Poems (Edwards)/Byron's Despair

by Matilda Caroline Smiley Edwards

BYRON'S DESPAIR. 

'Past pleasure doubles present pain
 To sorrow adds regret,
Regret and hope are both in vain;
 I ask but to forget."
[Byron.

Forget the past! Then would the light
 Of memory fade away;
Would'st thou not sometimes turn aside
 To catch a lingering ray?
With all before thee dark and drear,
 With every joy "forgot,"
Without the rainbow tints of "hope,"
 How wretched were thy lot.

Dost call it happiness to dwell
 Upon the past no more,
Because thy hopes of future bliss
 Have all been shadowed o'er?
Forget the past! No! Though I'm doomed
 Its pleasures to resign,
The memory of departed joys
 Around my heart shall twine.

When thy proud soul was writhing 'neath
 The sting of sorrow's dart,
When disappointment, like a fiend,
 Was grappling at thy heart,
If thou hadst paused to dwell aright
 Upon departed hours,
Thy path, so thickly strewn with thorns,
 Had been entwined with flowers.

And well I know how desolate,
 How mournful was thy lot,
Seeking a spirit like thine own,
 But yet to find it not;
Thy heart was on the mountain high,
 And in the rushing stream,
These, these alone could well pourtray
 Thy spirit's mighty dream.

Great Poet! thou hast fled away,
 Thy mantle too is gone;
Would, like the prophet, some might claim
 This relic by thee worn;
But none received it when thy soul
 Took its eternal flight,
That gift, too mighty for this earth,
 Dissolved in rayless night.