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IMPROMPTU, IN REPLY TO A FRIEND.
69
From what even here hath passed, may guess
What there thy bosom must endure.
What there thy bosom must endure.
11.
Oh! pardon that imploring tear,
Since not by Virtue shed in vain,
My frenzy drew from eyes so dear;
For me they shall not weep again.
Oh! pardon that imploring tear,
Since not by Virtue shed in vain,
My frenzy drew from eyes so dear;
For me they shall not weep again.
12.
Though long and mournful must it be,
The thought that we no more may meet;
Yet I deserve the stern decree,
And almost deem the sentence sweet.
Though long and mournful must it be,
The thought that we no more may meet;
Yet I deserve the stern decree,
And almost deem the sentence sweet.
13.
Still—had I loved thee less—my heart
Had then less sacrificed to thine;
It felt not half so much to part
As if its guilt had made thee mine.
1813. [MS. M. First published,Childe Harold,
1814 (Seventh Edition).]
Still—had I loved thee less—my heart
Had then less sacrificed to thine;
It felt not half so much to part
As if its guilt had made thee mine.
1813. [MS. M. First published,Childe Harold,
1814 (Seventh Edition).]
IMPROMPTU, IN REPLY TO A FRIEND.[decimal 1]
When, from the heart where Sorrow sits,
Her dusky shadow mounts too high,
Her dusky shadow mounts too high,
Notes
- ↑ [Byron forwarded these lines to Moore in a postscript to a letter dated September 27, 1813. "Here's," he writes, "an impromptu for you by a 'person of quality,' written last week, on being reproached for low spirits,"—Letters, 1898, ii. 268. They were written at Aston Hall, Rotherham, where he "stayed a week . . . and behaved very well—though the lady of the house [Lady F. Wedderburn Webster] is young, and religious, and pretty, and the master is my particular friend,"—Letters, 1898, ii. 267.]
