I am a fool of passion, and a frown Wafts unto death the breast it bore so high; Such is this maddening fascination grown, So strong thy magic or so weak am I. ON THIS DAY I COMPLETE MY THIRTY-SIXTH YEAR [Moore relates in the Life that on his last birthday Byron 'came from his bedroom into the apartment where Colonel Stanhope and some others were assembled and said with a smile, "You were complaining the other day that I never write any poetry now. This is my birthday, and I have just finished something which, I think, is better than what I usually write.". - The pathos and sincerity of the verses are echoed in Mangan's The Nameless One, though the spirit of the two poems is not the same.] [It is not necessary to say that these poems are concerned with the separation between Lord Byron and his wife. They are so distinct in character that it has seemed best to separate them from among the other Miscellaneous Poems.] FARE THEE WELL [Moore relates on the authority of Byron's Memoranda that these stanzas were written 'under the swell of tender recollections' as the poet sat one night musing in the study. . . the tears falling fast over the paper as he wrote them.' Mr. Coleridge avers that there are no tear-marks on the original draft of the poem. 'Tis pity.] Alas! they had been friends in Youth; But never either found another To free the hollow heart from paining- But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, The marks of that which once hath been.' FARE thee well! and if for ever, Would that breast were bared before thee Would that breast, by thee glanced over, 'T was not well to spurn it so. 10 Shalt feel far more than thou inflictest now; Back on thy bosom with reflected blight! The widow'd couch of fire, that thou hast spread! [These stanzas to his sister, Mrs. Leigh, were the last written before his final departure from England.] WHEN all around grew drear and dark, In that deep midnight of the mind, When fortune changed- and love fled far, And hatred's shafts flew thick and fast, Thou wert the solitary star Which rose and set not to the last. Oh! blest be thine unbroken light, That watch'd me as a seraph's eye, And stood between me and the night, For ever shining sweetly nigh. And when the cloud upon us came, Which strove to blacken o'er thy ray Then purer spread its gentle flame, And dash'd the darkness all away. Still may thy spirit dwell on mine, And teach it what to brave or brook There's more in one soft word of thine Than in the world's defied rebuke. 20 [These stanzas were written at the Campagne Diodati, near Geneva, and transmitted to England for publication, with some other pieces. Be careful,' he says (Letter to Murray, October 5, 1816), 'in printing the stanzas beginning, "Though the day of my destiny's," etc., which I think well of as a composition.' Byron often erred in judging his own work, but in this case his judgment was right. It will be remembered that Poe, in his Essay on Poetry, particularly commends the sentiment and versification of this poem.] THOUGH the day of my destiny 's over, The faults which so many could find; Though thy soul with my grief was ac quainted, It shrunk not to share it with me, And the love which my spirit hath painted It never hath found but in thee. [These stanzas, like the preceding, were composed at Diodati, and were sent home to be printed if Mrs. Leigh should consent. In accordance with her wish they were withheld from publication until 1830, when they ap |