Herewith are some selections from "Leon to Annabella", a poem once attributed to Lord Byron, purporting to tell the
truth about his marriage to Annabella Milbanke. The gist
of the poem is that Byron's offense against marriage was not
incest but sodomy. This thesis, and the attribution are now believed to be false, but the poem still has an interest for Byron fans:
LEON TO ANNABELLA
Oh! Woman, oft the homage you inspire
Is not on you bestowed, but your attire.
For who can say if what delights our eyes
Is nature's self, or nature in disguise?
In airy dreams imagination strays,
Counts every charm, and daring, seems to raise
The jealous robe that hides your snowy limbs
Till, drunk with thought, the brain in pleasure swims.
Vain hopes! which cruel disappointments pay.
That tissue covers only mortal clay.
When marriage comes the gaudy vestments fall,
And all our joys may prove apocryphal.
The bridegroom's happy who, between the sheets,
Without allow the promised banquet meets.
What lot was mine - and on my wedding night
What viands waited on my appetite -
I will not say: but e'en the best repast,
Repeated often, surfeits us at last.
The surfeit came: to this my crime amounts,
I fain would slake my thirst from other founts.
But not like those, who, with adult'rous steps,,
Seek courtesans and hackneyed demireps.
I left thee not beneath a widowed quilt
To take another partner of my guilt.
Thy charms were still my refuge - only this,
I hoped to find variety in bliss.
Oh, lovely woman! By your Maker's hand
For man's delight and solace wisely planned,
Thankless is she who nature's bounty mocks,
Nor gives love entrance wheresoe'er he knocks.
Matrons of Rome! Held ye yourselves disgraced
In yielding to your husband's wayward taste?
Ah, no! By tender complaisance ye reigned,
No wife of wounded modesty complained.
But now no couple can in safety lie:
Between the sheets salacious lawyers pry.
Yet nature varies not: desires we feel
As Romans felt; but woe if we reveal,
For what were errors then, out happy times
With sainted zeal have registered as crimes.
Virtues and vices have no certain dye,
But take the color of society.
The ore which bears the impress of the crown
Is passed as standard money through the town,
But what we fashion into private plate,
We keep at home and never circulate.
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