‘I know how to feel with you, because I am quite wrapped up in my own children. Besides my little legitimate, I have made unto myself an illegitimate since, to say nothing of one before; and I look forward to one of them as the pillar of my old age, supposing that I ever reach, as I hope I never shall, that desolating period.’
In the one before Moore will have recognized Medora. In spite of the ‘scarlet cloak and double figure,’ Moore had no belief in the story that Byron became a father while at Harrow School!
‘The Dream,’ which was written in July, 1816, is perhaps more widely known than any of Byron’s poems. Its theme is the remembrance of a hopeless passion, which neither Time nor Reason could extinguish. Similar notes of lamentation permeate most of his poems, but in ‘The Dream’ Byron, for the first time, takes the world into his confidence, and tells his tale of woe with such distinctness that we realize its truth, its passion, and its calamity. The publication of that poem was an indiscretion which must have been very disconcerting to his sister. Fortunately, it had no disastrous consequences. It apparently awakened no suspicions, and its sole effect was to incense Mary Chaworth’s husband, who, in order to stop all prattle, caused the ‘peculiar diadem of trees’ to be cut down. In Byron’s early poems we see how deeply Mary Chaworth’s marriage affected him; but this was known only to a small circle of Southwell friends. In ‘The Dream’ we realize that she was in fact a portion of his life, and that his own marriage had not in the least affected his feelings towards her. He had tried hard to forget her, but in vain; she was his destiny. Whether Byron, when he wrote this poem, had any idea of publishing it to the world is not known. It may possibly have been written to relieve his overburdened mind, and would not have seen the light but for Lady Byron’s treatment of Mrs. Leigh on the memorable occasion when she extracted, under promise of secrecy, the so-called ‘Confession,’ to which we shall allude presently. In any case, Byron became aware of what had happened in September, 1816. In some lines addressed to his wife, he tells her that she bought others’ grief at any price, adding:
‘The means were worthy, and the end is won;
I would not do by thee as thou hast done.’
Possibly, Byron may have thought that the publication of this poem would act as a barb, and would wound Lady Byron’s stubborn pride. Its appearance in the circumstances was certainly contra bonos mores, but we must remember that ‘men in rage often strike those who wish them best.’ Whatever may have been Byron’s intention, ‘The Dream’ affords a proof that Mary Chaworth was never long absent from his thoughts. At this time, when he felt a deep remorse for his conduct towards Mary Chaworth, he asks himself:
‘What is this Death? a quiet of the heart?
The whole of that of which we are a part?
For Life is but a vision—what I see
Of all which lives alone is Life to me,
And being so—the absent are the dead
Who haunt us from tranquillity, and spread
A dreary shroud around us, and invest
With sad remembrancers our hours of rest.
The absent are the dead—for they are cold,
And ne’er can be what once we did behold;
And they are changed, and cheerless,—or if yet
The unforgotten do not all forget,
Since thus divided—equal must it be
If the deep barrier be of earth, or sea;
It may be both—but one day end it must
In the dark union of insensate dust.’
It was at this time also that Byron wrote his ‘Stanzas to Augusta,’ which show his complete confidence in her loyalty:
‘Though human, thou didst not deceive me,
Though woman, thou didst not forsake,
Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me,
Though tempted, thou never couldst shake;
Though trusted, thou didst not betray me,
Though parted, it was not to fly,
Though watchful, ’twas not to defame me,
Nor, mute, that the world might belie.’
Byron’s remorse also found expression in ‘Manfred,’ where contrition is but slightly veiled by words of mysterious import, breathed in an atmosphere of mountains, magic, and ghost-lore. People in society, whose ears had been poisoned by insinuations against Mrs. Leigh, and who knew nothing of Byron’s intercourse with Mary Chaworth, came to the conclusion that ‘Manfred’ revealed a criminal attachment between Byron and his sister. Byron was aware of this, and, conscious of his innocence, held his head in proud defiance, and laughed his enemies to scorn. He did not deign to defend himself; and the public—forgetful of the maxim that where there is a sense of guilt there is a jealousy of drawing attention to it—believed the worst. When a critique of ‘Manfred,’ giving an account of the supposed origin of the story, was sent to Byron, he wrote to Murray:
‘The conjecturer is out, and knows nothing of the matter. I had a better origin than he can devise or divine for the soul of him.’