of my curse. 
   That curse shall be forgiveness.  Have I not,—­
   Hear me, my Mother Earth! behold it, Heaven,—­
   Have I not had to wrestle with my lot? 
   Have I not suffered things to be forgiven? 
   Have I not had my brain seared, my heart riven,
   Hopes sapped, name blighted, life’s life lied away,
   And only not to desperation driven,
   Because not altogether of such clay
   As rots into the soul of those whom I survey?

----------

’From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy, Have I not seen what human things could do,—­ From the loud roar of foaming calumny, To the small whispers of the paltry few, And subtler venom of the reptile crew, The Janus glance of whose significant eye, Learning to lie with silence, would seem true, And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh, Deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy?’ {31}

The reader will please notice that the lines in italics are almost, word for word, a repetition of the lines in italics in the former poem on his wife, where he speaks of a significant eye that has learned to lie in silence, and were evidently meant to apply to Lady Byron and her small circle of confidential friends.

Before this, in the Third Canto of ‘Childe Harold,’ he had claimed the sympathy of the world, as a loving father, deprived by a severe fate of the solace and society of his only child:—­

   ’My daughter,—­with this name my song began,—­
   My daughter,—­with this name my song shall end,—­
   I see thee not and hear thee not, but none
   Can be so wrapped in thee; thou art the friend
   To whom the shadows of far years extend.

* * * *

   ’To aid thy mind’s developments, to watch
   The dawn of little joys, to sit and see
   Almost thy very growth, to view thee catch
   Knowledge of objects,—­wonders yet to thee,—­
   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 there is, yet something like to this.

----------

’Yet though dull hate as duty should be taught, I know that thou wilt love me; though my name Should be shut out from thee as spell still fraught With desolation and a broken claim, Though the grave close between us,—­’t were the same I know that thou wilt love me, though to drain My blood from out thy being were an aim And an attainment,—­all will be in vain.’

To all these charges against her, sent all over the world in verses as eloquent as the English language is capable of, the wife replied nothing.

   ’Assailed by slander and the tongue of strife,
   Her only answer was,—­a blameless life.’

She had a few friends, a very few, with whom she sought solace and sympathy.  One letter from her, written at this time, preserved by accident, is the only authentic record of how the matter stood with her.