40

When her little hands shall press thee,
When her lip to thine is pressed,

Think of him whose prayer shall bless thee,
Think of him thy love had blessed!

Should her lineaments resemble

Those thou never more mayst see,
Then thy heart will softly tremble
With a pulse yet true to me.

45 All my faults perchance thou knowest,
All
my madness none can know ;
All my hopes, where'er thou goest,
Wither, yet with thee they go.

50

Every feeling hath been shaken;

Pride, which not a world could bow,
Bows to thee by thee forsaleen,

Even my soul forsakes me now:

Words from me are vainer still; 55 But the thoughts we cannot bridle Force their way without the will. —

Fare thee well!- thus disunited,
Torn from every nearer tie,

Seared in heart, and lone, and blighted, 60 More than this I scarce can die.1

1 To many [this poem] appeared a strain of true conjugal tenderness, -a kind of appeal which no woman with a heart could resist; while by others, on the contrary, it was considered to be a mere showy effusion of sentiment, as difficult for real feeling to have produced as it was easy for fancy and art, and altogether unworthy of the deep interests involved in the

subject. To this latter opinion I confess my own to have, at first, strongly inclined, and suspicious as I could not help thinking the sentiment that could, at such a moment, indulge in such verses, the taste that prompted or sanctioned their publication appeared to me even still more questionable. On reading, however, his own account of all the circumstances in the Memoranda, I found that on both points I had, in common with a large portion of the public, done him injustice. He there described, and in a manner whose sincerity there was no doubting, the swell of tender recollections under the influence of which, as he sat one night musing in his study, these stanzas were produced, the tears, as he said, falling fast over the paper as he wrote them. Neither did it appear, from that account, to have been from any wish or intention of his own, but through the injudicious zeal of a friend whom he had suffered to take a copy, that the verses met the public eye. THOMAS MOORE.

HEBREW MELODIES.

Byron wrote, in 1815, a number of songs which were set to music. Most of the poems derived their subject from incidents taken from the Old Testament, and were contributed to a volume entitled Selection of Hebrew Melodies, and the above title is given to a group in Byron's poems, though the first that follows had no Biblical association, but was written on returning from a ball, where Lady Wilmot Horton had appeared in mourning, with numerous spangles on her dress.

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY.

SHE walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
5 Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace,

Which waves in every raven tress,
10 Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

15 The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent.

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB.

THE Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the

sea,

When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

5 Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen: Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,

That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,

10 And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,

And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, But through it there rolled not the breath of his

pride;

15 And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale, With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail, And the tents were all silent, the banners alone, 20 The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the
sword,

Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

JEPHTHAH'S DAUGHTER.

See the eleventh and twelfth chapters of the Book of Judges.
SINCE our country, our God-oh, my Sire!
Demand that thy daughter expire;

Since thy triumph was bought by thy vow-
Strike the bosom that's bared for thee now!

And the voice of my mourning is o'er,
And the mountains behold me no more:
If the hand that I love lay me low,
There cannot be pain in the blow!

And of this, oh, my Father! be sure 10 That the blood of thy child is as pure As the blessing I beg ere it flow,

And the last thought that soothes me below.

Though the virgins of Salem lament,
Be the judge and the hero unbent!
15 I have won the great battle for thee,
And my Father and Country are free!

When this blood of thy giving hath gush'd,
When the voice that thou lovest is hush'd,
Let my memory still be thy pride,
20 And forget not I smiled as I died!

ON A DISTANT VIEW OF THE VILLAGE AND SCHOOL OF HARROW ON THE HILL.

This was one of Byron's early poems, written in 1806, and interesting as a not too distant retrospect, since he left Harrow in 1805. Gray's poem, "On a Distant Prospect of Eton College," which may easily have been in Byron's mind, was written when the poet was twenty-six, and when he had been out of school about eight years.

Oh! mihi præteritos referat si Jupiter annos.

VIRGIL.1

YE scenes of my childhood, whose loved recollection Embitters the present, compared with the past; Where science first dawn'd on the powers of reflection,

And friendships were form'd, too romantic to

last;

5 Where fancy yet joys to retrace the resemblance Of comrades, in friendship and mischief allied;

1 The quotation from Virgil may be rendered, "Would God I had my past years back again!"

4. “My school friendships were with me passions (for I was always violent), but I do not know that there is one which has endured (to be sure some have been cut short by death) till now." BYRON's Diary, 1821.