To the Duke of Dorset.Dorset! whose early steps with mine have stray'd,Exploring every path of Ida's glade;Whom still affection taught me to defend,And made me less a tyrant than a friend,Though the harsh custom of our youthful bandBadetheeobey, and gavemeto command;Thee, on whose head a few short years will showerThe gift of riches and the pride of power;E'en now a name illustrious is thine own,Renown'd in rank, nor far beneath the throne.Yet, Dorset, let not this seduce thy soulTo shun fair science, or evade control,Though passive tutors, fearful to dispraiseThe titled child, whose future breath may raise,View ducal errors with indulgent eyes,And wink at faults they tremble to chastise.When youthful parasites, who bend the kneeTo wealth, their golden idol, not to thee—And even in simple boyhood's opening dawnSome slaves are found to flatter and to fawn—When those declare, "that pomp alone should waitOn one by birth predestined to be great;That books were only meant for drudging fools,That gallant spirits scorn the common rules;"Believe them not;—they point the path to shame,And seek to blast the honors of thy name.Turn to the few in Ida's early throng,Whose souls disdain not to condemn the wrong;Or if, amid the comrades of thy youth,None dare to raise the sterner voice of truth,Ask thine own heart; 'twill bid thee, boy, forbear;ForwellI know that virtue lingers there.Yes! I have mark'd thee many a passing day,But now new scenes invite me far away;Yes! I have mark'd within that generous mindA soul, if well matured, to bless mankind.Ah! though myself by nature haughty, wild,Whom Indiscretion hail'd her favorite child;Though every error stamps me for her own,And dooms my fall, I fain would fall alone;Though my proud heart no precept now can tame,I love the virtues which I can not claim.'Tis not enough, with other sons of power,To gleam the lambent meteor of an hour;To swell some peerage page in feeble pride,With long-drawn names that grace no page beside;Then share with titled crowds the common lot—In life just gazed at, in the grave forgot;While naught divides thee from the vulgar dead,Except the dull cold stone that hides thy head,The mouldering 'scutcheon, or the herald's roll,That well-emblazon'd but neglected scroll,Where lords, unhonor'd, in the tomb may findOne spot, to leave a worthless name behind.There sleep, unnoticed as the gloomy vaultsThat veil their dust, their follies, and their faults,A race, with old armorial lists o'erspread,In records destined never to be read.Fain would I view thee, with prophetic eyes,Exalted more among the good and wise,A glorious and a long career pursue,As first in rank, the first in talent too:Spurn every vice, each little meanness shun;Not Fortune's minion, but her noblest son.Turn to the annals of a former day;Bright are the deeds thine earlier sires display.One, though a courtier, lived a man of worth,And call'd, proud boast! the British drama forth.Another view, not less renown'd for wit;Alike for courts, and camps, or senates fit;Bold in the field, and favor'd by the Nine;In every splendid part ordain'd to shine;Far, far distinguish'd from the glittering throng,The pride of princes, and the boast of song.Such were thy fathers, thus preserve their name;Not heir to titles only, but to fame.The hour draws nigh, a few brief days will close,To me, this little scene of joys and woes;Each knell of Time now warns me to resignShades where Hope, Peace, and Friendship all were mine:Hope, that could vary like the rainbow's hue,And gild their pinions as the moments flew;Peace, that reflection never frown'd away,By dreams of ill to cloud some future day;Friendship, whose truth let childhood only tell;Alas! they love not long, who love so well.To these adieu! nor let me linger o'erScenes hail'd, as exiles hail their native shore,Receding slowly through the dark-blue deep,Beheld by eyes that mourn, yet can not weep.Dorset, farewell! I will not ask one partOf sad remembrance in so young a heart;The coming morrow from thy youthful mindWill sweep my name, nor leave a trace behind.And yet, perhaps, in some maturer year,Since chance has thrown us in the self-same sphere,Since the same Senate, nay, the same debate,May one day claim our suffrage for the State,We hence may meet, and pass each other by,With faint regard, or cold and distant eye.For me, in future, neither friend nor foe,A stranger to thyself, thy weal or woe,With thee no more again I hope to traceThe recollection of our early race;No more, as once, in social hours rejoice,Or hear, unless in crowds, thy well-known voice:Still, if the wishes of a heart untaughtTo veil those feelings which perchance it ought,If these—but let me cease the lengthen'd strain,—Oh! if these wishes are not breathed in vain,The guardian seraph who directs thy fateWill leave thee glorious, as he found thee great.
It was especially at Harrow that Byron contracted those friendships which were like cravings of his heart, and which, although partaking of a passionate character, had nevertheless none of the instability which is the characteristic of passion.
The death of some of his friends, and the coldness of others, caused him the greatest grief, and broke up the illusionsof youth, exchanging them for that misanthropy discernible in some of his poems, though contrary to his real character.
For those, on the other hand, who were spared, and remained faithful to him, Byron preserved through life the warmest affection and the tenderest regard; the principal feature of his nature being the unchanging character of his sentiments.
Although he showed at an early age his disposition to a poetical turn of mind, by the force of his feelings and by his meditative wanderings—in Scotland among the mountains and on the sea-shore at Cheltenham;—by his rapturous admiration of the setting sun, as well as by the delight which he took in the legends told him by his nurses, and the emotions which he experienced to a degree which made him lose all appetite, all rest, and all peace of mind; yet no one would have believed at that time that a gigantic poetical genius lay dormant in so active a nature. Soon, however, did his soul light up his intelligence, and obliged him to have recourse to his pen to pour out his feelings. From that moment his genius spread its roots in his heart, and Harrow became his paradise owing to the affection which he met with there.
It was at Harrow that he wrote, between his fourteenth and eighteenth year, the "Hours of Idleness, by a Minor," of which he had printed at the request of his friends, a few copies for private circulation only. These modest poems did not, however, escape the brutal attacks of critics. Mackenzie, however, a man of talent himself, soon discovered that at the bottom of these poems there lay the roots of a great poetical genius. The "Hours of Idleness" are a treasure of intellectual and psychological gleanings. They showed man as God created him, and before his noble soul, depressed by the insolence of his enemies and the troubles of life, endeavored to escape the eyes of the world, or at least of those who could not or would not understand him.
The noblest instincts of human nature shine so conspicuously in the pages of this little volume, that we thank God that he created such a noble mind, while we feel indignant toward those who could not appreciate it. But to understand him better he must reveal himself, and we shall therefore quote a few of his own sayings as a boy. His first griefbrought forth his first poem. A young cousin of his died, and of her death he spoke to this effect in his memorandum:—
"My first recourse to poetry was due to my passion for my cousin Margaret Parker. She was, without doubt, one of the most beautiful and ethereal beings I ever knew. I have forgotten the lines, but never shall I forget her. I was twelve years of age, and she was older than myself by nearly a year. I loved her so passionately, that I could neither sleep, nor get rest, or eat when thinking of her. She died of consumption, and it was at Harrow that I heard both of her illness and of her death."
Then it was that Byron wrote his first elegy, which he characterizes as "very dull;" but it is interesting as his first poetical essay, and as the first cry of pain uttered by a child who vents his grief in verse, and reveals in it the goodness of his heart and the power of his great mind. On a calm and dark night he goes to her tomb and strews it with flowers; then, speaking of her virtues, exclaims:—
"But wherefore weep? Her matchless spirit soarsBeyond where splendid shines the orb of day;And weeping angels lead her to those bowersWhere endless pleasures virtue's deeds repay."And shall presumptuous mortals Heaven arraign,And, madly, godlike Providence accuse?Ah, no! far fly from me attempts so vain;—I'll ne'er submission to my God refuse."Yet is remembrance of those virtues dear,Yet fresh the memory of that beauteous face,Still they call forth my warm affection's tear,Still in my heart retain their wonted place."1802.
So beautiful a mind, and one so little understood, reveals itself more and more in each poem of this first collection; and on this account, rather than because of its poetical merits, are the "Hours of Idleness" interesting to the psychological biographer of Byron. "Whoever," says Sainte-Beuve, "has not watched a youthful talent at its outset, will never form for himself a perfect and really true appreciation of it."
Moore adds: "It is but justice to remark that the early verses of Lord Byron give but little promise of those dazzling miracles of poesy with which he afterward astonished andenchanted the world, however distinguished they are by tenderness and grace.
"There is, indeed, one point of view in which these productions are deeply and intrinsically interesting; as faithful reflections of his character at that period of life, they enable us to judge of what he was before any influences were brought to bear upon him, and so in them we find him pictured exactly such as each anecdote of his boyish days exhibits him—proud, daring, and passionate—resentful of slight or injustice, but still more so in the cause of others than in his own; and yet, with all this vehemence, docile and placable at the least touch of a hand authorized by love to guide him. The affectionateness, indeed, of his disposition, traceable as it is through every page of this volume, is yet but faintly done justice to even by himself; his whole youth being from earliest childhood a series of the most passionate attachments, of those overflowings of the soul, both in friendship and love, which are still more rarely responded to than felt, and which, when checked or sent back upon the heart, are sure to turn into bitterness."
While his soul expanded with the first rays of love which dawned upon it, friendship too began to assert its influence over him. But in continuing to observe in him the effects of incipient love, let us remark that, while such precocious impressions are only with others the natural development of physical instincts, they were, in Byron, also, the expression of a soul that expands, of an amiability, of a tenderness ever on the increase. Though sensible to physical beauty as he always was through life, his principal attraction, however, was in that beauty which expresses the beauty of the soul, without which condition no physical perfection commanded his attention. We have seen what an ethereal creature Miss Margaret Parker was. Miss Chaworth succeeded her in Byron's affections, and was his second, if not third love if we notice his youthful passion at nine years of age for Mary Duff. But his third love was the occasion of great pain to him. Miss Chaworth was heiress to the grounds and property of Annesley, which were in the immediate neighborhood of Newstead. Notwithstanding, however, the enmity which had existed between the two families for a long time, on account of a duelwhich had resulted in the death of Miss Chaworth's grandfather, Byron was received most cordially at Annesley. Mrs. Chaworth thought that a marriage between her daughter and Byron might perhaps some day efface the memory of the feud that had existed between their respective families. Byron therefore found his school-boy advances encouraged by both mother and daughter, and his imagination naturally was kindled. The result was that Byron fell desperately in love with Miss Chaworth; but he was only fifteen years old, and yet an awkward schoolboy, with none of that splendid and attractive beauty for which he was afterward distinguished. Miss Chaworth was three years older, and unfortunately her heart was already engaged to the man who, to her misfortune, she married the year after. She therefore looked upon Byron as a mere child, as a younger brother, and his love almost amused her. She, however, not only gave him a ring, her portrait, and some of her hair, but actually carried on a secret correspondence with him. These were the faults for which she afterward had to suffer so bitterly. Such a union, however, with so great a difference of age, would not have been natural. It could only be a dream; but I shall speak elsewhere[20]of the nature of this attachment, which had its effect upon Byron, in order to show the beauty of his soul under another aspect. I can only add here that he had attributed every virtue to this girl whom he afterward styled frivolous and deceitful.
On his return to Harrow this love and his passionate friendships divided his heart. But when the following vacation came, his dream vanished. Miss Chaworth was engaged to another, and on his return to Harrow he vainly tried to forget her who had deceived and wounded him. Like other young men, he devoted his time during the Harrow or Cambridge vacations to paying his respects and offering his regards to numerous belles, whose names appear variously in his poems as Emma, Caroline, Helen, and Mary. Moore believes them to have been imaginary loves. A slight acquaintance with the liberty enjoyed by young men at English universities would lead one to believe these loves to have beenany thing but unreal. This can be the more readily believed, as Byron always sought in reality the objects which he afterward idealized. He always required some earthly support, though the slightest, as Moore observes, in speaking of the charming lines with which his love for Miss Chaworth inspired him, at the time when the recollection of it made him compare his misfortune in marrying Miss Milbank, with the happier lot which might have been his had he married Miss Chaworth. Whether these loves were real or not, however, it must be borne in mind that Byron deemed all physical beauty to be nothing if unaccompanied by moral beauty. Thus, in speaking of a vain young girl, he exclaims:—
"One who is thus from nature vain,I pity, but I can not love."
And to Miss N. N——, who was exquisitely beautiful, but in whose eyes earthly passion shone too powerfully, he says:—
"Oh, did those eyes, instead of fire,With bright but mild affection shine,Though they might kindle less desire,Love, more than mortal, would be thine.For thou art form'd so heavenly fair,Howe'er those orbs may wildly beam,We must admire, but still despair;That fatal glance forbids esteem."
In a letter to Miss Pigott, which he wrote from Cambridge, he says:—
"Saw a girl at St. Mary's the image of Ann——; thought it was her—all in the wrong—the lady stared, so did I—I blushed, so didnotthe lady—sad thing—wish women had more modesty."
On awaking from his dream, and on finding that the jewels with which he had believed Mary's nature to be adorned were of his own creation, he sought his consolation in friendship. His heart, which was essentially a loving one, could not be consoled except by love, and Harrow, to use his own expressions, became a paradise to him. In tracing the picture of Tasso's infancy he has drawn a picture of himself:—
"From my very birthMy soul was drunk with love, which did pervadeAnd mingle with whate'er I saw on earthOf objects all inanimate I madeIdols, and out of wild and lonely flowers,And rocks, whereby they grew, a paradiseWhere I did lay me down within the shadeOf waving trees, and dreamed uncounted hours,Though I was chid for wandering...."
This sentiment of friendship, which is always more powerful in England than on the Continent, owing to the system of education which takes children away from their parents at an early age, was keenly developed in Byron, whose affectionate disposition wanted something to make up for the privation of a father's and a brother's love. In his pure and passionate heart friendship and love became mixed: his love partook of the purity of friendship, and his friendships of all the ardor of love.
But to return to his fourteenth year. While expressing in verse his love for his cousin, he expressed at the same time in poetry the strong friendship he had conceived, even before going to Harrow, for a boy who had been his companion.
This boy, who had a most amiable, good, and virtuous disposition, was the son of one of his tenants at Newstead. Aristocratic prejudices ran high in England, and this friendship of Byron for a commoner was sure to call forth the raillery of some of his companions. Notwithstanding this, Byron, at twelve years and a half old, replied in these terms to the mockery of others:—
To E——.Let Folly smile to view the namesOf thee and me in friendship twined;Yet Virtue will have greater claimsTo love, than rank with vice combined.And though unequal is thy fate,Since title deck'd my higher birth!Yet envy not this gaudy state;Thine is the pride of modest worth.Our souls at least congenial meet,Nor can thy lot my rank disgrace;Our intercourse is not less sweet,Since worth of rank supplies the place.
What noble views in a child of twelve! How well one feels that, whatever may be his fate, such a nature will never lose its independence, nor allow prejudice to carry it beyond the limits of honor and of justice, and that its device will alwaysbe, "Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra." "I do what I ought, come what may."
At thirteen he wrote some lines in which he seemed to have a kind of presentiment of the glory that awaited him, and, at any rate, in which he displayed his resolve to deserve it:—
A Fragment.When to their airy hall, my fathers' voiceShall call my spirit, joyful in their choice;When, poised upon the gale, my form shall ride,Or, dark in mist, descend the mountain's side;Oh! may my shade behold no sculptured urnsTo mark the spot where earth to earth returns!No lengthen'd scroll, no praise-encumber'd stone;My epitaph shall be my name alone:Ifthatwith honor fail to crown my clay,Oh! may no other fame my deeds repay!That, onlythat, shall single out the spot;By that remember'd, or with that forgot.
Again, at thirteen, a visit to Newstead inspired him with the following beautiful lines:—
On Leaving Newstead Abbey.
"Why dost thou build the hall, son of the winged days? Thou lookest from thy tower to-day; yet a few years, and the blast of the desert comes, it howls in thy empty court."—Ossian.
Through thy battlements, Newstead, the hollow winds whistle;Thou, the hall of my fathers, art gone to decay:In thy once smiling garden, the hemlock and thistleHave choked up the rose which late bloom'd in the way.Of the mail-cover'd Barons, who proudly to battleLed their vassals from Europe to Palestine's plain,The escutcheon and shield, which with every blast rattle,Are the only sad vestiges now that remain.No more doth old Robert, with harp-stringing numbers,Raise a flame in the breast for the war-laurell'd wreath;Near Askalon's towers John of Horistan slumbers,Unnerved is the hand of his minstrel by death.Paul and Hubert, too, sleep in the valley of Cressy;For the safety of Edward and England they fell:My fathers! the tears of your country redress ye;How you fought, how you died, still her annals can tell.On Marston, with Rupert, 'gainst traitors contending,[21]Four brothers enrich'd with their blood the bleak field;For the rights of a monarch their country defending,Till death their attachment to royalty seal'd.Shades of heroes, farewell! your descendant departingFrom the seat of his ancestors, bids you adieu!Abroad, or at home, your remembrance impartingNew courage, he'll think upon glory and you.Though a tear dim his eye at this sad separation,'Tis nature, not fear, that excites his regret;Far distant he goes, with the same emulation,The fame of his fathers he ne'er can forget.That fame and that memory still will he cherish;He vows that he ne'er will disgrace your renown:Like you will he live, or like you will he perish:When decay'd, may he mingle his dust with your own!
When only fourteen his tenant friend dies, and Byron wrote his epitaph, in which, even at that early age (thirteen and a half), he particularly mentions his friend's virtues:—
Epitaph on a Friend."Ἀστηρ πριν μεν έλαμπες ενι ζωοισιν έῷος."—Laertius.Oh, Friend! forever loved, forever dear!What fruitless tears have bathed thy honor'd bier!What sighs re-echo'd to thy parting breath,While thou wast struggling in the pangs of death!Could tears retard the tyrant in his course;Could sighs avert his dart's relentless force;Could youth and virtue claim a short delay,Or beauty charm the spectre from his prey;Thou still hadst lived to bless my aching sight,Thy comrade's honor and thy friend's delight.If yet thy gentle spirit hover nighThe spot where now thy mouldering ashes lie,Here wilt thou read, recorded on my heart,A grief too deep to trust the sculptor's art.No marble marks thy couch of lowly sleep,But living statues there are seen to weep;Affliction's semblance bends not o'er thy tomb,Affliction's self deplores thy youthful doom.What though thy sire lament his failing line,A father's sorrows can not equal mine!Though none, like thee, his dying hour will cheer,Yet other offspring soothe his anguish here:But who with me shall hold thy former place?Thine image, what new friendship can efface?Ah, none!—a father's tears will cease to flow,Time will assuage an infant brother's woe;To all, save one, is consolation known,While solitary friendship sighs alone.
Other friends succeeded his earliest one and consoled him for his loss. At Harrow, those he loved best were Wingfield, Tattersall, Clare, Delaware, and Long.
His great heart sought to express in verse what it felt for each of them. But it is observable that what touched him most was the excellence of the qualities both of the mind and soul of those he loved. To prove this I shall quote in part a poem which he wrote shortly after leaving Harrow for Cambridge, entitled "Childish Recollections." After giving a picture of his life at Harrow in the midst of his companions, and after describing very freshly and vividly the scene when he was chosen Captain of the School, he exclaims:—
"Dear honest race! though now we meet no more,One last long look on what we were before—Our first kind greetings, and our last adieu—Drew tears from eyes unused to weep with you.Through splendid circles, fashion's gaudy world,Where folly's glaring standard waves unfurl'd,I plunged to drown in noise my fond regret,And all I sought or hoped was to forget.Vain wish! if chance some well-remember'd face,Some old companion of my early race,Advanced to claim his friend with honest joy,My eyes, my heart, proclaim'd me still a boy;The glittering scene, the fluttering groups around,Were quite forgotten when my friend was found;The smiles of beauty—(for, alas! I've knownWhat 'tis to bend before Love's mighty throne)—The smiles of beauty, though those smiles were dear,Could hardly charm me, when that friend was near;My thoughts bewilder'd in the fond surprise,The woods of Ida danced before my eyes;I saw the sprightly wand'rers pour along,I saw and join'd again the joyous throng;Panting, again I traced her lofty grove,And friendship's feelings triumph'd over love."
After deploring his fate:—
"Stern Death forbade my orphan youth to shareThe tender guidance of a father's care.* * * * *"What brother springs a brother's love to seek?What sister's gentle kiss has prest my cheek?* * * * *"Thus must I cling to some endearing hand,And none more dear than Ida's social band:"—
he goes on to name his dearest comrades, giving them each a fictitious name. Alonzo is Wingfield; Davus, Tattersall; Lycus, Lord Clare: Euryalus, Lord Delaware; and Cleon, Long:—
"Alonzo! best and dearest of my friends,Thy name ennobles him who thus commends:From this fond tribute thou canst gain no praise:The praise is his who now that tribute pays.Oh! in the promise of thy early youth,If hope anticipate the words of truth,Some loftier bard shall sing thy glorious name,To build his own upon thy deathless fame.Friend of my heart, and foremost of the listOf those with whom I lived supremely blest,Oft have we drain'd the font of ancient lore;Though drinking deeply, thirsting still the more.Yet, when confinement's lingering hour was done,Our sports, our studies, and our souls were one:Together we impell'd the flying ball;Together waited in our tutor's hall;Together join'd in cricket's manly toil,Or shared the produce of the river's spoil;Or, plunging from the green declining shore,Our pliant limbs the buoyant billows bore;In every element, unchanged, the same,All, all that brother's should be, but the name.Nor yet are you forgot, my jocund boy!Davus, the harbinger of childish joy;Forever foremost in the ranks of fun,The laughing herald of the harmless pun;Yet with a breast of such materials made—Anxious to please, of pleasing half afraid;Candid and liberal, with a heart of steelIn danger's path, though not untaught to feel.Still I remember, in the factious strife,The rustic's musket aim'd against my life:High poised in air the massy weapon hung,A cry of horror burst from every tongue;While I, in combat with another foe,Fought on, unconscious of th' impending blow;Your arm, brave boy, arrested his career—Forward you sprung, insensible to fear;Disarm'd and baffled by your conquering hand,The grovelling savage roll'd upon the sand:An act like this, can simple thanks repay?Or all the labors of a grateful lay?Oh no! whene'er my breast forgets the deed,That instant, Davus, it deserves to bleed."Lycus! on me thy claims are justly great:Thy milder virtues could my muse relate,To thee alone, unrivall'd, would belongThe feeble efforts of my lengthen'd song.Well canst thou boast, to lead in senates fit,A Spartan firmness with Athenian wit:Though yet in embryo these perfections shine,Lycus! thy father's fame will soon be thine.Where learning nurtures the superior mind,What may we hope from genius thus refin'd!When time at length matures thy growing years,How wilt thou tower above thy fellow-peers!Prudence and sense, a spirit bold and free,With honor's soul, united, beam in thee."Shall fair Euryalus pass by unsung?From ancient lineage, not unworthy sprung:What though one sad dissension bade us part?That name is yet embalm'd within my heart;Yet at the mention does that heart rebound,And palpitate, responsive to the sound.Envy dissolved our ties, and not our will:We once were friends,—I'll think we are so still,A form unmatch'd in nature's partial mould,A heart untainted, we in thee behold:Yet not the senate's thunder thou shalt wield,Nor seek for glory in the tented field;To minds of ruder texture these be given—Thy soul shall nearer soar its native heaven.Haply, in polish'd courts might be thy seat,But that thy tongue could never forge deceit:The courtier's supple bow and sneering smile,The flow of compliment, the slippery wile.Would make that breast with indignation burn,And all the glittering snares to tempt thee spurn.Domestic happiness will stamp thy fate;Sacred to love, unclouded e'er by hate;The world admire thee, and thy friends adore;Ambition's slave alone would toil for more."Now last, but nearest, of the social band,See honest, open, generous Cleon stand;With scarce one speck to cloud the pleasing scene,No vice degrades that purest soul serene.On the same day our studious race begun,On the same day our studious race was run;Thus side by side we pass'd our first career,Thus side by side we strove for many a year;At last concluded our scholastic life,We neither conquer'd in the classic strife:As speakers, each supports an equal name,[22]And crowds allow to both a partial fame:To soothe a youthful rival's early pride,Though Cleon's candor would the palm divide,Yet candor's self compels me now to ownJustice awards it to my friend alone."Oh! friends regretted, scenes forever dear,Remembrance hails you with her warmest tear!Drooping, she bends o'er pensive Fancy's urn,To trace the hours which never can return;Yet with the retrospection loves to dwell,And soothe the sorrows of her last farewell!Yet greets the triumph of my boyish mind,As infant laurels round my head were twined,When Probus' praise repaid my lyric song,Or placed me higher in the studious throng;Or when my first harangue received applause,His sage instruction the primeval cause,What gratitude to him my soul possest,While hope of dawning honors fill'd my breast!For all my humble fame, to him aloneThe praise is due, who made that fame my own.Oh! could I soar above these feeble lays,These young effusions of my early days,To him my muse her noblest strain would give:The song might perish, but the theme might live.Yet why for him the needless verse essay?His honored name requires no vain display:By every son of grateful Ida blest,It finds an echo in each youthful breast;A fame beyond the glories of the proud,Or all the plaudits of the venal crowd."Ida! not yet exhausted is the theme,Nor closed the progress of my youthful dream.How many a friend deserves the grateful strain!What scenes of childhood still unsung remain!Yet let me hush this echo of the past,This parting song, the dearest and the last;And brood in secret o'er those hours of joy,To me a silent and a sweet employ,While, future hope and fear alike unknown,I think with pleasure on the past alone;Yes, to the past alone my heart confine,And chase the phantom of what once was mine."Ida! still o'er thy hills in joy preside,And proudly steer through time's eventful tide;Still may thy blooming sons thy name revere,Smile in thy bower, but quit thee with a tear,—That tear, perhaps, the fondest which will flowO'er their last scene of happiness below.Tell me, ye hoary few, who glide along,The feeble veterans of some former throng,Whose friends, like autumn leaves by tempests whirl'd,Are swept forever from this busy world;Revolve the fleeting moments of your youth,While Care as yet withheld her venom'd tooth;Say if remembrance days like these endearsBeyond the rapture of succeeding years?Say, can ambition's fever'd dream bestowSo sweet a balm to soothe your hours of woe?Can treasures, hoarded for some thankless son,Can royal smiles, or wreaths by slaughter won,Can stars or ermine, man's maturer toys(For glittering bawbles are not left to boys),Recall one scene so much beloved to viewAs those where Youth her garland twined for you?Ah, no! amid the gloomy calm of ageYou turn with faltering hand life's varied page;Peruse the record of your days on earth,Unsullied only where it marks your birth;Still lingering pause above each checker'd leaf,And blot with tears the sable lines of grief;When Passion o'er the theme her mantle threw,Or weeping Virtue sigh'd a faint adieu;But bless the scroll which fairer words adorn,Traced by the rosy finger of the morn;When Friendship bow'd before the shrine of Truth,And Love, without his pinion, smiled on youth."
On leaving Harrow and his best friends, Byron felt that he was saying adieu to youth and to its pleasures, and he was as yet unable to replace these by the feasts of the mind. This filled his heart with regret in addition to the sorrows which he experienced by those reflections upon existence which are common to all poetical natures. The cold discipline of Cambridge fell like ice upon his warm nature. He fell ill, and, by way of seeking a relief to the oppression of his mind, he wrote the above transcribed poem.
Harrow is called Ida, as his friends are denominated by fictitious names. To the college itself, and to the recollections which it brought back to his memory of physical and mental suffering, he addresses himself:—
"Ida! blest spot, where Science holds her reign,How joyous once I join'd thy youthful train!Bright in idea gleams thy lofty spire,Again I mingle with thy playful quire.* * * * *My wonted haunts, my scenes of joy and woe,Each early boyish friend, or youthful foe;Our feuds dissolved, but not my friendship past,I bless the former, and forgive the last."
The same kind, affectionate disposition can be traced in all his other poems, together with those well-inculcated notions of God's justice, wisdom, and mercy, of toleration and forgiveness, of hatred of falsehood and contempt of prejudices, which never abandoned him throughout his life.
I really pity those who could read "The Tear" without being touched by its simple, plaintive style, written in the tenderest strain, or "L'Amitié est l'Amour sans Ailes," or the lines to the Duke of Dorset on leaving Harrow, or the "Prayer of Nature," or his stanzas to Lord Clare, to LordDelaware, to Edward Long, or his generous forgiveness of Miss Chaworth; or, again, his lines on believing that he was going to die, his answer to a poem called "The Common Lot," his reply to Dr. Beecher, and, finally, his address to a companion whose conduct obliged him to withdraw his friendship:—
"What friend for thee, howe'er inclined,Will deign to own a kindred care?Who will debase his manly mind,For friendship every fool may share?"In time forbear; amid the throngNo more so base a thing be seen;No more so idly pass along;Be something, any thing but—mean."
Since our object is to show in these effusions of a youthful mind, its natural beauty, and not that genius which is shortly to be developed by contact with the troubles and pains of this life, it may not be irrelevant to our subject to give in parts, if not entirely, some of the poems which he wrote at this time:—
The Tear."O lachrymarum fons, tenero sacrosDucentium ortus ex animo; quaterFelix! in imo qui scatentemPectore te, pia Nympha, sensit."—Gray.When Friendship or Love our sympathies move,When truth in a glance should appear,The lips may beguile with a dimple or smile,But the test of affection's a Tear.Too oft is a smile but the hypocrite's wile,To mask detestation or fear;Give me the soft sigh, while the soul-telling eyeIs dimm'd for a time with a Tear.Mild Charity's glow, to us mortals below,Shows the soul from barbarity clear;Compassion will melt where this virtue is felt,And its dew is diffused in a Tear.The man doom'd to sail with the blast of the gale,Through billows Atlantic to steer,As he bends o'er the wave which may soon be his grave,The green sparkles bright with a Tear.The soldier braves death for a fanciful wreathIn glory's romantic career;But he raises the foe when in battle laid low,And bathes every wound with a Tear.If with high-bounding pride he return to his bride,Renouncing the gore-crimson'd spear,All his toils are repaid, when, embracing the maid,From her eyelid he kisses the Tear.Sweet scene of my youth! seat of Friendship and Truth,[23]Where love chased each fast-fleeting year,Loth to leave thee, I mourn'd, for a last look I turn'd,But thy spire was scarce seen through a Tear.Though my vows I can pour to my Mary no more,My Mary to love once so dear,In the shade of her bower I remember the hourShe rewarded those vows with a Tear.By another possest, she may live ever blest!Her name still my heart must revere:With a sigh I resign what I once thought was mine,And forgive her deceit with a Tear.Ye friends of my heart, ere from you I depart,This hope to my breast is most near:If again we shall meet in this rural retreat,May we meet as we part, with a Tear.When my soul wings her flight to the regions of night,And my corse shall recline on its bier,As ye pass by the tomb where my ashes consume,Oh! moisten their dust with a Tear.May no marble bestow the splendor of woe,Which the children of vanity rear;No fiction of fame shall blazon my name,All I ask—all I wish—is a Tear.
L'Amitié est L'amour sans Ailes.Why should my anxious breast repine,Because my youth is fled?Days of delight may still be mine;Affection is not dead.In tracing back the years of youth,One firm record, one lasting truth,Celestial consolation brings;Bear it, ye breezes, to the seat,Where first my heart responsive beat,"Friendship is Love without his wings!"Through few, but deeply checker'd years,What moments have been mine!Now half-obscured by clouds of tears,Now bright in rays divine;Howe'er my future doom be cast,My soul enraptured with the past,To one idea fondly clings;Friendship! that thought is all thine own,Worth worlds of bliss, that thought alone—"Friendship is Love without his wings!"Where yonder yew-trees lightly waveTheir branches on the gale,Unheeded heaves a simple grave,Which tells the common tale;Round this unconscious schoolboys stray,Till the dull knell of childish playFrom yonder studious mansion rings;But here when'er my footsteps move,My silent tears too plainly prove"Friendship is Love without his wings!"Oh, Love! before thy glowing shrineMy early vows were paid;My hopes, my dreams, my heart was thine,But these are now decay'd;For thine are pinions like the wind,No trace of thee remains behind,Except, alas! thy jealous stings.Away, away! delusive power,Thou shalt not haunt my coming hour;Unless, indeed, without thy wings.Seat of my youth! thy distant spireRecalls each scene of joy;My bosom glows with former fire,In mind again a boy.Thy grove of elms, thy verdant hillThy every path delights me still,Each flower a double fragrance flings;Again, as once, in converse gay,Each dear associate seems to say,"Friendship is Love without his wings!"My Lycus! wherefore dost thou weep?Thy falling tears restrain;Affection for a time may sleep,But, oh! 'twill wake again.Think, think, my friend, when next we meet,Our long-wish'd interview, how sweet!From this my hope of rapture springs;While youthful hearts thus fondly swell,Absence, my friend, can only tell,"Friendship is Love without his wings!"In one, and one alone deceived,Did I my error mourn?No—from oppressive bonds relieved,I left the wretch to scorn.I turn'd to those my childhood knew,With feelings warm, with bosoms true,Twined with my heart's according strings;And till those vital chords shall break,For none but these my breast shall wakeFriendship, the power deprived of wings!Ye few! my soul, my life is yours,My memory and my hope;Your worth a lasting love insures,Unfetter'd in its scope;From smooth deceit and terror sprungWith aspect fair and honey'd tongue,Let Adulation wait on kings;With joy elate, by snares beset,We, we, my friends, can ne'er forget"Friendship is Love without his wings!"Fictions and dreams inspire the bardWho rolls the epic song;Friendship and truth be my reward—To me no bays belong;If laurell'd Fame but dwells with lies,Me the enchantress ever flies,Whose heart and not whose fancy sings;Simple and young, I dare not feign;Mine be the rude yet heartfelt strain,"Friendship is Love without his wings!"December, 1806.
These early poems are well characterized by the impression which they produced upon Sir Robert Dallas, a man of taste and talent, who, though a bigot and a prey to prejudices of all kinds, hastened, nevertheless, after reading them, to compliment the author in the following words:—"Your poems are not only beautiful as compositions, but they also denote an honorable and upright heart, and one prone to virtue."
This eulogium is well deserved, and I pity those who could read the "Hours of Idleness" without liking their youthful writer. If we had space enough, we fain would follow the young man from Cambridge to the mysterious Abbey of Newstead, where he loved to invite his friends and institute with them a monastery of which he proclaimed himself the Abbot—an amusement really most innocent in itself, and which bigotry and folly alone could consider reprehensible. With what pleasure he would show that in the monastery of Newstead its abbot lived the simplest and most austere existence,—"a life of study," as Washington Irving describes it, fromwhat he heard Nanna Smyth say of it some years after Byron's death. How delighted we should be to follow him in his first travels in search of experience of life, and when his genius revealed itself in that light which was shortly to make him the idol of the public and the hatred of the envious. We could show him to have been always the same kind-hearted man, by whom severity and injustice were never had recourse to except against himself, and whose melancholy was too often the result of broken illusions and disappointments. His simple and noble character, having always before it an ideal perfection, perpetually by comparison, thought itself at fault; and the world, who could not comprehend the exquisite delicacy of his mind, took for granted the reputation he gave himself, and made him a martyr till heaven should give him time to become a saint.