167

20

Yet did I love thee to the last
As fervently as thou,
Who didst not change through all the past
And canst not alter now.

The love where Death has set his seal,
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,

Nor falsehood disavow:

And, what were worse, thou canst not see Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.

The better days of life were ours;

The worst can be but mine:

The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers, Shall never more be thine.

The silence of that dreamless sleep

I

envy now too much to weep;

Nor need I to repine

That all those charms have pass'd away,

I might have watch'd through long decay.

The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd
Must fall the earliest prey;
Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,
The leaves must drop away:
And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it pluck'd to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.

I know not if I could have borne
To see thy beauties fade;
The night that follow'd such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade:
Thy day without a cloud hath pass'd,
And thou wert lovely to the last,

Extinguish'd, not decay'd;

As stars that shoot along the sky Shine brightest as they fall from high.

As once I wept, if I could weep,

My tears might well be shed, To think I was not near to keep

One vigil o'er thy bed; To gaze, how fondly! on thy face, To fold thee in a faint embrace, Uphold thy drooping head; And show that love, however vain, Nor thou nor I can feel again.

31

40

50

60

Oh, pardon that in crowds awhile

I waste one thought I owe to thee, And, self-condemn'd, appear to smile, Unfaithful to thy Memory! Nor deem that memory less dear, That then I seem not to repine; I would not fools should overhear One sigh that should be wholly thine.

If not the goblet pass unquaff'd,

It is not drain'd to banish care;
The cup must hold a deadlier draught,
That brings a Lethe for despair.
And could Oblivion set my soul

From all her troubled visions free,
I'd dash to earth the sweetest bowl
That drown'd a single thought of thee.

10

20

[Drury-Lane Theatre had burned down February 24, 1809, and Byron had himself viewed the fire from a house-top in Covent Garden.' The managers advertised a general competition of addresses for the opening of the restored edifice, and scores of poems, all intolerably poor, were submitted. Lord Holland, in despair, finally appealed to Byron for an address, and the following verses of his were spoken by Mr. Elliston. The Rejected Addresses has made the occasion ever memorable.]

In one dread night our city saw, and sigh'd, Bow'd to the dust the Drama's tower of pride;

Scenes not unworthy Drury's days of old! Britons our judges, Nature for our guide, Still may we please — long, long may you preside!

PARENTHETICAL ADDRESS

BY DR. PLAGIARY

[Among the rejected addresses was one by Dr. Busby which his son attempted to recite on the stage by force on October 14. He was taken into custody for his pains, but on the next night Dr. Busby obtained a hearing for his son. Byron in the satire below ridicules the ineffective delivery of the young man whose voice was quite 'inarticulate.' He introduces the verses with these words :] Half stolen, with acknowledgments, to be spoken in an inarticulate voice by Master B. at the opening of the next new theatre. Stolen parts marked with the inverted commas of quotation thus

-

Flame! fire! and flame!!' (words borrow'd 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 Doctor

These, if we win the Graces, too, we gain Disgraces, too! inseparable train!' 'Three who have stolen their witching airs 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 sweep 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,' says the manager, and so say I.

So

41

'But hold, you say, this self-complacent

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, The 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.

[First published, 1832.]

'REMEMBER THEE! REMEMBER!'

[Lady Caroline Lamb called one morning at her quondam lover's apartments. His lordship was from home; but finding Vathek on the table, the lady wrote in the first page of the volume the words, "Remember me!” Byron immediately wrote under the ominous warning these two stanzas.'-MEDWIN, Conversations of Lord Byron, 1824, pp. 329, 330.] 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! Aye, doubt it not.
Thy husband too shall think of thee:
By neither shalt 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.