[These stanzas, slightly different in form and superscribed On the Death of the Duke of Dorset,' are in the new Murray edition claimed as first published from an autograph manuscript in the possession of Mr. Murray. They have been in print for at least more than half a century.]

I HEARD thy fate without a tear,
Thy loss with scarce a sigh;
And yet thou wert surpassing dear
Too loved of all to die.

I know not what hath sear'd mine eye:
The tears refuse to start;
But every drop its lids deny
Falls dreary on my heart.

Yes-deep and heavy, one by one,
They sink, and turn to care;
As cavern'd waters wear the stone,
Yet, dropping, harden there.

They cannot petrify more fast
Than feelings sunk remain,
Which, coldly fix'd, regard the past,
But never melt again.

NAPOLEON'S FAREWELL

FROM THE FRENCH

[This and the following poems are, it is needless to say, not from the French, but original with Byron.]

FAREWELL to the Land where the gloom of my Glory

Arose and o'ershadow'd the earth with her

name

Woman's love, and friendship's zeal, Dear as both have been to me What are they to all I feel,

With a soldier's faith for thee?

Idol of the soldier's soul !

First in fight, but mightiest now: Many could a world control;

Thee alone no doom can bow. By thy side for years I dared

Death; and envied those who fell, When their dying shout was heard,

Blessing him they served so well.

Would that I were cold with those,

Since this hour I live to see; When the doubts of coward foes

Scarce dare trust a man with thee, Dreading each should set thee free!

Oh! although in dungeons pent, All their chains were light to me, Gazing on thy soul unbent.

Would the sycophants of him

Now so deaf to duty's prayer, Were his borrow'd glories dim,

In his native darkness share? Were that world this hour his own,

All thou calmly dost resign, Could he purchase with that throne

ΤΟ

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Hearts like those which still are thine?

A crimson cloud it spreads and glows, But shall return to whence it rose; When 't is full 't will burst asunder Never yet was heard such thunder

As then shall shake the world with wonder,
Never yet was seen such lightning

As o'er heaven shall then be bright'ning!
Like the Wormwood Star foretold
By the sainted Seer of old,
Show'ring down a fiery flood,
Turning rivers into blood.

The Chief has fallen, but not by you,
Vanquishers of Waterloo !
When the soldier citizen
Sway'd not o'er his fellow-men,
Save in deeds that led them on
Where Glory smiled on Freedom's son
Who, of all the despots banded,

With that youthful chief competed ?
Who could boast o'er France defeated,
Till lone Tyranny commanded?
Till, goaded by ambition's sting,
The Hero sunk into the King?

Then he fell: -so perish all

Who would men by man enthrall!

And thou, too, of the snow-white plume!
Whose realm refused thee ev'n a tomb;
Better hadst thou still been leading
France o'er hosts of hirelings bleeding,
Than sold thyself to death and shame
For a meanly royal name;
Such as he of Naples wears,
Who thy blood-bought title bears.
Little didst thou deem, when dashing

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On thy war-horse through the ranks Like a stream which burst its banks, While helmets cleft, and sabres clashing, Shone and shiver'd fast around thee Of the fate at last which found thee: Was that haughty plume laid low By a slave's dishonest blow? Once -as the Moon sways o'er the tide, It roll'd in air, the warrior's guide; Through the smoke-created night Of the black and sulphurous fight, The soldier raised his seeking eye To catch that crest's ascendency, And, as it onward rolling rose, So moved his heart upon our foes. There, where death's brief pang was quickest, And the battle's wreck lay thickest, Strew'd beneath the advancing banner

Of the eagle's burning crest

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The waves lie still and gleaming, And the lull'd winds seem dreaming.

And the midnight moon is weaving
Her bright chain o'er the deep;
Whose breast is gently heaving,
As an infant's asleep:

So the spirit bows before thee,
To listen and adore thee;

With a full but soft emotion,

Like the swell of Summer's ocean. March 28 [1816].

ON THE STAR OF THE LEGION OF HONOUR'

FROM THE FRENCH

STAR of the brave!- whose beam hath

shed

Such glory o'er the quick and dead
Thou radiant and adored deceit,
Which millions rush'd in arms to greet!
Wild meteor of immortal birth!
Why rise in Heaven to set on Earth ?

Souls of slain heroes form'd thy rays;
Eternity flash'd through thy blaze;
The music of thy martial sphere
Was fame on high and honour here;
And thy light broke on human eyes,
Like a volcano of the skies.

Like lava roll'd thy stream of blood,
And swept down empires with its flood;
Earth rock'd beneath thee to her base,
As thou didst lighten through all space;
And the shorn Sun grew dim in air,
And set while thou wert dwelling there.

Before thee rose, and with thee grew,
A rainbow of the loveliest hue
Of three bright colours, each divine,
And fit for that celestial sign;
For Freedom's hand had blended them,
Like tints in an immortal gem.

One tint was of the sunbeam's dyes;
One, the blue depth of Seraph's eyes;
One, the pure Spirit's veil of white
Had robed in radiance of its light:
The three so mingled did beseem
The texture of a heavenly dream.

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And he was faithful to a corse, and kept The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay,

its

[Charles Churchill (1731–1764), the satirical poet. On the sheet containing the original draft of these lines, Lord Byron has written: 'The following poem (as most that I have endeavoured to write) is founded on a fact; and this detail is an attempt at a serious imitation of the style of a great poet beauties and its defects: I say, the style; for the thoughts I claim as my own. In this, if there be anything ridiculous, let it be attributed to me, at least as much as to Mr. Wordsworth, of whom there can exist few greater admirers than myself. I have blended what I would deem to be the beauties as well as de

so;

He died before my day of Sextonship,

And I had not the digging of this grave.' And is this all? I thought, - and do we rip

The veil of Immortality, and crave I know not what of honour and of light Through unborn ages, to endure this blight ? So soon, and so successless? As I said, The Architect of all on which we tread, 20 For Earth is but a tomb-stone, did essay To extricate remembrance from the clay, Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's thought,

Were it not that all life must end in one, Of which we are but dreamers; -as he caught

As 't were the twilight of a former Sun, Thus spoke he, 'I believe the man of whom