E-Text

Lord Byron's Poems

Early Poems: To E---

Let Folly smile, to view the names

Of thee and me, in Friendship twin'd;

Yet Virtue will have greater claims

To love, than rank with vice combin'd.


And though unequal is 'thy' fate,

Since title deck'd my higher birth;

Yet envy not this gaudy state,

'Thine' is the pride of modest worth.


Our 'souls' at least congenial meet,

Nor can 'thy' lot 'my' rank disgrace;

Our intercourse is not less sweet,

Since worth of rank supplies the place.


November 1802.


Footnote 1: E--- was, according to Moore, a boy of Byron's own age, the son of one of the tenants at Newstead.