The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd Must fall the earliest prey;

Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,
The leaves must drop away:

And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it pluck'd to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.

I know not if I could have borne
To see thy beauties fade;

The night that follow'd such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade:

Thy day without a cloud hath pass'd,
And thou wert lovely to the last ;
Extinguish'd, not decay'd;

As stars that shoot along the sky Shine brightest as they fall from high.

As once I wept, if I could weep,
My tears might well be shed,
To think I was not near to keep
One vigil o'er thy bed;
To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,
Uphold thy drooping head;

And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.

Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain,
Than thus remember thee!
The all of thine that cannot die
Through dark and dread Eternity
Returns again to me,

And more thy buried love endears
Than aught, except its living years.

February, 1812.

STANZAS.

["IF SOMETIMES," &c.]

IF sometimes in the haunts of men
Thine image from my breast may fade,
The lonely hour presents again

The semblance of thy gentle shade:
And now that sad and silent hour
Thus much of thee can still restore,

And sorrow unobserved may pour
The plaint she dare not speak before.

Oh, pardon that in crowds awhile
I waste one thought I owe to thee,
And, self-condemn'd, appear to smile,
Unfaithful to thy Memory!
Nor deem that memory less dear,
That then I seem not to repine;
I would not fools should overhear
One sigh that should be wholly thine.

If not the goblet pass unquaff'd,
It is not drain'd to banish care;
The cup must hold a deadlier draught,
That brings a Lethe for despair.
And could Oblivion set my soul

From all her troubled visions free,
I'd dash to earth the sweetest bowl
That drown'd a single thought of thee.

For wert thou vanish'd from my mind,
Where could my vacant bosom turn?
And who would then remain behind
To honour thine abandon'd Urn?
No, no-it is my sorrow's pride
That last dear duty to fulfil;
Though all the world forget beside,
'Tis meet that I remember still.

For well I know, that such had been
Thy gentle care for him, who now
Unmourn'd shall quit this mortal scene,
Where none regarded him, but thou:
And, oh! I feel in that was given

A blessing never meant for me;
Thou wert too like a dream of Heaven,
For earthly Love to merit thee.

March 14. 1812.

ON A CORNELIAN HEART WHICH WAS

BROKEN.(1)

ILL-FATED Heart! and can it be

That thou shouldst thus be rent in twain?
Have years of care for thine and thee
Alike been all employ'd in vain ?

Yet precious seems each shatter'd part,
And every fragment dearer grown,
Since he who wears thee feels thou art
A fitter emblem of his own.

March 16. 1812.

LINES TO A LADY WEEPING. (2)

WEEP, daughter of a royal line,
A Sire's disgrace, a realm's decay;
Ah! happy if each tear of thine

Could wash a father's fault away!

(1) [We know not whether the reader should understand the cornelian heart of these lines to be the same with that of which some notices are given in Vol. VII. p. 99. —E.]

(2) [This impromptu owed its birth to an on dit, that the late Princess Charlotte of Wales burst into tears on hearing that the Whigs had found it impossible to put together a cabinet, at the period of Mr. Perceval's death. They were appended to the first edition of the "Corsair,” and excited a sensation, as it is called, marvellously disproportionate to their length,―or, we may add, their merit. The ministerial prints raved for two months on end, in the most foul-mouthed vituperation of the poet, and all that belonged to him—the Morning Post even announced a motion in the House of Lords—" and all this," Lord Byron writes to Mr. Moore, as Bedreddin in the Arabian Nights remarks, for making a cream tart with pepper: how odd, that eight lines should have given birth, I really think, to eight thousand!”—E.]

66

Weep-for thy tears are Virtue's tears-
Auspicious to these suffering isles;
And be each drop in future years
Repaid thee by thy people's smiles!

March, 1812.

THE CHAIN I GAVE.

(From the Turkish.)

THE chain I gave was fair to view,
The lute I added sweet in sound;
The heart that offer'd both was true,
And ill deserved the fate it found.

These gifts were charm'd by secret spell
Thy truth in absence to divine;

And they have done their duty well, —
Alas! they could not teach thee thine.

That chain was firm in every link,

But not to bear a stranger's touch;

That lute was sweet-till thou could'st think In other hands its notes were such.

Let him, who from thy neck unbound
The chain which shiver'd in his grasp,
Who saw that lute refuse to sound,

Restring the chords, renew the clasp.