These are not lessen'd, these are still as bright,
Albeit too dazzling for a dotard's sight;
And those must wait till ev'ry charm is gone,
To please the paltry heart that pleases none;
That dull cold sensualist, whose sickly eye
In envious dimness pass'd thy portrait by;
Who rack'd his little spirit to combine
Its hate of Freedom's loveliness, and thine.

August, 1814.

TO BELSHAZZAR.

BELSHAZZAR! from the banquet turn,
Nor in thy sensual fulness fall;
Behold! while yet before thee burn
The graven words, the glowing wall.
Many a despot men miscall

Crown'd and anointed from on high;
But thou, the weakest, worst of all—
Is it not written, thou must die?

Go! dash the roses from thy brow

Grey hairs but poorly wreathe with them; Youth's garlands misbecome thee now,

More than thy very diadem,

Where thou hast tarnish'd every gem:

Then throw the worthless bauble by, Which, worn by thee, ev'n slaves contemn; And learn like better men to die!

Oh! early in the balance weigh'd,
And ever light of word and worth,
Whose soul expired ere youth decay'd,

And left thee but a mass of earth.
To see thee moves the scorner's mirth :
But tears in Hope's averted eye
Lament that even thou hadst birth—
Unfit to govern, live, or die.

ELEGIAC STANZAS ON THE DEATH OF SIR PETER PARKER, BART. (1)

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

For them is Sorrow's purest sigh
O'er Ocean's heaving bosom sent:
In vain their bones unburied lie,

All earth becomes their monument!

(1) [This gallant officer fell in August, 1814, in his twenty-ninth year, whilst commanding, on shore, a party belonging to his ship, the Menelaus, and animating them, in storming the American camp near Baltimore. He was Lord Byron's first cousin ; but they had never met since boyhood. -E]

A tomb is theirs on every page,
An epitaph on every tongue:
The present hours, the future age,
For them bewail, to them belong.

For them the voice of festal mirth

Grows hush'd, their name the only sound; While deep Remembrance pours to Worth The goblet's tributary round.

A theme to crowds that knew them not,
Lamented by admiring foes,

Who would not share their glorious lot?
Who would not die the death they chose?

And, gallant Parker! thus enshrined
Thy life, thy fall, thy fame shall be;
And early valour, glowing, find

A model in thy memory.

But there are breasts that bleed with thee In woe, that glory cannot quell;

And shuddering hear of victory,

Where one so dear, so dauntless, fell.

Where shall they turn to mourn thee less? When cease to hear thy cherish'd name? Time cannot teach forgetfulness,

While Grief's full heart is fed by Fame.

Alas! for them, though not for thee,
They cannot choose but weep the more;
Deep for the dead the grief must be,
Who ne'er gave cause to mourn before.

October, 1814.

STANZAS FOR MUSIC. (1)

["THERE'S NOT A JOY THE WORLD CAN GIVE," &c.]

"O Lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros
Ducentium ortus ex animo: quater

Felix! in imo qui scatentem

Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit."

GRAY'S Poemata.

THERE'S not a joy the world can give like that it

takes away,

When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's

dull decay;

'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast,

But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.

(1) These verses were given by Lord Byron to Mr. Power, of the Strand, who has published them, with very beautiful music by Sir John Stevenson. ["I feel merry enough to send you a sad song. An event, the death of poor Dorset, (see antè, Vol. VII. p. 43.) and the recollection of what I once felt, and ought to have felt now, but could not-set me pondering, and finally into the train of thought which you have in your hands. I wrote them with a view to your setting them, and as a present to Power, if he would accept the words, and you did not think yourself degraded, for once in a way, by marrying them to music. I don't care what Power says to secure the property of the song, so that it is not complimentary to me, nor any thing about condescending' or 'noble author'-both vile phrases,' as Polonius says."-Lord B. to Mr. Moore.]

)

Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of

happiness

Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt or ocean of ex

cess:

The magnet of their course is gone, or only points

in vain

The shore to which their shiver'd sail shall never stretch again.

Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself comes down;

It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream its

own;

That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our

tears,

And though the eye may sparkle still, 'tis where the ice appears.

Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast,

Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest;

'Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruin'd turret wreath,

All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and grey beneath.

Oh could I feel as I have felt,—or be what I have

been,

Or weep as I could once have wept, o'er many a vanish'd scene;