Richmond Enquirer

MADAME LAVALETTE.

BY LORD BYRON,

Let Edinburgh critics overwhelm with their praises.
Their madame de Stael, and their famed L'Epinasse;
Like a meteor at best, proud Philosophy blazes,
And thy fame of a Wit, is as brittle as glass;
But cheering's the beam, and unfading the splendor
Of thy torch, Wedded Love! and it never has yet
Shone with lustre more holy, more pure or more tender,
Than it sheds on the name of the fair LAVALETTE.

Then fill high the wine cup, e'en Virtue shall bless it,
And hallow the goblet which foams to her name;
The warm lip of Beauty shall piously press it,
And Hymen shall honour the pledge to her fame:
To the health of the Woman, who freedom and life too
Has risk'd for her Husband, we'll pay the just debt;
And hail with applause the Heroine and wife too,
The constant, the noble, the fair LAVALETTE.

Her foes have awarded, in impotent malice,
To their captive a doom which all Europe abhors.
And turns from the stairs of the Priest-haunted palace,
While those who replaced them there, blush for their cause:
But in ages to come, when the blood-tarnish'd glory
Of Dukes and of Marshals, in darkness hath set,
Hearts shall throb, eyes shall glisten, at reading the story
Of the fond self-devotion of fair LAVALETTE.