66

As if Sir Fretful wrote “the slumberous” verse, And gave his son “the rubbish” to rehearse. "Yet at the thing you'd never be amazed," Knew you the rumpus which the Author raised; “Nor even here your smiles would be represt,” Knew you these lines—the badness of the best, 10 "Flame! fire! and fame!” (words borrowed from

Lucretius.") “Dread metaphors ” which open wounds like issues ! " And sleeping pangs awake—and — But away”(Confound me if I know what next to say). Lo "Hope reviving re-expands her wings," And Master G- recites what Dr. Busby sings ! “If mighty things with small we may compare," (Translated from the Grammar for the fair!) Dramatic “spirit drives a conquering car," And burn'd poor Moscow like a tub of "tar.” “This spirit” “Wellington has shown in Spain," To furnish Melodrames for Drury Lane. “Another Marlborough points to Blenheim's story," And George and I will dramatise it for ye.

20

“ In Arts and Sciences our Isle hath shone" (This deep discovery is mine alone).

Our twofold feeling owns its twofold cause,
Your bounty's comfort-rapture your applause ;
When in your fostering beam you bid us live,

70 You give the means of life, and gild the means you give."

Morning Chronicle, October 17, 1812.) 1. (Busby's translation of Lucretius (The Nature of Things, a Didascalic Poem) was published in 1813. Byron was a subscriber, and is mentioned in the preface as “one of the most distinguished poets of the age.” The passage in question is, perhaps, taken from the Second Book, lines 880, 881, which Busby renders

“ Just as she quickens fuel into fire,

And bids it, flaming, to the skies aspire.')

Oh “ British poesy, whose powers inspire" My verse-or I'm a fool—and Fame's a liar, “Thee we invoke, your Sister Arts implore" With "smiles," and "lyres," and "pencils," and much more.

30 These, if we win the Graces, too, we gain Disgraces, too ! "inseparable train !” “Three who have stolen their witching airs from Cupid" (You all know what I mean, unless you're stupid): “Harmonious throng " that I have kept in petto Now to produce in a "divine sestetto"!! “While Poesy,” with these delightful doxies, “Sustains her part” in all the “upper” boxes ! “ Thus lifted gloriously, you'll sweep along," Borne in the vast balloon of Busby's song ;

40 "Shine in your farce, masque, scenery, and play" (For this last line George had a holiday). “Old Drury never, never soar'd so high,” So says the Manager, and so say I. “But hold," you say, "this self-complacent boast; Is this the Poem which the public lost ? “True-true—that lowers at once our mounting pride ;” But lo;—the Papers print what you deride. “ 'Tis ours to look on you—you hold the prize," 'Tis twenty guineas, as they advertise !

50 “A double blessing your rewards impart”. I wish I had them, then, with all my heart. “Our twofold feeling owns its twofold cause," Why son and I both beg for your applause. “When in your fostering beams you bid us live," My next subscription list shall say how much you give !

(First published, Morning Chronicle, October 23, 1812.]

VERSES FOUND IN A SUMMER-HOUSE AT

HALES-OWEN."

WHEN Dryden's fool, “unknowing what he sought,”
His hours in whistling spent, "for want of thought," 2
This guiltless oaf his vacancy of sense
Supplied, and amply too, by innocence:
Did modern swains, possessed of Cymon's powers,
In Cymon's manner waste their leisure hours,
Th' offended guests would not, with blushing, see
These fair green walks disgraced by infamy.
Severe the fate of modern fools, alas !
When vice and folly mark them as they pass.
Like noxious reptiles o'er the whitened wall,
The filth they leave still points out where they crawl.

[First published 1832, vol. xvii.]

REMEMBER THEE! REMEMBER THEE!3

I.

REMEMBER thee! remember thee!

Till Lethe quench life's burning stream

1. [The Leasowes, the residence of the poet Shenstone, is near the village of Halesowen, in Shropshire.]

2. (See Dryden's Cymon and Iphigenia, lines 84, 85.]

3. [The sequel of a temporary liaison formed by Lord Byron during his career in London, occasioned this impromptu. On the cessation of the connection, the fair one (Lady C. Lamb: see Letters, 1898, ii. 451) called one morning at her quondam lover's apartments. His Lordship was from home; but finding Vathek on the table, the lady wrote in the first page of the volume the words, “Remember me !" Byron immediately wrote under the ominous warning these two stanzas.--Conversations of Lord Byron, by Thomas Medwin, 1824, pp. 329, 330.

In Medwin's work the euphemisms false and fiend are represented by asterisks.)

Remorse and Shame shall cling to thee,

And haunt thee like a feverish dream!

2.

Remember thee! Aye, doubt it not.

Thy husband too shall think of thee:
By neither shalt thou be forgot,

Thou false to him, thou fiend to me!!
[First published, Conversations of Lord Byron, 1824.)

TO TIME.

TIME! on whose arbitrary wing

The varying hours must flag or fly,
Whose tardy winter, fleeting spring,

But drag or drive us on to die-
Hail thou ! who on my birth bestowed

Those boons to all that know thee known;
Yet better I sustain thy load,

For now I bear the weight alone.
I would not one fond heart should share

The bitter moments thou hast given ;
And pardon thee-since thou couldst spare

All that I loved, to peace or Heaven.

1. [" To Bd., Feb. 22, 1813.
“Remember thee,' nay-doubt it not-

Thy Husband too may think of thee !
By neither canst thou be forgot,

Thou false to him—thou fiend to me!
« «Remember thec'? Yes-yes-till Fate

In Lethe quench the guilty dream.
Yet then-e'en then-Remorse and Hate
Shall vainly quaff the vanquished stream."
From a MS. (in the possession of Mr. Hallam

Murray) not in Byron's handwriting.]

To them be joy or rest-on me

Thy future ills shall press in vain;
I nothing owe but years to thee,

A debt already paid in pain.
Yet even that pain was some relief ;

It felt, but still forgot thy power :-
The active agony of grief

Retards, but never counts the hour.l.
In joy I've sighed to think thy flight

Would soon subside from swift to slow;
Thy cloud could overcast the light,

But could not add a night to Woe;
For then, however drear and dark,

My soul was suited to thy sky;
One star alone shot forth a spark

To prove thee—not Eternity.
That beam hath sunk-and now thou art

A blank—a thing to count and curse
Through each dull tedious trifling part,

Which all regret, yet all rehearse.
One scene even thou canst not deform-

The limit of thy sloth or speed
When future wanderers bear the storm

Which we shall sleep too sound to heed.
And I can smile to think how weak

Thine efforts shortly shall be shown,
When all the vengeance thou canst wreak

Must fall upon-a nameless stone. (MS. M. First published, Childe old, 1814 (Sev nth Edition).)

i. ii.

not confessed thy power.-[MS. M. erased.]
still forgets the hour.-[MS. M. erased.]