Baron George Gordon Byron Byron

“ Deceive in life, unman in death.
7.
Then lonely be my latest hour,
Without regret, without a groan;
For thousands Death hath ceased to lower,
And pain been transient or unknown.
8.
"Aye but to die, and go," alas!
Where all have gone, and all must go!
To be the nothing that I was
Ere born to life and living woe!
9.
Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen,
Count o'er thy days from anguish free,
And know, whatever thou hast been,
'Tis something better not to be.
[First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (Second Edition) .] ”

“ Was Alp, the Adrian renegade! [343]
IV.
From Venice—once a race of worth
His gentle Sires—he drew his birth;
But late an exile from her shore, [oh]
Against his countrymen he bore
The arms they taught to bear; and now
The turban girt his shaven brow. 120
Through many a change had Corinth passed
With Greece to Venice' rule at last;
And here, before her walls, with those
To Greece and Venice equal foes,
He stood a foe, with all the zeal
Which young and fiery converts feel,
Within whose heated bosom throngs
The memory of a thousand wrongs. ”

“ But whispering tongues can poison truth:
And Constancy lives in realms above;
And Life is thorny; and youth is vain:
And to be wroth with one we love,
Doth work like madness in the brain;
But never either found another
To free the hollow heart from paining—
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between,
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween,
The marks of that which once hath been."
Coleridge's Christabel. [rh]
Fare thee well! ”

“ Though few the numbers—theirs the strife,
That neither spares nor speaks for life! [dp]
Ah! fondly youthful hearts can press,
To seize and share the dear caress;
But Love itself could never pant
For all that Beauty sighs to grant
With half the fervour Hate bestows
Upon the last embrace of foes,650
When grappling in the fight they fold
Those arms that ne'er shall lose their hold:
Friends meet to part; Love laughs at faith;
True foes, once met, are joined till death!
With sabre shivered to the hilt,
Yet dripping with the blood he spilt ”

“ To break or mingle bread with friends or foes;
It may seem strange—if there be aught to dread
That peril rests upon my single head;
But for thy sway—nay more—thy Sultan's throne,
I taste nor bread nor banquet—save alone;
Infringed our Order's rule, the Prophet's rage
To Mecca's dome might bar my pilgrimage."
"Well—as thou wilt—ascetic as thou art—
One question answer; then in peace depart. 740
How many?—Ha! it cannot sure be day?
What Star—what Sun is bursting on the bay?
It shines a lake of fire!—away—away!
Ho! treachery! my guards! my scimitar! ”

“ It is more than probable that in his twenty-sixth year Byron had not attained to perfect self-knowledge, but there is no reason to question his sincerity. That Byron loved to surround himself with mystery, and to dissociate himself from "the general," is true enough; but it does not follow that at all times and under all circumstances he was insincere. "Once a poseur always a poseur" is a rough-and-ready formula not invariably applicable even to a poet.
But the Bride of Abydos was a tonic as well as a styptic. ”

“ There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away,
When the glow of early thought declines in Feeling's dull decay;
'Tis not on Youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast, [ni]
But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere Youth itself be past.
[424]
2.
Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness
Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt or ocean of excess:
The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain
The shore to which their shivered sail shall never stretch again. ”

“ The boats are darting o'er the curly bay,
And sportive Dolphins bend them through the spray;
Even the hoarse sea-bird's shrill, discordant shriek,
Greets like the welcome of his tuneless beak! 1730
Beneath each lamp that through its lattice gleams,
Their fancy paints the friends that trim the beams.
Oh! what can sanctify the joys of home,
Like Hope's gay glance from Ocean's troubled foam? [il]
XIX.
The lights are high on beacon and from bower,
And 'midst them Conrad seeks Medora's tower:
He looks in vain—'tis strange—and all remark,
Amid so many, hers alone is dark. ”

“ To see thine own unstrung;
To think that God's fair world hath been
The footstool of a thing so mean;
X.
And Earth hath spilt her blood for him,
Who thus can hoard his own!
And Monarchs bowed the trembling limb,
And thanked him for a throne!
Fair Freedom! we may hold thee dear,
When thus thy mightiest foes their fear
In humblest guise have shown.
Oh! ne'er may tyrant leave behind
A brighter name to lure mankind! ”

“ Gaze where some distant sail a speck supplies,
With all the thirsting eye of Enterprise;
Tell o'er the tales of many a night of toil,
And marvel where they next shall seize a spoil:
No matter where—their chief's allotment this;
Theirs to believe no prey nor plan amiss. 60
But who that Chief? his name on every shore
Is famed and feared—they ask and know no more
With these he mingles not but to command;
Few are his words, but keen his eye and hand.
Ne'er seasons he with mirth their jovial mess,
But they forgive his silence for success. ”

“ Beneath that grief, that loneliness of lot,
Within that meek fair form, were feelings high,
That deemed not till they found their energy.
While yet was Hope they softened, fluttered, wept—
All lost—that Softness died not—but it slept;
And o'er its slumber rose that Strength which said,
"With nothing left to love, there's nought to dread."
'Tis more than Nature's—like the burning might
Delirium gathers from the fever's height. ”

“ This Seyd perceives, then first perceives how few,
Compared with his, the Corsair's roving crew,
And blushes o'er his error, as he eyes
[258] The ruin wrought by Panic and Surprise. 840
Alla il Alla! Vengeance swells the cry—
Shame mounts to rage that must atone or die!
And flame for flame and blood for blood must tell.
The tide of triumph ebbs that flowed too well—
When Wrath returns to renovated strife,
And those who fought for conquest strike for life.
Conrad beheld the danger—he beheld
His followers faint by freshening foes repelled:
"One effort—one—to break the circling host!" ”

“ Forth flies each sabre, reined is every steed,
And the next word shall scarce outstrip the deed:
In the next tone of Lara's gathering breath
How many shall but hear the voice of Death!
XIV.
His blade is bared,—in him there is an air
As deep, but far too tranquil for despair; 990
A something of indifference more than then
Becomes the bravest, if they feel for men—
He turned his eye on Kaled, ever near,
And still too faithful to betray one fear ”

“ Byron, no doubt, for better or worse, was in advance of his age, in the pursuit of art for art's sake, and in his indifference, not to morality—the dénouement of the story is severely moral—but to the moral edification of his readers. The tale was chosen because it is a tale of love and guilt and woe, and the poet, unconcerned with any other issue, sets the tale to an enchanting melody. It does not occur to him to condone or to reprobate the loves of Hugo and Parisina, and in detailing the issue leaves the actors to their fate. ”

“ For it was not the blind capricious rage [kl] 790
A word can kindle and a word assuage;
But the deep working of a soul unmixed
With aught of pity where its wrath had fixed;
Such as long power and overgorged success
Concentrates into all that's merciless:
These, linked with that desire which ever sways
Mankind, the rather to condemn than praise,
'Gainst Lara gathering raised at length a storm,
Such as himself might fear, and foes would form,
And he must answer for the absent head 800
Of one that haunts him still, alive or dead. ”

“ None saw his trickling tears—perchance, if seen, 1820
That useless flood of grief had never been:
Nor long they flowed—he dried them to depart,
In helpless—hopeless—brokenness of heart:
The Sun goes forth, but Conrad's day is dim:
And the night cometh—ne'er to pass from him. [io]
There is no darkness like the cloud of mind,
On Grief's vain eye—the blindest of the blind!
Which may not—dare not see—but turns aside
To blackest shade—nor will endure a guide!
XXIII. [237]
His heart was formed for softness—warped to wrong, 1830
Betrayed too early, and beguiled too long ”

“ It is delightful and interesting and, in a measure, instructive to know what great poets of his own time and of ours have thought of Byron, how he "strikes" them; but unless we are ourselves saturated with his thought and style, unless we learn to breathe his atmosphere by reading the books which he read, picturing to ourselves the scenes which he saw,—unless we aspire to his ideals and suffer his limitations, we are in no way entitled to judge his poems, whether they be good or bad. ”

“ Which seen from far Colonna's height,
Make glad the heart that hails the sight,
And lend to loneliness delight.
There shine the bright abodes ye seek,
Like dimples upon Occan's cheek,
So smiling round the waters lave
These Edens of the Eastern wave.
Or if, at times, the transient breeze
Break the smooth crystal of the seas,
Or brush one blossom from the trees,
How grateful is each gentle air
That wakes and wafts the fragrance there.— [MS.]
——the fragrance there.— [Second Edition.]
[56] The attachment of the nightingale to the rose is a well-known Persian fable. ”

“ To flesh their glowing valour on the Greek;
How well such deed becomes the turbaned brave—
To bare the sabre's edge before a slave!
Infest his dwelling—but forbear to slay,
Their arms are strong, yet merciful to-day,
And do not deign to smite because they may!
Unless some gay caprice suggests the blow,
To keep in practice for the coming foe. 630
Revel and rout the evening hours beguile,
And they who wish to wear a head must smile;
For Moslem mouths produce their choicest cheer,
And hoard their curses, till the coast is clear.
II.
High in his hall reclines the turbaned Seyd ”

“ No poet of his own or other times, not Walter Scott, not Tennyson, not Mr. Kipling, was ever in his own lifetime so widely, so amazingly popular. Thousands of copies of the "Tales"—of the Bride of Abydos, of the Corsair, of Lara—were sold in a day, and edition followed edition month in and month out. Everywhere men talked about the "noble author"—in the capitals of Europe, in literary circles in the United States, in the East Indies. ”

“ His bugle—brief the blast—but shrilly blew;
'Tis answered—"Well ye speed, my gallant crew!
Why did I doubt their quickness of career?
And deem design had left me single here?"
Sweeps his long arm—that sabre's whirling sway
Sheds fast atonement for its first delay;
Completes his fury, what their fear begun,
And makes the many basely quail to one.
The cloven turbans o'er the chamber spread, 780
And scarce an arm dare rise to guard its head:
Even Seyd, convulsed, o'erwhelmed, with rage, surprise,
Retreats before him, though he still defies. ”

“ It was Childe Harold, the unfinished, immature Childe Harold, and the Turkish and other "Tales," which raised this sudden and deafening storm of applause when the century was young, and now, at its close (I refer, of course, to the Tales, not to Byron's poetry as a whole, which, in spite of the critics, has held and still holds its own) , are ignored if not forgotten, passed over if not despised—which but few know thoroughly, and "very few" are found to admire or to love. ”

“ The text as it stands first appears in the Seventh Edition.
[First Draft of 880, sq., of Canto II. Stanz xx. of the Bride of Abydos.]
For thee in those bright isles is built a bower
Aden, in its earliest hour
Blooming as Eden—guarded like a tower
A thousand swords—thy Selim's soul and hand
Wait on thy voice, and bow to thy command
pair
No Danger daunts—the souls that Love hath blest
steps still roving
With feet long-wandering—but with hearts at rest. ”

“ Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner. Nay, more, the knowledge, the comprehension of essential greatness in art, in nature, or in man is not to know that there is aught to forgive. But that sufficing knowledge which the reader of average intelligence brings with him for the comprehension and appreciation of contemporary [viii] literature has to be bought at the price of close attention and patient study when the subject-matter of a poem and the modes and movements of the poet's consciousness are alike unfamiliar. ”

“ Is this the Poem which the public lost?
"True—true—that lowers at once our mounting pride;"
But lo;—the Papers print what you deride.
"'Tis ours to look on you—you hold the prize,"
'Tis twenty guineas, as they advertise! 50
"A double blessing your rewards impart"—
I wish I had them, then, with all my heart.
"Our twofold feeling owns its twofold cause,"
Why son and I both beg for your applause.
"When in your fostering beams you bid us live,"
My next subscription list shall say how much you give! ”