Oh my lonely-lonely-lonely-Pillow! Why must my head ache where his gentle brow lay? How the long night flags lovelessly and slowly, And my head droops over thee like the willow! Oh! thou, my sad and solitary Pillow! Send me kind dreams to keep my heart from breaking, In return for the tears I shed upon thee waking; Let me not die till he comes back o'er the billow. Then if thou wilt-no more my lonely Pillow, In one embrace let these arms again enfold him, And then expire of the joy--but to behold him! Oh my lone bosom !-oh! my lonely Pillow! IMPROMPTU.110 BENEATH Blessington's eyes Should be free as the former from evil; But if the new Eve For an Apple should grieve, What mortal would not play the Devil? !!! 1823. TO THE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON. You have ask'd for a verse :-the request Were I now as I was, I had sung What Lawrence has painted so well; I am ashes where once I was fire, And my heart is as grey as my head. My life is not dated by years There are moments which act as a plough, And there is not a furrow appears But is deep in my soul as my brow. Let the young and the brilliant aspire The string which was worthy the strain. ON THIS DAY I COMPLETE MY THIRTY-SIXTH YEAR. MI8sOLONGHI, Jan. 22, 1824,118 "TIs time this heart should be unmoved, Since others it hath ceased to move : Yet, though I cannot be beloved, My days are in the yellow leaf; The flowers and fruits of love are gone; The fire that on my bosom preys The hope, the fear, the jealous care, VOL. II. But 'tis not thus-and 'tis not here Such thoughts should shake my soul, nor now, Where glory decks the hero's bier, Or binds his brow. The sword, the banner, and the field, Awake! (not Greece-she is awake!) Tread those reviving passions down, If thou regret'st thy youth, why live? Seek out-less often sought than found- NOTES TO OCCASIONAL PIECES. HARROW. 1.-Page 211, line 4. Adieu thou Hill! where early joy 2.-Page 212, line 25. Streamlet! along whose rippling surge [The river Grete, at Southwell.] [Mary Duff.] 3. Page 212, line 35. 4.-Page 213, line 1. And thou, my Friend! whose gentle love [Eddlestone, the Cambridge chorister.] 5.-Page 219, line 22. TO AN OAK AT NEWSTEAD. [Lord Byron, on his first arrival at Newstead, in 1798, planted an oak in the garden, and cherished the fancy, that as the tree flourished so should he. On revisiting the abbey, he found the oak choked up by weeds and almost destroyed;-hence these lines. Shortly after Colonel Wildman took possession, he said to a servant, "Here is a fine young oak; but it must be cut down, as it grows in an improper place."-"I hope not, sir," replied the man, "for it's the one that my lord was so fond of, because he set it himself." It is already inquired after by strangers, as "THE BYRON OAK" and promises to share the celebrity of Shakspeare's mulberry, and Pope's willow.] 6.-Page 221, line 2. ON REVISITING HARROW. Some years ago, when at Harrow, a friend of the author engraved on a particular spot the names of both, with a few additional words, as a memorial. Afterwards, on receiving some real or imagined injury, the author destroyed the frail record before he left Harrow. On revisiting the place in 1807, he wrote under it these stanzas. 7.-Page 222, line 1. TO MY SON. [So much were Lord Byron's poems founded on fact, that Mr. Moore thought on the one hand that these verses would not have been written if the case was fictitious, and on the other, that there would have been a further allusion to it if the circumstance had been true. He had forgotten that Lord Byron refers in Don Juan (canto xvi, st. 61), to "a sad mishap" of the kind, and in a manner which leaves no doubt of its reality.] 8.-Page 225, line 10. TO A YOUTHFUL FRIEND. [This copy of verses, and several of the poems which follow it, originally appeared in a volume published in 1809 by Mr. Hobhouse, under the title of "Imitations and Translations, together with Original Poems," and bearing the modest epigraph-" Nos hæc novimus esse nihil."] 9.-Page 227, line 18. LINES INSCRIBED UPON A CUP FORMED FROM A SKULL. [Lord Byron gives the following account of this cup :-"The gardener in digging discovered a skull that had probably belonged to some jolly friar or monk of the abbey, about the time it was demonasteried. Observing it to be of giant size, and in a perfect state of preservation, a strange fancy seized me of having it set and mounted as a drinking cup. I accordingly sent it to town, and it returned with a very high polish, and of a mottled colour like tortoiseshell." It is now in the possession of Colonel Wildman, the proprietor of Newstead Abbey.] 10.-Page 228, line 14. WELL! THOU ART HAPPY. [A few days before this poem was written, the poet dined at Annesley. On the infant daughter of his hostess being brought into the room, it was with the utmost difficulty that he suppressed the emotion to which we owe these beautiful stanzas.] 11.-Page 229, line 21. November 2, 1808. Lord Byron wrote to his mother on this same 2nd November, announchis intention of sailing for India in March, 1809.] 12.-Page 229, line 22. INSCRIPTION ON THE MONUMENT OF A NEWFOUNDLAND DOG. [This monument is a conspicuous ornament in the garden of Newstead. A prose inscription precedes the verses: |