'And Ireland, like a bastinadoed elephant, kneeling to receive the paltry rider.'-CURRAN. [This satire was sent in a letter to Moore (September 17, 1821), then in Paris, with the comment: The enclosed lines, as you will directly perceive, are written by the Rev. W. L. Bowles. Of course, it is for him to deny them, if they are not.' Mr. E. H. Coleridge explains that the word "Avatar" is not only applied ironically to George IV. as the "Messiah of Royalty," but metaphorically to the poem, which would descend in the "Capacity of Preserver." The occasion of the satire was an attack on Moore in John Bull, and the servility of the Irish when George IV. entered Dublin in triumph within ten days of the death of Queen Caroline.'] ERE the daughter of Brunswick is cold in her grave, And her ashes still float to their home o'er the tide, Lo! George the triumphant speeds over the wave, To the long-cherish'd isle which he loved like his bride. [In Lady Blessington's Conversations with Lord Byron these lines are thus introduced : 'I will give you some stanzas I wrote yesterday (said Byron); they are as simple as even Wordsworth himself could write, and would do for music.'] BUT once I dared to lift my eyes, In vain sleep shuts them in the night, [First published in the Edition of 1901 from a manuscript in the possession of the Lady Dorchester.] Was beautiful which peopled every stream With more than finny tenants, and adorn'd The woods and waters with coy nymphs that scorn'd Pursuing Deities, or in the embrace Of gods brought forth the high heroic race Whose names are on the hills and o'er the seas. CEPHALONIA, September 10, 1823. [LOVE AND DEATH] [First published in Murray's Magazine, February, 1887.] I WATCH'D thee when the foe was at our side, Ready to strike at him—or thee and me, Were safety hopeless—rather than divide Aught with one loved save love and lib erty. |