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, But there thou wert--and still wouldst 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.

Χ.

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

And these, when all was lost beside,

Were found and still are fix'd in thee ;-

And bearing still a breast so tried,

Earth is no desert- cv'n to me.

STANZAS TO AUGUSTA.4

I.

THOUGH the day of my destiny's over,
And the star of my fate hath declined,5
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.

11.

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;

And when winds are at war with the ocean,
As the breasts I believed in with me,

If their billows excite an emotion,

It is that they bear me from thee.

Though the rock of my last hope is shiver'd,
And its fragments are sunk in the wave,
Though I feel that my soul is deliver'd
To pain-it shall not be its slave.

There is many a pang to pursue me:

They may crush, but they shall not contemn; They may torture but shall not subdue me; 'Tis of thee that I think--not of them."

Though human, thou didst not deceive me, Though woman, thou didst not forsake, Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me, Though slander'd, thou never couldst shake;

Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me,
Though parted, it was not to fly,
Though watchful, 'twas not to defame me,
Nor, mute, that the world might belie.7

V.

Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it,
Nor the war of the many with one;
If my soul was not fitted to prize it,
'Twas folly not sooner to shun:
And if dearly that error hath cost me,
And more than I once could foresee,
I have found that, whatever it lost me,
It could not deprive me of thee.

VI.

From the wreck of the past, which hath perish'd,
Thus much I at least may recall,

It hath taught me that what I most cherish'd
Deserved to be dearest of all:

In the desert a fountain is springing,

In the wide waste there still is a tree,
And a bird in the solitude singing,
Which speaks to my spirit of thee.

July 24, 1816.

EPISTLE TO AUGUSTA.8

I.

My sister! my sweet sistor! 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:
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

11.

he first were nothing-had I still the last, 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;

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

III.

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

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.

IV.

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, 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; 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, Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain.

VI.

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 armour we may learn to bear,)
Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not
The chief companion of a calmer lot.

VII.

I feel almost at times as I have felt

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; And even at moments I could think I see Some living thing to love-but none like thee.

VIII.

Here are the Alpine landscapes which create
A fund for contemplation;-to admire

Is a brief feeling of a trivial date;

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.

IX.

Oh that thou wert but with me !-but I grow
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 ;--
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.

VOL. I.