Lord Byron
1788-1824
Occasional Pieces 19
STANZAS TO THE PO
RIVER, that rollest by the ancient walls,
Where dwells the lady of my love, when she
Walks by thy brink, and there perchance recalls
A faint and fleeting memory of me;
What if thy deep and ample stream should be
A mirror of my heart, where she may read
The thousand thoughts I now betray to thee,
Wild as thy wave, and headlong as thy speed!
What do I say - a mirror of my heart?
Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong?
Such as my feelings were and are, thou art;
And such as thou art were my passions long.
Time may have somewhat tamed them, not for ever
Thou overflow'st thy banks, and not for aye
Thy bosom overboils, congenial river!
Thy floods subside, and mine have sunk away:
But left long wrecks behind, and now again,
Borne on our old unchanged career, we move:
Thou tendest wildly onwards to the main,
And I - to loving one I should not love.
The current I behold will sweep beneath
Her native walls, and murmur at her feet;
Her eyes will look on thee, when she shall breathe
The twilight air, unharm'd by summer's heat.
She will look on thee, - I have look'd on thee,
Full of that thought: and, from that moment, ne'er
Thy waters could I dream of, name, or see
Without the inseparable sigh for her!
Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream,
Yes! they will meet the wave I gaze on now:
Mine cannot witness, even in a dream,
That happy wave repass me in its flow!
The wave that bears my tears returns no more:
Will she return by whom that wave shall sweep?
Both tread thy banks, both wander on thy shore,
I by thy source, she by the dark-blue deep.
But that which keepeth us apart is not
Distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth,
But the distraction of a various lot,
As various as the climates of our birth.
A stranger loves the lady of the land,
Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood
Is all meridian, as if never fann'd
By the black wind that chills the polar flood.
My blood is all meridian; were it not, as
I had not left my clime, nor should I be,
In spite of tortures ne'er to be forgot,
A slave again of love, - at least of thee.
'Tis vain to struggle-let me perish
Live as I lived, and love as I have loved;
To dust if I return, from dust I sprung,
And then, at least, my heart can ne'er be moved.
April 1819.
SONNET TO GEORGE THE FOURTH
ON THE REPEAL OF LORD EDWARD
FITZGERALD'S FORFEITURE
To be the father of the fatherless,
To stretch the hand from the throne's height, and raise
His offspring, who expired in other days
To make thy sire's sway by a kingdom less, -
This is to be a monarch, and repress
Envy into unutterable praise.
Dismiss thy guard, and trust thee to such traits,
For who would lift a hand, except to bless?
Were it not easy, sir, and is't not sweet
To make thyself beloved? and to be
Omnipotent by mercy's means? for thus
Thy sovereignty would grow but more complete:
A despot thou, and yet thy people free,
And by the heart, not hand, enslaving us.
Bologna, August 12, 1819.
EPIGRAM
FROM THE FRENCH OF RULHIÈRES
IF, for silver or for gold,
You could melt ten thousand pimples
Into half a dozen dimples,
Then your face we might behold,
Looking, doubtless, much more snugly;
Yet even then 'twould be damned ugly.
August 12, 1819.
STANZAS
COULD
Love for ever
Run like a river,
And Time's endeavour
Be tried in vain
No other pleasure
With this could measure;
And like a treasure
We'd
hug the chain.
But since our sighing
Ends not in dying,
And, form 'd for flying,
Love plumes his wing;
Then for this reason
Let's love a season
But let that season be only Spring.
When lovers parted
Feel broken-hearted,
And, all hopes thwarted,
Expect to die;
A few years older,
Ah! how much colder
They might behold her
For whom they sigh!
When link 'd together,
In every weather,
They pluck Love's feather
From out his wing
He'll stay for ever,
But sadly shiver
Without his plumage, when past the Spring
Like
chiefs of Faction,
His
life is action -
A formal
paction
That curbs his reign,
Obscures
his glory,
Despot
no more, he
Such
territory
Quits with disdain.
Still,
still advancing,
With
banners glancing,
His
power enhancing,
He must move on -
Repose
but cloys him,
Retreat
destroys him,
Love brooks not a degraded throne.
Wait
not, fond lover!
Till
years are over,
And
then recover
As from a dream.
While
each bewailing
The
other's failing,
With
wrath and railing,
All hideous seem -
While
first decreasing,
Yet
not quite ceasing,
Wait
not till teasing
All passion blight:
If
once diminish'd,
Love's
reign is finish'd -
Then part in friendship-and hid goodnight.
So shall
Affection
To recollection
The dear
connexion
Bring back with joy:
You had not
waited
Till, tired
or hated,
Your passions
sated
Began to cloy.
Your last embraces
Leave no cold
traces -
The same fond
faces
As through
the past:
And eyes,
the mirrors
Of your sweet
errors,
Reflect but rapture - not least though last.
True,
separations
Ask
more than patience;
What
desperations
From such have risen!
But
yet remaining,
What
is't but chaining
Hearts
which, once waning,
Beat 'gainst their prison?
Time
can but cloy love
And
use destroy love:
The
winged boy, Love,
Is but for boys -
You'll
find it torture,
Though
sharper, shorter
To wean, and not wear out your joys.
1819
ON
MY WEDDING-DAY
HERE'S a happy new year! but with reason
I beg you'll permit me to say
Wish me many returns of the season,
But as few as you please of the dy.
January 2, 1820.
EPITAPH
FOR WILLIAM PITT
WITH death doom'd to grapple,
Beneath this cold slab, he
Who lied in the Chapel
Now lies in the Abbey.
January 1820.
EPIGRAM
IN digging up your bones, Tom Paine,
Will. Cobbett has done well:
You visit him on earth again,
He'll visit you in hell.
January 1820.
STANZAS
WHEN a man hath no freedom to fight for at home,
Let him combat for that of his neighbours;
Let him think of the glories of Greece and of Rome,
And get knock'd on the head for his labours.
To do good to mankind is the chivalrous plan,
And, is always as nobly requited;
Then battle for freedom wherever you can,
And, if not shot or hang'd, you'll get knighted.
November 1820.
EPIGRAM
THE world is a bundle of hay,
Mankind are the asses who pull;
Each tugs it a different way,
And the greatest of all is John Bull.
THE
CHARITY BALL
WHAT matter the pangs of a husband and father,
If his sorrows in exile be great or be small,
So the Pharisee's glories around her she gather,
And the saint patronizes her 'charity ball!'
What matters - a heart which, though faulty, was feeling,
Be driven to excesses which once could appal -
That the sinner should suffer is only fair dealing,
As the saint keeps her charity back for 'the ball'!
EPIGRAM
ON THE BRAZIERS' COMPANY HAVING RESOLVED TO PRESENT AN ADDRESS TO
QUEEN CAROLINE
THE braziers, it seems, are preparing to pass
An address, and present it themselves all in brass, -
A superfluous pageant-for, by the Lord Harry!
They'll find where they're going much more than they carry.
EPIGRAM ON MY WEDDING-DAY
TO PENELOPE
THIS day, of all our days, has done
The worst for me and you :-
'Tis just six years since we were one,
And five since we were two.
January 2, 1821.
ON MY THIRTY-THIRD BIRTHDAY
JANUARY 22, 1821
THROUGH life's dull road, so dim and dirty,
I have dragg'd to three-and-thirty.
What have these years left to me?
Nothing - except thirty-three.
MARTIAL, LIB. I, EPIG. I
'Hic est, quem legis, ille, quern requiris, Tota notus in orbe Martialis,'
&c.
HE unto whom thou art so partial,
Oh, reader is the well-known Martial,
The Epigrammatist: while living,
Give him the fame thou wouldst be giving;
So shall he hear, and feel, and know it -
Post obits rarely reach a poet.
BOWLES AND CAMPBELL
To the tune of 'Why, how now, saucy jade?'
WHY, how now, saucy Tom?
If you thus must ramble,
I will publish some
Remarks on Mister Campbell.
ANSWER
WHY, how now, Billy Bowles?
Sure the priest is maudlin!
(To the public) How can you, d-n your souls!
Listen to his twaddling?
February 22, 1821.
EPIGRAMS
OH, Castlereagh! thou art a patriot now;
Cato died for his country, so didst thou:
He perish'd rather than see Rome enslaved,
Thou cutt' st thy throat that Britain may be saved!
So Castlereagh has cut his throat! - The worst
Of this is, - that his own was not the first.
So He has cut his throat at last! - He! Who?
The man who cut his country's long ago.
EPITAPH
POSTERITY will ne'er survey
A nobler grave than this:
Here lie the bones of Castlereagh:
Stop, traveler --
JOHN KEATS
WHO kill'd John Keats?
'I,' says the Quarterly,
So savage and Tartarly;
''Twas one of my feats.'
Who shot the arrow?
The poet-priest Milman
(So ready to kill man),
Or Southey, or Barrow.'
July 1821.
THE
CONQUEST
[This fragment was found amongst Lord Byron's
papers after his departure from Genoa for Greece.]
THE Son of Love and Lord of War I sing;
Him who bade England bow to Normandy
And left the name of conqueror more than king
To his unconquerable dynasty.
Not fann'd alone by Victory's fleeting wing,
He rear'd his bold and brilliant throne on high:
The Bastard kept, like lions, his prey fast,
And Britain's bravest victor was the last.
March 8-9, 1823.
TO
MR. MURRAY
FOR Oxford and for Waldegrave
You give much more than me you gave;
Which is not fairly to behave,
My
Murray.
Because if a live dog, 'tis said,
Be worth a lion fairly sped,
A live lord must be worth two dead,
My Murray.
And if, as the opinion goes,
Verse hath a better sale than prose -
Certes, I should have more than those,
My Murray.
But now this sheet is nearly cramm'd,
So, if you will, I shan't be shamm'd,
And if you won't, you may be damn'd,
My
Murray.