Lord Byron (1788 – 1824)
Generally known as Lord Byron, was an Anglo-Scottish poet and leading figure in Romanticism.
You speak of Lord Byron and me — there is this great difference between us. He describes what he sees — I describe what I imagine. Mine is the hardest task.
Farewell! if ever fondest prayer
For other's weal avail'd on high,
Mine will not all be lost in air,
But waft thy name beyond the sky.
If I could envy any man for successful ill nature I should envy Lord Byron for his skill in satirical nomenclature.
I'll publish right or wrong:
Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.
Seek out — less often sought than found —
A Soldier's Grave, for thee the best;
Then look around and choose thy Ground,
And take thy Rest.
Better to sink beneath the shock
Than moulder piecemeal on the rock.
Whose game was empires and whose stakes were thrones,
Whose table earth, whose dice were human bones.
So, we'll go no more a roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
The heart ran o'er
With silent worship of the great of old!
The dead but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns.
The "good old times" — all times when old are good —
Are gone.
But take this with thee: if I was not form'd
To prize a love like thine, a mind like thine,
Nor dote even on thy beauty — as I've doted
On lesser charms, for no cause save that such
Devotion was a duty, and I hated
All that look'd like a chain for me or others
(This even rebellion must avouch); yet hear
These words, perhaps among my last — that none
E'er valued more thy virtues, though he knew not
To profit by them…
I die — but first I have possessed,
And come what may, I have been blessed.
Divine in hookas, glorious in a pipe
When tipp'd with amber, mellow, rich, and ripe;
Like other charmers, wooing the caress
More dazzlingly when daring in full dress;
Yet thy true lovers more admire by far
Thy naked beauties—give me a cigar!
It would be difficult, perhaps, to find the annals of a nation less stained with crimes than those of the Armenians, whose virtues have been those of peace, and their vices those of compulsion. But whatever may have been their destiny — and it has been bitter — whatever it may be in future, their country must ever be one of the most interesting on the globe.
Maid of Athens, ere we part,
Give, oh give me back my heart!
Mad, bad and dangerous to know.
Mont Blanc is the Monarch of mountains;
They crowned him long ago,
On a throne of rocks — in a robe of clouds –
With a Diadem of Snow.
'Twas thine own genius gave the final blow,
And help'd to plant the wound that laid thee low:
So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain,
No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
View'd his own feather on the fatal dart,
And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart.
His heart was one of those which most enamour us,
Wax to receive, and marble to retain:
He was a lover of the good old school,
Who still become more constant as they cool.
When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half brokenhearted,
To sever for years.