FILIAL AND FRATERNAL LOVE.

FROM

FILIAL LOVE.

Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim
CHILDE HAROLD."

No tears, but tenderness to answer mine : THERE is a dungeon in whose dim drear light Go where I will, to me thou art the same, What do I gaze on? Nothing : look again !

A loved regret which I would not resign. Two forms are slowly shadowed on my sight,

There yet are two things in my destiny, Two insulated phantoms of the brain :

A world to roam through, and a home with thee. It is not so ; I see them full and plain, An old man and a female young and fair,

The first were nothing, — had I still the last, Fresh as a nursing mother, in whose vein

It were the haven of my happiness ; The blood is nectar : but what doth she there, But other claims and other ties thou hast, With her unmantled neck, and bosom white and

And mine is not the wish to make them less. bare ?

A strange doom is thy father's son's, and past

Recalling, as it lies beyond redress ; Full swells the deep pure fountain of young life, Reversed for him our grandsire's fate of yore, Where on the heart and from the heart we took He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore. Our first and sweetest nurture, when the wife, Blest into mother, in the innocent look, If my inheritance of storms hath been Or even the piping cry of lips that brook

In other elements, and on the rocks No pain and small suspense, a joy perceives Of perils, overlooked or unforeseen, Man knows not, when from out its cradled nook I have sustained my share of worldly shocks,

She sees her little bud put forth its leaves The fault was mine ; nor do I seek to screen What may the fruit be yet? I know not Cain

My errors with defensive paradox ; was Eve's.

I have been cunning in mine overthrow, But here youth offers to old age the food,

The careful pilot of my proper woe. The milk of his own gift : it is her sire To whom she renders back the debt of blood Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward, Born with her birth. No! he shall not expire

My whole life was a contest, since the day While in those warm and lovely veins the fire That gave me being gave me that which marred Of health and holy feeling can provide

The gift, — a fate, or will, that walked astray: Great Nature's Nile, whose deep stream rises And I at times have found the struggle hard, higher

And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay : Than Egypt's river ; from that gentle side

But now I fain would for a time survive, Drink, drink and live, old man ! Heaven's realm If but to see what next can well arrive. holds no such tide.

Kingdoms and empires in my little day The starry fable of the milky-way

I have outlived, and yet I am not old ; Has not thy story's purity; it is

And when I look on this, the petty spray A constellation of a sweeter ray,

Of my own years of trouble, which have rolled And sacred Nature triumphs more in this Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away : Reverse of her decree, than in the abyss

Something - I know not what — does still Where sparkle distant worlds : -0, holiest

uphold nurse !

A spirit of slight patience ; --- not in vain, No drop of that clear stream its way shall miss Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain.

To thy sire's heart, replenishing its source
With life, as our freed souls rejoin the universe. Perhaps the workings of defiance stir

Within me,

- or perhaps of cold despair,

Brought on when ills habitually recur,
TO AUGUSTA.

Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air,

(For even to this may change of soul refer, HIS SISTER, AUGUSTA LEIGH.

And with light armor we may learn to bear,) My sister ! my sweet sister ! if a name

Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not Dearer and purer were, it should be thine, The chief companion of a calmer lot.

BYRON.

but I grow

I feel almost at times as I have felt

Yet this was not the end I did pursue ; In happy childhood ; trees, and flowers, and Surely I once beheld a nobler aim. brooks,

But all is over ; I am one the more Which do remember me of where I dwelt, To baffled millions which have gone before.

Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books, Come as of yore upon me, and can melt

And for the future, this world's future may My heart with recognition of their looks ;

From ine demand but little of my care ;

I have outlived myself by many a day : And even at moments I could think I see Some living thing to love, but none like thee. Having survived so many things that were ;

My years have been no slumber, but the prey Here are the Alpine landscapes which create Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share

A fund for contemplation ; to admire Of life which might have filled a century, Is a brief feeling of a trivial date ;

Before its fourth in time had passed me by. But something worthier do such scenes inspire. Here to be lonely is not desolate,

And for the remnant which may be to come, For much I view which I could most desire, I am content; and for the past I feel And, above all, a lake I can behold

Not thankless, for within the crowded sum Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old.

Of struggles, happiness at times would steal,

And for the present, I would not benumb O that thou wert but with me!

My feelings farther. — Nor shall I conceal The fool of my own wishes, and forget That with all this I still can look around, The solitude which I have vaunted so

And worship Nature with a thought profound. Has lost its praise in this but one regret ; There may be others which I less may show; For thee, my own sweet sister, in thy heart

I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet I know myself secure, as thou in mine : I feel an ebb in my philosophy,

We were and are — I am, even as thou art And the tide rising in my altered eye.

Beings who ne'er each other can resign ;

It is the same, together or apart, I did remind thee of our own dear Lake,

From life's commencement to its slow declino By the old Hall which may be mine no more. We are intwined, – let death come slow or fast, Leman's is fair ? but think not I forsake

The tie which bound the first endures the last ! The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore; Sad havoc Time must with my memory make,

Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before ; Though, like all things which I have loved, they are

BERTHA IN THE LANE. Resigned forever, or divided far.

Put the broidery-frame away, The world is all before me; I but ask

For my sewing is all done ! of Nature that with which she will comply, The last thread is used to-day, It is but in her summer's sun to bask,

And I need not join it on. To mingle with the quiet of her sky,

Though the clock stands at the noon, To see her gentle face without a mask,

I am weary! I have sewn,
And never gaze on it with apathy.

Sweet, for thee, a wedding gown.
She was my early friend, and now shall be
My sister, till I look again on thee.

Sister, help me to the bed,

And stand near me, dearest-sweet ! I can reduce all feelings but this one ;

Do not shrink nor be afraid, And that I would not ; for at length I see

Blushing with a sudden heat ! Such scenes as those wherein my life begun.

No one standeth in the street ! The earliest, — even the only paths for me,

By God's love I go to meet,
Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun,

Love I thee with love complete.
I had been better than I now can be ;
The passions which have torn me would have slept: Lean thy face down ! drop it in
I had not suffered, and thou hadst not wept.

These two hands, that I may hold

'Twixt their palms thy cheek and chin, With false Ambition what had I to do?

Stroking back the curls of gold. Little with Love, and least of all with Fame ! 'T is a fair, fair face, in sooth, And yet they came unsought, and with me grew, Larger eyes and redder mouth And made me all which they can make,

Than mine were in my first youth !

BYRON.

-aname.