Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 3.djvu/73

Rh The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,

Shall never more be thine.

The silence of that dreamless sleep

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;

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

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; Variants