The Works of Lord Byron Volume VII Part 5

_Select Poems_, 1821, p. 90.

[See "Fragments of Criticism," _Works of Charles Lamb_, 1903, iii. 284.]

[31] [_Hermilda in Palestine_ was published in 1812, in quarto, and twice reissued in 1813, as part of _Poems on Various Occasions_ (8vo).

The Lines upon Rogers' _Epistle to a Friend_ appeared first in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for April, 1813, vol. 83, p. 357, and were reprinted in the second edition of _Poems, etc._, 1813, pp. 162, 163.

The lines in italics, which precede each stanza, are taken from the last stanza of Lord Thurlow's poem.]

TO LORD THURLOW.[32]

1.

"_I lay my branch of laurel down_."

"_THOU_ lay thy branch of _laurel_ down!"

Why, what thou'st stole is not enow; And, were it lawfully thine own, Does Rogers want it most, or thou?

Keep to thyself thy withered bough, Or send it back to Doctor Donne:[33]

Were justice done to both, I trow, He'd have but little, and thou--none.

2.

"_Then, thus, to form Apollo's crown_."

A crown! why, twist it how you will, Thy chaplet must be foolscap still.

When next you visit Delphi's town, Enquire amongst your fellow-lodgers, They'll tell you Phoebus gave his crown, Some years before your birth, to Rogers.

3.

"_Let every other bring his own_."

When coals to Newcastle are carried, And owls sent to Athens, as wonders, From his spouse when the Regent's unmarried, Or Liverpool weeps o'er his blunders; When Tories and Whigs cease to quarrel, When Castlereagh's wife has an heir, Then Rogers shall ask us for laurel, And thou shalt have plenty to spare.

[First published, _Letters and Journals_, 1830, i. 397.]

FOOTNOTES:

[32] ["On the same day I received from him the following additional sc.r.a.ps ['To Lord Thurlow']. The lines in Italics are from the eulogy that provoked his waggish comments."--_Life_, p. 181. The last stanza of Thurlow's poem supplied the text--

"Then, thus, to form Apollo's crown, (Let ev'ry other bring his own,) I lay my branch of laurel down."]

[33] [Lord Thurlow affected an archaic style in his Sonnets and other verses. In the Preface to the second edition of _Poems, etc._, he writes, "I think that our Poetry has been continually declining since the days of Milton and Cowley ... and that the golden age of our language is in the reign of Queen Elizabeth."]

THE DEVIL'S DRIVE.[ii][34]

1.

THE Devil returned to h.e.l.l by two, And he stayed at home till five; When he dined on some homicides done in _ragout_, And a rebel or so in an _Irish_ stew, And sausages made of a self-slain Jew, And bethought himself what next to do, "And," quoth he, "I'll take a drive.

I walked in the morning, I'll ride to-night; In darkness my children take most delight, And I'll see how my favourites thrive. 10

2.

"And what shall I ride in?" quoth Lucifer, then-- "If I followed my taste, indeed, I should mount in a waggon of wounded men, And smile to see them bleed.

But these will be furnished again and again, And at present my purpose is speed; To see my manor as much as I may, And watch that no souls shall be poached away.

3.

"I have a state-coach at Carlton House, A chariot in Seymour-place;[35] 20 But they're lent to two friends, who make me amends By driving my favourite pace: And they handle their reins with such a grace, I have something for both at the end of the race.

4.

"So now for the earth to take my chance,"

Then up to the earth sprung he; And making a jump from Moscow to France, He stepped across the sea, And rested his hoof on a turnpike road, No very great way from a Bishop's abode.[36] 30

5.

But first as he flew, I forgot to say, That he hovered a moment upon his way, To look upon Leipsic plain; And so sweet to his eye was its sulphury glare, And so soft to his ear was the cry of despair, That he perched on a mountain of slain; And he gazed with delight from its growing height, Nor often on earth had he seen such a sight, Nor his work done half as well: For the field ran so red with the blood of the dead, 40 That it blushed like the waves of h.e.l.l!

Then loudly, and wildly, and long laughed he: "Methinks they have little need here of _me_!"

6.

Long he looked down on the hosts of each clime, While the warriors hand to hand were-- Gaul--Austrian and Muscovite heroes sublime, And--(Muse of Fitzgerald arise with a rhyme!) A quant.i.ty of _Landwehr_![37]

Gladness was there, For the men of all might and the monarchs of earth, 50 There met for the wolf and the worm to make mirth, And a feast for the fowls of the Air!

7.

But he turned aside and looked from the ridge Of hills along the river, And the best thing he saw was a broken bridge,[38]

Which a Corporal chose to shiver; Though an Emperor's taste was displeased with his haste, The Devil he thought it clever; And he laughed again in a lighter strain, O'er the torrent swoln and rainy, 60 When he saw "on a fiery steed" Prince Pon, In taking care of Number _One_-- Get drowned with a great _many_!

8.

But the softest note that soothed his ear Was the sound of a widow sighing; And the sweetest sight was the icy tear, Which Horror froze in the blue eye clear Of a maid by her lover lying-- As round her fell her long fair hair, And she looked to Heaven with that frenzied air 70 Which seemed to ask if a G.o.d were there!

And stretched by the wall of a ruined hut, With its hollow cheek, and eyes half shut, A child of Famine dying: And the carnage _begun_, when _resistance_ is done, And the fall of the vainly flying!

9.

Then he gazed on a town by besiegers taken, Nor cared he who were winning; But he saw an old maid, for years forsaken, Get up and leave her spinning; 80 And she looked in her gla.s.s, and to one that did pa.s.s, She said--"pray are the rapes beginning?"[39]

10.

But the Devil has reached our cliffs so white, And what did he there, I pray?

If his eyes were good, he but saw by night What we see every day; But he made a tour and kept a journal Of all the wondrous sights nocturnal, And he sold it in shares to the _Men_ of the _Row_, Who bid pretty well--but they _cheated_ him, though! 90

11.

The Devil first saw, as he thought, the _Mail_, Its coachman and his coat; So instead of a pistol he c.o.c.ked his tail, And seized him by the throat; "Aha!" quoth he, "what have we here?