hese
lines has been scrawled, is 1809, but, with this exception, there is no
hint as to the date of composition. An entry in the _Diary_ for November
30, 1813, in which Annabella (Miss Milbanke) is described "as an
heiress, a girl of twenty, a peeress that is to be," etc., and a letter
(Byron to Miss Milbanke) dated November 29, 1813 (see _Letters_, 1898,
ii. 357, and 1899, iii. 407), in which there is more than one allusion
to her would-be suitors, "your thousand and one pretendants," etc.,
suggest the idea that the lines were addressed to his future wife, when
he first made her acquaintance in 1812 or 1813.]

[307] {413} ["Thou hast asked me for a song, and I enclose you an
experiment, which has cost me something more than trouble, and is,
therefore, less likely to be worth your taking any in your proposed
setting. Now, if it be so, throw it into the fire without
_phrase_."--Letter to Moore, May 4, 1814, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 80.]

[mw] _I speak not--I breathe not--I write not that name_.--[MS. erased.]

[mx] {414}
_We have loved--and oh, still, my adored one we love!_
_Oh the moment is past, when that Passion might cease._--
[MS. erased.]

[my] _The thought may be madness--the wish may be--guilt_.--[MS.
erased.]

[mz]
{_But I cannot repent what we ne'er can recall._
{_But the heart which is thine would disdain to recall_.--
[MS. erased.]

[na] ----_though I feel that thou mayst_.--[MS. L. erased.]

[nb]
_This soul in its bitterest moments shall be_,
_And our days run as swift--and our moments more sweet_,
_With thee at my side, than the world at my feet_.--[MS.]

[nc] {415}
_And thine is that love which I will never forego_
_Though the price which I pay be Eternity's woe_.--[MS. erased]

[nd] _One tear of thy sorrow, one smile_----.--[MS. erased]

[308] [The "Caledonian Meeting," at which these lines were, or were
intended to be, recited (see _Life_, p. 254), was a meeting of
subscribers to the Highland Society, held annually in London, in support
of the [Royal] _Caledonian Asylum_ "for educating and supporting
children of soldiers, sailors, and marines, natives of Scotland." "To
soothe," says the compiler of the _Report_ for 1814, p. 4, "by the
assurance that their offspring will be reared in virtue and comfort, the
minds of those brave men, through whose exposure to hardship and danger
the