Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1840/The Portrait of Lord Byron, at Newstead Abbey
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GEORGE GORDON BYRON, LORD BYRON.
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THE PORTRAIT OF LORD BYRON,
AT NEWSTEAD ABBEY.
INSCRIBED TO LORD BYRON'S SISTER, MRS. GEORGE LEIGH.
It is the face of youth—and yet not young;
The purple lights, the ready smiles have vanished;
The shadows by the weary forehead flung,
The gayer influences of life have banished.
'Tis sad, and fixed—yet we can fancy gleams
Of feverish spirits, suddenly awaking.
Flinging aside doubts, fancies, fears, and dreams,
Like some red fire on startled midnight breaking.
'Tis an uncertain thing—a mind so framed,
Glorious the birthright which its powers inherit,
Mingling the loved—the feared—the praised—the blamed-
The constant struggle of the clay and spirit.
His name is on the haunted shade,
His name is on the air;
We walk the forest's twilight glade,
And only he is there.
The ivy wandering o'er the wall,
The fountain falling musical,
Proclaim him everywhere,
The heart is full of him, and flings
Itself on all surrounding things.
The youthful poet! here his mind
Was in its boyhood nurst;
All that impatient soul enshrined
Was here developed first.
What feelings and what thoughts have grown
Amid those cloisters, deep and lone!
Life’s best, and yet its worst:
For fiery elements are they,
That mould and make such dangerous clay.
A thousand gifts the poet hath
Of beauty and delight;
He flingeth round a common path,
A glory never common sight
Would find in common hours.
And yet such visionary powers
Are kin to strife and wrath.
The very light with which they glow
But telleth of the fire below.
Such minds are like the heated earth
Of southern soils and skies;
Care calls not to laborious birth
The lavish wealth that lies
Close to the surface; some bright hour
Upsprings the fruit, unfolds the flower,
And inward wonders rise:
A thousand colours glitter round,
The golden harvest lights the ground.
But not the less there lurks below
The lava’s burning wave;
The red rose and the myrtle grow
Above a hidden grave.
The life within earth’s panting veins
Is fire, which silently remains
In each volcanic cave.
Fire that gives loveliness and breath,
But giveth, in one moment, death!
So framed is such a mind, it works
With dangerous thoughts and things;
Beneath, the fiery lava lurks,
But on the surface springs
A prodigality of bloom,
A thousand hues that might illume
Even an angel’s wings!
Thrice beautiful the outward show,
Still the volcano is below.
It is the curse of such a mind
That it can never rest,
Ever its wings upon the wind
In some pursuit are prest;
And either the pursuit is vain,
Or, if its object it attain,
It was not worth the quest,
Yet from the search it cannot cease,
And fold its plumes, and be at peace.
And what were that boy-poet’s dreams,
As here he wont to stray,
When evening cast her pensive gleams
Around his forest way?
Came there "thick fancies" ’mid the gloom,
Of war-horse, trumpet, pennant, plume,
And all the proud array,
When mailed barons, stern and old,
Kept state in Newstead’s ancient hold?
Or more—was the boy's fancy won
By penance and by vow,
When hooded monk and veiled nun,
The beating heart and brow,
Alike concealed from common eyes,
Revealed, perhaps, to midnight skies,
Dreams that possessed him now?
Dreams of a world, whose influence still
Prevaileth over human will.
Or was it some wild dream of love
That filled the summer noon,
And saw but one sweet face above,
What time the maiden moon
Looked on a fairy world beneath,
And waked the hawthorn's sweetest breath,
The fountain's softest tune?
For young love, living on a smile,
Makes its own Eden for a while.
The ancient hall, when winter came,
Gave fantasies to night,
Light by some old lamp's flickering flame,
Or the red embers' light.
The shadows, that have little power
Upon the sunshine's cheerful hour,
Then master mind and sight;
The visionary world appears
Girt with fantastic shapes and fears.
Such was his childhood, suited well
To fashion such a mind;
The feudal sword—the gothic cell,
Their influence combined.
The old oak-wood—the forest stream,
And love soon wakened from the dream
It never quite resigned.
His life contained no after hour
O'er which his boyhood had no power.
Be after scenes with after years—
Here only we recall
Whatever soothes, subdues, endears,
In his ancestral hall.
The deep enchantment we have felt,
When every thought and feeling dwelt
Beneath his spirit's thrall.
Sad, softened, are the hearts that come
To gaze around his boyish home.L. E. L.