WERE MY BOSOM AS FALSE AS THOU
DEEM'ST IT TO BE.

WERE my bosom as false as thou deem'st it to be,
I need not have wander'd from far Galilee;
It was but abjuring my creed to efface

The curse which, thou say'st, is the crime of my race:

If the bad never triumph, then God is with thee!
If the slave only sin, thou art spotless and free!
If the Exile on earth is an Outcast on high,
Live on in thy faith, but in mine I will die.

I have lost for that faith more than thou canst bestow,
As the God who permits thee to prosper doth know;
In his hand is my heart and my hope-and in thine
The land and the life which for him I resign.

HEROD'S LAMENT FOR MARIAMNE. 1 Он, Mariamne! now for thee

The heart for which thou bled'st is bleeding; Revenge is lost in agony,

And wild remorse to rage succeeding. Oh, Mariamne! where art thou?

Thou canst not hear my bitter pleading. Ah! couldst thou— thou wouldst pardon now, Though Heaven were to my prayer unheeding. And is she dead?—and did they dare Obey my frenzy's jealous raving? My wrath but doom'd my own despair: The sword that smote her's o'er me waving. But thou art cold, my murder'd love!

And this dark heart is vainly craving For her who soars alone above,

And leaves my soul unworthy saving.

She's gone, who shared my diadem ;

She sunk, with her my joys entombing;
I swept that flower from Judah's stem,

Whose leaves for me alone were blooming;
And mine's the guilt, and mine the bell,
This bosom's desolation dooming;
And I have earn'd those tortures well,
Which unconsumed are still consuming!

ON THE DAY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF
JERUSALEM BY TITUS.

FROM the last hill that looks on thy once holy dome
I beheld thee, oh Sion! when render'd to Rome :
"T was thy last sun went down, and the flames of thy fall
Flash'd back on the last glance I gave to thy wall.

I look'd for thy temple, I look'd for my home,
And forgot for a moment my bondage to come;
I beheld but the death-fire that fed on thy fane,
And the fast fetter'd hands that made vengeance in vain.

On many an eve, the high spot whence I gazed
Had reflected the last beam of day as it blazed;
While I stood on the height, and beheld the decline
Of the rays from the mountain that shone on thy shrine.

1 [Mariamne, the wife of Herod the Great, falling under the suspicion of infidelity, was put to death by his order. She was a woman of unrivalled beauty, and a haughty spirit: unhappy in being the object of passionate attachment, which bordered on frenzy, to a man who had more or less concern in

And now on that mountain I stood on that day,
But I mark'd not the twilight beam melting away;
Oh! would that the lightning had glared in its stead,
And the thunderbolt burst on the conqueror's head!
But the Gods of the Pagan shall never profane
The shrine where Jehovah disdain'd not to reign;
And scatter'd and scorn'd as thy people may be,
Our worship, oh Father, is only for thee.

BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON WE SAT
DOWN AND WEPT.

WE sate down and wept by the waters
Of Babel, and thought of the day
When our foe, in the hue of his slaughters,
Made Salem's high places his prey;
And ye, oh her desolate daughters!
Were scatter'd all weeping away.
While sadly we gazed on the river

Which roll'd on in freedom below,
They demanded the song; but, oh never

That triumph the stranger shall know!
May this right hand be wither'd for ever,
Ere it string our high harp for the foe!
On the willow that harp is suspended,

Oh Salem! its sound should be free;
And the hour when thy glories were ended
But left me that token of thee:
And ne'er shall its soft tones be blended
With the voice of the spoiler by me!

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB. THE Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen : Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow lay wither'd and strown. For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd; And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heav'd, and for ever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there roll'd not the breath of his pride:
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

the murder of her grandfather, father, brother, and uncle, and who had twice commanded her death, in case of his own. Ever after, Herod was haunted by the image of the murdered Mariamne, until disorder of the mind brought on disorder of body, which led to temporary derangement.-MILMAN.]

[The Hebrew Melodies, though obviously inferior to Lord Byron's other works, display a skill in versification and a mastery in diction, which would have raised an inferior artist to the very summit of distinction. JEFFREY.]

2 [It was about the middle of April that his two celebrated copies of verses, "Fare thee well," and "A Sketch," made their appearance in the newspapers; and while the latter poem was generally, and, it must be owned, justly condemned, as a sort of literary assault on an obscure female, whose situation ought to have placed her as much beneath his satire, as the undignified mode of his attack certainly raised her above it, with regard to the other poem, opinions were a good deal more divided. To many it appeared a strain of true conjugal tenderness, a kind of appeal which no woman with a heart could resist; while, by others, on the contrary, it was considered to be a mere showy effusion of sentiment, as difficult for real feeling to have produced as it was easy for fancy and art, and altogether unworthy of the deep interests involved in

Yet, oh yet, thyseif deceive not;
Love may sink by slow decay,
But by sudden wrench, believe not
Hearts can thus be torn away:

Still thine own its life retaineth

Still must mine, though bleeding, beat; And the undying thought which paineth Is that we no more may meet. These are words of deeper sorrow Than the wail above the dead; Both shall live, but every morrow Wake us from a widow'd bed.

And when thou would solace gather,

When our child's first accents flow, Wilt thou teach her to say "Father!" Though his care she must forego? When her little hands shall press thee, When her lip to thine is press'd, Think of him whose prayer shall bless thee, Think of him thy love had bless'd! Should her lineaments resemble

Those thou never more may'st see,
Then thy heart will softly tremble
With a pulse yet true to me.

All my faults perchance thou knowest,
All my madness none can know ;
All my hopes, where'er thou goest,
Wither, yet with thee they go.

Every feeling hath been shaken;

Pride, which not a world could bow, Bows to thee-by thee forsaken,

Even my soul forsakes me now:

the subject. To this latter opinion I confess my own to have, at first, strongly inclined; and suspicious as I could not help thinking the sentiment that could, at such a moment, indulge in such verses, the taste that prompted or sanctioned their publication appeared to me even still more questionable. On reading, however, his own account of all the circumstances in the Memoranda, I found that on both points I had, in common with a large portion of the public, done him injustice. He there described, and in a manner whose sincerity there was no doubting, the swell of tender recollections under the influence of which, as he sat one night musing in his study, these stanzas were produced, the tears, as he said, falling fast over the paper as he wrote them. Neither did it appear, from that account, to have been from any wish or intention of his own, but through the injudicious zeal of a friend whom he had suffered to take a copy, that the verses met the public eye.-MOORE. The appearance of the MS. confirms this account of the circumstances under which it was written. It is blotted all over with the marks of tears.]

where

BORN in the garret, in the kitchen bred,
Promoted thence to deck her mistress' head;
Next for some gracious service unexpress'd,
And from its wages only to be guess'd-
Raised from the toilet to the table,
Her wondering betters wait behind her chair.
With eye unmoved, and forehead unabash'd,
She dines from off the plate she lately wash'd.
Quick with the tale, and ready with the lie -
The genial confidante, and general spy-
Who could, ye gods! her next employment guess-
An only infant's earliest governess!

A plain blunt show of briefly-spoken seeming,
To hide her bloodless heart's soul-harden'd scheming;
A lip of lies-a face form'd to conceal;
And, without feeling, mock at all who feel:
With a vile mask the Gorgon would disown;
A cheek of parchment-and an eye of stone.
Mark, how the channels of her yellow blood
Ooze to her skin, and stagnate there to mud,
Cased like the centipede in saffron mail,
Or darker greenness of the scorpion's scale-
(For drawn from reptiles only may we trace
Congenial colours in that soul or face)-
Look on her features! and behold her mind
As in a mirror of itself defined:

Look on the picture! deem it not o'ercharged-
There is no trait which might not be enlarged:
Yet true to "Nature's journeymen," who made
This monster when their mistress left off trade-
This female dog-star of her little sky,
Where all beneath her influence droop or die.

She taught the child to read, and taught so well,
That she herself, by teaching, learn'd to spell.
An adept next in penmanship she grows,
As many a nameless slander deftly shows:
What she had made the pupil of her art,
None know-but that high Soul secured the heart,
And panted for the truth it could not hear,
With longing breast and undeluded ear.
Foil'd was perversion by that youthful mind,
Which Flattery fool'd not-
Deceit infect not-near Contagion soil-
Indulgence weaken-nor Example spoil.
Nor master'd Science tempt her to look down
On humbler talents with a pitying frown-
Nor Genius swell-nor Beauty render vain-
Nor Envy ruffle to retaliate pain-

1

And turn thee howling in unpitied pain.
May the strong curse of crush'd affections light
Back on thy bosom with reflected blight!
And make thee in thy leprosy of mind
As loathsome to thyself as to mankind!
Till all thy self-thoughts curdle into hate,

Nor Virtue teach austerity- till now.
Serenely purest of her sex that live,

But wanting one sweet weakness-to forgive,
Too shock'd at faults her soul can never know,
She deems that all could be like her below:
Foe to all vice, yet hardly Virtue's friend,
For Virtue pardons those she would amend.

But to the theme:-now laid aside too long, The baleful burthen of this honest song Though all her former functions are no more, She rules the circle which she served before. If mothers-none know why-before her quake; If daughters dread her for the mothers' sake; If early habits-those false links, which bind At times the loftiest to the meanest mind

1["I send you my last night's dream, and request to have fifty copies struck off, for private distribution. I wish Mr. Gifford to look at them. They are from life."-Lord Byron to Mr. Murray, March 30. 1816.]

[In first draught" weltering.""I doubt about 'weltering.' We say weltering in blood;' but do not they also

STANZAS TO AUGUSTA. 1
WHEN all around grew drear and dark,
And reason half withheld her ray
And hope but shed a dying spark
Which more misled my lonely way;

In that deep midnight of the mind,
And that internal strife of heart,
When dreading to be deem'd too kind,

The weak despair-the cold depart; When fortune changed-and love fled far, And hatred's shafts flew thick and fast, Thou wert the solitary star

Which rose, and set not to the last. Oh! blest be thine unbroken light! That watch'd me as a seraph's eye, And stood between me and the night, For ever shining sweetly nigh And when the cloud upon us came, Which strove to blacken o'er thy ray-

Then purer spread its gentle flame,

And dash'd the darkness all away.

Still may thy spirit dwell on mine,

And teach it what to brave or brook— There's more in one soft word of thine Than in the world's defied rebuke.

Thou stood'st, as stands a lovely tree,

That still unbroke, though gently bent,

Still waves with fond fidelity

Its boughs above a monument.

The winds might rend-the skies might pour,
But there thou wert-and still wouldst be
Devoted in the stormiest hour

To shed thy weeping leaves o'er me.
But thou and thine shall know no blight,
Whatever fate on me may fall;
For heaven in sunshine will requite

The kind-and thee the most of all.
Then let the ties of baffled love

Be broken-thine will never break;
Thy heart can feel-but will not move;
Thy soul, though soft, will never shake.
And these, when all was lost beside,

Were found and still are fix'd in thee;.
And bearing still a breast so tried,
Earth is no desert-ev'n to me.

STANZAS TO AUGUSTA. 2 THOUGH the day of my destiny's over, And the star of my fate hath declined, 3

[The Poet's sister, the Honourable Mrs. Leigh. - These stanzas the parting tribute to her, whose unshaken tenderness had been the author's sole consolation during the crisis of domestic misery-were, we believe, the last verses written by Lord Byron in England. In a note to Mr. Rogers, dated April 16th, he says, "My sister is now with me, and leaves town to-morrow: we shall not meet again for some time at all events, if ever! and, under these circumstances, I trust to stand excused to you and Mr. Sheridan, for being unable to wait upon him this evening." On the 25th, the Poet took a last leave of his native country.]

2[These beautiful verses, so expressive of the writer's wounded feelings at the moment, were written in July, at the Campagne Diodati, near Geneva, and transmitted to England for publication, with some other pieces. "Be careful," he

Thy soft heart refused to discover

The faults which so many could find;
Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted,
It shrunk not to share it with me,
And the love which my spirit hath painted
It never hath found but in thee.

Then when nature around me is smiling,
The last smile which answers to mine,
I do not believe it beguiling,

Because it reminds me of thine;

And when winds are at war with the ocean,
As the breasts I believed in with me,
If their billows excite an emotion,

It is that they bear me from thee.
Though the rock of my last hope is shiver'd,
And its fragments are sunk in the wave,
Though I feel that my soul is deliver'd
To pain-it shall not be its slave.
There is many a pang to pursue me:

They may crush, but they shall not contemn
They may torture, but shall not subdue me -
"Tis of thee that I think—not of them.4
Though human, thou didst not deceive me,
Though woman, thou didst not forsake,
Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me,

Though slander'd, thou never couldst shake, –
Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me,
Though parted, it was not to fly,
Though watchful, 't was not to defame me,
Nor, mute, that the world might belie."
Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it,
Nor the war of the many with one-
If my soul was not fitted to prize it,

"T was folly not sooner to shun:
And if dearly that error hath cost me,
And more than I once could foresee,
I have found that, whatever it lost me,
It could not deprive me of thee.

From the wreck of the past, which hath perish'd,
Thus much I at least may recall,

It hath taught me that what I most cherish'd
Deserved to be dearest of all:

In the desert a fountain is springing,
In the wide waste there still is a tree,
And a bird in the solitude singing,
Which speaks to my spirit of thee.

July 24. 1816.

EPISTLE TO AUGUSTA. 6 My sister my sweet sister! if a name Dearer and purer were, it should be thine. Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim No tears, but tenderness to answer mine:

says,

"in printing the stanzas beginning, Though the day of my destiny's,' &c., which I think well of as a composition."] 3 ["Though the days of my glory are over,

And the sun of my fame hath declined."- MS.]

4 ["There is many a pang to pursue me, And many a peril to stem:

They may torture, but shall not subdue me; They may crush, but they shall not contemn."-MS.] ["Though watchful, 't was but to reclaim me, MS.] ་

Nor, silent, to sanction a lie."