Here 'twas, at eve, near yonder tree reposing,
One still too dear first breathed his vows to thee:
'Wear this,' he cried, his guileful love disclosing,
Near to thy heart, in memory of me.'

Love-cherished gift! the rose he gave is faded;
Love's blighted flower can never bloom again!
Weep for thy fault-in heart, in mind, degraded-
Weep, if thy tears can wash away the stain!
Call back the vows that once to heaven were plighted-
Vows full of love, of innocence, and truth!

Call back the scenes in which thy soul delighted-
Call back the dream that blest thy early youth!
Flow, silver stream! though threatening tempests lower,
Bright, mild, and clear, thy gentle waters flow;
Round thy green banks the spring's young blossoms flower—
O'er thy soft waves the balmy zephyrs blow.
-Yet, all in vain; for never spring, arraying
Nature in charms, to thee can make it fair :
Ill-fated love clouds all thy path, portraying
Years past of bliss, and future of despair.

'Farewell.'

Ah! frown not thus-nor turn from me;

I must not dare not-look on thee:
Too well thou know'st how dear thou art-
'Tis hard, but yet 'tis best, to part:

I wish thee not to share my grief-
It seeks, it hopes, for no relief.

• Farewell.'

Come, give thy hand! what though we part?
Thy name is fixed within my heart:

I shall not change, nor break the vow
I made before, and plight thee now;
For, since thou may'st not live for me,
'Tis sweeter far to die for thee.

• Farewell.'

Thou'lt think of me when I am gone;

None shall undo what I have done :

Yet even thy love I would resign
To save thee from remorse like mine.
Thy tears shall fall upon my grave:

They still may bless-they cannot save.

There are some other verses in the novel, but they are not by Lord Byron.

Lord Byron's separation from his wife made him resolve again to go abroad, and he put this resolution into practice towards the close of the year 1816. Immediately before his departure he wrote the following little song to his friend Moore:

My boat is on the shore,

And my bark is on the sea;
But, before I go, Tom Moore,
Here's a double health to thee!

Here's a sigh to those who love me,
And a smile to those who hate;
And, whatever sky's above me,
Here's a heart for every fate.

Though the ocean roar around me,
Yet it still shall bear me on;
Though a desert should surround me,
It hath springs that may be won.

Were't the last drop in the well,

As I gasped upon the brink,

Ere my fainting spirit fell,

'Tis to thee that I would drink.

In that water, as this wine,

The libation I would pour

Should be-Peace to thine and mine,

And a health to thee, Tom Moore!

CHAPTER VI.

LORD BYRON'S quitting England excited a very considerable sensation; and perhaps the world, as it is called, never felt, if indeed it can feel, a more general and sincere regret than was experienced at the cause of his self-banishment. To his intimate friends it was a source of great grief. His manners, although somewhat singular, were so delightful and fascinating as to excite an affectionate solicitude for him: not even the abstracted and melancholy moods in which he would indulge occasionally, and which gave an air of repulsiveness to his demeanour, could efface the impressions which, in more cheerful times, he never failed to make upon his associates.

Perhaps no man-certainly no poet-ever enjoyed so large a share of public as well as private estimation; and perhaps none ever so well deserved both. His powers of conversation were of the first order, and astonished and pleased not less by their brilliancy than by their rarity. His features were admirably adapted to give force to his eloquent discourse they were not such as could be called, by painters, strictly handsome, but they were highly pleasing, and his countenance seemed to be the faithful index of the varied feelings and passions which occupied his mind. The following quotation from a very judicious and elegant article in the Quarterly Review' is at once so happily expressed, and so true a description of Lord Byron's face and manner, that we shall be pardoned for inserting it:

The predominating expression of his countenance was that of deep and habitual thought, which gave way to the most rapid play of features when he engaged in interesting discussion; so that a brother poet compared them to the sculpture of a beautiful alabaster vase, only seen to perfection when lighted up from within. The flashes of mirth, gaiety, indignation, or satirical dislike, which frequently animated Lord Byron's countenance, might, during an evening's conversation, be mistaken by a stranger for the habitual expression, so easily and so happily was it formed for them all; but those who had an opportunity of studying his features for a length of time, and upon various occasions, both of rest and emotion, will agree with us that their proper language was that of melancholy. Sometimes shades of this gloom interrupted even his gayest and most happy moments, and the follow

ing verses are said to have dropped from his pen to excuse a transient expression of melancholy which overclouded the general gaiety :

When, from the heart where Sorrow sits,
Her dusky shadow mounts too high,
And o'er the changing aspect flits,

And clouds the brow, or fills the eye-
Heed not the gloom that soon shall sink :
My thoughts their dungeon know too well;
Back to my breast the captives shrink,

And bleed within their silent cell."

It was impossible to behold this interesting countenance, expressive of a dejection belonging neither to the rank, the age, nor the success of this young nobleman, without feeling an indefinable curiosity to ascertain whether it had a deeper cause than habit or constitutional temperament.'

The circumstances of the domestic disagreement which terminated in so harsh and unexpected a manner contributed not a little to draw the public attention to the subject, and it was very much the fashion to pity Lord Byron and to blame his lady, when the publication of the third canto of Childe Harold' confirmed the existing prejudice in his favour, while it added highly to his poetical reputation.

On a former occasion we have seen that Lord Byron disavowed the imputation of being himself the character he described in the hero of his poem. He did so either very seriously, or with an air of seriousness so well affected, that no one who read it could doubt his being in earnest, and that he had even been pained by the supposition which had got abroad. In the publication which he now submitted to the world he at once identifies himself with his hero, and teaches us to consider Lord Byron and Childe Harold as one and the same. In the very first stanzas he speaks in his own person, and most unequivocally, by addressing his infant daughter:

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

Ada! sole daughter of my house and heart?
When last I saw thy young blue eyes they smiled,
And then we parted,—not as now we part,
But with a hope.-

Awaking with a start,
The waters heave around me; and on high
The winds lift up their voices: I depart,

Whither I know not; but the hour's gone by
When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye.

Once more upon the waters! yet once more!

And the waves bound beneath me as a steed
That knows his rider. Welcome to their roar!
Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead!
Though the strained mast should quiver as a reed,
And the rent canvass fluttering strew the gale,

Still must I on; for I am as a weed,

Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam, to sail

Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail.

It is this kind of personal allusion that we most object to in the whole of this third canto, and we cannot but think that it forms a considerable drawback from the merit of the poem. After what had passed between Lord Byron and his lady, there was something unfair, almost unmanly, in his putting on, for the public, all the airs of a husband injured, but still forgiving, and who was driven from his home, when, in point of fact, the quitting that home was his own choice; and, of all the blame which either of the parties might have deserved, his shame must in justice have been the larger.

This fault will, however, be, as now it should be, forgotten, and such parts of the poem as describe the author's own feelings will be read by posterity with an interest as intense as that which they have created in his own days. The stanzas which are subjoined are no less remarkable on this account than for their own intrinsic beauty. Never before were the secret workings of the heart of a man of real genius, the dissatisfaction at the cold conventions of the world, and the waywardness which accompanies the heavenly fire with which the bosom of a real poet burns, so truly or so powerfully described. Such passages are worth all the metaphysics that the brains of pedants ever dreamed over:

Something too much of this but now 'tis past,
And the spell closes with its silent scal.

Long absent Harold re-appears at last ;

He of the breast which fain no more would feel,

Wrung with the wounds which kill not, but ne'er heal; Yet Time, who changes all, had altered him

In soul and aspect as in age: years steal

Fire from the mind as vigour from the limb;

And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.