But not, my child, with life's precarious fire,

425

The immortal ties of Nature fhall expire;

Thefe fhall refift the triumph of decay,

When time is o'er, and worlds have pafs'd away;
Cold in the duft this perifh'd heart may lie,

But that which warm'd it once fhall never die!

430

That spark unburied in its mortal frame,

With living light, eternal, and the fame,

Shall beam on Joy's interminable years,

Unveil'd by darkness-unaffuag'd by tears!

"Yet, on the barren fhore and stormy deep One tedious watch is Conrad doom'd to weep;

But when I gain the home without a friend,
And prefs th' uneafy couch where none attend,

435

F

This laft embrace, ftill cherish'd in my heart,
Shall calm the ftruggling spirit ere it part!

440

Thy darling form fhall feem to hover nigh,

And hush the groan of life's last agony!

"Farewell! when strangers lift thy father's bier, And place my nameless stone without a tear;

When each returning pledge hath told my child 445

That Conrad's tomb is on the defert pil'd;

And when the dream of troubled fancy fees

Its lonely rank-grafs waving in the breeze;

Who then will foothe thy grief, when mine is o'er?

Who will protect thee, helplefs Ellenore?

Shall fecret fcenes thy filial forrows hide,

Scorn'd by the world, to factious guilt allied?

450

Ah! no; methinks the generous and the good

Will woo thee from the fhades of folitude!

O'er friendlefs grief compaffion fhall awake,
And fmile on Innocence, for Mercy's fake!"

455

Infpiring thought of rapture yet to be,
The tears of love were hopeless, but for thee!

If in that frame no deathlefs fpirit dwell,

If that faint murmur be the laft farewell;

460

If fate unite the faithful but to part,

Why is their memory facred to the heart?
Why does the Brother of my childhood feem.

Reftor'd a while in every pleafing dream?

Why do I joy the lonely spot to view,

By artlefs friendship bleft when life was new?

465

Eternal Hope! when yonder spheres fublime

Peal'd their first notes to found the march of Time,

Thy joyous youth began-but not to fade.

When all the fifter planets have decay'd;

When rapt in fire the realms of ether glow,

And Heav'n's last thunder shakes the world below;

Thou, undifmay'd, fhalt o'er the ruin fmile,

And light thy torch at Nature's funeral pile !

LND OF PART SECOND.

470

NOTES ON PART I.

Note I.

And fuch thy ftrength-infpiring aid that bore
The hardy Byron to his native fhore.

The following picture of his own diftrefs, given by Byron in his fimple and interefting narrative, juftifies the defcription in p. 10. After relating the barbarity of the Indian Cacique to his child, he proceeds thus:-"A day or two after, we put to sea again, and croffed the great bay I mentioned we had been at the bottom of, when we first hawled away to the weftward. The land here