The Works of Lord Byron Volume IV Part 101

STANZAS WRITTEN ON THE ROAD BETWEEN FLORENCE AND PISA.[603]

1.

Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story-- The days of our Youth are the days of our glory; And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.[604]

2.

What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled?

Tis but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled: Then away with all such from the head that is h.o.a.ry, What care I for the wreaths that can _only_ give glory?

3.

Oh Fame!--if I e'er took delight in thy praises, 'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases, Than to see the bright eyes of the dear One discover, She thought that I was not unworthy to love her.

4.

_There_ chiefly I sought thee, _there_ only I found thee; Her Glance was the best of the rays that surround thee, When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story, I knew it was Love, and I felt it was Glory.

_November_ 6, 1821.

[First published, _Letters and Journals of Lord Byron_, 1830, ii. 366, note.]

STANZAS TO A HINDOO AIR.[605]

1.

Oh! my lonely--lonely--lonely--Pillow!

Where is my lover? where is my lover?

Is it his bark which my dreary dreams discover?

Far--far away! and alone along the billow?

2.

Oh! my lonely--lonely--lonely--Pillow!

Why must my head ache where his gentle brow lay?

How the long night flags lovelessly and slowly, And my head droops over thee like the willow!

3.

Oh! thou, my sad and solitary Pillow!

Send me kind dreams to keep my heart from breaking, In return for the tears I shed upon thee waking; Let me not die till he comes back o'er the billow.

4.

Then if thou wilt--no more my _lonely_ Pillow, In one embrace let these arms again enfold him, And then expire of the joy--but to behold him!

Oh! my lone bosom!--oh! my lonely Pillow!

[First published, _Works of Lord Byron_, 1832, xiv. 357.]

TO----[606]

1.

But once I dared to lift my eyes-- To lift my eyes to thee; And since that day, beneath the skies, No other sight they see.

2.

In vain sleep shuts them in the night-- The night grows day to me; Presenting idly to my sight What still a dream must be.

3.

A fatal dream--for many a bar Divides thy fate from mine; And still my pa.s.sions wake and war, But peace be still with thine.

[First published, _New Monthly Magazine_, 1833, vol. 37, p. 308.]

TO THE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON.

1.

You have asked for a verse:--the request In a rhymer 'twere strange to deny; But my Hippocrene was but my breast, And my feelings (its fountain) are dry.

2.

Were I now as I was, I had sung What Lawrence has painted so well;[607]

But the strain would expire on my tongue, And the theme is too soft for my sh.e.l.l.

3.

I am ashes where once I was fire, And the bard in my bosom is dead; What I loved I now merely admire, And my heart is as grey as my head.

4.

My Life is not dated by years-- There are _moments_ which act as a plough, And there is not a furrow appears But is deep in my soul as my brow.

5.

Let the young and the brilliant aspire To sing what I gaze on in vain; For Sorrow has torn from my lyre The string which was worthy the strain.

B.