The Works of Lord Byron Volume II Part 46

Yet, though dull Hate as duty should be taught,[353]

I know that thou wilt love me: though my name Should be shut from thee, as a spell still fraught With desolation, and a broken claim: Though the grave closed between us,--'twere the same, I know that thou wilt love me--though to drain[354]

_My_ blood from out thy being were an aim, And an attainment,--all would be in vain,-- Still thou would'st love me, still that more than life retain.

CXVIII.

The child of Love![355] though born in bitterness, And nurtured in Convulsion! Of thy sire These were the elements,--and thine no less.

As yet such are around thee,--but thy fire Shall be more tempered, and thy hope far higher!

Sweet be thy cradled slumbers! O'er the sea And from the mountains where I now respire, Fain would I waft such blessing upon thee, As--with a sigh--I deem thou might'st have been to me![la]

FOOTNOTES:

[275] {209} [D'Alembert (Jean-le-Rond, philosopher, mathematician, and belletrist, 1717-1783) had recently lost his friend, Mlle. (Claire Francoise) L'Espina.s.se, who died May 23, 1776. Frederick prescribes _quelque probleme bien difficile a resoudre_ as a remedy for vain regrets (_Oeuvres de Frederic II., Roi de Prusse_, 1790, xiv. 64, 65).]

[276] {215} ["If you turn over the earlier pages of the Huntingdon peerage story, you will see how common a name Ada was in the early Plantagenet days. I found it in my own pedigree in the reigns of John and Henry.... It is short, ancient, vocalic, and had been in my family; for which reasons I gave it to my daughter."--Letter to Murray, Ravenna, October 8, 1820.

The Honourable Augusta Ada Byron was born December 10, 1815; was married July 8, 1835, to William King Noel (1805-1893), eighth Baron King, created Earl of Lovelace, 1838; and died November 27, 1852. There were three children of the marriage--Viscount Ockham (d. 1862), the present Earl of Lovelace, and the Lady Anna Isabella Noel, who was married to Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, Esq., in 1869.

"The Countess of Lovelace," wrote a contributor to the _Examiner_, December 4, 1852, "was thoroughly original, and the poet's temperament was all that was hers in common with her father. Her genius, for genius she possessed, was not poetic, but metaphysical and mathematical, her mind having been in the constant practice of investigation, and with rigour and exactness." Of her devotion to science, and her original powers as a mathematician, her translation and explanatory notes of F.

L. Menabrea's _Notices sur le machine a.n.a.lytique de Mr. Babbage_, 1842, a defence of the famous "calculating machine," remain as evidence.

"Those who view mathematical science not merely as a vast body of abstract and immutable truths, ... but as possessing a yet deeper interest for the human race, when it is remembered that this science const.i.tutes the language through which alone we can adequately express the great facts of the natural world ... those who thus think on mathematical truth as the instrument through which the weak mind of man can most effectually read his Creator's works, will regard with especial interest all that can tend to facilitate the translation of its principles into explicit practical forms." So, for the moment turning away from algebraic formulae and abstruse calculations, wrote Ada, Lady Lovelace, in her twenty-eighth year. See "Translator's Notes," signed A.

A. L., to _A Sketch of the a.n.a.lytical Engine invented by Charles Babbage, Esq._, London, 1843.

It would seem, however, that she "wore her learning lightly as a flower." "Her manners [_Examiner_], her tastes, her accomplishments, in many of which, music especially, she was proficient, were feminine in the nicest sense of the word." Unlike her father in features, or in the bent of her mind, she inherited his mental vigour and intensity of purpose. Like him, she died in her thirty-seventh year, and at her own request her coffin was placed by his in the vault at Hucknall Torkard.

(See, too, _Athenaeum_, December 4, 1852, and _Gent. Mag._, January, 1853.)]

[gh] {216} _could grieve my gazing eye._--[C. erased.]

[277] Compare _Henry V._, act iii. sc. 1, line 1--"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more."

[278] {217} [Compare _The Two n.o.ble Kinsmen_ (now attributed to Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Ma.s.singer), act ii. sc. 1, lines 73, _seq._--

"Oh, never Shall we two exercise like twins of Honour Our arms again, and feel our fiery horses Like proud seas under us."

"Out of this somewhat forced simile," says the editor (John Wright) of Lord Byron's _Poetical Works_, issued in 1832, "by a judicious transposition of the comparison, and by the subst.i.tution of the more definite _waves_ for _seas_, Lord Byron's clear and n.o.ble thought has been produced." But the literary artifice, if such there be, is subordinate to the emotion of the writer. It is in movement, progress, flight, that the sufferer experiences a relief from the poignancy of his anguish.]

[gi] _And the rent canva.s.s tattering_----.--[C.]

[279] ["The metaphor is derived from a torrent-bed, which, when dried up, serves for a sandy or s.h.i.+ngly path."--Note by H. F. Tozer, _Childe Harold_, 1885, p. 257. Or, perhaps, the imagery has been suggested by the action of a flood, which ploughs a channel for itself through fruitful soil, and, when the waters are spent, leaves behind it "a sterile track," which does, indeed, permit the traveller to survey the desolation, but serves no other purpose of use or beauty.]

[gj] {218} _I would essay of all I sang to sing_.--[MS.]

[280] [Compare Manfred, act ii. sc. 1, lines 51, 52--

"Think'st thou existence doth depend on time?

It doth; but actions are our epoch."]

[gk] {219} _Still unimpaired though worn_----.--[MS. erased.]

[281] [It is the poet's fond belief that he can find the true reality in "the things that are not seen."

"Out of these create he can Forms more real than living man-- Nurslings of Immortality."

"Life is but thought," and by the power of the imagination he thinks to "gain a being more intense," to add a cubit to his spiritual stature.

Byron professes the same faith in _The Dream_ (stanza i. lines 19-22), which also belongs to the summer of 1816--

"The mind can make Substance, and people planets of its own With beings brighter than have been, and give A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh."

At this stage of his poetic growth, in part converted by Sh.e.l.ley, in part by Wordsworth as preached by Sh.e.l.ley, Byron, so to speak, "got religion," went over for a while to the Church of the mystics. There was, too, a compulsion from within. Life had gone wrong with him, and, driven from memory and reflection, he looks for redemption in the new earth which Imagination and Nature held in store.]

[gl]

_A brighter being that we thus endow_ _With form our fancies_----.--[MS.]

[gm] {220} _A dizzy world_----.--[MS. erased.]

[282] [Compare _The Dream_, viii. 6, _seq_.--

"Pain was mixed In all which was served up to him, until * * * * *

He fed on poisons, and they had no power, But were a kind of nutriment."]

[gn] _To bear unbent what Time cannot abate_.--[MS.]

[283] [Of himself as distinct from Harold he will say no more. On the tale or spell of his own tragedy is set the seal of silence; but of Harold, the idealized Byron, he once more takes up the parable. In stanzas viii.-xv. he puts the reader in possession of some natural changes, and unfolds the development of thought and feeling which had befallen the Pilgrim since last they had journeyed together. The youthful Harold had sounded the depth of joy and woe. Man delighted him not--no, nor woman neither. For a time, however, he had cured himself of this trick of sadness. He had drunk new life from the fountain of natural beauty and antique lore, and had returned to take his part in the world, inly armed against dangers and temptations. And in the world he had found beauty, and fame had found him. What wonder that he had done as others use, and then discovered that he could not fare as others fared? Henceforth there remained no comfort but in nature, no refuge but in exile!]

[go] {221}

_He of the breast that strove no more to feel,_ _Scarred with the wounds_----.--[MS.]

[gp] {222} _Secure in curbing coldness_----.--[MS.]

[gq] _s.h.i.+nes through the wonder-works--of G.o.d and Nature's hand_.--[MS.]

[gr]

_Who can behold the flower at noon, nor seek_ _To pluck it? who can stedfastly behold_.--[MS.]

[gs] _Nor feel how Wisdom ceases to be cold_.--[MS. erased.]

[284] [The Temple of Fame is on the summit of a mountain; "Clouds overcome it;" but to the uplifted eye the mists dispel, and behold the G.o.ddess pointing to her star--the star of glory!]

[gt] {223} _Yet with a steadier step than in his earlier time_.--[MS.

erased.]

[285] [Compare _Manfred_, act ii. sc. 2, lines 50-58--

"From my youth upwards My spirit walked not with the souls of men, Nor looked upon the earth with human eyes; * * * * *

My joys, my griefs, my pa.s.sions, and my powers Made me a stranger; though I wore the form, I had no sympathy with breathing flesh."