A strict accountant of his beads, But thou-from thy reluctant hand Too late thou leav'st the high command To which thy weakness clung; All Evil Spirit as thou art, It is enough to grieve the heart To see thine own unstrung; To think that God's fair world hath been And Earth hath spilt her blood for him, Thine evil deeds are writ in gore, If thou hadst died as honour dies, To shame the world again- Weigh'd in the balance, hero dust Is vile as vulgar clay; Thy scales, Mortality! are just But yet methought the living great 70 81 90 100 Nor deem'd Contempt could thus make mirth Of these, the Conquerors of the earth. As if that foolish robe could wring Remembrance from thy breast. Where is that faded garment? where The gewgaws thou wert fond to wear, The star the string the crest? Vain froward child of empire! say, Are all thy playthings snatch'd away? Where may the wearied eye repose, When gazing on the Great; Where neither guilty glory glows, Nor despicable state? 150 160 Oh! early in the balance weigh'd, February 12, 1815. [First published, 1831.] STANZAS FOR MUSIC O lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros [These verses were given by Byron to Mr. Power of the Strand, who published them with music by Sir John Stevenson. In a letter (March 8, 1815) he states that 'the death of poor Dorset' set him into the mood for writing them. In another letter (March, 1816) he calls them the truest, though the most melancholy,' he ever wrote.] THERE's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away, When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay; 'T is not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast, But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past. Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt, or ocean of excess: The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain The shore to which their shiver'd sail shall never stretch again. Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself comes down; It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream its own; That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our tears, And though the eye may sparkle still, 't is where the ice appears. Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast, Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest; |