Explore "Epistle to a Friend, in Answer to some Lines Exhorting the Author to be Cheerful, and to Banish Care" by Lord Byron on Textopian.
‘OH! banish care' - such ever be / The motto of thy revelry! / Perchance of mine, when wassail nights / Renew those riotous delights, / Wherewith the children of Despair / Lull the lone heart, and `banish care. ' / But not in morn's reflecting hour, / When present, past, and future lower, / When all I loved is changed or gone, / Mock with such taunts the woes of one, / Whose every thought - but let them pass / Thou know'st I am not what I was.
But, above all, if thou wouldst hold / Place in a heart that ne'er was cold, / By all the powers that men revere, / By all unto thy bosom dear, / Thy joys below, thy hopes above, / Speak - speak of anything but love.