Sonnet On Chillon

Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind!^[1]
Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art:
For there thy habitation is the heart -
The heart which love of thee alone can bind;
And when thy sons to fetters are consigned -
To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom,
Their country conquers with their martyrdom,
And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind.
Chillon! thy prison is a holy place,
And thy sad floor an altar - for 'twas trod,
Until his very steps have left a trace
Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod,
By Bonnivard! - May none those marks efface!
For they appeal from tyranny to God.^[2]

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

Ode On Venice[234]

George Gordon Byron, Simple Poetry

To Mary.

George Gordon Byron, Simple Poetry

Monody On The Death Of The Right Hon. R. B. Sheridan, Spoken At Drury-Lane Theatre, London.

George Gordon Byron, Simple Poetry

The Prayer Of Nature. [1]

George Gordon Byron, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Prometheus.[64]

I.

Titan! to whose immortal eyes
The sufferings of mortality,
Seen in their sad reality,
Were not as things that gods despise;
What was thy pity's recompense?^[65]
A silent suffering, and intense;
The rock, the vulture, and the chain,
All that the proud can feel of pain,
The agony they do not show,
The suffocating sense of woe,
Which speaks but in its loneliness,
And then is jealous lest the sky
Should have a listener, nor will sigh
Until its voice is echoless.

II.

Titan! to thee the strife was given
Between the suffering and the will,
Which torture where they cannot kill;
And the inexorable Heaven,^[66]
And the deaf tyranny of Fate,
The ruling principle of Hate,
Which for its pleasure doth cr...

George Gordon Byron

Sonnet To Lake Leman.

Rousseau - Voltaire - our Gibbon - and De Staël -
Leman!^[75] these names are worthy of thy shore,
Thy shore of names like these! wert thou no more,
Their memory thy remembrance would recall:
To them thy banks were lovely as to all,
But they have made them lovelier, for the lore
Of mighty minds doth hallow in the core
Of human hearts the ruin of a wall
Where dwelt the wise and wondrous; but by thee
How much more, Lake of Beauty! do we feel,
In sweetly gliding o'er thy crystal sea,^[76]
The wild glow of that not ungentle zeal,
Which of the Heirs of Immortality
Is proud, and makes the breath of Glory real!

Diodati, July, 1816.

            [First published, Prisoner of Chillon, etc., 1816.]

George Gordon Byron

Stanzas To Augusta.[n][77]

I.

Though the day of my Destiny's over,
And the star of my Fate hath declined,^[o]
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^[p]
It never hath found but in Thee.

II.

Then when Nature around me is smiling,^[78]
The last smile which answers to mine,
I do not believe it beguiling,^[q]
Because it reminds me of thine;
And when winds are at war with the ocean,
As the breasts I believed in with me,^[r]
If their billows excite an emotion,
It is that they bear me from Thee.

III.

Though the rock of my last Hope i...

George Gordon Byron

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

Elegy On Newstead Abbey. [1]

"It is the voice of years, that are gone! they roll before me, with all their deeds."

Ossian.



1.

NEWSTEAD! fast-falling, once-resplendent dome!
Religion's shrine! repentant HENRY'S ^[2] pride!
Of Warriors, Monks, and Dames the cloister'd tomb,
Whose pensive shades around thy ruins glide,


2.

Hail to thy pile! more honour'd in thy fall,
Than modern mansions, in their pillar'd state;
Proudly majestic frowns thy vaulted hall,
Scowling defiance on the blasts of fate.


3.

No mail-clad Serfs, ^[3] obedient to their Lord,
In grim array, the crimson cross ^[4] demand;
Or gay assemble round the festive board,
Their chief's retainers, an immortal band.


4.
...

George Gordon Byron

To Mary.

1.

Rack'd by the flames of jealous rage,
By all her torments deeply curst,
Of hell-born passions far the worst,
What hope my pangs can now assuage?

2.

I tore me from thy circling arms,
To madness fir'd by doubts and fears,
Heedless of thy suspicious tears,
Nor feeling for thy feign'd alarms.

3.

Resigning every thought of bliss,
Forever, from your love I go,
Reckless of all the tears that flow,
Disdaining thy polluted kiss.

4.

No more that bosom heaves for me,
On it another seeks repose,
Another riot's on its snows,
Our bonds are broken, both are free.

5.

No more with mutual love we burn,
No more the genial couch we bless,
Dissolving in the fond caress;
Our love o'erth...

George Gordon Byron