You knew, that my soul, that my heart, my existence, If danger demanded, were wholly your own; You knew me unalter'd, by years or by distance, Devoted to love and to friendship alone. 8. You knew,--but away with the vain retrospection! The bond of affection no longer endures; Too late you may droop o'er the fond recollection, And sigh for the friend, who was formerly yours. 9. For the present, we part,--I will hope not for ever; [1] For time and regret will restore you at last: To forget our dissension we both should endeavour, I ask no atonement, but days like the past. [Footnote 1: See Byron's Letter to Lord Clare of February 6, 1807, referred to in 'note' 2, p. 100.] [Footnote i: 'To----'. ['Hours of Idleness, Poems O. and Translated]] [Footnote ii. 'However, dear S----'. ['Hours of Idleness, Poems O. and Translated'.]] DAMÆTAS. [1] In law an infant, [2] and in years a boy, In mind a slave to every vicious joy; From every sense of shame and virtue wean'd, In lies an adept, in deceit a fiend; Vers'd in hypocrisy, while yet a child; Fickle as wind, of inclinations wild; Woman his dupe, his heedless friend a tool; Old in the world, though scarcely broke from school; Damætas ran through all the maze of sin, And found the goal, when others just begin: Ev'n still conflicting passions shake his soul, And bid him drain the dregs of Pleasure's bowl; But, pall'd with vice, he breaks his former chain, And what was once his bliss appears his bane. [Footnote 1: Moore appears to have regarded these lines as applying to Byron himself. It is, however, very unlikely that, with all his passion for painting himself in the darkest colours, he would have written himself down "a hypocrite." Damætas is, probably, a satirical sketch of a friend or acquaintance. (Compare the solemn denunciation of Lord Falkland in 'English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers', lines 668-686.)]] [Footnote 2: In law, every person is an infant who has not attained the age of twenty-one.] TO MARION. [1]