SONNET, TO GENEVRA.

THINE eyes' blue tenderness, thy long fair hair,
And the wan lustre of thy features - caught
From contemplation where serenely wrought,
Seems Sorrow's softness charm'd from its despair
Have thrown such speaking sadness in thine air,

That — but I know thy blessed bosom fraught
With mines of unalloy'd and stainless thought -
I should have deem'd thee doom'd to earthly care.
With such an aspect, by his colours blent,

When from his beauty-breathing pencil born, (Except that thou hast nothing to repent)

The Magdalen of Guido saw the morn —

Such seem'st thou but how much more excellent! With nought Remorse can claim nor Virtue

scorn.

December 17. 1813.1

countenance, expressive of a dejection belonging neither to his rank, his age, nor his success, without feeling an indefinable curiosity to ascertain whether it had a deeper cause than habit or constitutional temperament. It was obviously of a degree incalculably more serious than that alluded to by Prince Arthur

- I remember when I was in France, Young gentlemen would be as sad as night, Only for wantonness.'

But, howsoever derived, this, joined to Lord Byron's air of mingling in amusements and sports as if he contemned them, and felt that his sphere was far above the frivolous crowd which surrounded him, gave a strong effect of colouring to a character whose tints were otherwise romantic. SIR WALTER SCOTT.]

["Redde some Italian, and wrote two sonnets. I never wrote but one sonnet before, and that was not in earnest, and many years ago, as an exercise and I will never write another. They are the most puling, petrifying, stupidly platonic compositions."-Byron Diary, 1813.]

SONNET, TO THE SAME.

--

THY cheek is pale with thought, but not from woe,
And yet so lovely, that if Mirth could flush
Its rose of whiteness with the brightest blush,
My heart would wish away that ruder glow :
And dazzle not thy deep-blue eyes but, oh!
While gazing on them sterner eyes will gush,
And into mine my mother's weakness rush,
Soft as the last drops round heaven's airy bow.
For, through thy long dark lashes low depending,
The soul of melancholy Gentleness

Gleams like a seraph from the sky descending,
Above all pain, yet pitying all distress;
At once such majesty with sweetness blending,
I worship more, but cannot love thee less.

December 17. 1813.

FROM THE PORTUGUESE.

"TU MI CHAMAS, '

IN moments to delight devoted,

"My life!" with tenderest tone, you cry; Dear words! on which my heart had doted, If youth could neither fade nor die.

To death even hours like these must roll,
Ah! then repeat those accents never;
Or change "my life!" into "my soul!"
Which, like my love, exists for ever.

ANOTHER VERSION.

You call me still your life. ·

Oh! change the word— Life is as transient as the inconstant sigh: Say rather I'm your soul; more just that name, For, like the soul, my love can never die.

THE DEVIL'S DRIVE;

AN UNFINISHED RHAPSODY. 1

THE Devil return'd to hell by two,
And he stay'd at home till five;

When he dined on some homicides done in ragoût,
And a rebel or so in an Irish stew,
And sausages made of a self-slain Jew
And bethought himself what next to do,
"And," quoth he, "I'll take a drive.
walk'd in the morning, I'll ride to-night;
In darkness my children take most delight,
And I'll see how my favourites thrive.

"And what shall I ride in?" quoth Lucifer then -
"If I follow'd my taste, indeed,

I should mount in a waggon of wounded men,
And smile to see them bleed.

1 ["I have lately written a wild, rambling, unfinished rhapsody, called The Devil's Drive,' the notion of which I took from Porson's Devil's Walk.'"-Byron Diary, 1813. —" Of this strange, wild poem," says Moore, "the only copy that Lord Byron, I believe, ever wrote, he presented to Lord Holland. Though with a good deal of vigour and imagination, it is, for the most part, rather clumsily executed, wanting the point and condensation of those clever verses of Mr. Coleridge, which Lord Byron, adopting a notion long prevalent, has attributed to Professor Porson.]

But these will be furnished again and again,

And at present my purpose is speed;

To see my manor as much as I may,

And watch that no souls shall be poach'd away.

"I have a state-coach at Carlton House,

A chariot in Seymour Place;

But they 're lent to two friends, who make me amends, By driving my favourite pace :

And they handle their reins with such a grace,

I have something for both at the end of their race.

"So now for the earth to take my chance:"
Then up to the earth sprung he;

And making a jump from Moscow to France,
He stepp'd across the sea,

And rested his hoof on a turnpike road,
No very great way from a bishop's abode.

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 half as 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!"

But the softest 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 lying-

As 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 cheek, and eyes half shut,
A child of famine dying:

And the carnage begun, when resistance is done
And the fall of the vainly flying!

But the Devil has reach'd our cliffs 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!

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?
'Tis 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 stanch to his rein,
His brothel, and his beer;