Byron said, "As some one must play the devil, I will do it."
Shortly before her departure from Genoa, Lady Blessington requested Byron to write some lines in her album, and, accordingly, he composed the following stanzas for her:—
To the Countess of Blessington.
1.
You have ask'd for a verse: the request
In a rhymer 'twere strange to deny;
But my Hippocrene was but my breast,
And my feelings (its fountain) are dry.
2.
Were I now as I was, I had sung
What Lawrence has painted so well;
But the strain would expire on my tongue,
And the theme is too soft for my shell.
3.
I am ashes where once I was fire,
And the bard in my bosom is dead;
What I loved I now merely admire,
And my heart is as gray as my head.
4.
My life is not dated by years—
There are moments which act as a plow;
And there is not a furrow appears,
But is deep in my soul as my brow.
5.
Let the young and the brilliant aspire
To sing what I gaze on in vain;
For sorrow has torn from my lyre
The string which was worthy the strain.
