i
When we two parted In silence and tears, Half broken-hearted To sever for years, 5 Pale grew thy cheek and cold, Colder thy kiss; Truly that hour foretold Sorrow to this.
2. The dew of the morning 10 Sunk chill on my brow? It felt like the warning Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken, And light is thy fame; 15 I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.
3
They name thee before me, A knell to mine ear;
1. Happy is he who has been able to learn the causes of things (Latin; Georgics 2.490).
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61 4 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON . ?-?'
A shudder comes o'er me ? 20 Why wert thou so dear? They know not I knew thee, Who knew thee too well:? Long, long shall I rue thee, Too deeply to tell. 4 25 In secret we met? In silence I grieve, That thy heart could forget, Thy spirit deceive. If I should meet thee 30 After long years, How should I greet thee!? With silence and tears. 1815 1815
Stanzas for Music
There be none of Beauty's daughters With a magic like thee; And like music on the waters Is thy sweet voice to me:
5 When, as if its sound were causing The charmed ocean's pausing, The waves lie still and gleaming, And the lulled winds seem dreaming.
And the midnight moon is weaving 10 Her bright chain o'er the deep; Whose breast is gently heaving,
As an infant's asleep. So the spirit bows before thee, To listen and adore thee;
15 With a full but soft emotion, Like the swell of Summer's ocean.
1816 1816
Darkness1
I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars Did wander darkling0 in the eternal space, in the dark Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
1. A powerful blank-verse description of the end such speculations hardly less common in Byron's of life on Earth. New geological sciences and an time than in ours. Mary Shelley would later take
accompanying interest in what the fossil record up the theme in her novel The Last Man (1826).
indicated about the extinction of species made
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DARKNESS / 61 5
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; Mom came, and went?and came, and brought no day, And men forgot their passions in the dread Of this their desolation; and all hearts Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires?and the thrones, The palaces of crowned kings?the huts, The habitations of all things which dwell, Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed, And men were gathered round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face; Happy were those who dwelt within the eye Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch: A fearful hope was all the world contain'd; Forests were set on fire?but hour by hour
They fell and faded-?and the crackling trunks Extinguish'd with a crash?and all was black. The brows of men by the despairing light Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled; And others hurried to and fro, and fed Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up With mad disquietude on the dull sky, The pall of a past world; and then again With curses cast them down upon the dust, And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd, And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd And twined themselves among the multitude, Hissing, but stingless?they were slain for food: And War, which for a moment was no more, Did glut himself again;?a meal was bought With blood, and each sate sullenly apart Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left; All earth was but one thought?and that was death, Immediate and inglorious; and the pang Of famine fed upon all entrails?men Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh; The meagre by the meagre were devoured, Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one, And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay, Till hunger clung0 them, or the dropping dead withered Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan, And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand Which answered not with a caress?he died.
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two Of an enormous city did survive, And they were enemies; they met beside The dying embers of an altar-place,
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61 6 / GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON . ?-?'
Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things 60 For an unholy usage; they raked up,
And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands
