Epistle to Augusta

1. 1My Sister! my sweet Sister! if a name
2. 2Dearer and purer were, it should be thine.
3. 3Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim
4. 4No tears, but tenderness to answer mine:
5. 5Go where I will, to me thou art the same--
6. 6A loved regret which I would not resign.
7. 7There yet are two things in my destiny,--
8. 8A world to roam through, and a home with thee.

1. 9The first were nothing--had I still the last,
2. 10It were the haven of my happiness;
3. 11But other claims and other ties thou hast,
4. 12And mine is not the wish to make them less.
5. 13A strange doom is thy father's son's, and past
6. 14Recalling, as it lies beyond redress;
7. 15Reversed for him our grandsire's fate of yore,--
8. 16He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore.

1. 17If my inheritance of storms hath been
2. 18In other elements, and on the rocks
3. 19Of perils, overlooked or unforeseen,
4. 20I have sustained my share of worldly shocks,
5. 21The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen
6. 22My errors with defensive paradox;
7. 23I have been cunning in mine overthrow,
8. 24The careful pilot of my proper woe.

1. 25Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward.
2. 26My whole life was a contest, since the day
3. 27That gave me being, gave me that which marred
4. 28The gift,--a fate, or will, that walked astray;
5. 29And I at times have found the struggle hard,
6. 30And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay:
7. 31But now I fain would for a time survive,
8. 32If but to see what next can well arrive.

1. 33Kingdoms and Empires in my little day
2. 34I have outlived, and yet I am not old;
3. 35And when I look on this, the petty spray
4. 36Of my own years of trouble, which have rolled
5. 37Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away:
6. 38Something--I know not what--does still uphold
7. 39A spirit of slight patience;--not in vain,
8. 40Even for its own sake, do we purchase Pain.

1. 41Perhaps the workings of defiance stir
2. 42Within me--or, perhaps, a cold despair
3. 43Brought on when ills habitually recur,--
4. 44Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air,
5. 45(For even to this may change of soul refer,
6. 46And with light armour we may learn to bear,)
7. 47Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not
8. 48The chief companion of a calmer lot.

1. 49I feel almost at times as I have felt
2. 50In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks,
3. 51Which do remember me of where I dwelt,
4. 52Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books,
5. 53Come as of yore upon me, and can melt
6. 54My heart with recognition of their looks;
7. 55And even at moments I could think I see
8. 56Some living thing to love--but none like thee.

1. 57Here are the Alpine landscapes which create
2. 58A fund for contemplation;--to admire
3. 59Is a brief feeling of a trivial date;
4. 60But something worthier do such scenes inspire:
5. 61Here to be lonely is not desolate,
6. 62For much I view which I could most desire,
7. 63And, above all, a Lake I can behold
8. 64Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old.

1. 65Oh that thou wert but with me!--but I grow
2. 66The fool of my own wishes, and forget
3. 67The solitude which I have vaunted so
4. 68Has lost its praise in this but one regret;
5. 69There may be others which I less may show;--
6. 70I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet
7. 71I feel an ebb in my philosophy,
8. 72And the tide rising in my altered eye.

1. 73I did remind thee of our own dear Lake,
2. 74By the old Hall which may be mine no more.
3. 75Leman's is fair; but think not I forsake
4. 76The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore:
5. 77Sad havoc Time must with my memory make,
6. 78Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before;
7. 79Though, like all things which I have loved, they are
8. 80Resigned for ever, or divided far.

1. 81The world is all before me; I but ask
2. 82Of Nature that with which she will comply--
3. 83It is but in her Summer's sun to bask,
4. 84To mingle with the quiet of her sky,
5. 85To see her gentle face without a mask,
6. 86And never gaze on it with apathy.
7. 87She was my early friend, and now shall be
8. 88My sister--till I look again on thee.

1. 89I can reduce all feelings but this one;
2. 90And that I would not;--for at length I see
3. 91Such scenes as those wherein my life begun--
4. 92The earliest--even the only paths for me--
5. 93Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun,
6. 94I had been better than I now can be;
7. 95The Passions which have torn me would have slept;
8. 96I had not suffered, and thou hadst not wept.

1. 97With false Ambition what had I to do?
2. 98Little with Love, and least of all with Fame;
3. 99And yet they came unsought, and with me grew,
4. 100And made me all which they can make--a Name.
5. 101Yet this was not the end I did pursue;
6. 102Surely I once beheld a nobler aim.
7. 103But all is over--I am one the more
8. 104To baffled millions which have gone before.

1. 105And for the future, this world's future may
2. 106From me demand but little of my care;
3. 107I have outlived myself by many a day;
4. 108Having survived so many things that were;
5. 109My years have been no slumber, but the prey
6. 110Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share
7. 111Of life which might have filled a century,
8. 112Before its fourth in time had passed me by.

1. 113And for the remnant which may be to come
2. 114I am content; and for the past I feel
3. 115Not thankless,--for within the crowded sum
4. 116Of struggles, Happiness at times would steal,
5. 117And for the present, I would not benumb
6. 118My feelings farther.--Nor shall I conceal
7. 119That with all this I still can look around,
8. 120And worship Nature with a thought profound.

1. 121For thee, my own sweet sister, in thy heart
2. 122I know myself secure, as thou in mine;
3. 123We were and are--I am, even as thou art--
4. 124Beings who ne'er each other can resign;
5. 125It is the same, together or apart,
6. 126From Life's commencement to its slow decline
7. 127We are entwined--let Death come slow or fast,
8. 128The tie which bound the first endures the last!