Come, bring me my harp, with a cypress tree's bough, To enwreath its dark chords with a sorrowful gloom; With the fervour of grief let me pensively blow, And fling its deep notes over Byron's lone tomb.
Ye millions, that hang o'er the murmuring wave! Bend all your green boughs with a sorrowing sigh; Ye winds, as ye pensively sweep o'er his grave, Tell the tale of your grief to each sad passer by.
No more shall his notes to your zephyrs be flung, No more shall your tempests his loud numbers bear; For hush'd is his deep and melodious tongue, And the echoes are mute as the caves of despair.
Ye mountains of Jura, that loud with delight, At the deep noon of night with his numbers have rung! Roll the dark heaving clouds o'er your towering height, And shroud all the cliffs whence the thunder was flung!
Mourn too, thou lake Leman! whose waters so clear Have reflected the image of Byron's best soul, When, stilling his passions, he shed the sweet tear, In a moment that form'd immortality's goal.
No more shall thy hills, lovely Scotland! resound With the harp that rung loud as thy dark winter storm! No more shall the steps of the minstrel be found Bounding light o'er the top of the high Cairngorm!
O England! lament, that the brightest and best Of thy bards, in these days of refinement is dead; Strike thy laureate harp, now his head is at rest, A tear o'er his faults and his follies to shed.
Though far from his home and his country he died, Yet the loud voice of Freedom has hallow'd his tomb; He has left a bright name, that no refluent tide Can sweep from the earth till the day of its doom.
