[In the original MS. "To Mrs. Musters," &c. The reader will find a portrait of this lady in Finden's Illustrations of Byron, No. III.]

[In the first copy," Thus, Mary !"]

[In Mr. Hobhouse's volume, the line stood,-" Without a wish to enter there." The following is an extract from an unpublished letter of Lord Byron, written in 1823, only three days previous to his leaving Italy for Greece: "Miss Chaworth was two years older than myself. She married a man of an ancient and respectable family, but her

And then those pensive eyes would close,
And bid their lids each other seek,
Veiling the azure orbs below;
While their long lashes' darken'd gloss
Seem'd stealing o'er thy brilliant cheek,
Like raven's plumage smooth'd on snow.

I dreamt last night our love return'd,
And, sooth to say, that very dream
Was sweeter in its phantasy,
Than if for other hearts I burn'd,

For eyes that ne'er like thine could beam
In rapture's wild reality.

Then tell me not, remind me not,

Of hours which, though for ever gone,
Can still a pleasing dream restore,

Till thou and I shall be forgot,

And senseless as the mouldering stone
Which tells that we shall be no more.

THERE WAS A TIME, I NEED NOT NAME.
THERE was a time, I need not name,
Since it will ne'er forgotten be,
When all our feelings were the same

As still my soul hath been to thee.
And from that hour when first thy tongue
Confess'd a love which equall'd mine,
Though many a grief my heart hath wrung.
Unknown and thus unfelt by thine,

None, none hath sunk so deep as this-
To think how all that love hath flown;
Transient as every faithless kiss,
But transient in thy breast alone.

And yet my heart some solace knew,
When late I heard thy lips declare,
In accents once imagined true,
Remembrance of the days that were.

Yes; my adored, yet most unkind!
Though thou wilt never love again,
To me 't is doubly sweet to find

Remembrance of that love remain.
Yes! 'tis a glorious thought to me,
Nor longer shall my soul repine,
Whate'er thou art or e'er shalt be,
Thou hast been dearly, solely mine.

AND WILT THOU WEEP WHEN I AM LOW?

AND wilt thou weep when I am low?
Sweet lady! speak those words again:
Yet if they grieve thee, say not so-

I would not give that bosom pain.

marriage was not a happier one than my own. Her conduct, however, was irreproachable; but there was not sympathy between their characters. I had not seen her for many years, when an occasion offered. I was upon the point, with her consent, of paying her a visit, when my sister, who has always had more influence over me than any one else, persuaded me not to do it. For,' said she, if you go you will

fall in love again, and then there will be a scene; one step will lead to another, et cela fera un éclat.' I was guided by those reasons, and shortly after married, with what success it is useless to say."]

My heart is sad, my hopes are gone,

My blood runs coldly through my breast; And when I perish, thou alone

Wilt sigh above my place of rest. And yet, methinks, a gleam of peace

Doth through my cloud of anguish shine; And for awhile my sorrows cease,

To know thy heart hath felt for mine.

Oh lady! blessed be that tear—

It falls for one who cannot weep: Such precious drops are doubly dear

To those whose eyes no tear may steep.
Sweet lady! once my heart was warm
With every feeling soft as thine;
But beauty's self hath ceased to charm
A wretch created to repine.

Yet wilt thou weep when I am low?
Sweet lady! speak those words again;
Yet if they grieve thee, say not so-

I would not give that bosom pain. 1

FILL THE GOBLET AGAIN.
A SONG.

FILL the goblet again! for I never before

Felt the glow which now gladdens my heart to its core ;

In the days of my youth, when the heart's in its spring,

And dreams that affection can never take wing, I had friends!-who has not?-but what tongue will avow,

That friends, rosy wine! are so faithful as thou?

The heart of a mistress some boy may estrange, Friendship shifts with the sunbeam- -thou never canst change:

Thou grow'st old-who does not?— - but on earth what appears,

Whose virtues, like thine, still increase with its years?

Yet if blest to the utmost that love can bestow,
Should a rival bow down to our idol below,

We are jealous!-who's not?-thou hast no such alloy;

For the more that enjoy thee, the more we enjoy.

Then the season of youth and its vanities past,
For refuge we fly to the goblet at last;

There we find-do we not? -in the flow of the soul,

That truth, as of yore, is confined to the bowl.

life's varied round,

Long life to the grape! for when summer is flown,
The age of our nectar shall gladden our own:
We must die-who shall not? - - May our sins be

forgiven,
And Hebe shall never be idle in heaven.

Some hours of freedom may remain as yet
For one who laughs alike at love and debt;
Then, why in haste? put off the evil day,
And snatch at youthful comforts whilst you may !
Pause nor so soon the various bliss forego
That single souls, and such alone, can know:
Ah! why too early careless life resign,
Your morning slumber, and your evening wine;
Your loved companion, and his easy talk ;
Your Muse, invoked in every peaceful walk.
What can no more your scenes paternal please,
Scenes sacred long to wise, unmated ease?
The prospect lengthen'd o'er the distant down,
Lakes, meadows, rising woods, and all your own?
What shall your Newstead, shall your cloister'd bowers,
The high o'er-hanging arch and trembling towers [
Shall these, profaned with folly or with strife,
And ever fond, or ever angry wife!

Shall these no more confess a manly sway,
But changeful woman's changing whims obey?
Who may, perhaps, as varying humour calls,
Contract your cloisters and o'erthrow your walls;
Let Repton loose o'er all the ancient ground,
Change round to square, and square convert to round;
Root up the elms' and yews' too solemn gloom,
And fill with shrubberies gay and green their room;
Roll down the terrace to a gay parterre,
Where gravel'd walks and flowers alternate glare;
And quite transform, in ev'ry point complete,
Your gothic abbey to a country seat.

Forget the fair one, and your fate delay;

If not avert, at least defer the day,
When you beneath the female yoke shall bend,
And lose your wit, your temper, and your friend.
Trin. Coll. Camb. 1808.

In his mother's copy of Mr. Hobhouse's volume, now before us, Lord Byron has here written with a pencil, —“I have lost them all, and shall WED accordingly. 1811. B."]

STANZAS TO A LADY, ON LEAVING

ENGLAND.

'Tis done - and shivering in the gale
The bark unfurls her snowy sail;
And whistling o'er the bending mast,
Loud sings on high the fresh'ning blast;
And I must from this land be gone,
Because I cannot love but one.

But could I be what I have been,
And could I see what I have seen-
Could I repose upon the breast
Which once my warmest wishes blest-
I should not seek another zone
Because I cannot love but one.
'Tis long since I beheld that eye
Which gave me bliss or misery;
And I have striven, but in vain,
Never to think of it again:
For though I fly from Albion,
I still can only love but one.

As some lone bird, without a mate,
My weary heart is desolate;

I look around, and cannot trace

One friendly smile or welcome face,
And ev'n in crowds am still alone,
Because I cannot love but one.

And I will cross the whitening foam,
And I will seek a foreign home;
Till I forget a false fair face,

I ne'er shall find a resting-place;
My own dark thoughts I cannot shun,
But ever love, and love but one.
The poorest, veriest wretch on earth
Still finds some hospitable hearth,
Where friendship's or love's softer glow
May smile in joy or soothe in woe;
But friend or leman I have none,
Because I cannot love but one.

I go but wheresoe'er I flee,
There's not an eye will weep for me;
There's not a kind congenial heart,
Where I can claim the meanest part;
Nor thou, who hast my hopes undone,
Wilt sigh, although I love but one.

To think of every early scene,

Of what we are, and what we've been,
Would whelm some softer hearts with woe-
But mine, alas! has stood the blow;
Yet still beats on as it begun,
And never truly loves but one.

And who that dear loved one may be
Is not for vulgar eyes to see,
And why that early love was crost,
Thou know'st the best, I feel the most;
But few that dwell beneath the sun
Have loved so long, and loved but one.
I've tried another's fetters too,
With charms perchance as fair to view;

[In the original, "To Mrs. Musters."]

2 [Thus corrected by himself, in his mother's copy of Mr. Hobhouse's Miscellany; the two last lines being originally —

Fletcher! Murray! Bob!! where are you?

Yet here, amidst this barren isle,

"What's the matter?"

"Zounds! my liver's coming up;
I shall not survive the racket
Of this brutal Lisbon Packet."

Now at length we 're off for Turkey,
Lord knows when we shall come back!
Breezes foul and tempests murky
May unship us in a crack.

But, since life at most a jest is,
As philosophers allow,
Still to laugh by far the best is,
Then laugh on- as I do now.
Laugh at all things,

Great and small things,
Sick or well, at sea or shore;
While we 're quaffing,
Let's have laughing -

Who the devil cares for more ? —

Some good wine! and who would lack it,
Ev'n on board the Lisbon Packet ??

Falmouth Roads, June 30. 1809.
[First published, 1830.]

LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM, AT MALTA.

As o'er the cold sepulchral stone

Some name arrests the passer-by;
Thus, when thou view'st this page alone,
May mine attract thy pensive eye!
And when by thee that name is read,
Perchance in some succeeding year,

Reflect on me as on the dead,

And think my heart is buried here.

Where panting Nature droops the head, Where only thou art seen to smile,

I view my parting hour with dread. Though far from Albin's craggy shore, Divided by the dark blue main ; A few, brief, rolling, seasons o'er, Perchance I view her cliffs again : But wheresoe'er I now may roam, Through scorching clime, and varied sea, Though Time restore me to my home, I ne'er shall bend mine eyes on thee:

On thee, in whom at once conspire

All charms which heedless hearts can move, Whom but to see is to admire,

And, oh! forgive the word- to love.

Forgive the word, in one who ne'er

With such a word can more offend; And since thy heart I cannot share, Believe me, what I am, thy friend. And who so cold as look on thee,

Thou lovely wand'rer, and be less?
Nor be, what man should ever be,
The friend of Beauty in distress?
Ah! who would think that form had past
Through Danger's most destructive path,
Had braved the death-wing'd tempest's blast,
And 'scaped a tyrant's fiercer wrath?
Lady! when I shall view the walls
Where free Byzantium once arose,
And Stamboul's Oriental halls

The Turkish tyrants now enclose;
Though mightiest in the lists of fame,
That glorious city still shall be;
On me 't will hold a dearer claim,
As spot of thy nativity:

And though I bid thee now farewell,
When I behold that wondrous scene,
Since where thou art I may not dwell,
"T will soothe to be, where thou hast been.
September, 1809.

September 14. 1809.

TO FLORENCE.

On Lady! when I left the shore,

The distant shore which gave me birth,

I hardly thought to grieve once more,
To quit another spot on earth:

[Lord Byron's three servants.]

[In the letter in which these lively verses were enclosed, Lord Byron says:-"I leave England without regret - 1 shall return to it without pleasure. I am like Adam, the first convict sentenced to transportation; but I have no Eve, and have eaten no apple but what was sour as a crab; and thus ends my first chapter."]

3 [These lines were written at Malta. The lady to whom they were addressed, and whom he afterwards apostrophises in the stanzas on the thunderstorm of Zitza and in Childe Harold, is this mentioned in a letter to his mother:-" This letter is committed to the charge of a very extraordinary lady, whom you have doubtless heard of, Mrs. Spencer Smith, of whose escape the Marquis de Salvo published a narrative a few years ago. She has since been shipwrecked; and her life has been from its commencement so fertile in remarkable incidents, that in a romance they would appear improbable.

STANZAS

COMPOSED DURING A THUNDER-STORM. 4

CHILL and mirk is the nightly blast,
Where Pindus' mountains rise,
And angry clouds are pouring fast
The vengeance of the skies.

She was born at Constantinople, where her father, Baron Herbert, was Austrian ambassador; married unhappily, yet has never been impeached in point of character; excited the vengeance of Buonaparte, by taking a part in some conspiracy; several times risked her life; and is not yet five and twenty. She is here on her way to England to join her husband, being obliged to leave Trieste, where she was paying a visit to her mother, by the approach of the French, and embarks soon in a ship of war. Since my arrival here I have had scarcely any other companion. I have found her very pretty, very accomplished, and extremely eccentric. Buonaparte is even now so incensed against her, that her life would be in danger if she were taken prisoner a second time."]

[This thunderstorm occurred during the night of the 11th October, 1809, when Lord Byron's guides had lost the road to Zitza, near the range of mountains formerly called

A shot is fired by foe or friend?
Another 't is to tell

The mountain-peasants to descend,
And lead us where they dwell.

Oh! who in such a night will dare
To tempt the wilderness?

And who 'mid thunder peals can hear
Our signal of distress?

And who that heard our shouts would rise
To try the dubious road?

Nor rather deem from nightly cries
That outlaws were abroad.

Clouds burst, skies flash, oh, dreadful hour!
More fiercely pours the storm!

Yet here one thought has still the power
To keep my bosom warm.

While wand'ring through each broken path,
O'er brake and craggy brow;
While elements exhaust their wrath,
Sweet Florence, where art thou?

Not on the sea, not on the sea,

Thy bark hath long been gone :

Oh, may the storm that pours on me,
Bow down my head alone!

Full swiftly blew the swift Siroc,
When last I press'd thy lip;

And long ere now, with foaming shock,
Impell'd thy gallant ship.

Now thou art safe; nay, long ere now
Hast trod the shore of Spain;
"T were hard if aught so fair as thou
Should linger on the main.

And since I now remember thee
In darkness and in dread,
As in those hours of revelry

Which mirth and music sped;

Do thou, amid the fair white walls,
If Cadiz yet be free,

At times from out her latticed halls
Look o'er the dark blue sea;
Then think upon Calypso's isles,
Endear'd by days gone by;

Pindus, in Albania. Mr. Hobhouse, who had rode on before the rest of the party, and arrived at Zitza just as the evening set in, describes the thunder as "roaring without intermission, the echoes of one peal not ceasing to roll in the mountains, before another tremendous crash burst over our heads; whilst the plains and the distant hills appeared in a perpetual blaze." "The tempest," he says, "was altogether terrific, and worthy of the Grecian Jove. My Friend, with the priest and the servants, did not enter our hut till three

To others give a thousand smiles,
To me a single sigh. 1

And when the admiring circle mark
The paleness of thy face,

A half-form'd tear, a transient spark
Of melancholy grace,

Again thou 'It smile, and blushing shun
Some coxcomb's raillery;

Nor own for once thou thought'st on one, Who ever thinks on thee.

Though smile and sigh alike are vain, When sever'd hearts repine,

My spirit flies o'er mount and main, And mourns in search of thine.

STANZAS

WRITTEN IN PASSING THE AMBRACIAN GULF.

THROUGH cloudless skies, in silvery sheen, Full beams the moon on Actium's coast; And on these waves, for Egypt's queen, The ancient world was won and lost. And now upon the scene I look,

The azure grave of many a Roman; Where stern Ambition once forsook His wavering crown to follow woman. Florence! whom I will love as well As ever yet was said or sung, (Since Orpheus sang his spouse from hell) Whilst thou art fair and I am young;

Sweet Florence! those were pleasant times, When worlds were staked for ladies' eyes: Had bards as many realms as rhymes,

Thy charms might raise new Antonics. Though Fate forbids such things to be

Yet, by thine eyes and ringlets curl'd!

I cannot lose a world for thee,

But would not lose thee for a world. November 14. 1809.

THE SPELL IS BROKE, THE CHARM IS
FLOWN!

WRITTEN AT ATHENS, JANUARY 16. 1810.
THE spell is broke, the charm is flown!
Thus is it with life's fitful fever:
We madly smile when we should groan;
Delirium is our best deceiver.

Each lucid interval of thought

Recalls the woes of Nature's charter, And he that acts as wise men ought,

But lives, as saints have died, a martyr.

in the morning. I now learnt from him that they had lost their way, and that, after wandering up and down in total ig norance of their position, they had stopped at last near some Turkish tombstones and a torrent, which they saw by the flashes of lightning. They had been thus exposed for nine hours. It was long before we ceased to talk of the thunderstorm in the plain of Zitza."]

1["These stanzas," says Mr. Moore, "have a music in them, which, independently of all meaning, is enchanting."]