'I watched thee when the fever glazed thine eyes, Yielding my couch, and stretched me on the ground, When overworn with watching, ne'er to rise From thence if thou an early grave had found.' Here we see Byron's agony of remorse. Like Herod, he lamented for Mariamne: 'And mine's the guilt, and mine the hell, This bosom's desolation dooming; And I have earned those tortures well Which unconsumed are still consuming!' In 'Manfred' we find a note of remembrance in the deprecating words: 'Oh! no, no, no! My injuries came down on those who loved me-- On those whom I best loved: I never quelled An enemy, save in my just defence-- But my embrace was fatal.' IV. 'The earthquake came, and rocked the quivering wall, And men and Nature reeled as if with wine: Whom did I seek around the tottering hall? For thee. Whose safety first provide for? Thine.' We now see Byron, at the supreme crisis of his life, standing in solitude on his hearth, with all his household gods shivered around him. We perceive that not least among his troubles at that time was the ever-haunting fear lest the secret of Medora's birth should be disclosed. His greatest anxiety was for Mary's safety, and this could only be secured by keeping his matrimonial squabbles out of a court of law. It was, in fact, by agreeing to sign the deed of separation that the whole situation was saved. The loyalty of Augusta Leigh on this occasion was never forgotten: 'There was soft Remembrance and sweet Trust In one fond breast.' '_That_ love was pure--and, far above disguise, Had stood the test of mortal enmities Still undivided, and cemented more By peril, dreaded most in female eyes, But this was firm.' In the fifth stanza we see Byron, eight years later, at Missolonghi, struck down by that attack of epilepsy which preceded his death by only two months: V. 'And when convulsive throes denied my breath The faintest utterance to my fading thought, To thee--to thee--e'en in the gasp of death My spirit turned, oh! oftener than it ought.' In the sixth and final stanza, probably the last lines that Byron ever wrote, we find him reiterating, with all a lover's persistency, a belief that Mary could never have loved him, otherwise she would not have left him. VI. 'Thus much and more; and yet thou lov'st me not, And never will! Love dwells not in our will. Nor can I blame thee, though it be my lot To strongly, wrongly, vainly love thee still.'