CHAPTER VII.
LORD BYRON CONSIDERED AS A FATHER, AS A BROTHER, AND AS A SON.
HIS GOODNESS SHOWN BY THE STRENGTH OF HIS INSTINCTIVE AFFECTIONS.
LORD BYRON AS A FATHER.
If, as a great moralist has said, our natural affections have power only upon sensitive and virtuous natures, but are despised by men of corrupt and dissipated habits, then must we find a proof again of Lord Byron's excellence in the influence which his affections exercised over him.
His tenderness for his child, and for his sister, was like a ray of sunshine which lit up his whole heart, and in the moments of greatest depression prevented desolation from completely absorbing his nature.
His thoughts were never far from the objects of his affection.
CXV.
"My daughter! with thy name this song begun;
My daughter! with thy name thus much shall end;
I see thee not, I hear thee not, but none
Can be so wrapt in thee; thou art the friend
To whom the shadows of far years extend:
Albeit my brow thou never shouldst behold,
My voice shall with thy future visions blend.
And reach into thy heart, when mine is cold,
A token and a tone, even from thy father's mould.
CXVI.
"To aid thy mind's development, to watch
Thy dawn of little joys, to sit and see
Almost thy very growth, to view thee catch
Knowledge of objects,—wonders yet to thee!
To hold thee lightly on a gentle knee,
And print on thy soft cheek a parent's kiss,
This, it should seem, was not reserved for me,
Yet this was in my nature: as it is,
I know not what is there, yet something like to this.
CXVIII.
* * * * *
"Sweet be thy cradled slumbers! O'er the sea
And from the mountains where I now respire,
Fain would I waft such blessing upon thee,
As, with a sigh, I deem thou might'st have been to me."
Who ever read "Childe Harold" and was not touched by the delightful stanzas of the third canto,—a perfect chef-d'œuvre of tenderness and kindness, inclosed, as it were, in another master-piece, like, were it possible, a jewel found in a diamond?