Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 3.djvu/586

546 There's more in one soft word of thine

Than in the world's defied rebuke.

Thou stood'st, as stands a lovely tree,

That still unbroke, though gently bent,

Still waves with fond fidelity

Its boughs above a monument.

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.

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.

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 fixed in thee;—

And bearing still a breast so tried,

Earth is no desert—ev'n to me. [First published, Poems, 1816.]

END OF VOL. III.