A Picture at Newstead

Though the Muse be gone away,
Though she move not earth to-day,
Souls, erewhile who caught her word,
Ah! still harp on what they heard.

[First published 1867.]

WHAT made my heart, at Newstead, fullest swell?—

’Twas not the thought of Byron, of his cry

Stormily sweet, his Titan agony;

It was the sight of that Lord Arundel

Who struck, in heat, the child he loved so well,

And the child’s reason flickered, and did die.

Painted (he will’d it) in the gallery

They hang; the picture doth the story tell.

Behold the stern, mail’d father, staff in hand!

The little fair-hair’d son, with vacant gaze,

Where no more lights of sense or knowledge are!

Methinks the woe which made that father stand

Baring his dumb remorse to future days,

Was woe than Byron’s woe more tragic far.

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