ON SAM ROGERS

QUESTION AND ANSWER

[One of the malicious poems which Byron wrote recklessly on the spur of the moment without intention of publishing. It was printed after his death in Fraser's Magazine, January, 1833. Byron's long friendship with Rogers may be traced in the Letters, but he seems not to have fully trusted the man, however much he admired his classic' verses. In a letter to Murray (February 20, 1818) he speaks his suspicions loudly.]

QUESTION

NOSE and chin would shame a knocker;
Wrinkles that would puzzle Cocker;
Mouth which marks the envious scorner,
With a scorpion in each corner,
Turning its quick tail to sting you
In the place that most may wring you;
Eyes of lead-like hue, and gummy;
Carcass pick'd out from some mummy;
Bowels (but they were forgotten,
Save the liver, and that 's rotten);
Skin all sallow, flesh all sodden,
Form the devil would frighten God in.
Is 't a corpse stuck up for show,
Galvanised at times to go?
With the Scripture in connection,
New proof of the resurrection?
Vampire, ghost, or goul, what is it?
I would walk ten miles to miss it.

ANSWER

Many passengers arrest one,
To demand the same free question.
Shorter 's my reply, and franker,
That's the Bard, the Beau, the Banker.
Yet if you could bring about
Just to turn him inside out,
Satan's self would seem less sooty,
And his present aspect — Beauty.
Mark that (as he masks the bilious
Air, so softly supercilious)
Chasten'd bow, and mock humility,
Almost sicken to servility;

Hear his tone (which is to talking
That which creeping is to walking,
Now on all-fours, now on tip-toe);
Hear the tales he lends his lip to;
Little hints of heavy scandals;
Every friend in turn he handles;

All which women or which men do,
Glides forth in an innuendo,
Clothed in odds and ends of humour
Herald of each paltry rumour,
From divorces down to dresses,
Women's frailties, men's excesses,
All which life presents of evil
Make for him a constant revel.
You 're his foe, for that he fears you,
And in absence blasts and sears you:
You're his friend for that he hates you,
First caresses, and then baits you –
Darting on the opportunity

When to do it with impunity:

You are neither then he 'Il flatter,

Till he finds some trait for satire;
Hunts your weak point out, then shows it
Where it injures to disclose it,
In the mode that 's most invidious,
Adding every trait that 's hideous
From the bile, whose blackening river
Rushes through his Stygian liver.
Then he thinks himself a lover -
Why? I really can't discover,
In his mind, age, face, or figure;
Viper-broth might give him vigour,
Let him keep the cauldron steady,
He the venom has already.
For his faults - he has but one,
"T is but envy, when all 's done.
He but pays the pain he suffers,
Clipping, like a pair of snuffers,
Lights which ought to burn the brighter
For this temporary blighter.
He's the cancer of his species,
And will eat himself to pieces,
Plague personified, and famine, -
Devil, whose sole delight is damning.

For his merits, would you know 'em? Once he wrote a pretty Poem, [1818.]

THE DUEL

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[First published in the Edition of 1901 from a manuscript in the possession of Mr. Murray. These lines, addressed to Mary Chaworth, allude to the duel fought between her granduncle, William Chaworth, Esq., of Annesley, and the poet's granduncle, the fifth Lord Byron, on January 26, 1765. Mr. Chaworth fell in the encounter, and his antagonist was tried before the House of Lords on the charge of murder, but acquitted by a verdict of manslaughter.']

'Tis fifty years, and yet their fray
To us might seem but yesterday.
'T is fifty years, and three to boot,
Since, hand to hand, and foot to foot,
And heart to heart, and sword to sword,
One of our Ancestors was gored.
I've seen the sword that slew him; he,
The slain, stood in a like degree
To thee, as he, the Slayer, stood
(Oh had it been but other blood !)
In kin and Chieftainship to me.
Thus came the Heritage to thee.

To me the Lands of him who slew
Came through a line of yore renown'd;
For I can boast a race as true

ΤΟ

To Monarchs crown'd, and some discrown'd,

As ever Britain's Annals knew:
For the first Conqueror gave us Ground,

And the last Conquer'd own'd the line
Which was my mother's, and is mine. 20
I will not say how,

I loved thee

Since things like these are best forgot: Perhaps thou mayst imagine now

Who loved thee, and who loved thee not. And thou wert wedded to another,

And I at last another wedded:

I am a father, thou a mother,

To Strangers vow'd, with strangers bedded

If to have woo'd thee I could dare.
But this I never dared even yet
When nought is left but to forget.
I feel that I could only love:
To sue was never meant for me,
And least of all to sue to thee;
For many a bar, and many a feud,
Though never told, well understood,
Roll'd like a river wide between
And then there was the Curse of blood,
Which even my Heart's cannot remove.
Alas! how many things have been !
Since we were friends; for I alone
Feel more for thee than can be shown.

How many things! I loved thee - thou
Lovedst me not: another was
The Idol of thy virgin vow,

And I was, what I am, Alas!

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And what he is, and what thou art,
And what we were, is like the rest:
We must endure it as a test,
And old Ordeal of the Heart.
VENICE, December 29, 1818.

STANZAS TO THE PO

[These stanzas were first published in 1824 by Medwin in the Conversations. According to a statement of the Countess Guiccioli they were composed by Byron in April, 1819, while actually sailing on the Po from Venice to Ravenna, where he was to join her. The stanzas were supposed by the earlier editors to have been transmitted to London in a letter to Murray (May 8, 1820), with the direction: They must not be published: pray recollect this, as they are mere verses of society, and written upon private feelings and passions.' Mr. E. H. Coleridge points out several incongruities in these statements, and suggests that the poem alluded to as 'mere verses of society' is not this address to the Po, but the somewhat cynical rhymes, 'Could Love forever, Run like a river.' The theory is plausible, but no more. In a letter to the Athenæum, August 24, 1901, Mr. Richard Edgcumbe suggests that the poem is to the river Trent, and is concerned with Mrs. Chaworth Musters.]

Will she return by whom that wave shall sweep? Both tread thy banks, both wander on thy shore,

I by thy source, she by the dark-blue deep.

But that which keepeth us apart is not Distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth,

But the distraction of a various lot,
As various as the climates of our birth.

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A stranger loves the lady of the land, Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood

Is all meridian, as if never fann'd

By the black wind that chills the polar flood.

SONNET ON THE NUPTIALS OF THE MARQUIS ANTONIO CAVALLI WITH THE COUNTESS CLELIA RASPONI OF RAVENNA

[First published in the Edition of 1901 from a manuscript in the possession of the Lady Dorchester.]

A NOBLE Lady of the Italian shore,

Lovely and young, herself a happy bride, Commands a verse, and will not be denied, From me a wandering Englishman; I tore One sonnet, but invoke the muse once more To hail these gentle hearts which Love has tied,

In Youth, Birth, Beauty, genially allied, And blest with Virtue's soul and Fortune's store.

A sweeter language and a luckier bard Were worthier of your hopes, Auspicious Pair!

And of the sanctity of Hymen's shrine,

But, since I cannot but obey the Fair, To render your new state your true reward, May your Fate be like Hers, and unlike

mine.

RAVENNA, July 31, 1819.

SONNET TO THE PRINCE REGENT

ON THE REPEAL OF LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD'S forfeiture

To be the father of the fatherless,

To stretch the hand from the throne's

height, and raise

His offspring, who expired in other days To make thy sire's sway by a kingdom less,This is to be a monarch, and repress

Envy into unutterable praise. Dismiss thy guard, and trust thee to such traits,

For who would lift a hand, except to bless ? Were it not easy, Sir, and is 't not sweet To make thyself beloved? and to be Omnipotent by mercy's means? for thus Thy Sovereignty would grow but more complete;

A despot thou, and yet thy people free, And by the heart, not hand, enslaving us. BOLOGNA, August 12, 1819.

STANZAS

[A friend of Lord Byron's, who was with him at Ravenna when he wrote these Stanzas, says: "They were composed, like many others, with no view of publication, but merely to relieve himself in a moment of suffering. He had been painfully excited by some circumstances which appeared to make it necessary that he should immediately quit Italy, and in the day and the hour that he wrote the song was labouring under an access of fever.' So reads the note in the Edition of 1831. It is to be remarked, however, that Byron was not at Ravenna but at Venice on the date of the poem.] COULD Love for ever Run like a river, And Time's endeavour

No other pleasure
With this could measure,
And like a treasure

We'd hug the chain.
But since our sighing
Ends not in dying,
And, form'd for flying,

Love plumes his wing;
Then for this reason
Let's love a season;
But let that season be only Spring.

When lovers parted
Feel broken-hearted,
And, all hopes thwarted,
Expect to die;

A few years older,
Ah! how much colder
They might behold her

For whom they sigh!
When link'd together,
In every weather.

They pluck Love's feather

From out his wing —

He'll stay for ever,

But sadly shiver

Without his plumage, when past the Spring.

Like Chiefs of Faction,

His life is action

A formal paction

That curbs his reign,

Obscures his glory,

Despot no more, he
Such territory

Quits with disdain.
Still, still advancing,
With banners glancing,
His power enhancing,

He must move on-
Repose but cloys him,
Retreat destroys him,
Love brooks not a degraded throne.

Wait not, fond lover!
Till years are over,
And then recover,
As from a dream.
While each bewailing
The other's failing,
With wrath and railing,
All hideous seem —
While first decreasing,
Yet not quite ceasing,
Wait not till teasing

All passion blight:

If once diminish'd

Love's reign is finish'd

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[First published in the Edition of 1901 from a manuscript in the possession of Mr. Murray.] LADY! in whose heroic port

And Beauty, Victor even of Time, And haughty lineaments, appear

night.

So shall Affection

To recollection

The dear connection

Bring back with joy:
You had not waited
Till, tired or hated,
Your passions sated
Began to cloy.
Your last embraces
Leave no cold traces-
The same fond faces

As through the past;
And eyes, the mirrors
Of your sweet errors,
Reflect but rapture
last.

Wherever human hearts resort

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His full Divinity was felt,

IC

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