Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 1.djvu/227

Full often has my infant Muse,
⁠Attun'd to love her languid lyre;
But, now, without a theme to choose,
⁠The strains in stolen sighs expire.
My youthful nymphs, alas! are flown;^[1]
⁠E—— is a wife, and C—— a mother,
And Carolina sighs alone,
⁠And Mary's given to another;
And Cora's eye, which roll'd on me,
⁠Can now no more my love recall—
In truth, dear Long, 'twas time to flee—^[2]
⁠For Cora's eye will shine on all.
And though the Sun, with genial rays,
His beams alike to all displays,
And every lady's eye's a sun,
These last should be confin'd to one.
The soul's meridian don't become her,^[3]
Whose Sun displays a general summer!
Thus faint is every former flame,
And Passion's self is now a name;^[4][5]
As, when the ebbing flames are low,
⁠The aid which once improv'd their light,
And bade them burn with fiercer glow,

⁠Now quenches all their sparks in night;

1. —— thank Heaven are flown.—[MS. Newstead.]
2. In truth dear L——.—[Hours of Idleness. Poems O. and T.]
3. The glances really don't become her.—[MS. Newstead.]
4. No more I linger on its name.—[MS. Newstead.]
5. And passion's self is but a name.—[MS. Newstead.]