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.]
[nc] {415}
And thine is that love which I will never forego
Though the price which I pay be Eternity's woe.—[MS. erased]
[nd] One tear of thy sorrow, one smile——.—[MS. erased]
[308] [The "Caledonian Meeting," at which these lines were, or were intended to be, recited (see Life, p. 254), was a meeting of subscribers to the Highland Society, held annually in London, in support of the [Royal] Caledonian Asylum "for educating and supporting children of soldiers, sailors, and marines, natives of Scotland." "To soothe," says the compiler of the Report for 1814, p. 4, "by the assurance that their offspring will be reared in virtue and comfort, the minds of those brave men, through whose exposure to hardship and danger the independence of the Empire has been preserved, is no less an act of sound policy than of gratitude.">[
[309] {416} [As an instance of Scottish gallantry in the Peninsular War it is sufficient to cite the following list of "casualties" at the battle of Vittoria, June 21, 1813: "The battalion [the seventy-first Highland Light Infantry] suffered very severely, having had 1 field officer, 1 captain, 2 lieutenants, 6 sergeants, 1 bugler, and 78 rank and file killed; 1 field officer, 3 captains, 7 lieutenants, 13 sergeants, 2 buglers, and 255 rank and file were wounded."—Historical Record of the 71st Highland Light Infantry, by Lieut. Henry J. T. Hildyard, 1876, p. 91.]
[310] [Compare Temora, bk. vii., "The king took his deathful spear, and struck the deeply-sounding shield.... Ghosts fled on every side, and rolled their gathered forms on the wind.—Thrice from the winding vale arose the voices of death."—Works of Ossian, 1765, ii. 160.]
[311] {417} [The last six lines are printed from the MS.]
[312] [Sir P. Parker fell in August, 1814, in his twenty-ninth year, whilst leading a party from his ship, the Menelaus, at the storming of the American camp near Baltimore. He was Byron's first cousin (his father, Christopher Parker (1761-1804), married Charlotte Augusta, daughter of Admiral the Hon. John Byron); but they had never met since boyhood. (See letter to Moore, Letters, 1899, iii. 150; see too Letters, i. 6, note 1.) The stanzas were included in Hebrew Melodies, 1815, and in the Ninth Edition of Childe Harold, 1818.]
[313] [Compare Tasso's sonnet—"Questa Tomba non è, ehe non è morto," etc. Rime Eroiche, Parte Seconda, No. 38, Opere di Torquato Tasso, Venice, 1736, vi. 169.]