'Thou too art gone, thou loved and lovely one! Whom Youth and Youth's affections bound to me; Who did for me what none beside have done, Nor shrank from one albeit unworthy thee. What is my Being! thou hast ceased to be! Nor staid to welcome here thy wanderer home, Who mourns o'er hours which we no more shall see-- Would they had never been, or were to come! Would he had ne'er returned to find fresh cause to roam! 'Oh I ever loving, lovely, and beloved! How selfish Sorrow ponders on the past, And clings to thoughts now better far removed! But Time shall tear thy shadow from me last. All thou couldst have of mine, stern Death! thou hast; The Parent, Friend, and now the more than Friend: Ne'er yet for one thine arrows flew so fast, And grief with grief continuing still to blend, Hath snatch'd the little joy that Life hath yet to lend. * * * * * 'What is the worst of woes that wait on Age? What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow? To view each loved one blotted from Life's page, And be alone on earth, as I am now. Before the Chastener humbly let me bow, O'er Hearts divided and o'er Hopes destroyed: Roll on, vain days! full reckless may ye flow, Since Time hath reft whate'er my soul enjoyed, And with the ills of Eld mine earlier years alloyed.' These stanzas were attached to the second canto of 'Childe Harold,' after that poem was in the press. Mr. Ernest Hartley Coleridge, who so ably edited the latest edition of the poetry of Byron, states that they were sent to Dallas on the same day that Byron composed the poem 'To Thyrza.' This is significant, as also his attempt to mystify Dallas by telling him that he had again (October 11, 1811) been shocked by a death. This was true enough, for he had on that day heard of the death of Edleston; but it was _not_ true that the stanzas we have quoted had any connection with that event. Mr. Coleridge in a note says: 'In connection with this subject, it may be noted that the lines 6 and 7 of Stanza XCV., '"Nor staid to welcome here thy wanderer home, Who mourns o'er hours which we no more shall see," do not bear out Byron's contention to Dallas (Letters, October 14 and 31, 1811) that in these three _in memoriam_ stanzas (IX., XCV., XCVI.) he is bewailing an event which took place _after_ he returned to Newstead.[33] The "more than friend" had "ceased to be" before the "wanderer" returned. It is evident that Byron did not take Dallas into his confidence.' Assuredly he did not. The 'more than friend' was not _dead_; she had merely absented herself, and did not stay to welcome the 'wanderer' on his return from his travels. She was, however, _dead to him_ in a sense far deeper than mere absence at such a time. 'The absent are the dead--for they are cold, And ne'er can be what once we did behold.'[34]