Stanzas To a Lady,
With The Poems of Camoëns

by George Gordon, Lord Byron

(From Hours of Idleness - 1807)


    1
  1.   This votive pledge of fond esteem,
  2.      Perhaps, dear girl! for me thou’lt prize;
  3.   It sings of Love’s enchanting dream,
  4.      A theme we never can despise.

    2
  5.   Who blames it but the envious fool,
  6.      The old and disappointed maid;
  7.   Or pupil of the prudish school,
  8.      In single sorrow doom’d to fade?

    3
  9.   Then read, dear girl! with feeling read,
  10.      For thou wilt ne’er be one of those;
  11.   To thee in vain I shall not plead
  12.      In pity for the poet’s woes.

    4
  13.   He was in sooth a genuine bard;
  14.      His was no faint, fictitious flame.
  15.   Like his, may love be thy reward,
  16.      But not thy hapless fate the same.

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