« Vain is each voice whose tones could once command ; ་་ E'en factions cease to charm a factious land;

<< While jarring sects convulse a sister isle,

« And light with madd'ning hands the mutual pile.

« 'Tis done, 'tis past, since Pallas warns in vain, << The Furies seize her abdicated reign:

Wide o'er the realm they wave their kindling brands, "And wring her vitals with their fiery hands.

<< But one convulsive struggle still remains,

« And Gaul shall weep ere Albion wear her chains.
The bannered pomp of war, the glittering files,
«O'er whose gay trappings stern Bellona smiles;
« The brazen trump, the spirit-stirring drum,
"That bid the foe defiance ere they come;
"The hero bounding at his country's call,
"The glorious death that decorates his fall,
« Swell the young heart with visionary charms,
« And bid it antedate the joys of arms.

་

But know, a lesson you may yet be taught,

« With death alone are laurels cheaply bought; «Not in the conflict Havoc seeks delight,

"His day of mercy is the day of fight;

«But when the field is fought, the battle won,

Though drench'd with gore, his woes are but begun ;

«His deeper deeds ye yet know but by name,-
"The slaughter'd peasant and the ravish'd dame,
"The rifled mansion and the foe-reap'd field,
"Ill suit with souls at home untaught to yield

Say with what eye, along the distant down, Would flying burghers mark the blazing town? "How view the column of ascending flames

« Shake his red shadow o'er the startled Thames?

Nay, frown not, Albion! for the torch was thine << That lit such pyres from Tagus to the Rhine:

"Now should they burst on thy devoted coast,

་་

་་

Go, ask thy bosom, who deserves them most?

The law of heav'n and earth is life for life,

And she who rais'd in vain regrets the strife. »

London, 1812.

AVIS.

LE VAMPIRE, faussement attribué à lord Byron, est de Polidori, jeune médecin, qui a vécu quelque temps à Genève avec le poëte anglais.

Protégé par le nom de l'auteur du Corsaire et de Lara, le Vampire a joui d'un grand succès, et inspiré un mélodrame fameux.

On a cru devoir réunir le Vampire aux ŒEuvres de lord Byron, comme ayant la teinte de son génie, et pour satisfaire les lecteurs curieux de lire une production où Polidori a imité, autant qu'il était en lui, le style sombre, attachant et romantique du fameux lord, dont la réputation est devenue européenne.

THE

VAM PY RE,

A TALE.

1

T