Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 4.djvu/90

60 And, above all, a Lake I can behold

IX.

Oh that thou wert but with me!—but I grow

The fool of my own wishes, and forget

The solitude which I have vaunted so

Has lost its praise in this but one regret;

There may be others which I less may show;—

I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet

I feel an ebb in my philosophy,

X.

I did remind thee of our own dear Lake,

By the old Hall which may be mine no more.

Leman's is fair; but think not I forsake

The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore:

Sad havoc Time must with my memory make,

Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before;

Though, like all things which I have loved, they are

XI.

The world is all before me; I but ask

Of Nature that with which she will comply—

It is but in her Summer's sun to bask,

To mingle with the quiet of her sky,

To see her gentle face without a mask,

And never gaze on it with apathy.

She was my early friend, and now shall be

XII.

I can reduce all feelings but this one;

And that I would not;—for at length I see