30.
Yes, happy are they in their cold English graves!
Their shades cannot start to thy shouts of to-day—
Nor the steps of enslavers and chain-kissing slaves[je]
Be stamped in the turf o'er their fetterless clay.
31.
Till now I had envied thy sons and their shore,
Though their virtues were hunted, their liberties fled;[jf]
There was something so warm and sublime in the core
Of an Irishman's heart, that I envy—thy dead.[jg]
32.
Or, if aught in my bosom can quench for an hour
My contempt for a nation so servile, though sore,
Which though trod like the worm will not turn upon power,
'Tis the glory of Grattan, and genius of Moore![jh][602]
Ra. September 16, 1821.
[First published, Conversations of Lord Byron, 1824, pp. 331-338.]
STANZAS WRITTEN ON THE ROAD BETWEEN FLORENCE AND PISA.[603]
1.
Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story—
The days of our Youth are the days of our glory;
And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty
Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.[604]