3*‘J BYRON’S

xcir

All these are, certes, entertaining facts,like Shakspere 's stealing deer, Lord Bacon’sbribes;

Like Titus’ youth, and Caesar's earliest acts :

Like t»urns (whom Doctor Currie well describes);Lika Cromwell’s pranks; but although truth ex-acts

These amiable descriptions from the scribes,

As most essential to their hero’s story,

They do not much contribute to his glory.

xcur.

All are not moralists, like Southey , whenHe prated to the world of “ PantisocracyOr Wordsworth , unexcis’d, unhir’d, who thenSeason’d his pediar poems with democracy;

Or Coleridge , long before his flighty penLet to the Morning Post its aristocracy;

When he and Southey , following the same path,Espous'd two partners (milliners, of Bath).

xciv

Such names at present cut a convict figure,

The very Botany Bay in moral Geography;

T^beir loyal treason, renegado vigour,

Are good manure for their more bare biography;Wordsworth 's last quarto, by tile way, is biggerThiMi any since the birthday of typography;

A drcmsy, frowzy poem call’d the “ Excur-sion,”

Writ in a.manner which is my aversion.

xcv.

He there builds up a formidable dykeBetween h»s own and others' intellect;

But Wordsworth 's poems, and his followers, likeJohanna Southcote’s Shiloh, and her sect,

Are things which in this c ntury don't strikeThe public mind—so few are the elect;

And the new birth's of both their stale virginitiesHave proved but dropsies, taken for divinities.

xcvi.

But let me to my story: I must own,

If I have any fault, it is digression—

Leaving my people to proceed alone,

While l soliloquise beyond expression?

But these are my addresses from the throne,

Whicu put off business to the ensuing session;Forgetting each omission is a loss toThe world not quite so great as Ariosto .

xcvir.

I know that what our neighbours call “ longueurs(We’ve not so good a word, **ut have the thing ,

In that complete perfection which ensuresAn epic from Bob Southey every spring)-Form not the true temptation which allures

i reader; but’t would not be hard to bringSome fine examples of the epopee,

To prove its grand ingredient is ennui.

xevni.

We learn from Horace, “ Homer sometimessleeps;"

We feel without him : Wordsworth sometimeswakes,—

To r, how with what complacency he creeps,

With his dear “ Waggoners” around his lakes-

WORKS.

He wishes for M a boat” to sail the deeps—

Of ocean?—No, of air, and then he makesAnother outcry for a little boat,'

And drivels seas to set it well afloat.

xeix.

If he must fain sweep o’er the ethereal plain,

And Peg ; *us runs restive in h s “ Waggon,**Could he not oeg the loan of Charles’s Wain ?

Or pray Medea for a single dragon?

Or if too classic for his vulgar brain.

He fear’d his neck to venture such a nag on,

And he must needs mount nearer to the moon,Could not the blockhead ask for a balloon?c.

“Pedlars,” and “Boats, " and “Waggons!” 0 y©shades

Of Pope and Dryden, are we come to this?

That trash of such sort not alone evadesContempt, but from tne bathos’ vast abyssFloats scumlike uppermost; and these Jack CadesOf sense ai>d song, above your graves may hiss—The “ little boatman ’’ and his “ Peter Bell ”

Can sneer at him who drew “ Achitophel !”

Ci.

T’ our tale—the feast was over, the slaves gone,The dwarfs and dancing girls had all retir’d;

The Arab lore and poet’s song were done,

And every sound of revelry expir'd;

The lady aud her lover, left alone,

The rosy floo<? of twilight's sky admir'd;—

Ave Maria! o'er the earth and sea,

..That heavenliest hour of heaven is worthiest thee 1CIL

Ave Maria! blessed be the hour,

The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oftHave felt that moment in its fullest power Sink o’er the earth so beautiful and soft,

While swung the deep bell in the distant towerOr the faint dying day hymn stole aloft,

And not a breath crept through the rosy air,

And yet the forest leaves seem'd stirr'd with prayer.

cm.

Ave Maria! 'tis the hour of prayer!

Avo Maria 1 'tis the hour of love!

Ave Maria! may our spirits dareLook up to thine and to thy Son’s above!

Ave Maria 1 oh l that face so fair!

Those downcast eyes beneath the Almightydove—

What though 'tis hut a pictur’d image’—strike—That painting is no idol,—’tis too like.

CIV.

Some kinder causists are pleas’d to say,

In nameless print—that I have no devotion;

But set those persons down with me to pray,

And you shall see who has the properest notionOf getting into heaven the shortest way;

My altarB are the mountains and the ocean,Earth , air, stars—all that springs from the greaiWhole,

Who hath produced and will receive the souLcv.

Sweet hour of twilight! in the solitudeOf the pine forest, and the silent shoreWhich bounds Ravenna’s immemorial wood,Rooted where once the Adrian wave flow’d