VERSES FOUND IN A SUMMER HOUSE 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, possessed of Cymon's powers,
In Cymon's manner waste their leisure hours,
Th' 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 whitened wall,
The filth they leave still points out where they craw

REMEMBER THEE! REMEMBER THEE!

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! Ay, doubt it not.
Thy husband too shall think of thee:

* [In Warwickshire.]

† [See Cymon and Iphigenia.]

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 bestowed

Those boons to all that know thee known;

Yet better I sustain thy load,

For now I bear the weight alone.

I would not one fond heart should share
The bitter moments thou hast given;
And pardon thee, since thou could'st spare
All that I loved, to peace or heaven;

To them be joy or rest, on me

Thy future ills shall press in vain;

* [On the cessation of a temporary liaison formed by Lord Byron during his London career, the fair one 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.]

I nothing owe but years to thee,
A debt already paid in pain.

Yet even that pain was some relief;
It felt, but still forgot thy power:
The active agony of grief

Retards, but never counts the hour.

In joy I've sighed to think thy flight
Would soon subside from swift to slow;

Thy cloud could overcast the light,
But could not add a night to woe;

For then, however drear and dark,
My soul was suited to thy sky;
One star alone shot forth a spark
- not Eternity.

To

thee prove

That beam hath sunk, and now thou art
A blank; a thing to count and curse
Through each dull tedious trifling part,
Which all regret, yet all rehearse.

One scene even thou canst not deform;
The limit of thy sloth or speed

When future wanderers bear the storm

Which we shall sleep too sound to heed:

And I can smile to think how weak
Thine efforts shortly shall be shown,
When all the vengeance thou canst wreak

Must fall upon

a nameless stone.

TRANSLATION OF A ROMAIC LOVE SONG.

AH! Love was never yet without

The pang, the agony, the doubt,

Which rends my heart with ceaseless sigh,

While day and night roll darkling by.

Without one friend to hear my woe,
I faint, I die beneath the blow.
That Love had arrows, well I knew ;
Alas! I find them poisoned too.

Birds, yet in freedom, shun the net
Which Love around your haunts hath set;
Or, circled by his fatal fire,

Your hearts shall burn, your hopes expire.

A bird of free and careless wing

Was I, through many a smiling spring;
But caught within the subtle snare,

I burn, and feebly flutter there.

Who ne'er have loved, and loved in vain,
Can neither feel nor pity pain,

The cold repulse, the look askance,
The lightning of Love's angry glance.

In flattering dreams I deemed thee mine;
Now hope, and he who hoped, decline;

Like melting wax, or withering flower,
I feel my passion, and thy power.

My light of life! ah, tell me why
That pouting lip, and altered eye?
My bird of love! my beauteous mate!
And art thou changed, and canst thou hate?

Mine eyes like wintry streams o'erflow:
What wretch with me would barter woe?
My bird! relent: one note could give
A charm, to bid thy lover live.

My curdling blood, my maddening brain,
In silent anguish I sustain ;

And still thy heart, without partaking
One pang, exults - while mine is breaking.

Pour me the poison; fear not thou!
Thou canst not murder more than now:
I've lived to curse my natal day,

And Love, that thus can lingering slay.

My wounded soul, my bleeding breast,
Can patience preach thee into rest?
Alas! too late, I dearly know
That joy is harbinger of woe.