GEORGE GORDON, Lord Byron, English poet, born in London in 1788; died in Greece in 1824. He began to write at an early age while attending Harrow School and Cambridge University. His first work that got to the public was a collection of poems, entitled "Hours of Idleness," a previous volume having been destroyed. His marriage was unhappy and he left England for all time. He lived in Switzerland, Belgium and Italy. The Greeks revolted against Turkey in 1821; Byron joined them in 1824, but died at Missolonghi before taking a prominent part. Among his most famous poems are "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," "The Corsair," "The Prisoner of Chillon," Faliero" and "Don Juan."
HE walks in beauty, like the night
SHE wabu less climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half-impaired 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.
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!
MAID OF ATHENS, ERE WE PART
AID of Athens, ere we part,
Give, oh give me back my heart! Or, since that has left my breast, Keep it now, and take the rest! Hear my vow before I go-- Ζώη μοῦ σάς ἀγαπῶ.
By those lids whose jetty fringe
Kiss thy soft cheeks' blooming tinge;
By those wild eyes like the roe,
Ζώη μοῦ σάς ἀγαπῶ.
By that lip I long to taste; By that zone-encircled waist;
By all the token-flowers that tell What words can never speak so well; By love's alternate joy and woe, Ζώη μοῦ σάς ἀγαπῶ.
Maid of Athens! I am gone:
Think of me, sweet! when alone.
Though I fly to Istambol,
Athens holds my heart and soul: Can I cease to love thee?
Ζώη μοῦ σάς ἀγαπῶ.
TERNAL spirit of the chainless mind! 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.
Y hair is gray, but not with years,
Nor grew it white
In a single night,
As men's have grown from sudden fears. My limbs are bowed, though not with toil, But rusted with a vile repose,
For they have been a dungeon's spoil, And mine has been the fate of those To whom the goodly earth and air
Are banned, and barred-forbidden fare; But this was for my father's faith I suffered chains and courted death; That father perished at the stake For tenets he would not forsake; And for the same his lineal race In darkness found a dwelling place;
We were seven-who now are one, Six in youth and one in age, Finished as they had begun,
Proud of Persecution's rage; One in fire, and two in field, Their belief with blood have sealed: Dying as their father died,
For the God their foes denied ;
Three were in a dungeon cast,
Of whom this wreck is left the last.
There are seven pillars of Gothic mold, In Chillon's dungeons deep and old, There are seven columns massy and gray, Dim with a dull imprisoned ray, A sunbeam which hath lost its way, And through the crevice and the cleft Of the thick wall is fallen and left: Creeping o'er the floor so damp, Like a marsh's meteor lamp: And in each pillar there is a ring, And in each ring there is a chain; That iron is a cankering thing,
For in these limbs its teeth remain, With marks that will not wear away, Till I have done with this new day, Which now is painful to these eyes, Which have not sen the sun to rise For years-I cannot count them o'er, i lost their long and heavy score When my last brother drooped and died, And I lay living by his side.
They chained us each to a column stone, And we were three-yet, each alone:
We could not move a single pace, We could not see each other's face, But with that pale and livid light That made us strangers in our sight: And thus together-yet apart,
Fettered in hand, but joined in heart; "Twas still some solace, in the dearth Of the pure elements of earth, To hearken to each other's speech, And each turn comforter to each With some new hope or legend old, Or song heroically bold;
But even these at length grew cold. Our voices took a dreary tone,
An echo of the dungeon stone,
A grating sound-not full and free As they of yore were wont to be; It might be fancy-but to me They never sounded like our own.
I was the eldest of the three, And to uphold and cheer the rest I ought to do-and did my best- And each did well in his degree.
The youngest, whom my father loved, Because our mother's brow was given To him-with eyes as blue as heaven, For him my soul was sorely moved: And truly might it be distressed To see such bird in such a nest; For he was beautiful as day-
(When day was beautiful to me As to young eagles being free)— A polar day, which will not see A sunset till its summer's gone, Its sleepless summer of long light, The snow-clad offspring of the sun:
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