as this pleasantry went on, and, at last, he angrily accused Lord Byron of hardness of heart.  “I never,” said he, “met with a person so unfeeling.”  This sally, though the poet had evidently brought it upon himself, annoyed him most deeply.  “Call me cold-hearted—­me insensible!” he exclaimed, with manifest emotion—­“as well might you say that glass is not brittle, which has been cast down a precipice, and lies dashed to pieces at the foot!”

TO AUGUSTA.

  I.

  My 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—­
  A world to roam through, and a home with thee.

  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 part
  Recalling, as it lies beyond redress;
  Reversed for him our grandsire’s fate of yore—­
  He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore.

  III.

  If my inheritance of storms hath been
  In other elements, and on the rocks
  Of perils overlook’d or unforeseen,
  I have sustain’d my share of worldly shocks,
  The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen
  My errors with defensive paradox;
  I have been cunning in mine overthrow,
  The careful pilot of my proper woe.

  IV.

  Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward. 
  My whole life was a contest, since the day
  That gave me being, gave me that which marr’d
  The gift—­a fate, or will, that walk’d astray;
  And I at times have found the struggle hard,
  And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay: 
  But now I fain would for a time survive,
  If but to see what next can well arrive.

  V.

  Kingdoms and empires in my little day
  I have outlived, and yet I am not old;
  And when I look on this, the petty spray
  Of my own years of trouble, which have roll’d
  Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away: 
  Something—­I know not what—­does still uphold
  A spirit of slight patience—­not in vain,
  Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain.

  VI.

  Perhaps the workings of defiance stir
  Within me—­or perhaps a cold despair,
  Brought on when ills habitually recur—­
  Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air,
  (For even to this may change of soul refer,
  And with light armour we may learn to bear,)
  Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not
  The chief companion of a calmer lot.

  VII.