Yes! for one single erring verse,
Pronounced an unrelenting Curse;
Yes! at a first and transient view,
Condemn'd a heart she never knew.
Can such a verdict then decide,
Which springs from disappointed pride?
Without a wondrous share of Wit,
To judge is such a Matron fit?
The rest of the censorious throng
Who to this zealous Band belong,
To her a general homage pay,
And right or wrong her wish obey:
Why should I point my pen of steel
To break 'such flies upon the wheel'?
With minds to Truth and Sense unknown,
Who dare not call their words their own.
Rail on, Rail on, ye heartless Crew!
Your Leader's grand design pursue:
Secure behind her ample shield,
Yours is the harvest of the field.
My path with thorns you cannot strew,
Nay more, my warmest thanks are due; 90
When such as you revile my Name,
Bright beams the rising Sun of Fame,
Chasing the shades of envious night,
Outshining every critic Light.
Such, such as you will serve to show
Each radiant tint with higher glow.
Vain is the feeble cheerless toil,
Your efforts on yourselves recoil;
Then Glory still for me you raise,
Yours is the Censure, mine the Praise.
December 1, 1806.
SOLILOQUY OF A BARD IN THE COUNTRY
[First printed in Edition of 1898 from a manuscript in possession of Mr. Murray.]
'T WAS now the noon of night, and all was still,
Except a hapless Rhymer and his quill.
In vain he calls each Muse in order down,
Like other females, these will sometimes
frown;
He frets, he fumes, and ceasing to invoke
The Nine, in anguish'd accents thus he spoke:
Ah what avails it thus to waste my time,
To roll in Epic, or to rave in Rhyme?
What worth is some few partial readers'
praise,
If ancient Virgins croaking censures raise? Where few attend, 't is useless to indite; Where few can read, 't is folly sure to write;
Where none but girls and striplings dare admire,
And Critics rise in every country Squire But yet this last my candid Muse admits, When Peers are Poets, Squires may well be Wits;
When schoolboys vent their amorous flames in verse,
Matrons may sure their characters asperse;
And if a little parson joins the train,
And echoes back his Patron's voice again
Though not delighted, yet I must forgive,
Parsons as well as other folks must live: -
From rage he rails not, rather say from
dread,
He does not speak for Virtue, but for bread;
And this we know is in his Patron's giving,
For Parsons cannot eat without a Living.
The Matron knows I love the Sex too well,
Even unprovok'd aggression to repel.
What though from private pique her anger
While jealous pangs our Souls perplex, No passion prompts you to relieve.
From Love, or Pity, ne'er you fall,
By you, no mutual Flame is felt, 'Tis Vanity, which rules you all, Desire alone which makes you melt.
I will not say no souls are yours,
Aye, ye have Souls, and dark ones too,
Souls to contrive those smiling lures,
To snare our simple hearts for you.
Yet shall you never bind me fast,
Long to adore such brittle toys,
I'll rove along, from first to last,
And change whene'er my fancy cloys.
Oh! I should be a baby fool,
To sigh the dupe of female art
Woman! perhaps thou hast a Soul,
But where have Demons hid thy Heart? January, 1807.
[First printed in Edition of 1898 from a manuscript in possession of Mr. Murray.] ANNE'S Eye is liken'd to the Sun,
From it such Beams of Beauty fall; And this can be denied by none,
For like the Sun, it shines on All.
Then do not admiration smother,
Or say these glances don't become her; To you, or I, or any other
Her Sun displays perpetual Summer. January 14, 1807.
STANZAS TO JESSY
[These stanzas, which appeared_originally in Monthly Literary Recollections of July, 1807, have always been attributed to Byron but were never acknowledged by him later in life. They were signed in the magazine' George Gordon, Lord Byron.']
THERE is a mystic thread of life
So dearly wreathed with mine alone, That Destiny's relentless knife
At once must sever both, or none.
[First printed in Edition of 1898 from a manuscript at Newstead.]
THE Moralists tell us that Loving is Sinning,
And always are prating about and about it,
But as Love of Existence itself's the beginning,
Say, what would Existence itself be without it?
They argue the point with much furious Invective,
Though perhaps 't were no difficult task to confute it;
But if Venus and Hymen should once prove defective,
Pray who would there be to defend or dispute it?
Streamlet! along whose rippling surge,
My youthful limbs were wont to urge
At noontide heat their pliant course;
Plunging with ardour from the shore,
Thy springs will lave these limbs no more,
Deprived of active force.
And shall I here forget the scene,
Still nearest to my breast?
Rocks rise, and rivers roll between
The spot which passion blest;
Yet, Mary, all thy beauties seem
Fresh as in Love's bewitching dream,
To me in smiles display'd:
Till slow disease resigns his prey
To Death, the parent of decay,
Thine image cannot fade.
And thou, my Friend! whose gentle love
Yet thrills my bosom's chords,
How much thy friendship was above
Description's power of words!
Still near my breast thy gift I wear,
Which sparkled once with Feeling's tear,
Of Love the pure, the sacred gem;
Our souls were equal, and our lot
In that dear moment quite forgot;
Let Pride alone condemn !
All, all is dark and cheerless now!
No smile of Love's deceit
Can warm my veins with wonted glow,
Can bid Life's pulses beat:
Not e'en the hope of future fame Can wake my faint, exhausted frame,
Or crown with fancied wreaths my head.
Mine is a short inglorious race
To humble in the dust my face,
And mingle with the dead.
Oh Fame! thou goddess of my heart;
On him who gains thy praise,
Pointless must fall the Spectre's dart,
Consumed in Glory's blaze;
But me she beckons from the earth,
My name obscure, unmark'd my birth,
My life a short and vulgar dream:
Lost in the dull, ignoble crowd,
My hopes recline within a shroud,
My fate is Lethe's stream.
When I repose beneath the sod,
Unheeded in the clay,
Where once my playful footsteps trod,
Where now my head must lay;
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