What sighs re-echo'd to thy parting breath,
Whilst thou wast struggling in the pangs of death!
Could tears retard the tyrant in his course;
Could sighs avert his dart's relentless force;
Could youth and virtue claim a short delay,
Or beauty charm the spectre from his prey;

seems calculated to give an idea of the youth's station in life, wholly different from that which the whole tenour of the original Epitaph warrants. That he grew more conscious of his high station, as he approached to man. hood, is not improbable, and this wish to sink his early friendship with the young cottager may have been a result of that feeling. - MOORE.

The following is a copy of the lines as they first appeared in the private volume :

"Oh, Boy! for ever lov'd, for ever dear!

What fruitless tears have bathed thy honour'd bier!
What sighs re-echoed to thy parting breath,

While thou wast struggling in the pangs of death!
Could tears retard the tyrant in his course;

Could sighs avert his dart's relentless force;
Could youth and virtue claim a short delay,
Or beauty charm the spectre from his prey;
Thou still hadst liv'd to bless my aching sight,
Thy comrade's honour, and thy friend's delight.
Though low thy lot, since in a cottage born,
No titles did thy humble name adorn,

To me, far dearer was thy artless love

Than all the joys wealth, fame, and friends could provc :
For thee alone I lived, or wish'd to live;

Oh God! if impious, this rash word forgive!
Heart-broken now, I wait an equal doom,
Content to join thee in thy turf-clad tomb;
Where, this frail form composed in endless rest,
I'll make my last cold pillow on thy breast;
That breast where oft in life I've laid my head,
Will yet receive me mouldering with the dead;
This life resign'd, without one parting sigh,
Together in one bed of earth we 'll lie!
Together share the fate to mortals given;
Together mix our dust, and hope for heaven."

Thou still hadst lived to bless my aching sight,
Thy comrade's honour and thy friend's delight.
If yet thy gentle spirit hover nigh

The spot where now thy mouldering ashes lie,
Here wilt thou read, recorded on my heart,
A grief too deep to trust the sculptor's art.
No marble marks thy couch of lowly sleep,
But living statues there are seen to weep;
Affliction's semblance bends not o'er thy tomb,
Affliction's self deplores thy youthful doom.
What though thy sire lament his failing line,
A father's sorrows cannot equal mine!
Though none, like thee, his dying hour will cheer,
Yet other offspring soothe his anguish here:
But, who with me shall hold thy former place?
Thine image, what new friendship can efface?
Ah, none! -a father's tears will cease to flow,
Time will assuage an infant brother's woe;
To all, save one, is consolation known,
While solitary friendship sighs alone.

1803.

A FRAGMENT.

WHEN, to their airy hall, my fathers' voice
Shall call my spirit, joyful in their choice;
When, pois'd upon the gale, my form shall ride,
Or, dark in mist, descend the mountain's side;
Oh! may my shade behold no sculptur'd urns
To mark the spot where earth to earth returns!

No lengthen'd scroll, no praise-encumber'd stone;
My epitaph shall be my name alone (1):
If that with honour fail to crown my clay,
Oh! may no other fame my deeds repay!
That, only that, shall single out the spot;
By that remember'd, or with that forgot.

1803.

ON LEAVING NEWSTEAD ABBEY. (2)

"Why dost thou build the hall, son of the winged days? Thou lookest from thy tower to-day; yet a few years, and the blast of the desert comes, it howls in thy empty court."— OSSIAN.

THROUGH thy battlements, Newstead, the hollow winds whistle;

Thou, the hall of my fathers, art gone to decay; In thy once smiling garden, the hemlock and thistle Have chok'd up the rose which late bloom'd in

the way.

(1) of the sincerity of this youthful aspiration, the poet has left repeated proofs. By his will, drawn up in 1811, he directed, that "no inscription, save his name and age, should be written on his tomb;" and, in 1819, he wrote thus to Mr. Murray :-" Some of the epitaphs at the Cartosa cemetery, at Ferrara, pleased me more than the more splendid monuments at Bologna; for instance

"Martini Luigi
Implora pace."

Can any thing be more full of pathos ? I hope whoever may survive me will see those two words, and no more, put over me."- E.

(2) The priory of Newstead, or de Novo Loco, in Sherwood, was founded about the year 1170, by Henry II., and dedicated to God and the Virgin.

Of the mail-cover'd Barons, who proudly to battle Led their vassals from Europe to Palestine's plain (1),

The escutcheon and shield, which with every blast rattle,

Are the only sad vestiges now that remain.

No more doth old Robert, with harp-stringing numbers,

Raise a flame in the breast for the war-laurell'd

wreath ;

Near Askalon's towers, John of Horistan (2) slumbers, Unnerv'd is the hand of his minstrel by death.

It was in the reign of Henry VIII., on the dissolution of the monasteries, that, by a royal grant, it was added, with the lands adjoining, to the other possessions of the Byron family. The favourite upon whom they were conferred, was the grand-nephew of the gallant soldier who fought by the side of Richmond at Bosworth, and is distinguished from the other knights of the same Christian name, in the family, by the title of " Sir John Byron the Little, with the great beard." A portrait of this personage was one of the few family pictures with which the walls of the abbey, while in the possession of the poet, were decorated.-E.

(1) There being no record of any of Lord Byron's ancestors having been engaged in the Holy Wars, Mr. Moore suggests, that the poet may have had no other authority for this notion than the tradition which he found connected with certain strange groups of heads, which are repre sented on the old panel-work in some of the chambers at Newstead In one of these groups, consisting of three heads, strongly carved and projecting from the panel, the centre figure evidently represents a Saracen or Moor, with an European female on one side of him, and a Christian soldier on the other. In a second group, the female occupies the centre, while on either side is the head of a Saracen, with the eyes fixed earnestly upon her. Of the exact meaning of these figures there is nothing known; but the tradition is, that they refer to a love adventure of the age of the Crusades E.

(2) "In the park of Horseley," says Thoroton, "there was a castle, some of the ruins of which are yet visible, called Horistan Castle, which was the chief mansion of Ralph de Burun's successors."