"Tis morn: from these I turn my sight: Loud rings in air the chapel bell; 'Tis hush'd-what sounds are these I hear? The organ's soft, celestial swell Rolls deeply on the list'ning ear. To this is join'd the sacred song, The royal minstrel's hallow'd strain; Though he who hears the music long, Will never wish to hear again. Our choir would scarcely be excused, To such a set of croaking sinners. If David, when his toils were ended, Had heard these blockheads sing before him, To us his psalms had ne'er descended, In furious mood he would have tore 'em. The luckless Israelites, when taken, • Sele's publication on Greek metres displays considerable talent and inge nuity, but, as night be expected in so difficult a work, is not remarkable for accuracy. Oh! had they sung in notes like these, They might have set their hearts at ease But if I scribble longer now, The deuce a soul will stay to read Therefore, farewell, old GRANTA's spires' No more thy theme my muse inspires 1806 ANSWER TO SOME ELEGANT VERSES SENT BY A FRIEND TO THE AUTHOR, COMPLAIN "But if any old lady, knight, priest, or physician, cause. CANDOUR compels me, BECHER! to commend 1. the private volume, "Sele's publication on Greek metres is not remark-But for the nymph whose premature desires ↑ The Latin of the schools is of the canine species, and not very intelngible. In the private volume, "Every Cambridge man will assent to this. The Latin of the schools is almost unintelligible." Torment the bosom with unnoly fires, If I scribble longer. In the private volume, If I write much longer, †These lines were printed in the private volume, and in the first edite 1 The discovery of Pythagoras, that the square of the hypothenuse is equal of Hours of Idleness, but afterwards omitted, to the squares of the other two sides of a right-angled triangle. 6 On a saint's day, the students wear surplices in chapel. Imprudent. In the private volume, unworthy. $ Wild. No net to snare her willing heart is spread; I seek not glory from the senseless crowd; November 26, 1806. Still were you happy in death's earthy slumber, You rest with your clan in the caves of Braemar :• The pibrocht resounds to the piper's loud number, Your deeds on the echoes of dark Loch na Garr. Years have roll'd on, Loch na Garr, since I left you Yet still are you dearer than Albion's plain. LACHIN Y. GAIR. Lochin y. Gair, or, as it is pronounced in the Erse, Loch na Garr, towers proudly preeminent in the Northern Highlands, near Invercauld. One of our modern tourists mentions it as the highest mountain, perhaps, in Great Britain. Be this as it may, it is certainly one of the most sublime and picturesque among our "Caledonian Alps." Its appearance is of a dusky bur, but the summit is the seat of eternal snows. Near Lachin y. Gair 1 spent some of the early part of my life, the recollection of which has given birth to the following stanzas. • First published in Hours of Idleness. This word is erroneously pronounced plad; the proper pronunciation (according to the Scotch) is known by the orthography. I allude here to my maternal ancestors "the Gordons," many of whom ught for the unft rtunate Prince Charles, better known by the name of the Pretender. This branch was nearly allied by blood, as well as attachment, the Stuarts. George, the second earl of Huntley, married the Princess Anna Stuart, daughter of James the First of Scotland. By her he left four sous the third, Sir William Gordon, I have the honor to claim as one of by progenitore, 5 Whether any perished in the battle of Culloden, I am not certaiu; but, many fell in the Insurrection, I have used the name of the principal action, 'para pro to,' TO ROMANCE.I PARENT of golden dreams, Romance' But leave thy realms for those of Truth. And yet 'tis hard to quit the dreams Which haunt the unsuspicious soul, Where every nymph a goddess seems, Whose eyes through rays immortal roll While Fancy holds her boundless reign. And all assume a varied hue; When virgins seem no longer vain, And even woman's smiles are true And must we own thee but a name, And from thy hall of clouds descend? A Pylades § in every friend? To mingling bands of fairy elves? And friends have feeling for-themselves? With shame I own I've felt thy sway; Repentant, now thy reign is o'er: No more thy precepts I obey, No more on fancied pinions soar. Fond fool! to love a sparkling eye, And think that eye to truth was dear; To trust a passing wanton's sigh, And melt beneath a wanton's tear. Romance! disgusted with deceit, Far from thy motley court I fly, Where Affectation holds her seat. And sickly Sensibility; A tract of the Highlands so called. There is also a Castle of Braemar, ↑ The bagpipe. First published in the Hours of Idleness, It is hardly necessary to add, that Pylades was the companion of Orestes and a partner in one of those friendships which, with those of Achilles and Patroclus, Nisa and Euryalus, Damon and Pythias, have been handed down to posterity as remarkable instances of attachments, which in all proba bility never existed beyond the imagination of the poet, or the page of ar historian or modern novelist. Whose silly tears can never flow For any pangs excepting thine; Who turns aside from real wo, To steep in dew thy gaudy shrine. Now join with sable Sympathy, With cypress crown'd, array'd in weeds, Who heaves with thee her simple sigh, Whose breast for every bosom bleeds; And call thy sylvan female choir, To mourn a swain for ever gone, Who once could glow with equal fire, But bends not now before thy throne. Ye genial nymphs, whose ready tears From you a sympathetic strain. Adieu, fond race! a long adieu ! The hour of fate is hovering nigh; E'en now the gulf appears in view, Where unlamented you must lie: Oblivion's blackening lake is seen, Convulsed by gales you cannot weather; Where you, and eke your gentle queen, Alas! must perish altogether. ELEGY ON NEWSTEAD ABBEY.* "It is the voice of years that are gone they roll before me with all their Jeeds."-Ossian, NEWSTEAD! fast-falling, once resplendent dome! Religion's shrine! repentant HENRY'S pride! Of warriors, monks, and dames the cloister'd tomb, Whose pensive shades around thy ruins glide. Han to thy pile! more honor'd in thy fall Than modern mansions in their pillar'd state; Proudly majestic frowns thy vaulted hall, Scowling defiance on the blasts of fate. No mail-clad serfs, obedient to their lord, Their chief's retainers, an immortal band: Else might inspiring Fancy's magic eye • As one poem on this subject is printed in the beginning, the author had, nginally, no intention of inserting the following: it is now added at the particular request of some friends. See page 413 of this edition. The motto was not given in the private volume. Henry 11. founded Newstead soon after the murder of Thomas à Becket. This word is used by Walter Scott in his poem, "The Wild Huntsman," ynenymous with vassal, The red crus was the badge of the crusader. As "gloaming," the Scottish word for twilight, is far more poetical, and has been recommended by many eminent literary men, particularly by Dr. Moore in his Letters to Burns, I have ventured to use it on account of its harmony. ↑ Gloaming spreads her waning shade. In the private volume, Tulligh winds a waring shade. The priory was dedicated to the Virgin. At the dissolution of the monasteries, Henry VIII. bestowed Newstead Abbey on Sir John Byron. Newstead sustained a considerable siege in the war between Charine L and his parliament. Not unavenged the raging baron yields; The blood of traitors smears the purple plain: Unconquer'd still, his falchion there he wields, And days of glory yet for him remain. still in that hour the warrior wish'd to strew Trembling, she snatch'd him from th' unequal From thee, poor pile! to lawless plunder given, There many a pale and ruthless robber's corse, Graves, long with rank and sighing weeds o'erspread, Hush'd is the harp, unstrung the warlike lyre, At length, the sated murderers, gorged with prey, dere Desolation holds her dreary court; Soon a new morn's restoring beams dispel And Nature triumphs as the tyrant dies. With storms she welcomes his expiring groans; Lunt Byron and his brother: Sir Wiliam held high command in the roya army; the former was general-in-chief in Ireland, lieutenant of the |The regal ruler now resumes the helm, He guides through gentle seas the prow of state Hope cheers, with wonted smiles, the peaceful realm, And heals the bleeding wounds of wearied hate. The gloomy tenants, Newstead! of thy cells, Vassals, within thy hospitable pale, Loudly carousing, bless their lord's return; A thousand songs on tuneful echo float, Beneath their coursers' hoofs the valleys snake; Ah happy days! too happy to endure ! Their joys were many, as their cares were few From these descending, sons to sires succeed; Newstead! what saddening change of scene is thine Now holds thy mouldering turrets in his sway Deserted now, he scans thy gray worn trowers Yet are his tears no emblem of regret; Yet he prefers thee to the gilded domes Or gewgaw grottos of the vainly great. Power, and governor to James, Duke of York, afterwards the unhappy Haply thy sun, emerging, yet may shine, Ja; the latter had a principal share in many actions.-Vide Clarentom, &c. Lucius ey, Lord Viscount Falkland, the most accomplished man of usage, was killed at the battle of Newberry, charging in the ranks of Lord Syron's regiment of cavalry. Martal. The private volume reads laurell'd. Sable Horror. In the private volume, Horror stalking. Thee to irradiate with meridian ray; • Charles II. I "his is an historical fact. A violent tempest occurred immediately subsepient & the death or interment of Cromwell, which occasioned many disputes ↑ Hours splendid, &c. In the private volume and the first edition of etween his partisine and the cavaliers: both interpreted the circumstance Hours of Idleness, the stanza ended with the following lines: anto divine interposition; but o bether as approbation or condemnation, we eive to the casuist of that age to decide. I have made such use of the occur, amce as suited the subject of my west. "Fortune may smile upon a future line, ON A CHANGE OF MASTERS AT A GREAT When Health, affirighted, spreads her rosy wing PUBLIC SCHOOL.* WHERE are those honors, Ida! once your own, July, 1805. CHILDISH RECOLLECTIONS.§ "I cannot but remember such things were, WHEN slow Disease, with all her host of pains. Chills the warm tide which flows along the veins; • These lines were only printed in the private volume. Lord Byron most #ucerely regretted having written this and the subsequent attack on Dr. Butler, contained in the poem called Childish Recollections. A reconciliation took plac between then before Lord Byron's first departure for Greece; and Mr. Moore informs us that, "not content with this private atonement to Dr. Butler, it was Lord Byron's intention, had he published another edition of the Hours of loffeness, to substitute for the offensive verses against that gentleman, frank avowal of the wrong he had been guilty of, in giving vent to them." -Life of Byron, vol. i. p. 188. ↑ Probus, Dr. Drury. 1 Pomposus, Dr. Butler. And flies with every changing gale of spring; storm The orb of day unveils his distant form, Oft does my heart indulge the rising thought, $ This porn was published in the private volume; and, with many addi-These with a thousand visions now unite, Hons and corrections, in the first editions of Hours of Idleness; but was after-To dazzle, though they please, my aching sight. wards suppressed. In the private volume the poem opened with the following lines: "Hence! thou unvarying song of varied loves, Which youth commends, maturer age reproves; Which every rhyming bard repeats by rote, Farewell ye nymphs propitious to my verse, Alas! in vain I check the maddening thought: to Farcy's," &c., &c., &c., as line twenty-nine. IDA! bless'd spot, where Science holds her reign, I bless the former, and forgive the last. • The next fifty-six lines, to "Here first remember'd be the joyous ban1," were added in the first edition of Hours of Leness |
