The Works of Lord Byron
Chapter 13 : Yet, let not canker'd Calumny a.s.sail, [viii]Or round her statesman wind her gloo

Yet, let not canker'd Calumny a.s.sail, [viii]

Or round her statesman wind her gloomy veil.

FOX! o'er whose corse a mourning world must weep, Whose dear remains in honour'd marble sleep; For whom, at last, e'en hostile nations groan, While friends and foes, alike, his talents own.--[ix]

Fox! shall, in Britain's future annals, s.h.i.+ne, Nor e'en to PITT, the patriot's 'palm' resign; Which Envy, wearing Candour's sacred mask, For PITT, and PITT alone, has dar'd to ask. [x]

(Southwell, Oct., 1806. [1])

[Footnote 1: The stanza on the death of Fox appeared in the _Morning Post_, September 26, 1806.]

[Footnote 2: This MS. is preserved at Newstead.]

[Footnote i:

_The subjoined Reply._

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[Footnote ii:

_Would mangle, still, the dead, in spite of truth._

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[Footnote iii:

_Shall, therefore, dastard tongues a.s.sail the name Of him, whose virtues claim eternal fame?_

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[Footnote iv: _And all his errors._--[4to] ]

[Footnote v: _He died, an Atlas bending 'neath the weight Of cares oppressing our unhappy state.

But lo! another Hercules appeared._

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[Footnote vi:

_He too is dead who still our England propp'd With him our fast reviving hopes have dropp'd._

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[Footnote vii: _And give the palm._ [4to] ]

[Footnote viii:

_But let not canker'd Calumny a.s.sail And round.--

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[Footnote ix: _And friends and foes._ [4to] ]

[Footnote x: '--would dare to ask.' [410]]

TO A LADY WHO PRESENTED TO THE AUTHOR A LOCK OF HAIR BRAIDED WITH HIS OWN, AND APPOINTED A NIGHT IN DECEMBER TO MEET HIM IN THE GARDEN. [1]

These locks, which fondly thus entwine, In firmer chains our hearts confine, Than all th' unmeaning protestations Which swell with nonsense, love orations.

Our love is fix'd, I think we've prov'd it; Nor time, nor place, nor art have mov'd it; Then wherefore should we sigh and whine, With groundless jealousy repine; With silly whims, and fancies frantic, Merely to make our love romantic?

Why should you weep, like _Lydia Languish_, And fret with self-created anguish?

Or doom the lover you have chosen, On winter nights to sigh half frozen; In leafless shades, to sue for pardon, Only because the scene's a garden?

For gardens seem, by one consent, (Since Shakespeare set the precedent; Since Juliet first declar'd her pa.s.sion) To form the place of a.s.signation.

Oh! would some modern muse inspire, And seat her by a _sea-coal_ fire; Or had the bard at Christmas written, And laid the scene of love in Britain; He surely, in commiseration, Had chang'd the place of declaration.

In Italy, I've no objection, Warm nights are proper for reflection; But here our climate is so rigid, That love itself, is rather frigid: Think on our chilly situation, And curb this rage for imitation.

Then let us meet, as oft we've done, Beneath the influence of the sun; Or, if at midnight I must meet you, Within your mansion let me greet you: [i.]

'There', we can love for hours together, Much better, in such snowy weather, Than plac'd in all th' Arcadian groves, That ever witness'd rural loves; 'Then', if my pa.s.sion fail to please, [ii.]

Next night I'll be content to freeze; No more I'll give a loose to laughter, But curse my fate, for ever after. [2]

[Footnote 1: These lines are addressed to the same Mary referred to in the lines beginning, "This faint resemblance of thy charms." ('Vide ante', p. 32.)]

[Footnote 2: In the above little piece the author has been accused by some 'candid readers' of introducing the name of a lady [Julia Leacroft] from whom he was some hundred miles distant at the time this was written; and poor Juliet, who has slept so long in "the tomb of all the Capulets," has been converted, with a trifling alteration of her name, into an English damsel, walking in a garden of their own creation, during the month of 'December', in a village where the author never pa.s.sed a winter. Such has been the candour of some ingenious critics. We would advise these 'liberal' commentators on taste and arbiters of decorum to read 'Shakespeare'.

Having heard that a very severe and indelicate censure has been pa.s.sed on the above poem, I beg leave to reply in a quotation from an admired work, 'Carr's Stranger in France'.--"As we were contemplating a painting on a large scale, in which, among other figures, is the uncovered whole length of a warrior, a prudish-looking lady, who seemed to have touched the age of desperation, after having attentively surveyed it through her gla.s.s, observed to her party that there was a great deal of indecorum in that picture. Madame S. shrewdly whispered in my ear 'that the indecorum was in the remark.'"--[Ed. 1803, cap. xvi, p.

171. Compare the note on verses addressed "To a Knot of Ungenerous Critics," p. 213.]]

[Footnote i:

'Oh! let me in your chamber greet you.'

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[Footnote ii:

'There if my pa.s.sion'