"
[Footnote 1: We say, _if admired_, as there is a great variety of
opinions respecting Lord Byron's Poems. Some certainly extol them much,
but most of the best judges place his Lordship rather low in the list of
our minor Poets.]
* * * * *
(5) LINES ('Morning Post', February 11, 1814).
Suggested by perusing Lord Byron's small Poem, at the end of his
"_Corsair_" addressed to a Lady weeping, beginning:
"_Weep, Daughter of a Royal Line_."
"To LORD BYRON.
"Were he the man thy verse would paint,
'_A Sire's disgrace, a realm's decay_;'
Art thou the meek, the pious saint,
That _prates_ of feeling night and day?
"Stern as the Pirate's [1] heart is thine,
Without one ray to cheer its gloom;
And shall that Daughter once repine,
Because thy rude, unhallow'd line,
Would on her virtuous cause presume?
"Hide, BYRON! in the shades of night--
Hide in thy own congenial cell
The mind that would a fiend affright,
_And shock the dunnest realms of hell!_
"No; she will never weep the tears
Which thou would'st Virtue's deign to call;
Nor will they, in remoter years,
Molest her Father's heart at all.
"Dark-vision'd man! thy moody vein
Tends only to thy mental pain,
And cloud the talents Heav'n had meant
To prove the source of true content;
Much better were it for thy soul,
Both here and in the realms of bliss,
To check the glooms that now controul
Those talents, which might still repay
The wrongs of many a luckless day,
In such a _cheerless_[2] clime as this.
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