AN

Admonitory Appeal

TO THE

RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD BYRON.

" 'tis very puzzling, on the brink

Of what is called Eternity, to stare,

And know no more of what is here than there."

DON JUAN, Canto X. Stanza 20.

AND can thy bold spirit no trial disarm,

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Thou child of the whirlwind! thou son of the storm?
Still pleas'd through the regions of fancy to roam,
And find, in each palace, a hall and a home.
Now piercing through vistas thy fairy hands rear,
Now sleeping on sun-beams, now thron'd in a star;
Wild magic still pouring thy verses along,
As thy gathering thoughts inexhaustibly throng.
Reclining, at twilight, on some bridge sublime, (a)
"Twixt day-light and darkness, some archway of time, 10
As nature, lamenting the day that's gone by,
Is shedding her tears to the verge of the sky:

Thine eye, with the pearl of soft sympathy, wet,
While fondly bemoaning that suns ever set. (a)

Or wand'ring, at ev'ning, beside the blue stream,
That throws, from its bosom, the brazen gates' gleam;
Where the mourners of Zion their painful watch keep,
Assembling, at vespers, in concert to weep

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Beneath the green willows, from whence their harps fling To the wild moaning winds, as the monochords ring, 20 Those harsh notes, discordant, which, borne on the air, Announce the sad chorus of high wrought despair.

But thou, buoyant spirit! when thine was the doom, To part from thy country, thy halls, and thy home, Tho' tears may have flow'd, and some hearts have been

wrung,

Thy lyre has been never a moment_unstrung; (b)
No cave so remote, that thy verse has not rung.
Alike, unto thee, are the court and the tow'r,

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The green hills of Zion, or Endor's dark bow'r;
The storm on the mountain, the calm in the plain,1 ́ ́ 30
The rude torrent roaring, the dew-distill'd rain,
The nightingale's plaint, or the moon-chequer'd flow'r,
The thunders of Sinai, the law's scorching pow'r,

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The cold dews of midnight, the tempest-beat shore,
The whirlwind's loud howl, or the cataract's roar.
Now fabling an ocean, hung high in the air,
Bespangled with many a luminous star,
And peopled with spirits, who joyfully sail
On cherubim's wings, along Death's mirky vale;
Or turning, with sorrow, to earth and its care,
From fancies so soothing, from visions so fair;
To where the lone step of the centinel rang,
On listening ears, its deep-measur'd clang;
With horror to look on the Musselman's skull,
Escap'd thro' the jaws (when their hunger grew dull) (e)

Of ravenous dogs, who held, under the wall

Of Isthmian Corinth, their wild carnival.

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"There is too much of pride in the happiest hour!"(d)

And wisest is he who yields least to its pow'r!

Apollyon found it the most potent spell,

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Securely to people his mansions in Hell;

His essay was Eve, and she instantly fell:

But Mercy Omniscient foreknew the design,

And pluck'd from the THORN to ingraft on the VINe,

This Mother of myriads sits in the sky,

Rejoicing the Tempter no longer is nigh.

Whenever I hear of a man's deathless name,

And see his bold struggles to wrest it from FAME,
I think of the battle which Christ fought and won(e)
On Edom's red plain before time had begun;

Not dealing destruction and death to his foes,
But pardons and crowns and eternal repose.

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60

Say, what are the trophies men bind on their brow,
But spoils of the slain, whom their pride has laid low?
And what the loud Peans that swell on the gale,
But chaunts of the FEW o'er the MANY's bewail?

I look'd thro' thy midnight, and Fancy, keen eyed,

The gossamer web of thy vision has spied,

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As maidenly soft and as clear to the view,
As curtains of mist with a moon riding through.
"Tis sacred! in silence, to watch the clouds sail

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O'er night's wand'ring orb, and her loveliness veil;
When pensively ent'ring the regions of shade,

Her beam, on the threshold, is modestly laid;

As onward she moves, through the mantle of night, 75 Her progress is mark'd by a halo of light;

And oft, like a frolicsome child, when at play,
She

peeps from her screen, and then hastens away: And when, at the last, we see her emerge,

More brilliant, we fancy, the feathery surge;
More dazzling the alders that bend to the breeze,
And brighter her silvery light on the trees;
More sparkling the river that drinks in her light,
More awfully calm the fair picture of night,
More sacred the visions that rise in the soul,

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More holy the pray'rs that abundantly roll,

Like bright shocks electric, and thrill thro' the frame;
The tongue mute as death, but the heart in a flame.
In moments like these, how curtail'd is the span
From spirits ethereal, to matter form'd man;

How trivial the effort to burst the clay band,

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And, orb by orb mounting, reach heaven's high strand!

Give God and thy country thy talents, more rare

And wild than the comet that flies thro' the air;
For think thee, O Byron! when laid in thy tomb- 95
And such is Mortality's birth-right and doom:

The glow of thy lyrical triumphs all flown,

Thy mellow harp burst, by thy life's rending groan;