I had been better than I now can be;
The passions which have torn me would have slept;
_I_ had not suffer'd, and _thou_ hadst not wept.

"With false ambition what had I to do?
Little with love, and least of all with fame;
And yet they came unsought, and with me grew,
And made me all which they can make--a name.
Yet this was not the end I did pursue;
Surely I once beheld a nobler aim.
But all is over--I am one the more
To baffled millions which have gone before.

"And for the future, this world's future may
From me demand but little of my care;
I have outlived myself by many a day;
Having survived so many things that were;
My years have been no slumber, but the prey
Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share
Of life which might have fill'd a century,
Before its fourth in time had pass'd me by.

"And for the remnant which may be to come
I am content; and for the past I feel
Not thankless,--for within the crowded sum
Of struggles, happiness at times would steal,
And for the present, I would not benumb
My feelings farther.--Nor shall I conceal
That with all this I still can look around
And worship Nature with a thought profound.

"For thee, my own sweet sister, in thy heart
I know myself secure, as thou in mine:
We were and are--I am, even as thou art--
Beings who ne'er each other can resign;
It is the same, together or apart,
From life's commencement to its slow decline
We are entwined--let death come slow or fast,
The tie which bound the first endures the last!"

[Footnote 125: "Admiral Byron was remarkable for never making a voyage
without a tempest. He was known to the sailors by the facetious name of
'Foul-weather Jack.'

"But, though it were tempest-tost,
Still his bark could not be lost.

He returned safely from the wreck of the Wager (in Anson's Voyage), and
subsequently circumnavigated the world, many years after, as commander
of a similar expedition."]

[Footnote 126: The lake of Newstead Abbey.]

* * * * *

In the month of August, Mr. M.G. Lewis arrived to pass some time with
him; and he was soon after visited by Mr. Richard Sharpe, of whom he
makes such honourable mention in the Journal already given, and with
whom, as I have heard this gentleman say, it now gav