As through the past:
And eyes, the mirrors
Of your sweet errors,

Reflect but rapture-not least though last.

True, separations

Ask more than patience;

What desperations

From such have risen!

But yet remaining,
What is't but chaining
Hearts which, once waning,
Beat 'gainst their prison?
Time can but cloy love
And use destroy love :
The winged boy, Love,
Is but for boys-
You'll find it torture,
Though sharper, shorter,

To wean, and not wear out your joys.

ON MY WEDDING-DAY

HERE's a happy new year! but with reason
I beg you'll permit me to say—

Wish me many returns of the season,
But as few as you please of the day.

January 2, 1820.

EPITAPH FOR WILLIAM PITT

WITH death doom'd to grapple,
Beneath this cold slab, he

Who lied in the Chapel

Now lies in the Abbey.

January, 1820.

STANZAS

WHEN a man hath no freedom to fight for at home, Let him combat for that of his neighbours;

Let him think of the glories of Greece and of Rome, And get knock'd on the head for his labours.

To do good to mankind is the chivalrous plan,
And is always as nobly requited;

Then battle for freedom wherever you can,
And, if not shot or hang'd, you'll get knighted.
November, 1820.

EPIGRAM

THE world is a bundle of hay,
Mankind are the asses who pull ;
Each tugs it a different way,

And the greatest of all is John Bull.

THE CHARITY BALL

WHAT matter the pangs of a husband and father,
If his sorrows in exile be great or be small,
So the Pharisee's glories around her she gather,
And the saint patronizes her " charity ball!

What matters-a heart which, though faulty, was feeling,

Be driven to excesses which once could appal— That the sinner should suffer is only fair dealing, As the saint keeps her charity back for the ball!

EPIGRAM

66

ON THE BRAZIERS' COMPANY HAVING RESOLVED TO PRESENT AN ADDRESS TO QUEEN CAROLINE

THE braziers, it seems, are preparing to pass

An address, and present it themselves all in brass ;— A superfluous pageant-for, by the Lord Harry! They'll find where they're going much more than they carry.

EPIGRAM ON MY WEDDING-DAY

TO PENELOPE

THIS day, of all our days, has done
The worst for me and you :-
'Tis just six years since we were one,
And five since we were two.

January 2, 1821.

ON MY THIRTY-THIRD BIRTHDAY

JANUARY 22, 1821

THROUGH life's dull road, so dim and dirty,
I have dragg'd to three-and-thirty.
What have these years left to me?
Nothing except thirty-three.

EPIGRAMS

So Castlereagh has cut his throat!-The worst
Of this is, that his own was not the first.

So He has cut his throat at last!-He! Who?
The man who cut his country's long ago.

TO MR. MURRAY

FOR Orford and for Waldegrave

You give much more than me you gave;
Which is not fairly to behave,

My Murray.

Because if a live dog, 'tis said,
Be worth a lion fairly sped,

A live lord must be worth two dead,
My Murray.

And if, as the opinion goes,

Verse hath a better sale than prose,-
Certes, I should have more than those,
My Murray.

But now this sheet is nearly cramm'd,
So, if you will, I shan't be shamm'd,
And if you won't, you may be damn'd,
My Murray.

ΙΟ

THE IRISH AVATAR

"And Ireland, like a bastinadoed elephant, kneeling to receive the paltry rider."-CURRAN.

ERE the daughter of Brunswick is cold in her grave,
And her ashes still float to their home o'er the tide,
Lo! George the triumphant speeds over the wave,
To the long-cherish'd isle which he loved like his—
bride!

True, the great of her bright and brief era are gone, The rainbow-like epoch where Freedom could pause For the few little years, out of centuries won,

Which betray'd not, or crush'd not, or wept not her

cause.

True, the chains of the Catholic clank o'er his rags,
The castle still stands, and the senate's no more, 10
And the famine which dwelt on her freedomless crags
Is extending its steps to her desolate shore.

To her desolate shore-where the emigrant stands
For a moment to gaze ere he flies from his hearth;
Tears fall on his chain, though it drops from his hands,
For the dungeon he quits is the place of his birth.

But he comes the Messiah of royalty comes !

Like a goodly Leviathan roll'd from the waves; Then receive him as best such an advent becomes, With a legion of cooks, and an army of slaves! 20

He comes in the promise and bloom of threescore,
To perform in the pageant the sovereign's part—
But long live the shamrock, which shadows him o'er !
Could the green in his hat be transferr❜d to his heart!

Could that long-wither'd spot but be verdant again,
And a new spring of noble affections arise-
Then might freedom forgive thee this dance in thy
chain,

And this shout of thy slavery which saddens the skies.

Is it madness or meanness which clings to thee now?
Were he God-as he is but the commonest clay,
With scarce fewer wrinkles than sins on his brow--
Such servile devotion might shame him away.

Ay, roar in his train! let thine orators lash
Their fanciful spirits to pamper his pride-
Not thus did thy Grattan indignantly flash
His soul o'er the freedom implored and denied.

Ever glorious Grattan ! the best of the good!
So simple in heart, so sublime in the rest!
With all which Demosthenes wanted endued,
And his rival or victor in all he possess'd.

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