Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. IV. The Nineteenth Century: Wordsworth to Rossetti
Lord Byron (17881824)Epistle to Augusta
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Dearer and purer were, it should be thine;
Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim
No tears, but tenderness to answer mine:
Go where I will, to me thou art the same—
A loved regret which I would not resign.
There yet are two things in my destiny,—
A world to roam through, and a home with thee.
It were the haven of my happiness;
But other claims and other ties thou hast,
And mine is not the wish to make them less.
A strange doom is thy father’s son’s, and past
Recalling, as it lies beyond redress;
Reversed for him our grandsire’s fate of yore,—
He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore.
In other elements, and on the rocks
Of perils, overlook’d or unforeseen,
I have sustain’d my share of worldly shocks,
The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen,
My errors with defensive paradox;
I have been cunning in mine overthrow,
The careful pilot of my proper woe.
My whole life was a contest, since the day
That gave me being, gave me that which marr’d
The gift,—a fate, or will, that walk’d astray;
And I at times have found the struggle hard,
And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay:
But now I fain would for a time survive,
If but to see what next can well arrive.
I have outlived, and yet I am not old;
And when I look on this, the petty spray
Of my own years of trouble, which have roll’d
Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away;
Something—I know not what—does still uphold
A spirit of slight patience;—not in vain,
Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain.
Within me—or perhaps a cold despair,
Brought on when ills habitually recur,—
Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air,
(For even to this may change of soul refer,
And with light armour we may learn to bear,)
Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not
The chief companion of a calmer lot.
In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks,
Which do remember me of where I dwelt
Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books,
Come as of yore upon me, and can melt
My heart with recognition of their looks;
And even at moments I think I could see
Some living thing to love—but none like thee.
A fund for contemplation;—to admire
Is a brief feeling of a trivial date:
But something worthier do such scenes inspire:
Here to be lonely is not desolate,
For much I view which I could most desire,
And, above all, a lake I can behold
Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old.
The fool of my own wishes, and forget
The solitude which I have vaunted so
Has lost its praise in this but one regret;
There may be others which I less may show;—
I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet
I feel an ebb in my philosophy,
And the tide rising in my alter’d eye.
By the old Hall which may be mine no more.
Leman’s is fair; but think not I forsake
The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore:
Sad havoc Time must with my memory make
Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before;
Though, like all things which I have loved, they are
Resign’d for ever, or divided far.
Of Nature that with which she will comply—
It is but in her summer’s sun to bask,
To mingle with the quiet of her sky,
To see her gentle face without a mask,
And never gaze on it with apathy.
She was my early friend, and now shall be
My sister—till I look again on thee.
And that I would not;—for at length I see
Such scenes as those wherein my life begun.
The earliest—even the only paths for me—
Had I but sooner learnt the crown to shun,
I had been better than I now can be;
The passions which have torn me would have slept;
I had not suffer’d, and thou hadst not wept.
Little with Love, and least of all with Fame;
And yet they came unsought, and with me grew,
And made me all which they can make—a name.
Yet this was not the end I did pursue;
Surely I once beheld a nobler aim.
But all is over—I am one the more
To baffled millions which have gone before.
From me demand but little of my care;
I have outlived myself by many a day;
Having survived so many things that were;
My years have been no slumber, but the prey
Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share
Of life which might have fill’d a century,
Before its fourth in time had pass’d me by.
I am content; and for the past I feel
Not thankless,—for within the crowded sum
Of struggles, happiness at times would steal,
And for the present, I would not benumb
My feelings further.—Nor shall I conceal
That with all this I still can look around,
And worship Nature with a thought profound.
I know myself secure, as thou in mine;
We were and are—I am, even as thou art—
Beings who ne’er each other can resign;
It is the same, together or apart,
From life’s commencement to its slow decline
We are entwined—let death come slow or fast,
The tie which bound the first endures the last!