II. And all that Memory loves the most Was once our only Hope to be, And all that Hope adored and lost Hath melted into Memory. III. Alas! it is delusion all: The future cheats us from afar, Nor can we be what we recall, Nor dare we think on what we are. [First published, _Fugitive Pieces_, 1829.] FOOTNOTES: [305] {409} [Compare _The Corsair_, Canto I. stanza xv. lines 480-490.] [mr] {410} _Never may I behold_ _Moment like this_.--[MS.] [ms] _The damp of the morning_ _Clung chill on my brow_.--[MS. erased.] [mt] _Thy vow hath been broken_.--[MS.] [mu] ----_lies hidden_ _Our secret of sorrow_-- _And deep in my soul_-- _But deed more forbidden_, _Our secret lies hidden_, _But never forgot_.--[Erasures, stanza 3, MS.] [mv] {411} _If one_ should _meet thee_ _How should we greet thee?_ _In silence and tears_.--[MS.] [306] [From an autograph MS. in the possession of Mr. Murray, now for the first time printed. The water-mark of the paper on which a much-tortured rough copy of these lines has been scrawled, is 1809, but, with this exception, there is no hint as to the date of composition. An entry in the _Diary_ for November 30, 1813, in which Annabella (Miss Milbanke) is described "as an heiress, a girl of twenty, a peeress that is to be," etc., and a letter (Byron to Miss Milbanke) dated November 29, 1813 (see _Letters_, 1898, ii. 357, and 1899, iii. 407), in which there is more than one allusion to her would-be suitors, "your thousand and one pretendants," etc., suggest the idea that the lines were addressed to his future wife, when he first made her acquaintance in 1812 or 1813.] [307] {413} ["Thou hast asked me for a song, and I enclose you an experiment, which has cost me something more than trouble, and is, therefore, less likely to be worth your taking any in your proposed setting. Now, if it be so, throw it into the fire without _phrase_."--Letter to Moore, May 4, 1814, _Letters_, 1899, iii. 80.] [mw] _I speak not--I breathe not--I write not that name_.--[MS. erased.] [mx] {414} _We have loved--and oh, still, my adored one we love!_ _Oh the moment is past, when that Passion might cease._-- [MS. erased.] [my] _The thought may be madness--the wish may be--guilt_.--[MS. erased.] [mz] {_But I cannot repent what we ne'er can recall._ {_But the heart which is thine would disdain to recall_.-- [MS. erased.] [na] ----_though I feel that thou mayst_.--[MS. L. erased.] [nb] _This soul in its bitterest moments shall be_, _And our days run as swift--and our moments more sweet_, _With thee at my side, than the world at my feet_.--[MS.]