The expunged lines (see [var. i.]) carried the Lucretian tenets of the preceding stanza to their logical conclusion. The end is silence, not a reunion with superior souls. But Dallas objected; and it may well be that, in the presence of death, Byron could not "guard his unbelief," or refrain from a renewed questioning of the "Grand Perhaps." Stanza for stanza, the new version is an improvement on the original. (See Recollections of the Life of Lord Byron, 1824, p. 169. See, too, letters to Hodgson, September 3 and September 13, 1811: Letters, 1898, ii. 18, 34.)]
Frown not upon me, churlish Priest! that I
Look not for Life, where life may never be:
I am no sneerer at thy phantasy;
Thou pitiest me, alas! I envy thee,
Thou bold Discoverer in an unknown sea
Of happy Isles and happier Tenants there;
I ask thee not to prove a Sadducee;[*]
Still dream of Paradise, thou know'st not where,[**]
Which if it be thy sins will never let thee share.[***]
—[MS. D. erased.]
[*]The Sadducees did not believe in the Resurrection.—[MS. D.]
[**]
But look upon a scene that once was fair.—[Erased.]
Zion's holy hill which thou wouldst fancy fair.—[Erased.]
[***]
As those, which thou delight'st to rear in upper air.—[Erased.]
Yet lovs't too well to bid thine erring brother share.—[D. erased.]
[120] [{104}] [Byron forwarded this stanza in a letter to Dallas, dated October 14, 1811, and was careful to add, "I think it proper to state to you, that this stanza alludes to an event which has taken place since my arrival here, and not to the death of any male friend" (Letters. 1898, ii. 57). The reference is not to Edleston, as Dallas might have guessed, and as Wright (see Poetical Works, 1891, p. 17) believed. Again, in a letter to Dallas, dated October 31, 1811 (ibid., ii. 65), he sends "a few stanzas," presumably the lines "To Thyrza," which are dated October 31, 1811, and says that "they refer to the death of one to whose name you are a stranger, and, consequently, cannot be interested (sic) ... They relate to the same person whom I have mentioned in Canto 2nd, and at the conclusion of the poem." It follows from this second statement that we have Byron's authority for connecting stanza ix. with stanzas xcv., xcvi., and, inferentially, his authority for connecting stanzas ix., xcv., xcvi. with the group of "Thyrza" poems. And there our knowledge ends. We must leave the mystery where Byron willed that it should be left. "All that we know is, nothing can be known.">[
Whate'er beside} Howe'er may be Futurity's behest.[*]
Or seeing thee no more to sink in sullen rest.—[MS. D.]
[*][See letter to Dallas, October 14, 1811.]