Think of Me Sometimes

A letter from Lord Byron to Countess Teresa Guiccioli, 25 August 1819

In the summer of 1819, Lord Byron sat alone in the garden of a villa in Bologna. He had been exiled from England, infamous and brilliant, carrying the weight of scandal and poetry wherever he went.

His lover, Teresa Guiccioli, an Italian countess, was away. She was nineteen and newly married to an older nobleman - a political marriage, at best.

Byron had met Teresa earlier that year in Venice, where he had taken refuge after leaving England. Their attraction was immediate. Despite the risk to her reputation and safety, she became his lover. He later moved to Ravenna to be closer to her, and for a time, they lived semi-openly.

Their relationship unfolded across years of separation, handwritten letters, and shifting loyalties. But in this moment of solitude, he wrote what would become one of the most intimate and enduring letters of his life - a quiet refusal to let go of their love, even in the face of reality.

Ultimately, their connection was undone by circumstance: her marriage, political pressure, and Byron’s growing involvement in the Greek War of Independence. When he left for Greece in 1823, it marked the end of their time together. He died less than a year later.

 My dearest Teresa,

I have read this book in your garden — my love, you were absent, or else I could not have read it.

It is a favourite book of yours, and the writer was a friend of mine. You will not understand these English words, and others will not understand them — which is the reason I have written them.

In that word, beautiful in all languages, but most so in yours — Amor mio — is comprised my existence here and hereafter.

I feel I exist here, and I fear that I shall exist hereafter — to what purpose, you will decide. My destiny rests with you, and you are a woman, eighteen years old and two out of a convent. I wish that you had stayed there with all my heart — or, at least, that I had never met you in your married state.

But all this is too late. I love you, and you love me — at least, you say so, and act as if you did so, which last is a great consolation in all events.

But I more than love you, and cannot cease to love you. Think of me sometimes, when the Alps and the ocean divide us — but they never will, unless you wish it.

Byron