III.

Would that I were cold with those,
Since this hour I live to see;
When the doubts of coward foes

Scarce dare trust a man with thee,
Dreading each should set thee free!
Oh! although in dungeons pent,
All their chains were light to me,
Gazing on thy soul unbent.

IV.

Would the sycophants of him
Now so deaf to duty's prayer,
Were his borrow'd glories dim,
In his native darkness share?
Were that world this hour his own,
All thou calmly dost resign,

Could he purchase with that throne

Hearts like those which still are thine?

V.

My chief, my king, my friend, adieu!

Never did I droop before; Never to my sovereign sue, As his foes I now implore: All I ask is to divide

Every peril he must brave; Sharing by the hero's side

His fall, his exile, and his grave.

ON THE STAR OF "THE LEGION OF HONOUR.”

[FROM THE FRENCH.]

STAR of the brave!-whose beam hath shed
Such glory o'er the quick and dead-

Thou radiant and adored deceit !

Which millions rush'd in arms to greet, -
Wild meteor of immortal birth!
Why rise in Heaven to set on Earth?

Souls of slain heroes form'd thy rays;
Eternity flash'd through thy blaze;
The music of thy martial sphere
Was fame on high and honour here;
And thy light broke on human eyes,
Like a volcano of the skies.

Like lava roll'd thy stream of blood,
And swept down empires with its flood;
Earth rock'd beneath thee to her base,
As thou didst lighten through all space;
And the shorn Sun grew dim in air,
And set while thou wert dwelling there.

Before thee rose, and with thee grew,
A rainbow of the loveliest hue

Of three bright colours (1), each divine,
And fit for that celestial sign;

For Freedom's hand had blended them,
Like tints in an immortal gem.

(1) The tricolour.

One tint was of the sunbeam's dyes;
One, the blue depth of Seraph's eyes;
One, the pure Spirit's veil of white
Had robed in radiance of its light:"
The three so mingled did beseem
The texture of a heavenly dream.

Star of the brave! thy ray is pale,
And darkness must again prevail !
But, oh thou Rainbow of the free!
Our tears and blood must flow for thee.
When thy bright promise fades away,
Our life is but a load of clay.

And Freedom hallows with her tread
The silent cities of the dead;
For beautiful in death are they
Who proudly fall in her array;
And soon, oh Goddess! may we be
For evermore with them or thee!

NAPOLEON'S FAREWELL.

[FROM THE FRENCH.]

I.

FAREWELL to the Land, where the gloom of my Glory Arose and o'ershadow'd the earth with her name She abandons me now-but the page of her story, The brightest or blackest, is fill'd with my fame.

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.

II.

Farewell to thee, France! when thy diadem crown'd

me,

I made thee the gem and the wonder of earth,
But thy weakness decrees I should leave as I found

thee,

Decay'd in thy glory, and sunk in thy worth.

Oh! for the veteran hearts that were wasted

In strife with the storm, when their battles were

won

Then the Eagle, whose gaze in that moment was blasted,

Had still soar'd with eyes fix'd on victory's sun!

Farewell to thee, France! - but when Liberty rallies
Once more in thy regions, remember me then,
The violet still grows in the depth of thy valleys;
Though wither'd, thy tear will unfold it again—
Yet, yet, I may baffle the hosts that surround us,
And yet may thy heart leap awake to my voice
There are links which must break in the chain that
has bound us,

Then turn thee and call on the Chief of thy choice!

ENDORSEMENT TO THE DEED OF SEPAR-
ATION, IN THE APRIL OF 1816.
A YEAR ago you swore, fond she!
"To love, to honour," and so forth:
Such was the vow you pledged to me,
And here's exactly what 'tis worth.

DARKNESS. (1)

I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream. (2)
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars

(1) [In the original MS. "A Dream.”—

-E]

(2) [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 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 pro lusions, 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.]