No More Learning

[First published, _Works of Lord Byron_, 1832, xiv. 357. ]




TO----[606]

1.

But once I dared to lift my eyes--
To lift my eyes to thee;
And since that day, beneath the skies,
No other sight they see.

2.

In vain sleep shuts them in the night--
The night grows day to me;
Presenting idly to my sight
What still a dream must be.

3.

A fatal dream--for many a bar
Divides thy fate from mine;
And still my passions wake and war,
But peace be still with thine.

[First published, _New Monthly Magazine_, 1833, vol. 37, p. 308. ]




TO THE COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON.

1.

You have asked for a verse:--the request
In a rhymer 'twere strange to deny;
But my Hippocrene was but my breast,
And my feelings (its fountain) are dry.

2.
Were I now as I was, I had sung
What Lawrence has painted so well;[607]
But the strain would expire on my tongue,
And the theme is too soft for my shell.

3.

I am ashes where once I was fire,
And the bard in my bosom is dead;
What I loved I now merely admire,
And my heart is as grey as my head.

4.

My Life is not dated by years--
There are _moments_ which act as a plough,
And there is not a furrow appears
But is deep in my soul as my brow.

5.

Let the young and the brilliant aspire
To sing what I gaze on in vain;
For Sorrow has torn from my lyre
The string which was worthy the strain.

B.

[First published, _Letters and Journals_, 1830, ii. 635, 636. ]




ARISTOMENES. [608]

Canto First.

1.

The Gods of old are silent on the shore.
Since the great Pan expired, and through the roar
Of the Ionian waters broke a dread
Voice which proclaimed "the Mighty Pan is dead. "
How much died with him!