Lord Byron (1788 – 1824)
Generally known as Lord Byron, was an Anglo-Scottish poet and leading figure in Romanticism.
'Tis pleasure, sure, to see one's name in print;
A book's a book, although there's nothing in 't.
Hope withering fled, and Mercy sighed farewell!
Folly loves the martyrdom of fame.
For most men (till by losing rendered sager)
Will back their own opinions by a wager.
Knowledge is not happiness, and science
But an exchange of ignorance for that
Which is another kind of ignorance.
Sighing that Nature formed but one such man,
And broke the die, in molding Sheridan.
There 's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away.
Were't the last drop in the well,
As I gasp'd upon the brink,
Ere my fainting spirit fell
'T is to thee that I would drink.
What say you to such a supper with such a woman?
The power of thought,—the magic of the mind!
What helps it now, that Byron bore,
With haughty scorn which mocked the smart,
Through Europe to the Aetolian shore
The pageant of his bleeding heart?
That thousands counted every groan,
And Europe made his woe her own?
Who hath not proved how feebly words essay
To fix one spark of beauty's heavenly ray?
Who doth not feel, until his failing sight
Faints into dimness with its own delight,
His changing cheek, his sinking heart, confess
The might, the majesty of loveliness?
Hark! to the hurried question of despair:
"Where is my child?"—an echo answers, "Where?"
Always looking at himself in mirrors to make sure he was sufficiently outrageous.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon.
Hands promiscuously applied,
Round the slight waist, or down the glowing side.
Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most
Must mourn the deepest o’er the fatal truth,
The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life.
The world is a bundle of hay,
Mankind are the asses that pull,
Each tugs in a different way—
And the greatest of all is John Bull!
Oh! if thou hast at length
Discover'd that my love is worth esteem,
I ask no more—but let us hence together,
And I — let me say we — shall yet be happy.
Assyria is not all the earth—we'll find
A world out of our own — and be more bless'd
Than I have ever been, or thou, with all
An empire to indulge thee.
Such hath it been — shall be — beneath the sun
The many still must labour for the one!