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George Gordon Byron - Epistle To A Friend, In Answer To Some Lines Exhorting The Author To Be Cheerful, And To Banish Care
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`OH! banish care`--such ever be
The motto of thy revelry!
Perchance of mine, when wassail nights
Renew those riotous delights,
Wherewith the children of Despair
Lull the lone heart, and `banish care.`
But not in morn`s reflecting hour,
When present, past, and future lower,
When all I loved is changed or gone,
Mock with such taunts the woes of one,
Whose every thought--but let them pass­
Thou know`st I am not what I was.
But, above all, if thou wouldst hold
Place in a heart that ne`er was cold,
By all the powers that men revere, 
By all unto thy bosom dear,
Thy joys below, thy hopes above,
Speak--speak of anything but love.
 
   `Twere long to tell, and vain to hear,
The tale of one who scorns a tear;         
And there is little in that tale
Which better bosoms would bewail.
But mine has suffer`d more than well
`Twould suit philosophy to tell.
I`ve seen my bride another`s bride,--
Have seen her seated by his side,­
Have seen the infant, which she bore,
Wear the sweet smile the mother wore,
When she and I in youth have smiled,
As fond and faultless as her child;
Have seen her eyes, in cold disdain,
Ask if I felt no secret pain
And I have acted well my part,
And made my cheek belie my heart,
Return`d the freezing glance she gave:
Yet felt the while that woman`s slave;--
Have kiss`d, as if without design,
The babe which ought to have been mine,
And show`d, alas! in each caress
Time had not made me love the less. 
 
   But let this pass--I`ll whine no more, 
Nor seek again an eastern shore; 
The world befits a busy brain,--
I`ll hie me to its haunts again.
But if, in some succeeding year,
When Britain`s May is in the sere,`
Thou hear`st of one whose deepening crimes
Suit with the sablest of the times,
Of one, whom love nor pity sways,
Nor hope of fame, nor good men`s praise;
One, who in stern ambition`s pride, 
Perchance not blood shall turn aside;
One rank`d in some recording page
With the worst anarchs of the age,
Him wile thou know--and knowing pause,
Nor with the effect forget the cause. 
 
Newstead Abbey, Oct. 11, 1811.
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