w: we shall not meet again for some time, at all events--if
ever; and, under these circumstances, I trust to stand excused to you
and Mr. Sheridan for being unable to wait upon him this evening."

This was his last interview with his sister,--almost the only person
from whom he now parted with regret; it being, as he said, doubtful
_which_ had given him most pain, the enemies who attacked or the friends
who condoled with him. Those beautiful and most tender verses, "Though
the day of my destiny's over," were now his parting tribute to her[104]
who, through all this bitter trial, had been his sole consolation; and,
though known to most readers, so expressive are they of his wounded
feelings at this crisis, that there are few, I think, who will object to
seeing some stanzas of them here.

"Though the rock of my last hope is shiver'd,
And its fragments are sunk in the wave,
Though I feel that my soul is deliver'd
To pain--it shall not be its slave.
There is many a pang to pursue me:
They may crush, but they shall not contemn--
They may torture, but shall not subdue me--
'Tis of _thee_ that I think--not of them.

"Though human, thou didst not deceive me,
Though woman, thou didst not forsake,
Though lov'd, thou forborest to grieve me,
Though slander'd, thou never couldst shake,
Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me,
Though parted, it was not to fly,
Though watchful, 'twas not to defame me,
Nor mute, that the world might belie.

"From the wreck of the past, which hath perish'd,
Thus much I at least may recall,
It hath taught me that what I most cherish'd
Deserved to be dearest of all:
In the desert a fountain is springing,
In the wide waste there still is a tree,
And a bird in the solitude singing,
Which speaks to my spirit of _thee_.

On a scrap of paper, in his handwriting, dated April 14. 1816, I find
the following list of his attendants, with an annexed outline of his
projected tour:--"_Servants_, ---- Berger, a Swiss, William Fletcher,
and Robert Rushton.--John William Polidori, M.D.--Switzerland, Flanders,
Italy, and (perhaps) France." The two English servants, it will be
observed, were the same "yeoman" and "page" who had set out with him on
his youthful travels in 1809; and now,--for the second and last time
taking leave of his country,--on the 25th of April he sailed for Ostend.

T