The poetical works of lord Byron, ed. with a critical mem. by W. M. Rossetti

Then let the ties of baffled love

be broken--thine will never break ; Thy heart can feel, but will not move; Thy so, though soft, will never shake. And these, when all was lost beside, Were found and still are fix'd in thee;— And bearing still a breast so tried, Farth is no desert-ev'n to me.

STANZAS TO AUGUSTA.

THOUGH the day of my destiny's over,
An the star of my fate hath declined,
Thy soft heart refused to discover

The faults which so many could find;
Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted,
It shrunk not to share it with me,
And the live which my spirit hath painted
It never hath found but in thee.
Then when nature around me is smiling,
The last smile which answers to mine,
I do not believe it beguiling,

Because it reminds me of thine;

And when winds are at war with the ocean,
As the breasts I believed in with me,
If their billows excite an emotion,

It is that they bear me from thee.
Though the rock of my last hope is shiver'd,
And its fragments are sunk in the wave,
Though I feel that my soul is deliver'd

To pain-it shall not be its slave.
There is many a pang to pursue me:
They may crush, but they shall not contemn;
They may torture, but shall not subdue me;
Tis of thee that I think-not of them.
Though human, thou didst not deceive me,
Though woman, thou didst not forsake,
Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me,
Though slander'd, thou never couldst shake;
Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me;
Though parted, it was not to fly,
Though watchful, 'twas not to defame me,
Nor, mute, that the world might belie.
Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it,
Nor the war of the many with one:
If my soul was not fitted to prize it,
'Twas folly not sooner to shun:
And if dearly that error hath cost me,
And more than I once could foresee,
I have found that, whatever it lost me,
It could not deprive me of thee.
From the wreck of the past, which hath perish'd,
Thus much I at least may recall,

It hath taught me that what I most cherish'd, Deserved to be dearest of all:

In the desert a fountain is springing,

In the wide waste there still is a tree, And a bird in the solitude singing, Which speaks to my spirit of thee.

EPISTLE TO AUGUSTA.

My sister! my sweet sister! if a name
Dearer and purer were, it should be thine;
Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim
No tears, but tenderness to answer mine:
Go where I will, to me thou art the same-
A loved regret which I would not resign.
There yet are two things in my destiny-
A world to roam through, and a home with thee.

The first were nothing-had I still the last,
It were the haven of my happiness:
But other claims and other ties thou hast,
And mine is not the wish to make them less.
A strange doom is thy father's son's, and past
Recalling, as it lies beyond redress:
Reversed for him our grandsire's fate of yore,-
He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore.
If my inheritance of storms hath been
In other elements, and on the rocks
Of perils, overlook'd or unforeseen,

I have sustain'd my share of worldly shocks,
The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen
My errors with defensive paradox;
The careful pilot of my proper woe.
I have been cunning in mine overthrow,

Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward: My whole life was a contest, since the day That gave me being, gave me that which marr'd The gift-a fate, or will, that walk'd astray; And I at times have found the struggle hard,

And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay: But now I fain would for a time survive, If but to see what next can well arrive. Kingdoms and empires in my little day

I have outlived, and yet I am not old; And when I look on this, the petty spray

Of my own years of trouble, which have roll'd Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away:

Something I know not what-does still uphold

A spirit of slight patience ;-not in vain,
Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain.
Perhaps the workings of defiance stir

Within me or perhaps a cold despair,
Brought on when ills habitually recur,-
(For even to this may change of soul refer,
Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air,

And with light armour we may learn to bear), Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not The chief companion of a calmer lot.

I feel almost at times as I have felt

In happy childhood, trees, and flowers, and brooks,

Which do remember me of where I dwelt
Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books,
Come as of yore upon me, and can melt

My heart with recognition of their looks;
And even at moments I could think I see

Some living thing to love—but none like thee.
Here are the Alpine landscapes which create
A fund for contemplation;-to admire
Is a brief feeling of a trivial date;

But something worthier do such scenes in

spire.

Here to be lonely is not desolate,

For much I view which I could most desire, And, above all, a lake I can behold Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old. Oh that thou wert but with me!-but I grow The fool of my own wishes, and forget The solitude which I have vaunted so

Has lost its praise in this but one regret ; There may be others which I less may show,I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet I feel an ebb in my philosophy, And the tide rising in my alter'd eye.

I did remind thee of our own dear Lake,
By the old Hall which may be mine no more,
Leman's is fair; but think not I forsake

The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore:
Sad havoc Time must with my memory make,
Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before;
Though, like all things which I have loved, they

are

Resign'd for ever, or divided far. The world is all before me; I but ask

They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They take a weight from off our waking toils,
They do divide our being; they become
A portion of ourselves as of our time,
And look like heralds of eternity;
They pass like spirits of the past,-they speak
Like sibyls of the future; they have power-
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain:
They make us what we were not-what they
will,

Of Nature that with which she will comply - And shake us with the vision that's gone by,

It is but in her summer's sun to bask,

To mingle with the quiet of her sky,
To see her gentle face without a mask,
And never gaze on it with apathy.
She was my early friend, and now shall be
My sister-till I look again on thee.
I can reduce all feelings but this one;

And that I would not;-for at length I see
Such scenes as those wherein my life begun.
The earliest-even the only paths for me-
Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun,
I had been better than I now can be ;
The passions which have torn me would have
slept;

I had not suffer'd, and thou hadst not wept.
With false Ambition what had I to do?

Little with Love, and least of all with Fame;
And yet they came unsought, and with me grew,
And made me all which they can make-a

name.

Yet this was not the end I did pursue;
Surely I once beheld a nobler aim.
But all is over-I am one the more
To baffled millions which have gone before.
And for the future, this world's future may
From me demand but little of my care;
I have outlived myself by many a day,

Having survived so many things that were;
My years have been no slumber, but the prey
Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share
Of life which might have fill'd a century,
Before its fourth in time had pass'd me by.
And for the remnant which may be to come
I am content; and for the past I feel
Not thankless,-for within the crowded sum

The dread of vanish'd shadows-are they so?
Is not the past all shadow ?-What are they?
Creations of the mind?--The mind can make
Substance, and people planets of its own
With beings brighter than have been, and give
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.
I would recall a vision which I dream'd
Perchance in sleep; for in itself a thought,
A slumbering thought, is capable of years,
And curdles a long life into one hour.

II.

Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,
I saw two beings in the hues of youth
Green, and of mild declivity, the last
As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such,
Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
But a most living landscape, and the wave
Of woods and cornfields, and the abodes of men
Scatter'd at intervals, and wreathing smoke
Arising from such rustic roofs;-the hill
Was crown'd with a peculiar diadem
Of trees, in circular array, so fix'd,
Not by the sport of nature,
but of man:
These two, a maiden and a youth, were there
Gazing-the one on all that was beneath,
Fair as herself-but the boy gazed on her;
And both were young, and one was beautiful:
And both mere young-yet not alike in youth.
As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge,
The maid was on the eve of womanhood;
The boy had fewer summers, but his heart
Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye
There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him; he had look'd
Upon it till it could not pass away;

He had no breath, no being, but in hers;

Of struggles, happiness at times would steal : She was his voice; he did not speak to her,

And for the present, I would not benumb

My feelings further.-Nor shall I conceal
That with all this I still can look around,
And worship Nature with a thought profound.
For thee, my own sweet sister, in thy heart

I know myself secure, as thou in mine;
We were and are-I am, even as thou art-
Beings who ne'er each other can resign;
it is the same, together or apart,

From life's commencement to its slow decline We are entwined: let death come slow or fast, The tie which bound the first endures the last!

THE DREAM.

OUR life is twofold: Sleep hath its own world,
A boundary between the things misnamed
Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world,
And a wide realm of wild reality.

And dreams in their development have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy:

But trembled on her words; she was his sight,
For his eye follow'd hers, and saw with hers,
Which colour'd all his objects:-he had ceased
To live within himself; she was his life,
The ocean to the river of his thoughts,
Which terminated all: upon a tone,
A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow,
And his cheek change tempestuously-his heart
Unknowing of its cause of agony.
But she in these fond feelings had no share :
Her sighs were not for him; to her he was
Even as a brother-but no more; 'twas much,
For brotherless she was, save in the name
Her infant friendship had bestow'd on him;
Herself the solitary scion left

Of a time-honour'd race.-It was a name
Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not-
and why?

Time taught him a deep answer-when she
loved

Another; even now she loved another,
And on the summit of that hill she stood

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
There was an ancient mansion, and before
Its walls there was a steed caparison'd;
Within an antique Oratory stood
The Boy of whom I spake ;-he was alone,
And pale, and pacing to and fro: anon
He sate him down, and seized a pen, and traced
Words which I could not guess of; then he
lean'd

His bow'd head on his hands, and shook as 'twere

With a convulsion-then arose again,
And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear
What he had written, but he shed no tears,
And he did calm himself, and fix his brow
Into a kind of quiet: as he paused,
The Lady of his love re-enter'd there;
She was serene and smiling then, and yet
She knew she was by him beloved,--she knew,
For quickly comes such knowledge, that his
heart

Was darken'd with her shadow, and she saw
That he was wretched, but she saw not all.
He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp
He took her hand; a moment o'er his face
A tablet of unutterable thoughts

Was traced, and then it faded, as it came;
He dropp'd the hand he held, and with slow

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Boy was sprung to manhood; in the wilds
Of fiery climes he made himself a home,
And his soul drank their sunbeams: he was girt
With strange and dusky aspect; he was not
Himself like what he had been; on the sea
And on the shore he was a wanderer;
There was a mass of many images
Crowded like waves upon me, but he was
A part of all; and in the last he lay
Reposing from the noontide sultriness,
Coach'd among fallen columns, in the shade
Of ruin'd walls that had survived the names
Of those who rear'd them; by his sleeping side
Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds
Were fasten'd near a fountain; and a man,
Clad in a flowing garb, did watch the while,
While many of his tribe slumber'd around:
And they were canopied by the blue sky,
So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful,
That God alone was to be seen in heaven.

What could her grief be?-she had all she loved;
And he who had so loved her was not there
To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish,
Or ill-repress'd affliction, her pure thoughts.
What could her grief be?--she had loved him
not,

Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved;
Nor could he be a part of that which prey'd
Upon her mind-a spectre of the past.

VI.

A change came o'er the spirit of
my dream.
The Wanderer was return'd.-I saw him stand
Before an altar-with a gentle bride;
Her face was fair, but was not that which made
The starlight of his Boyhood. As he stood
Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came
The self-same aspect, and the quivering shock
That in the antique Oratory shook

His bosom in its solitude; and then-
As in that hour-a moment o'er his face
The tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced,-and then it faded as it came,
And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke
The fitting vows, but heard not his own words,
And all things reel'd around him; he could see
Not that which was, nor that which should
have been-

But the old mansion, and the accustom'd hall,
And the remember'd chambers, and the place,
The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade,
All things pertaining to that place and hour,
And her who was his destiny,-came back
And thrust themselves between him and the
light:

What business had they there at such a time?

VII.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Lady of his love;-oh! she was changed
As by the sickness of the soul; her mind
Had wander'd from its dwelling, and her eyes,
They had not their own lustre, but the look
Which is not of the earth; she was become
The queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughts
Were combinations of disjointed things;
And forms impalpable and unperceived
Of others' sight familiar were to hers.
And this the world calls frenzy: but the wise
Have a far deeper madness, and the glance
Of melancholy is a fearful gift;
What is it but the telescope of truth?
Which strips the distance of its fantasies,
And brings life near in utter nakedness,
Making the cold reality too real!

VIII.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Wanderer was alone as heretofore,
The beings which surrounded him were gone,
Or were at war with him; he was a mark
For blight and desolation, compass'd round
With Hatred and Contention; Pain was mix'd
In all which was served up to him, until,
Like to the Pontic monarch of old days,
He fed on poisons, and they had no power,
But were a kind of nutriment; he lived
Through that which had been death to many

men,

And made him friends of mountains: with the stars

And the quick Spirit of the Universe
He held his dialogues; and they did teach

To him the magic of their mysteries;
To him the book of Night was open'd wide,
And voices from the deep abyss reveal'd
A marvel and a secret.-Be it so.

IX.

My dream is past; it had no further change.
It was of a strange order, that the doom

Of these two creatures should be thus traced out
Almost like a reality-the one
To end in madness-both in misery.

LINES

ON HEARING THAT LADY BYRON WAS ILL.

AND thou wert sad-yet I was not with thee! And thou wert sick, and yet I was not near; Methought that joy and health alone could be Where I was not-and pain and sorrow here! And is it thus?-it is as I foretold,

And shall be more so; for the mind recoils Upon itself, and the wreck'd heart lies cold, While heaviness collects the shatter'd spoils. It is not in the storm nor in the strife,

We feel benumb'd, and wish to be no more, But in the after-silence on the shore, When all is lost, except a little life. I am too well avenged!-but 'twas my right! Whate'er my sins might be, thou wert not sent To be the Nemesis who should requite

Nor did Heaven choose so near an instrument. Mercy is for the merciful!-if thou Hast been of such, 'twill be accorded now. Thy nights are banish'd from the realms of sleep!

Yes! they may flatter thee, but thou shalt feel A hollow agony which will not heal, For thou art pillow'd on a curse too deep; Thou hast sown in my sorrow, and must reap The bitter harvest in a woe as real! I have had many foes, but none like thee;

Even upon such a basis hast thou built
A monument, whose cement hath been guilt!
The moral Clytemnestra of thy lord,
And hew'd down with an unsuspected sword,
Fame, peace, and hope-and all the better life
Which, but for this cold treason of thy heart,
Might still have risen from out the grave of
strife,

And found a nobler duty than to part.
But of thy virtues didst thou make a vice,
Trafficking with them in a purpose cold,
For present anger, and for future gold-
And buying other's grief at any price.
And thus once enter'd into crooked ways,
The early truth, which was thy proper praise,
Did not still walk beside thee--but at times,
And with a breast unknowing its own crimes,
Deceit, averments incompatible,

Equivocations, and the thoughts which dwell
In Janus-spirits-the significant eye
Which learns to lie with silence-the pretext
Of prudence, with advantages annex'd-
The acquiescence in all things which tend,
No matter how, to the desired end-

All found a place in thy philosophy.
The means were worthy, and the end is won-
I would not do by thee as thou hast done!

THE LAMENT OF TASSO.

1817. ADVERTISEMENT.

AT Ferrara, in the Library, are preserved the original MSS. of Tasso's Gierusalemme and of Guarini's Pastor Fido, with letters of Tasso, one from Titian to Ariosto, and the inkstand and chair, the tomb and the house, of the latter. But as misfortune has a greater interest for posterity, and little or none for the contemporary, the cell where Tasso was confined in the hospital of St Anna attracts a more fixed attention than the residence or the monument of Ariosto-at least it had this effect on me. There are two inscriptions, one on the outer gate, the second over the cell itself, inviting unnecessarily the wonder and the indignation of the spectator. Ferrara is much decayed and depopulated: the castle still exists entire; and I saw the court where Parisina and Hugo were beheaded, according to the annal of Gibbon.

LONG years! It tries the thrilling frame to bear,
And eagle-spirit of a child of Song-
Long years of outrage, calumny, and wrong;
Imputed madness, prison'd solitude,
And the mind's canker in its savage mood,
When the impatient thirst of light and air
Parches the heart; and the abhorred grate,
Marring the sunbeams with its hideous shade,
Works through the throbbing eyeball to the
brain,

With a hot sense of heaviness and pain;
And bare, at once, Captivity display'd
Stands scoffing through the never-open'd gate,
Which nothing through its bars admits, save day,

And tasteless food, which I have eat alone
Till its unsocial bitterness is gone;
And I can banquet like a beast of prey,
Sullen and lonely, couching in the cave
Which is my lair, and-it may be-my grave.
All this hath somewhat worn me, and may wear,
But must be borne. I stoop not to despair;
For I have battled with mine agony,
And made me wings wherewith to overfly
The narrow circus of my dungeon wall,
And freed the Holy Sepulchre from thrall;
And revell'd among men and things divine,
And pour'd my spirit over Palestine
In honour of the sacred war for Him,
The God who was on earth and is in heaven,

For he has strengthen'd me in heart and limb. That through this sufferance I might be forgiven,

I have employ'd my penance to record
How Salem's shrine was won, and how adored.

11.

But this is o'er-my pleasant task is done ;—
My long-sustaining friend of many years!
If I do blot thy final page with tears,

Know that my sorrows have wrung from me

none.

But thou, my young creation! my soul's child!
Which ever playing round me came and smiled,
And woo'd me from myself with thy sweet sight,
Thou too art gone-and so is my delight:
And therefore do I weep and inly bleed
With this last bruise upon a broken reed.
Thou too art ended-what is left me now?
For I have anguish yet to bear-and how?
I know not that-but in the innate force
Of my own spirit shall be found resource.
I have not sunk, for I had no remorse,
Nor cause for such: they call'd me mad-and
why?

O Leonora, wilt not thou reply?
I was indeed delirious in my heart
To lift my love so lofty as thou art:

But still my frenzy was not of the mind;
I knew my fault, and feel my punishment
Not less because I suffer it unbent.
That thou wert beautiful, and I not blind,
Hath been the sin which shuts me from man-
kind;

But let them go, or torture as they will,
My heart can multiply thine image still;
Successful love may sate itself away,

The wretched are the faithful; 'tis their fate
To have all feeling save the one decay,
And every passion into one dilate,
As rapid rivers into ocean pour;

And ours is fathomless, and hath no shore.

III.

Above me, hark! the long and maniac cry
Of minds and bodies in captivity.
And hark! the lash and the increasing howl,
And the half-inarticulate blasphemy!
There be some here with worse than frenzy foul,
Some who do still goad on the o'erlabour'd mind,
And dim the little light that's left behind
With needless torture, as their tyrant will
Is wound up to the lust of doing ill:
With these and with their victims am I class'd,
'Mid sounds and sights like these long years
have pass'd;

'Mid sights and sounds like these my life may close:

So let it be for then I shall repose.

IV.

I have been patient-let me be so yet;
I had forgotten half I would forget,
But it revives-oh! would it were my lot
To be forgetful as I am forgot!-

Feel I not wroth with those who bade me dwell
In this vast lazar-house of many woes?
Where laughter is not mirth, nor thought the
mind,

Nor words a language, nor even men mankind;
Where cries reply to curses, shrieks to blows,
And each is tortured in his separate hell-
For we are crowded in our solitudes -

Many, but each divided by the wall,
Which echoes Madness in her babbling moods,
While all can hear, none heed his neighbour's
call--

None! save that One, the veriest wretch of all
Who was not made to be the mate of these,
Nor bound between Distraction and Disease.
Feel I not wroth with those who placed me here!
Who have debased me in the minds of men,
Debarring me the usage of my own,
Blighting my life in best of its career,
Branding my thoughts as things to shun and

fear?

Would I not pay them back these pangs again.
And teach them inward Sorrow's stifled groan
The struggle to be calm, and cold distress?
Which undermines our stoical success?
No!-still too proud to be vindictive-I
Have pardon'd princes' insults, and would die.
Yes, Sister of my Sovereign! for thy sake
I weed all bitterness from out my breast,
It hath no business where thou art a guest:
Thy brother hates--but I can not detest;
Thou pitiest not-but I can not forsake.

Look on a love which knows not to despair,
But all unquench'd is still my better part,
Dwelling deep in my shut and silent heart,
As dwells the gather'd lightning in its cloud,
Encompass'd with its dark and rolling shroud,
Till struck-forth flies the all-ethereal dart!
And thus at the collision of thy name
The vivid thought still flashes through my frame,
And for a moment all things as they were
Flit by me: they are gone-I am the same.
And yet my love without ambition grew;
I knew thy state, my station, and I knew
A Princess was no love-mate for a bard:
I told it not, I breathed it not; it was
Sufficient to itself, its own reward:
And if my eyes reveal'd it, they, alas,
Were punish'd by the silentness of thine,
And yet I did not venture to repine.

Thou wert to me a crystal-girded shrine,
Worshipp'd at holy distance, and around
Hallow'd and meekly kiss'd the saintly ground
Not for thou wert a princess, but that Love
Had robed thee with a glory, and array'd
Thy lineaments in beauty that dismay'd-
Oh! not dismay'd-but awed, like One above;
And in that sweet severity there was
A something which all softness did surpass;
My star stood still before thee: if it were
I know not how-thy genius master'd mine-
Presumptuous thus to love without design,
That sad fatality hath cost me dear;

But thou art dearest still, and I should be
Fit for this cell, which wrongs me-but for thee.
The very love which lock'd me to my chain
Hath lighten'd half its weight; and for the rest,
Though heavy, lent me vigour to sustain,
And look to thee with undivided breast,
And foil the ingenuity of Pain.

VI.

It is no marvel-from my very birth My soul was drunk with love, which did per vade

And mingle with whate'er I saw on earth; Of objects all inanimate I made

Idols, and out of wild and lonely flowers.

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