---

George Gordon Byron - The Tear
Work rating: Medium

`O lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros
Ducentium ortus ex animo; quater
Felix! in imo qui scatentem
Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit.`~GRAY 


When Friendship or Love our sympathies move,
   When Truth, in a glance, should appear,
The lips may beguile with a dimple or smile,
   But the test of affection`s a Tear:

Too oft is a smile but the hypocrite`s wile,
   To mask detestation, or fear;
Give me the soft sigh, whilst the soultelling eye
   Is dimm`d, for a time, with a Tear:

Mild Charity`s glow, to us mortals below,
   Shows the soul from barbarity clear;
Compassion will melt, where this virtue is felt,
   And its dew is diffused in a Tear:

The man, doom`d to sail with the blast of the gale,
   Through billows Atlantic to steer,
As he bends o`er the wave which may soon be his grave,
   The green sparkles bright with a Tear;

The Soldier braves death for a fanciful wreath
   In Glory`s romantic career;
But he raises the foe when in battle laid low,
   And bathes every wound with a Tear.

If, with high-bounding pride he return to his bride!
   Renouncing the gore-crimson`d spear;
All his toils are repaid when, embracing the maid,
   From her eyelid he kisses the Tear.

Sweet scene of my youth! seat of Friendship and Truth,
   Where Love chas`d each fast-fleeting year
Loth to leave thee, I mourn`d, for a last look I turn`d,
   But thy spire was scarce seen through a Tear:

Though my vows I can pour, to my Mary no more,
   My Mary, to Love once so dear,
In the shade of her bow`r I remember the hour,
   She rewarded those vows with a Tear.

By another possest, may she live ever blest!
   Her name still my heart must revere:
With a sigh I resign what I once thought was mine,
   And forgive her deceit with a Tear.

Ye friends of my heart, ere from you I depart,
   This hope to my breast is most near:
If again we shall meet in this rural retreat,
   May we meet, as we part, with a Tear.

When my soul wings her flight to the regions of night,
   And my corse shall recline on its bier;
As ye pass by the tomb where my ashes consume,
   Oh! moisten their dust with a Tear.

May no marble bestow the splendour of woe
   Which the children of vanity rear;
No fiction of fame shall blazon my name.
   All I ask –- all I wish -- is a Tear.

October 26, 1806
Source
The script ran 0.001 seconds.