In this life of probation for rapture divine,
Astrea declares that some penance is due ;
From him who has worshipp'd at love's gentle shrine,
The atonement is ample in love's last adieu!

Who kneels to the god, on his altar of light

Must myrtle and cypress alternately strew: His myrtle, an emblem of purest delight; His cypress the garland of love's last adieu!

DAMÆTAS.

In law an infant 1, and in years a boy,

In mind a slave to every vicious joy;
From every sense of shame and virtue wean'd;
In lies an adept, in deceit a fiend;

Versed in hypocrisy, while yet a child;
Fickle as wind, of inclinations wild;
Woman his dupe, his heedless friend a tool;
Old in the world, though scarcely broke from school;
Damætas ran through all the maze of sin,
And found the goal when others just begin:
Even still conflicting passions shake his soul,
And bid him drain the dregs of pleasure's bowl;
But, pall'd with vice, he breaks his former chain,
And what was once his bliss appears his bane. 2

TO MARION.

MARION! why that pensive brow?
What disgust to life hast thou?
Change that discontented air;
Frowns become not one so fair.
'Tis not love disturbs thy rest,
Love's a stranger to thy breast;
He in dimpling smiles appears,
Or mourns in sweetly timid tears,
Or bends the languid eyelid down,
But shuns the cold forbidding frown.
Then resume thy former fire,
Some will love, and all admire ;
While that icy aspect chills us,
Nought but cool indifference thrills us.
Wouldst thou wandering hearts beguile,
Smile at least, or seem to smile.
Eyes like thine were never meant
To hide their orbs in dark restraint;
Spite of all thou fain wouldst say,
Still in truant beams they play.
Thy lips but here my modest Muse
Her impulse chaste must needs refuse:
She blushes, curt'sies, frowns in short she
Dreads lest the subject should transport me ;
And flying off in search of reason,
Brings prudence back in proper season.

1 In law every person is an infant who has not attained the age of twenty-one.

["When I went up to Trinity, in 1805, at the age of seventeen and a half, I was miserable and untoward to a degree. I was wretched at leaving Harrow-wretched at going to Cambridge instead of Oxford - wretched from some private domestic circumstances of different kinds; and, consequently, about as unsocial as a wolf taken from the troop." Diary. Mr. Moore adds, "The sort of life which young Byron led at this period, between the dissipations of London and of Cambridge, without a home to welcome, or even the roof of a single relative to receive him, was but little calculated

All I shall therefore say (whate'er
I think, is neither here nor there)
Is, that such lips, of looks endearing,
Were form'd for better things than sucering:

Of smoothing compliments divested,
Advice at least 's disinterested;
Such is my artless song to thee,
From all the flow of flattery free;
Counsel like mine is like a brother's
My heart is given to some others;
That is to say, unskill'd to cozen,
It shares itself among a dozen.
Marion, adieu! oh, pr'ythee slight not
This warning, though it may delight not;
And, lest my precepts be displeasing
To those who think remonstrance teasing,
At once I'll tell thee our opinion
Concerning woman's soft dominiou :
Howe'er we gaze with admiration
On eyes of blue or lips carnation,
Howe'er the flowing locks attract us,
Howe'er those beauties may distract us,
Still fickle, we are prone to rove,
These cannot fix our souls to love:
It is not too severe a stricture
To say they form a pretty picture;
But wouldst thou see the secret chain
Which binds us in your humble train,
To hail you queens of all creation,
Know, in a word, 't is ANIMATION.

TO A LADY

WHO PRESENTED TO THE AUTHOR A LOCK OF HAIR
BRAIDED WITH HIS OWN, AND APPOINTED A NIGHT
IN DECEMBER TO MEET HIM IN THE GARDEN. 3
THESE locks, which fondly thus entwine,
In firmer chains our hearts confine,
Than all th' unmeaning protestations
Which swell with nonsense love orations.
Our love is fix'd, I think we 've proved it,
Nor time, nor place, nor art have moved it;
Then wherefore should we sigh and whine,
With groundless jealousy repine,

With silly whims and fancies frantic,
Merely to make our love romantic?
Why should you weep like Lydia Languish,
And fret with self-created anguish

Or doom the lover you have chosen, On winter nights to sigh half frozen ; In leafless shades to sue for pardon, Only because the scene 's a garden? For gardens seem, by one consent, Since Shakspeare set the precedent, Since Juliet first declared her passion To form the place of assignation. +

to render him satisfied either with himself or the world. Unrestricted as he was by deference to any will but his own, even the pleasures to which he was naturally most inclined prematurely palled upon him, for want of those best zests of all enjoyment- rarity and restraint."]

3 [See antè, p. 387. note.]

4 In the above little piece the author has been accused by some candid readers of introducing the name of a lady from whom he was some hundred miles distant at the time this was written; and poor Juliet, who has slept so long in "the tomb of all the Capulets," has been converted, with a trifling

Oh! would some modern muse inspire, And seat her by a sea-coal fire;

Or had the bard at Christmas written,
And laid the scene of love in Britain,
He surely, in commiseration,

Had changed the place of declaration.
In Italy I've no objection;
Warm nights are proper for reflection;
But here our climate is so rigid,
That love itself is rather frigid:
Think on our chilly situation,
And curb this rage for imitation;
Then let us meet, as oft we've done,
Beneath the influence of the sun;
Or, if at midnight I must meet you,
Within your mansion let me greet you:
There we can love for hours together,
Much better, in such snowy weather,
Than placed in all th' Arcadian groves
That ever witness'd rural loves;
Then, if my passion fail to please,
Next night I'll be content to freeze;
No more I'll give a loose to laughter,
But curse my fate for ever after. 1

OSCAR OF ALVA. 2

A TALE.

How sweetly shines through azure skies, The lamp of heaven on Lora's shore; Where Alva's hoary turrets rise,

And hear the din of arms no more.

But often has yon rolling moon

On Alva's casques of silver play'd ; And view'd, at midnight's silent noon, Her chiefs in gleaming mail array'd:

And on the crimson'd rocks beneath, Which scowl o'er ocean's sullen flow Pale in the scatter'd ranks of death,

She saw the gasping warrior low;

While many an eye which ne'er again Could mark the rising orb of day, Turn'd feebly from the gory plain,

Beheld in death her fading ray.

Once to those eyes the lamp of Love, They blest her dear propitious light; But now she glimmer'd rom above,

A sad, funereal torch of night.

Faded is Alva's noble race,

And gray her towers are seen afar ;

alteration of her name, into an English damsel, walking in a garden of their own creation, during the month of December, in a village where the author never passed a winter. Such has been the candour of some ingenious critics. We would advise these liberal commentators on taste and arbiters of decorum to read Shakspeare.

1 Having heard that a very severe and indelicate censure has been passed on the above poem, I beg leave to reply in a quotation from an admired work, "Carr's Stranger in France."-" As we were contemplating a painting on a large scale, in which, among other figures, is the uncovered whole length of a warrior, a prudish-looking lady, who seemed to have touched the age of desperation, after having attentively surveyed it through her glass, observed to her party, that