Byron's Poetical Works, Volume 1

1.

  No specious splendour of this stone
  Endears it to my memory ever;
  With lustre only once it shone,
  And blushes modest as the giver. [i]

2.

  Some, who can sneer at friendship’s ties,
  Have, for my weakness, oft reprov’d me;
  Yet still the simple gift I prize,
  For I am sure, the giver lov’d me.

3.

  He offer’d it with downcast look,
  As fearful that I might refuse it;
  I told him, when the gift I took,
  My only fear should be, to lose it.

4.

  This pledge attentively I view’d,
  And sparkling as I held it near,
  Methought one drop the stone bedew’d,
  And, ever since, I’ve lov’d a tear.

5.

  Still, to adorn his humble youth,
  Nor wealth nor birth their treasures yield;
  But he, who seeks the flowers of truth,
  Must quit the garden, for the field.

6.

  ’Tis not the plant uprear’d in sloth,
  Which beauty shews, and sheds perfume;
  The flowers, which yield the most of both,
  In Nature’s wild luxuriance bloom.

7.

Had Fortune aided Nature’s care, For once forgetting to be blind, His would have been an ample share, If well proportioned to his mind.

8.

But had the Goddess clearly seen, His form had fix’d her fickle breast; Her countless hoards would his have been, And none remain’d to give the rest.

[Footnote 1:  The cornelian was a present from his friend Edleston, a Cambridge chorister, afterwards a clerk in a mercantile house in London.  Edleston died of consumption, May 11, 1811. (See letter from Byron to Miss Pigot, October 28, 1811.) Their acquaintance began by Byron saving him from drowning. (MS. note by the Rev. W. Harness.)]

[Footnote i:  ‘But blushes modest’.

TO M——­[i]

1.

  Oh! did those eyes, instead of fire,
    With bright, but mild affection shine: 
  Though they might kindle less desire,
    Love, more than mortal, would be thine.

2.

  For thou art form’d so heavenly fair,
    Howe’er those orbs may wildly beam,
  We must admire, but still despair;
    That fatal glance forbids esteem.

3.

  When Nature stamp’d thy beauteous birth,
    So much perfection in thee shone,
  She fear’d that, too divine for earth,
    The skies might claim thee for their own.

4.

  Therefore, to guard her dearest work,
    Lest angels might dispute the prize,
  She bade a secret lightning lurk,
    Within those once celestial eyes.

5.

  These might the boldest Sylph appall,
    When gleaming with meridian blaze;
  Thy beauty must enrapture all;
    But who can dare thine ardent gaze?

6.

  ’Tis said that Berenice’s hair,
    In stars adorns the vault of heaven;
  But they would ne’er permit thee there,
    Thou wouldst so far outshine the seven.

7.

  For did those eyes as planets roll,
    Thy sister-lights would scarce appear: 
  E’en suns, which systems now controul,
    Would twinkle dimly through their sphere. [1]