Could I repose upon the breast
Which once my warmest wishes blest-
I should not seek another zone
Because I cannot love but one.
'Tis long since I beheld that eye
Which gave me bliss or misery;
And I have striven, but in vain,
Never to think of it again;
For though I fly from Albion,
I still can only love but one.
As some lone bird, without a mate,
My weary heart is desolate;
I look around, and cannot trace
One friendly smile or welcome face,
And even in crowds am still alone
Because I cannot love but one.

From aloft the signal's streaming,

Hark! the farewell gun is fired; Women screeching, tars blaspheming, Tell us that our tiine's expired.

Here's a rascal

Come to task all,
Prying from the custom-house ;

Trunks unpacking,

Cases cracking,
Not a corner for a mouse
'Scapes unsearch'd amid the racket,
Ere we sail on board the Packet.

2.
Now our boatmen quit their mooring,

And all hands must ply the oar; Baggage from the quay is lowering,

We're impatient-push from shore. “Have a care! that case holds liquor

Stop the boat-I'm sick-oh Lord ?" “Sick, ma'am, damme, you 'll be sicker Ere you've been an hour ou board

Thus are screaming

Men and women,
Gemmen, ladies, servants, Jacks;

Here entangling,

All are wrangling,
Stuck together close as wax.-
Such the general noise and racket,
Ere we reach the Lisbon Packet.

And I will cross the whitening foam, And I will seek a foreign home; Till I forget a false fair face, I ne'er shall find a resting-place; My own dark thoughts I cannot shun, But ever love, and love but one. The poorest veriest wretch on earth Still finds some hospitable hearth, Where friendship's or love's softer glow May smile in joy or soothe in woe; But friend or leman I have none, Because I cannot love but one. I go-but wheresoe'er I flee, There's not an eye will weep for me ; There's not a kind congenial heart, Where I can claim the meanest part; Nor thou, who hast my hopes undone, Wilt sigh, although I love but one. To think of every early scene, of what we are, and what we've been, Would whelm some softer hearts with woeBut mine, alas! has stood the blow; Yet still beats on as it begun, And never truly loves but one. And who that dear loved one may be Is not for vulgar eyes to see, And why that early love was crost, Thou know'st the best, I feel the most ; But few that dwell beneath the sun Have loved so long, and loved but one. I've tried another's fetters too, With charms perchance as fair to view; And I would fain have loved as well, But some unconquerable spell Forbade my bleeding breast to own A kindred care for aught but one. "Twould soothe to take one lingering view, And bless thee in my last adieu; Yet wish I not those eyes to weep Por him that wanderg o'er the deep; His home, his hope, his youth are gone, Yet still he loves, and loves but one.

3. Now we've reach'd her, lo! the captain,

Gallant Kidd, commands the crew; Passengers their berths are clapt in,

Some to grumble, some to spew. “Heyday! call you that a cabin ?

Why, 't is hardly three feet square; Not enough to stow Queen Mab inWho the deuce can harbour there?"

“Who, sir ? plenty

Nobles twenty
Did at once my vessel fill."-

“Did they ?” Jesus,

How you squeeze us!
Would to God they did so still :
Then I'd scape the heat and racket
or the good ship, Lisbon Packet."

4. Fletcher! Murray! Bob! where are you?

Stretch'd along the deck like loggBear a hand, you jolly tar, you !

Here's a rope's-end for the dogs. Hobhouse muttering fearful curses,

As the hatchway down he rolls, Now his breakfast, now his verses, Vomits forth-and damns our souls.

“Here's a stanza

On Braganza -
Help!”—“a couplet ?"—"No, a cup

of warm water"

" What's the matter?" " Zounds! my liver 's coming up; I shall not survive the racket or this brutal Lisbon Packet."

LINES TO MR. HODGSON.

Falmouth Roads, Jane 30th, 1809.

1.
Huzza! Hodgson, we are going,

Our embargo's off at last,
Favourable breezes blowing
Bend the canvas o'er the mast.

3 % 99

5. Now at length we're off for Turkey

Lord knows when we shall come tack Breezes foul and tempests murky

May unship us in a crack.

But, since life at most a jest is,

As philosophers allow,
Still to laugh by far the best is;
Then laugh on-as I do now.

Laugh at all things,

Great and small things, Sick or well, at sea or shore;

While we're quaffing,

Let's have laughingWho the devil cares for more ? Some good wine! and who would lack it, Even on board the Lisbon Packet?

LINES IN THE TRAVELLERS' BOOK AT OR

CHOMENUS.

I've seen my bride another's bride, -
Have seen her seated by his side,-
Have seen the infant, which she bore,
Wear the sweet smile the mother wore
When she and I in youth have smiled
As fond and faultless as her child ;-
Have seen her eyes, in cold disdain,
Ask if I felt no secret pain.
And I have acted well my part,
And made my cheek belie my heart,
Return'd the freezing glance she gave,
Yet felt the while that woman's slave;-
Have kissid, as if without design,
The babe which ought to have been mine,
And show'd, alas! in each caress
Time bad not made me love the less.

But let this pass—I'll wbine no more
Nor seek again an eastern shore;
The world befits a busy brain,-
I'll hie me to its haunts again.
But if, in some succeeding year,
When Britain's "May is in the sere,"
Thou hear'st of one, whose deep'ning crimes
Suit with the sablest of the times,
Of one, whom love nor pity sways,
Nor hope of fame, nor good men's praise
One, who in slern ambition's pr.de,
Perchance not blood shall turn aside.
One rank'd in some recording page
With the worst anarchs of the age,
Him wilt thou know-and knowing pause,
Nor will the effect forget the cause.

IN THIS BOOK A TRAVELLER HAD WRITTEN "Pair Albion smiling, sees her son depart To trace the birth and nursery of art: Noble his object, glorious is his aim: He comes to Athens, and he writes his name."

BENEATH WHICH LORD BYRON INSERTED THE FOLLOWING

RETLY
The modest bard, like many a bard unknown,

'ymes on our nemes, but wisely hides his own:
But yet whoo'er he be, to say no worse,
His name would bring more credit than his verse.

ON MOORE'S LAST OPERATIC FARCE. A FARCICAL EPIGRAM.

Sept. 14, 1811.
Good plays are scarce,

So Moore writes farce :
The poet's fame grows brittle-

We knew before

That Little's Moore,
But now 't is Moore that's little.

EPISTLE TO MR. HODGSON,
IN ANSWER TO SOME LINES EXHORTING HIM TO BE
CHEERFUL AND TO " BANISH CARE."

Newstead Abbey, Oct. 11, 1811.
“Oh! banish care"-such ever be
The motto of thy revelry!
Perchance of mine, when wassail nights
Renew those riotous delights,
Wherewith the children of Despair
Lull the lone heart, and “banish care."
But not in morn's reflecting hour,
When present, past, and future lower,
When all I loved is changed or gone,
Mock with such taunts the woes of one,
Whose every thought—but let them pass
Thou know'st I am not what I was.
But, above all, if thou wouldst bold
Place in a heart that ne'er was cold,
By all the powers that men revere,
By all unto thy bosom dear,
Thy joys below, thy hopes above,
Speak-speak of anything but love.
'r were long to tell, and vain to hear,
"The tale of one who scorns a tear;
And there is little in that tale
Which better bosoms would bewail.
But mine has sutfer'd more than well
Twould suit philosophy to tell.

5.
To me, divine Apollo, grant-01
Hermilda's first and second canto,
I'm fitting up a new portmanteau ;

6.
And thus to furnish decent lining,
My own and others' bays I'm twining-
So, gentle Thurlow, throw me thine in.

TO LORD THURLOW.
"I lay my branch of laurel down,
Then thus to form Apollo's crowa
Let every other bring his own."

Lord Thurlon's Line to Me Beginn

1. “I lay my branch of laurel down." Thou “lay thy branch of laurel down!

Why, what thou 'st stole is not enow;

5. But first as he flew, I forgot to say, That he hover'd a moment upon his way

To look upon Leipsic plain; And so sweet to his eye was its sulphury glare, And so soft to his ear was the cry of despair,

That he perch'd on a mountain of slain: And he gazed with delight from its growing height, Nor often on earth had he seen such a sight,

Nor his work done hall so well: For the field ran so red with the blood of the dead,

That it blush'd like the waves of hell! Then loudly, and wildly, and long laugh'd he: “Methinks they have here little need of me !"

And he saw the tears in Lord Eldon's eyes,

Because the Catholics would not rise,

In spite of his prayers and his prophecies; And he heard--which set Satan himself a staring A certain chief justice say something like smotar

ing. And the Devil was shock'd-and quoth be, "I

must go, For I find we have much better manners below. If thus he harangues when he passes my border, I shall hint to friend Moloch to call him to order.

December, 1813

ADDITIONAL STANZAS, TO THE ODE TO

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.

8. But the softcst note that soothed his ear

Was the sound of a widow sighing; And the sweetest sight was the icy tear, Which horror froze in the blue eye clear

Of a maid by her lover lyingAs round her fell her long fair hair: And she look'd to heaven with that frenzied air Which seem'd to ask if a God were there! And, stretch'd by the wall of a ruin'd hut, With its hollow check, and eyes hall shut,

A child of famine dying: And the carnage begun, when resistance is done,

And the fall of the vainly flying !

10.
But the Devil has reach'd our clitf's so white,

And what did he there, I pray?
If his eyes were good, he but saw by night

What we see every day;
But he made a tour, and kept a journal
of all the wondrous sights nocturnal,
And he sold it in shares to the Men of the Row,
Who bid pretty well-but they cheated him, though!

11.
The Devil first saw, as he thought, the Mail,

Its coachman and his coat;
So instead of a pistol he cock'd his tail,

And seized him by the throat:
“Aha," quoth he, “what have we here?
"T is a new barouche, and an ancient peer !"
So he sat him on his box again,

And bade him have no fear, But be true to his club, and staunch to his rein,

His brothel, and his beer; “Next to seeing a lord at the council board,

I would rather see him here."

17. There was a day-there was an hour,

While earth was Gaul's-Gaul thine
When 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

18.
But thou forsooth must be a king

And don the purple vest,
As if that foolish robe could wring

Remembrance from thy breast.
Where is that faded garment? where
The gewgaws thou wert fond to wear,

The star-the string-the crest?
Vain froward child of empire! say,
Are all thy playthings snatch'd away?

19.
Where may the wearied eye repose,

When gazing on the great; Where neither guilty glory glows,

Nor despicable state ? Yes-one-the first--the last-the best The Cincinnatus of the West,

Whom envy dared not hate, Bequeath'd the name of Washington,

To make man blush there was but onel

April, 1814

TO LADY CAROLINE LAMB.

*

17. The Devil gat next to Westminster,

And he turn'd " to the room” of the Commons; But he heard, as he proposed to enter in there,

That “the Lords" had received a summons; And he thought as a “ quondam aristocrat," He might peep at the peers, though to hear them

were flat; And he walk'd up the house so like one of our

own, That they say that he stood pretty near the throne.

18. lle saw the Lord Liverpool seemingly wise,

The Lord Westmoreland certainly silly, And Johnny of Norfolk-a man of some size

And Chatham, so like his friend Billy;

And say'st thou that I have not felt,

Whilst thou wert thus estranged from me Nor know'st how dearly I have dwelt

On one unbroken dream of thee? But love like ours must never be,

And I will learn to prize thce less; As thou hast fled, so let me flee,

And change the heart thou may'st not bless They 'll tell thee, Clara! I have seem'd,

of late, another's charms to woo, Nor sighd, nor frown'd, as if I deemid

That thou wert banish'd from my vien. Clara! this struggle-10 undo

What thou hast done too well, for me This mask before the babbling crew

This treachery-was truth to thee: