Young Peri of the West! - 't is well for me
My years already doubly number thine;

My loveless eye unmoved may gaze on thee,
And safely view thy ripening beauties shine;
Happy, I ne'er shall see them in decline;

Happier, that while all younger hearts shall bleed,
Mine shall escape the doom thine eyes assign

To those whose admiration shall succeed,

But mixed with pangs to Love's even loveliest hours decreed.

Oh! let that eye, which, wild as the gazelle's
Now brightly bold or beautifully shy,
Wins as it wanders, dazzles where it dwells,
Glance o'er this page, nor to my verse deny
That smile for which my breast might vainly sigh
Could I to thee be ever more than friend:

This much, dear maid, accord; nor question why
To one so young my strain I would commend,
But bid me with my wreath one matchless lily blend.

Such is thy name with this my verse entwined;
And long as kinder eyes a look shall cast
On Harold's page, Ianthe's here enshrined
Shall thus be first beheld, forgotten last:
My days once numbered, should this homage past.
Attract thy fairy fingers near the lyre

Of him who hailed thee, loveliest as thou wast,

Such is the most my memory may desire;

Though more than Hope can claim, could Friendship less require ?

CANTO THE FIRST.

OH, thou! in Hellas deemed of heavenly birth, Muse! formed or fabled at the minstrel's will! Since shamed full oft by later lyres on earth, Mine dares not call thee from thy sacred hill: Yet there I've wandered by thy vaunted rill; Yes! sighed o'er Delphi's long-deserted shrine, Where, save that feeble fountain, all is still; Nor mote my shell awake the weary Nine To grace so plain a tale - this lowly lay of mine.

II.

Whilome in Albion's isle there dwelt a youth,
Who ne in virtue's ways did take delight;
But spent his days in riot most uncouth,
And vexed with mirth the drowsy ear of Night.
Ah, me! in sooth he was a shameless wight,

Sore given to revel and ungodly glee;

Few earthly things found favor in his sight
Save concubines and carnal companie,

And flaunting wassailers of high and low degree.

III.

Childe Harold was he hight: - but whence his name

And lineage long, it suits me not to say;

Suffice it, that perchance they were of fame,

And had been glorious in another day:
But one sad losel soils a name for aye,
However mighty in the olden time;
Nor all that heralds rake from coffined clay,
Nor florid prose, nor honied lies of rhyme
Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime.

IV.

Childe Harold basked him in the noon-tide sun,

Disporting there like any other fly;

Nor deemed before his little day was done

One blast might chill him into misery.

But long ere scarce a third of his passed by,
Worse than adversity the Childe befell;

He felt the fulness of satiety :

Then loathed he in his native land to dwell,

Which seemed to him more lone than Eremite's sad cell.

V.

For he through Sin's long labyrinth had run,

Nor made atonement when he did amiss,
Had sighed to many though he loved but one,
And that loved one, alas! could ne'er be his.
Ah, happy she! to 'scape from him whose kiss