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'Tis to him we love most,

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And to all who love him. Brave gallants, stand up,

And avaunt ye, base carles! Were there death in the cup,

Here's a health to King Charles.

Though he wanders through dangers,
Unaided, unknown,

Dependent on strangers, .
Estranged from his own;
Though 't is under our breath,
Amidst forfeits and perils,
Here's to honour and faith,
And a health to King Charles!

Let such honours abound
As the time can afford,
The knee on the ground,

And the hand on the sword;
But the time shall come round
When, 'mid Lords, Dukes, and Earls,
The loud trumpet shall sound,
Here's a health to King Charles.

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And weigh their Justice in a Golden Scale;
E'en then the boldest start from public sneers,
Afraid of Shame, unknown to other fears,
More darkly sin, by Satire kept in awe,
And shrink from Ridicule, though not from
Law.

Such is the force of Wit! but not belong
To me the arrows of satiric song;
The royal vices of our age demand

A keener weapon, and a mightier hand.
Still there are follies, e'en for me to chase, 40

*This satire is in part a retort which Byron was stung into making by the ridicule with which the Edinburgh Review in January, 1808, received his youthful volume of verses, Hours of Idleness; though he had before planned a satirical poem upon contemporary English poets. In later years he regretted his severity, and especially his treatment of Francis Jeffrey, the editor of the journal, whom he had wrongly suspected of writing the offending article. See Eng. Lit., p. 246.

And yield at least amusement in the race:
Laugh when I laugh, I seek no other fame,
The cry is up, and scribblers are my game:
Speed, Pegasus!-ye strains of great and small,
Ode! Epic! Elegy!-have at you all!

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I, too, can scrawl, and once upon a time
I poured along the town a flood of rhyme,
A schoolboy freak, unworthy praise or blame;
I printed-older children do the same.
'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print;
A Book's a Book, altho' there's nothing in 't.
Not that a Title's sounding charm can save
Or scrawl or scribbler from an equal grave:
This Lamb1 must own, since his patrician name
Failed to preserve the spurious farce from
shame.

No matter, George continues still to write,
Tho' now the name is veiled from public sight.
Moved by the great example, I pursue
The self-same road, but make my own review:
Not seek great Jeffrey 's, yet like him will be
Self-constituted Judge of Poesy.

A man must serve his time to every trade Save Censure Critics all are ready made.

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Take hackneyed jokes from Miller, got by rote,
With just enough of learning to misquote;
A mind well skilled to find, or forge a fault;
A turn for punning-call it Attic salt;3
To Jeffrey go, be silent and discreet,
His pay is just ten sterling pounds per sheet:
Fear not to lie, 'twill seem a sharper hit; 70
Shrink not from blasphemy, 'twill pass for wit;
Care not for feeling-pass your proper jest,
And stand a Critic, hated yet caressed.

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While such are Critics, why should I forbear?

Behold! in various throngs the scribbling

crew,

For notice eager, pass in long review: Each spurs his jaded Pegasus apace,

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And Rhyme and Blank maintain an equal race;
Sonnets on sonnets crowd, and ode on ode;
And Tales of Terrors jostle on the road;
Immeasurable measures move along;*
For simpering Folly loves a varied song,
To strange, mysterious Dulness still the friend,
Admires the strain she cannot comprehend.
Thus Lays of Minstrels-may they be the
last!

On half-strung harps whine mournful to the blast,

While mountain spirits prate to river sprites, That dames may listen to the sound at nights; And goblin brats, of Gilpin Horner's brood, Decoy young Border-nobles through the wood, And skip at every step, Lord knows how high, And frighten foolish babes, the Lord knows why;

While high-born ladies in their magic cell, Forbidding Knights to read who cannot spell,

Despatch a courier to a wizard's grave,

And fight with honest men to shield a knave.

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On public taste to foist thy stale romance,
Though Murray with his Miller may combine
To yield thy muse just half-a-crown per line?
No! when the sons of song descend to trade,
Their bays are sear, their former laurels fade;
Let such forego the poet's sacred name,
Who rack their brains for lucre, not for fame:
Still for stern Mammon may they toil in vain!
And sadly gaze on gold they cannot gain!
Such be their meed, such still the just reward
Of prostituted Muse and hireling bard!
For this we spurn Apollo's venal son,8
And bid a long "good night to Marmion.''

5 By "Monk" Lewis (Eng. Lit., 204).

180

6 Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805) grew out of a suggestion for a ballad derived from an absurd old Border legend of Gilpin Horner. 7 Publishers.

8 i. e., this bought Orpheus (Scott)

9 Marmion, line 869.

* This is a sneer at the new anapestic metres.

See Eng. Lit., p. 243.

These are the themes that claim our plaudits | A bard may chaunt too often and too long; now; As thou art strong in verse, in merey spare!

These are the Bards to whom the Muse must A fourth, alas! were more than we could bear. bow;

While Milton, Dryden, Pope, alike forgot,
Resign their hallowed Bays to Walter Scott.

But if, in spite of all the world can say,
Thou still wilt verseward plod thy weary way;
If still in Berkley-Ballads most uncivil,
Thou wilt devote old women to the devil,18

The time has been, when yet the Muse was The babe unborn thy dread intent may rue:

young,

231

189"God help thee," Southey, and thy readers too.

When Homer swept the lyre, and Maro10 sung,
An Epic11 scarce ten centuries could claim,
While awe-struck nations hailed the magic

name:

The work of each immortal Bard appears
The single wonder of a thousand years.
Empires have mouldered from the face of earth,
Tongues have expired with those who gave them
birth,

Without the glory such a strain can give,
As even in ruin bids the language live.
Not so with us, though minor Bards, content.
On one great work a life of labour spent:
With eagle pinion soaring to the skies,
Behold the Ballad-monger Southey rise!
To him let Camoens, Milton, Tasso yield,
Whose annual strains, like armies, take

field.12

First in the ranks see Joan of Arc advance,
The scourge of England and the boast

France!

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Next comes the dull disciple of thy school. That mild apostate from poetic rule, The simple Wordsworth, framer of a lay As soft as evening in his favourite May, Who warns his friend19 to shake off toil and trouble, 239

And quit his books, for fear of growing double'';

Who, both by precept20 and example, shows
That prose is verse, and verse is merely prose:
Convincing all, by demonstration plain,
Poetic souls delight in prose insane;
And Christmas stories tortured into rhyme
Contain the essence of the true sublime.
Thus, when he tells the tale of Betty Foy,
The idiot mother of "an idiot Boy",
the moon-struck, silly lad, who lost his way,
And, like his bard, confounded night with day;
So close on each pathetic part he dwells,
And each adventure so sublimely tells,
That all who view the "idiot in his glory"
Conceive the Bard the hero of the story.

of

210

Though burnt by wicked Bedford13 for a witch,
Behold her statue placed in Glory's niche;
Her fetters burst, and just released from prison,
A virgin Phoenix from her ashes risen.
Next see tremendous Thalaba come on,
Arabia's monstrous, wild, and wond 'rous son;
Domdaniel's14 dread destroyer, who o'erthrew
More mad magicians than the world e'er knew.
Immortal Hero! all thy foes o'ercome,
For ever reign-the rival of Tom Thumb!15
Since startled Metre fled before thy face,
Well wert thou doomed the last of all thy race!
Well might triumphant Genii bear thee hence,
Illustrious conqueror of common sense!
Now, last and greatest, Madoc spreads his sails,
Cacique16 in Mexico, and Prince in Wales;
Tells us strange tales, as other travellers do,
More old than Mandeville's,17 and not so true.
Oh, Southey! Southey! cease thy varied song!

10 Virgil

11 Object of "claim."

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18 In Southey's ballad, The Old Woman of Berkeley, the old woman is carried off by the Devil.

19 In The Tables Turned.

20 In his preface to Lyrical Ballads.

21 In Songs of the Piries, containing "Lines to a Young Ass."

1 "My life, I love you."

Hear my vow before I go,

Ζωη μου, σας αγαπω.

By those tresses unconfined,

Wooed by each gean wind;

By those lids whose jetty fringe

Kiss thy soft cheeks' blooming tinge;
By those wild eyes like the roe,
Ζωη μου, σας αγαπω.

By that lip I long to taste;
By that zone-encircled waist;

By all the token-flowers that tell
What words can never speak so well;

By love's alternate joy and woe,
Ζωη μου, σας αγαπω.

Maid of Athens! I am gone:
Think of me, sweet! when alone.
Though I fly to Istambol,2

Athens holds my heart and soul;
Can I cease to love thee?

Ζωη μου, σας αγαπω.

6

12

18

No!

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SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express

How pure, how dear, their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

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A heart whose love is innocent!

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SO WE'LL GO NO MORE A ROVING

So we'll go no more a roving

So late into the night,

Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,

And the soul wears out the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon.

STANZAS WRITTEN ON THE ROAD BE

TWEEN FLORENCE AND PISA

Oh, 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-andtwenty

Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.

4

With that water, as this wine,
The libation I would pour
Should be peace with thine and mine,
And a health to thee, Tom Moore.

SONNET ON CHILLON

Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind!
Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art,
For there thy habitation is the heart-
The heart which love of thee alone can bind;

What are garlands and crowns to the brow that And when thy sons to fetters are consigned— is wrinkled?

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To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom,

'Tis but as a dead flower with May-dew be- Their country conquers with their martyrdom, sprinkled.

And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind.

Then away with all such from the head that is Chillon!† thy prison is a holy place, hoary!

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

8

Oh, Fame!—if I e'er took delight in thy praises,

'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases,

And thy sad floor an altar-for 't was trod,
Until his very steps have left a trace
Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod,
By Bonnivard! May none those marks efface!
For they appeal from tyranny to God.

THE PRISONER OF CHILLON‡

Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one My hair is gray, but not with years, discover,

She thought that I was not unworthy to love her.

12

There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee;

Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee;

Nor grew it white

In a single night,

As men's have grown from sudden fears;
My limbs are bowed, though not with toil.
But rusted with a vile repose,

For they have been a dungeon's spoil,
And mine has been the fate of those
To whom the goodly earth and air

When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in Are banned, and barred-forbidden fare;

my story,

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

TO THOMAS MOORE*

My boat is on the shore,

And my bark is on the sea; But, before I go, Tom Moore,

Here's a double health to thee!

Here's a sigh to those who love me,
And a smile to those who hate;
And, whatever sky's above me,
Here's a heart for every fate.
Though the ocean roar around me,

Yet it still shall bear me on;
Though a desert should surround me,
It hath springs that may be won.

Were't the last drop in the well,

As I gasped upon the brink,

Ere my fainting spirit fell,

"Tis to thee that I would drink.

16

16

The first stanza of this poem was written in 1816, when Byron left England for the last time.

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8 François de Bonivard was a republican of Geneva who resisted the domination of the Duke of Savoy and was imprisoned for six years (1530-1536) in the castle of Chillon, on the Lake of Geneva (Leman). When the castle was captured by his republican friends, he was released. Byron has greatly idealized the character and has invented the circumstance of the imprisonment and death of the brothers. The poem was composed in two days. Of it Dr. F. I. Carpenter writes: "There is very little action; there is very little ornament; the narrative evolves from within, and is presented with high dramatic fidelity, and with subtle gradation and progression. The situation in itself is bare and simple; the art with which the poet develops it is masterly Who else, except Dante perhaps, as in the Ugolino episode [Inferno 33], could do so much with so little?"

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