[81] [Byron often made use of this illustration. Compare—
"My Peri! ever welcome here!
Sweet, as the desert fountain's wave."
The Bride of Abydos, Canto I. lines 151, 152, Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 163.]
[82] [For Hobhouse's parody of these stanzas, see Letters, 1900, iv. 73,74.]
[83] {57}[These stanzas—"than which," says the Quarterly Review for January, 1831, "there is nothing, perhaps, more mournfully and desolately beautiful in the whole range of Lord Byron's poetry," were also written at Diodati, and sent home to be published, if Mrs. Leigh should consent. She decided against publication, and the "Epistle" was not printed till 1830. Her first impulse was to withhold her consent to the publication of the "Stanzas to Augusta," as well as the "Epistle," and to say, "Whatever is addressed to me do not publish," but on second thoughts she decided that "the least objectionable line will be to let them be published."—See her letters to Murray, November 1, 8, 1816, Letters, 1899, iii. 366, note 1.]
Go where thou wilt thou art to me the same—
A loud regret which I would not resign.—[MS.]
[84] [Compare—
"Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling-place,
With one fair Spirit for my minister!"
Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza clxxvii. lines 1, 2, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 456.]