WINDSOR POETICS. (1)

Lines composed on the occasion of His Royal Highness the
Prince Regent being seen standing between the coffins of
Henry VIII. and Charles I., in the royal vault at Windsor.

FAMED for contemptuous breach of sacred ties,
By headless Charles see heartless Henry lies;
Between them stands another sceptred thing-
It moves, it reigns-in all but name, a king:
Charles to his people, Henry to his wife,
In him the double tyrant starts to life:
Justice and death have mix'd their dust in vain,
Each royal vampire wakes to life again.

Ah, what can tombs avail!-since these disgorge
The blood and dust of both-to mould a George.

ODE TO NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. (2) "Expende Annibalem :-quot libras in duce summo Invenies?" Juvenal, Sat. X. (3) "The Emperor Nepos was acknowledged by the Senate, by the Italians, and by the Provincials of Gaul; his moral virtues, and military talents, were loudly celebrated; and those who derived any private benefit from his government announced in prophetic strains the restoration of public felicity.

By this shameful abdication, he protracted his life a few years, in a very ambiguous state, between an Emperor and an exile, till-——”

Gibbon's Decline and Fall, vol. vi. p. 220. (4)

"T is done--but yesterday a king!

And arm'd with kings to strive—
And now thou art a nameless thing:
So abject-yet alive!

Is this the man of thousand thrones,

Who strew'd our earth with hostile bones,

And can he thus survive? (5)

(I) "I cannot conceive how the Vault has got about--but so it is. It is too farouche; but, truth to say, my sallies are not very playful." Lord B. to Mr. Moore.

It

"I am accused of ingratitude to a certain personage. is pretended that, after his civilities, I should not have spoken of him disrespectfully. Those epigrams were written long before my introduction to him; which was, after all, entirely accidental, and unsought for on my part. I met him one evening at Colonel J-'s. As the party was a small one, he could not help observing me; and as I made a considerable noise at that time, and was one of the lions of the day, he sent General -- to desire I would be presented to him. I would willingly have declined the honour, but could not with decency. His request was in the nature of a command. He was very polite, for he is the politest man in Europe, and paid me some compliments, that meant nothing. This was all the civility he ever showed me, and it does not burthen my conscience much." Medwin.-P. E.

(2) The reader has seen that Lord Byron, when publishing The Corsair, in January, 1814, announced an apparently quite serious resolution to withdraw, for some years at least, from poetry. His letters, of the February and March following, abound in repetitions of the same determination. On the morning of the ninth of April, he writes-"No more rhyme for or rather from me. I have taken my leave of that stage, and henceforth will mountebank it no longer." In the evening, a Gazette Extraordinary announced the abdication of Fontainebleau, and the poet violated his vows next morning, by composing this Ode, which he immediately published, though without his name. His diary says:— "April 10. To-day I have boxed one hour-written an Ode to Napoleon Bonaparte-copied it-eaten six biscuits-drunk fear bottles of soda water, and redde away the rest of my time."-L. E.

(3)

Since he, miscall'd the Morning Star,
Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far.

Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind
Who bow'd so low the knee?
By gazing on thyself grown blind,
Thou taught'st the rest to see.
With might unquestion'd,--power to save,-
Thine only gift hath been the grave

To those that worshipp'd thee:
Nor till thy fall could mortals guess
Ambition's less than littleness!

Thanks for that lesson-it will teach
To after-warriors more
Than high Philosophy can preach,

And vainly preach'd before.
That spell upon the minds of men
Breaks never to unite again,

That led them to adore
Those pagod things of sabre-sway,
With fronts of brass, and feet of clay.

The triumph, and the vanity,

The rapture of the strife (6)—
The earthquake voice of Victory,
To thee the breath of life;
The sword, the sceptre, and that sway
Which man seem'd made but to obey,

Wherewith renown was rife

All quell'd!-Dark Spirit! what must be
The madness of thy memory!

The desolator desolate!

The victor overthrown! The arbiter of others' fate

A suppliant for his own!

Is it some yet imperial hope

That with such change can calmly cope?
Or dread of death alone?

"Produce the urn that Hannibal contains,

And weigh the mighty dust which yet remains:
AND IS THIS ALL!'-

I know not that this was ever done in the old world; at least, with regard to Hannibal: but, in the Statistical Ac- › count of Scotland, I find that Sir John Paterson had the curiosity to collect, and weigh, the ashes of a person, discovered a few years since in the parish of Eccles; which be was happily enabled to do with great facility, as the inside of the coffin was smooth, and the whole body visible.' i Wonderful to relate, he found the whole did not exceed in weight one ounce and a half! AND IS THIS ALL! Alas! the quot libras itself is a satirical exaggeration." Gifford-L. E.

(4) "I send you an additional motto from Gibbon, which you will find singularly appropriate." Lord B. to Mr. M. April 12. 1814.-L. E.

(5) "I don't know-but I think I, even I (an insect compared with this creature), have set my life on casts not a millionth part of this man's. But, after all, a crown may not be worth dying for. Yet, to outlive Lodi for this!!! Oh that Juvenal or Johnson could rise from the dead! Expende-quot libras in duce summo invenies?' I knew they were light in the balance of mortality; but I thought their living dust weighed more carats. Alas! this imperial diamond hath a flaw in it, and is now hardly fit to stick in a glazier's pencil;-the pen of the historian won't rate it worth a ducat. Psha! something too much of this.' But I won't give him up, even now; though all his admirers have, like the Thanes, fallen from him." B. Diary, April 9. -L. E.

(6) "Certaminis gaudia”—the expression of Attila in his harangue to his army, previous to the battle of Chalons, given in Cassiodorus.

To die a prince-or live a slave-
Thy choice is most ignobly brave!

He who of old would rend the oak (1)
Dream'd not of the rebound!
Chain'd by the trunk he vainly broke-

Alone-how look'd he round?
Thou, in the sternness of thy strength,
An equal deed hast done at length,
And darker fate hast found:
He fell, the forest prowlers' prey;
But thou must eat thy heart away!

The Roman, (2) when his burning heart
Was slaked with blood of Rome,
Threw down the dagger-dared depart,
In savage grandeur, home.
He dared depart, in utter scorn
Of men that such a yoke had borne,
Yet left him such a doom!

His only glory was that hour
Of self-upheld abandon'd power.

The Spaniard, when the lust of sway
Had lost its quickening spell, (3)
Cast crowns for rosaries away,
An empire for a cell;
A strict accountant of his beads,
A subtle disputant on creeds,
His dotage trifled well:(4)
Yet better had he neither known

A bigot's shrine nor despot's throne. (5)

But thou-from thy reluctant hand

The thunderbolt is wrung

Too late thou leav'st the high command
To which thy weakness clung;

All evil spirit as thou art,

It is enough to grieve the heart

To see thine own unstrung;

To think that God's fair world hath been
The footstool of a thing so mean!

And Earth hath spilt her blood for him,
Who thus can hoard his own!
And monarchs bow'd the trembling limb,
And thank'd him for a throne!

(1) "Out of town six days. On my return, find my poor little pagod, Napoleon, pushed off his pedestal. It is his own fault. Like Milo, he would rend the oak; but it closed again, wedged his hands, and now the beasts-lion, bear, down to the dirtiest jackall-may all tear him. That Muscovite winter wedged his arms;-ever since, he has fought with his feet and teeth. The last may still leave their marks; and I guess now' (as the Yankees say), that he will yet play them a pass." B. Diary, April 8.-L. E. (2) Sylla. -[We find the germ of this stanza in the diary of the evening before it was written:-"Methinks Sylla did better; for he revenged, and resigned in the height of his sway, red with the slaughter of his foes-the finest instance of glorious contempt of the rascals upon record. Dioclesian did well too-Amurath not amiss, had he become aught except a dervise-Charles the Fifth but so so; but Napoleon worst of all." B. Diary, April 9.]-L. E.

(3) "Alter potent spell' to 'quickening spell:' the first (as Polonias says) is a vile phrase,' and means nothing, besides being common-place and Rosa-Matildaish. After the resolution of not publishing, though our Ode is a thing of little length and less consequence, it will be better altogether that it is anonymous." Lord B. to Mr. M. April II. -L. E.

(4) Charles the Fifth, Emperor of Germany, and King of Spain, resigned, in 1555, his imperial crown to his brother Ferdinand, and the kingdom of Spain to his son Philip, and retired to a monastery in Estremadura, where he conform ed, in his manner of living, to all the rigour of monastic

Fair Freedom! we may hold thee dear,
When thus thy mightiest foes their fear
In humblest guise have shown.
Oh! ne'er may tyrant leave behind
A brighter name to lure mankind!
Thine evil deeds are writ in gore,
Nor written thus in vain-
Thy triumphs tell of fame no more,
Or deepen every stain:

If thou hadst died as honour dies,
Some new Napoleon might arise,

To shame the world again--
But who would soar the solar height,
To set in such a starless night? (6)

Weigh'd in the balance, hero-dust
Is vile as vulgar clay;
Thy scales, Mortality ! are just
To all that pass away:
But yet methought the living great
Some higher sparks should animate,

To dazzle and dismay:

Nor deem'd Contempt could thus make mirth Of these, the conquerors of the earth.

And she, proud Austria's mournful flower,
Thy still imperial bride;

How bears her breast the torturing hour?
Still clings she to thy side?
Must she too bend, must she too share
Thy late repentance, long despair,

Thou throneless homicide?

If still she loves thee, hoard that gem,
'Tis worth thy vanish'd diadem! (7)

Then haste thee to thy sullen Isle,
And gaze upon the sea;
That element may meet thy smile-
It ne'er was ruled by thee!
Or trace with thine all-idle hand
In loitering mood upon the sand

That Earth is now as free!

That Corinth's pedagogue (8) hath now
Transferr'd his by-word to thy brow.

austerity. Not satisfied with this, he dressed himself in
his shroud, was laid in his coffin with much solemnity,
joined in the prayers which were offered up for the rest of
his soul, and mingled his tears with those which his attend-
ants shed, as if they had been celebrating a real funeral.-L. E.
(5) "I looked," says Boswell, "into Lord Kaimes's
Sketches of the History of Man, and mentioned to Dr. John-
son his censure of Charles the Fifth, for celebrating his
funeral obsequies in his life-time, which, I told him, I had
been used to think a solemn and affecting act." JOHNSON.
"Why, sir, a man may dispose his mind to think so of that
act of Charles; but it is so liable to ridicule, that if one man
out of ten thousand laughs at it, he'll make the other nine
thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine laugh too."-
Croker's Boswell, vol. iv. p. 102.-L. E.
(6) In the MS.-

"But who would rise in brightest day

To set without one parting ray?"-L. E.

(7) It is well known that Count Neipperg, a gentleman in the suite of the Emperor of Austria, who was first presented to Maria Louisa within a few days after Napoleon's abdication, became, in the sequel, her chamberlain, and then her husband. He is said to have been a man of re

markably plain appearance. The Count died in 1831.-L. B. (8) Dionysius the Younger, esteemed a greater tyrant than his father, on being for the second time banished from Syracuse, retired to Corinth, where he was obliged to turn schoolmaster for a subsistence.-L. E.

Thou, Timour! in his captive's cage (1)
What thoughts will there be thine,
While brooding in thy prison'd rage?

But one-"The world was mine!"
Uniess, like he of Babylon,

All sense is with thy sceptre gone,
Life will not long confine
That spirit, pour'd so widely forth-
So long obey'd-
-so little worth!

Or, like the thief of fire from heaven, (2)
Wilt thou withstand the shock?
And share with him, the unforgiven,

His vulture and his rock!
Foredoom'd by God-by man accurst, (3)
And that last act, though not thy worst,
The very fiend's arch mock; (4)
He in his fall preserved his pride,
And, if a mortal, had as proudly died!

There was a day-there was an hour, (5) While earth was Gaul's-Gaul thineWhen that immeasurable power

Unsated to resign Had been an act of

purer fame

Than gathers round Marengo's name,
And gilded thy decline
Through the long twilight of all time,
Despite some passing clouds of crime.

(1) The cage of Bajazet, by order of Tamerlane. (2) Prometheus.

(3) In the first draught

(4)

left out.

The poem originally contained but eleven stanzas; the rest were afterwards added in successive editions.-P. E. (6) In one of Lord Byron's MS. Diaries, begun at Ravenna in May, 1821, we find the following:-"What shall I write? -another Journal? I think not. Any thing that comes uppermost, and call it

My Dictionary.

Augustus.-I have often been puzzled with his character. Was he a great man? Assuredly. But not one of my great men. I have always looked upon Sylla as the greatest character in history, for laying down his power at the moinent when it was

To great to keep or to resign.' and thus despising them all. As to the retention of his power by Augustus, the thing was already settled. If he had given it up-the commonwealth was gone-the republic was long past all resuscitation. Had Brutus and Cassius gained the battle of Philippi, it would not have restored the republic. Its days ended with the Gracchi; the rest was a mere struggle of parties. You might as well cure a consumption, or restore a broken egg, as revive a state so long a prey to every uppermost soldier, as Rome had long been. As for a despotism, if Augustus could have been sure that all his successors would have been like himself-I mean not as Octavius, but Augustus) or Napoleon could have in.

sured the world that none of his successors would have been like himself-the ancient or modern world might have | gone on, like the empire of China, in a state of lethargic prosperity. Suppose, for instance, that, instead of Tiberius and Caligula, Augustus had been immediately succeeded by Nerva, Trajan, the Antonines, or even by Titus and his father-what a difference in our estimate of himself!--So far from gaining by the contrast, I think that one half of our dislike arises from his having been heired by Tiberius- and one half of Julius Cæsar's fame, from his having had his empire consolidated by Augustus.- Suppose that there had been no Octavius, and Tiberius had jumped the life' between, and at once succeeded Julius ?-And yet it is difficult to say whether hereditary right or popular choice produce the worser sovereigns. The Roman Consuls make a goodly show; but then they only reigned for a year, and were under a sort of personal obligation to distinguish themselves. It is still more difficult to say which form of government is the worst-all are so bad. As for democracy.

it is the worst of the whole; for what is, in fact, democracy? -an aristocracy of blackguards."-L. E.

(7) On being reminded by a friend of his recent promise not to write any more for years-"There was," replied Lord Byron, "a mental reservation in my pact with the public, in behalf of anonymes; and, even had there not, the provocation was such as to make it physically impossible to pass over this epoch of triumphant tameness. 'Tis a sad business; and, after all, I shall think higher of rhyme and reason, and very humbly of your heroic people, till-Elba becomes a volcano, and sends him out again. I can't think it is all over yet."-L. E.

(8) "Thou hast asked me for a song, and I enclose you an experiment, which has cost me something more than trouble, and is, therefore, less likely to be worth your taking any in your proposed setting. Now, if it be so, throw it into the fire without phrase." Lord B. to Mr. Moore, May 10, 1814.-L. E.

"Many of the best poetical pieces of Lord Byron, having the least amatory feeling, have been strangely distorted by his calumniators, as if applicable to the lamented circumstances of his latter life. The foregoing verses were written more than two years previously to his marriage, and to show how averse his lordship was from touching, in the most distant manner, upon the theme which might be deemed to have a personal allusion, he requested me, the morning before he last left London, either to suppress the verses entirely, or to be careful in putting the date when they were originally written." Nathan.-P. E.

What most admired each scrutinising eye
Of all that deck'd that passing pageantry?
What spread from face to face that wondering air?
The thought of Brutus-for his was not there!
That absence proved his worth,-that absence fix'd
His memory on the longing mind, unmix'd;
And more decreed his glory to endure,
Than all a gold colossus could secure.

If thus, fair Jersey! our desiring gaze
Search for thy form, in vain and mute amaze,
Amidst those pictured charms, whose loveliness,
Bright though they be, thine own had render'd less;
If he, that vain old man, whom truth admits
Heir of his father's crown, and of his wits,
If his corrupted eye, and wither'd heart,
Could with thy gentle image bear to part;
That tasteless shame be his, and ours the grief,
To gaze on Beauty's band without its chief:
Yet comfort still one selfish thought imparts,
We lose the portrait, but preserve our hearts.
What can his vaulted gallery now disclose?
A garden with all flowers-except the rose!
A fount that only wants its living stream;
A night, with every star, save Dian's beam.
Lost to our eyes the present forms shall be,
That turn from tracing them to dream of thee;
And more on that recall'd resemblance pause,
Than all he shall not force on our applause.

Long may thy yet meridian lustre shine, With all that Virtue asks of homage thine: The symmetry of youth-the grace of mienThe eye that gladdens-and the brow serene; The glossy darkness of that clustering hair, Which shades, yet shows that forehead more than fair! Each glance that wins us, and the life that throws A spell which will not let our looks repose, But turn to gaze again, and find anew Some charm that well rewards another view. These are not lessen'd, these are still as bright, Albeit too dazzling for a dotard's sight; And these must wait till every charm is gone, To please the paltry heart that pleases none;That dull cold sensualist, whose sickly eye In envious dimness pass'd thy portrait by; Who rack'd his little spirit to combine Its hate of Freedom's loveliness, and thine.

TO BELSHAZZAR.

Aug. 1814.

BELSHAZZAR! from the banquet turn, Nor in thy sensual fulness fall; Behold! while yet before thee burn The graven words, the glowing wall. Many a despot men miscall

Crown'd and anointed from on high; But thou, the weakest, worst of allIs it not written, thou must die?

Go! dash the roses from thy brow-
Grey hairs but poorly wreathe with them;
Youth's garlands misbecome thee now,
More than thy very diadem,

(1) This gallant officer fell in August, 1814, in his twentyninth year, whilst commanding, on shore, a party belonging to his ship, the Menelaus, and animating them, in storm

Where thou hast tarnish'd every gem:-
Then throw the worthless bauble by,
Which, worn by thee, even slaves contemn;
And learn, like better men, to die!
Oh! early in the balance weigh'd,

And ever light of word and worth,
Whose soul expired ere youth decay'd,
And left thee but a mass of earth.
To see thee moves the scorner's mirth:
But tears in Hope's averted eye
Lament that even thou hadst birth-
Unfit to govern, live, or die.

ELEGIAC STANZAS ON THE DEATH OF SIR
PETER PARKER, BART. (1)

THERE is a tear for all that die,
A mourner o'er the humblest grave;
But nations swell the funeral cry,
And Triumph weeps above the brave.
For them is Sorrow's purest sigh

O'er Ocean's heaving bosom sent:
In vain their bones unburied lie,

All earth becomes their monument!
A tomb is theirs on every page,
An epitaph on every tongue:
The present hours, the future age,

For them bewail, to them belong.
For them the voice of festal mirth

Grows hush'd, their name the only sound;
While deep Remembrance pours to Worth
The goblet's tributary round.

A theme to crowds that knew them not,
Lamented by admiring foes,

Who would not share their glorious lot?
Who would not die the death they chose?

And, gallant Parker! thus enshrined

Thy life, thy fall, thy fame shall be;
And early valour, glowing, find

A model in thy memory.

But there are breasts that bleed with thee
In woe, that glory cannot quell;

And shuddering hear of victory,

Where one so dear, so dauntless, fell.

Where shall they turn to mourn thee less?
When cease to hear thy cherish'd name?
Time cannot teach forgetfulness,
While Grief's full heart is fed by Fame.
Alas! for them, though not for thee,

They cannot choose but weep the more;
Deep for the dead the grief must be,
Who ne'er gave cause to mourn before.
October, 1814.

STANZAS FOR MUSIC. THERE be none of Beauty's daughters

With a magic like thee;

And like music on the waters

Is thy sweet voice to me:

ing the American camp near Baltimore. He was Lord Byron's first-cousin; but they had never met since boy bood. -L. E.