George Gordon, Lord Byron

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON (1788-1824), who best WRITTEN AFTER SWIMMING FROM SESTOS TO personified the proud, agonized, solitary figure of the Romantic ABYDOS artist during his lifetime, was born near Aberdeen Scotland. He inherited the hereditary title and estate of an uncle at age ten. If, in the month of dark December, Born with a clubfoot, he compensated by becoming an excellent Leander, who was nightly wont swimmer. He was educated at Cambridge. Even in the (What maid will not the tale remember?) decadent Regency Society of the 1800s and 1810s, Byron To cross thy stream, broad Hellespont! managed to court infamy. He conducted affairs with a number of women, including Lady Oxford and Lady Caroline Lamb; he If, when the wintry tempest roared, is also rumored to have had homosexual affairs as well as an He sped to Hero, nothing loath, incestuous relationship with a half-sister Augusta Leigh (whom And thus of old thy current poured, he met as an adult). In 1815 he married the conventional Anne Fair Venus! how I pity both! Milbanke with whom he had a daughter Ada; however, they separated the following year. Byron's literary persona played For me, degenerate modern wretch, up the role of persecuted outsider haunted by unspeakable sins. Though in the genial month of May, Though his early works were dismissed, the appearance of the My dripping limbs I faintly stretch, first two cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage in 1812 made And think I've done a feat today. him an overnight sensation. Despite, or perhaps because of, the literary device of the persona “Childe” or “Knight” Harold, But since he crossed the rapid tide, Byron became inextricably associated with the pose of world- According to the doubtful story, weary Nietzchean anti-hero. Later Byron would toy with the To woo -and -Lord knows what beside, anti-hero character in the mock-epic masterpiece Don Juan. And swam for Love, as I for Glory; Though a close friend and poetic peer of Percy Shelley and an admirer of Coleridge, Byron was never fully at home with the 'Twere hard to say who fared the best: Romantic method or theory as articulated by Wordsworth and Sad mortals! thus the gods still plague you! Coleridge. Byron relied upon complex stanzaic patterns with He lost his labour, I my jest; intricate rhyme schemes such as Rhyme Royale (used in Don For he was drowned, and I've the ague. Juan). He adopted a literary tone less filled with Romantic awe of the universal spirit than the biting neoclassic satire of a Swift or Pope that is quicker to see the flaws of human nature rather THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB its potential. A defender of human rights and national liberty, Byron died—rather unheroically, of a fever—in a failed 1 campaign for Greek independence from Turkish rule. The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. 1 2 She walks in Beauty, like the night Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green, Of cloudless climes and starry skies; That host with their banners at sunset were seen: And all that’s best of dark and bright Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown, Meet in her aspect and her eyes: That host on the morrow lay withered and strown. Thus mellow’d to that tender light Which Heaven to gaudy day denies. 3 For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, 2 And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass’d, One shade the more, one ray the less, And the eyes of the sleepers wax’d deadly and chill, Had half impair’d the nameless grace And their hearts but once heav’d—and for ever grew still! Which waves in every raven tress, Or softly lightens o’er her face; 4 Where thoughts serenely sweet express And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. But through it there roll’d not the breath of his pride; And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, 3 And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf. And on that cheek, and o’er that brow, So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, 5 The smiles that win, the tints that glow, And there lay the rider distorted and pale, But tell of days in goodness spent, With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail: A mind at peace with all below, And the tents were all silent—the banners alone— A heart whose love is innocent! The lances unlifted—the trumpets unblown. 49 6 And gnash’d their teeth and howl’d: the wild birds shriek’d And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal; And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl’d Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord! And twin’d themselves among the multitude, Hissing, but stingless—they were slain for food. And War, which for a moment was no more, SO WE'LL GO NO MORE A-ROVING Did glut himself again: a meal was bought With blood, and each sate sullenly apart 1 Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left; So, we’ll go no more a-roving All earth was but one thought—and that was death So late into the night, Immediate and inglorious; and the pang Though the heart be still as loving, Of famine fed upon all entrails—men And the moon be still as bright. Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh; The meagre by the meagre were devour’d, 2 Even dogs assail’d their masters, all save one, For the sword outwears its sheath, And he was faithful to a corse, and kept And the soul wears out the breast, The birds and beasts and famish’d men at bay, And the heart must pause to breathe, Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead And Love itself have rest. Lur’d their lank jaws; himself sought out no food, But with a piteous and perpetual moan, 3 And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand Though the night was made for loving, Which answer’d not with a caress—he died. And the day returns too soon, The crowd was famish’d by degrees; but two Yet we’ll go no more a-roving Of an enormous city did survive, By the light of the moon. And they were enemies: they met beside The dying embers of an altar-place Where had been heap’d a mass of holy things DARKNESS For an unholy usage; they rak’d up, And shivering scrap’d with their cold skeleton hands I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars Blew for a little life, and made a flame Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Which was a mockery; then they lifted up Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; Each other’s aspects—saw, and shriek’d, and died— Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day, Even of their mutual hideousness they died, And men forgot their passions in the dread Unknowing who he was upon whose brow Of this their desolation; and all hearts Famine had written Fiend. The world was void, Were chill’d into a selfish prayer for light: The populous and the powerful was a lump, And they did live by watchfires—and the thrones, Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless— The palaces of crowned kings—the huts, A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay. The habitations of all things which dwell, The rivers, lakes and ocean all stood still, Were burnt for beacons; cities were consum’d, And nothing stirr’d within their silent depths; And men were gather’d round their blazing homes Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea, To look once more into each other’s face; And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp’d Happy were those who dwelt within the eye They slept on the abyss without a surge— Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch: The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave, A fearful hope was all the world contain’d; The moon, their mistress, had expir’d before; Forests were set on fire—but hour by hour The winds were wither’d in the stagnant air, They fell and faded—and the crackling trunks And the clouds perish’d; Darkness had no need Extinguish’d with a crash—and all was black. Of aid from them—She was the Universe. The brows of men by the despairing light Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits The flashes fell upon them; some lay down ON THIS DAY I COMPLETE MY THIRTY-SIXTH YEAR And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smil’d; 1 And others hurried to and fro, and fed ’Tis time the heart should be unmoved, Their funeral piles with fuel, and look’d up Since others it hath ceased to move: With mad disquietude on the dull sky, Yet, though I cannot be beloved, The pall of a past world; and then again Still let me love! With curses cast them down upon the dust, 50 2 When last I saw thy young blue eyes, they smiled, My days are in the yellow leaf; And then we parted,--not as now we part, The flowers and fruits of Love are gone; But with a hope.

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