It is a duty which I owe To thine to thee-to man-to God, To crush, to quench this guilty glow, Ere yet the path of crime be trod But since my breast is not so pure, Not thee-oh! dearest as thou art! And I will seek, yet know not how, To shun, in time, the threatening dart Guilt must not aim at such as thou. But thou must aid me in the task, And nobly thus exert thy power: Then spurn me hence-'tis all I askEre time mature a guiltier hour; Ere wrath's impending vials shower Remorse redoubled on my head; Ere fires unquenchably devour A heart, whose hope has long been dead. Deceive no more thyself and me, Deceive not better hearts than mine; A pang beyond this fleeting breath, Such thoughts are guilt-such guilt is death. STANZAS FOR MUSIC. I SPEAK not, I trace not, I breathe not thy name, There is grief in the sound, there is guilt in the fame, But the tear which now burns on my cheek may impart The deep thoughts that dwell in that silence of heart. Too brief for our passion, too long for our peace, Were those hours-can their joy or their bitterness cease? We repent-we abjure-we will break from our chain, We will part, we will fly to-unite it again! Oh! thine be the gladness, and mine be the guilt! ADDRESS INTENDED TO BE RECITED AT WHO hath not glow'd above the page where fame WHEN the vain triumph of the imperial lord, And stern to the haughty, but humble to thee, Than all a gold Colossus could secure. If thus, fair Jersey, our desiring gaze If he, that vain old man, whom truth admits That tasteless shame be his, and ours the grief, What can his vaulted gallery now disclose? Long may thy yet meridian lustre shine, Each glance that wins us, and the life that throws July, 1814. HEBREW MELODIES. IN the valley of waters we wept o'er the day The song they demanded in vain-it lay still Ere our right hands shall teach them one tone of their skill. All stringlessly hung on the willow's sad tree, THEY say that Hope is happiness, But genuine Love must prize the past; And Memory wakes the thoughts that biessThey rose the first, they set the last. And all that Memory loves the most Was once our only hope to be; And all that hope adored and lost Hath melted into memory. Alas! it is delusion all, The future cheats us from afar, Nor can we be what we recall, Nor dare we think on what we are. October, 1814 TO BELSHAZZAR. BELSHAZZAR! from the banquet turn, Nor in thy sensual fulness fall: Behold! while yet before thee burn The graven words, the glowing wall. Many a despot men miscall Crown'd and anointed from on high; But thou, the weakest, worst of allIs it not written, thou must die? Go! dash the roses from thy brow Gray hairs but poorly wreathe with them: Youth's garlands misbecome thee now, More than thy very diadem, Where thou hast tarnish'd every gem :Then throw the worthless bauble by, Which, worn by thee, ev'n slaves contemn: And learn like better men to die. Oh! early in the balance weigh'd, And ever light of word and worth, Whose soul expired ere youth decay'd, And left thee but a mass of earth. To see thee moves the scorner's mirth: But tears in Hope's averted eye Lament that even thou hadst birthUnfit to gorern, live or die. LINFS INTENDED FOR THE OPENING OF "THE SIEGE OF CORINTH." In the year since Jesus died for men, We forded the river and clomb the high h All our thoughts and our words had scope But some are dead, and some are gone, That look along Epirus' valleys, But those hardy days flew cheerily, And when they now fall drearily, My thoughts, like swallows, skim the main, And bear my spirit back again Over the earth and through the air, A wild bird, and a wanderer. 'Tis this that ever wakes my strain, Stranger-wilt thou follow now, December, 1815. EXTRACT FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM. COULD I remount the river of my years, What is this death ?-a quiet of the heart? The absent are the dead-for they are cold, The under-earth inhabitants-are they Or have they their own language? and a sense The last things recently heard of Dervish (one of the Arnaouts who followed me) state him to be in revolt upon the mountains, at the head of some of the bands common in that country in times of trouble. My sister! my sweet sister! if a name The first were nothing-had I still the last, But other claims and other ties thou hast, III. If my inheritance of storms hath been I have sustain'd my share of worldly shocks, I have been cunning in mine overthrow, The careful pilot of my proper wo. IV. Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward. My whole life was a contest, since the day That gave me being, gave me that which marr'd The gift,-a fate, or will, that walk'd astray; And at times have found the struggle hard, And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay But now I fain would for a time survive, If but to see what next can well arrive. V. Kingdoms and empires in my little day I have outlived, and yet I am not old; And when I look on this the petty spray Of my own years of trouble, which have roll'd Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away: Something-I know not what-does still uphold A spirit of light patience ;-not in vain, Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain. • Admiral Byron was remarkable for never making a voyage without e tempest. He was known to the sailors by the faceous name of Poul-weather Jack." "But though it were tempest-tost, Still his Lark could not be lost." He returned safely from the wreck of the Wager, (in Anson voyage,) and subsequently circumnavigated the world many years aller, as commander o a similar expedition. What if thy deep and ample stream should be What do I say-a mirror of my heart? Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong? Such as my feelings were and are, thou art; And such as thou art were my passions long. Time may have somewhat tamed them,-not for ever, Thy floods subside, and mine have sunk away, But left long wrecks behind, and now again The current I behold will sweep beneath Her native walls, and murmur at her feet; Her eyes will look on thee, when she shall breathe The twilight air, unharm'd by summer's heat. She will look on thee,-I have look'd on thee, • The Countess Guiccioll. SONNET TO GEORGE THE FOURTH, ON THE REPEAL OF LORD Edward FITZGERALD' FORFEITURE. To be the father of the fatherless, To stretch the hand from the throne's height, an. raise His offspring, who expired in other days To make thy sire's sway by a kingdom less,This is to be a monarch, and express Envy into unutterable praise. Dismiss thy guard, and trust thee to such traits, For who would lift a hand, except to bless ? Were it not easy, sire? and is't not sweet To make thyself beloved? and to be Omnipotent by mercy's means? for thus Thy sovereignty would grow but more complete; A despot thou, and yet thy people free, And by the heart, not hand, enslaving us. August, 1819. FRANCESCA OF RIMINI. TRANSLATED FROM THE INFERNO OF DANIE CANTO FIFTH. "THE land where I was born sits be the seas, Upon that shore to which the Po descends, With all his followers, in search of peace. Love, which the gentle heart soon apprehends, Seized him for the fair person which was a'en From me, and me even yet the mode offends Love, who to none beloved to love again |