She Walks In Beauty 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 mellowed to that tender light Which Heaven to gaudy day denies. One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress, Or softly lightens o'er her face; Where thoughts serenely sweet express, How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, The smiles that win, the tints that glow, But tell of days in goodness spent, A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent!

i just love this piece!

When We Two Parted 1. When we two parted In silence and tears, Half broken-hearted To sever for years, Pale grew thy cheek and cold, Colder thy kiss; Truly that hour foretold Sorrow to this. 2. The dew of the morning Sunk chill on my brow-- It felt like the warning Of what I feel now. Thy vows were all broken, And light is thy fame; I hear thy name spoken, And share in its shame. 3. They name thee before me, A knell to mine ear; A shudder comes o'er me-- Why wert thou so dear? They know not I knew thee, Who knew thee too well:-- Long, long shall I rue thee, Too deeply to tell. 4. 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. This poem just spoke right to my heart the first time I read it, and I immediately fell in love with Byron's poetry. Now, I'm doing my graduate work in Byron and Gothic literature, so I'd be happy to discuss him with anyone!

I love both those pieces. There was a little Jerry Lee Lewis in Byron. He wrote "She Walks in Beauty" about his cousin. I also love both "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" and "Don Juan" (Don Joo-en). If 'ol George Gordon were around now, he'd be writing lyrics for someone like the Moody Blues.

Hmm, I hadn't thought of what Byron would be doing if he were alive today--maybe he'd be another Mick Jagger or Howard Stern (but poetic.) Whatever he would be doing, I'm sure it would be all over the Internet! For example, take his poem "Versicles": I read the "Christabel;" Very well: I read the "Missionary;" Pretty--very: I tried at "Ilderim;" Ahem! I read a sheet of "Marg'ret of Anjou;" Can you?; I turned a page of Webster's "Waterloo;" Pooh! Pooh! I looked at Wordsworth's milk-white "Rylstone Doe;" Hillo! I read "Glenarvon," too, by Caro Lamb; God damn!

He certainly had command of impact and rhythm: 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. Verse 1 from "The Destruction of Sennacherib"

You can just flip through a book of Byron's works and come up with a gem by serendipity--I just opened up to a page of "Don Juan" and saw this at the top: And then she had recourse to nods, and signs, And smiles, and sparkles of the speaking eye, And read (the only book she could) the lines Of his fair face, and found, by sympathy, The answer eloquent, where the soul shines And darts in one quick glance a long reply; And thus in every look she saw exprest A world of words, and things at which she guess'd.

oooh, that is sooo goood! Thanks!

thanks, guys and gals for posting those pieces. do keep it coming!

"Stanzas for Music" I speak not--I trace not--I breathe not thy name, There is grief in the sound--there were guilt in the fame; But the tear which now burns on my cheek may impart The deep thought that dwells in that silence of heart. Too brief our passion, too long for our peace, Were those hours, can their joy or their bitterness cease? We repent--we abjure--we will break from our chain; We must part--we must fly to--unite it again. Oh! thine be the gladness and mine be the guilt, Forgive me adored one--forsake if thou wilt; But the heart which I bear shall expire undebased, And man shall not break it--whatever thou may'st. And stern to the haughty, but humble to thee, My soul in its bitterest blackness shall be; And our days seem as swift--and our moments more sweet, With thee by my side--than the world at our feet. One sigh of thy sorrow--one look of thy love, Shall turn me or fix, shall reward or reprove; And the heartless may wonder at all we resign, Thy lip shall not reply to them--but to mine. (I am so glad I chose to study Byron for my graduate research!) Hey, has anyone read the new biography of him by Benita Eisler? I've started it, and I'd like to know what someone else thinks of it!

They Say That Hope is Happiness "Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas." Virgil (Happy is he who has been able to learn the causes of things.) 1. They say that Hope is happiness-- But genuine Love must prize the past; And Mem'ry wakes the thoughts that bless: They rose the first--they set the last. 2. And all that mem'ry loves the most Was once our only hope to be: And all that hope adroed and lost Hath melted into memory. 3. Alas! it is delusion all-- The future cheats us from afar: Nor can we be what we recall, Nor dare we think on what we are.

Mark, that is my Favorite Byron!!! It just rolls trippingly on my brain...have not tried to tougue it as yet...

I like that passage too, Mark. Anapestic tetrameter is a rare scansion and few poets have the skill to pull it off. Byron was a master!

This is a nice little poem, and one of Byron's most famous. "So We'll Go No More A-Roving" 1. 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. 2. For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And Love itself have rest. 3. 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. (It is said that this poem is ironic--on the surface, it's about mortality, but Byron really wrote it about his hangover after Mardi Gras in Venice.)

(I did not know that...funny! and interesting!) Amy!!! Howard Stern?! Byron could never be that crude!

Okay, so maybe Howard Stern was a bad choice. I was just trying to think of someone popular, yet extremely controversial. And you're right--Byron was a tastefully debauched person!

I'm going to get blasted for saying this, but I wish there were women coming into my radio studio to show me their hooters like they do for Howard. I could deal with a bit of that debauchery.

There you go! Tastefully debauched...I like that!!!

John!!!!

And not like Howard Stern is good looking or anything--he's skinny and he has a big nose! (I think Byron had a big nose, too--so what does that say?)

Um....that he is sensitive? Noble? He inherited it???!!! I would join a convent rather than ...well...HS turns me off, let's put it that way.

Howard's rich and famous...and Byron was the most famous poet of his day and had a title, although I don't believe he was ever a fabulously wealthy man. He "woke up famous" after Childe Harold. He also had a club foot and fought a weight problem all his life, but he was the closest thing that England had to a rock star at that time.

I'm being honese...like it or not. Just like Jesse V!

I'm being honest...like it or not. Just like Jesse V!

Oh please, could we refrain from talking about Jesse Ventura in the hallowed halls of Lord Byrondom? Byron would have found him an ill-bred clod. And I completely agree with you, Marcia--Howard Stern does NOTHING for me! What I was trying to say is that some women seem to be unusually attracted to men with big noses. Don't ask me why, but I will say that my old sweetheart had a nose that was just a bit too aquiline (or noble, like Byron's, if you prefer. It made him look very aristocratic and haughty.)

Sorry you find my honesty crude. I'll just refrain, period.

Well, having a well-endowed nose, myself...it is easier from which to look down upon others with contempt than a little up-turned one...! (let's not discuss the proper use of English and my convoluted attempt not to end the sentence with a preposition...)

Stanzas for Music (not the same poem) 1. There's not a joy in 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, But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past. 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 shiver'd sail shall never stretch again. 3. Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself comes down; It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream its own; That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our tears, And tho' the eye may sparkle still, 'tis where the ice appears. 4. Tho' wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast, Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest; 'Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruin'd turret wreath, All green and wildly fresh without but worn and grey beneath. 5. Oh could I feel as I have felt,--or be what I have been, Or weep as I could once have wept, o'er many a vanished scene: As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though they be, So midst the wither'd waste of life, those tears would flow to me. (Isn't that terribly sad? It's beautifully melancholy.)

This is not a good day for me to read that, but how incredibly moving it is. Lump in the throat to prove it! So beautifully melancholy, indeed! *sob*

The French Romanticists called that "la melancolie douce"--sweet melancholy.

The Irish just call for another round into which to cry!

You are exactly right about that! I saw a magnet once that said, "An Irishman has an innate sense of tragedy to get him through momentary periods of joy." Ain't it the truth!

*lol* I guess, with your name, you would know about these things! Irish playwrights have played this theme over and over and it always rings true!

Great posting, Amy. I particularly love the "I speak not" poem, which I have never seen before. I haven't seen the biography, but I remember hearing that Byron kept a pet bear in his rooms while at Oxford. The (repeated) title of "Stanzas for Music" suggests that he was just dashing off these verses for a project or something - in which case maybe he didn't experience himself the depth of emotion he imparts to us! And just to continue the OT theme about tragedy/melancholy in Irish writing "The great Gaels of Ireland Are the people God made mad, For all their wars are merry, And all their songs are sad."

the byron was tremendous... cool to see there are people out there still reading (real) poetry

And researching and writing papers about it, too!

and, Nick...it is also cool to see people still writing (real)poetry. We miss yours...*sigh*

It's been a little while since I posted anything here, I think I'll start it up again. Stanzas to [Augusta] 1. Though the day of my destiny's over, And the star of my fate hath declined, Thy soft heart refused to discover The faults which so many could find; Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted, It shrunk not to share it with me, And the love which my spirit hath painted It never hath found but in thee. 2. Then when nature around me is smiling The last smile which answers to mine, I do not believe it beguiling Because it reminds me of thine; And when winds are at war with the ocean, As the breasts I believed in with me, If their billows excite an emotion It is that they bear me from thee. 3. Though the rock of my last hope is shiver'd, And its fragments are sunk in the wave, Though I feel that my soul is deliver'd To pain--it shall not be its slave. There is many a pang to pursue me: They may crush, but they shall not contemn-- They may torture, but shall not subdue me-- 'Tis of thee that I think--not of them. 4. Though human, thou didst not deceive me, Though woman, thou didst not forsake, Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me, Though slander'd, thou never could'st shake,-- Though trusted, thou didst not betray me, Though parted, it was not to fly, Though watchful, 'twas not to defame me, Nor, mute, that the world might belie. 5. Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it, Nor the war of the many with one-- If my soul was not fitted to prize it 'Twas folly not sooner to shun: And if dearly that error hath cost me, And more than I once could foresee, I have found that, whatever it lost me, It could not deprive me of thee. 6. From the wreck of the past, which hath perish'd, Thus much I at least may recall, It hath taught me that what I most cherish'd Deserved to be dearest of all: In the desert a fountain is springing, In the wide waste there is still a tree, And a bird in solitude singing, Which speaks to my spirit of thee.

Byron! I LOVE his fantastic tales, which are a mix of Irish folk lore with - for me at least - Lovecraft-meets-Tolkien. Neat!

Oooh, Alexander - what a great way to state Byron's appeal...Lovecraft-meets-Tolkien. Absolutely! Lovely stuff.

Hmm--Lovecraft meets Tolkien...I don't know that I can really see the connection. I consider both of them to be fantasy writers, and although Byron wrote some fantastic stuff too, nothing to the level of those two gentlemen. Anyone care to bicker with me?

Not to bicker with either of you... I think perhaps his themes reminded him of the themes of Lovecraft and Tolkien - that is how I interpreted it. Alexander, are you donning your boxing...er...bickering gloves...?

I'm going to play English professor for a moment and say, "Do you have any textual evidence?" I'm willing to believe you if you can give me an example of what you mean.

No - just the feeling I get on occasion which make me see what I saw when I was reading Tolkien. Alexander is the one you really want to talk to and it is the middle of the night for him...!