Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 3.djvu/73

The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,^{[lower-roman 1]}
⁠Shall never more be thine.
The silence of that dreamless sleep^{[lower-roman 2]}
I envy now too much to weep;
⁠Nor need I to repine,
That all those charms have passed away
I might have watched through long decay.

5.

The flower in ripened bloom unmatched
⁠Must fall the earliest prey;^{[lower-roman 3]}
Though by no hand untimely snatched,
⁠The leaves must drop away:
And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
⁠Than see it plucked to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.

6.

I know not if I could have borne^{[lower-roman 4]}
⁠To see thy beauties fade;
The night that followed such a morn
⁠Had worn a deeper shade:
Thy day without a cloud hath passed,^{[lower-roman 5]}
And thou wert lovely to the last;

⁠Extinguished, not decayed;

Variants

1. The cloud that cheers ——.—[MS.]
2. The sweetness of that silent deep.—[MS.]
3. The flower in beauty's bloom unmatched
   ⁠Is still the earliest prey.—[MS.]
   The rose by some rude finders snatched,
   ⁠Is earliest doomed to fade.—[MS. erased.]
4. I do not deem I could have borne.—[MS.]
5. But night and day of thine are passed,
   And thou wert lovely to the last;
   ⁠Destroyed ——.—[MS. erased.]