Lord Byron
1788-1824
Occasional Pieces 8
PARENTHETICAL ADDRESS BY DR. PLAGIARY
Half stolen, with acknowledgments,
to bespoken
in an inarticulate voice by Master P. at the opening
of the next new theatre. Stolen parts marked
with the inverted commas of quotation - thus '-'
'WHEN energising objects men pursue,'
Then Lord knows what is writ by Lord knows who.
'A modest monologue you here survey,'
Hiss'd from the theatre the 'other day,'
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,
'Flame! fire! and flame!' (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. Bushy 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.
'In arts and sciences our isle bath shone'
(This deep discovery is mine alone).
'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.
These, if we win the Graces, too, we gain
Disgraces, too! 'inseparable train!'
'Three who have stolen their witching sirs 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 soar along,'
Borne in the vast balloon of Busby's song;
'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!
'A double blessing your rewards impart' -
I wish I had them, then, with all my heart.
Our twofold feeling owns its twofold
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!
October 1812.
VERSES FOUND IN A SUMMERHOUSE AT HALES-OWEN
WHEN Dryden's fool, 'unknowing what he sought,'
His hours in whistling spent, 'for want of thought,'
This guiltless oaf his vacancy of sense
Supplied, and amply too, by innocence
Did modern swains, possess'd 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 whiten'd wall,
The filth they leave still points out where they crawl.
REMEMBER
THEE! REMEMBER THEE!
REMEMBER thee! remember thee!
Till Lethe quench life's burning stream
Remorse and shame shall cling to thee,
And haunt thee like a feverish dream!
Remember thee! Ay, doubt it not.
Thy husband too shall think of thee!
By neither shall thou be forgot,
Thou false to him, thou fiend to me!
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 bestow'd
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 could'st spare
All that I loved, to peace or heaven.
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.
In joy I've sigh'd 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 then - 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.
TRANSLATION
OF A ROMAIC LOVE SONG
AH! Love was never yet without
The pang, the agony, the doubt,
Which rends my heart with ceaseless sigh,
While day and night roll darkling by.
Without one friend to hear my woe,
I faint, I die beneath the blow.
That Love had arrows well I knew;
Alas! I find them poison'd too.
Birds, yet in freedom, shun the net
Which Love around your haunts hath set;
Or, circled by his fatal fire,
Your hearts shall burn, your hopes expire.
A bird of free and careless wing
Was I through many a smiling spring;
But caught within the subtle snare,
I burn, and feebly flutter there.
Who ne'er have loved, and loved in vain,
Can neither feel nor pity pain,
The cold repulse, the look askance,
The lightning of Love's angry glance.
In flattering dreams I deem'd thee mine;
Now hope, and he who hoped, decline'
Like melting wax, or withering flower,
I feel my passion, and thy power.
My light of life! ah, tell me why
That pouting lip, and alter'd eye?
My bird of love! my beauteous mate!
And art thou changed, and canst thou hate?
Mine eyes like wintry streams o'erflow:
What wretch with me would barter woe?
My bird! relent: one note could give
A charm to bid thy lover live.
My curdling blood, my madd'ning brain,
In silent anguish I sustain
And still thy heart, without partaking
One pang, exults - while mine is breaking.
Pour me the poison; fear not thou!
Thou canst not murder more than now:
I've lived to curse my natal day,
And Love, that thus can lingering slay.
My wounded soul, my bleeding breast,
Can patience preach thee into rest?
Alas! too late, I dearly know
That joy is harbinger of woe.
THOU ART NOT FALSE, BUT THOU ART FICKLE
THOU art
not false, but thou art fickle,
To those thyself so fondly sought;
The tears that thou hast forced to trickle
Are doubly bitter from that thought:
'Tis this which breaks the heart thou grievest
Too well thou lov'st - too soon thou leavest.
The wholly false the heart despises,
And spurns deceiver and deceit;
But she who not a thought disguises,
Whose love is as sincere as sweet,
When she can change who loved so truly,
It feels what mine has felt so newly.
To dream of joy and wake to sorrow
Is doom'd to all who love or live;
And if, when conscious on the morrow,
We scarce our fancy can forgive,
That cheated us in slumber only,
To leave the waking soul more lonely,
What must they feel whom no false vision,
But truest, tenderest passion warm'd?
Sincere, but swift in sad transition;
As if a dream alone had charm'd?
Ah! sure such grief is fancy's scheming,
And all thy change can be but dreaming!
ON
BEING ASKED WHAT WAS THE 'ORIGIN OF LOVE'
THE 'Origin of Love!' - Ah why
That cruel question ask of me,
When thou may'st read in many an eye
He starts to life on seeing thee?
And should'st thou seek his end to know:
My heart forebodes, my fears foresee
He'll linger long in silent woe;
But live - until I cease to be.
REMEMBER
HIM WHOM PASSION'S POWER
REMEMBER him whom passion's power
Severely, deeply, vainly proved:
Remember thou that dangerous hour,
When neither fell, though both were loved.
That yielding breast, that melting eye,
Too much invited to be bless'd:
That gentle prayer, that pleading sigh,
The wilder wish reproved, repress d.
Oh! let me feel that all I lost
But saved thee all that conscience fears;
And blush for every pang it cost
To spare the vain remorse of years.
Yet think of this when many a tongue,
Whose busy accents whisper blame,
Would do the heart that loved thee wrong,
And brand a nearly blighted name.
Think that, whate'er to others, thou
Hast seen each selfish thought subdued:
I bless thy purer soul even now,
Even now, in midnight solitude.
Oh, God! that we had met in time,
Our hearts as fond, thy hand more free;
When thou hadst loved without a crime,
And I been less unworthy thee!
Far may thy days, as heretofore,
From this our gaudy world be past!
And that too bitter moment o'er,
Oh! may such trial be thy last.
This heart, alas! perverted long,
Itself destroy'd might there destroy;
To meet thee in the glittering throng,
Would wake Presumption's hope of joy.
Then to the things whose bliss or woe,
Like mine, is wild and worthless all,
That world resign - such scenes forego,
Where those who feel must surely fall.
Thy youth thy charms, thy tenderness,
'Thy soul from long seclusion pure;
From what even here hath pass'd, may guess
What there thy bosom must endure.
Oh! pardon that imploring tear,
Since not by Virtue shed in vain,
My frenzy drew from eyes so dear;
For me they shall not weep again.
Though long and mournful must it be,
The thought that we no more may meet;
Yet I deserve the stern decree,
And almost deem the sentence sweet.
Still, had I loved thee less my heart
Had then less sacrifice to thine;
It felt not half so much to part
As if its guilt had made thee mine.
1813.
ON LORD THURLOW'S POEMS
WHEN Thurlow this damn'd nonsense sent
(I hope I am not violent),
Nor men nor gods knew what he meant.
And since not even our Rogers' praise
To common sense his thoughts could raise-
Why would they let him print his lays'
To me, divine Apollo, grant - O!
Hermilda s first and second canto,
I'm fitting up a new portmanteau;
And thus to furnish decent lining,
My own and others' bays I'm twining,-
So, gentle Thurlow, throw me thine in.
TO LORD THURLOW
'I lay my branch of laurel down.
Then thus to form Apollo's crown.
Let every other bring his own.'
Lord Thurlow's lines to
Mr. Rogers
'I lay my branch of laurel down.'
THOU 'lay thy branch of laurel down!'
Why, what thou'st stole is not enow;
And, were it lawfully thine own,
Does Rogers want it most, or thou?
Keep to thyself thy wither'd bough,
Or send it back to Doctor Donne:
Were justice done to both, I trow,
He'd have but little, and thou - none.
' Then thus to form Apollo's crown.'
A crown! why, twist it how you will,
Thy chaplet must be foolscap still.
When next you visit Delphi's town,
Inquire amongst your fellow-lodgers,
They'll tell you Phoebus gave his crown,
Some years before your birth, to Rogers.
'Let every other bring his own.'
When coals to Newcastle are carried,
And owls sent to Athens, as wonders,
From his spouse when the R egent's unmarried,
Or Liverpool weeps o'er his blunders;
When Tories and Whigs cease to quarrel,
When Castlereagh's wife has an heir,
Then Rogers shall ask us for laurel,
And thou shalt have plenty to spare.