To Emma
George Gordon Lord Byron
Since now the hour is come at last,
When you must quit your anxious lover;
Since now, our dream of bliss is past,
One pang, my girl, and all is over.
Alas! that pang will be severe,
Which bids us part to meet no more;
Which tears me far from one so dear,
Departing for a distant shore.
Well! we have pass’d some happy hours,
And joy will mingle with our tears;
When thinking on these ancient towers,
The shelter of our infant years;
Where from this Gothic casement’s height,
We view’d the lake, the park, the dell,
And still, though tears obstruct our sight,
We lingering look a last farewell,
O’er fields through which we us’d to run,
And spend the hours in childish play;
O’er shades where, when our race was done,
Reposing on my breast you lay;
Whilst I, admiring, too remiss,
Forgot to scare the hovering flies,
Yet envied every fly the kiss,
It dar’d to give your slumbering eyes:
See still the little painted bark,
In which I row’d you o’er the lake;
See there, high waving o’er the park,
The elm I clamber’d for your sake.
These times are past, our joys are gone,
You leave me, leave this happy vale;
These scenes, I must retrace alone;
Without thee, what will they avail?
Who can conceive, who has not prov’d,
The anguish of a last embrace?
When, torn from all you fondly lov’d,
You bid a long adieu to peace.
This is the deepest of our woes,
For this these tears our cheeks bedew;
This is of love the final close,
Oh, God! the fondest, last adieu!
