That tasteless shame be his, and ours the grief,
To gaze on Beauty's band without its chief:
Yet comfort still one selfish thought imparts,
We lose the portrait, but preserve our hearts.
What can his vaulted gallery now disclose?
A garden with all flowers except the rose;
A fount that only wants its living stream;
A night, with every star, save Dian's beam.
Lost to our eyes the present forms shall be,
That turn from tracing them to dream of thee;
And more on that recalled resemblance pause,
Than all he shall not force on our applause.

Long may thy yet meridian lustre shine,
With all that Virtue asks of Homage thine:
The symmetry of youth- the grace of mien -
The eye that gladdens - and the brow serene;

The glossy darkness of that clustering hair,

Which shades, yet shows that forehead more than fair!
Each glance that wins us, and the life that throws
A spell which will not let our looks repose,
But turn to gaze again, and find anew

Some charm that well rewards another view.
These are not lessened, these are still as bright,
Albeit too dazzling for a dotard's sight;
And those must wait till every charm is gone,
To please the paltry heart that pleases none;
That dull cold sensualist, whose sickly eye
In envious dimness passed thy portrait by;
Who racked his little spirit to combine
Its hate of Freedom's loveliness, and thine.
August, 1814.

TO BELSHAZZAR.

BELSHAZZAR! from the banquet turn,
Nor in thy sensual fulness fall;
Behold! while yet before thee burn
The graven words, the glowing wall.
Many a despot men miscall

Crowned and anointed from on high;
But thou, the weakest, worst of all-

Is it not written, thou must die?

Go! dash the roses from thy brow

Gray hairs but poorly wreathe with them; Youth's garlands misbecome thee now, More than thy very diadem,

Where thou hast tarnished every gem:Then throw the worthless bauble by, Which, worn by thee, even slaves contemn; And learn like better men to die!

Oh! early in the balance weighed,

And ever light of word and worth,
Whose soul expired ere youth decayed,
And left thee but a mass of earth.
To see thee moves the scorner's mirth:

But tears in Hope's averted eye
Lament that even thou hadst birth

Unfit to govern, live, or die.

ELEGIAC STANZAS ON THE DEATH OF SIR PETER PARKER, BART.*

THERE is a tear for all that die,

A mourner o'er the humblest grave;
But nations swell the funeral cry,
And Triumph weeps above the brave.

For them is Sorrow's purest sigh
O'er Ocean's heaving bosom sent:
In vain their bones unburied lie,

All earth becomes their monument!

A tomb is theirs on every page,
An epitaph on every tongue:
The present hours, the future age,

For them bewail, to them belong.

For them the voice of festal mirth

Grows hushed, their name the only sound;
While deep Remembrance pours to Worth
The goblet's tributary round.

A theme to crowds that knew them not,
Lamented by admiring foes,

Who would not share their glorious lot?

Who would not die the death they chose?

[This gallant officer fell in August, 1814, in his twenty-ninth year, whilst commanding, on shore, a party from his ship, in the attack on the American camp near Baltimore. He was Byron's first cousin; but they had never met since boyhood.]

And, gallant Parker! thus enshrined
Thy life, thy fall, thy fame shall be;
And early valor, glowing, find

A model in thy memory.

But there are breasts that bleed with thee

In woe, that glory cannot quell;

And shuddering hear of victory,

Where one so dear, so dauntless, fell.

Where shall they turn to mourn thee less? When cease to hear thy cherished name? Time cannot teach forgetfulness,

While Grief's full heart is fed by Fame.

Alas! for them, though not for thee,
They cannot choose but weep the more;
Deep for the dead the grief must be,
Who ne'er gave cause to mourn before.

October, 1814.

STANZAS FOR MUSIC.*

["THERE'S NOT A JOY THE WORLD CAN GIVE," ETC.]

"O Lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros
Ducentium ortus ex animo: quater

Felix! in imo qui scatentem

Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit."

GRAY'S Poemata.

THERE's not a joy the world can give like that it

takes away,

When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay;

'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast,

But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.

Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness

Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt or ocean of ex

cess:

The magnet of their course is gone, or only points

in vain

The shore to which their shivered sail shall never stretch again.

These verses were given by Byron to Mr. Power, who published them, with beautiful music by Sir John Stevenson. ["I feel merry enough to send you a sad song. An event, the death of poor Dorset, and the recollection of what I once felt, and ought to have felt now, but could not-set me pondering, and finally into the train of thought which you have in your hands."]-Byron to Moore.