In this life of probation for rapture divine, Who kneels to the god, on his altar of light Must myrtle and cypress alternately strew: His myrtle, an emblem of purest delight; His cypress, the garland of love's last adieu! DAMÆTAS. Is law an infant 1, and in years a boy, From every sense of shame and virtue wean'd; Versed in hypocrisy, while yet a child; Old in the world, though scarcely broke from school; All I shall therefore say (whate'er I think, is neither here nor there) Is, that such lips, of looks endearing, Were form'd for better things than sneering: Marion, adieu! oh, pr'ythee slight not This warning, though it may delight not; And, lest my precepts be displeasing To those who think remonstrance teasing, At once I'll tell thee our opinion Concerning woman's soft dominion: Howe'er we gaze with admiration On eyes of blue or lips carnation, Howe'er the flowing locks attract us, Howe'er those beauties may distract us, Still fickle, we are prone to rove, These cannot fix our souls to love; It is not too severe a stricture To say they form a pretty picture; But wouldst thou see the secret chain Which binds us in your humble train, To hail you queens of all creation, Know, in a word, 'tis ANIMATION. TO MARION. MARION! why that pensive brow? Spite of all thou fain wouldst say, In law every person is an infant who has not attained the age of twenty-one. ["When I went up to Trinity, in 1805, at the age of seventeen and a half, I was miserable and untoward to a degree. was wretched at leaving Harrow-wretched at going to Cambridge instead of Oxford wretched from some private domestic circumstances of different kinds; and, consequently, about as unsocial as a wolf taken from the troop."-Diary. Mr. Moore adds," The sort of life which young Byron led at this period, between the dissipations of London and of Cambridge, without a home to welcome, or even the roof of a single relative to receive him, was but little calculated TO A LADY WHO PRESENTED TO THE AUTHOR A LOCK OF HAIR BRAIDED WITH HIS OWN, AND APPOINTED A NIGHT IN DECEMBER TO MEET HIM IN THE GARDEN. 3 THESE locks, which fondly thus entwine, With silly whims and fancies frantic, Why should you weep like Lydia Languish, And fret with self-created anguish? Or doom the lover you have chosen, to render him satisfied either with himself or the world. Unrestricted as he was by deference to any will but his own, even the pleasures to which he was naturally most inclined prematurely palled upon him, for want of those best zests of all enjoyment- rarity and restraint."] 3 [See antè, p. 387. note.] In the above little piece the author has been accused by some candid readers of introducing the name of a lady from whom he was some hundred miles distant at the time this was written; and poor Juliet, who has slept so long in "the tomb of all the Capulets," has been converted, with a trifling Oh! would some modern muse inspire, Or had the bard at Christmas written, Warm nights are proper for reflection; OSCAR OF ALVA. 2 A TALE. How sweetly shines through azure skies, The lamp of heaven on Lora's shore ; Where Alva's hoary turrets rise, And hear the din of arms no more! But often has yon rolling moon On Alva's casques of silver play'd; And view'd, at midnight's silent noon, Her chiefs in gleaming mail array'd: And on the crimson'd rocks beneath, Which scowl o'er ocean's sullen flow, Pale in the scatter'd ranks of death, She saw the gasping warrior low; While many an eye which ne'er again Could mark the rising orb of day, Turn'd feebly from the gory plain, Beheld in death her fading ray. Once to those eyes the lamp of Love, Faded is Alva's noble race, And gray her towers are seen afar; alteration of her name, into an English damsel, walking in a garden of their own creation, during the month of December, in a village where the author never passed a winter. Such has been the candour of some ingenious critics. We would advise these liberal commentators on taste and arbiters of decorum to read Shakspeare. 1 Having heard that a very severe and indelicate censure has been passed on the above poem, I beg leave to reply in a quotation from an admired work, "Carr's Stranger in France."-"As we were contemplating a painting on a large scale, in which, among other figures, is the uncovered whole length of a warrior, a prudish-looking lady, who seemed to have touched the age of desperation, after having attentively surveyed it through her glass, observed to her party, that No more her heroes urge the chase, Or roll the crimson tide of war. But who was last of Alva's clan? Why grows the moss on Alva's stone? Her towers resound no steps of man, They echo to the gale alone. And when that gale is fierce and high, It rises hoarsely through the sky, Yes, when the eddying tempest sighs, It shakes the shield of Oscar brave; But there no more his banners rise, No more his plumes of sable wave. Fair shone the sun on Oscar's birth, When Angus hail'd his eldest born; The vassals round their chieftain's hearth Crowd to applaud the happy morn. They feast upon the mountain deer, The pibroch raised its piercing note: To gladden more their highland cheer, The strains in martial numbers float: And they who heard the war-notes wild Another year is quickly past, And Angus hails another son; His natal day is like the last, Nor soon the jocund feast was done. Taught by their sire to bend the bow, Dark was the flow of Oscar's hair, Wildly it stream'd along the gale; But Allan's locks were bright and fair, But Oscar own'd a hero's soul, His dark eye shone through beams of truth; Allan had early learn'd control, And smooth his words had been from youth. there was a great deal of indecorum in that picture. Madame S. shrewdly whispered in my ear, that the indecorum was in the remark.'" 2 The catastrophe of this tale was suggested by the story of "Jeronyme and Lorenzo," in the first volume of Schil ler's "Armenian, or the Ghost-Seer." It also bears somme resemblance to a scene in the third act of " Macbeth." 3 [Lord Byron falls into a very common error, that of mistaking pibroch, which means a particular sort of tune, for the instrument on which it is played, the bagpipe. Almost every foreign tourist, Nodier, for example, does the same. The reader will find this little slip noticed in the article from the Edinburgh Review appended to these pages.] "Oh, no!" the anguish'd sire rejoin'd, "Nor chase nor wave my boy delay; Would he to Mora seem unkind? Would anght to her impede his way? All is confusion-through the vale Till night expands her dusky wings; Three days, three sleepless nights, the Chief For Oscar search'd each mountain cave; Then hope is lost; in boundless grief, His locks in gray-torn ringlets wave. "Oscar! my son !-thou God of Heav'n "Yes, on some desert rocky shore My Oscar's whiten'd bones must lie; Then grant, thou God! I ask no more, With him his frantic sire may die! "Yet he may live,-away, despair! Be calm, my soul! he yet may live; T'arraign my fate, my voice forbear! O God! my impious prayer forgive. "What, if he live for me no more, I sink forgotten in the dust, The hope of Alva's age is o'er ; Alas! can pangs like these be just ?” Thus did the hapless parent mourn, Till Time, which soothes severest woe, Had bade serenity return, And made the tear-drop cease to flow. For still some latent hope survived That Oscar might once more appear; His hope now droop'd and now revived, Till Time had told a tedious year. Days roll'd along, the orb of light Again had run his destined race; No Oscar bless'd his father's sight, And sorrow left a fainter trace. For youthful Allan still remain'd, And now his father's only joy: And Mora's heart was quickly gain'd, For beauty crown'd the fair-hair'd boy. She thought that Oscar low was laid, And Allan's face was wondrous fair; If Oscar lived, some other maid Had claim'd his faithless bosom's care. And Angus said, if one year more Slow roll'd the moons, but blest at last And still the choral peal prolong. Again the clan, in festive crowd, |