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Exalted o'er thy less abhorred compeers
And festering in the infamy of years.

*

March 29, 1816.

* [In first draught—"weltering."-"I doubt about 'weltering.' We say 'weltering in blood;' but do not they also use 'weltering in the wind,' 'weltering on a gibbet?' I have no dictionary, so look. In the mean time, I have put 'festering;' which perhaps, in any case is the best word of the two. Shakspeare has it often, and I do not think it too strong for the figure in this thing. Quick! quick! quick! quick!"— Byron to Mr. Murray, April 2, 1816.]

STANZAS TO AUGUSTA.*

I.

WHEN all around grew drear and dark,

And reason half withheld her ray –
And hope but shed a dying spark
Which more misled my lonely way;

II.

In that deep midnight of the mind,
And that internal strife of heart,
When dreading to be deemed too kind,

The weak despair

III.

-the cold depart;

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.

IV.

Oh! blest be thine unbroken light!
That watched me as a seraph's eye,

*[His sister, the Honorable Mrs. Leigh. These stanzas the parting tribute to her, whose tenderness had been his sole consolation during the crisis of domestic misery — were the last verses written by Byron in England.]

And stood between me and the night,
For ever shining sweetly nigh.

V.

And when the cloud upon us came,
Which strove to blacken o'er thy ray
Then purer spread its gentle flame,
And dashed the darkness all away.

VI.

Still may thy spirit dwell on mine,

And teach it what to brave or brookThere's more in one soft word of thine Than in the world's defied rebuke.

VII.

Thou stood'st, as stands a lovely tree,
That still unbroke, though gently bent,

Still waves with fond fidelity

Its boughs above a monument.

VIII.

The winds might rend the skies might pour,

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But there thou wert- and still would'st be

Devoted in the stormiest hour

To shed thy weeping leaves o'er me.

IX.

But thou and thine shall know no blight,
Whatever fate on me may fall ;

For heaven in sunshine will requite
The kind—and thee the most of all.

X.

Then let the ties of baffled love

Be broken-thine will never break; Thy heart can feel—but will not move; Thy soul, though soft, will never shake.

XI.

And these, when all was lost beside,

Were found and still are fixed in thee;· And bearing still a breast so tried,

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STANZAS TO AUGUSTA.*

I.

THOUGH the day of my destiny's over,
And the star of my fate hath declined,†
Thy soft heart refused to discover

The faults which so many could find; Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted, It shrunk not to share it with me,

And the love which my spirit hath painted
It never hath found but in thee.

II.

Then when nature around me is smiling,
The last smile which answers to mine,

I do not believe it beguiling,

Because it reminds me of thine;

[These beautiful verses, so expressive of the writer's wounded feelings at the moment, were written in July, at the Campagne Diodati, near Geneva. "Be careful," he says, "in printing the stanzas beginning, 'Though the day of my destiny's,' etc., which I think well of as a composition."]

† [In the original MS.

"Though the days of my glory are over,

And the sun of my fame hath declined."]

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