Not for a moment may you stray O'er roses may your footsteps move, A bard [Moore] (Horresco referens) defied his reviewer [Jeffrey] to mortal combat. If this example becomes prevalent, our Periodical Censors must be dipped in the river Styx: for what else can secure them from the numerous host of their enraged assailants? [Cf. English Bards, 1. 466, note, 3.] I 1["Of all I have ever known, Clare has always been the least altered in everything from the excellent qualities and kind affections which attached me to him so strongly at school. should hardly have thought it possible for society (or the world, as it is called) to leave a being with so little of the leaven of bad passions. I do not speak from personal experience only, but from all I have ever heard of him from others, during absence and distance." Detached Thoughts, Nov. 5, 1821; Life, p. 540.] 2 Sassenach, or Saxon, a Gaelic word, signifying either Lowland or English. My breast requires the sullen glen, Whose gloom may suit a darkened mind. Oh! that to me the wings were given, Which bear the turtle to her nest! Then would I cleave the vault of Heaven, To flee away, and be at rest.1 [First published, 1808.] LINES WRITTEN BENEATH AN ELM IN THE CHURCHYARD OF HARROW.3 SPOT of my youth! whose hoary branches sigh, Swept by the breeze that fans thy cloudless sky; Where now alone I muse, who oft have trod, With those I lov'd, thy soft and verdant sod; With those who, scatter'd far, perchance deplore, Like me, the happy scenes they knew before: Oh! as I trace again thy winding hill, Mine eyes admire, my heart adores thee still, Thou drooping Elm! beneath whose boughs I lay, And frequent mus'd the twilight hours away; Where, as they once were wont, my limbs recline, But, ah! without the thoughts which then were mine: 1" And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove, for then would I fly away, and be at rest." Psalm Iv. 6. This verse also constitutes a part of the most beautiful anthem in our language. [On the death of his daughter, Allegra, in April, 1822, Byron sent her remains to be buried at Harrow, " where," he says, in a letter to Murray, I once hoped to have laid my own.' "There is," he wrote, May 26, "a spot in the churchyard, near the footpath, on the brow of the hill looking towards Windsor, and a tomb under a large tree (bearing the name of Peachie, cr Peachey), where I used to sit for hours and hours when a boy. This was my favourite spot; but as I wish to erect a tablet to her memory, the body had better be deposited in the church.' No tablet was, however, erected, and Allegra sleeps in her unmarked grave inside the church, a few feet to the right of the entrance.] [First published, 1832.] 1[Miss Chaworth was married to John Musters, Esq., in August, 1805. The original MS. of "The Fragment" (which is in the possession of Mrs Chaworth Musters) formerly belonged to Miss E. B. Pigot, according to whom they "were written by Lord Byron in 1804.' "We were reading Burns' Farewell to Ayrshire "Scenes of woe and Scenes of pleasure, when he said, 'I like that metre; let me try it,' and taking up a pencil, wrote those on the other side in an instant. I read them to Moore, and at his particular request I copied them for him.” E. B. Pigot, 1859. On the fly-leaf of the same volume (Poetry of Robert Burns, vol. iv. Third Edition, 1802). containing the Farewell to Ayrshire, Byron wrote in pencil the two stanzas "Oh! little lock of golden hue," in 1806 (vide post, p. 80). It may be noted that the verses quoted, though included until recently among his poems, were not written by Burns, but by Richard Gall, who died in 1801, aged 25.] TO A LADY. HO PRESENTED THE AUTHOR WITH THE VELVET BAND WHICH BOUND HER TRESSES. I. THIS Band, which bound thy yellow hair Is mine, sweet Girl! thy pledge of love; claims my warmest, dearest care, Like relics left of saints above. 2. Oh! I will wear it next my heart; 3. The dew I gather from thy lip 4. This will recall each youthful scene, [First published, 1832.] TO A KNOT OF UNGENEROUS RAIL on, Rail on, ye heartless crew! 1[There can be little doubt that these verses re called forth by the criticisms passed on the Fatime Pieces by certain ladies of Southwell, morning whom, Byron wrote to Mr Pigot Jan. 13, 1807), on sending him an early copy of That unlucky poem to my poor poems. Mory has been the cause of some animadversion ladies in years. I have not printed it in is collection in consequence of my being prounced a most profligate sinner, in short a 'young Moore. - Letters, 1898, i. 112, 113.] Invoke those kindred passions' aid, Whose baleful stings your breasts pervade; Crush, if you can, the hopes of youth, spurn: To Fiction's motley altar turn, Bent on your knees the Boon receive - A Mask each canker'd brow shall hide, Says Truth, "Up Virgins, do not fear! "The Comet rolls its Influence here; "Tis Scandal's Mirror you perceive, "These dazzling Meteors but deceive"Approach and touch - Nay, do not |