The Complete Works of Lord Byron Read Online

And Heaven forbid I should conclude
Without ‘the Board of Longitude,’
Although this narrow paper would,
My Murray.

Venice, March 25, 1818.

On The Birth Of John William Rizzo Hoppner

His father’s sense, his mother’s grace,
In him I hope, will always fit so;
With--still to keep him in good case--
The health and appetite of Rizzo.

Ode On Venice

I.

Oh Venice! Venice! when thy marble walls
Are level with the waters, there shall be
A cry of nations o’er thy sunken halls,
A loud lament along the sweeping sea!
If I, a northern wanderer, weep for thee,

What should thy sons do?--anything but weep
And yet they only murmur in their sleep.
In contrast with their fathers--as the slime,
The dull green ooze of the receding deep,
Is with the dashing of the spring-tide foam
That drives the sailor shipless to his home,
Are they to those that were; and thus they creep,
Crouching and crab-like, through their sapping streets.
Oh! Agony-that centuries should reap
No mellower harvest! Thirteen hundred years
Of wealth and glory turn’d to dust and tears;
And every monument the stranger meets,
Church, palace, pillar, as a mourner greets;
And even the Lion all subdued appears,
And the harsh sound of the barbarian
With dull and daily dissonance, repeats
The echo of thy tyrant’s voice along
The soft waves, once all musical to song,
That heaved beneath the moonlight with the throng
Of gondolas--and to the busy hum
Of cheerful creatures, whose most sinful deeds
Were but the overbeating of the heart,
And flow of too much happiness, which needs
The aid of age to turn its course apart
From the luxuriant and voluptuous flood
Of sweet sensations, battling with the blood.
But these are better than the gloomy errors,
The weeds of nations in their last decay,
When Vice walks forth with her unsoften’d terrors,
And Mirth is madness, and but smiles to slay;
And Hope is nothing but a false delay,
The sick man’s lightning half an hour ere death,
When Faintness, the last mortal birth of Pain,
And apathy of limb, the dull beginning
Of the cold staggering race which Death is winning,
Steals vein by vein and pulse by pulse away;
Yet so relieving the o’er-tortured clay,
To him appears renewal of his breath,
And freedom the mere numbness of his chain;
And then he talks of life, and how again
He feels his spirit soaring--albeit weak,
And of the fresher air, which he would seek:
And as he whispers knows not that he gasps,
That his thin finger feels not what it clasps,
And so the film comes o’er him, and the dizzy
Chamber swims round and round, and shadows busy,
At which he vainly catches, flit and gleam,
Till the last rattle chokes the strangled scream,
And all is ice and blackness,--and the earth
That which it was the moment ere our birth.

II.

There is no hope for nations!--Search the page
Of many thousand years--the daily scene,
The flow and ebb of each recurring age,
The everlasting to be which hath been
Hath taught us nought, or little: still we lean
On things that rot beneath our weight, and wear
Our strength away in wrestling with the air:

For ‘tis our nature strikes us down: the beasts
Slaughter ‘d in hourly hecatombs for feasts
Are of as high an order--they must go
Even where their driver goads them though to slaughter.
Ye men, who pour your blood for kings as water,
What have they given your children in return?
A heritage of servitude and woes,
A blindfold bondage, where your hire is blows.
What! do not yet the red-hot ploughshares burn,
O’er which you stumble in a false ordeal,
And deem this proof of loyalty the real;
Kissing the hand that guides you to your scars,
And glorying as you tread the glowing bars?
All that your sires have left you, all that Time
Bequeaths of free, and History of sublime,
Spring from a different theme! Ye see and read,
Admire and sigh, and then succumb and bleed!
Save the few spirits who, despite of all,
And worse than all, the sudden crimes engender’d
By the down-thundering of the prison wall,
And thirst to swallow the sweet waters tender’d,
Gushing from Freedom’s fountains, when the crowd,
Madden’d with centuries of drought, are loud,
And trample on each other to obtain
The cup which brings oblivion of a chain
Heavy and sore, in which long yoked they plough’d
The sand,--or if there sprung the yellow grain,
‘Twos not for them, their necks were too much how’d,
And their dead palates chew’d the cud of pain:
Yes! the few spirits, who, despite of deeds
Which they abhor, confound not with the cause
Those momentary starts from Nature’s laws,
Which, like the pestilence and earthquake, smite
But for a term, then pass, and leave the earth
With all her seasons to repair the blight
With a few summers, and again put forth
Cities and generations--fair, when free
For, Tyranny, there blooms no bud for thee!

III.

Glory and Empire! once upon these towers
With Freedom--godlike Triad! how ye sate!
The league of mightiest nations, in those hours
When Venice was an envy, might abate,
But did not quench her spirit, in her fate
All were enwrapp’d: the feasted monarchs knew
And loved their hostess, nor could learn to hate,
Although they humbled - with the kingly few
The many felt, for from all days and climes
She was the voyager’s worship; even her crimes
Were of the softer order--born of Love,
She drank no blood, nor fatten’d on the dead,
But gladden’d where her harmless conquests spread;
For these restored the Cross, that from above
Hallow’d her sheltering banners, which incessant
Flew between earth and the unholy Crescent,
Which, if it waned and dwindled, Earth may thank
The city it has clothed in chains, which clank
Now, creaking in the ears of those who owe
The name of Freedom to her glorious struggles;
Yet she but shares with them a common woe,
And call’d the ‘kingdom’ of a conquering foe,
But knows what all--and, most of all, we know--
With what set gilded terms a tyrant juggles!
The name of Commonwealth is past and gone
O’er the three fractions of the groaning globe;
Venice is crush’d, and Holland deigns to own
A sceptre, and endures the purple robe;
If the free Switzer yet bestrides alone
His chainless mountains, ‘tis but for a time,
For tyranny of late is cunning grown,
And in its own good season tramples down
The sparkles of our ashes. One great clime,
Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean
Are kept apart and nursed in the devotion
Of Freedom, which their fathers fought for, and
Bequeath’d--a heritage of heart and hand,
And proud distinction from each other land,
Whose sons must bow them at a monarch’s motion,
As if his senseless sceptre were a wand
Full of the magic of exploded science--
Still one great clime, in full and free defiance,
Yet rears her crest, unconquer’d and sublime,
Above the far Atlantic! - She has taught
Her Esau--brethren that the haughty flag,
The floating fence of Albion’s feebler crag,
May strike to those whose red right hands have bought
Rights cheaply earn’d with blood. Stilt, still, for ever,
Better, though each man’s life--blood were a river,
That it should flow, and overflow, than creep
Through thousand lazy channels in our veins
Damm’d like the dull canal with locks and chains,
And moving, as a sick man in his sleep,
Three paces, and then faltering: better be
Where the extinguish’d Spartans still are free,
In their proud charnel of Thermopylae,
Than stagnate in our marsh,--or o’er the deep
Fly, and one current to the ocean add,
One spirit to the souls our fathers had,
One freeman more, America, to thee!

Stanzas To The Po

River, that rollest by the ancient walls,
Where dwells the Lady of my love, when she
Walks by thy brink, and there perchance recalls
A faint and fleeting memory of me:

What if thy deep and ample stream should be
A mirror of my heart, where she may read
The thousand thoughts I now betray to thee,
Wild as thy wave, and headlong as thy speed!

What do I say—a mirror of my heart?
Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong?
Such as my feelings were and are, thou art;
And such as thou art were my passions long.

Time may have somewhat tamed them,—not for ever
Thou overflow’st thy banks, and not for aye
Thy bosom overboils, congenial river!
Thy floods subside, and mine have sunk away:

But left long wrecks behind, and now again,
Borne in our old unchanged career, we move:
Thou tendest wildly onwards to the main,
And I—to loving one I should not love.

The current I behold will sweep beneath
Her native walls, and murmur at her feet;
Her eyes will look on thee, when she shall breathe
The twilight air, unharmed by summer’s heat.

She will look on thee,—I have looked on thee,
Full of that thought: and, from that moment, ne’er
Thy waters could I dream of, name, or see,
Without the inseparable sigh for her!

Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream,—
Yes! they will meet the wave I gaze on now:
Mine cannot witness, even in a dream,
That happy wave repass me in its flow!

The wave that bears my tears returns no more:
Will she return by whom that wave shall sweep?—
Both tread thy banks, both wander on thy shore,
I by thy source, she by the dark-blue deep.

But that which keepeth us apart is not
Distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth,
But the distraction of a various lot,
As various as the climates of our birth.

A stranger loves the Lady of the land;
Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood
Is all meridian, as if never fanned
By the black wind that chills the polar flood.

My blood is all meridian; were it not
I had not left my clime, nor should I be,
In spite of tortures, ne’er to be forgot
A slave again of love,—at least of thee.

‘Tis vain to struggle—let me perish young—
Live as I lived, and love as I have loved;
To dust if I return, from dust I sprung,
And then, at least, my heart can ne’er be moved.

Sonnet To George The Fourth, On The Repeal Of Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s Forfeiture

To be the father of the fatherless,
To stretch the hand from the throne’s height, and raise
His offspring, who expired in other days
To make thy sire’s sway by a kingdom less,--
This is to be a monarch, and repress
Envy into unutterable praise.
Dismiss thy guard, and trust thee to such traits,
For who would lift a hand, except to bless?
Were it not easy, sir, and is’t not sweet
To make thyself beloved? and to be
Omnipotent by mercy’s means? for thus
Thy sovereignty would grow but more complete:
A despot thou, and yet thy people free,
And by the heart, not hand, enslaving us.

Epigram: From The French Of Rulhières

If, for silver or for gold,
You could melt ten thousand pimples
Into half a dozen dimples,
Then your face we might behold,
Looking, doubtless, much more snugly;
Yet even then ‘twould be damned ugly.

August 12, 1819.

Stanzas

Could Love for ever
Run like a river,
And Time’s endeavour
Be tried in vain
No other pleasure
With this could measure;
And like a treasure
We’d hug the chain.
But since our sighing
Ends not in dying,
And, form ‘d for flying,
Love plumes his wing;
Then for this reason
Let’s love a season
But let that season be only Spring.

When lovers parted
Feel broken-hearted,
And, all hopes thwarted,
Expect to die;
A few years older,
Ah! how much colder
They might behold her
For whom they sigh!
When link ‘d together,
In every weather,
They pluck Love’s feather
From out his wing
He’ll stay for ever,
But sadly shiver
Without his plumage, when past the Spring

Like chiefs of Faction,
His life is action--
A formal paction
That curbs his reign,
Obscures his glory,
Despot no more, he
Such territory
Quits with disdain.
Still, still advancing,
With banners glancing,
His power enhancing,
He must move on--
Repose but cloys him,
Retreat destroys him,
Love brooks not a degraded throne.

Wait not, fond lover!
Till years are over,
And then recover
As from a dream.
While each bewailing
The other’s failing,
With wrath and railing,
All hideous seem--
While first decreasing,
Yet not quite ceasing,
Wait not till teasing
All passion blight:
If once diminish’d,
Love’s reign is finish’d--
Then part in friendship-and hid goodnight.

So shall Affection
To recollection
The dear connexion
Bring back with joy:
You had not waited
Till, tired or hated,
Your passions sated
Began to cloy.
Your last embraces
Leave no cold traces--
The same fond faces
As through the past:
And eyes, the mirrors
Of your sweet errors,
Reflect but rapture--not least though last.

True, separations
Ask more than patience;
What desperations
From such have risen!
But yet remaining,
What is’t but chaining
Hearts which, once waning,
Beat ‘gainst their prison?
Time can but cloy love
And use destroy love:
The winged boy, Love,
Is but for boys--
You’ll find it torture,
Though sharper, shorter
To wean, and not wear out your joys.

On My Wedding-Day

Here’s a happy new year! but with reason
I beg you’ll permit me to say
Wish me many returns of the season,
But as few as you please of the dy.

January 2, 1820.

Epitaph For William Pitt

With death doom’d to grapple,
Beneath this cold slab, he
Who lied in the Chapel
Now lies in the Abbey.

Epigram

In digging up your bones, Tom Paine,
Will. Cobbett has done well:
You visit him on earth again,
He’ll visit you in hell.

Stanzas: When A Man Hath No Freedom

When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home,
Let him combat for that of his neighbours;
Let him think of the glories of Greece and of Rome,
And get knock’d on the head for his labours.
To do good to mankind is the chivalrous plan,
And, is always as nobly requited;
Then battle for freedom wherever you can,
And, if not shot or hang’d, you’ll get knighted.

Epigram: The World Is A Bundle Of Hay

The world is a bundle of hay,
Mankind are the asses who pull;
Each tugs it a different way,
And the greatest of all is John Bull.

The Charity Ball

What matter the pangs of a husband and father,
If his sorrows in exile be great or be small,
So the Pharisee’s glories around her she gather,
And the saint patronizes her ‘charity ball!’

What matters--a heart which, though faulty, was feeling,
Be driven to excesses which once could appal--
That the sinner should suffer is only fair dealing,
As the saint keeps her charity back for ‘the ball’!

Epigram, On The Braziers’ Company Having Resolved To Present An Address To Queen Caroline

The braziers, it seems, are preparing to pass
An address, and present it themselves all in brass,--
A superfluous pageant-for, by the Lord Harry!
They’ll find where they’re going much more than they carry.

Epigram On My Wedding- Day To Penelope

This day, of all our days, has done
The worst for me and you :-
‘Tis just six years since we were one,
And five since we were two.

On My Thirty-Third Birthday, January 22, 1821

Through life’s dull road, so dim and dirty,
I have dragg’d to three-and-thirty.
What have these years left to me?
Nothing--except thirty-three.

Martial, Lib. I, Epig. I.

‘Hic est, quem legis, ille, quern requiris, Tota notus in orbe Martialis,’ &c.

He unto whom thou art so partial,
Oh, reader is the well-known Martial,
The Epigrammatist: while living,
Give him the fame thou wouldst be giving;
So shall he hear, and feel, and know it--
Post obits rarely reach a poet.

Bowles And Campbell

To the tune of ‘Why, how now, saucy jade?’

Why, how now, saucy Tom?
If you thus must ramble,
I will publish some
Remarks on Mister Campbell.

ANSWER

Why, how now, Billy Bowles?
Sure the priest is maudlin!
(To the public) How can you, d--n your souls!
Listen to his twaddling?

Epigrams

Oh, Castlereagh! thou art a patriot now;
Cato died for his country, so didst thou:
He perish’d rather than see Rome enslaved,
Thou cutt’ st thy throat that Britain may be saved!
So Castlereagh has cut his throat!--The worst
Of this is, - that his own was not the first.
So He has cut his throat at last!--He! Who?
The man who cut his country’s long ago.

Epitaph

Posterity will ne’er survey
A nobler grave than this:
Here lie the bones of Castlereagh:
Stop, traveler--

John Keats

Who killed John Keats?
‘I,’ says the Quarterly,
So savage and Tartarly;
‘‘Twas one of my feats.’

Who shot the arrow?
‘The poet-priest Milman
(So ready to kill man),
Or Southey or Barrow.

The Conquest

The Son of Love and Lord of War I sing;
Him who bade England bow to Normandy
And left the name of conqueror more than king
To his unconquerable dynasty.
Not fann’d alone by Victory’s fleeting wing,
He rear’d his bold and brilliant throne on high:
The Bastard kept, like lions, his prey fast,
And Britain’s bravest victor was the last.

To Mr. Murray (For Oxford And For Waldegrave)

For Oxford and for Waldegrave
You give much more than me you gave;
Which is not fairly to behave,
My Murray.

Because if a live dog, ‘tis said,
Be worth a lion fairly sped,
A live lord must be worth two dead,
My Murray.

And if, as the opinion goes,
Verse hath a better sale than prose--
Certes, I should have more than those,
My Murray.

But now this sheet is nearly cramm’d,
So, if you will, I shan’t be shamm’d,
And if you won’t, you may be damn’d,
My Murray.

The Irish Avatar

‘And Ireland, like a bastinadoed elephant,
kneeling to receive the paltry rider.’~Curran.

Ere the daughter of Brunswick is cold in her grave,
And her ashes still float to their home o’er the tide,
Lo! George the triumphant speeds over the wave,
To the long-cherish’d isle which he loved like his--bride!

True, the great of her bright and brief era are gone,
The rainbow-like epoch where Freedom could pause
For the few little years, out of centuries won,
Which betray’d not, or crush’d not, or wept not her cause.

True, the chains of the Catholic clank o’er his rags,
The castle still stands, and the senate’s no more,
And the famine which dwelt on her freedomless crags
Is extending its steps to her desolate shore.

To her desolate shore--where the emigrant stands
For a moment to gaze ere he flies from his hearth;
Tears fall on his chain, though it drops from his hands,
For the dungeon he quits is the place of his birth.

But he comes! the Messiah of royalty comes!
Like a goodly Leviathan roll’d from the waves;
Then receive him as best such an advent becomes,
With a legion of cooks, and an army of slaves!

He comes in the promise and bloom of threescore,
To perform in the pageant the sovereign’s part
But long live the shamrock, which shadows him o’er!
Could the green in his hat be transferr’d to his heart!

Could that long-wither’d spot but be verdant again,
And a new spring of noble affections arise
Then might freedom forgive thee this dance in thy chain,
And this shout of thy slavery which saddens the skies.

Is it madness or meanness which clings to thee now?
Were he God--as he is but the commonest clay,
With scarce fewer wrinkles than sins on his brow
Such servile devotion might shame him away.

Ay, roar in his train! let thine orators lash
Their fanciful spirits to pamper his pride
Not thus did thy Grattan indignantly flash
His soul o’er the freedom implored and denied.

Ever glorious Grattan! the best of the good!
So simple in heart, so sublime in the rest!
With all which Demosthenes wanted endued,
And his rival or victor in all he possess’d.

Ere Tully arose in the zenith of Rome,
Though unequall’d, preceded, the task was begun--
But Grattan sprung up like a god from the tomb
Of ages, the first, last, the saviour, the one!

With the skill of an Orpheus to soften the brute;
With the fire of Prometheus to kindle mankind
Even Tyranny listening sate melted or mute,
And Corruption shrunk scorch’d from the glance of his mind.

But back to our theme! Back to despots and slaves!
Feasts furnish’d by Famine! Rejoicings by Pain!
True freedom but welcomes, while slavery still raves,
When a week’s saturnalia hath loosen’d her chain.

Let the poor squalid splendour thy wreck can afford
(As the bankrupt’s profusion his ruin would hide),
Gild over the palace, Lo! Erin, thy lord!
Kiss his foot with thy blessing, his blessings denied!

Or if freedom past hope be extorted at last,
If the idol of brass find his feet are of clay,
Must what terror or policy wring forth be class’d
With what monarchs ne’er give, but as wolves yield their prey?

Each brute hath its nature; a king’s is to reign,
To reign! in that word see, ye ages, comprised
The cause of the curses all annals contain,
From Caesar the dreaded to George the despised!

Wear, Fingal, thy trapping! O’Connell, proclaim
His accomplishments! Hist!!! and thy country convince
Half an age’s contempt was an error of fame,
And that ‘Hal is the rascaliest, sweetest young prince!’

Will thy yard of blue riband, poor Fingal, recall
The fetters from millions of Catholic limbs?
Or, has it not bound thee the fastest of all
The slaves, who now hail their betrayer with hymns?

Ay! ‘Build him a dwelling!’ let each give his mite!
Till, like Babel, the new royal dome hath arisen!
Let thy beggars and helots their pittance unite -
And a palace bestow for a poor-house and prison!

Spread--spread, for Vitellius, the royal repast,
Till the gluttonous despot be stuff’d to the gorge!
And the roar of his drunkards proclaim him at last
The fourth of the fools and oppressors call’d ‘George!’

Let the tables be loaded with feasts till they groan!
Till they groan like thy people, through ages of woe!
Let the wine flow around the old Bacchanal’s throne,
Like their blood which has flow’d, and which yet has to flow.

But let not his name be thine idol alone
On his right hand behold a Sejanus appears!
Thine own Castlereagh! let him still be thine own!
A wretch never named but with curses and jeers!

Till now, when the isle which should blush for his birth,
Deep, deep as the gore which he shed on her soil,
Seems proud of the reptile which crawl ‘d from her earth,
And for murder repays him with shouts and a smile.

Without one single ray of her genius, without
The fancy, the manhood, the fire of her race
The miscreant who well might plunge Erin in doubt
If she ever gave birth to a being so base.

If she did--let her long-boasted proverb be hush’d,
Which proclaims that from Erin no reptile can spring
See the cold-blooded serpent, with venom full flush’d,
Still warming its folds in the breast of a king!

Shout, drink, feast, and flatter! Oh! Erin, how low
Wert thou sunk by misfortune and tyranny, till
Thy welcome of tyrants hath plunged thee below
The depth of thy deep in a deeper gulf still!

My voice, though but humble, was raised for thy right,
My vote, as a freeman’s, still voted thee free,
This hand, though but feeble, would arm in thy fight,
And this heart, though outworn, had a throb still for thee!

Yes, I loved thee and thine, though thou art not my land,
I have known noble hearts and great souls in thy sons,
And I wept with the world, o’er the patriot band
Who are gone, but I weep them no longer as once.

For happy are they now reposing afar,
Thy Grattan, thy Curran, thy Sheridan, all
Who, for years, were the chiefs in the eloquent war,
And redeem’d, if they have not retarded, thy fall.

Yes, happy are they in their cold English graves!
Their shades cannot start to thy shouts of today--
Nor the steps of enslavers and chain-kissing slaves
Be, stamp’d in the turf o’er their fetterless clay.

Till now I had envied thy sons and their shore,
Though their virtues were hunted, their liberties fled
There was something so warm and sublime in the core
Of an Irishman’s heart, that I envy--thy dead.

Or, if aught in my bosom can quench for an hour
My contempt for a nation so servile, though sore,
Which though trod like the worm will not turn upon power,
‘Tis the glory of Grattan, and genius of Moore!

Stanzas Written On The Road Between 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-and-twenty
Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.

What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled?
‘Tis but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled:
Then away with all such from the head that is hoary!
What care I for the wreaths that can only give glory?

O Fame! — if I e’er took delight in thy praises,
‘Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases,
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover
She thought that I was not unworthy to love her.

There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee;
Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee;
When it sparkled o’er aught that was bright in my story,
I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory.

Stanzas To A Hindoo Air

Oh! my lonely--lonely--lonely--Pillow!
Where is my lover? where is my lover?
Is it his bark which my dreary dreams discover?
Far--far away! and alone along the billow?

Oh! my lonely-lonely-lonely-Pillow!
Why must my head ache where his gentle brow lay?
How the long night flags lovelessly and slowly,
And my head droops over thee like the willow!

Oh! thou, my sad and solitary Pillow!
Send me kind dreams to keep my heart from breaking,
In return for the tears I shed upon thee waking;
Let me not die till he comes back o’er the billow.

Then if thou wilt--no more my lonely Pillow,
In one embrace let these arms again enfold him,
And then expire of the joy-but to behold him!
Oh! my lone bosom!-oh! my lonely Pillow!

Impromptu

Beneath Blessington’s eyes
The reclaimed Paradise
Should be free as the former from evil;
But if the new Eve
For an Apple should grieve,
What mortal would not play the Devil.