By all the powers that men revere,
By all unto thy bosom dear,
Thy joys below, thy hopes above,
Speak--speak of any thing but love.

"'Twere long to tell, and vain to hear
The tale of one who scorns a tear;
And there is little in that tale
Which better bosoms would bewail.
But mine has suffer'd more than well
'Twould suit Philosophy to tell.
I've seen my bride another's bride,--
Have seen her seated by his side,--
Have seen the infant which she bore,
Wear the sweet smile the mother wore,
When she and I in youth have smiled
As fond and faultless as her child;--
Have seen her eyes, in cold disdain,
Ask if I felt no secret pain.
And I have acted well my part,
And made my cheek belie my heart,
Return'd the freezing glance she gave,
Yet felt the while _that_ woman's slave;--
Have kiss'd, as if without design,
The babe which ought to have been mine,
And show'd, alas! in each caress
Time had not made me love the less.

"But let this pass--I'll whine no more.
Nor seek again an eastern shore;
The world befits a busy brain,--
I'll hie me to its haunts again.
But if, in some succeeding year,
When Britain's 'May is in the sere,'
Thou hear'st of one, whose deepening crimes
Suit with the sablest of the times,
Of one, whom Love nor Pity sways,
Nor hope of fame, nor good men's praise,
One, who in stern Ambition's pride,
Perchance not Blood shall turn aside,
One rank'd in some recording page
With the worst anarchs of the age,
Him wilt thou _know_--and, _knowing_, pause,
Nor with the _effect_ forget the cause."

* * * * *

The anticipations of his own future career in these concluding lines are
of a nature, it must be owned, to awaken more of horror than of
interest, were we not prepared, by so many instances of his exaggeration
in this respect, not to be startled at any lengths to which the spirit
of self-libelling would carry him. It seemed as if, with the power of
painting fierce and gloomy personages, he had also the ambition to be,
himself, the dark "sublime he drew," and that, in his fondness for the
delineation of heroic crime, he endeavoured to fancy, wh