The Works of Lord Byron Volume I Part 58

7.

Fain would I fly the haunts of men [2]-- I seek to shun, not hate mankind; My breast requires the sullen glen, Whose gloom may suit a darken'd mind.

Oh! that to me the wings were given, Which bear the turtle to her nest!

Then would I cleave the vault of Heaven, To flee away, and be at rest. [3]

[Footnote 1: Sa.s.senach, or Saxon, a Gaelic word, signifying either Lowland or English.]

[Footnote 2: Shyness was a family characteristic of the Byrons.

The poet continued in later years to have a horror of being observed by unaccustomed eyes, and in the country would, if possible, avoid meeting strangers on the road.]

[Footnote 3:

"And I said, O that I had wings like a dove, for then would I fly away, and be at rest."

(Psalm iv. 6.) This verse also const.i.tutes a part of the most beautiful anthem in our language.]

[Footnote i:

'Stanzas'.

['Poems O. and T.']]

LINES WRITTEN BENEATH AN ELM IN THE CHURCHYARD OF HARROW. [1] [i]

Spot of my youth! whose h.o.a.ry branches sigh, Swept by the breeze that fans thy cloudless sky; Where now alone I muse, who oft have trod, With those I loved, thy soft and verdant sod; With those who, scatter'd far, perchance deplore, Like me, the happy scenes they knew before: Oh! as I trace again thy winding hill, Mine eyes admire, my heart adores thee still, Thou drooping Elm! beneath whose boughs I lay, And frequent mus'd the twilight hours away; Where, as they once were wont, my limbs recline, But, ah! without the thoughts which then were mine: How do thy branches, moaning to the blast, Invite the bosom to recall the past, And seem to whisper, as they gently swell, "Take, while thou canst, a lingering, last farewell!"

When Fate shall chill, at length, this fever'd breast, And calm its cares and pa.s.sions into rest, Oft have I thought, 'twould soothe my dying hour,-- If aught may soothe, when Life resigns her power,-- To know some humbler grave, some narrow cell, Would hide my bosom where it lov'd to dwell; With this fond dream, methinks 'twere sweet to die-- And here it linger'd, here my heart might lie; Here might I sleep where all my hopes arose, Scene of my youth, and couch of my repose; For ever stretch'd beneath this mantling shade, Press'd by the turf where once my childhood play'd; Wrapt by the soil that veils the spot I lov'd, Mix'd with the earth o'er which my footsteps mov'd; Blest by the tongues that charm'd my youthful ear, Mourn'd by the few my soul acknowledged here; Deplor'd by those in early days allied, And unremember'd by the world beside.

September 2, 1807.

[Footnote 1: On the death of his daughter, Allegra, in April, 1822, Byron sent her remains to be buried at Harrow, "where," he says, in a letter to Murray, "I once hoped to have laid my own." "There is," he wrote, May 26, "a spot in the church'yard', near the footpath, on the brow of the hill looking towards Windsor, and a tomb under a large tree (bearing the name of Peachie, or Peachey), where I used to sit for hours and hours when a boy. This was my favourite spot; but as I wish to erect a tablet to her memory, the body had better be deposited in the 'church'." No tablet was, however, erected, and Allegra sleeps in her unmarked grave inside the church, a few feet to the right of the entrance.]

[Footnote i:

'Lines written beneath an Elm In the Churchyard of Harrow on the Hill September 2, 1807'.

['Poems O. and T.']]

FRAGMENT.

WRITTEN SHORTLY AFTER THE MARRIAGE OF MISS CHAWORTH. [1]

First published in Moore's 'Letters and Journals of Lord Byron', 1830, i. 56

1.

Hills of Annesley, Bleak and Barren, Where my thoughtless Childhood stray'd, How the northern Tempests, warring, Howl above thy tufted Shade!

2.

Now no more, the Hours beguiling, Former favourite Haunts I see; Now no more my Mary smiling, Makes ye seem a Heaven to Me.

1805.

[Footnote 1: Miss Chaworth was married to John Musters, Esq., in August, 1805. The stanzas were first published in Moore's _Letters and Journals of Lord Byron_, 1830, i. 56. (See, too, _The Dream_, st. ii. 1. 9.) The original MS. (which is in the possession of Mrs. Chaworth Musters) formerly belonged to Miss E. B. Pigot, according to whom they "were written by Lord Byron in 1804." "We were reading Burns' _Farewell to Ayrs.h.i.+re_--

Scenes of woe and Scenes of pleasure Scenes that former thoughts renew Scenes of woe and scenes of pleasure Now a sad and last adieu, etc.

when he said, 'I like that metre; let me try it,' and taking up a pencil, wrote those on the other side in an instant. I read them to Moore, and at his particular request I copied them for him."-E. B.

Pigot, 1859.

On the fly-leaf of the same volume (_Poetry of Robert Burns_, vol. iv.

Third Edition, 1802), containing the _Farewell to Ayrs.h.i.+re_, Byron wrote in pencil the two stanzas "Oh! little lock of golden hue," in 1806 (_vide post_, p. 233).

It may be noted that the verses quoted, though included until recently among his poems, were not written by Burns, but by Richard Gall, who died in 1801, aged 25.]