LORD BYRON TO DOCTOR POLIDORI
No more of searching, Doctor—let it go.
It can't be lost. I have a memory
I put it in a drawer, or again
I seem to see me tuck it in a pocket
Of some portmanteau. If you find the letter
Deliver it to Moore. But if it's lost,
The story is not lost. I tell you this
To save the story from my side. Attend!
It was this way:
Allegra had become
A child requiring care, and nutritive
Instruction in religion, morals, well,
They call me blasphemer and sensualist,
But read my poems. Christianity
Was never of rejected things with me.
The Decalogue is good enough, I think.
And Shelley's theories, atheist speculations
I never shared—nor social dreams. The scheme
Of having all things, women, too, in common
Means common women. I have sinned, I know—
I call it sin. The marriage vow I honor,
And woman's virtue. Though I stray, I hold
That women should be chaste, though man is not.
That's why I placed Allegra in a convent....
Now to the letter, and my story of it.
The mother, Claire, Claire Claremont, as you know—
Pined for Allegra; would possess the child
And take her from the convent—where? No doubt
To Shelley's nest, where William Godwin's daughter
Raised on free love, and Shelley preaching it,
And Claire in whom 'tis bred, hold sway, who read,
Talk, argue, dream of freedom, all the things
Opposed to what is in the present order.
You know the notes to "Queen Mab." Well, I say
This suits me not.
So Shelley and his wife,
Mary, the planet of an hour, since quenched,
Conceive I keep Allegra where she is
From wounded pride, or pique. Hell fire! They think
I'm hurt for thinking Claire and Shelley join
Their lips in love, and masque my jealousy
By just this pose of morals, make reprisal
Under a lying flag, and keep Allegra
To punish Claire and sate my jealousy
By this hypocrisy—It makes me laugh.
But to pursue. A maid who was discharged
From Shelley's household told the credible tale
That Claire was Shelley's mistress, and the Hoppners
Heard and believed—why not? As she is fair,
And Shelley wrote "Love is like understanding
Which brighter grows gazing on many truths,
Increases by division," that himself
Could not accept the code, a man should choose
One woman and leave all the rest, why not?
As for myself, I have not preached this doctrine,
Though living it as men do in the world....
Oh yes, I know this love called spiritual,
Of which old maids, whose milk has gone to brain
And curdled in the process, and who hate me
For taking men and women as they are,
Talk to create belief for self and others.
Denial makes philosophies, religions.
Indulgence leaves one sane, objectifies
The eternal womanly, freeing brain of fumes,
To work with master hands with love and life.
The story rose, however.
Then comes Shelley
Bearing a letter from his wife, denying
That Claire and Shelley loved, you understand—
By the flesh. Sweet, was it not? Naïve!
This letter I should hand the Hoppners, who
Believed the story, and who held a place
Persuasive touching poor Allegra. Well,
So Shelley comes and makes the point, the child
Is in ill health, Claire, too, in a decline,
And hands this letter to me for the Hoppners.
And I've misplaced it. Frankly, from the first,
Had no fixed purpose to deliver it.
What principle makes me collaborator
With such fantastic business? To resume:
He acted like the boy he was. I smiled—
Against the flaming rage that burned his face—
My mocking smile, he thought, the Don Juan
Upcurved my lips. I read his very thought
Between words spoken; words that he suppressed:
It was that I was glad that Claire was ill
Because of that male mood when love of man
Finds sustenance where suffering lays low
The object of desire: If she suffers,
The man subdues, devours her. She escapes
If free of love. Oh yes, and this he thought:
That I was glad she suffered, since my glory
Had failed to hold her, failed to satisfy
Her noble heart! God's wounds! Why Shelley thought
She turned to him and with his spirit found
A purity of peace and sweetest friendship,
And faith that saves and serves, as men and women
Are to each other souls to serve and save!
Poor fool! I read it all, or pieced it out
With words that I picked up from time to time....
There was this further thing: I am a man,
So say they, who accepts the dying creed
That woman's love is lawless and a toy
When given if no priest has sanctified it—
Not quite, perhaps. The point is further on.
In any case 'tis this: that this belief,
Mine or part mine, and coloring my acts,
Shadowed no whit the brow of Lady Claire.
And that I, greatest lover of my time,
Had won this lady's body but to lose
The lady's soul, a soul that slipped and fled
Out of the hands that clasped her flesh, because
She knew me through her gift, thought less of me,
And no wise felt herself bound to my life
Because she gave her body. Kept her mind,
Soul, free, untouched by that gift, by the gift
Was cognizant of what is false and poor—
(I use some words I heard) in me. And thus
I lost her soul, though earlier I had gained
What seemed all to me, all I had the genius
To comprehend in woman! Then comes Shelley
And finds her soul, the genuine prize, and I
Grow sullen with a consciousness of vision
Inferior to his. All this they thought.
Oh Jesus, what a lie!
I have loved Nature, love her now: and woman
Is Nature, and my love for nature means
Inclusion of the sex. I have not soared
To heights that sickened me and made me laugh
At what I sought—or turned from it. No moons
Behind the clouds; no terrors and no symbols,
No Emilia Vivianni's have I had.
I know, believe me, love for woman calls
A man's soul up to heights too rare to live in.
I have not risen, therefore, will not rise
Where thinking stops, because the blood leaves brain
Therefore have had no falls, and no recoils
Chasing the Plato vision, the star, the wonder,
The beauty and the terror, harmony
Of nature's art; the passion that would make
The loved one of the self-same womb with me,
A sister, spouse or angel, dæmon, pilot
Of life and fate.
How much of truth is here?
Dreams seen most vividly by Petrarch, Dante,
Who loved without achievement, balking nature,
Till Passion, like an involute, pressed in
Harder and harder on its starving leaves,
Becomes a fragrance—sublimate of self
Sucked out of sorrow's earth, at last becomes
A meditative madness. All is written
Fairly across my page. "She walks in beauty:"
"When we two parted," "Could love like a river,"
"Bright be the place of thy soul." Lines, lines
In "Harold," "Don Juan." Yes, I have loved,
But saw how far love lures, how far to venture,
Knowing what can and what cannot be made
Of the mystery, the wonder, therefore never
Have had to laugh at self; find Vivianni
A housemaid shelling corn—not threading pearls.
Or sit, with idiot eyes, my bones half broken,
Icarus bumped amid a field of stones.
I know the hour of farewell. I have said it
When my heart trembled, stopped as when a horse
Braces its terrored feet to keep from plunging
Over the precipice. Farewell! Farewell!
I know to say, and turn, and pass my way.
Why! For that matter, even now behold!
Do I feel less than Shelley would in this?
I leave the Countess for the war in Greece.
What's done is done. What's lived is lived. Come, Doctor,
Let's practice with the pistols. Mother of God,
What is this thing called Life?