The works of lord Byron

And these, when all was lost beside,
Were found, and still are fixed, in thee- ^
And bearing still a breast so tried,
Earth is no desert-even to me.

ODE.

[FROM THE FRENCH.]

"All wept, but particularly Savary, and a P officer who had been exalted from the na by Buonaparte. He clung to his master's t wrote a letter to Lord Keith, entreating pr mission to accompany him, even in the menial capacity, which could not be admis

Must thou go, my glorious Chief,

Sever'd from thy faithful few? Who can tell thy warrior's grief, Maddening o'er that long adieu? Woman's love, and friendship's zeal, Dear as both have been to meWhat are they to all I feel,

With a soldier's faith, for thee?

Idol of the soldier's soul!

First in fight, but mightiest now:
Many could a world control;

Thee alone no doom can bow.
By thy side for years I dared

Death, and envied those who fell,
When their dying shout was heard
Blessing him they served so well.

Would that I were cold with those,
Since this hour I live to see;
When the doubts of coward foes

Scarce dare trust a man with thee,

ray-Dreading each should set thee free.

And teach it what to brave or brookThere's more in one soft word of thine, Than in the world's defied rebuke.

Thou stood'st, as stands a lovely tree,
That still unbroke, though gently bent,

Still waves with fond fidelity

Its boughs above a monument.

Oh! although in dungeons pent, All their chains were light to me, Gazing on thy soul unbent.

Would the sycophants of him

Now so deaf to duty's prayer,
Were his borrow'd glories dim,

In his native darkness share?
Were that world this hour his own,

All thou calmly dost resign,
Could he purchase with that throne
Hearts like those which still are thing!

The winds might rend-the skies might pour, My chief, my king, my friend, adieu!

But there thou wert- and still wouldst be

Devoted in the stormiest hour

To shed thy weeping leaves o'er me.

But thou and thine shall know no blight,
Whatever fate on me may fall;
For heaven in sunshine will requite
The kind-and thee the most of all.

Then let the ties of baffled love

Be broken-thine will never break;
Thy heart can feel-but will not move;
Thy soul, though soft, will never shake.

Never did I droop before;
Never to my sovereign sue,
As his foes I now implore.
All I ask is to divide

Every peril he must brave,
Sharing by the hero's side
His fall, his exile, and his grave.

[FROM THE FRENCH.]

We do not curse thee, Waterloo! Though Freedom's blood thy plain bedes.

There 'twas shed, but is not sunkRising from each gory trunk, =Like the water-spout from ocean, With a strong and growing motionIt soars, and mingles in the air, With that of lost LABEDOYEREWith that of him whose honour'd grave Contains the "bravest of the brave." A crimson cloud it spreads and glows, But shall return to whence it rose; When 'tis full 'twill burst asunderNever yet was heard such thunder

Victory beaming from her breast?)
While the broken line enlarging
Fell, or fled along the plain;
There be sure was MURAT charging!
There he ne'er shall charge again!

O'er glories gone the invaders march, Weeps Triumph o'er each levell'd archBut let Freedom rejoice,

With her heart in her voice;
But, her hand on her sword,
Doubly shall she be adored;

As then shall shake the world with wonder-France hath twice too well been taught

Never yet was seen such lightning,

As o'er heaven shall then be bright'ning!

Like the Wormwood-Star foretold

By the sainted Seer of old,
Showering down a fiery flood,
Turning rivers into blood.

The Chief has fallen, but not by you,
Vanquishers of Waterloo!
When the soldier-citizen
Sway'd not o'er his fellow-men-
Save in deeds that led them on
Where Glory smiled on Freedom's son--
Who, of all the despots banded,
With that youthful chief competed?
Who could boast o'er France defeated,
Till lone Tyranny commanded?
Till, goaded by Ambition's sting,
The Hero sunk into the King?
Then he fell;-So perish all,
Who would men by man enthral!

And thou too of the snow-white plume!
Whose realm refused thee even a tomb;
Better hadst thou still been leading
France o'er hosts of hirelings bleeding,
Than sold thyself to death and shame
For a meanly royal name,
Such as he of Naples wears,
Who thy blood-bought title bears.
Little didst thou deem, when dashing
On thy war-horse through the ranks,
Like a stream which burst its banks,
While helmets cleft, and sabres clashing,
Shone and shiver'd fast around thee-
Of the fate at last which found thee:
Was that haughty plume laid low
By a slave's dishonest blow?
Once-as the Moon sways o'er the tide,
It rolled in air, the warrior's guide;
Through the smoke-created night
Of the black and sulphurous fight,
The soldier raised his seeking eye
To catch that crest's ascendancy,-
And as it onward rolling rose,
So moved his heart upon our foes.
There, where death's brief pang was quickest,
And the battle's wreck lay thickest,
Strew'd beneath the advancing banner
Of the eagle's burning crest-
(There, with thunder-clouds to fan her,
Who could then her wing arrest-

The "moral lesson" dearly bought-
Her safety sits not on a throne,

With CAPET or NAPOLEON!

But in equal rights and laws,

Hearts and hands in one great cause-
Freedom, such as God hath given
Unto all beneath his heaven

With their breath, and from their birth, Though Guilt would sweep it from the earth;

With a fierce and lavish hand
Scattering nations' wealth like sand:
Pouring nations' blood like water,
In imperial seas of slaughter!

But the heart and the mind, And the voice of mankind, Shall arise in communionAnd who shall resist that proud union? The time is past when swords subduedMan may die- the soul's renew'd : Even in this low world of care Freedom ne'er shall want an heir; Millions breathe but to inherit Her for ever bounding spiritWhen once more her hosts assemble, Tyrants shall believe and tremble — Smile they at this idle threat? Crimson tears will follow yet.

ON THE STAR OF THE LEGION OF HONOUR.

[FROM THE FRENCH.]

STAR of the brave!-whose beam hath shed
Such glory o'er the quick and dead—
Thou radiant and adored deceit!
Which millions rush'd in arms to greet,-
Wild meteor of immortal birth!
Why rise in Heaven to set on Earth?

Souls of slain heroes form'd thy rays;
Eternity flash'd through thy blaze;
The music of thy martial sphere
Was fame on high and honour here;
And thy light broke on human eyes
Like a Volcano of the skies.

Like lava roll'd thy stream of blood,
And swept down empires with its flood;
Earth rock'd beneath thee to her base,
As thou didst lighten through all space;
And the shorn Sun grew dim in air,
And set while thou wert dwelling there.
Before thee rose, and with thee grew,
A rainbow of the loveliest hue
Of three bright colours, each divine,
And fit for that celestial sign;
For Freedom's hand had blended them
Like tints in an immortal gem.

One tint was of the sunbeam's dyes;
One, the blue depth of Seraph's eyes;
One, the pure Spirit's veil of white
Had robed in radiance of its light:
The three so mingled did beseem
The texture of a heavenly dream.

Star of the brave! thy ray is pale,
And darkness must again prevail!
But, oh thou Rainbow of the free!
Our tears and blood must flow for thee.
When thy bright promise fades away,
Our life is but a load of clay.

And Freedom hallows with her tread
The silent cities of the dead;
For beautiful in death are they
Who proudly fall in her array;
And soon, oh Goddess! may we be
For evermore with them or thee!

NAPOLEON'S FAREWELL.

[FROM THE FRENCH.]

ABSENT or present, still to thee,

My friend, what magic spells belong!
As all can tell, who share, like me,
In turn, thy converse and thy song.
But when the dreaded hour shall cou
By Friendship ever deem'd too nigh,
And "MEMORY" o'er her Druid's tomb
Shall weep that aught of thee can die,
How fondly will She then repay
Thy homage offer'd at her shrine,

FAREWELL to the Land where the gloom of And blend, while Ages roll away,

my Glory

Arose and o'ershadow'd the earth with her

Her name immortally with thine!

April 19, 1812

I have warr'd with a world which van- RoUSSEAU-Voltaire—our Gibbon—and de

my fame.

quish'd me only

When the meteor of Conquest allured me Leman! these

too far;

I have coped with the nations which dread Thy shore of

me thus lonely,

The last single Captive to millions in war. Their memory

Stael-names are worthy of thy shore,

names like these; wert

thou no more,

thy remembrance would

recal:

Farewell to thee, France!-when thy dia-To them thy banks were lovely as to all; dem crown'd me But they have made them lovelier, for

How much more, Lake of Beauty! do we feel,

In sweetly gliding o'er thy crystal sea,
The wild glow of that not ungentle zeal,
Which of the heirs of immortality
Is proud, and makes the breath of glory real!

STANZAS TO

THOUGH the day of my destiny's over, And the star of my fate hath declined, Thy soft heart refused to discover

The faults which so many could find; Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted,

It shrunk not to share it with me, And the love which my spirit hath painted It never hath found but in thee.

Then when nature around me is smiling The last smile which answers to mine, I do not believe it beguiling

Because it reminds me of thine;

And when winds are at war with the ocean,
As the breasts I believed in with me,
If their billows excite an emotion,
It is that they bear me from thee.

Though the rock of my last hope is shiver'd,
And its fragments are sunk in the wave,
Though I feel that my soul is deliver'd
To pain-it shall not be its slave.
There is many a pang to pursue me:
They may crush, but they shall not

contemn

They may torture, but shall not subdue me — Tis of thee that I think-not of them.

Though human, thou didst not deceive me, = _Though woman, thou didst not forsake, Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me, =Though slander'd, thou never couldst shake,

Though trusted thou didst not disclaim me,
Though parted, it was not to fly,
Thongh watchful, 'twas not to defame me,
Nor, mute, that the world might belie.

Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it,
Nor the war of the many with one-
If my soul was not fitted to prize it,

Twas folly not sooner to shun:
And if dearly that error hath cost me,
And more than I once could foresee,
I have found that, whatever it lost me,
It could not deprive me of thee.

In the desert a fountain is springing,
In the wide waste there still is a tree,
And a bird in the solitude singing,
Which speaks to my spirit of thee.

A VERY MOURNFUL BALLAD ON THE SIEGE AND CONQUEST OF ALHAMA.

The effect of the original ballad (which existed both in Spanish and Arabic) was such that it was forbidden to be sung by the Moors, on pain of death, within Granada.

THE Moorish King rides up and down
Through Granada's royal town;
From Elvira's gates to those
Of Bivarambla on he goes.

Woe is me, Alhama!

Letters to the monarch tell
How Alhama's city fell;
In the fire the scroll he threw,
And the messenger he slew.

Woe is me, Alhama!

He quits his mule, and mounts his horse,
And through the street directs his course;
Through the street of Zacatin
To the Alhambra spurring in.

Woe is me, Alhama!

When the Alhambra walls he gain'd,
On the moment he ordain'd
That the trumpet straight should sound
With the silver clarion round.

Woe is me, Alhama!

And when the hollow drums of war
Beat the loud alarm afar,
That the Moors of town and plain
Might answer to the martial strain,
Woe is me, Alhama!

That bloody Mars recall'd them there,
Then the Moors by this aware
One by one, and two by two,
To a mighty squadron grew.

Woe is me, Alhama!

Out then spake an aged Moor
In these words the king before,
"Wherefore call on us, oh king?
What may mean this gathering?"
Woe is me, Alhama!

From the wreck of the past, which hath "Friends! ye have, alas! to know

perish'd,

Thus much I at least may recal,

It hath taught me that what I most cherish'd Deserved to be dearest of all:

Of a most disastrous blow,
That the Christians, stern and bold,
Have obtain'd Alhama's hold."

Woe is me, Alhama!

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