Nor hoard your honours idly for the dead!

Dear are the days which made our annals bright,

Ere Garrick fled, or Brinsley ceased to write.

Heirs to their labours, like all high-born heirs,

Vain of our ancestry as they of theirs; While thus Remembrance borrows Banquo's glass

To claim the sceptred shadows as they pass,

And we the mirror hold, where imaged shine

Immortal names, emblazoned on our line,

Pause- ere their feebler offspring you condemn,

50 Reflect how hard the task to rival them!

Then Lord knows what is writ by Lord knows who.

A modest Monologue you here survey,

[The original of Dr Busby's address, entitled "Monologue submitted to the Committee of Drury Lane Theatre," which was published in the Morning Chronicle, October 17, 1812, "will be found in the Genuine Rejected Addresses, as well as parodied in Rejected Addresses (Architectural Atoms'). On October 14 young Busby forced his way on to the stage of Drury Lane, attempted to recite his father's address, and was taken into custody. On the next night, Dr Busby, speaking from one of the boxes, obtained a hearing for his son, who could not, however, make his voice heard in the theatre. . . . To the failure of the younger Busby (himself a competitor and the author of an 'Unalogue' ..) to make himself heard, Byron alludes in the stage direction, 'to be spoken in an inarticulate voice."" Lines and parts of lines inclosed in quotation marks, form part of Busby's "Address."]

-

REMEMBER THEE! 307

VERSES FOUND IN A SUMMERHOUSE AT HALES-OWEN.1 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, possessed of Cymon's powers,

In Cymon's manner waste their leisure hours,

Th' 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

TO TIME.

TIME! on whose arbitrary wing The varying hours must flag or fly,

Whose tardy winter, fleeting spring,

But drag or drive us on to dieHail thou! who on my birth bestowed Those boons to all that know thee known;

Yet better I sustain thy load,

For now I bear the weight alone. I would not one fond heart should share The bitter moments thou hast given; And pardon thee since thou couldst spare

All that I loved, to peace or Heaven. To them be joy or rest on me

Thy future ills shall press in vain; I nothing owe but years to thee,

A debt already paid in pain. Yet even that pain was some relief; It felt, but still forgot thy power: The active agony of grief

Retards, but never counts the hour. In joy I've sighed to think thy flight Would soon subside from swift to slow;

Thy cloud could overcast the light,
But could not add a night to
Woe;

For then, however drear and dark,
My soul was suited to thy sky;
One star alone shot forth a spark
To prove thee - not Eternity.

That beam hath sunk - and now thou art

A blank - a thing to count and curse Through each dull tedious trifling part,

Which all regret, yet all rehearse. One scene even thou canst not deformThe limit of thy sloth or speed When future wanderers bear the storm Which we shall sleep too sound to heed.

And I can smile to think how weak Thine efforts shortly shall be shown, When all the vengeance thou canst wreak Must fall upon - a nameless stone. [First published, Childe Harold, 1814 (Seventh Edition).]