'Thou bitter pledge! thou mournful token! Though painful, welcome to my breast! Still, still, preserve that love unbroken, Or break the heart to which thou'rt pressed. Time tempers Love, but not removes, More hallowed when its Hope is fled.' These three pieces comprise the so-called 'Thyrza' poems, and, in the absence of proof to the contrary, we may reasonably suppose that their subject was Mary Chaworth. This is the more likely because the original manuscripts were the property of Byron's sister, to whom they were probably given by Mary Chaworth, when, in later years, she destroyed or parted with all the letters and documents which she had received from Byron since the days of their childhood. Byron did not give up the hope of winning Mary Chaworth's love until her marriage in 1805. Two months later he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, and from that time, until his departure with Hobhouse on his first foreign tour, those who were in constant intercourse with him never mentioned any other object of adoration who might fit in with the Thyrza of the poems. If such a person had really existed, Byron would certainly, either in conversation or in writing, have disclosed her identity. Moore makes it clear that the one passion of Byron's life was Mary Chaworth. He tells us that there were many fleeting love-episodes, but only one passion strong enough to have inspired the poems in question. If Byron's heart, during the two years that he passed abroad, had been overflowing with love for some incognita, it was not in his nature to have kept silence. From his well-known effusiveness, reticence under such circumstances is inconceivable. Finally, as there were no poems, no letters, and no allusion to any such person in the _first_ draft of 'Childe Harold,' we may confidently assume that the poet, in the loneliness of his heart, appealed to the only woman whom he ever really loved, and that the legendary Thyrza was a myth. It will be remembered that the ninth stanza in the second canto of 'Childe Harold' was interpolated long after the manuscript had been given to Dallas. It was forwarded for that purpose, three days after the date of the poem 'To Thyrza,' and essentially belongs to that period of desolation which inspired those poems: 'There, Thou! _whose Love and Life, together fled, Have left me here to love and live in vain_-- Twined with my heart, and can I deem thee dead, When busy Memory flashes on my brain? Well--_I will dream that we may meet again_, And woo the vision to my vacant breast: If aught of young Remembrance then remain, Be as it may Futurity's behest, _Or seeing thee no more, to sink to sullen rest_.'[36] It is difficult to believe that this stanza was inspired by a memory of the dead. Are we not told that 'Love and Life _together_ fled'--in other words, when Mary withdrew her love, she was dead to him?