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b"Lord Byron read by Classic Poetry Aloud:\\nhttp://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/\\n\\nGiving voice to the poetry of the past.\\n\\n---------------------------------------\\n\\nStanzas to Augusta\\nby Lord Byron (1788 \\u2013 1824)\\n\\nWhen all around grew drear and dark,\\nAnd reason half withheld her ray\\u2014 \\nAnd hope but shed a dying spark\\nWhich more misled my lonely way;\\n\\nIn that deep midnight of the mind,\\nAnd that internal strife of heart,\\nWhen dreading to be deemed too kind,\\nThe weak despair\\u2014the cold depart;\\n\\nWhen fortune changed\\u2014and love fled far,\\nAnd hatred's shafts flew thick and fast,\\nThou wert the solitary star\\nWhich rose, and set not to the last.\\n\\nOh, blest be thine unbroken light!\\nThat watched me as a seraph's eye,\\nAnd stood between me and the night,\\nFor ever shining sweetly nigh.\\n\\nAnd when the cloud upon us came,\\nWhich strove to blacken o'er thy ray\\u2014 \\nThen purer spread its gentle flame,\\nAnd dashed the darkness all away.\\n\\nStill may thy spirit dwell on mine,\\nAnd teach it what to brave or brook\\u2014 \\nThere's more in one soft word of thine\\nThan in the world's defied rebuke.\\n\\nThou stood'st as stands a lovely tree\\nThat, still unbroke though gently bent,\\nStill waves with fond fidelity\\nIts boughs above a monument.\\n\\nThe winds might rend, the skies might pour,\\nBut there thou wert\\u2014and still wouldst be\\nDevoted in the stormiest hour\\nTo shed thy weeping leaves o'er me.\\n\\nBut thou and thine shall know no blight,\\nWhatever fate on me may fall;\\nFor heaven in sunshine will requite\\nThe kind\\u2014and thee the most of all.\\n\\nThen let the ties of baffled love\\nBe broken\\u2014thine will never break;\\nThy heart can feel\\u2014but will not move;\\nThy soul, though soft, will never shake.\\n\\nAnd these, when all was lost beside,\\nWere found, and still are fixed in thee;\\u2014\\nAnd bearing still a breast so tried,\\nEarth is no desert\\u2014e'en to me. \\n\\nFirst aired: 20 November 2009\\n\\nFor hundreds more poetry readings, visit the Classic Poetry Aloud index.\\n\\nReading \\xa9 Classic Poetry Aloud 2009"