Byron: The Last Phase

That, after ninety years, such nonsense should be regarded as evidence against a woman so well known in the society of her day as was Mrs. Leigh, justifies our concurrence with Lord Lovelace’s opinion that ‘nothing is too stupid for belief.’

It appears that one day Lady Byron was talking to her husband about ‘Lara,’ which seemed to her to be ‘like the darkness in which one fears to behold spectres.’ This bait was evidently too tempting for Byron to resist. He replied: ‘“Lara” – there’s more in that than in any of them.’ As he spoke he shuddered, and turned his eyes to the ground.

Before we examine that poem to see how much it may contain of illuminating matter, we will touch upon a remark Byron made to his wife, which Lord Lovelace quotes without perceiving its depth and meaning. We will quote ‘Astarte’:

‘He told Lady Byron that if she had married him when he first proposed, he should not have written any of the poems which followed [the first and second Cantos] “Childe Harold.”’

This is perfectly true. Byron proposed to Miss Milbanke in 1812. If she had married him then, he would not have renewed his intimacy with Mary Chaworth in June, 1813. There would have been no heart-hunger, no misery, no remorse, and, in short, no inspiration for ‘The Giaour,’ ‘The Bride,’ ‘The Corsair,’ and ‘Lara.’ Miss Milbanke’s refusal of his offer of marriage in 1812 rankled long in Byron’s mind, and provoked those ungenerous reproaches which have been, with more or less exaggeration, reported by persons in Lady Byron’s confidence. The mischief was done between the date of Miss Milbanke’s refusal and her acceptance of his offer, which occurred after the fury of his passion for Mary Chaworth had burnt itself out. No blame attaches to Lady Byron for this misfortune. When Byron first proposed, her affections were elsewhere engaged; she could not, therefore, dispose of her heart to him. When she at last accepted him, it was too late for happiness.

In a letter which Byron wrote to Miss Milbanke previous to his marriage,51 he unconsciously prophesied the worst:

‘The truth is that could I have foreseen that your life was to be linked to mine – had I even possessed a distinct hope, however distant – I would have been a different and better being. As it is, I have sometimes doubts, even if I should not disappoint the future, nor act hereafter unworthily of you, whether the past ought not to make you still regret me – even that portion of it with which you are not unacquainted. I did not believe such a woman existed – at least for me —and I sometimes fear I ought to wish that she had not.’

When Byron said that he had doubts whether the past would not eventually reflect injuriously upon his future wife, he referred, not to Augusta Leigh, but to his fatal intercourse with Mary Chaworth. The following sentences taken from Mrs. Leigh’s letters to Francis Hodgson, who knew the truth, prove that the mystery only incidentally affected Augusta. The letters were written February, 1816.

‘From what passed [between Captain Byron and Mrs. Clermont] now, if they choose it, it must come into court! God alone knows the consequences.’

‘It strikes me that, if their pecuniary proposals are favourable, Byron will be too happy to escape the exposure. He must be anxious. It is impossible he should not in some degree.’

These are the expressions, not of a person connected with a tragedy, but rather of one who was a spectator of it. Every impartial person must see that. When, on another occasion, Byron told his wife that he wished he had gone abroad – as he had intended – in June, 1813, he undoubtedly implied that the fatal intimacy with Mary Chaworth would have been avoided. This seems so clear to us that we are surprised that Byron’s statement on the subject of his poems should have made no impression on the mind of Lord Lovelace, and should have elicited nothing from him in ‘Astarte,’ except the banale suggestion that Byron’s literary activity must have been accidental!

Lara, like Conrad, is a portion of Byron himself, and the poem opens with his return to Newstead after some bitter experiences, at which he darkly hints:

‘Short was the course his restlessness had run,But long enough to leave him half undone.’

He tells us that ‘Another chief consoled his destined bride.’ ‘One is absent that most might decorate that gloomy pile.’

‘Why slept he not when others were at rest?Why heard no music, and received no guest?All was not well, they deemed – but where the wrong?Some knew perchance.’

In stanzas 17, 18, and 19, Byron draws a picture of himself, so like that his sister remarked upon it in a letter to Hodgson. After telling us that ‘his heart was not by nature hard,’ he says that

‘His blood in temperate seeming now would flow:Ah! happier if it ne’er with guilt had glowed,But ever in that icy smoothness flowed!’

The poet tells us that after Lara’s death he was mourned by one whose quiet grief endured for long.

‘Vain was all question asked her of the past,And vain e’en menace – silent to the last.’‘Why did she love him? Curious fool! – be still —Is human love the growth of human will?To her he might be gentleness; the sternHave deeper thoughts than your dull eyes discern,And when they love, your smilers guess not howBeats the strong heart, though less the lips avow.They were not common links, that formed the chainThat bound to Lara Kaled’s heart and brain;But that wild tale she brooked not to unfold,And sealed is now each lip that could have told.********‘The tempest of his heart in scorn had gazedOn that the feebler Elements hath raised.The Rapture of his Heart had looked on high,And asked if greater dwelt beyond the sky:Chained to excess, the slave of each extreme,How woke he from the wildness of that dream!Alas! he told not —but he did awakeTo curse the withered heart that would not break.’

On September 8, 1814, four months after Byron had finished ‘Lara,’ while he was at Newstead with his sister and her children – the little Medora among them – he wrote his fragment ‘Harmodia.’ The rough draft was given after his marriage to Lady Byron, who had no idea to what it could possibly refer. When the scandal about Augusta was at its height, this fragment was impounded among other incriminating documents, and eventually saw the light in ‘Astarte.’ Lord Lovelace was firmly convinced that it was addressed to Augusta Leigh!

Between September 7 and 15 Byron and Mary Chaworth were considering the desirability of marriage for Byron, and letters were passing between the distracted poet and two young ladies – Miss Milbanke and another – with that object in view. Although Byron was still in love with Mary Chaworth, he had come to understand that her determination to break the dangerous intimacy was irrevocable, so he resolved to follow her advice and marry. The tone of his letter to Moore, written on September 15, shows that he was not very keen about wedlock. He was making plans for a journey to Italy in the event of his proposal being rejected.

It is possible that, in a conversation between Mary and himself, the former may have spoken of the risks they had incurred in the past, and of her resolve never to transgress again. To which Byron replied:

Harmodia‘The things that were – and what and whence are they?Those clouds and rainbows of thy yesterday?Their path has vanish’d from th’ eternal sky,And now its hues are of a different dye.Thus speeds from day to day, and Pole to Pole,The change of parts, the sameness of the whole;And all we snatch, amidst the breathing strife,But gives to Memory what it takes from Life:Despoils a substance to adorn a shade —And that frail shadow lengthens but to fade.Sun of the sleepless! Melancholy Star!Whose tearful beam shoots trembling from afar —That chang’st the darkness thou canst not dispel —How like art thou to Joy, remembered well!Such is the past – the light of other daysThat shines, but warms not with its powerless rays —A moonbeam Sorrow watcheth to behold,Distinct, but distant – clear, but death-like cold.‘Oh! as full thought comes rushing o’er the MindOf all we saw before – to leave behind —Of all! – but words, what are they? Can they giveA trace of truth to thoughts while yet they live?No – Passion – Feeling speak not – or in vain —The tear for Grief – the Groan must speak for Pain —Joy hath its smile – and Love its blush and sigh —Despair her silence – Hate her lip and eye —These their interpreters, where deeply lurk —The Soul’s despoilers warring as they work —The strife once o’er – then words may find their way,Yet how enfeebled from the forced delay!‘But who could paint the progress of the wreck —Himself still clinging to the dangerous deck?Safe on the shore the artist first must stand,And then the pencil trembles in his hand.’

When, four years later, Byron was writing the first canto of ‘Don Juan,’ with feelings chastened by suffering and time, he recurred to that period – never effaced from his memory – the time when he wrote:

‘When thou art gone – the loved – the lost – the oneWhose smile hath gladdened – though, perchance, undone!’

Time could not change the feelings of his youth, nor keep his thoughts for long from the object of his early love.

‘They tell me ’tis decided you depart:’Tis wise – ’tis well, but not the less a pain;I have no further claim on your young heart,Mine is the victim, and would be again:To love too much has been the only artI used.’‘I loved, I love you, for this love have lostState, station, Heaven, Mankind’s, my own esteem,And yet can not regret what it hath cost,So dear is still the memory of that dream;Yet, if I name my guilt, ’tis not to boast,None can deem harshlier of me than I deem.’‘All is o’erFor me on earth, except some years to hideMy shame and sorrow deep in my heart’s core:These I could bear, but cannot cast asideThe passion which still rages as before —And so farewell – forgive me, love me – No,That word is idle now – but let it go.’*******‘My heart is feminine, nor can forget —To all, except one image, madly blind;So shakes the needle, and so stands the pole,As vibrates my fond heart to my fixed soul.’

It was early in 1814 that Byron also wrote his farewell verses to Mary Chaworth, which appeared in the second edition of ‘The Corsair’:

I‘Farewell! if ever fondest prayerFor other’s weal availed on high,Mine will not all be lost in air,But waft thy name beyond the sky.’Twere vain to speak – to weep – to sigh:Oh! more than tears of blood can tell,When wrung from Guilt’s expiring eye,Are in that word – Farewell! Farewell!II‘These lips are mute, these eyes are dry;But in my breast, and in my brain,Awake the pangs that pass not by,The thought that ne’er shall sleep again.My soul nor deigns nor dares complain,Though Grief and Passion there rebel:I only know we loved in vain —I only feel – Farewell! Farewell!’

Even in the ‘Hebrew Melodies,’ which were probably begun in the autumn of 1814, and finished after Byron’s marriage in January, 1815, there are traces of that deathless remorse and love, whose expression could not be altogether repressed. We select some examples at random. In the poem ‘Oh, snatched away in Beauty’s bloom,’ the poet had added two verses which were subsequently suppressed:

‘Nor need I write to tell the tale,My pen were doubly weak.Oh! what can idle words avail,Unless my heart could speak?‘By day or night, in weal or woe,That heart, no longer free,Must bear the love it cannot show,And silent turn for thee.’

In ‘Herod’s Lament for Mariamne’ we find:

‘She’s gone, who shared my diadem;She sunk, with her my joys entombing;I swept that flower from Judah’s stem,Whose leaves for me alone were blooming;And mine’s the guilt, and mine the Hell,This bosom’s desolation dooming;And I have earned those tortures well,Which unconsumed are still consuming!’

While admitting that Byron’s avowed object was to portray the remorse of Herod, we suspect that the haunting image of one so dear to him – one who had suffered through guilt which he so frequently deplored in verse – must have been in the poet’s mind when these lines were written.

On January 17, 1814, Byron went to Newstead with Augusta Leigh, and stayed there one month.

‘A busy month and pleasant, at least three weeks of it… “The Corsair” has been conceived, written, published, etc., since I took up this journal. They tell me it has great success; it was written con amore, and much from existence.’

On the following day Byron wrote to his friend Wedderburn Webster:

‘I am on my way to the country on rather a melancholy expedition. A very old and early connexion [Mary Chaworth], or rather friend of mine, has desired to see me; and, as now we can never be more than friends, I have no objection. She is certainly unhappy and, I fear, ill; and the length and circumstances attending our acquaintance render her request and my visit neither singular nor improper.’

This strange apology for what might have been considered a very natural act of neighbourly friendship, inevitably reminds us of a French proverb, Qui s’excuse s’accuse. It is worthy of note that, after Byron had been ten days at Newstead with his sister, he wrote to his lawyer – who must have been surprised at the irrelevant information – to say that Augusta Leigh was ‘in the family way.’ The significance of this communication has hitherto passed unnoticed. We gather from Byron’s letters that he was much depressed by Mary Chaworth’s state of health, involving all the risks of discovery.

‘My rhyming propensity is quite gone,’ he writes, ‘and I feel much as I did at Patras on recovering from my fever – weak, but in health, and only afraid of a relapse.’

Soon after his return to London Byron wrote to Moore: ‘Seriously, I am in what the learned call a dilemma, and the vulgar, a scrape…’

Moore took care, with his asterisks, that we should not know the nature of that scrape, which certainly had nothing to do with his ‘Lines to a Lady Weeping’ which appeared in the first edition of ‘The Corsair.’ If the reader has any doubts on this point, let him refer to Byron’s letters to Murray, notably to that one in which the angry poet protests against the suppression of those lines in the second edition of ‘The Corsair’:

‘You have played the devil by that injudicious suppression, which you did totally without my consent… Now, I do not, and will not be supposed to shrink, although myself and everything belonging to me were to perish with my memory.’

Moore’s asterisks veiled the record of a deeper scrape, as Byron’s letter to him, written three weeks later, plainly show.

On April 10, 1814, Byron wrote in his journal:

‘I do not know that I am happiest when alone; but this I am sure of, that I am never long in the society even of her I love (God knows too well, and the Devil probably too), without a yearning for the company of my lamp, and my utterly confused and tumbled-over library.’

The latter portion of the journal at this period is much mutilated. There is a gap between April 10 and 19, when, four days after the birth of Medora, he writes in deep dejection:

‘There is ice at both poles, north and south – all extremes are the same – misery belongs to the highest and the lowest, only… I will keep no further journal … and, to prevent me from returning, like a dog, to the vomit of memory, I tear out the remaining leaves of this volume… “O! fool! I shall go mad.”’

It was at this time that Byron wrote the following lines, in which he tells Mary Chaworth that all danger of the discovery of their secret is over:

‘There is no more for me to hope,There is no more for thee to fear;And, if I give my sorrow scope,That sorrow thou shalt never hear.Why did I hold thy love so dear?Why shed for such a heart one tear?Let deep and dreary silence beMy only memory of thee!When all are fled who flatter now,Save thoughts which will not flatter then;And thou recall’st the broken vowTo him who must not love again —Each hour of now forgotten yearsThou, then, shalt number with thy tears;And every drop of grief shall beA vain remembrancer of me!’

On May 4, 1814, Byron sent to Moore the following verses. We quote from Lady Byron’s manuscript:

‘I speak not – I trace not – I breathe not thy name —There is love in the sound – there is Guilt in the fame —But the tear which now burns on my cheek may impartThe deep thoughts that dwell in that silence of heart.‘Too brief for our passion – too long for our peace —Was that hour – can its hope – can its memory cease?We repent – we abjure – we will break from our chain:We must part – we must fly to – unite it again!‘Oh! thine be the gladness – and mine be the Guilt!Forgive me – adored one – forsake if thou wilt —But the heart which is thine shall expire undebased,And Man shall not break it whatever thou mayst.‘Oh! proud to the mighty – but humble to theeThis soul in its bitterest moment shall be,And our days glide as swift – and our moments more sweetWith thee at my side – than the world at my feet.‘One tear of thy sorrow – one smile of thy love —Shall turn me or fix – shall reward or reprove —And the heartless may wonder at all I resign:Thy lip shall reply – not to them – but to mine.’

These verses were not published until Byron had been five years in his grave. They tell the story plainly, and the manuscript in Mr. Murray’s possession speaks plainer still. Before Byron gave the manuscript to his wife, he erased the following lines:

‘We have loved – and oh! still, my adored one, we love!’‘Oh! the moment is past when that passion might cease.’‘But I cannot repent what we ne’er can recall.’

After Medora’s birth Byron became more and more dejected, and on April 29 he wrote a remarkable letter to Murray, enclosing a draft to redeem the copyrights of his poems, and releasing Murray from his engagement to pay £1,000, agreed on for ‘The Giaour’ and ‘The Bride of Abydos.’ Byron was evidently afraid that Mr. Chaworth Musters would discover the truth, and that a duel and disgrace would be the inevitable consequence.

‘If any accident occurs to me, you may do then as you please; but, with the exception of two copies of each for yourself only, I expect and request that the advertisements be withdrawn, and the remaining copies of all destroyed; and any expense so incurred I will be glad to defray. For all this it may be well to assign some reason. I have none to give except my own caprice, and I do not consider the circumstance of consequence enough to require explanation. Of course, I need hardly assure you that they never shall be published with my consent, directly or indirectly, by any other person whatsoever, and that I am perfectly satisfied, and have every reason so to be, with your conduct in all transactions between us, as publisher and author. It will give me great pleasure to preserve your acquaintance, and to consider you as my friend.’

Two days later Byron seems to have conquered his immediate apprehensions, and, in reply to an appeal from Murray, writes:

‘If your present note is serious, and it really would be inconvenient, there is an end of the matter; tear my draft, and go on as usual: in that case we will recur to our former basis. That I was perfectly serious in wishing to suppress all future publication is true; but certainly not to interfere with the convenience of others, and more particularly your own. Some day I will tell you the reason of this apparently strange resolution.’

It had evidently dawned on Byron’s mind that a sudden suppression of his poems would have aroused public curiosity, and that a motive for his action would either have been found or invented. This would have been fatal to all concerned. If trouble were to come, it would be wiser not to meet it halfway. Happily, the birth of Medora passed unnoticed.

As time wore on, Byron’s hopes that Mary would relent grew apace. But he was doomed to disappointment. Mary Chaworth had the courage and the wisdom to crush a love so disastrous to both. Byron in his blindness reproached her:

‘Thou art not false, but thou art fickle.’

He tells her that he would despise her if she were false; but he knows that her love is sincere:

‘When she can change who loved so truly!’‘Ah! sure such grief is Fancy’s scheming,And all the Change can be but dreaming!’

He could not believe that her resolve was serious. Time taught him better. Love died, and friendship took its place. The same love that tempted her to sin was that true love that works out its redemption.

Between April 15 and 21, 1816, before signing the deed of separation, Byron went into the country to take leave of Mary Chaworth. It was their last meeting, and the parting must have been a sad one. The hopes that Mary had formed for his peace and happiness in marriage had suddenly been dashed to the ground. And now he was about to leave England under a cloud, which threatened for a time to overwhelm them both. A terrible anxiety as to the issue of investigations, which were being made into his conduct previous to and during his marriage, oppressed her with the gravest apprehension. Everything seemed to depend upon the silence both of Byron and Augusta. Under this awful strain the mind of Mary Chaworth was flickering towards collapse. By the following verses, which must have been written soon after their final meeting, we find Byron,

‘Seared in heart – and lone – and blighted,’

reproaching, with a lover’s injustice, the woman he adored, for that act of renunciation which, under happier auspices, might have proved his own salvation:

I‘When we two partedIn silence and tears,Half broken-heartedTo sever for years,Pale grew thy cheek and cold,Colder thy kiss;Truly that hour foretoldSorrow to this.II‘The dew of the morningSunk chill on my brow —It felt like the warningOf what I feel now.Thy vows are all broken,And light is thy fame:I hear thy name spoken,And share in its shame.III‘They name thee before me,A knell to mine ear;A shudder comes o’er me —Why wert thou so dear?They know not I knew thee,Who knew thee too well:Long, long shall I rue thee,Too deeply to tell.IV‘In secret we met —In silence I grieve,That thy heart could forget,Thy spirit deceive.If I should meet theeAfter long years,How should I greet thee?With silence and tears.’

In the first draft Byron had written, after the second verse, the following words:

‘Our secret lies hidden,But never forgot.’

In ‘Fare Thee Well,’ written on March 17, 1816, there are only four lines which have any bearing on the point under consideration.

Byron tells his wife that if she really knew the truth, if every inmost thought of his breast were bared before her, she would not have forsaken him.

That is true. Lady Byron might, in time, have forgiven everything if the doctors had been able to declare that her husband was not wholly accountable for his actions. But when they pronounced him to be of sound mind, and, as will be seen presently, she subsequently convinced herself that he had committed, and might even then be committing adultery with his sister under her own roof, she resolved never again to place herself in his power. If, in the early stages of disagreement, without betraying Mary Chaworth, it could have been avowed that Mrs. Leigh was not the mother of Medora, Lady Byron might not have seen in her husband’s strange conduct towards herself ‘signs of a deep remorse.’ She would certainly have been far more patient under suffering, and the separation might have been avoided. But this avowal was impracticable. Augusta had committed herself too far for that, and the idle gossip of her servants subsequently convinced Lady Byron that Byron was the father of Augusta’s child. It is clear that neither Augusta nor Byron made any attempts to remove those suspicions; in fact, they acted in a manner most certain to confirm them. Whether the secret, which they had pledged themselves to keep, could long have been withheld from Lady Byron, if matters had been patched up, is doubtful. Meanwhile, as everything depended on premat nox alta, they dared not risk even a partial avowal of the truth.

The separation was inevitable, and in this case it was eternal. It is hard to believe that there had ever been any real love on either side. Under these circumstances we feel sure that any attempts at reconciliation would have ended disastrously for both. Byron’s love for Mary Chaworth was strong as death. Many waters could not have quenched it, ‘neither could the floods drown it.’