Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 4.djvu/87

Rh EPISTLE TO AUGUSTA.

I.

Sister! my sweet Sister! if a name

Dearer and purer were, it should be thine.

Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim

No tears, but tenderness to answer mine:

Go where I will, to me thou art the same—

A loved regret which I would not resign.

There yet are two things in my destiny,—

II.

The first were nothing—had I still the last,

It were the haven of my happiness;

But other claims and other ties thou hast,

And mine is not the wish to make them less.

A strange doom is thy father's son's, and past

Recalling, as it lies beyond redress;

Reversed for him our grandsire's fate of yore,—