Farewell To Malta.[19]

Adieu, ye joys of La Valette! Adieu, Sirocco, sun, and sweat! Adieu, thou palace rarely entered! Adieu, ye mansions where--I've ventured! Adieu, ye cursed streets of stairs! (How surely he who mounts them swears!) Adieu, ye merchants often failing! Adieu, thou mob for ever railing! Adieu, ye packets--without letters! Adieu, ye fools--who ape your betters! Adieu, thou damned'st quarantine, That gave me fever, and the spleen! Adieu that stage which makes us yawn, Sirs, Adieu his Excellency's dancers! Adieu to Peter--whom no fault's in, But could not teach a colonel waltzing; Adieu, ye females fraught with graces! Adieu red coats, and redder faces! Adieu the supercilious air Of all that strut en militaire! I go--but God knows when, or why, To smoky towns and cloudy sky, To things (the honest truth to say) As bad--but in a different way.

Farewell to these, but not adieu, Triumphant sons of truest blue! While either Adriatic shore, And fallen chiefs, and fleets no more, And nightly smiles, and daily dinners, Proclaim you war and women's winners. Pardon my Muse, who apt to prate is, And take my rhyme--because 'tis "gratis."

And now I've got to Mrs. Fraser, Perhaps you think I mean to praise her-- And were I vain enough to think My praise was worth this drop of ink, A line--or two--were no hard matter, As here, indeed, I need not flatter: But she must be content to shine In better praises than in mine, With lively air, and open heart, And fashion's ease, without its art; Her hours can gaily glide along. Nor ask the aid of idle song.

And now, O Malta! since thou'st got us, Thou little military hot-house! I'll not offend with words uncivil, And wish thee rudely at the Devil, But only stare from out my casement, And ask, "for what is such a place meant?" Then, in my solitary nook, Return to scribbling, or a book, Or take my physic while I'm able (Two spoonfuls hourly, by this label), Prefer my nightcap to my beaver, And bless my stars I've got a fever.

May 26, 1811. [First published, 1816.]

NEWSTEAD ABBEY.

1.

In the dome of my Sires as the clear moonbeam falls Through Silence and Shade o'er its desolate walls, It shines from afar like the glories of old; It gilds, but it warms not--'tis dazzling, but cold.

2.

Let the Sunbeam be bright for the younger of days: 'Tis the light that should shine on a race that decays, When the Stars are on high and the dews on the ground, And the long shadow lingers the ruin around.

3.

And the step that o'erechoes the gray floor of stone Falls sullenly now, for 'tis only my own; And sunk are the voices that sounded in mirth, And empty the goblet, and dreary the hearth.

4.

And vain was each effort to raise and recall The brightness of old to illumine our Hall; And vain was the hope to avert our decline, And the fate of my fathers had faded to mine.

5.

And theirs was the wealth and the fulness of Fame, And mine to inherit too haughty a name;[r] And theirs were the times and the triumphs of yore, And mine to regret, but renew them no more.

6.

And Ruin is fixed on my tower and my wall, Too hoary to fade, and too massy to fall; It tells not of Time's or the tempest's decay,[s] But the wreck of the line that have held it in sway.

August 26, 1811. [First published in Memoir of Rev. F. Hodgson, 1878, i. 187.]