The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. Poetry
TO LORD THURLOW.33
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:34Were 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.]THE DEVIL'S DRIVE.3536
1The Devil returned to Hell by two,And he stayed at home till five;When he dined on some homicides done in ragoût,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,10And I'll see how my favourites thrive.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,20A chariot in Seymour-place;37But they're lent to two friends, who make me amendsBy 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,30No very great way from a Bishop's abode.385But 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:40For the field ran so red with the blood of the dead,That it blushed like the waves of Hell!Then loudly, and wildly, and long laughed he:"Methinks they have little need here of me!"6Long 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 quantity of Landwehr!39Gladness was there,50For the men of all might and the monarchs of earth,There met for the wolf and the worm to make mirth,And a feast for the fowls of the Air!7But he turned aside and looked from the ridgeOf hills along the river,And the best thing he saw was a broken bridge,40Which 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,60O'er the torrent swoln and rainy,When he saw "on a fiery steed" Prince Pon,In taking care of Number One—Get drowned with a great many!8But the softest note that soothed his earWas the sound of a widow sighing;And the sweetest sight was the icy tear,Which Horror froze in the blue eye clearOf a maid by her lover lying —As round her fell her long fair hair,70And she looked to Heaven with that frenzied airWhich seemed to ask if a God 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!9Then he gazed on a town by besiegers taken,Nor cared he who were winning;But he saw an old maid, for years forsaken,80Get up and leave her spinning;And she looked in her glass, and to one that did pass,She said – "pray are the rapes beginning?"4110But the Devil has reached our cliffs so white,And what did he there, I pray?If his eyes were good, he but saw by nightWhat we see every day;But he made a tour and kept a journalOf all the wondrous sights nocturnal,And he sold it in shares to the Men of the Row,90Who bid pretty well – but they cheated him, though!11The Devil first saw, as he thought, the Mail,Its coachman and his coat;So instead of a pistol he cocked his tail,And seized him by the throat;"Aha!" quoth he, "what have we here?'T is a new barouche, and an ancient peer!"4212So he sat him on his box again,And bade him have no fear,But be true to his club, and staunch to his rein,100His brothel and his beer;"Next to seeing a Lord at the Council board,I would rather see him here."13Satan hired a horse and gigWith promises to pay;And he pawned his horns for a spruce new wig,To redeem as he came away:And he whistled some tune, a waltz or a jig,And drove off at the close of day.14The first place he stopped at – he heard the Psalm110That rung from a Methodist Chapel:"'T is the best sound I've heard," quoth he, "since my palmPresented Eve her apple!When Faith is all, 't is an excellent sign,That the Works and Workmen both are mine."15He passed Tommy Tyrwhitt,43 that standing jest,To princely wit a Martyr:But the last joke of all was by far the best,When he sailed away with "the Garter"!"And" – quoth Satan – "this Embassy's worthy my sight,120Should I see nothing else to amuse me to night.With no one to bear it, but Thomas à Tyrwhitt,This ribband belongs to an 'Order of Merit'!"16He stopped at an Inn and stepped withinThe Bar and read the "Times;"And never such a treat, as – the epistle of one "Vetus,"44Had he found save in downright crimes:"Though I doubt if this drivelling encomiast of WarEver saw a field fought, or felt a scar,Yet his fame shall go farther than he can guess,130For I'll keep him a place in my hottest Press;And his works shall be bound in Morocco d'Enfer,And lettered behind with his Nom de Guerre."17The Devil gat next to Westminster,And he turned to "the room" of the Commons;But he heard as he purposed to enter in there,That "the Lords" had received a summons;And he thought, as "a quondam Aristocrat,"He might peep at the Peers, though to hear them were flat;And he walked up the House so like one of his own,140That they say that he stood pretty near the throne.18He saw the Lord Liverpool seemingly wise,The Lord Westmoreland certainly silly,And Jockey of Norfolk – a man of some size —And Chatham, so like his friend Billy;45And he saw the tears in Lord Eldon's eyes,Because the Catholics would not rise,In spite of his prayers and his prophecies;And he heard – which set Satan himself a staring —A certain Chief Justice say something like swearing.46And the Devil was shocked – and quoth he, "I must go,151For I find we have much better manners below.If thus he harangues when he passes my border,I shall hint to friend Moloch to call him to order."19Then the Devil went down to the humbler House,Where he readily found his wayAs natural to him as its hole to a Mouse,He had been there many a day;And many a vote and soul and job heHad bid for and carried away from the Lobby:But there now was a "call" and accomplished debaters161Appeared in the glory of hats, boots and gaiters —Some paid rather more – but all worse dressed than Waiters!20There was Canning for War, and Whitbread for peace,And others as suited their fancies;But all were agreed that our debts should increaseExcepting the Demagogue Francis.That rogue! how could Westminster chuse him againTo leaven the virtue of these honest men!But the Devil remained till the Break of Day170Blushed upon Sleep and Lord Castlereagh:47Then up half the house got, and Satan got upКонец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
1
"Swan Green" should be "Swine Green." It lay about a quarter of a mile to the east of St. James's Lane, where Byron lodged in 1799, at the house of a Mr. Gill. The name appears in a directory of 1799, but by 1815 it had been expunged or changed euphoniæ gratiâ. (See A New Plan of the Town of Nottingham, … 1744.)
Moore took down "these rhymes" from the lips of Byron's nurse, May Gray, who regarded them as a first essay in the direction of poetry. He questioned their originality.
2
[I am indebted to the courtesy of Mr. Pierre De La Rose for sending me a copy of the foregoing Version of Ossian's Address to the Sun, which was "Privately printed at the Press of Oliver B. Graves, Cambridge, Massachusetts, June the Tenth, MDCCCXCVIII.," and was reprinted in the Atlantic Monthly in December, 1898. A prefatory note entitled, "From Lord Byron's Notes," is prefixed to the Version: "In Lord Byron's copy of The Poems of Ossian (printed by Dewick and Clarke, London, 1806), which, since 1874, has been in the possession of the Library of Harvard University as part of the Sumner Bequest. The notes which follow appear in Byron's hand." (For the Notes, see the Atlantic Monthly, 1898, vol. lxxxii. pp. 810-814.)
It is strange that Byron should have made two versions (for another "version" from the Newstead MSS., see Poetical Works, 1898, i. 229-231) of the "Address to the Sun," which forms the conclusion of "Carthon;" but the Harvard version appears to be genuine. It is to be noted that Byron appended to the earlier version eighteen lines of his own composition, by way of moral or application.]
3
[For Francis Hodgson (1781-1852), see Letters, 1898, i. 195, note 1.]
4
[Compare Peter Pindar's Ode to a Margate Hoy—
"Go, beauteous Hoy, in safety ev'ry inch!That storm should wreck thee, gracious Heav'n forbid!Whether commanded by brave Captain FinchOr equally tremendous Captain Kidd."]5
[Murray was "Joe" Murray, an ancient retainer of the "Wicked Lord." Bob was Robert Rushton, the "little page" of "Childe Harold's Good Night." (See Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 26, note 1.)]
6
[For "the stanza," addressed to the "Princely offspring of Braganza," published in the Morning Post, December 30, 1807, see English Bards, etc., line 142, note 1, Poetical Works, 1898, i. 308, 309.]
7
[Dives was William Beckford. See Childe Harold, Canto I. stanza xxii. line 6, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 37, note 1.]
8
[For John Cam Hobhouse (1786-1869), afterwards Lord Broughton de Gyfford, see Letters, 1898, i. 163, note i.]
9
[Fletcher was an indifferent traveller, and sighed for "a' the comforts of the saut-market." See Byron's letters to his mother, November 12, 1809, June 28, 1810. —Letters, 1898, i. 256, 281.]
10
[Hobhouse's Miscellany (otherwise known as the Miss-sell-any) was published in 1809, under the title of Imitations and Translations from The Ancient and Modern Classics. Byron contributed nine original poems. The volume was not a success. "It foundered … in the Gulph of Lethe." – Letter to H. Drury, July 17, 1811, Letters, 1898, i. 319.]
11
[The word "Sale" may have a double meaning. There may be an allusion to George Sale, the Orientalist, and translator of the Koran.]
12
["In Matthews I have lost my 'guide, philosopher, and friend.'" – Letter to R. C. Dallas, September 7, 1811, Letters, 1898, ii. 25. (For Charles Skinner Matthews, see Letters, 1898, i. 150, note 3.)]
13
[Compare —
"In short, the maxim for the amorous tribe isHoratian, 'Medio tu tutissimus ibis.'"Don Juan, Canto V. stanza xvii. lines 8, 9. The "doctrine" is Horatian, but the words occur in Ovid, Metam., lib. ii. line 137. —Poetical Works, 1902, vi. 273, note 2.]
14
[Hobhouse's Journey through Albania and other Provinces of Turkey, 4to, was published by James Cawthorn, in 1813.]
15
["I am just come from an expedition through the Bosphorus to the Black Sea and the Cyanean Symplegades, up which last I scrambled with as great risk as ever the Argonauts escaped in their hoy. You remember the beginning of the nurse's dole in the Medea [lines 1-7], of which I beg you to take the following translation, done on the summit; – [A 'damned business'] it very nearly was to me; for, had not this sublime passage been in my head, I should never have dreamed of ascending the said rocks, and bruising my carcass in honour of the ancients." – Letter to Henry Drury, June 17, 1810, Letters, 1898, i. 276.
Euripides, Medea, lines 1-7 —
Εἴθ' ὤφελ' Ἀργοῦς μὴ διαπτάσθαι σκάφος κ.τ.λ. ]
16
["The English Consul … forced a physician upon me, and in three days vomited and glystered me to the last gasp. In this state I made my epitaph – take it." – Letter to Hodgson, October 3, 1810, Letters, 1898, i. 298.]
17
[For Joseph Blacket (1786-1810), see Letters, 1898, i. 314, note 2; see, too, Poetical Works, 1898, i. 359, note 1, and 441-443, note 2. The Epitaph is of doubtful authenticity.]
18
["On a leaf of one of his paper books I find an epigram, written at this time, which, though not perhaps particularly good, I consider myself bound to insert." – Moore, Life, p. 137, note 1. The reference is to Moore's M.P.; or, The Blue Stocking, which was played for the first time at the Lyceum Theatre, September 9, 1811. For Moore's nom de plume, "The late Thomas Little, Esq.," compare Praed's The Belle of the Ball-Room—
"If those bright lips had quoted Locke,I might have thought they murmured Little."]19
Is fame like his so brittle? – [MS.]
20
["A person observing that Mr. Dallas looked very wise on a certain occasion, his Lordship is said to have broke out into the following impromptu." —Life, Writings, Times, and Opinions of Lord Byron, 1825, ii. 191.]
21
["Lord Byron to Editor of the Morning Chronicle.
Sir, – I take the liberty of sending an alteration of the two last lines of stanza 2d, which I wish to run as follows: —
'Gibbets on Sherwood will heighten the scenery,Shewing how commerce, how liberty thrives.'I wish you could insert it tomorrow for a particular reason; but I feel much obliged by your inserting it at all. Of course do not put my name to the thing – believe me,
Your obliged and very obedient servant,BYRON.8, St. James's Street,
Sunday, March 1, 1812."]
22
[For Byron's maiden speech in the House of Lords, February 27, 1812, see Letters, 1898, ii. 424-430.]
23
[Richard Ryder (1766-1832), second son of the first Baron Harrowby, was Home Secretary, 1809-12.]
24
Lord E., on Thursday night, said the riots at Nottingham arose from a "mistake."
25
[Caroline Rosalie Adelaide St. Jules (1786-1862) married, in 1809, the Hon. George Lamb (see English Bards, etc., line 55, Poetical Works, 1898, i. 300, note 1), fourth son of the first Viscount Melbourne.]
26
[Moore's "Intercepted Letters; or, The Twopenny Post-Bag, By Thomas Brown, the Younger," was published in 1813.]
27
[James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) was imprisoned February, 1813, to February, 1815, for a libel on the Prince Regent, published in the Examiner, March 12, 1812. —Letters, 1898, ii. 205-208, note 1.]
28
[For "Sotheby's Blues," see Introduction to The Blues, Poetical Works, 1901, iv. 570, et ibid., 579, 580.]
29
[Katherine Sophia Manners was married in 1793 to Sir Gilbert Heathcote. See Letters, 1898, ii. 402, 406.]
30
[See Catullus, xxix. 1-4 —
"Quis hoc potest videre? quis potest pati,Nisi impudicus et vorax et aleo,Mamurram habere, quod Comata GalliaHabebat uncti et ultima Britannia?" etc.]31
[One evening, in the late spring or early summer of 1813, Byron and Moore supped on bread and cheese with Rogers. Their host had just received from Lord Thurlow [Edward Hovell Thurlow, 1781-1829] a copy of his Poems on Several Occasions (1813), and Byron lighted upon some lines to Rogers, "On the Poem of Mr. Rogers, entitled 'An Epistle to a Friend.'" The first stanza ran thus —
"When Rogers o'er this labour bent,Their purest fire the Muses lent,T' illustrate this sweet argument.""Byron," says Moore, "undertook to read it aloud; – but he found it impossible to get beyond the first two words. Our laughter had now increased to such a pitch that nothing could restrain it. Two or three times he began; but no sooner had the words 'When Rogers' passed his lips, than our fit burst forth afresh, – till even Mr. Rogers himself … found it impossible not to join us. A day or two after, Lord Byron sent me the following: – 'My dear Moore, "When Rogers" must not see the enclosed, which I send for your perusal.'" —Life, p. 181; Letters, 1898, ii. 211-213, note 1.]
Thurlow's poems are by no means contemptible. A sonnet, "To a Bird, that haunted the Water of Lacken, in the Winter," which Charles Lamb transcribed in one of Coleridge's note-books, should be set over against the absurd lines, "On the Poems of Mr. Rogers."
"O melancholy bird, a winter's dayThou standest by the margin of the pool;And, taught by God, dost thy whole being schoolTo Patience, which all evil can allay:God has appointed thee the fish thy prey;And giv'n thyself a lesson to the foolUnthrifty, to submit to moral rule,And his unthinking course by thee to weigh.There need not schools nor the professor's chair,Though these be good, true wisdom to impart;He, who has not enough for these to spareOf time, or gold, may yet amend his heart,And teach his soul by brooks and rivers fair,Nature is always wise in every part." Select Poems, 1821, p. 90.[See "Fragments of Criticism," Works of Charles Lamb, 1903, iii. 284.]32
[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.]
33
["On the same day I received from him the following additional scraps ['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."]34
[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."]
35
The Devil's Drive. A Sequel to Porson's Devil's Walk. – [MS. H.]
36
["I have lately written a wild, rambling, unfinished rhapsody, called 'The Devil's Drive,' the notion of which I took from Porson's Devil's Walk." —Journal, December 17, 18, 1813, Letters, 1898, ii. 378. "Though with a good deal of vigour and imagination, it is," says Moore, "for the most part rather clumsily executed, wanting the point and condensation of those clever verses of Coleridge and Southey, which Lord Byron, adopting a notion long prevalent, has attributed to Porson." The Devil's Walk was published in the Morning Post, September 6, 1799. It has been published under Porson's name (1830, ed. H. Montague, illustrated by Cruikshank). (See Poetical Works, 1898, i. 30, note 1.)]
37
[Lord Yarmouth, nicknamed "Red Herrings," the eldest son of the Regent's elderly favourite, the Marchioness of Hertford (the "Marchesa" of the Twopenny Post-Bag), lived at No. 7, Seamore Place, Mayfair. Compare Moore's "Epigram: " "'I want the Court Guide,' said my lady, 'to look If the House, Seymour Place, be at 30 or 20,'" etc. —Poetical Works, 1850, p. 165.]
38
[The allusion may be to a case which was before the courts, the Attorney-General v. William Carver and Brownlow Bishop of Winchester (see Morning Chronicle, November 17, 1813). Carver held certain premises under the Bishop of Winchester, at the entrance of Portsmouth Harbour, which obstructed the efflux and reflux of the tide. "The fact," said Mr. Serjeant Lens, in opening the case for the Crown, "was of great magnitude to the entire nation, since it effected the security, and even the existence of one of the principal harbours of Great Britain."]
39
[The Russian and Austrian troops at the battle of Leipsic, October 16, 1813, were, for the most part, veterans, while the Prussian contingent included a large body of militia.]
40
[For the incident of the "broken bridge" Byron was indebted to the pages of the Morning Chronicle of November 8, 1813, "Paris Papers, October 30" —
"The Emperor had ordered the engineers to form fougades under the grand bridge which is between Leipsic and Lindenau, in order to blow it up at the latest moment, and thus to retard the march of the enemy and give time to our baggage to file off. General Dulauloy had entrusted the operation to Colonel Montford. The Colonel, instead of remaining on the spot to direct it, and to give the signal, ordered a corporal and four sappers to blow up the bridge the instant the enemy should appear. The corporal, an ignorant fellow, and ill comprehending the nature of the duty with which he was charged, upon hearing the first shot discharged from the ramparts of the city, set fire to the fougades and blew up the bridge. A part of the army was still on the other side, with a park of 80 pieces of artillery and some hundreds of waggons. The advance of this part of the army, who were approaching the bridge, seeing it blow up, conceived it was in the power of the enemy. A cry of dismay spread from rank to rank. 'The enemy are close upon our rear, and the bridges are destroyed!' The unfortunate soldiers dispersed, and endeavoured to effect their escape as well as they could. The Duke of Tarentum swam across the river. Prince Poniatowsky, mounted on a spirited horse, darted into the water and appeared no more. The Emperor was not informed of this disaster until it was too late to remedy it… Colonel Montfort and the corporal of the sappers have been handed over to a court- martial."]