“Woman! experience might have told me, That all must love thee who behold thee:Surely experience might have taughtThy firmest promises are nought:But, placed in all thy charms before me,All I forget, but to adore thee.”
“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”
“But first, on earth as vampire sent,Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent,Then ghastly haunt thy native place,And suck the blood of all thy race.There from thy daughter, sister, wife,At midnight drain the stream of life,Yet loathe the banquet which perforceMust feed thy livid living corse.Thy victims ere they yet expireShall know the demon for their sire,As cursing thee, thou cursing them,Thy flowers are withered on the stem.”
“The kiss, dear maid ! thy lip has leftShall never part from mine,Till happier hours restore the giftUntainted back to thine. Thy parting glance, which fondly beams,An equal love may see:The tear that from thine eyelid streamsCan weep no change in me. I ask no pledge to make me blestIn gazing when alone;Nor one memorial for a breast,Whose thoughts are all thine own. Nor need I write --- to tell the taleMy pen were doubly weak:Oh ! what can idle words avail,Unless the 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 ache for thee.”
“My Dearest Theresa,I have read this book in your garden, my love, you were absent, or else I could not have read it. It is a favourite book of mine. You will not understand these English words, and others will not understand them, which is the reason I have not scrawled them in Italian. But you will recognize the handwriting of him who passionately loved you, and you will divine that, over a book that was yours, he could only think of love.In that word, beautiful in all languages, but most so in yours, Amor mio, is comprised my existence here and thereafter. I feel I exist here, and I feel that I shall exist hereafter – to what purpose you will decide; my destiny rests with you, and you are a woman, eighteen years of age, and two out of a convent, I wish you had stayed there, with all my heart, or at least, that I had never met you in your married state.But all this is too late. I love you, and you love me, at least, you say so, and act as if you did so, which last is a great consolation in all events. But I more than love you, and cannot cease to love you. Think of me, sometimes, when the Alps and ocean divide us, but they never will, unless you wish it.”
“Remember thee! remember thee! Till Lethe quench life's burning stream Remorse and shame shall cling to thee, And haunt thee like a feverish dream! Remember thee! Aye, doubt it not. Thy husband too shall think of thee: By neither shalt thou be forgot, Thou false to him, thou fiend to me!”
“The poor dog, in life the firmest friend, The first to welcome, foremost to defend, Whose honest heart is still the master's own, Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone, Unhonour'd falls, unnoticed all his worth, Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth, While man, vain insect hopes to be forgiven, And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.”