203 BYRON'S

To such resign the strife for fading hays—

Ill may such contest now the spirit moveWhich heeds nor keen reproach nor partialpraise,

Since cold each kinder heart that might ap-prove,

And none are left to please when none are left tolove.

xov.

Thou too art gone; thou loved and lovely one!Whom youth and youth’s affections bound tome;

Who did for me what none beside have done,

Nor shrank from one, albeit unworthy thee.

What is my being? thou hast ceased to be!

Nor stay’d to welcome here thy wanderer home,Who mourns o’er hours which we no more shallsee—

Would they had never been, or were to come 1Would he had ne'er return’d to ilnd fresh cause toroam ?

xcvi.

Oh! ever loving, lovely, and beloved!

How selfish Sorrow ponders on the past,

And clings to thoughts now better far remov’d!But Time shall tear thy shadow from mo last.

All thou couldst have of mine, stern Death! thouhast:

The parent, friend, and now the more thanfriend;

Ne’er yet for one thine arrows flew so fast,

And grief with grief continuing still to blend,

Hath snatch’d the little joy that life had yet tolend.

xcvir.

t Then must I plunge again into the crowd,

And follow all that Peace disdains to seek?Where Revel calls, and Laughter , vainly loud,False to the hearty distorts the hollow cheek,

To leave the flagging spirit doubly weak;

Still o’er the features, which perforce they cheer,To feign the pleasure or conceal the pique ;

Smiles form the channel of a future tear.

Or raise the writhing lip with ill-dissembledsneer.

xcvni.

What is the worst of woes that wait on age?

What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow ?

To view each loved one blotted from life’s page,And be alone on earth, as I am now.

Before the Chastener humbly let me bow,

O’er hearts divided and o’er hopes destroy’d:

Roll ou. vain days! full reckless may ye flow,Since Time haifc reft whate’er my soul enjoy’d.And with the ills of Eld mine earlier years alloy’d.

CANTO THE THIRD.

“ Afln, que cette application vous forint de penser& autre chose; il ny a en vdritci de rembde quecelui-lh et le tempB .”—Lettre du Roi de Frusse aD'Alembert , Sept. 7, 1776.

T.

Is thy face like thy mother’s, my fair child!

Ada! solo daughter of my house and heart ?When lust I saw thy young blue eyes theysmiled,

And then we parted,- not as now we port,

WORKS.

But with a hope.-—

Awaking with a start,

The waters heave around me; and on highThe winds lift up their voices: I depart.

Whither I know not; but the hour ’s gone byWhen Albion’s lessening shores could grieve orglad mine eye.

II.

Once more upon the waters! yet once more!

And the waves bound beneath me as a steedThat knows his rider. Welcome to their roar!Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead!Though the strain’d mast should quiver as areed,

And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale,Still must I on; for I am as a weed,

Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam, to sailWhere’er the surge may swetp, the tempest’s. breath prevail.

nr.

In my youth’s summer I did sing of One,

The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind;Again I seize the theme, then but begun,

And bear it with me, as the gushing windBears the cloud onwards: in that Tale I findThe furrows of long thought, and dried-uptears,

Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track behind.

O'er which all heavily the journeying yearsPlod the last sands of life,—where not a flowerappears.

IV.

Since my young clays of passion—joy, or pain,Perchance my heart and harp have lost a Hiring.

■ And both may jar: it may be that in vainI would essay as I have sung to sing.

Yet, though a dreary strain, to this I cling,

So that it wean me from the weary dreamOf selfish grief or sadness—so itflingForgetfulness around me—it shall seemTo me, though to none else, a not ungratefultheme.

V.

He, who grown aged in this world of woe,

In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life,

So that no wonder waits him; nor belowCan love, or sorrow, fame, ambition, strife,

Out to his heart again with the keen knifeOf silent, sharp endurance; he can tellWhy thought seeks refuge in lone caves, jetrife

With airy images, and shapes which dwellStill unimpair’d, though old, in the sdui’s hauntedcell.

VI.

’Tis to create, and in creating liveA being more intense, that we endowWith form our fancy, gaining as we giveThe life we image, even as I do now.

What am I ? Nothing: but not so art thou,

Soul of my thought! with whom I travel#earth,

Invisible but gazing, as I glowMix’d with thy spirit, blended with thy birth.Anil feeling still with thee in my crush'd feeliujT 8dearth.