The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,i

Shall never more be thine.

The silence of that dreamless sleep ii.

I envy now too much to weep;

Nor need I to repine,

That all those charms have passed away

I might have watched through long decay.

5.

The flower in ripened bloom unmatched

Must fall the earliest prey;

iii.

Though by no hand untimely snatched,
The leaves must drop away :
And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it plucked to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.

6.

I know not if I could have borne iv.
To see thy beauties fade;

The night that followed such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade:

Thy day without a cloud hath passed,"
And thou wert lovely to the last;
Extinguished, not decayed;

i. The cloud that cheers

•—[MS.]

ii. The sweetness of that silent deep.—[MS.] iii. The flower in beauty's bloom unmatched Is still the earliest prey.—[MS.]

The rose by some rude fingers snatched,

Is earliest doomed to fade.-[MS. erased.] iv. I do not deem I could have borne.--[MS.] v. But night and day of thine are passed, And thou wert lovely to the last; Destroyed --[MS. erased.]

As stars that shoot along the sky.
Shine brightest as they fall from high.

7.

As once I wept, if I could weep,
My tears might well be shed,
To think I was not near to keep
One vigil o'er thy bed;

To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,

Uphold thy drooping head;

And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.

8.

Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,ii.
The loveliest things that still remain,
Than thus remember thee!
The all of thine that cannot die

Through dark and dread Eternity iii.
Returns again to me,

And more thy buried love endears
Than aught, except its living years.

February, 1812.

[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (Second Edition).]

i. As stars that seem to quit the sky.-[MS.]

ii. O how much less it were to gain,

All beauteous though they be.-[MS.]

iii. Through dark and dull Eternity.—[MS.]