430

BYRON’S WORKS.

CVII.

With evening came the banquet and the wine ;

The conversazione; the duet,

Attun’d by voices more or less divine,

(My heart or head aches with the memory yet)The four Miss Rawbolds in a glee would sliine:

But the two youngest lov’d more to be setDown to the harp—because to music’s charmsThey added graceful necks, white hands and arms.

CVIII.

Sometimes a dance (though rarely on field days.

For then the gentlemen were rather tir’d,)Display'd some sylph-like figures in its maze:

Then thero was small-talk ready when requir’d;Flirtation—but decorous; the mere praiseOf charms that should or should not be admir'd.The hunters fought their fox-hunt o’er again;

And then retreated soberly—at ten.

Oix.

The politicians, in a nook apart,

Discuss’d the world, and settled all the spheres:The wits watch’d every loophole for their art,

To introduce a bon-mot, head and cars ;

Small is the rest of those who would be smart;

A moment’s good thing may have cost themyears.

Before they find an hour to introduce it;

And then, even then, some bore may make themlose it.

cx.

But all was gentle and aristocratic,

In this our part y; polish’d, smooth, and cold,

As Phidian forms cut out’of marble Attic.

There now are no Squire Westerns, as of old;And our Sophias are not so emphatic,

But fair as then, or fairer to behold.

We have no accomplish'd blackguards, like TomJones,

But gentlemen in stays, as stiff as stones.

CXI.

They separated at an early hour;

That is, ere midnight—which is London ’s noon:But, in the country, ladies seek their bovverA little earlier than the waning moon.

Peace to the slumbers of each folded flower—

May the rose call back its true colour soon!

Good hours of fair cheeks are the fairest tinters,And lower the price of rouge — at least somewinters.

CANTO THE FOURTEENTH.

L

IP from great nature’s or our own abyssOf thought, we could but snatch a certainty,Perhaps mankind might find the path they miss—But then ’twould spoil much good philosophy.One system eats another up, and thisMuch as old Saturn ate his progeny;

For when his pious consort gave him stonesIn lieu of sons, of these he made no bones.

II.

But System doth reverse the Titan’s breakfast,And eats her parents, albeit the digestionIs difficult. Pray tell me, can you make fast,

After due search, your faith to any question?Look back o'er ages, ere unto the stake fastYou bind yourself, and call some mode the bestone.

Nothing more true than not to trust your senses;And yet what are your other evidences?

in.

For me, I know nought: nothing I deny,

Admit, reject, contemn; and what know you,Except, perhaps, that you were born to die!

And both may, after all, turn out untrue.

An age may come, Font of Eternity,

When nothing shall be either old or newDeath, so call’d, is a thing which makes meoweep;

And yet a third of life is pass'd in sleep.

IV.

A sleep without dreams, after a rough dayOf toil, is what we covet most; and yetHow clay shrinks back from more quiescent clay!

The very suicide that pays his debtAt once without instalments (an old wayOf paying debts, which creditors regret)

Lets out impatiently his rushing breath,

Less from disgust of life than dread of death.

V

’Tis round him, near him, here, there, everywhere*And there’s a courage which grows out of fear,Perhaps of all most desperate, which will dareThe worst to know it:—when the mountains rearTheir peaks beneath your human foot, and thereYou look down o'er the precipice, and drearThe gulf of rock yawns,—you can t gaze a minute,Without an awful wish to plunge within it

VI.

’Tis true, you don’t—but, pale and struck withterror,

Retire; but look into your past impression;

And you will find, though shuddering at the mirrorOf your own thoughts, in all their self-confes-sion,

The lurking bias, be it truth or error,

To the unknown; a secret prepossession,

To plunge with all your fears—but where? Yocknow not:

And that's the reason why you do—or do not.

VII.

But what’s this to the purpose? you will say:

Gent, reader, nothing ; a mere speculation,

For which my sole excuse is—’tis my way,Sometimes with, and sometimes without occa-sion.

I write what’s uppermost, without delay :

This narrative is not meant for narration:

But a mere airy and fantastic basis,

To build up common things with common places*

VIII.

You know, or don’t know, that great Bacon aaith-“ Fling up a straw, ’twill show the way the wih< Jblows;”

And such a straw, borne on by human breath,

Is poesy, according as the mind glows;