Works

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,...

Ye gentle visitations of calm thought -
Moods like the memories of happier earth,
Which come arrayed in thoughts of little worth,
Like stars in clouds by the weak winds enwrought, -...

Come, thou awakener of the spirit's ocean,
Zephyr, whom to thy cloud or cave
No thought can trace! speed with thy gentle motion!

O love! what shall be said of thee?
The son of grief begot by joy?
Being sightless, wilt thou see?
Being sexless, wilt thou be
Maiden or boy?

I dreamed of strange lips yesterday...

I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave!
You need not clap your torches to my face.
Zooks, what's to blame? you think you see a monk!
What, 'tis past midnight, and you go the rounds,...

Broke to every known mischance, lifted over all
By the light sane joy of life, the buckler of the Gaul,
Furious in luxury, merciless in toil,
Terrible with strength that draws from her tireless soil;...

France fallen! France arisen! France of the brave!
France of lost hopes! France of Promethean zeal!
Napoleon's France, that bruised the despot's heel
Of Europe, while the feudal world did rave....

Not dead,--oh no,--she cannot die!
Only a swoon, from loss of blood!
Levite England passes her by,
Help, Samaritan! None is nigh;
Who shall stanch me this sanguine flood?
...

She will not sleep, for fear of dreams,
But, rising, quits her restless bed,
And walks where some beclouded beams
Of moonlight through the hall are shed.

Obedient to the goad of grief,...

Introduction To Francesca Of Rimini.

...

A great year and place;
A harsh, discordant, natal scream out-sounding, to touch the mother's heart closer than any yet.

I walk'd the shores of my Eastern Sea,
Heard over the waves the little voice,...

I loved a child as we should love
Each other everywhere;
I cared more for his happiness
Than I dreaded my own despair.

An angel asked me to give him
My whole life's dearest cost;...

Thou hadst no home, and thou couldst see
In every street the windows' light:
Dragging thy limbs about all night,
No window kept a light for thee.

However much thou wert distressed,...

I could not run or play
In boyhood.
In manhood I could only sip the cup,
Not drink - For scarlet-fever left my heart diseased.
Yet I lie here
Soothed by a secret none but Mary knows:...

If I were Francois Villon and Francois Villon I,
What would it matter to me how the time might drag or fly?
He would in sweaty anguish toil the days and night away,...

In the roar of the storm, in the wild bitter voice of the tempest-whipped sea,
The cry of my darling, my child, comes ever and ever to me;
And I stand where the haggard-faced wood stares down on a sinister shore,...

Out of a cell into this darkened space -
The end at twenty-five!
My tongue could not speak what stirred within me,
And the village thought me a fool.
Yet at the start there was a clear vision,...

'Sankt Martin war ein frommer Mann
Trank gerne Cerevisiam,
Und hatt er kein Pecuniam
So liess er seinen Tunicam.'

(Comment by Herr Schwackenhammer.)
...