He must move on-
Repose but cloys him,
Retreat destroys him,

Love brooks not a degraded throne.

IV.

Wait not, fond lover!

Till years are over,

And then recover,

As from a dream.
While each bewailing
The other's failing,
With wrath and railing,
All hideous seem-
While first decreasing,
Yet not quite ceasing,
Wait not till teasing

All passion blight:
If once diminish'd

Love's reign is finish'd

Then part in friendship,-and bid good-night.(1)

V.

So shall Affection

To recollection

The dear connection

Bring back with joy :

You had not waited

Till, tired or hated,

Your passions sated
Began to cloy.

(1) [V. L." One last embrace, then, and bid good-night."]

Your last embraces
Leave no cold traces-
The same fond faces
As through the past;
And eyes, the mirrors

Of your sweet errors

Reflect but rapture-not least though last.

VI.

True, separations

Ask more than patience;
What desperations

From such have risen!

But yet remaining,

What is 't but chaining

Hearts which, once waning,

Beat 'gainst their prison?

Time can but cloy love,
And use destroy love:
The winged boy, Love,
Is but for boys-
You'll find it torture

Though sharper, shorter,

To wean, and not wear out your joys.

THE CHARITY BALL.

WHAT matter the pangs of a husband and father,
If his sorrows in exile be great or be small,
So the Pharisee's glories around her she gather,
And the saint patronizes her " charity ball!"

What matters

feeling,

a heart which, though faulty, was

Be driven to excesses which once could appalThat the sinner should suffer is only fair dealing, As the saint keeps her charity back for "the ball!" (1)

EPIGRAM ON MY WEDDING-DAY.

TO PENELOPE.

THIS day, of all our days, has done
The worst for me and you:-
'Tis just six years since we were one,
And five since we were two.

January 2. 1821.

ON MY THIRTY-THIRD BIRTH-DAY.

JANUARY 22. 1821. (2)

THROUGH life's dull road, so dim and dirty,
I have dragg'd to three and thirty.
What have these years left to me?
Nothing-except thirty-three.

(1) These lines were written on reading in the newspapers, that Lady Byron had been patroness of a ball in aid of some charity at Hinckley.

(2) [In Lord Byron's MS. Diary of the preceding day, we find the following entry: - "January 21. 1821. Dined-visited-came homeread. Remarked on an anecdote in Grimm's Correspondence, which says, that 'Regnard et la plupart des poëtes comiques étaient gens bilieux et

EPIGRAM,

ON THE BRASIERS' COMPANY HAVING RESOLVED TO PRESENT
AN ADDRESS TO QUEEN CAROLine. (1)

THE brasiers, it seems, are preparing to pass
An address, and present it themselves all in brass;-
A superfluous pageant-for, by the Lord Harry!
They'll find where they're going much more than
they carry. (2)

mélancoliques; et que M. de Voltaire, qui est très-gai, n'a jamais fait
que des tragédies-et que la comédie gaie est le seul genre où il n'ait
point réussi. C'est que celui qui rit et celui qui fait rire sont deux
hommes fort différens!' At this moment I feel as bilious as the best
comic writer of them all, (even as Regnard himself, the next to Molière,
who has written some of the best comedies in any language, and who is
supposed to have committed suicide,) and am not in spirits to continue my
proposed tragedy. To-morrow is my birth-day. - that is to say, at twelve
o' the clock, midnight; i. e. in twelve minutes, I shall have completed thirty
and three years of age!!! and I go to my bed with a heaviness of heart
at having lived so long, and to so little purpose. * * * *
It is three minutes past twelve-' 'Tis the middle of night by the castle-
clock,'
,' and I am now thirty-three! —

Eheu, fugaces, Posthume, Posthume,
Labuntur anni;'.

*

but I don't regret them so much for what I have done, as for what I might have done."]

(1) [The procession of the Brasiers to Brandenburgh House was one of the most absurd fooleries of the time of the late Queen's trial. —E]

(2) ["There is an epigram for you, is it not?-worthy

Of Wordsworth, the grand metaquizzical poet,
A man of vast merit, though few people know it;
The perusal of whom (as I told you at Mestri)
I owe, in great part, to my passion for pastry."

B. Letters, January 22, 1821.]

TO MR. MURRAY.

FOR Orford (1) and for Waldegrave (2)
You give much more than me you gave;
Which is not fairly to behave,

My Murray.

Because if a live dog, 'tis said,
Be worth a lion fairly sped,

A live lord must be worth two dead,

My Murray.

And if, as the opinion goes,

Verse hath a better sale than prose-
Certes, I should have more than those,
My Murray.

But now this sheet is nearly cramm'd,
So, if you will, I shan't be shamm'd,
And if you won't, you may be damn'd,
My Murray. (3)

(1) [Horace Walpole's Memoirs of the last nine Years of the Reign of George II.]

(2) [Memoirs by James Earl Waldegrave, Governor of George III. when Prince of Wales.]

(3) ["Can't accept your courteous offer. These matters must be arranged with Mr. Douglas Kinnaird. He is my trustee, and a man of honour. To him you can state all your mercantile reasons, which you might not like to state to me personally, such as 'heavy season '— Y 2