The Works of Lord Byron Volume III Part 72

[mr] {410} _Never may I behold_ _Moment like this_.--[MS.]

[ms]

_The damp of the morning_ _Clung chill on my brow_.--[MS. erased.]

[mt] _Thy vow hath been broken_.--[MS.]

[mu]

----_lies hidden_ _Our secret of sorrow_-- _And deep in my soul_-- _But deed more forbidden_, _Our secret lies hidden_, _But never forgot_.--[Erasures, stanza 3, MS.]

[mv] {411} _If one_ should _meet thee_ _How should we greet thee?_ _In silence and tears_.--[MS.]

[306] [From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for the first time printed.

The water-mark of the paper on which a much-tortured rough copy of these lines has been scrawled, is 1809, but, with this exception, there is no hint as to the date of composition. An entry in the _Diary_ for November 30, 1813, in which Annabella (Miss Milbanke) is described "as an heiress, a girl of twenty, a peeress that is to be," etc., and a letter (Byron to Miss Milbanke) dated November 29, 1813 (see _Letters_, 1898, ii. 357, and 1899, iii. 407), in which there is more than one allusion to her would-be suitors, "your thousand and one pretendants," etc., suggest the idea that the lines were addressed to his future wife, when he first made her acquaintance in 1812 or 1813.]

[307] {413} ["Thou hast asked me for a song, and I enclose you an experiment, which has cost me something more than trouble, and is, therefore, less likely to be worth your taking any in your proposed setting. Now, if it be so, throw it into the fire without _phrase_."--Letter to Moore, May 4, 1814, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 80.]

[mw] _I speak not--I breathe not--I write not that name_.--[MS. erased.]

[mx] {414} _We have loved--and oh, still, my adored one we love!_ _Oh the moment is past, when that Pa.s.sion might cease._-- [MS. erased.]

[my] _The thought may be madness--the wish may be--guilt_.--[MS.

erased.]

[mz]

{_But I cannot repent what we ne'er can recall._ {_But the heart which is thine would disdain to recall_.-- [MS. erased.]

[na] ----_though I feel that thou mayst_.--[MS. L. erased.]

[nb]

_This soul in its bitterest moments shall be_, _And our days run as swift--and our moments more sweet_, _With thee at my side, than the world at my feet_.--[MS.]

[nc] {415} _And thine is that love which I will never forego_ _Though the price which I pay be Eternity's woe_.--[MS. erased]

[nd] _One tear of thy sorrow, one smile_----.--[MS. erased]

[308] [The "Caledonian Meeting," at which these lines were, or were intended to be, recited (see _Life_, p. 254), was a meeting of subscribers to the Highland Society, held annually in London, in support of the [Royal] _Caledonian Asylum_ "for educating and supporting children of soldiers, sailors, and marines, natives of Scotland." "To soothe," says the compiler of the _Report_ for 1814, p. 4, "by the a.s.surance that their offspring will be reared in virtue and comfort, the minds of those brave men, through whose exposure to hardship and danger the independence of the Empire has been preserved, is no less an act of sound policy than of grat.i.tude."]

[309] {416} [As an instance of Scottish gallantry in the Peninsular War it is sufficient to cite the following list of "casualties" at the battle of Vittoria, June 21, 1813: "The battalion [the seventy-first Highland Light Infantry] suffered very severely, having had 1 field officer, 1 captain, 2 lieutenants, 6 sergeants, 1 bugler, and 78 rank and file killed; 1 field officer, 3 captains, 7 lieutenants, 13 sergeants, 2 buglers, and 255 rank and file were wounded."--_Historical Record of the 71st Highland Light Infantry_, by Lieut. Henry J. T.

Hildyard, 1876, p. 91.]

[310] [Compare _Temora_, bk. vii., "The king took his deathful spear, and struck the deeply-sounding shield.... Ghosts fled on every side, and rolled their gathered forms on the wind.--Thrice from the winding vale arose the voices of death."--_Works of Ossian_, 1765, ii. 160.]

[311] {417} [The last six lines are printed from the MS.]

[312] [Sir P. Parker fell in August, 1814, in his twenty-ninth year, whilst leading a party from his ship, the _Menelaus_, at the storming of the American camp near Baltimore. He was Byron's first cousin (his father, Christopher Parker (1761-1804), married Charlotte Augusta, daughter of Admiral the Hon. John Byron); but they had never met since boyhood. (See letter to Moore, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 150; see too _Letters_, i. 6, note 1.) The stanzas were included in _Hebrew Melodies_, 1815, and in the Ninth Edition of _Childe Harold_, 1818.]

[313] [Compare Ta.s.so's sonnet--"Questa Tomba non e, ehe non e morto,"

etc. _Rime Eroiche_, Parte Seconda, No. 38, _Opere di Torquato Ta.s.so_, Venice, 1736, vi. 169.]

[314] {419} [From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for the first time printed.]

[ne] {421} 1.

_The red light glows, the wa.s.sail flows_, _Around the royal hall;_ _And who, on earth, dare mar the mirth_ _Of that high festival?_ _The prophet dares--before thee glows_-- _Belshazzar rise, nor dare despise_ _The writing on the wall!_

2.

_Thy vice might raise th' avenging steel_, _Thy meanness shield thee from the blow_-- _And they who loathe thee proudly feel_.--[MS.]

[nf] {422} _The words of G.o.d along the wall_.--[MS. erased.]

_The word of G.o.d--the graven wall_.--[MS.]

[ng] _Behold it written_----.--[MS.]

[nh] ----_thy sullied diadem_.--[MS.]

[315] {423} [Byron gave these verses to Moore for Mr. Power of the Strand, who published them, with music by Sir John Stevenson. "I feel merry enough," he wrote, March 2, "to send you a sad song." And again, March 8, 1815, "An event--the death of poor Dorset--and the recollection of what I once felt, and ought to have felt now, but could not--set me pondering, and finally into the train of thought which you have in your hands." A year later, in another letter to Moore, he says, "I pique myself on these lines as being the _truest_, though the most melancholy, I ever wrote." (March 8, 1816.)--_Letters_, 1899, iii. 181, 183, 274.]

[ni] _'Tis not the blush alone that fades from Beauty's cheek_.--[MS.]

[nj] {424} _As ivy o'er the mouldering wall that heavily hath crept_.--[MS.]

[316] [Compare--

"And oft we see gay ivy's wreath The tree with brilliant bloom o'erspread, When, part its leaves and gaze beneath, We find the hidden tree is dead."

"To Anna," _The Warrior's Return, etc._, by Mrs. Opie, 1808, p. 144.]

[317] {425} [From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for the first time printed. The MS. is headed, in pencil, "Lines written on the Death of the Duke of Dorset, a College Friend of Lord Byron's, who was killed by a fall from his horse while hunting." It is endorsed, "Bought of Markham Thorpe, August 29, 1844." (For Duke of Dorset, see _Poetical Works, 1898, i. 194, note 2_; and _Letters, 1899, in. 181, note 1._)]

[nk] {426} ----_shall eternally be_.--[MS. erased.]

[nl] _Green be the turf_----.--[MS.]

[318] [Compare "O lay me, ye that see the light, near some rock of my hills: let the thick hazels be around, let the rustling oaks be near.

Green be the place of my rest."--"The War of Inis-Thona," _Works of Ossin_, 1765, i. 156.]

[nm] _May its verdure be sweetest to see_.--[MS.]

[nn] {427} _Young flowers and a far-spreading tree_ _May wave on the spot of thy rest;_ _But nor cypress nor yew let it be_.--[MS.]

[319] ["We need scarcely remind our readers that there are points in these spirited lines, with which our opinions do not accord; and, indeed, the author himself has told us that he rather adapted them to what he considered the speaker's feelings than his own."--_Examiner_, July 30, 1815.]

[no] _The brightest and blackest are due to my fame_.--[MS.]

[np] _But thy destiny wills_----.--[MS.]

[nq] {428} _Oh for the thousands of Those who have perished_ _By elements blasted, unvanquished by man_-- _Then the hope which till now I have fearlessly cherished_, _Had waved o'er thine eagles in Victory's van_.--[MS.]