The legal ruler now resumes the helm,
He guides through gentle seas the prow of state;
Hope cheers, with wonted smiles, the peaceful realm,
And heals the bleeding wounds of wearied hate.
The gloomy tenants, Newstead! of thy cells,
Howling, resign their violated nest;
Again the master on his tenure dwells,
Enjoy'd, from absence, with enraptured zest.
Vassals, within thy hospitable pale,
Loudly carousing, bless their lord's return;
Culture again adorns the gladdening vale,
And matrons, once lamenting, cease to mourn.
A thousand songs on tuneful echo float,
Unwonted foliage mantles o'er the trees;
And hark! the horns proclaim a mellow note,
The hunters' cry hangs lengthening on the breeze.
Beneath their coursers' hoofs the valleys shake:
What fears, what anxious hopes, attend the chase!
The dying stag seeks refuge in the lake;
Exulting shouts announce the finish'd race.
Ah happy days! too happy to endure!
Such simple sports our plain forefathers knew:
No splendid vices glitter'd to allure;
Their joys were many, as their cares were few.
From these descending, sons to sires succeed;
Time steals along, and Death uprears his dart;
Another chief impels the foaming steed,
Another crowd pursue the panting hart.
Newstead! what saddening change of scene is thine!
Thy yawning arch betokens slow decay;
The last and youngest of a noble line
Now holds thy mouldering turrets in his sway.
tisans and the cavaliers: both interpreted the circumstance into divine interposition: but whether as approbation or condemnation, we leave to the casuists of that age to decide. I have made such use of the occurrence as suited the subject of my poem. 3 Charles II.
Deserted now, he scans thy gray worn towers;
Thy vaults, where dead of feudal ages sleep;
Thy cloisters, pervious to the wintry showers;
These, these he views, and views them but to weep.
Yet are his tears no emblem of regret :
Cherish'd affection only bids them flow.
Pride, hope, and love forbid him to forget,
But warm his bosom with impassion'd glow.
Yet he prefers thee to the gilded domes
Or gewgaw grottos of the vainly great;
Yet lingers 'mid thy damp and mossy tombs,
Nor breathes a murmur 'gainst the will of fate."
Haply thy sun, emerging, yet may shine,
Thee to irradiate with meridian ray;
Hours splendid as the past may still be thine,
And bless thy future as thy former day.'
"I cannot but remember such things were,
And were most dear to me.
WHEN slow Disease, with all her host of pains,
Chills the warm tide which flows along the veins;
["Come what may," wrote Byron to his mother, in March, 1809, "Newstead and I stand or fall together. I have now lived on the spot; I have fixed my heart upon it; and no pressure, present or future, shall induce me to barter the last vestige of our inheritance. I have that pride within me which will enable me to support difficulties. I can endure privations; but could I obtain, in exchange for Newstead Abbey, the first fortune in the country, I would reject the proposition."]
[Those who turn from this Elegy to the stanzas on Newstead Abbey, in the thirteenth canto of Don Juan, cannot fail to remark how frequently the thoughts in the two pieces are the same; or to be interested in comparing the juvenile sketch with the bold touches and mellow colouring of the master's picture.]
["I was laid," says Lord Byron, "on my back, when this schoolboy thing was written, or rather dictated-expecting to rise no more, my physician having taken his sixteenth fee." In the private volume the poem opened differently :-
"Hence! thou unvarying song of varied loves,
Which youth commends, maturer age reproves;
Which every rhyming bard repeats by rote,
By thousands echo'd to the self-same note!
Tired of the dull, unceasing, copious strain,
My soul is panting to be free again.
Farewell! ye nymphs propitious to my verse,
Some other Damon will your charms rehearse;
When Health, affrighted, spreads her rosy wing,
And flies with every changing gale of spring;
Not to the aching frame alone confined,
Unyielding pangs assail the drooping mind:
What grisly forms, the spectre-train of woe,
Bid shuddering Nature shrink beneath the blow,
With Resignation wage relentless strife,
While Hope retires appall'd, and clings to life.
Yet less the pang when, through the tedious hour,
Remembrance sheds around her genial power,
Calls back the vanish'd days to rapture given,
When love was bliss, and Beauty form'd our heaven;
Or, dear to youth, portrays each childish scene,
Those fairy bowers, where all in turn have been.
As when through clouds that pour the summer storm
The orb of day unveils his distant form,
Gilds with faint beams the crystal dews of rain
And dimly twinkles o'er the watery plain :
Thus, while the future dark and cheerless gleams,
The sun of memory, glowing through my dreams,
Though sunk the radiance of his former blaze,
To scenes far distant points his paler rays;
Still rules my senses with unbounded sway,
The past confounding with the present day.
Some other paint his pangs, in hope of bliss,
Or dwell in rapture on your nectar'd kiss.
Those beauties, grateful to my ardent sight,
No more entrance my senses in delight;
Those bosoms, form'd of animated snow,
Alike are tasteless and unfeeling now.
These to some happier lover I resign—
The memory of those joys alone is mine.
Censure no more shall brand my humble name,
The child of passion and the fool of fame.
Weary of love, of life, devour'd with spleen,
I rest a perfect Timon, not nineteen.
World! I renounce thee! all my hope's o'ercast !
One sigh I give thee, but that sigh's the last.
Friends, foes, and females, now alike adieu !
Would I could add remembrance of you too!
Yet though the future dark and cheerless gleams,
The curse of memory, hovering in my dreams,
Depicts with glowing pencil all those years,
Ere yet my cup, empoison'd, flow'd with tears;
Still rules my senses with tyrannic sway,
The past confounding with the present day.
"Alas! in vain I check the maddening thought;
It still recurs, unlook'd for and unsought:
My soul to Fancy's," &c. &c., as at line 29.]
Oft does my heart indulge the rising thought,
Which still recurs, unlook'd for and unsought;
My soul to Fancy's fond suggestion yields,
And roams romantic o'er her airy fields.
Scenes of my youth, developed, crowd to view,
To which I long have bade a last adieu!
Seats of delight, inspiring youthful themes;
Friends lost to me for aye, except in dreams;
Some who in marble prematurely sleep,
Whose forms I now remember but to weep;
Some who yet urge the same scholastic course
Of early science, future fame the source;
Who, still contending in the studious race,
In quick rotation fill the senior place.
These with a thousand visions now unite,
To dazzle, though they please, my aching sight."
IDA! blest spot, where Science holds her reign,
How joyous once I join'd thy youthful train!
Bright in idea gleams thy lofty spire,
Again I mingle with thy playful quire;
Our tricks of mischief, every childish game,
Unchanged by time or distance, seem the same;
Through winding paths along the glade, I trace
The social smile of every welcome face;
My wonted haunts, my scenes of joy and woe,
Each early boyish friend, or youthful foe,
Our feuds dissolved, but not my friendship past,-
I bless the former, and forgive the last.
Hours of my youth! when, nurtured in my breast,
To love a stranger, friendship made me blest,-
Friendship, the dear peculiar bond of youth,
When every artless bosom throbs with truth;
Untaught by worldly wisdom how to feign,
And check each impulse with prudential rein;
When all we feel, our honest souls disclose-
In love to friends, in open hate to foes;
No varnish'd tales the lips of youth repeat,
No dear-bought knowledge purchased by deceit.
Hypocrisy, the gift of lengthen'd years,
Matured by age, the garb of prudence wears.
7 [The next fifty-six lines, to—
"Here first remember'd be the joyous band,"
were added in the first edition of "Hours of Idleness "]
When now the boy is ripen'd into man,
His careful sire chalks forth some wary plan;
Instructs his son from candour's path to shrink,
Smoothly to speak, and cautiously to think;
Still to assent, and never to deny-
A patron's praise can well reward the lie:
And who, when Fortune's warning voice is heard,
Would lose his opening prospects for a word?
Although against that word his heart rebel,
And truth indignant all his bosom swell.
Away with themes like this! not mine the task
From flattering friends to tear the hateful mask;
Let keener bards delight in satire's sting;
My fancy soars not on Detraction's wing:
Once, and but once, she aim'd a deadly blow,
To hurl defiance on a secret foe;
But when that foe, from feeling or from shame,
The cause unknown, yet still to me the same,
Warn'd by some friendly hint, perchance, retired,
With this submission all her rage expired.
From dreaded pangs that feeble foe to save,
She hush'd her young resentment, and forgave;
Or, if my muse a pedant's portrait drew,
POMPOSUS' virtues are but known to few :
I never fear'd the young usurper's nod,
And he who wields must sometimes feel the rod.
If since on Granta's failings, known to all
Who share the converse of a college hall,
She sometimes trifled in a lighter strain,
"Tis past, and thus she will not sin again;
Soon must her early song for ever cease,
And all may rail when I shall rest in peace.
Here first remember'd be the joyous band,
Who hail'd me chief,' obedient to command;
8 [Dr. Butler, then head-master of Harrow. Had Lord Byron published another edition of these poems, it was his intention to replace these four lines by the four which follow :
"If once my muse a harsher portrait drew,
Warm with her wrongs, and deem'd the likeness true,
By cooler judgment taught, her fault she owns, —
With noble minds a fault confess'd, atones."]
9 [On the retirement of Dr. Drury, three candidates for the vacant chair presented themselves-Messrs. Drury, Evans, and Butler. On the first movement to which this
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