PROMETHEUS.

TITAN to whose immortal eyes

The sufferings of mortality,
Seen in their sad reality,

Were not as things that gods despise ;
What was thy pity's recompense?
A silent suffering, and intense;
The rock, the vulture, and the chain,
All that the proud can feel of pain,
The agony they do not show
The suffocating sense of woe,

Which speaks but in its loneliness, And then is jealous lest the sky Should have a listener, nor will sigh Until its voice is echoless.

Titan! to thee the strife was given

Between the suffering and the will,
Which torture where they cannot kill;
And the inexorable Heaven,
And the deaf tyranny of Fate,
The ruling principle of Hate,
Which for its pleasure doth create
The things it may annihilate,
Refused thee even the boon to die:
The wretched gift eternity

Was thine and thou hast borne it well.
All that the Thunderer wrung from thee
Was but the menace which flung back
On him the torments of thy rack;
The fate thou didst so well foresee,
But would not to appease him tell;
And in thy Silence was his Sentence,
And in his Soul a vain repentance,
And evil dread so ill dissembled,

That in his hand the lightnings trembled.

Thy Godlike crime was to be kind,

To render with thy precepts less
The sum of human wretchedness,
And strengthen Man with his own mind;
But baffled as thou wert from high,
Still in thy patient energy,

In the endurance, and repulse

Of thine impenetrable Spirit,

Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse, A mighty lesson we inherit :

Thou art a symbol and a sign

To Mortals of their fate and force ;

Like thee, Man is in part divine,

A troubled stream from a pure source;
And Man in portions can foresee
His own funereal destiny;

His wretchedness, and his resistance,
And his sad unallied existence :
To which his Spirit may oppose
Itself and equal to all woes,

And a firm will, and a deep sense,
Which even in torture can descry

Its own concenter'd recompense, Triumphant where it dares defy, And making Death a Victory.

Diodati, July, 1816.

stead of any consolatory or monitory text, this Epicurean line from one of his own poerns -

"Life to the last enjoy'd, here Churchill lies." Southey's Cowper, vol. ii p. 159.]

A FRAGMENT.

COULD I remount the river of my years
To the first fountain of our smiles and tears,
I would not trace again the stream of hours
Between their outworn banks of wither'd flowers,
But bid it flow as now until it glides
Into the number of the nameless tides.

What is this Death ?-a quiet of the heart?
The whole of that of which we are a part?
For life is but a vision—what I see
Of all which lives alone is life to me,
And being so the absent are the dead,
Who haunt us from tranquillity, and spread
A dreary shroud around us, and invest
With sad remembrancers our hours of rest.

The absent are the dead for they are cold,
And ne'er can be what once we did behold;
And they are changed, and cheerless, --or if yet
The unforgotten do not all forget,
Since thus divided-equal must it be
If the deep barrier be of earth, or sea;
It may be both - but one day end it must
In the dark union of insensate dust.

The under-earth inhabitants—are they
But mingled millions decomposed to clay ?
The ashes of a thousand ages spread
Wherever man has trodden or shall tread?
Or do they in their silent cities dwell
Each in his incommunicative cell?

Or have they their own language? and a sense
Of breathless being ?-darken'd and intense
As midnight in her solitude? —-Oh Earth!
Where are the past?-and wherefore had they birth?
The dead are thy inheritors-and we
But bubbles on thy surface; and the key
Of thy profundity is in the grave,
The ebon portal of thy peopled cave,
Where I would walk in spirit, and behold
Our elements resolved to things untold,
And fathom hidden wonders, and explore
The essence of great bosoms now no more.
Diodati, July, 1816.

SONNET TO LAKE LEMAN.
ROUSSEAU-Voltaire- our Gibbon-and De Staël-
Leman these names are worthy of thy shore,
Thy shore of names like these! wert thou no more,
Their memory thy remembrance would recall:
To them thy banks were lovely as to all,

But they have made them lovelier, for the lore
Of mighty minds doth hallow in the core

Of human hearts the ruin of a wall

Where dwelt the wise and wondrous; but by thee, How much more, Lake of Beauty! do we feel, In sweetly gliding o'er thy crystal sea, The wild glow of that not ungentle zeal, Which of the heirs of immortality

Is proud, and makes the breath of glory real! Diodati, July, 1816.

Geneva, Ferney, Copet, Lausanne.-[See antè, p. 35. "I have traversed all Rousseau's ground with the Heloise before me, and am struck to a degree that I cannot express, with the force and accuracy of his descriptions, and the beauty of their reality."- Byron Letters, 1816.]

ROMANCE MUY DOLOROSO DEL SITIO Y TOMA DE ALHAMA. 1

El qual dezia en Aravigo assi.

PASSEAVASE el Rey Moro
Por la ciudad de Granada,
Desde las puertas de Elvira
Hasta las de Bivarambla.

Ay de mi, Alhama!

Cartas le fueron venidas Que Alhama era ganada.

Las cartas echò en el fuego,

Y al mensagero matava.
Ay de mi, Alhama!

Descavalga de una mula,

Y en un cavallo cavalga.
Por el Zacatin arriba
Subido se avia al Alhambra.
Ay de mi, Alhama !

Como en el Alhambra estuvo,

Al mismo punto mandava

Que se toquen las trompetas

Con añafiles de plata.

Ay de mi, Alhama!

Y que atambores de guerra
Apriessa toquen alarma;
Por que lo oygan sus Moros,
Los de la Vega y Granada.
Ay de mi, Alhama !

Los Moros que el son oyeron,
Que al sangriento Marte llama,
Uno a uno, y dos a dos,

Un gran esquadron formavan.
Ay de mi, Alhama!

Alli hablò un Moro viejo;
Desta manera hablava :
Para que nos llamas, Rey?
Para que es este llamada?
Ay de mi, Alhama!

Aveys de saber, amigos,
Una nueva desdichada :

Que Christianos, con braveza,

Ya nos han tomado Alhama.
Ay de mi, Alhama!

Alli hablò un viejo Alfaqui,

De barba crecida y cana:

Bien se te emplea, buen Rey,

Buen Rey; bien se te empleava. Ay de mi, Alhama !

Mataste los Bencerrages,

Que era la flor de Granada:

Cogiste los tornadizos

De Cordova la nombrada.

Ay de mi, Alhama !

Por esso mercces, Rey,

Una pene bien doblada ;

Que te pierdas tu y el reyno,

Y que se pierda Granada.

Ay de mi, Alhama !

1 The effect of the original ballad-which existed both in Spanish and Arabic was such that it was forbidden

A VERY MOURNFUL BALLAD

ON THE SIEGE AND CONQUEST OF ALHAMA, Which, in the Arabic language, is to the following purport.

THE Moorish King rides up and down
Through Granada's royal town;

From Elvira's gates to those

Of Bivarambla on he goes.

Woe is me, Alhama!

Letters to the monarch tell
How Alhama's city fell:
In the fire the scroll he threw,
And the messenger he slew.

Woe is me, Alhama !

He quits his mule, and mounts his horse, And through the street directs his course; Through the street of Zacatin

To the Alhambra spurring in.

Woe is me, Alhama!

When the Alhambra walls he gain'd,

On the moment he ordain'd

That the trumpet straight should sound With the silver clarion round.

Woe is me, Alhama !

And when the hollow drums of war
Beat the loud alarm afar,
That the Moors of town and plain
Might answer to the martial strain,
Woe is me, Alhama!

Then the Moors, by this aware
That bloody Mars recall'd them there,
One by one, and two by two,
To a mighty squadron grew.

Woe is me, Alhama!

Out then spake an aged Moor
In these words the king before,
"Wherefore call on us, oh King?
What may mean this gathering?"
Woe is me, Alhama!

"Friends! ye have, alas! to know
Of a most disastrous blow,
That the Christians, stern and bold,
Have obtain'd Alhama's hold."
Woe is me, Alhama!

Out then spake old Alfaqui,
With his beard so white to see,
"Good King! thou art justly served,
Good King! this thou hast deserved.
Woe is me, Alhama:

"By thee were slain, in evil hour,
The Abencerrage, Granada's flower;
And strangers were received by thee
Of Cordova the Chivalry.

Woe is me, Alhama!
"And for this, oh King! is sent
On thee a double chastisement:
Thee and thine, thy crown and realm,
One last wreck shall overwhelm.
Woe is me, Alhama!

to be sung by the Moors, on pain of death, within Gra nada.

Si no se respetan leyes,
Es ley que todo se pierda ;
Y que se pierda Granada,
Y que te pierdas en ella.

Ay de mi, Alhama!

Fuego por los ojos vierte,
El Rey que esto oyera.
Y como el otro de leyes
De leyes tambien hablava.
Ay de mi, Alhama !

Sabe un Rey que no ay leyes
De darle a Reyes disgusto -

Esso dize el Rey Moro

Relinchando de colera.

Ay de mi, Alhama!

Moro Alfaqui, Moro Alfaqui,

El de la vellida barba,
El Rey te manda prender,

Por la perdida de Alhama.
Ay de mi, Alhama !

Y cortarte la cabeza,

Y ponerla en el Alhambra,

Por que a ti castigo sea,
Y otros tiemblen en miralla.
Ay de mi, Alhama !

Cavalleros, hombres buenos,
Dezid de mi parte al Rey,
Al Rey Moro de Granada,
Como no le devo nada.

Ay de mi, Alhama !

De averse Alhama perdido

A mi me pesa en el alma.

Que si el Rey perdiò su tierra,

Otro mucho mas perdiera.
Ay de mi, Alhama!

Perdieran hijos padres,

Y casados las casadas:

Las cosas que mas amara
Perdiò l'un y el otro fama.
Ay de mi, Alhama !

Perdi una hija donzella

Que era la flor d' esta tierra,

Cien doblas dava por ella,

No me las estimo en nada.
Ay de mi, Alhama!

Diziendo assi al hacen Alfaqui,
Le cortaron la cabeça,

Y la elevan al Alhambra,
Assi come el Rey lo manda.
Ay de mi, Alhama!

Hombres, niños y mugeres,
Lloran tan grande perdida.
Lloravan todas las damas
Quantas en Granada avia.

Ay de mi, Alhama !

Por las calles y ventanas
Mucho luto parecia ;

Llora el Rey como fembra,
Qu'es mucho lo que perdia.
Ay de mi, Alhama!

"He who holds no laws in awe,
He must perish by the law;
And Granada must be won,
And thyself with her undone."

Woe is me, Alhama!

Fire flash'd from out the old Moor's eyes.
The Monarch's wrath began to rise,
Because he answer'd, and because
He spake exceeding well of laws.

Woe is me, Alhama!

"There is no law to say such things
As may disgust the ear of kings: ".
Thus, snorting with his choler, said
The Moorish King, and doom'd him dead.
Woe is me, Alhama!

Moor Alfaqui! Moor Alfaqui!
Though thy beard so hoary be,
The King hath sent to have thee seized,
For Alhama's loss displeased.

Woe is me, Alhama!

And to fix thy head upon

High Alhambra's loftiest stone;
That this for thee should be the law,
And others tremble when they saw.
Woe is me, Alhama!

"Cavalier, and man of worth!
Let these words of mine go forth;
Let the Moorish Monarch know,
That to him I nothing owe.

Woe is me, Alhama!

"But on my soul Alhama weighs,
And on my inmost spirit preys;
And if the King his land hath lost,
Yet others may have lost the most.
Woe is me, Alhama!

"Sires have lost their children, wives
Their lords, and valiant men their lives;
One what best his love might claim
Hath lost, another wealth, or fame.
Woe is me, Alhama!

"I lost a damsel in that hour,
Of all the land the loveliest flower;
Doubloons a hundred I would pay,
And think her ransom cheap that day."
Woe is me, Alhama!

And as these things the old Moor said,
They sever'd from the trunk his head;
And to the Alhambra's wall with speed
"T was carried, as the King decreed.
Woe is me, Alhama!

And men and infants therein weep
Their loss, so heavy and so deep:
Granada's ladies, all she rears
Within her walls, burst into tears.
Woe is me, Alhama!

And from the windows o'er the walls
The sable web of mourning falls;
The King weeps as a woman o'er
His loss, for it is much and sore.
Woe is me, Alhama!

SONETTO DI VITTORELLI.

PER MONACA.

Sonetto composto in nome di un genitore, a cui era morta poco innanzi una figlia appena maritata; e diretto al genitore della sacra sposa.

Di due vaghe donzelle, oneste, accorte

Lieti e miseri padri il ciel ne feo,

Il ciel, che degne di più nobil sorte
L' una e l'altra veggendo, ambo chiedeo.

La mia fu tolta da veloce morte

A le fumanti tede d' imeneo :

La tua, Francesco, in sugellate porte
Eterna prigioniera or si rendeo.

Ma tu almeno potrai de la gelosa

Irremeabil soglia, ove s' asconde,
La sua tenera udir voce pietosa.
Io verso un fiume d' amarissim' onde,

Corro a quel marmo, in cui la figlia or posa,
Batto, e ribatto, ma nessun risponde.

TRANSLATION FROM VITTORELLI.

ON A NUN.

Sonnet composed in the name of a father, whose daughter had recently died shortly after her marriage; and addressed to the father of her who had lately taken the veil.

Or two fair virgins, modest, though admired,
Heaven made us happy, and now, wretched sires;
Heaven for a nobler doom their worth desires,
And gazing upon either, both required.
Mine, while the torch of Hymen newly fired
Becomes extinguish'd, soon- too soon-expires;
But thine, within the closing grate retired,
Eternal captive, to her God aspires.

But thou at least from out the jealous door,

Which shuts between your never-meeting eyes, May'st hear her sweet and pious voice once more:

I to the marble, where my daughter lies,

["Are you not near the Luddites? By the Lord! if there's a row, but I'll be among ye! How go on the weaversthe breakers of frames-the Lutherans of politics-the reformers?...... There's an amiable chanson for you!-all impromptu. I have written it principally to shock your neighbour, who is all clergy and loyalty-mirth and innocence-milk and water."Lord Byron to Mr. Moore, Dec. 24. 1816.)

["And there are songs and quavers, roaring, humming, Guitars, and every other sort of strumming."- Beppo. See ante, p. 145.]

("I went to most of the ridottos, &c., and though I did not dissipate much upon the whole, yet I found the sword wearing out the scabbard, though I have but just turned the corner of twenty-nine."-Lord Byron to Mr. Moore, Feb. 28. 1817.)

["1 have been ill with a slow fever, which at last took to fying, and became as quick as need be. But, at length, after

TO MR. MURRAY.

March, 1817.

To hook the reader, you, John Murray, Have publish'd "Anjou's Margaret," Which won't be sold off in a hurry

(At least, it has not been as yet); And then, still further to bewilder 'em, Without remorse you set up "Ilderim ;" So mind you don't get into debt, Because as how, if you should fail, These books would be but baddish bail.

And mind you do not let escape

These rhymes to Morning Post or Perry,
Which would be very treacherous — very,

And get me into such a scrape!

For, firstly, I should have to sally,

All in my little boat, against a Galley;
And, should I chance to slay the Assyrian wight,
Have next to combat with the female knight.
March 25. 1817.

EPISTLE FROM MR. MURRAY TO
DR. POLIDORI. 6

DEAR Doctor, I have read your play,
Which is a good one in its way,—

a week of half delirium, burning skin, thirst, hot headach, horrible pulsation, and no sleep, by the blessing of barley water, and refusing to see my physician, I recovered. It is an epidemic of the place. Here are some versicles, which I made one sleepless night."-Lord Byron to Mr. Moore, March 25. 1817.]

5 [The "Missionary" was written by Mr. Bowles; "Ilderim" by Mr. Gally Knight; and Margaret of Anjou" by Miss Holford.]

[For some particulars relating to Dr. Polidori see Moore's "Notices." "I never," says Lord Byron, "was much more disgusted with any human production than with the eternal nonsense, and tracasseries, and emptiness, and ill-humour, and vanity of this young person; but he has some talent, and is a man of honour, and has dispositions of amendment. Therefore use your interest for him, for he is improved and improvYou want a civil and delicate declension' for the medical tragedy? Take it."-Lord Byron to Mr. Murray, Aug. 21. i817.]

able.