In 1817, at Venice, when his heart, at twenty-nine years of age, was devoid of any real love, and had even arrived at never loving, although suffering deeply from the void thus created, Lord Byron giving vent to his feelings wrote thus:-- "Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling-place, With one fair Spirit for my minister, That I might all forget the human race, And, hating no one, love but only her! Ye elements!--in whose ennobling stir I feel myself exalted--Can ye not Accord me such a being? Do I err In deeming such inhabit many a spot? Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot."[49] At the same period, he also unveils his soul, in guessing that of Tasso:-- "And with my years my soul began to pant With feelings of strange tumult and soft pain; And the whole heart exhaled into One Want, But undefined and wandering, till the day I found the thing I sought--and that was thee; And then I lost my being, all to be Absorb'd in thine; the world was pass'd away; _Thou_ didst annihilate the earth to me!" "_The Lament of Tasso._" A short time after, having described the charm of the pine forest at Ravenna, seen by twilight, he begins to paint the happiness of two loving hearts--of Juan and Haidee, and says:-- VIII. "Young Juan and his lady-love were left To their own hearts' most sweet society; Even Time the pitiless in sorrow cleft With his rude scythe such gentle bosoms. * * * * * * * They could not be Meant to grow old, but die in happy spring, Before one charm or hope had taken wing. IX. "Their faces were not made for wrinkles, their Pure blood to stagnate, their great hearts to fail! The blank gray was not made to blast their hair, But like the climes that know nor snow nor hail, They were all summer; lightning might assail And shiver them to ashes, but to trail A long and snake-like life of dull decay Was not for them--they had too little clay. X. "They were alone once more; for them to be Thus was another Eden; they were never Weary, unless when separate: the tree Cut from its forest root of years--the river Damn'd from its fountain--the child from the knee And breast maternal wean'd at once forever,-- Would wither less than these two torn apart; Alas! there is no instinct like the heart. XII. "'Whom the gods love die young,' was said of yore, And many deaths do they escape by this: The death of friends, and that which slays even more-- The death of friendship, love, youth, all that is, Except mere breath; * * * * * * * Perhaps the early grave Which men weep over, may be meant to save. XIII.