Adrian's Address To His Soul When Dying.

Animula! vagula, Blandula,
Hospes, comesque corporis,
Quæ nunc abibis in Loca -
Pallidula, rigida, nudula,
Nec, ut soles, dabis Jocos?


Translation. -


Ah! gentle, fleeting, wav'ring Sprite,
Friend and associate of this clay!
To what unknown region borne,
Wilt thou, now, wing thy distant flight?
No more with wonted humour gay,
But pallid, cheerless, and forlorn.

George Gordon Byron

George Gordon Byron, commonly known as Lord Byron, was a British poet and leading figure in the Romantic movement. He is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and remains widely read and influential. Among his best-known works are the lengthy narrative poems Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, and the short lyric She Walks in Beauty. Byron's personal life was marked by scandal and he was famously described by Lady Caroline Lamb as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know."

George Gordon Byron

Venice. A Fragment.[577]

George Gordon Byron, Simple Poetry

Song.[1]

George Gordon Byron, Simple Poetry

Lines Written In "Letters Of An Italian Nun And An English Gentleman, By J. J. Rousseau; [1] Founded On Facts."

George Gordon Byron, Simple Poetry

An Occasional Prologue, Delivered By The Author Previous To The Performance Of "The Wheel Of Fortune" At A Private Theatre. [1]

George Gordon Byron, Simple Poetry

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The Adieu. Written Under The Impression That The Author Would Soon Die.

1.

Adieu, thou Hill! ^[1] where early joy
Spread roses o'er my brow;
Where Science seeks each loitering boy
With knowledge to endow.
Adieu, my youthful friends or foes,
Partners of former bliss or woes;
No more through Ida's paths we stray;
Soon must I share the gloomy cell,
Whose ever-slumbering inmates dwell
Unconscious of the day.

2.

Adieu, ye hoary Regal Fanes,
Ye spires of Granta's vale,
Where Learning robed in sable reigns.
And Melancholy pale.
Ye comrades of the jovial hour,
Ye tenants of the classic bower,
On Cama's verdant margin plac'd,
Adieu! while memory still is mine,
For offerings on Oblivion's shrine,
These scenes must be effac'd.


3

Adieu, ye mountains of the clime<...

George Gordon Byron

The Dying Adrian To His Soul

Poor, little, pretty, fluttering thing,
Must we no longer live together?
And dost thou prune thy trembling wing,
To take thy flight thou know'st not whither?
Thy humorous vein, thy pleasing folly,
Lies all neglected, all forgot:
And pensive, wavering, melancholy,
Thou dread'st and hop'st thou know'st not what.

Matthew Prior

A Fragment.[73]

Could I remount the river of my years
To the first fountain of our smiles and tears,
I would not trace again the stream of hours
Between their outworn banks of withered flowers,
But bid it flow as now - until it glides
Into the number of the nameless tides.

* * * * *

What is this Death? - a quiet of the heart?
The whole of that of which we are a part?
For Life is but a vision - what I see
Of all which lives alone is Life to me,
And being so - the absent are the dead,
Who haunt us from tranquillity, and spread
A dreary shroud around us, and invest
With sad remembrancers our hours of rest.
The absent are the dead - for they are cold,
And ne'er can be what once we did behold;
And they are changed, and cheerless, - or if yet
The unforgotten d...

George Gordon Byron

A Fragment. [1]

When, to their airy hall, my Fathers' voice
Shall call my spirit, joyful in their choice;
When, pois'd upon the gale, my form shall ride,
Or, dark in mist, descend the mountain's side;
Oh! may my shade behold no sculptur'd urns,
To mark the spot where earth to earth returns!
No lengthen'd scroll, no praise-encumber'd stone;
My epitaph shall be my name alone: ^[2]
If that with honour fail to crown my clay,
Oh! may no other fame my deeds repay!
That, only that, shall single out the spot;
By that remember'd, or with that forgot.

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To Caroline.

1.

Oh! when shall the grave hide for ever my sorrow?
Oh! when shall my soul wing her flight from this clay?
The present is hell! and the coming to-morrow
But brings, with new torture, the curse of to-day.


2.

From my eye flows no tear, from my lips flow no curses,
I blast not the fiends who have hurl'd me from bliss;
For poor is the soul which, bewailing, rehearses
Its querulous grief, when in anguish like this -


3.

Was my eye, 'stead of tears, with red fury flakes bright'ning,
Would my lips breathe a flame which no stream could assuage,
On our foes should my glance launch in vengeance its lightning,
With transport my tongue give a loose to its rage.


4.

But now tears and curses, alike unavailing,
...

George Gordon Byron

To Romance.

1.

Parent of golden dreams, Romance!
Auspicious Queen of childish joys,
Who lead'st along, in airy dance,
Thy votive train of girls and boys;
At length, in spells no longer bound,
I break the fetters of my youth;
No more I tread thy mystic round,
But leave thy realms for those of Truth.


2.

And yet 'tis hard to quit the dreams
Which haunt the unsuspicious soul,
Where every nymph a goddess seems,
Whose eyes through rays immortal roll;
While Fancy holds her boundless reign,
And all assume a varied hue;
When Virgins seem no longer vain,
And even Woman's smiles are true.


3.

And must we own thee, but a name,
And from thy hall of clouds descend?
Nor find a Sylph in every dame,
A Pylades ^[1]<...

George Gordon Byron