Works_, 1899, ii. 218, note 1.

Compare, too--

"My life is not dated by years--
There are moments which act as a plough," etc.

_Lines to the Countess of Blessington_, stanza 4.]

[al] _And for the remnants_----.--[MS.]

[am] _Whate'er betide_----.--[MS.]

[an] _We have been and we shall be_----.--[MS. erased.]

[91] {63}["These verses," says John Wright (ed. 1832, x. 207), "of which
the opening lines (1-6) are given in Moore's _Notices_, etc. (1830, ii.
36), were written immediately after the failure of the negotiation ...
[i.e. the intervention] of Madame de Stael, who had persuaded Byron 'to
write a letter to a friend in England, declaring himself still willing
to be reconciled to Lady Byron' (_Life_, p. 321), but were not intended
for the public eye." The verses were written in September, and it is
evident that since the composition of _The Dream_ in July, another
"change had come over" his spirit, and that the mild and courteous
depreciation of his wife as "a gentle bride," etc., had given place to
passionate reproach and bitter reviling. The failure of Madame de
Stael's negotiations must have been to some extent anticipated, and it
is more reasonable to suppose that it was a rumour or report of the "one
serious calumny" of Shelley's letter of September 29, 1816, which
provoked him to fury, and drove him into the open maledictions of _The
Incantation_ (published together with the _Prisoner of Chillon_, but
afterwards incorporated with _Manfred_, act i. sc. 1, _vide post_, p.
91), and the suppressed "lines," written, so he told Lady Blessington
(_Conversations, etc._, 1834, p. 79) "on reading in a newspaper" that
Lady Byron had been ill.]

[92] [Compare--

" ... that unnatural retribution--just,
Had it but been from hands less near."

_Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza cxxxii. lines 6, 7,
_Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 427.]

[93] {64}[Compare--

"Though thy slumber may be deep,
Yet thy Spirit shall not sleep.

* * * * *

Nor to slumber nor to die,
Shall be in thy destiny."

_The Incantation_, lines 201, 202, 254, 255, _Manfred_,
act i. sc. 1, _vide post_, pp. 92, 93.]

[94] [Compare "I suppose now I shall never be able to shake off my
sables in public imagination, more particularly since my m