The music of thy martial sphere Like lava roll'd thy stream of blood, One tint was of the sunbeam's dyes; Star of the brave! thy ray is pale, And Freedom hallows with her tread NAPOLEON'S FAREWELL. FROM THE FRENCH. Oh! for the veteran hearts that were wasted Then turn thee and call on the Chief of thy choice! ENDORSEMENT TO THE DEED OF SEPAR- A YEAR ago you swore, fond she! DARKNESS.2 I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream. 3 Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed, FAREWELL to the Land, where the gloom of my Glory Happy were those who dwelt within the eye Arose and o'ershadow'd the earth with her name- I have warr'd with a world which vanquish'd me only When the meteor of conquest allured me too far; I have coped with the nations which dread me thus lonely, The last single Captive to millions in war. Farewell to thee, France! when thy diadem crown'd me, The tricolour. 2 [In the original MS." A Dream."] 3 [In this poem Lord Byron has abandoned the art, so peculiarly his own, of showing the reader where his purpose tends, and has contented himself with presenting a mass of powerful ideas unarranged, and the meaning of which it is not easy to attain. A succession of terrible images is placed before us, flitting and mixing, and disengaging themselves, as in the dream of a feverish man-chimeras dire, to whose existence the mind refuses credit, which confound and weary the ordinary reader, and baffle the comprehension, even of those more accustomed to the flights of a poetic muse. The subject is the progress of utter darkness, until it becomes, in Shakspeare's phrase, the "burier of the dead ;" and the assemblage of terrific ideas which the poet has placed before us only Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch : Extinguish'd with a crash- and all was black. The flashes fell upon them; some lay down fail in exciting our terror from the extravagance of the plan. To speak plainly, the framing of such phantasms is a dangerous employment for the exalted and teeming imagination of such a poet as Lord Byron, whose Pegasus ever required rather a bridle than a spur. The waste of boundless space into which they lead the poet, the neglect of precision which such themes may render habitual, make them, in respect to poetry, what mysticism is to religion. The meaning of the poet, as he ascends upon cloudy wing, becomes the shadow only of a thought, and having eluded the comprehension of others, necessarily ends by escaping from that of the author himself. The strength of poetical conception, and the beauty of diction, bestowed upon such prolusions, is as much thrown away as the colours of a painter, could he take a cloud of mist, or a wreath of smoke, for his canvass.- SIR WALTER SCOTT.] The pall of a past world; and then again And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh; And they were enemies: they met beside The dying embers of an altar-place Where had been heap'd a mass of hely things For an unholy usage; they raked up, And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath Blew for a little life, and made a flame Which was a mockery; then they lifted up Each other's aspects- saw, and shriek'd, and died— And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they dropp'd ["Darkness" is a grand and gloomy sketch of the supposed consequences of the final extinction of the Sun and the heavenly bodies: executed, undoubtedly, with great and fearful force, but with something of German exaggeration, and a fantastical solution of incidents. The very conception is terrible above all conception of known calamity, and is too oppressive to the imagination to be contemplated with pleasure, even in the faint redection of poetry. JEFFREY.] 2 [On the sheet containing the original draught of these lines, Lord Byron has written:-"The following poem (as most that I have endeavoured to write) is founded on a fact; and this detail is an attempt at a serious imitation of the style of a great poet-its beauties and its defects: I say the style; for the thoughts I claim as my own. In this, if there be any thing ridiculous, let it be attributed to me, at least as much as to Mr. Wordsworth; of whom there can exist few greater admirers than myself. I have blended what I would deem to be the beauties as well as defects of his style; and it ought to be remembered, that, in such things, whether there be praise or dispraise, there is always what is called a compliinent, however unintentional."] And the clouds perish'd! Darkness had no need Of aid from them-She was the Universe. 1 Diodati, July 1816. CHURCHILL'S GRAVE.? I STOOD beside the grave of him who blazed The Gardener of that ground, why it might be And I had not the digging of this grave." I know not what of honour and of light Of which we are but dreamers; -as he caught Your honour pleases," then most pleased I shook Diodati, 1916. 3 ["The Grave of Churchill might have called from Lord Byron a deeper commemoration; for, though they generally differed in character and genius, there was a resemblance be tween their history and character. The satire of Churchill flowed with a more profuse, though not a more embittered, stream; while, on the other hand, he cannot be compared to Lord Byron in point of tenderness or imagination. But both these poets held themselves above the opinion of the world, and both were followed by the fame and popularity which they seemed to despise. The writings of both exhibit an inborn, though sometimes ill-regulated, generosity of mind, and a spirit of proud independence, frequently pushed to extremes. Both carried their hatred of hypocrisy beyond the verge of prudence, and indulged their vein of satire to the borders of licentiousness. Both died in the flower of their age in a foreign land."-SIR WALTER SCOTT.Churchill died at Boulogne, November 4. 1761, in the thirty-third year of his age." Though his associates obtained Christian burial for him, by bringing the body to Dover, where it was interred in the old cemetery which once belonged to the collegiate church of St. Martin, they inscribed upon his tombstone, in PROMETHEUS. TITAN! to whose immortal eyes The sufferings of mortality, Were not as things that gods despise ; The rock, the vulture, and the chain, Which speaks but in its loneliness, Titan! to thee the strife was given Between the suffering and the will, And the inexorable Heaven, And the deaf tyranny of Fate, The ruling principle of Hate, Which for its pleasure doth create The things it may annihilate, Was thine and thou hast borne it well. That in his hand the lightnings trembled. Thy Godlike crime was to be kind, To render with thy precepts less In the endurance, and repulse Of thine impenetrable Spirit, Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse, A mighty lesson we inherit : Thou art a symbol and a sign To Mortals of their fate and force; A troubled stream from a pure source; And a firm will, and a deep sense, Its own concenter'd recompense, Triumphant where it dares defy, And making Death a Victory. Diodati, July, 1816. stead of any consolatory or monitory text, this Epicurean line from one of his own poems "Life to the last enjoy'd, here Churchill lies." Southey's Cowper, vol. ii. p. 159.] A FRAGMENT. COULD I remount the river of my years To the first fountain of our smiles and tears, What is this Death ?-a quiet of the heart? The absent are the dead-for they are cold, The under-earth inhabitants-are they Or have they their own language? and a sense SONNET TO LAKE LEMAN. But they have made them lovelier, for the lore Of human hearts the ruin of a wall Where dwelt the wise and wondrous; but by thee, How much more, Lake of Beauty! do we feel, In sweetly gliding o'er thy crystal sea, The wild glow of that not ungentle zeal, Which of the heirs of immortality Is proud, and makes the breath of glory real! Diodati, July, 1816. Geneva, Ferney, Copet, Lausanne.-[See antè, p. 35."I have traversed all Rousseau's ground with the Héloise before me, and am struck to a degree that I cannot express, with the force and accuracy of his descriptions, and the beauty of their reality."- Byron Letters, 1816.] ROMANCE MUY DOLOROSO DEL SITIO Y TOMA DE ALHAMA. 1 El qual dezia en Aravigo assi. PASSEAVASE el Rey Moro Ay de mi, Alhama ! Cartas le fueron venidas Las cartas echò en el fuego, Y al mensagero matava. Descavalga de una mula, Y en un cavallo cavalga. Ay de mi, Alhama ! Como en el Alhambra estuvo, Al mismo punto mandava Que se toquen las trompetas Con anafiles de plata. Ay de mi, Alhama! Y que atambores de guerra Los Moros que el son oyeron, Un gran esquadron formavan. Alli hablò un Moro viejo; Aveys de saber, amigos, Que Christianos, con braveza, Alli hablò un viejo Alfaqui, Mataste los Bencerrages, Cogiste los tornadizos De Cordova la nombrada. Ay de mi, Alhama! Por esso mereces, Rey, Una pene bien doblada; Que te pierdas tu y el reyno, Y que se pierda Granada. Ay de mi, Alhama! The effect of the original ballad-which existed both In Spanish and Arabic-was such that it was forbidden A VERY MOURNFUL BALLAD ON THE SIEGE AND CONQUEST OF ALHAMA, Which, in the Arabic language, is to the following purport. THE Moorish King rides up and down Through Granada's royal town; From Elvira's gates to those Of Bivarambla on he goes. Woe is me, Alhama! Letters to the monarch tell Woe is me, Alhama! He quits his mule, and mounts his horse, And through the street directs his course; Through the street of Zacatin To the Alhambra spurring in. Woe is me, Alhama! When the Alhambra walls he gain'd, On the moment he ordain'd That the trumpet straight should sound With the silver clarion round. Woe is me, Alhama ! And when the hollow drums of war Then the Moors, by this aware Woe is me, Alhama! Out then spake an aged Moor "Friends! ye have, alas! to know That the Christians, stern and bold, Out then spake old Alfaqui, "By thee were slain, in evil hour, Woe is me, Alhama ! Woe is me, Alhama! to be sung by the Moors, on pain of death, within Gra nada. Si no se respetan leyes, Ay de mi, Alhama ! Fuego por los ojos vierte, El Rey que esto oyera. Y como el otro de leyes Ay de mi, Alhama! Sabe un Rey que no ay leyes De darle a Reyes disgusto- Ay de mi, Alhama ! Moro Alfaqui, Moro Alfaqui, El de la vellida barba, Por la perdida de Alhama. Ay de mi, Alhama! Y cortarte la cabeza, Y ponerla en el Alhambra, Por que a ti castigo sea, Cavalleros, hombres buenos, Ay de mi, Alhama ! De averse Alhama perdido A mi me pesa en el alma. Que si el Rey perdiò su tierra, Otro mucho mas perdiera. Perdieran hijos padres, Y casados las casadas: Las cosas que mas amara Perdi una hija donzella Que era la flor d' esta tierra, Cien doblas dava por ella, No me las estimo en nada. Diziendo assi al hacen Alfaqui, Y la elevan al Alhambra, Hombres, niños y mugeres, Ay de mi, Alhama ! Por las calles y ventanas Llora el Rey como fembra, "He who holds no laws in awe, Woe is me, Alhama ! Fire flash'd from out the old Moor's eyes. Woe is me, Alhama! "There is no law to say such things Moor Alfaqui! Moor Alfaqui! The King hath sent to have thee seized, Woe is me, Alhama! And to fix thy head upon High Alhambra's loftiest stone; "Cavalier, and man of worth! Woe is me, Alhama! "But on my soul Alhama weighs, "Sires have lost their children, wives "I lost a damsel in that hour, And as these things the old Moor said, And men and infants therein weep And from the windows o'er the walls |