VERSES FOUND IN A SUMMERHOUSE AT HALES-OWEN

WHEN Dryden's fool, 'unknowing what he sought,'

His hours in whistling spent, for want of thought,'

This guiltless oaf his vacancy of sense
Supplied, and amply too, by innocence;
Did modern swains, possess'd of Cymon's
powers,

In Cymon's manner waste their leisure hours, The offended guests would not, with blushing, see

These fair green walks disgraced by infamy. Severe the fate of modern fools, alas! When vice and folly mark them as they pass. Like noxious reptiles o'er the whiten'd wall, The filth they leave still points out where they crawl.

[First published, 1832.]

'REMEMBER THEE! REMEMBER!'

[Lady Caroline Lamb 'called one morning at her quondam lover's apartments. His lordship was from home; but finding Vathek on the table, the lady wrote in the first page of the volume the words, "Remember me!" Byron immediately wrote under the ominous warning these two stanzas.' - MEDWIN, Conversations of Lord Byron, 1824, pp. 329, 330.] REMEMBER thee! remember thee!

Till Lethe quench life's burning stream Remorse and Shame shall cling to thee, And haunt thee like a feverish dream!

Remember thee! Aye, doubt it not.
Thy husband too shall think of thee:
By neither shalt thou be forgot,
Thou false to him, thou fiend to me!

ΤΟ ΤΙΜΕ

TIME! on whose arbitrary wing
The varying hours must flag or fly,
Whose tardy winter, fleeting spring,
But drag or drive us on to die

Hail thou! who on my birth bestow'd

Those boons to all that know thee known; Yet better I sustain thy load,

For now I bear the weight alone.

Birds, yet in freedom, shun the net
Which Love around your haunts hath set;
Or, circled by his fatal fire,

Your hearts shall burn, your hopes expire.

A bird of free and careless wing
Was I, through many a smiling spring;
But caught within the subtle snare,
I burn, and feebly flutter there.

Who ne'er have loved, and loved in vain,
Can neither feel nor pity pain,

The cold repulse, the look askance,
The lightning of Love's angry glance.

In flattering dreams I deem'd thee mine;
Now hope, and he who hoped, decline;
Like melting wax, or withering flower,
I feel my passion and thy power.

My light of life! ah, tell me why
That pouting lip and alter'd eye?
My bird of love! my beauteous mate!

20

And art thou changed, and canst thou hate?

In

And just expected such a freak. peace we met, in peace we parted, In peace we vow'd to meet again, And though I find thee fickle-hearted No pang of mine shall make thee vain.