Stanzas To The Po.[588]

1.

River, that rollest by the ancient walls,
Where dwells the Lady of my love, when she
Walks by thy brink, and there perchance recalls
A faint and fleeting memory of me:

2.

What if thy deep and ample stream should be
A mirror of my heart, where she may read
The thousand thoughts I now betray to thee,
Wild as thy wave, and headlong as thy speed!

3.

What do I say - a mirror of my heart?
Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong?
Such as my feelings were and are, thou art;
And such as thou art were my passions long.

4.

Time may have somewhat tamed them, - not for ever;
Thou overflow'st thy banks, and not for aye
Thy bosom overboils, congenial river!
Thy floods subside, and mine have sunk away:

5.

But left long wrecks behind, and now again,^[ib]
Borne in our old unchanged career, we move:
Thou tendest wildly onwards to the main,
And I - to loving one I should not love.

6.

The current I behold will sweep beneath
Her native walls, and murmur at her feet;
Her eyes will look on thee, when she shall breathe
The twilight air, unharmed by summer's heat.

7.

She will look on thee, - I have looked on thee,
Full of that thought: and, from that moment, ne'er
Thy waters could I dream of, name, or see,
Without the inseparable sigh for her!

8.

Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream, -
Yes! they will meet the wave I gaze on now:
Mine cannot witness, even in a dream,
That happy wave repass me in its flow!

9.

The wave that bears my tears returns no more:
Will she return by whom that wave shall sweep? -
Both tread thy banks, both wander on thy shore,
I by thy source, she by the dark-blue deep.^[ic]


10.

But that which keepeth us apart is not
Distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth,
But the distraction of a various lot,
As various as the climates of our birth.

11.

A stranger loves the Lady of the land,^[id]
Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood
Is all meridian, as if never fanned
By the black wind that chills the polar flood.^[ie]

12.

My blood is all meridian; were it not,
I had not left my clime, nor should I be,^[if]
In spite of tortures, ne'er to be forgot,
A slave again of love, - at least of thee.

13.

'Tis vain to struggle - let me perish young -
Live as I lived, and love as I have loved;
To dust if I return, from dust I sprung,
And then, at least, my heart can ne'er be moved.

June, 1819.

            [First published, Conversations of Lord Byron, 1824, 4º, pp. 24-26.]

George Gordon Byron

George Gordon Byron, commonly known as Lord Byron, was a British poet and leading figure in the Romantic movement. He is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and remains widely read and influential. Among his best-known works are the lengthy narrative poems Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, and the short lyric She Walks in Beauty. Byron's personal life was marked by scandal and he was famously described by Lady Caroline Lamb as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know."

George Gordon Byron

To Maria ------

George Gordon Byron, Simple Poetry

Imitated From Catullus. [1] To Ellen.

George Gordon Byron, Simple Poetry

To A Youthful Friend.

George Gordon Byron, Simple Poetry

To My Son. [1]

George Gordon Byron, Simple Poetry

English

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Stanzas.[591]

1.

Could Love for ever
Run like a river,
And Time's endeavour
Be tried in vain -
No other pleasure
With this could measure;
And like a treasure^[ik]
We'd hug the chain.
But since our sighing
Ends not in dying,
And, formed for flying,
Love plumes his wing;
Then for this reason
Let's love a season;
But let that season be only Spring.


2.

When lovers parted
Feel broken-hearted,
And, all hopes thwarted,
Expect to die;
A few years older,
Ah! how much colder
They might behold her
For whom they sigh!
When linked together,
In every weather,^[il]
They pluck Love's feather
From out his wing -
He'll stay for ever,^[im]
But sadly shiver
Without h...

George Gordon Byron

Epistle To Augusta.[83]

I.

My Sister! my sweet Sister! if a name
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.^[z]
There yet are two things in my destiny, -
A world to roam through, and a home with thee.^[84]

II.

The first were nothing - had I still the last,
It were the haven of my happiness;
But other claims and other ties thou hast,^[aa]
And mine is not the wish to make them less.
A strange doom is thy father's son's, and past^[ab]
Recalling, as it lies beyond redress;
Reversed for him our grandsire's^[85] fate of yore, -
He had no rest at sea, nor...

George Gordon Byron

Stanzas To Augusta.[n][77]

I.

Though the day of my Destiny's over,
And the star of my Fate hath declined,^[o]
Thy soft heart refused to discover
The faults which so many could find;
Though thy Soul with my grief was acquainted,
It shrunk not to share it with me,
And the Love which my Spirit hath painted^[p]
It never hath found but in Thee.

II.

Then when Nature around me is smiling,^[78]
The last smile which answers to mine,
I do not believe it beguiling,^[q]
Because it reminds me of thine;
And when winds are at war with the ocean,
As the breasts I believed in with me,^[r]
If their billows excite an emotion,
It is that they bear me from Thee.

III.

Though the rock of my last Hope i...

George Gordon Byron

To Mary.

1.

Rack'd by the flames of jealous rage,
By all her torments deeply curst,
Of hell-born passions far the worst,
What hope my pangs can now assuage?

2.

I tore me from thy circling arms,
To madness fir'd by doubts and fears,
Heedless of thy suspicious tears,
Nor feeling for thy feign'd alarms.

3.

Resigning every thought of bliss,
Forever, from your love I go,
Reckless of all the tears that flow,
Disdaining thy polluted kiss.

4.

No more that bosom heaves for me,
On it another seeks repose,
Another riot's on its snows,
Our bonds are broken, both are free.

5.

No more with mutual love we burn,
No more the genial couch we bless,
Dissolving in the fond caress;
Our love o'erth...

George Gordon Byron

Stanzas To A Lady, On Leaving England.

1.

Tis done - and shivering in the gale
The bark unfurls her snowy sail;
And whistling o'er the bending mast,
Loud sings on high the fresh'ning blast;
And I must from this land be gone,
Because I cannot love but one.


2.

But could I be what I have been,
And could I see what I have seen -
Could I repose upon the breast
Which once my warmest wishes blest -
I should not seek another zone,
Because I cannot love but one.


3.

'Tis long since I beheld that eye
Which gave me bliss or misery;
And I have striven, but in vain,
Never to think of it again:
For though I fly from Albion,
I still can only love but one.


4.

As some lone bird, without a mate,
My weary heart is desolate;<...

George Gordon Byron

To ----

1.

When I hear you express an affection so warm,
Ne'er think, my belov'd, that I do not believe,
For your lip, would the soul of suspicion disarm,
And your eye beams a ray, which can never deceive.

2.

Yet still, this fond bosom regrets whilst adoring,
That love like the leaf, must fall into the sear,
That age will come on, when remembrance deploring,
Contemplates the scenes of her youth, with a tear.

3.

That the time must arrive, when no longer retaining
Their auburn, these locks must wave thin to the breeze.
When a few silver hairs of those tresses remaining,
Prove nature a prey to decay, and disease.

4.

'Tis this, my belov'd, which spreads gloom o'er my features
Tho' I ne'er shall presume to arraign the decree;<...

George Gordon Byron