XXVI.

Shout, drink, feast, and flatter! Oh! Erin, how low Wert thou sunk by misfortune and tyranny, till Thy welcome of tyrants hath plunged thee below The depth of thy deep in a deeper gulf still.

XXVII.

My voice, though but humble, was raised for thy right,
My vote, as a freeman's, still voted thee free,
This hand, though but feeble, would arm in thy fight,
And this heart, though outworn, had a throb still
for thee!

XXVIII.

Yes, I loved thee and thine, though thou art not my

land,

I have known noble hearts and great souls in thy

sons,

And I wept with the world o'er the patriot band

Who are gone, but I weep them no longer as once.

XXIX.

For happy are they now reposing afar,

Thy Grattan, thy Curran, thy Sheridan, all Who, for years, were the chiefs in the eloquent war, And redeemed, if they have not retarded, thy

fall.

XXX.

Yes, happy are they in their cold English graves! Their shades cannot start to thy shouts of to-day

Nor the steps of enslavers and chain-kissing slaves Be stamped in the turf o'er their fetterless clay.

XXXI.

Till now I had envied thy sons and their shore, Though their virtues were hunted, their liberties

fled;

There was something so warm and sublime in the

core

Of an Irishman's heart, that I envy — thy dead.

XXXII.

Or, if aught in my bosom can quench for an hour My contempt for a nation so servile, though sore, Which though trod like the worm will not turn upon power,

'Tis the glory of Grattan, and genius of Moore ! *

STANZAS WRITTEN ON THE ROAD BETWEEN FLORENCE AND PISA.

I.

Он, talk not to me of a name great in story;
The days of our youth are the days of our glory;
And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty
Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.

*["The enclosed lines, as you will directly perceive, are written by the Rev. W. L. Bowles. Of course it is for him to deny them, if they are not." - Lord B. to Mr. Moore, Sept. 17, 1821.]

II.

What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled?

'Tis but as a dead-flower with May-dew besprinkled. Then away with all such from the head that is hoary!

What care I for the wreaths that can only give glory?

III.

Oh FAME!-if I e'er took delight in thy praises,
'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases,
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover
She thought that I was not unworthy to love her.

IV.

There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee; Her glance was the best of the rays that surround

thee;

When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story,

I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory.*

*["I composed these stanzas (except the fourt!, added now) a few days ago, on the road from Florence to Pisa."- Byron's Diary, Pisa, 6th Nov. 1821.]

STANZAS:

TO A HINDOO AIR.

[These verses were written by Byron a little before he left Italy for Greece. They were meant to suit the Hindostanee air-"Alla Malla Punca," which the Countess Guiccioli was fond of singing.]

OH!- my lonely - lonely - lonely - Pillow!
Where is my lover? where is my lover?

Is it his bark which my dreary dreams discover?
Far far away! and alone along the billow?

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.*

BENEATH Blessington's eyes

The Reclaimed Paradise

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 asked for a verse :

the request
In a rhymer 't were strange to deny ;
But my Hippocrene was but my breast,
And my feelings (its fountain) are dry.

Were I now as I was, I had sung

What Lawrence has painted so well;
But the strain would expire on my tongue,
And the theme is too soft for my shell.

* [This impromptu was uttered by Byron on going with Lord and Lady Blessington to a villa at Genoa called "Il Paradiso," which his companions thought of renting.]

† [The Genoese wits had already applied this threadbare jest to himself. Taking it into their heads that this villa had been the one fixed on for his own residence, they said, "Il Diavolo è ancora entrato in Paradiso." - MOORE.]

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