To - - [606]

1.

But once I dared to lift my eyes -
To lift my eyes to thee;
And since that day, beneath the skies,
No other sight they see.

2.

In vain sleep shuts them in the night -
The night grows day to me;
Presenting idly to my sight
What still a dream must be.

3.

A fatal dream - for many a bar
Divides thy fate from mine;
And still my passions wake and war,
But peace be still with thine.

            [First published, New Monthly Magazine, 1833, vol. 37, p. 308.]

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

Stanzas Written On The Road Between Florence And Pisa.[603]

George Gordon Byron, Simple Poetry

Translation From Anacreon. [1] Ode 5

George Gordon Byron, Simple Poetry

Lines. Addressed To The Rev. J. T. Becher, [1] On His Advising The Author To Mix More With Society.

George Gordon Byron, Simple Poetry

English

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To M. S. G. [1]

1.

When I dream that you love me, you'll surely forgive;
Extend not your anger to sleep;
For in visions alone your affection can live, -
I rise, and it leaves me to weep.


2.

Then, Morpheus! envelop my faculties fast,
Shed o'er me your languor benign;
Should the dream of to-night but resemble the last,
What rapture celestial is mine!


3.

They tell us that slumber, the sister of death,
Mortality's emblem is given;
To fate how I long to resign my frail breath,
If this be a foretaste of Heaven!


4.

Ah! frown not, sweet Lady, unbend your soft brow,
Nor deem me too happy in this;
If I sin in my dream, I atone for it now,
Thus doom'd, but to gaze upon bliss.


5.

Though...

George Gordon Byron

I Would I Were A Careless Child.

1

I would I were a careless child,
Still dwelling in my Highland cave,
Or roaming through the dusky wild,
Or bounding o'er the dark blue wave;
The cumbrous pomp of Saxon ^[1] pride,
Accords not with the freeborn soul,
Which loves the mountain's craggy side,
And seeks the rocks where billows roll.


2.

Fortune! take back these cultur'd lands,
Take back this name of splendid sound!
I hate the touch of servile hands,
I hate the slaves that cringe around:
Place me among the rocks I love,
Which sound to Ocean's wildest roar;
I ask but this - again to rove
Through scenes my youth hath known before.


3.

Few are my years, and yet I feel
The World was ne'er design'd for me:
Ah! why do dark'ning s...

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

To Edward Noel Long, Esq. [1]

"Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico." - HORACE.


Dear LONG, in this sequester'd scene,
While all around in slumber lie,
The joyous days, which ours have been
Come rolling fresh on Fancy's eye;
Thus, if, amidst the gathering storm,
While clouds the darken'd noon deform,
Yon heaven assumes a varied glow,
I hail the sky's celestial bow,
Which spreads the sign of future peace,
And bids the war of tempests cease.
Ah! though the present brings but pain,
I think those days may come again;
Or if, in melancholy mood,
Some lurking envious fear intrude,
To check my bosom's fondest thought,
And interrupt the golden dream,
I crush the fiend with malice fraught,
And, still, indulge my wonted theme.
Although we ne'er again can trace,
In Gra...

George Gordon Byron

To The Countess Of Blessington.

1.

You have asked for a verse: - the request
In a rhymer 'twere strange to deny;
But my Hippocrene was but my breast,
And my feelings (its fountain) are dry.

2.

Were I now as I was, I had sung
What Lawrence has painted so well;^[607]
But the strain would expire on my tongue,
And the theme is too soft for my shell.

3.

I am ashes where once I was fire,
And the bard in my bosom is dead;
What I loved I now merely admire,
And my heart is as grey as my head.

4.

My Life is not dated by years -
There are moments which act as a plough,
And there is not a furrow appears
But is deep in my soul as my brow.

5.

Let the young and the brilliant aspire
To sing what I gaze on in...

George Gordon Byron