Works

Wake the serpent not - lest he
Should not know the way to go, -
Let him crawl which yet lies sleeping
Through the deep grass of the meadow!
Not a bee shall hear him creeping,
Not a may-fly shall awaken...

I am as a spirit who has dwelt
Within his heart of hearts, and I have felt
His feelings, and have thought his thoughts, and known
The inmost converse of his soul, the tone...

"Under the flag
Of each his faction, they to battle bring
Their embryo atoms."
- Milton.


Welcome joy, and welcome sorrow,
Lethe's weed and Hermes' feather;...

What men gain fairly - that they should possess,
And children may inherit idleness,
From him who earns it - This is understood;
Private injustice may be general good....

1.
When a lover clasps his fairest,
Then be our dread sport the rarest.
Their caresses were like the chaff
In the tempest, and be our laugh
His despair - her epitaph!

2....

When soft winds and sunny skies
With the green earth harmonize,
And the young and dewy dawn,
Bold as an unhunted fawn,
Up the windless heaven is gone, -
Laugh - for ambushed in the day, -...

Where's the Poet? show him! show him,
Muses nine! that I may know him.
'Tis the man who with a man
Is an equal, be he King,
Or poorest of the beggar-clan
Or any other wonderous thing...

I am drunk with the honey wine
Of the moon-unfolded eglantine,
Which fairies catch in hyacinth bowls.
The bats, the dormice, and the moles
Sleep in the walls or under the sward...

First published in Moore's 'Letters and Journals of Lord Byron', 1830, i. 56


1.

Hills of Annesley, Bleak and Barren,
Where my thoughtless Childhood stray'd,...

[Inscription under a Statue of the Virgin and Child, at Guernsey. - The poet sees in the emblem a modern Atlas, i.e., Freedom supporting the World.]

("Le peuple est petit.")

...

Our fathers toiled for bitter bread
While idlers thrived beside them;
But food to eat and clothes to wear
Their native land denied them.
They left their native land in spite
Of royalties' regalia,...

Australia's a big country
An' Freedom's humping bluey,
An' Freedom's on the wallaby
Oh! don't you hear 'er cooey?
She's just begun to boomerang,
She'll knock the tyrants silly,...

God He refuseth no man, but makes way
For all that now come or hereafter may.

Dear are some hidden things
My soul has sealed in silence; past delights,
Hope unconfessed; desires with hampered wings,
Remembered in the nights.

But my best treasures are...

Frequently the woods are pink,
Frequently are brown;
Frequently the hills undress
Behind my native town.

Oft a head is crested
I was wont to see,
And as oft a cranny
Where it used to be....

A gentle was Fridolin,
And he his mistress dear,
Savern's fair Countess, honored in
All truth and godly fear.
She was so meek, and, ah! so good!
Yet each wish of her wayward mood,...

Friend of a wayward hour, you came
Like some good ghost, and went the same;
And I within the haunted place
Sit smiling on your vanished face,
And talking with - your name.
...

The glimmer of the limes, sun-heavy, sleeping,
Goes trembling past me up the College wall.
Below, the lawn, in soft blue shade is keeping,
The daisy-froth quiescent, softly in thrall.
...

AMONGST THE HIGHLY PLACED
It is considered low to talk about food.
The fact is: they have
Already eaten.

The lowly must leave this earth
Without having tasted
Any good meat.
...

Says the pipe to the snuff-box, I can't understand
What the ladies and gentlemen see in your face,
That you are in fashion all over the land,
And I am so much fallen into disgrace.

...