He must move on- Love brooks not a degraded throne. And then recover, As from a dream. All hideous seem- All passion blight: Love's reign is finish'd— Then part in friendship,—and bid good-night.(1) V. So shall Affection To recollection The dear connection Bring back with joy : You had not waited Till, tired or hated, Your passions sated (1) [V. L.- "One last embrace, then, and bid good-night."] Your last embraces Of your sweet errors Reflect but rapture-not least though last. VI. True, separations Ask more than patience; From such have risen! But yet remaining, What is 't but chaining Hearts which, once waning, Beat 'gainst their prison? Time can but cloy love, Though sharper, shorter, To wean, and not wear out your joys. THE CHARITY BALL. WHAT matter the pangs of a husband and father, What matters- a heart which, though faulty, was feeling, Be driven to excesses which once could appalThat the sinner should suffer is only fair dealing, As the saint keeps her charity back for "the ball!" (') EPIGRAM ON MY WEDDING-DAY. TO PENELOPE. THIS day, of all our days, has done 'Tis just six years since we were one, January 2. 1821. ON MY THIRTY-THIRD BIRTH-DAY. JANUARY 22. 1821. (2) THROUGH life's dull road, so dim and dirty, (1) These lines were written on reading in the newspapers, that Lady Byron had been patroness of a ball in aid of some charity at Hinckley. (2) [In Lord Byron's MS. Diary of the preceding day, we find the following entry: -" January 21. 1821. Dined visited-came homeread. Remarked on an anecdote in Grimm's Correspondence, which says, that 'Regnard et la plupart des poëtes comiques étaient gens bilieux et VOL. XII. Y EPIGRAM, ON THE BRASIERS' COMPANY HAVING RESOLVED TO PRESENT THE brasiers, it seems, are preparing to pass mélancoliques; et que M. de Voltaire, qui est très-gai, n'a jamais fait que des tragédies- et que la comédie gaie est le seul genre où il n'ait point réussi. C'est que celui qui rit et celui qui fait rire sont deux hommes fort différens!' At this moment I feel as bilious as the best comic writer of them all, (even as Regnard himself, the next to Molière, who has written some of the best comedies in any language, and who is supposed to have committed suicide,) and am not in spirits to continue my proposed tragedy. To-morrow is my birth-day that is to say, at twelve o' the clock, midnight; i. e. in twelve minutes, I shall have completed thirty Eheu, fugaces, Posthume, Posthume, * but I don't regret them so much for what I have done, as for what I might have done."] (1) [The procession of the Brasiers to Brandenburgh House was one of the most absurd fooleries of the time of the late Queen's trial. —E] (2) ["There is an epigram for you, is it not?-worthy Of Wordsworth, the grand metaquizzical poet, B. Letters, January 22 1821.] TO MR. MURRAY. FOR Orford (1) and for Waldegrave (2) My Murray. Because if a live dog, 'tis said, A live lord must be worth two dead, My Murray. And if, as the opinion goes, Verse hath a better sale than prose But now this sheet is nearly cramm'd, (1) [Horace Walpole's Memoirs of the last nine Years of the Reign of George II.] (2) [Memoirs by James Earl Waldegrave, Governor of George III. when Prince of Wales.] (3) ["Can't accept your courteous offer. These matters must be arranged with Mr. Douglas Kinnaird. He is my trustee, and a man of honour. To him you can state all your mercantile reasons, which you might not like to state to me personally, such as 'heavy season 'Y 2 |