Lord Byron (1788 – 1824)
Generally known as Lord Byron, was an Anglo-Scottish poet and leading figure in Romanticism.
When all of genius which can perish dies.
In the desert a fountain is springing,
In the wide waste there still is a tree,
And a bird in the solitude singing,
Which speaks to my spirit of thee.
Lord Byron makes man after his own image, woman after his own heart; the one is a capricious tyrant, the other a yielding slave.
I never heard a single expression of fondness for him fall from the lips of any of those who knew him well.
My boat is on the shore,
And my bark is on the sea;
But, before I go, Tom Moore.
Here's a double health to thee!
When age chills the blood, when our pleasures are past—
For years fleet away with the wings of the dove—
The dearest remembrance will still be the last,
Our sweetest memorial the first kiss of love.
Shrine of the mighty! can it be
That this is all remains of thee?
Oh who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried.
Because
He is all-powerful, must all-good, too, follow?
I judge but by the fruits—and they are bitter—
Which I must feed on for a fault not mine.
Yet truth will sometimes lend her noblest fires,
And decorate the verse herself inspires:
This fact, in virtue's name, let Crabbe attest,—
Though Nature's sternest painter, yet the best.
Eat, drink, and love; the rest's not worth a fillip.
How my soul hates This language,
Which makes life itself a lie,
Flattering dust with eternity.
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
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,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
In secret we met
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.
O Mirth and Innocence! O milk and water!
Ye happy mixtures of more happy days.
There be none of Beauty's daughters
With a magic like thee;
And like music on the waters
Is thy sweet voice to me.
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast.
I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
In a room at the end of the garden to this house was a magnificent rocking-horse, which a friend had given my little boy; and Lord Byron, with a childish glee becoming a poet, would ride upon it. Ah! why did he ever ride his Pegasus to less advantage?