But thou deserv'st a better heart,

Than they or I can give for thine.

7.
For thee, and such as thee, behold,

Is Fortune painted truly-blind !
Who doomed thee to be bought or sold,

Has proved too bounteous to be kind.

8.
Each day some tempter's crafty suit

Would woo thee to a loveless bed:
I see thee to the altar's foot

A decorated victim led.

9.
Adieu, dear maid! I must not speak

Whate'er my secret thoughts may be;
Though thou art all that man can seek

I dare not talk of Love to thee.

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 :

i. I speak not—1 breathe not-I write not that name.

[MS. erased.] 1. (“Thou hast asked me for a song, and I enclose you an experi. ment, which has cost me something more than trouble, and is, therefore, less likely to be worth your taking any in your proposed setting. Now, if it be so, throw it into the fire without phrase.". Letter to Moore, May 4, 1814, Letters, 1899, iii. 80.]

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!

3.
Oh! thine be the gladness, and mine be the guilt !
Forgive me, adored one !--forsake, if thou wilt ;-
But the heart which is thine shall expire undebased i.
And man shall not break it—whatever thou mayst.iv.

4. And stern to the haughty, but humble to thee, This soul, in its bitterest blackness, shall be: And our days seem as swift, and our moments more

sweet, With thee by my side, than with worlds at our feet.

iii. recall.

i. Ile have loved--and oh, still, my adored one we love!
Oh the moment is past, when that Passion might cease.-

[MS. erased.] ii. The thought may be madness--the wish may be guilt.

(MS. erased.] | But I cannot ripent what we nie'er can recall.

(MIS. crased.]
iv. though I feel that thou mayst.-(MS. L. crasal.]
v. This soul in its bitterest moments shall be,

And our days run as swift--and our moments more sweet,
With thie at my side, than the world al my feet.-[115.)

5.

One sigh of thy sorrow, one look of thy love, l.
Shall turn me or fix, shall reward or reprove;
And the heartless may wonder at all I resign-
Thy lip shall reply, not to them, but to mine.

May 4, 1814. [First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, i. 554.]

ADDRESS INTENDED TO BE RECITED AT

THE CALEDONIAN MEETING."

Who hath not glowed above the page where Fame
Hath fixed high Caledon's unconquered name;
The mountain-land which spurned the Roman chain,
And baffled back the fiery-crested Dane,
Whose bright claymore and hardihood of hand
No foe could tame—no tyrant could command ?
That race is gone—but still their children breathe,
And Glory crowns them with redoubled wreath :
O'er Gael and Saxon mingling banners shine,
And, England ! add their stubborn strength to thine.

i. And thine is that love which I will not forego,
Though the priie which I pay be Eternity's woe. --

[M/S. erased.] ii. One tear of thy sorrow, one smile -:-[MS. erased.] 1. [The “Caledonian Meeting," at which these lines were, or were intended to be, recited (see Life, p. 254), was a meeting of subscribers to the Highland Society, held annually in London, in support of the [Royal] Caledonian Asylum " for educating and supporting children of soldiers, sailors, and marines, natives of Scot. land."" To soothe,” says the compiler of the Report for 1814, p. 4, “by the assurance that their offspring will be reared in virtue and confort, the minds of those brave men, through whose exposure to hardship and danger the independence of the Empire has been pre. served, is no less an act of sound policy than of gratitude."

The blood which flowed with Wallace flows as free,
But now 'tis only shed for Fame and thee!
Oh! pass not by the northern veteran's claim,
But give support--the world hath given him fame!

The humbler ranks, the lowly brave, who bled
While cheerly following where the Mighty led-1
Who sleep beneath the undistinguished sod
Where happier comrades in their triumph trod,
To us bequeath—'tis all their fate allows-
The sireless offspring and the lonely spouse :
She on high Albyn's dusky hills may raise
The tearful eye in melancholy gaze,
Or view, while shadowy auguries disclose
The Highland Seer's anticipated woes,
The bleeding phantom of each martial form
Dim in the cloud, or darkling in the storm;
While sad, she chaunts the solitary song,
The soft lament for him who tarries long-
For him, whose distant relics vainly crave
The Coronach's wild requiem to the brave !

2

'Tis Heaven-not man-must charm away the woe, Which bursts when Nature's feelings newly flow;

1. (As an instance of Scottish gallantry in the Peninsular War it is sufficient to cite the following list of “casualties” at the battle of Vittoria, June 21, 1813 :“The battalion (the seventy-first Highland Light Infantry) suffered very severely, having had 1 field officer, I captain, 2 lieutenants, 6 sergeants, i bugler, and 78 rank and file killed; i field officer, 3 captains, 7 lieutenants, 13 sergeants, 2 buglers, and 255 rank and file were wounded."--Historical Record of the 71st Highland Light Infantry, by Lieut. Henry J. T. Hild. yard, 1876, p. 91.)

2. (Compare Temora, bk. vii., “The king took his deathful spear, and struck the deeply-sounding shield. : .. Ghosts Aed on every side, and rolled their gathered forms on the wind.-Thrice from the winding vale arose the voices of death."-Works of Ossian, 1765, ii. 160.)

STANZAS ON THE DEATH OF SIR PETER PARKER.

417

Yet Tenderness and Time may rob the tear
Of half its bitterness for one so dear;
A Nation's gratitude perchance may spread
A thornless pillow for the widowed head;
May lighten well her heart's maternal care,
And wean from Penury the soldier's heir ;
Or deem to living war-worn Valour just 1
Each wounded remnant-Albion's cherished trust-
Warm his decline with those endearing rays,
Whose bounteous sunshine yet may gild his days,
So shall that Country--while he sinks to rest-
His hand hath fought for-by his heart be blest!

May, 1814. [First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, i. 559.)

ELEGIAC STANZAS ON THE DEATH OF SIR

PETER PARKER, BART.”

I.
There is a tear for all that die,

A mourner o'er the humblest grave;
But nations swell the funeral cry,

And Triumph weeps above the brave.

1. [The last six lines are printed from the MS.) 2. (Sir P. Parker fell in August, 1814, in his twenty-ninth year, whilst leading a party from his ship, the Menelaus, at the storming of the American camp near Baltimore. He was Byron's first cousin (his father, Christopher Parker (1761-1804), married Charlotte Augusta, daughter of Admiral the Hon. John Byron); but they had never met since boyhood. (See letter to Moore, Letters, 1899, iii. 150; see too Letters, i. 6, note 1.). The stanzas were included in Hebrew Melodies, 1815, and in the Ninth Edition of Childe Harold, 1818.] 3. Compare Tasso's sonnet

“Questa Tomba non è, che non è morto," etc.
Rime Eroiche, Parte Seconda, No. 38, Opere di

Torquato Tasso, Venice, 1736, vi. 169.] VOL. III,

2 E