CHORAL ODE TO LOVE. Ερωε, Ερως, ὁ κατ' ομμασιν. EURIPIDES: Hippolytus. [Written after 1812.] I. H love! oh love! whose shafts of fire For not the sun's descending dart, II. Oh! vainly, where, by Letrian plains, The steam of hecatombs ascends; That, when more favoured lips implore, Of youthful beauty's bridal door. III: Alas! round love's despotic power, Their brands what forms of terror wave! The Echalian maid in evil hour, Venus to greet Alcides gave. As yet in passion's love unread, Her native city's flames arise. IV. Oh towers of Thebes! oh sacred flow Love through his victim's bosom glides? The care-dispelling Bacchus bore, Embraced, and slept, to wake no more. CONNUBIAL EQUALITY. Η οφος η λοφος ην. ESCHYLUS: Prometheus. [Written in 1812.] H! wise was he, the first who taught That equal fates alone may bless T AL MIO PRIMIERO AMORE. [Written in 1813.] I. O many a shrine my steps have strayed, Ne'er from their earliest fetters free: And I have sighed to many a maid, Though I have never loved but thee. II. Youth's visioned scenes, too bright to last, III. The confidence, no heart has felt But when with first illusions warm, The hope, on one alone that dwelt, The thought, that knew no second form, IV. All these were ours: and can it be That their return may charm us yet? Can aught remain to thee and me, V. For now thy sweetest smiles appear Recalls the strains his home has known. VI. No more can bloom the faded flower: H LINES TO A FAVOURITE LAUREL IN THE GARDEN AT ANKERWYKE COTTAGE. [Written in 1814.] OW changed this lonely scene! the rank weed chokes The garden flowers: the thistle's towering growth Waves o'er the untrodden paths: the rose that breathed Diffusive fragrance from its christening bed, Scarce by a single bud denotes the spot Where glowed its countless bloom : the woodbine droops The tendrils of its sweetness: the green shrubs, But thou remain'st There is a solemn aspect in thy shade, A mystic whisper in the evening gale, Lovely tree! That murmurs through thy boughs; it breathes of peace, The thorny paths of this malignant world, Full fain would make the moss that tufts thy root The pillow of his slumber. Many a bard, Beneath some favourite tree, oak, beech, or pine, Has by the pensive music of the breeze, Been soothed to transient rest: but thou canst shed Is full of meaning; and their influence, No evanescent balm, but pours at once Through all the sufferer's frame, the sweetest sleep The long, oblivious, everlasting sleep Of that last night on which no morn shall rise. SIR PROTEUS: A SATIRICAL BALLAD. By P. M. O'DONOVAN, Esq. ΣΤΗΣΑΤΕ ΜΟΙ ΠΡΩΤΗΑ ΠΟΛΥΤΡΟΠΟΝ. [Published by Hookhams in 1814.] THIS BALLAD IS INSCRIBED TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD BYRON, With that deep conviction of the high value of his praise, and of the fatal import of his censure, which must necessarily be impressed by the profound judgment with which his opinions are conceived, the calm deliberation with which they are promulgated, the Protean consistency with which they are maintained, and the total absence of all undue bias on their formation, from private partiality or personal resentment: with that admiration of his poetical talents which must be universally and inevitably felt for versification undecorated with the meretricious fascinations of harmony, for sentiments unsophisticated by the delusive ardour of philanthropy, for narrative enveloped in all the Cimmerian sublimity of the impenetrable obscure. I. JOHNNY ON THE SEA. IV. CHEVY CHASE. V. THE BATHOS. |