The Works of Lord Byron Volume I Part 27

TO M. S. G. [1]

1.

When I dream that you love me, you'll surely forgive; Extend not your anger to sleep; For in visions alone your affection can live,-- I rise, and it leaves me to weep.

2.

Then, Morpheus! envelop my faculties fast, Shed o'er me your languor benign; Should the dream of to-night but resemble the last, What rapture celestial is mine!

3.

They tell us that slumber, the sister of death, Mortality's emblem is given; To fate how I long to resign my frail breath, If this be a foretaste of Heaven!

4.

Ah! frown not, sweet Lady, unbend your soft brow, Nor deem me too happy in this; If I sin in my dream, I atone for it now, Thus doom'd, but to gaze upon bliss.

5.

Though in visions, sweet Lady, perhaps you may smile, Oh! think not my penance deficient!

When dreams of your presence my slumbers beguile, To awake, will be torture sufficient.

[Footnote 1: "C. G. B. to E. P." 'MS. Newstead'.]

TRANSLATION FROM HORACE.

Justum et tenacem propositi virum.

HOR. 'Odes', iii. 3. I.

1.

The man of firm and n.o.ble soul No factious clamours can controul; No threat'ning tyrant's darkling brow Can swerve him from his just intent: Gales the warring waves which plough, By Auster on the billows spent, To curb the Adriatic main, Would awe his fix'd determined mind in vain.

2.

Aye, and the red right arm of Jove, Hurtling his lightnings from above, With all his terrors there unfurl'd, He would, unmov'd, unaw'd, behold; The flames of an expiring world, Again in cras.h.i.+ng chaos roll'd, In vast promiscuous ruin hurl'd, Might light his glorious funeral pile: Still dauntless 'midst the wreck of earth he'd smile.

THE FIRST KISS OF LOVE.

[Greek:

Ha barbitos de chordais Er_ota mounon aechei. [1]

ANACREON ['Ode' 1].

1.

Away with your fictions of flimsy romance, Those tissues of falsehood which Folly has wove; [i]

Give me the mild beam of the soul-breathing glance, Or the rapture which dwells on the first kiss of love.

2.

Ye rhymers, whose bosoms with fantasy glow, [ii]

Whose pastoral pa.s.sions are made for the grove; From what blest inspiration your sonnets would flow, [iii]

Could you ever have tasted the first kiss of love.

3.

If Apollo should e'er his a.s.sistance refuse, Or the Nine be dispos'd from your service to rove, Invoke them no more, bid adieu to the Muse, And try the effect, of the first kiss of love.

4.

I hate you, ye cold compositions of art, Though prudes may condemn me, and bigots reprove; I court the effusions that spring from the heart, Which throbs, with delight, to the first kiss of love. [iv]

5.

Your shepherds, your flocks, those fantastical themes, [v]

Perhaps may amuse, yet they never can move: Arcadia displays but a region of dreams; [vi]