a duty which I owe

To thine-to thee-to man-to God, To crush, to quench this guilty glow,

Ere yet the path of crime be trod. But, since my breast is not so pure Since still the vulture tears my heart Let me this agony endure,

Not thee-oh! dearest as thou art! In mercy, Clara! let us part,

And I will seek, yet know not how,
To shun, in time, the threatening dart;
Guilt must not aim at such as thou.
But thou must aid me in the task,

And nobly thus exert thy power;
Then spurn me hence-'t is all I ask-
Ere time mature a guiltier hour;
Ere wrath's impending vials shower
Remorse redoubled on my head;
Ere fires unquenchably devour

A heart, whose hope has long been dead.

Deceive no more thyself and me,

Deceive not better hearts than mine; Ah! shouldst thou, whither wouldst thou flee, From woe like ours-from shame like thine? And, if there be a wrath divine,

A pang beyond this fleeting breath, E'en now all future hope resign:

Such thoughts are guilt-such guilt is death.

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