Shelley wrote six years after his death, when she read Thomas Moore's edition of his Letters and Journals: 'The Lord Byron I find there is our Lord Byron?the fascinating?faulty?childish?philosophical being?daring the world?docile to a private circle?impetuous and indolent?gloomy and yet more gay than any other.' Of his contradictions Byron was well aware; he told his friend Lady Blessington: 'I am so changeable, being everything by turns and nothing long? I am such a strange melange of good and evil, that it would be difficult to describe me.' Yet-he remained faithful to his code: a determination to tell the truth as he saw it about the world and about himself (his refusal to suppress or conceal any of his moods is in part what made him seem so contradictory) and a dedication to the freedom of nations and individuals. As he went on to say to Lady Blessington: 'There are but two sentiments to which I am constant?a strong love of liberty, and a detestation of cant.'
The poetry texts printed here are taken from Jerome J. McGann's edition, Lord Byron: The Complete Poetical Works (Oxford, 1980-93).
Written after Swimming from Sestos to Abydos1
May 9, 1810
i
If in the month of dark December Leander, who was nightly wont (What maid will not the tale remember?) To cross thy stream, broad Hellespont!
2
5 If when the wintry tempest roared He sped to Hero, nothing loth, And thus of old thy current pour'd, Fair Venus! how I pity both!
3 For me, degenerate modern wretch, IO Though in the genial month of May,
1. The Hellespont (now called the Dardanelles) is 1810. Ryron alternated between complacency and the narrow strait between Europe and Asia. In the humor in his many references to the event. In a
ancient story, retold in Christopher Marlowe's note to the poem, he mentions that the distance
Hero and Leander, young Leander of Abydos, on was 'upwards of four English miles, though the
the Asian side, swam nightly to visit Hero, a priest-actual breadth is barely one. The rapidity of the
ess of the goddess Venus at Sestos, until he was current is such that no boat can row directly
drowned when he made the attempt in a storm. across. . . . The water was extremely cold, from the
Byron and a young Lieutenant Ekenhead swam the melting of the mountain snows.'
Hellespont in the reverse direction on May 3,
.
612 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON . ?-?'
My dripping limbs I faintly stretch, And think I've done a feat to-day. 4 15But since he cross'd the rapid tide, According to the doubtful story, To woo,?and?Lord knows what beside, And swam for Love, as I for Glory; 20 5 'Twere hard to say who fared the best: Sad mortals! thus the Gods still plague you! He lost his labour, I my jest: For he was drown'd, and I've the ague. 1810 1812
She walks in beauty1 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. ioOne shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impair'd 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. 153 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! June 181 4 181 5
1. From Hebrew Melodies (1815), a collection of first met wore a black mourning gown brightened lyrics on Old Testament themes that Byron com-with spangles. In their context as the opening
posed to accompany the musician Isaac Nathan's poem of Hebrew Melodies, the lines praise any one
settings of traditional synagogue chants. Byron of a number of Old Testament heroines. To hear
wrote these lines about his beautiful cousin by the poem sung to Nathan's music, consult Norton
marriage, Anne Wilmot, who at the ball where they Literature Online.
.
WHEN WE TWO PARTED / 613
They say that Hope is happiness
Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.1 VIRGIL
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
5 And all that mem'ry loves the most Was once our only hope to be: And all that hope adored and lost Hath melted into memory.
3
Alas! it is delusion all? 10 The future cheats us from afar: Nor can we be what we recall, Nor dare we think on what we are.
1814 1829
When we two parted
