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peared in his Letters and Journals. The Quarterly Review for January, 1831, declares of this poem that there is, perhaps, nothing more mournfully and desolately beautiful in the whole range of Lord Byron's poetry.' Certainly there is no single short poem which throws more light on the poet's genius and character.] 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

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Gazing the one on all that was beneath
Fair as herself - but the boy gazed on her;
And both were young, and one was beautiful:
And both were young-yet not alike in
youth.

As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge,
The maid was on the eve of womanhood;
The boy had fewer summers, but his heart
Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye
There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him; he had look'd
Upon it till it could not pass away;
He had no breath, no being, but in hers:
She was his voice; he did not speak to her,
But trembled on her words: she was his
sight,

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That he was wretched, but she saw not all. He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp He took her hand; a moment o'er his face A tablet of unutterable thoughts

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A change came o'er the spirit of dream. The Boy was sprung to manhood: in the wilds

Of fiery climes he made himself a home, And his Soul drank their sunbeams: he was girt

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With strange and dusky aspects; he was not
Himself like what he had been; on the sea
And on the shore he was a wanderer;
There was a mass of many images
Crowded like waves upon me, but he was
A part of all; and in the last he lay
Reposing from the noontide sultriness,
Couch'd among fallen columns, in the shade
Of ruin'd walls that had survived the names
Of those who rear'd them; by his sleeping
side

Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds

Were fasten'd near a fountain; and a

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A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The Wanderer was return'd. I saw him stand Before an Altar with a gentle bride; Her face was fair, but was not that which made

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Not that which was, nor that which should have been But the old mansion, and the accustom'd hall,

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And the remember'd chambers, and the place,

The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the

shade,

All things pertaining to that place and hour, And her who was his destiny, came back And thrust themselves between him and the light:

What business had they there at such a time?

VII

my

A change came o'er the spirit of dream. The Lady of his love;-Oh! she was changed,

As by the sickness of the soul; her mind Had wander'd from its dwelling, and her eyes

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They had not their own lustre, but the look Which is not of the earth; she was become

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