The Works of Lord Byron Volume IV Part 97

1818.

[First published, _Fraser's Magazine_, January, 1833, vol. vii. pp. 88-84.]

THE DUEL.[583]

1.

'Tis fifty years, and yet their fray To us might seem but yesterday.

Tis fifty years, and three to boot, Since, hand to hand, and foot to foot, And heart to heart, and sword to sword, One of our Ancestors was gored.

I've seen the sword that slew him;[584] he, The slain, stood in a like degree To thee, as he, the Slayer, stood (Oh had it been but other blood!) In kin and Chieftainship to me.

Thus came the Heritage to thee.

2.

To me the Lands of him who slew Came through a line of yore renowned; For I can boast a race as true To Monarchs crowned, and some discrowned, As ever Britain's Annals knew: For the first Conqueror gave us Ground,[585]

And the last Conquered owned the line Which was my mother's, and is mine.

3.

I loved thee--I will not say _how_, Since things like these are best forgot: Perhaps thou may'st imagine now Who loved thee, and who loved thee not.

And thou wert wedded to another,[586]

And I at last another wedded: I am a father, thou a mother, To Strangers vowed, with strangers bedded.

For land to land, even blood to blood-- Since leagued of yore our fathers were-- Our manors and our birthright stood; And not unequal had I wooed, If to have wooed thee I could dare.

But this I never dared--even yet When naught is left but to forget.

I feel that I could only love: To sue was never meant for me, And least of all to sue to thee; For many a bar, and many a feud, Though never told, well understood Rolled like a river wide between-- And then there was the Curse of blood, Which even my Heart's can not remove.

Alas! how many things have been!

Since we were friends; for I alone Feel more for thee than can be shown.

4.

How many things! I loved thee--thou Loved'st me not: another was The Idol of thy virgin vow, And I was, what I am, Alas!

And what he is, and what thou art, And what we were, is like the rest: We must endure it as a test, And old Ordeal of the Heart.[587]

Venice, _Dec_. 29, 1818.

STANZAS TO THE PO.[588]

1.

River, that rollest by the ancient walls, Where dwells the Lady of my love, when she Walks by thy brink, and there perchance recalls A faint and fleeting memory of me:

2.

What if thy deep and ample stream should be A mirror of my heart, where she may read The thousand thoughts I now betray to thee, Wild as thy wave, and headlong as thy speed!

3.

What do I say--a mirror of my heart?

Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong?

Such as my feelings were and are, thou art; And such as thou art were my pa.s.sions long.

4.

Time may have somewhat tamed them,--not for ever; Thou overflow'st thy banks, and not for aye Thy bosom overboils, congenial river!

Thy floods subside, and mine have sunk away:

5.

But left long wrecks behind, and now again,[ib]

Borne in our old unchanged career, we move: Thou tendest wildly onwards to the main, And I--to loving _one_ I should not love.

6.

The current I behold will sweep beneath Her native walls, and murmur at her feet; Her eyes will look on thee, when she shall breathe The twilight air, unharmed by summer's heat.

7.

She will look on thee,--I have looked on thee, Full of that thought: and, from that moment, ne'er Thy waters could I dream of, name, or see, Without the inseparable sigh for her!

8.

Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream,-- Yes! they will meet the wave I gaze on now: Mine cannot witness, even in a dream, That happy wave repa.s.s me in its flow!

9.

The wave that bears my tears returns no more: Will she return by whom that wave shall sweep?-- Both tread thy banks, both wander on thy sh.o.r.e, I by thy source, she by the dark-blue deep.[ic]

10.

But that which keepeth us apart is not Distance, nor depth of wave, nor s.p.a.ce of earth, But the distraction of a various lot, As various as the climates of our birth.

11.

A stranger loves the Lady of the land,[id]

Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood Is all meridian, as if never fanned By the black wind that chills the polar flood.[ie]

12.

My blood is all meridian; were it not, I had not left my clime, nor should I be,[if]

In spite of tortures, ne'er to be forgot, A slave again of love,--at least of thee.