A strict accountant of his beads,
A subtle disputant on creeds,
His dotage trifled well:
Yet better had he neither known
A bigot's shrine, nor despot's throne.

But thou-from thy reluctant hand
The thunderbolt is wrung

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
The footstool of a thing so mean;

And Earth hath spilt her blood for him,
Who thus can hoard his own!
And Monarchs bow'd the trembling limb,
And thank'd him for a throne !
Fair Freedom! we may hold thee dear,
When thus thy mightiest foes their fear
In humblest guise have shown.
Oh, ne'er may tyrant leave behind
A brighter name to lure mankind!

Thine evil deeds are writ in gore,
Nor written thus in vain -
Thy triumphs tell of fame no more,
Ör deepen every stain:

If thou hadst died as honour dies,
Some new Napoleon might arise,

To shame the world again-
But who would soar the solar height,
To set in such a starless night?

Weigh'd in the balance, hero dust

Is vile as vulgar clay;

Thy scales, Mortality! are just
To all that pass away:

But yet methought the living great
Some higher sparks should animate,
To dazzle and dismay:

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,
And ever light of word and worth,
Whose soul expired ere youth decay'd,
And left thee but a mass of earth.
To see thee moves the scorner's mirth:
But tears in Hope's averted eye
Lament that even thou hadst birth
Unfit to govern, live, or die.

February 12, 1815. [First published, 1831.]

STANZAS FOR MUSIC

O lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros
Ducentium ortus ex animo; quater
Felix! in imo qui scatentem
Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit.
GRAY'S Poemata.

[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;