One rank'd in some recording page Him wilt thou know- and knowing pause, Newstead Abbey, Oct. 11. 1811. (2) TO THYRZA. WITHOUT a stone to mark the spot, And say, what Truth might well have said, By all, save one, perchance forgot, Ah! wherefore art thou lowly laid? By many a shore and many a sea To bid us meet -no— ne'er again! (1) [The anticipations of his own future career in these concluding lines are of a nature, it must be owned, to awaken more of horror than of interest, were we not prepared, by so many instances of his exaggeration in this respect, not to be startled at any lengths to which the spirit of selflibelling would carry him. It seemed as if, with the power of painting fierce and gloomy personages, he had also the ambition to be, himself, the dark sublime he drew,' and that, in his fondness for the delineation of heroic crime, he endeavoured to fancy, where he could not find in his own character, fit subjects for his pencil. - MOORE.] (2) [Two days after, in another letter to Mr. Hodgson, the poet says,— "I am growing nervous (how you will laugh!)—but it is true, really, wretchedly, ridiculously, fine-ladically nervous. Your climate kills me; I can neither read, write, nor amuse myself, or any one else. My days are listless, and my nights restless I have seldom any society, and, when I have, I run out of it. I don't know that I sha'n't end with insanity; for I find a want of method in arranging my thoughts that perplexes me strangely."-E.] Could this have been a word, a look That softly said, "We part in peace," Had taught my bosom how to brook, With fainter sighs, thy soul's release. And didst thou not, since Death for thee Prepared a light and pangless dart, Once long for him thou ne'er shalt see, Who held, and holds thee in his heart? Oh! who like him had watch'd thee here? Till all was past? But when no more Shall they not flow, when many a day Affection's mingling tears were ours? Ours too the glance none saw beside; The smile none else might understand; The whisper'd thought of hearts allied, The pressure of the thrilling hand; The kiss, so guiltless and refined That Love each warmer wish forebore ; Those eyes proclaim'd so pure a mind, Even passion blush'd to plead for more. The tone, that taught me to rejoice, But sweet to me from none but thine; The pledge we wore I wear it still, But where is thine? - Ah! where art thou? Oft have I borne the weight of ill, But never bent beneath till now! Well hast thou left in life's best bloom I would not wish thee here again; But if in worlds more blest than this Impart some portion of thy bliss, Teach me too early taught by thee! To bear, forgiving and forgiven: On earth thy love was such to me; It fain would form my hope in heaven! October 11. 1811. (1) (1) [Mr. Moore considers "Thyrza" as if she were a mere creature of the poet's brain. "It was," he says, "about the time when he was thus bitterly feeling, and expressing, the blight which his heart had suffered from a real object of affection, that his poems on the death of an imaginary one were written; - nor is it any wonder, when we consider the peculiar circumstances under which these beautiful effusions flowed from his fancy, that, of all his strains of pathos, they should be the most touching and most pure. They were, indeed, the essence, the abstract spirit, as it were, of many griefs; a confluence of sad thoughts from many sources of sorrow, refined and warmed in their passage through his fancy, and forming thus one deep reservoir of mournful feeling." It is a pity to disturb a sentiment thus STANZAS. ["AWAY, AWAY," &c.] AWAY, away, ye notes of woe! Be silent, thou once soothing strain, Or I must flee from hence for, oh! On what I am on what I was.' The voice that made those sounds more sweet Is worse than discord to my heart! beautifully expressed; but Lord Byron, in a letter to Mr. Dallas, bearing the exact date of these lines, viz. Oct. 11th, 1811, writes as follows:-"I have been again shocked with a death, and have lost one very dear to me in happier times: but 'I have almost forgot the taste of grief,' and 'supped full of horrors,' till I have become callous; nor have I a tear left for an event which, five years ago, would have bowed my head to the earth." In his reply to this letter, Mr. Dallas says, "I thank you for your confidential communication. How truly do I wish that that being had lived, and lived yours! What your obligations to her would have been in that case is inconceivable." Several years after the series of poems on Thyrza were written, Lord Byron, on being asked to whom they referred, by a person in whose tenderness he never ceased to confide, refused to answer, with marks of painful agitation, such as rendered any farther recurrence to the subject impossible. The reader must be left to form his own conclusion. The five following pieces are all devoted to Thyrza. — E.] 'Tis silent all! - but on my ear A voice that now might well be still: Sweet Thyrza! waking as in sleep, Thou art but now a lovely dream; A star that trembled o'er the deep, Then turn'd from earth its tender beam. But he who through life's dreary way Must pass, when heaven is veil'd in wrath, Will long lament the vanish'd ray That scatter'd gladness o'er his path. December 6. 1811.(1) STANZAS. ["ONE STRUGGLE MORE," &c.] ONE struggle more, and I am free From pangs that rend my heart in twain; One last long sigh to love and thee, Then back to busy life again. (1) ["I wrote this a day or two ago, on hearing a song of former days." B. Letters, Dec. 8. 1811.] |