LORD BYRON
Sad Mary, holding the burnt up ashes
of the sea-changéd scribe who sweetened all
our days, only to bittersome your nights,
Take his luckless remains to the tomb. Place them
so high so they can a dusty beacon
be to all who seek and wonder in Rome.
MARY SHELLEY
Thank you, Lord Byron, for these most warm and
comforting words. What should I say, my friends?
Bysshe was a husband overwhelmed too soon,
and a poet too untimely dampened.
I will keep his heart as a tender, yet
ghoulish, reminder of the days we had.
EDWARD TRELAWNY
And I will be the one to pluck his still
unblemish'd heart from the dying embers!
My moustache bespeaks me fit for this task!
But Mary, have you yet heard about the
dream that Percy had in which Allegra
rose from the sea as if to speak with him.
LORD BYRON
Yes, sir, we know my daughter beckoned him
to the waves. The newly dead have a
fearsome power over we who live, and
might convince a weary man, burdened with the
woe this life heaps up, to foredo himself.
In spite of this, we should not blame the girl.
