SELECT POEMS

FROM

THE WORKS

OF

LORD BYRON.

SELECT POEMS.

Farewell to England.

OH! land of my fathers and mine,
The noblest, the best, and the bravest ;
Heart-broken, and lorn, I resign

The joys and the hopes which thou gavest!

Dear mother of Freedom! farewell!
Even Freedom is irksome to me;
Be calm, throbbing heart, nor rebel,
For reason approves the decree.

Did I love?-Be my witness, high heaven!
That mark'd all my frailties and fears;
I adored-but the magic is riven:

Be the memory expunged by my tears!

The moment of rapture how bright,
How dazzling, how transient its glare!
A comet in splendor and flight,

The herald of darkness and care.

Recollections of tenderness gone,
Of pleasure no more to return;
A wanderer, an outcast, alone,
Oh! leave me, untortured, to mourn,

Where where shall my heart find repose?
A refuge from nemory and grief?
The gangrene, wherever it goes,
Disdains a fictitious relief.

Could I trace out that fabulous stream,
Which washes remembrance away,
Again might the eye of Hope gleam
The dawn of a happier day.

Hath wine an oblivious power?

Can it pluck out the sting from the brain?
The draught might beguile for an hour,
But still leaves behind it the pain.

Can distance or time heal the heart
That bleeds from the innermost pore?
Or intemperance lessen the smart?"
Or a cerate apply to its sore?

If I rush to the ultimate pole,
The form I adore will be there,
A phantom to torture my soul
And mock at my bootless despair.

The zephyr of eve, as it flies,

Will whisper her voice in mine ear,
And, moist with her sorrows and sighs,
Demand for love's altar a tear.

And still in the dreams of the day,
And still in the visions of night,
Will fancy her beauties display,
Disordering, deceiving the sight.

Hence, vain, fleeting images,-hence!
Grim phantoms that 'wilder my brain;
Mere frauds upon reason and sense,
Engender'd by folly and pain!

Did I swear on the altar of Heaven
My fealty to her I adored?

Did she give back the vows I had given,
And plight back the plight of her lord?

If I err'd for a moment from love,
The error I flew to retrieve;

Kiss'd the heart I had wounded, and strove
To soothe, ere it ventured to grieve.

Did I bend, who had ne'er bent before?
Did I sue, who was used to command?
Love forced to weep and implore,

And pride was too weak to withstand.

Then why should one frailty, like mine,
Repented, and wash'd with my tears,
Erase those impressions divine,

The faith and affection of years?

Was it well, between anger and love,
That Pride the stern umpire should be;
And that heart should its flintiness prove
On none, till it proved it on me?

And, ah! was it well, when I knelt,
Thy tenderness so to conceal,
That witnessing all which I felt,
Thy sternness forbade thee to feel?

Then, when the dear pledge of our love
Look'd up to her mother and smiled,
Say, was there no impulse that strove
To back the appeal of the child?

That bosom, so callous and chill,

So treacherous to love and to me;
Ah! felt it no heart-rending thrill,
As it turn'd from the innocent's plea?

That ear which was open to all,
Was ruthlessly closed to its lord;

Those accents which fiends would enthral,
Refused a sweet peace-giving word.