# The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero)/Poetry/Volume 4/Stanzas

STANZAS.
1.
Could Love for ever Run like a river, And Time's endeavour Be tried in vain— No other pleasure With this could measure; And like a treasure We'd hug the chain. But since our sighing Ends not in dying, And, formed for flying, Love plumes his wing; Then for this reason Let's love a season; But let that season be only Spring.
2.
When lovers parted Feel broken-hearted, And, all hopes thwarted, Expect to die; A few years older, Ah! how much colder They might behold her For whom they sigh! When linked together, In every weather, They pluck Love's feather From out his wing— He'll stay for ever, But sadly shiver Without his plumage, when past the Spring.
3.
Like Chiefs of Faction, His life is action— A formal paction That curbs his reign, Obscures his glory, Despot no more, he Such territory Quits with disdain. Still, still advancing, With banners glancing, His power enhancing, He must move on— Repose but cloys him, Retreat destroys him, Love brooks not a degraded throne.
4.
Wait not, fond lover! Till years are over, And then recover As from a dream. While each bewailing The other's failing, With wrath and railing, All hideous seem— While first decreasing, Yet not quite ceasing, Wait not till teasing, All passion blight: If once diminished Love's reign is finished— Then part in friendship,—and bid good-night.
5.
So shall Affection To recollection The dear connection Bring back with joy: You had not waited" Till, tired or hated, Your passions sated Began to cloy. Your last embraces Leave no cold traces— The same fond faces As through the past: And eyes, the mirrors Of your sweet errors, Reflect but rapture—not least though last.
6.
True, separations Ask more than patience; What desperations From such have risen! But yet remaining, What is't but chaining Hearts which, once waning, Beat 'gainst their prison? Time can but cloy love, And use destroy love: The wingéd boy, Love, Is but for boys— You'll find it torture Though sharper, shorter, To wean, and not wear out your joys.
December 1, 1819. [First published, New Monthly Magazine, 1832, vol. xxxv. pp. 310-312.]
* ↑ ["A friend of Lord Byron's, who was with him at Ravenna when he wrote these stanzas, says, "They were composed, like many others, with no view of publication, but merely to relieve himself in a moment of suffering. He had been painfully excited by some circumstances which appeared to make it necessary that he should immediately quit Italy; and in the day and the hour that he wrote the song was labouring under an access of fever." (Works, 1832, xii. 317, note 1). Here, too, there is some confusion of dates and places. Byron was at Venice, not at Ravenna, December 1, 1819, when these lines were composed. They were sent, as Lady Blessington testifies, to Kinnaird, and are probably identical with the "mere verses of society," mentioned in the letter to Murray of May 8, 1820. The last stanza reflects the mood of a letter to the Countess Guiccioli, dated November 25 (1819), "I go to save you, and leave a country insupportable to me without you." (Letters, 1900, iv. 379, note 2).]
* ↑ And as a treasure.—[MS. Guiccioli.]
* ↑ Through every weather We pluck.—[MS. G.]
* ↑ He'll sadly shiver And droop for ever, Shorn of the plumage which sped his spring.—[MS. G.]
* ↑ —— that sped his Spring.—[MS. G.]
* ↑ His reign is finished One last embrace, then, and bid good-night.—[MS. G.]
* ↑ You have not waited Till tired and hated All passions sated.—[MS. G.]
* ↑ True separations.—[MS. G.]