Lord George Gordon Byron

Once more upon the waters! yet once more! And the waves bound beneath me as a steed That knows his rider.

On the ear Drops the light drip of the suspended oar.

Oh why should the spirit of mortal be proud? Like a fast-flitting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, He passes from life to his rest in the grave.

Oh that the desert were my dwelling-place, With one fair spirit for my minister, William Knox. 1789-1825.

Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo, The octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe!

Oh, Amos Cottle! Phoebus! what a name!

O Rome! my country! city of the soul!

O Christ! it is a goodly sight to see What Heaven hath done for this delicious land.

None are so desolate but something dear, Dearer than self, possesses or possess'd A thought, and claims the homage of a tear.

My native land, good night!

Might shake the saintship of an anchorite.

Man! Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear.

Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare, And Mammon wins his way where seraphs might despair.

Maid of Athens, ere we part, Give, oh give me back my heart!

Let these describe the undescribable.

Land of lost gods and godlike men.

Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime? Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle, Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime!

Italia! O Italia! thou who hast The fatal gift of beauty.

In hope to merit heaven by making earth a hell.

If ancient tales say true, nor wrong these holy men.

I was accused of every monstrous vice by public rumour and private rancour; my name, which had been a knightly or noble one, was tainted. I felt that, if what was whispered, and muttered, and murmured, was true, I was unfit for England; if false, England was unfit for me.

I stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs, A palace and a prison on each hand.

I stood Among them, but not of them; in a shroud Of thoughts which were not their thoughts.

I see before me the gladiator lie.

I only know we loved in vain; I only feelfarewell! farewell!

I live not in myself, but I become Portion of that around me; and to me High mountains are a feeling, but the hum Of human cities torture.

I have not loved the world, nor the world me.

History, with all her volumes vast, Hath but one page.

Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not, Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow?

He who grown aged in this world of woe, In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life, So that no wonder waits him.

He rush'd into the field, and foremost fighting fell.

He had kept The whiteness of his soul, and thus men o'er him wept.

Had sigh'd to many, though he loved but one.

Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves, Over the unreturning brave.

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.

Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.

Fills The air around with beauty.

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.

Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam.

Alas! our young affections run to waste, Or water but the desert.

Years steal Fire from the mind as vigour from the limb, And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.

Theres not a joy the world can give like that it takes away.

With wit to hatch a pun or tell a story.

All who would win joy, must share it; happiness was born a twin.

Ah, happy years! once more who would not be a boy?

Or whispering with white lips, 'The foe! They come! they come!'

Where'er we tread, 't is haunted, holy ground.

When we two parted In silence and tears, Half broken-hearted, To sever for years.

The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss, And boil in endless torture.

War, war is still the cry,'war even to the knife!'

But there are wanderers o'er Eternity Whose bark drives on and on, and anchor'd ne'er shall be.

Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles.

Venice once was dear, The pleasant place of all festivity, The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy.

But first on earth as vampire sent Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent. Then ghastly haunt thy native place, And suck the blood of all thy race.

Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar, Like Scipio, buried by the upbraiding shore.

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.

A thousand years scarce serve to form a state: An hour may lay it in the dust.

The great art of life is the sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain.

Words are things, and a small drop if ink, Falling like dew upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.

The dome of thought, the palace of the soul.

Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound.

What say you to such a supper with such a woman?

What men call gallantry and gods adultery, Is much more common where the climate's sultry.

The sky is changed,and such a change! O night And storm and darkness! ye are wondrous strong, Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light Of a dark eye in woman! Far along, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, Leaps the live thunder.

The poetry of speech.

Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer.

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.

A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour!

They never fail who die in a great cause.

Theres nought, no doubt, so much the spirit calms As rum and true religion.

'While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall; And when Rome fallsthe world.'

By the blue rushing of the arrowy Rhone.

There is something Pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.

One of the pleasures of reading old letters is the knowledge that they need no answer.

But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell.

This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing To waft me from distraction.

A quiet conscience makes one so serene.

The petrifactions of a plodding brain.

Perverts the Prophets and purloins the Psalms.

Such partings break the heart they fondly hope to heal.

Parting day Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues With a new colour as it gasps away, The last still loveliest, till't is gone, and all is gray.

Gone, glimmering through the dream of things that were.

The Niobe of nations! there she stands.

There is a rapture on the lonely shore ... By the deep sea, and music in its roar.

There's music in the sighing of a reed; There's music in the gushing of a rill; There's music in all things, if we have ears; The earth is but the music of the spheres.

Dim with the mist of years, gray flits the shade of power.

With just enough of learning to misquote.

Let us have Wine and Women, Mirth and Laughter Sermons and soda-water the day after.

But 'midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess, And roam along, the world's tired denizen, With none who bless us, none whom we can bless.

I have imbibed such a love for money that I keep some sequins in a drawer to count, and cry over them once a week.

Mans love is of mans life a thing apart, Tis womans whole existence.

All is concentr'd in a life intense, Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost, But hath a part of being.

The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree I planted; they have torn me, and I bleed. I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.

Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.

Now I shall go to sleep. Goodnight.

The mind can make Substance, and people planets of its own With beings brighter than have been, and give A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh

And there was mounting in hot haste.

I am as a weed Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam to sail Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail.

Heaven gives its favouritesearly death.

And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on.

All human history attests That happiness for man, the hungry sinner! Since Eve ate apples, much depends on dinner.

When Newton saw an apple fall, he found ... A mode of proving that the earth turnd round In a most natural whirl, called gravitation; And thus is the sole mortal who could grapple Since Adam, with a fall or with an apple.

The starry Galileo with his woes.

Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying, Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind.

Still from the fount of joy's delicious springs Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings.

I'll publish right or wrong. Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.

Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou? Fond hope of many nations, art thou dead? Could not the grave forget thee, and lay low Some less majestic, less beloved head?

The nympholepsy of some fond despair.

... the art of angling, the cruelest, the coldest, and the stupidest of pretended sports.

There are some feelings time cannot benumb, Nor torture shake.

Then farewell Horace, whom I hated so, Not for thy faults, but mine.

Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth! Immortal, though no more! though fallen, great!

Exhausting thought, And hiving wisdom with each studious year.

I can never get people to understand that poetry is the expression of excited passion, and that there is no such thing as a life of passion any more than a continuous earthquake, or an eternal fever. Besides, who would ever shave themselves in such a state?

Since Eve ate the apple, much depends on dinner.

He who ascends to mountain-tops shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow; He who surpasses or subdues mankind Must look down on the hate of those below.

Tully was not so eloquent as thou, Thou nameless column with the buried base.

Egeria! sweet creation of some heart Which found no mortal resting-place so fair As thine ideal breast.

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.

But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell! Did ye not hear it?No! 't was but the wind, Or the car rattling o'er the stony street. On with the dance! let joy be unconfined; No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.

Ada! sole daughter of my house and heart.

The mighty master of unmeaning rhyme. [Darwin]

As soon Seek roses in Decemberice in June; Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff; Believe a woman or an epitaph, Or an other thing thats false, before You trust in critics, who themselves are sore.

Seek roses in December, ice in June; Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff; Believe a woman or an epitaph, Or any other thing that 's false, before You trust in critics.

The French courage proceeds from vanity the German from phlegm the Turkish from fanaticism & opium the Spanish from pride the English from coolness the Dutch from obstinacy the Russian from insensibility but the Italian from anger.

Coop'd in their winged, sea-girt citadel.

The lapse of ages changes all things --time, language, the earth, the bounds of the sea, the stars of the sky, and every thing 'about, around, and underneath' man, except man himself.

The castled crag of Drachenfels Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine.

Born in the garret, in the kitchen bred.

'T is pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print; A book's a book, although there's nothing in't.

Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.

There was a sound of revelry by night, And Belgium's capital had gathered then Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men. A thousand hearts beat happily; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage bell. But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!

'Darkly, deeply, beautifully blue,' As some one somewhere sings about the sky.

Battle's magnificently stern array.

There were his young barbarians all at play; There was their Dacian mother: he, their sire, Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday!

Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon.

The Ariosto of the North.

All tenantless, save to the crannying wind.

With thee all tales are sweet; each clime has charms; earth sea alike our world within our arms.

I am ashes where once I was fire.

Good but rarely comes from good advice.

The cold, the changed, perchance the dead, anew, The mourn'd, the loved, the lost,too many, yet how few!

Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe, Sadder than owl-songs or the midnight blast, Is that portentous phrase, 'I told you so.'

Adieu! adieu! my native shore Fades o'er the waters blue.

By Heaven! it is a splendid sight to see For one who hath no friend, no brother there.

Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth.

Death, so called, is a thing which makes men weep, and yet a third of life is passed in sleep.

'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle, should let itself be snuffed out by an article.

What is the worst of woes that wait on age? What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow? To view each loved one blotted from life's page, And be alone on earth as I am now.

Knowledge is not happiness, and science but an exchange of ignorance for that which is another kind of ignorance.

I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory.

Adversity is the first path to truth.

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!

All comedies are ended by a marriage.

Twas blow for blow, disputing inch by inch, For one would not retreat, nor t'other flinch.

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?

Yes, Love indeed is light from heaven; A spark of that immortal fire With angels shared, by Allah given To lift from earth our low desire.

And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but The truth in masquerade.

Yet he was jealous, though he did not show it, For jealousy dislikes the world to know it.

Folly loves the martyrdom of Fame.

Father! no prophet's laws I seek, - Thy laws in Nature's works appear; - I own myself corrupt and weak, Yet will I pray, for thou wilt hear.

Though fame is smoke, its fumes are frankincense to human thoughts.

He, their sire, Butchered to make a Roman holiday.

Since my young days of passion - joy or pain Perchance my heart and harp have lost a string - And both may jar.

The madmen who have made men mad By their contagion; Conquerors and Kings, Founders of sects and systems.

To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind.

For in that word, that fatal word, however we promise, hope, believe, there breathes despair.

The tree of knowledge is not that of life.

Fare thee well! and if for ever, Still for ever, fare thee well.

They truly mourn that mourn without a witness.

What exile from himself can flee? To zones, though more and more remote, Still, still pursues, where'er I be, The blight of life - the demon Thought.

While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand: When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall; And when Rome falls - the World.

Through life's road, so dim and dirty, I have dragged to three and thirty; What have these years left to me? Nothing, except thirty-three.

To have joy one must share it. Happiness was born a twin.

Years steal fire from the mind as vigor from the limb; And Life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.

Truth is a gem that is found at a great depth; whilst on the surface of this world, All things are weighed by the false scale of custom.

A being more intense, that we endow With form our fancy, gaining as we give The life we image.

There's music in the sighing of a reed; There's music in the gushing of a rill; There's music in all things, if men had ears: Their earth is but an echo of the spheres.

Man's love is of man's life a thing apart, 'Tis woman's whole existence.

For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast.

Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, Sermons and soda water the day after.

The beautifier of the dead, Adorner of the ruin, comforter And the only healer when the heart hath bled.

Suspicion is a heavy armor, And with its own weight impedes more than protects.

He who ascends to mountain tops, shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapped in clouds and snow; He who surpasses or subdues mankind, Must look down on the hate of those below.

So bright the tear in Beauty's eye, Love half regrets to kiss it dry.

Smiles form the channel of a future tear.

A lady of a 'certain age', which means - Certainly aged.

He who is only just is cruel. Who on earth could live were all judged justly?

Friendship is Love without his wings!

That all-softening, overpowering knell, The tocsin of the soul - the dinner bell.

I feel my immortality over sweep all pains, all tears, all time, all fears, - and peal, like the eternal thunders of the deep, into my ears, this truth, - thou livest forever!

There's naught, no doubt, so much the spirit calms as rum and true religion.

Whether it was she did not see, or would not, Or, like all very clever people, could not.

What men call gallantry, and gods adultery, Is much more common where the climate's sultry.

We learn from Horace, 'Homer sometimes sleeps'; We feel without him, Wordsworth sometimes wakes.

Think you, if Laura had been Petrach's wife, He would have written sonnets all his life?

Ships, wealth, general confidence, - All were his; He counted them at break of day, And when the sun set! where were they.

Let none think to fly the danger For soon or late love is his own avenger.

The morn is up again, the dewy morn, with breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom, laughing the clouds away with playful scorn, And glowing into day.

The tenor's voice is spoilt by affectation, And for the bass, the beast can only bellow; In fact, he had no singing education, An ignorant, noteless, timeless, tuneless fellow.

Physicians mend or end us; But though in health we sneer, when sick we call them to attend us, without the least propensity to jeer.

Our life is two fold: Sleep hath its own world, A boundary between the things misnamed Death and existence: Sleep hath its own world, And a wide realm of wild reality.

If from society we learn to live, it is solitude should teach us how to die.

O Fame! if I ever took delight in thy praises, 'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases, Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover The thought that I was not unworthy to love her.

The beings of the mind are not of clay; Essentially immortal, they create And multiply in us a brighter ray And more beloved existence.

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen; Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, that host on the morrow lay withered and strewn!

The power of Thought, the magic of the Mind!

In solitude, where we are least alone.

Ready money is Aladdin's lamp.

Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure.

Maid of Athens, ere we part, Give, oh give me back my heart! Or, since that has left my breast, Keep it now, and take the rest!

Of Wordsworth: Who, both by precept and example, shows That prose is verse, and verse is merely prose.

Do proper homage to thine idol's eyes; But not too humbly, or she will despise Thee and thy suit, though told in moving tropes; Disguise even tenderness, if thou art wise.

Fame is the thirst of youth.

O'er the glad water of the dark blue sea, Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free, Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam, Survey our empire, and behold our home!

'Tis very certain the desire of life prolongs it.

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