The Works of Lord Byron

I SAW THEE WEEP.

I SAW thee weep-the big bright tear
Came o'er that eye of blue;
And then methought it did appear
A violet dropping dew:

I saw thee smile-the sapphire's blaze
Beside thee ceased to shine;

It could not match the living rays
That fill'd that glance of thine.

As clouds from yonder sun receive

A deep and mellow dye,

Which scarce the shade of coming eve

Can banish from the sky,

Those smiles upon the moodiest mind
Their own pure joy impart;
Their sunshine leaves a glow behind
That lightens o'er the heart.

THY DAYS ARE DONE.

THY days are done, thy fame begun;
Thy country's strains record
The triumphs of her chosen Son,
The slaughters of his sword!
The deeds he did, the fields he won,
The freedom he restored!

Though thou art fall'n, while we are free
Thou shalt not taste of death!
The generous blood that flow'd from thee
Disdain'd to sink beneath:
Within our veins its currents be,
Thy spirit on our breath!

Thy name, our charging hosts along,

Shall be the battle-word!

Thy fall, the theme of choral song
From virgin voices pour'd!
To weep would do thy glory wrong;
Thou shalt not be deplored.

SONG OF SAUL BEFORE HIS LAST BATTLE.

WARRIORS and Chiefs! should the shaft or the sword

Pierce me in leading the host of the Lord,
Heed not the corse, though a king's, in your path:
Bury your steel in the bosoms of Gath!

Thou who art bearing my buckler and bow,
Should the soldiers of Saul look away from the foe,
Stretch me that moment in blood at thy feet!
Mine be the doom which they dared not to meet.

Farewell to others, but never we part,
Heir to my royalty, son of my heart!
Bright is the diadem, boundless the sway,
Or kingly the death, which awaits us to-day!

SAUL.

THOU whose spell can raise the dead
Bid the prophet's form appear.
"Samuel, raise thy buried head!

King, behold the phantom seer!"
Earth yawn'd; he stood the centre of a cloud :
Light changed its hue, retiring from his shroud.
Death stood all glassy in his fixed eye;

His hand was wither'd, and his veins were dry;
His foot, in bony whiteness, glitter'd there,
Shrunken and sinewless, and ghastly bare;
From lips that moved not, and unbreathing frame,
Like cavern'd winds, the hollow accents came.
Saul saw, and fell to earth, as falls the oak,
At once,
and blasted by the thunder-stroke.

"Why is my sleep disquieted?
Who is he that calls the dead?
Is it thou, O king? Behold,
Bloodless are these limbs, and cold:
Such are mine; and such shall be
Thine to-morrow, when with me;
Ere the coming day is done,
Such shalt thou be, such thy son.
Fare thee well, but for a day;
Then we mix our mouldering clay.
Thou, thy race, lie pale and low,
Pierced by shafts of many a bow;
And the falchion by thy side
To thy heart thy hand shall guide:
Crownless, breathless, headless fall,
Son and sire, the house of Saul!”

"ALL IS VANITY, SAITH THE PREACHER."

FAME, wisdom, love, and power were mine,
And health and youth possess'd me;
My goblets blush'd from every vine,
And lovely forms caress'd me;

I sunn'd my heart in beauty's eyes, And felt my soul grow tender; All earth can give, or mortal prize, Was mine of regal splendor.

I strive to number o'er what days Remembrance can discover, Which all of life or earth displays Would lure me to live over.

There rose no day, there roll'd no hour
Of pleasure unembitter'd;
And not a trapping deck'd my power

That gall'd not while it glitter'd.

The serpent of the field, by art

And spells, is won from harming; But that which coils around the heart, Oh! who hath power of charming?

It will not list to wisdom's lore, Nor music's voice can lure it; But there it stings for evermore The soul that must endure it.

The monarch saw, and shook,
And bade no more rejoice;
All bloodless wax'd his look,
And tremulous his voice.
"Let the men of lore appear,
The wisest of the earth,
And expound the words of fear,
Which mar our royal mirth."

WERE MY BOSOM AS FALSE AS THOU DEEM'ST IT TO BE.

WERE my bosom as false as thou deem'st it to be,
I need not have wander'd from far Galilee;
It was but abjuring my creed to efface

The curse which, thou say'st, is the crime of my race.

If the bad never triumph, then God is with thee!
If the slave only sin, thou art spotless and free'
If the Exile on earth is an Outcast on high,
Live on in thy faith, but in mine I will die.

I have lost for that faith more than thou canst Detow, As the God who permits thee to prosper doth know; In his hand is my heart and my hope-and in thine The land and the life which for him I resign.

HEROD'S LAMENT FOR MARIAMNE.

OH, Mariamne! now for thee

The heart for which thou bled'st is bleeding; Revenge is lost in agony,

And wild remorse to rage succeeding

Oh, Mariamne! where art thou?

Thou canst not hear my bitter pleading; Ah, couldst thou-thou wouldst pardon now, Though Heaven were to my prayer unheeding.

And is she dead?—and did they dare
Obey my frenzy's jealous raving?
My wrath but doom'd my own despair;

The sword that smote her 's o'er me waving.But thou art cold, my murder'd love!

And this dark heart is vainly craving For her who soars alone above,

And leaves my soul unworthy saving.

She's gone, who shared my diadem;

She sunk, with her my joys entombing;
I swept that flower from Judah's stem

Whose leaves for me alone were blooming,
And mine's the guilt and mine the hell,
This bosom's desolation dooming;
And I have earn'd those tortures well,
Which unconsumed are still consuming!

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, But through it there roll'd not the breath of his pride:

And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the

sword,

Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord'

FROM JOB.

A SPIRIT pass'd before me: I beheld
The face of Immortality unveil'd-
Deep sleep came down on every eye save mine-
And there it stood,-all formless-but divine:

BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON WE SAT Along my bones the creeping flesh did quake;

DOWN AND WEPT.

WE sat down and wept by the waters
Of Babel, and thought of the day/
When our foe, in the hue of his slaughters,
Made Salem's high places his prey;
And ye, oh her desolate daughters!
Were scatter'd all weeping away.

And as my damp hair stiffen'd, thus it spake:

"Is man more just than God? Is man more pure
Than he who deems even Seraphs insecure?
Creatures of clay-vain dwellers in the dust!
The moth survives you, and are ye more just?
Things of a day! you wither ere the night,
Heedless and blind to Wisdom's wasted light!"

THE LAMENT OF TASSO.

ADVERTISEMENT.

And revell'd among men and things divine, And pour'd my spirit over Palestine, AT Ferrara, in the Library, are preserved the In honor of the sacred war for him, original MSS. of Tasso's Gierusalemme and of The God who was on earth and is in heaven, Guarini's Pastor Fido, with letters of Tasso, one For he hath strengthen'd me in heart and limb. from Titian to Ariosto; and the inkstand and chair, That through this sufferance I might be forgiven, the tomb and the house of the latter. But as mis- I have employ'd my penance to record

fortune has a greater interest for posterity, and lit- How Salem's shrine was won, and how adored. tle or none for the contemporary, the cell where

Tasso was confined in the hospital of St. Anna

II.

attracts a more fixed attention than the residence or But this is o'er-my pleasant task is done ;the monument of Ariosto-at least it had this effect My long sustaining friend of many years! on me. There are two inscriptions, one on the outer If I do blot thy final page with tears, gate, the second over the cell itself, inviting, unne- Know, that my sorrows have wrung from me none cessarily, the wonder and the indignation of the But thou, my young creation! my soul's child! 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

fill 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;

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 ir.ly 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
Oh 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 mankind.
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;

But 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'er-labor'd mind,
And dim the little light that's left behind
With needless torture, as their tyrants 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;

JOh! not dismay'd-but awed, like One at sve,
And in that sweet severity there was

A something which all softness did surpass-
I know not how-thy genius master'd mine-
My star stood still before thee:-if it were
Presumptuous thus to love without design,
That sad fatality hath cost me dear;

'Mid sights and sounds like these my life may close: But thou art dearest still, and I should be 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,

Fit for this cell, which wrongs me, but for thes
The very love which lock'd me to my chain
Hath lighten'd half its weight; and for the rest,
Though heavy, lent me vigor 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 pervade
And mingle with whate'er I saw on earth:
Of objects all inanimate I made

Idols, and out of wild and lonely flowers,
And rocks, whereby they grew, a paradise,
Where I did lay me down within the shade
call-Though I was chid for wandering; and the wise
Of waving trees, and dream'd uncounted hours,
Shook their white aged heads o'er me, and said
Of such materials wretched men were made,
And such a truant boy would end in wo,
And that the only lesson was a blow;
And then they smote me, and I did not weep,
But cursed them in my heart, and to my haunt
Return'd and wept alone, and dream'd again
The visions which arise without a sleep.
And with my years my soul began to pant
With feelings of strange tumult and soft pain;
And the whole heart exhaled into One Want,
But undefined and wandering, till the day

Nor words a language, nor ev'n men mankind;
Where cries reply to curses, shrieks to blows,
And each is tortured in his seperate 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 neighbor's
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
Hath robed thee with a glory, and array'd
Thy lineaments in beauty that dismay'd-

I found the thing I sought, and that was thee;
And then I lost my being all to be
Absorb'd in thine-the world was pass'd away-
Thou didst annihilate the earth to me!

VII.

I loved all solitude-but little thought
To spend I know not what of life, remote
From all communion with existence, save
The maniac and his tyrant; had I been
Their fellow, many years ere this had seen
My mind like theirs corrupted to its grave,
But who hath seen me writhe, or heard me rave?
Perchance in such a cell we suffer more
Than the wreck'd sailor on his desert shore;
The world is all before him-mine is here,
Scarce twice the space they must accord my bier.
What though he perish, he may lift his eye,
And with a dying glance upbraid the sky-
I will not raise my own in such reproof,
Although 'tis clouded by my dungeon roof

VIII.

Yet do I feel at times my mind decline,
But with a sense of its decay :-I see
Unwonted lights along my prison shine,
And a strange demon, who is vexing me
With pilfering pranks and petty pains, below
The feeling of the healthful and the free;
But much to One, who long hath suffer'd so,
Sickness of heart, and narrowness of place,
And all that may be borne, or can debase

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Libros

The Works of Lord Byron: Embracing His Suppressed Poems, and a Sketch of His ...