EPISTLE TO AUGUSTA.

These stanzas were also written at Diodati.

"There is," says

Byron, "amongst the manuscripts an Epistle to my Sister, on which I should wish her opinion to be consulted before publication; if she objects, of course omit it." On the 5th of October he writes: "My sister has decided on the omission of the lines. Upon this point, her option will be followed. As I have no copy of them, I request that you will preserve one for me in MS.; for I never can remember a line of that nor any other composition of mine. God help me! if I proceed in this scribbling, I shall have frittered away my mind before I am thirty; but poetry is at times a real relief to me. To-morrow I am for Italy." The Epistle was first given to the world in 1830.

My sister! my sweet sister! if a name Dearer and purer were, it should be thine. Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim No tears, but tenderness to answer mine: 5 Go where I will, to me thou art the same A loved regret which I would not resign. There yet are two things in my destiny, A world to roam through, and a home with thee.

The first were nothing - had I still the last, 10 It were the haven of my happiness;

But other claims and other ties thou hast,

And mine is not the wish to make them less.
A strange doom is thy father's son's, and past
Recalling, as it lies beyond redress;

15 Reversed for him our grandsire's fate of yore,—
He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore.

15. Byron's grandsire was an admiral in the British navy, and never made a voyage, it was said, without encountering a tempest. He was known to the sailors by the facetious name of "Foul weather Jack."

If my inheritance of storms hath been
In other elements, and on the rocks
Of perils, overlook'd or unforeseen,

20 I have sustain'd my share of worldly shocks,
The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen
My errors with defensive paradox;

I have been cunning in mine overthrow,
The careful pilot of my proper woe.

25 Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward. My whole life was a contest, since the day

That gave me being, gave me that which marr'd The gift, — a fate, or will, that walk'd astray;

And I at times have found the struggle hard,
30 And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay:
But now I fain would for a time survive,
If but to see what next can well arrive.

Kingdoms and empires in my little day I have outlived, and yet I am not old; 35 And when I look on this, the petty spray Of my own years of trouble, which have roll'd Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away: Something I know not what does still uphold A spirit of slight patience; - not in vain, 40 Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain.

Perhaps the workings of defiance stir
Within me, or perhaps a cold despair,
Brought on when ills habitually recur,
Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air,

(For even to this may change of soul refer,
And with light armor we may learn to bear,)
Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not
The chief companion of a calmer lot.

I feel almost at times as I have felt

50 In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks, Which do remember me of where I dwelt

Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books, Come as of yore upon me, and can melt My heart with recognition of their looks; 55 And even at moments I could think I see Some living thing to love - but none like thee.

Here are the Alpine landscapes which create
A fund for contemplation; - to admire
Is a brief feeling of a trivial date;

60 But something worthier do such scenes inspire:
Here to be lonely is not desolate,

For much I view which I could most desire,
And, above all, a lake I can behold

Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old.

but I grow

65 Oh! that thou wert but with me!
The fool of my own wishes, and forget
The solitude, which I have vaunted so,
Has lost its praise in this but one regret;
There may be others which I less may show ;-
70 I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet

I feel an ebb in my philosophy,

And the tide rising in my alter'd eye.

I did remind thee of our own dear Lake, By the old Hall which may be mine no more. 75 Leman's is fair; but think not I forsake The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore; Sad havoc Time must with my memory make Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before; Though, like all things which I have loved, they are Resign'd forever, or divided far.

The world is all before me; I but ask

Of Nature that with which she will comply -
It is but in her summer's sun to bask,

To mingle with the quiet of her sky,
5 To see her gentle face without a mask,
And never gaze on it with apathy.

She was my early friend, and now shall be
My sister till I look again on thee.

I can reduce all feelings but this one, 90 And that I would not; - for at length I see Such scenes as those wherein my life begun, even the only paths for me: Had I but sooner learn'd the crowd to shun,

05

The earliest

I had been better than I now can be;

5 The passions which have torn me would have slept; I had not suffer'd, and thou hadst not wept.

With false Ambition what had I to do?

Little with Love, and least of all with Fame; And yet they came unsought, and with me grew,

100 And made me all which they can make Yet this was not the end I did pursue; Surely I once beheld a nobler aim.

But all is over I am one the more

a name.

To baffled millions which have gone before.

105 And for the future, this world's future may
From me demand but little of my care;
I have outlived myself by many a day;
Having survived so many things that were;
My years have been no slumber, but the prey
110 Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share
Of life which might have fill'd a century,
Before its fourth in time had pass'd me by.

And for the remnant which may be to come,
I am content; and for the past I feel

us Not thankless, for within the crowded sum

Of struggles, happiness at times would steal ; And for the present, I would not benumb My feelings farther. Nor shall I conceal That with all this I still can look around, 120 And worship Nature with a thought profound.

For thee, my own sweet sister, in thy heart
I know myself secure, as thou in mine;

We were and are

I am, even as thou art

Beings who ne'er each other can resign;

125 It is the same, together or apart,

From life's commencement to its slow decline We are entwined let death come slow or fast, The tie which bound the first endures the last!