Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 1.djvu/291

Rh 17.

Say, Becher, I shall be forgiven!

If you don't warrant my salvation,

I must resign all Hopes of Heaven!

For, Faith, I can't withstand Temptation.

P.S.—These were written between one and two, after midnight. I have not corrected, or revised.

Yours,.

TO ANNE.

1.

say not, sweet Anne, that the Fates have decreed

The heart which adores you should wish to dissever;

Such Fates were to me most unkind ones indeed,—

To bear me from Love and from Beauty for ever.

2.

Your frowns, lovely girl, are the Fates which alone

Could bid me from fond admiration refrain;

By these, every hope, every wish were o'erthrown,

Till smiles should restore me to rapture again.

3.

As the ivy and oak, in the forest entwin'd,

The rage of the tempest united must weather;

My love and my life were by nature design'd

To flourish alike, or to perish together.