Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 4.djvu/86

56 If my Soul was not fitted to prize it,

'Twas folly not sooner to shun:

And if dearly that error hath cost me,

And more than I once could foresee,

I have found that, whatever it lost me,

It could not deprive me of Thee.

VI.

From the wreck of the past, which hath perished,

Thus much I at least may recall,

It hath taught me that what I most cherished

Deserved to be dearest of all:

In the Desert a fountain is springing,

In the wide waste there still is a tree,

And a bird in the solitude singing,

Which speaks to my spirit of Thee. July 24, 1816. [First published, Prisoner of Chillon, etc., 1816.]