Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 3.djvu/54

Nor one memorial for a breast,
Whose thoughts are all thine own.

4.

Nor need I write—to tell the tale
My pen were doubly weak:
Oh! what can idle words avail,^{[lower-roman 1]}
Unless the heart could speak?

5.

By day or night, in weal or woe,
That heart, no longer free,
Must bear the love it cannot show,
And silent ache for thee.

March, 1811.
[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]

FAREWELL TO MALTA.^{[decimal 1]}

Adieu, ye joys of La Valette!
Adieu, Sirocco, sun, and sweat!
Adieu, thou palace rarely entered!
Adieu, ye mansions where—I've ventured!
Adieu, ye curse'd streets of stairs!^{[decimal 2]}
(How surely he who mounts them swears!)
Adieu, ye merchants often failing!
Adieu, thou mob for ever railing!

Variants

1. Oh! what can tongue or pen avail
   Unless my heart could speak.—[MS. M.]

Notes

1. [These lines, which are undoubtedly genuine, were published for the first time in the sixth edition of Poems on his Domestic Circumstances (W. Hone, 1816). They were first included by Murray in the collected Poetical Works, in vol. xvii., 1832.]
2. ["The principal streets of the city of Valetta are flights of stairs."—Gazetteer of the World.]