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The tone, that taught me to rejoice,
When prone, unlike thee, to repine;
The song, celestial from thy voice,

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
The cup of woe for me to drain.
If rest alone be in the tomb,

I would not wish thee here again;

But if in worlds more blest than this
Thy virtues seek a fitter sphere,

Impart some portion of thy bliss,
To wean me from mine anguish here.

Teach me

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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!
I dare not trust those sounds again.
To me they speak of brighter days-
But lull the chords, for now, alas!
I must not think, I may not gaze
On what I am on what I was.'

The voice that made those sounds more sweet
Is hush'd, and all their charms are fled;
And now their softest notes repeat

A dirge, an anthem o'er the dead!
Yes, Thyrza! yes, they breathe of thee,
Beloved dust! since dust thou art;
And all that once was harmony

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

The well remember'd echoes thrill;
I hear a voice I would not hear,

A voice that now might well be still:
Yet oft my doubting soul 'twill shake;
Even slumber owns its gentle tone,
Till consciousness will vainly wake
To listen, though the dream be flown.

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.]

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It suits me well to mingle now

With things that never pleased before: Though every joy is fled below,

What future grief can touch me more?

Then bring me wine, the banquet bring;
Man was not form'd to live alone:
I'll be that light, unmeaning thing
That smiles with all, and weeps with none.
It was not thus in days more dear,
It never would have been, but thou
Hast fled, and left me lonely here;
Thou 'rt nothing, — all are nothing now.

In vain my lyre would lightly breathe!
The smile that sorrow fain would wear
But mocks the woe that lurks beneath,
Like roses o'er a sepulchre.
Though gay companions o'er the bowl
Dispel awhile the sense of ill;

Though pleasure fires the maddening soul,
The heart—the heart is lonely still!

On many a lone and lovely night
It sooth'd to gaze upon the sky;
For then I deem'd the heavenly light
Shone sweetly on thy pensive eye:
And oft I thought at Cynthia's noon,
When sailing o'er the Ægean wave,
"Now Thyrza gazes on that moon
Alas, it gleam'd upon her grave!

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When stretch'd on fever's sleepless bed,
And sickness shrunk my throbbing veins,
""Tis comfort still," I faintly said,

"That Thyrza cannot know my pains:"
Like freedom to the time-worn slave,
A boon 'tis idle then to give,
Relenting Nature vainly gave

My life, when Thyrza ceased to live!

My Thyrza's pledge in better days,
When love and life alike were new!
How different now thou meet'st my gaze!
How tinged by time with sorrow's hue!
The heart that gave itself with thee
Is silent-ah, were mine as still!
Though cold as e'en the dead can be,
It feels, it sickens with the chill.

Thou bitter pledge! thou mournful token!
Though painful, welcome to my breast!
Still, still, preserve that love unbroken,

Or break the heart to which thou 'rt press'd!
Time tempers love, but not removes,
More hallow'd when its hope is fled:
Oh! what are thousand living loves
To that which cannot quit the dead?

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