To pass the desert to a throne, What mortal his own doom may guess? Let none despond, let none despair! May see our coursers graze at ease Had I such welcome for a river As I shall yield when safely there. Comrades, good night!" The Hetman threw His length beneath the oak-tree shade, A bed nor comfortless nor new To him, who took his rest whene'er The hour arrived, no matter where : His eyes the hastening slumbers steep. – And if ye marvel Charles forgot To thank his tale, he wondered not, 860 Ends not in dying, And, formed for flying, Love plumes his wing; Let's love a season; But let that season be only Spring. II When lovers parted A few years older, Ah! how much colder For whom they sigh! They pluck Love's feather From out his wing He'll stay for ever, But sadly shiver Without his plumage, when past the Spring. STANZAS WRITTEN ON THE ROAD BETWEEN FLORENCE AND PISA (Written in 1821) I H, talk not to me of a name great in story OH, The days of our Youth are the days of our glory; And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty. II What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled? III Oh FAME! if I e'er took delight in thy praises, IV There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee; Her Glance was the best of the rays that surround thee; When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story, I knew it was Love, and I felt it was Glory. SELECTIONS FROM DON JUAN Don Juan is undoubtedly Byron's masterpiece, on which his claim to immortality must largely rest. It was the last and by far the most elaborate of his productions, and had attained a length of over fifteen thousand lines when the poet's departure for Greece left it forever unfinished. Don Juan is in many ways a marvelous poem, but especially so in its perfectly sustained art; while its remarkable mingling of satire and sentiment, cynicism and pathos, sublimity and absurdity, shows forth Byron himself, with all his complexities and contradictions of character. With the possible exception of Butler's Hudibras, it is the wittiest of English poems, and as a complete picture of its age it is certainly unique. Its verse form, the Italian ottiva rima, or eight-line stanza, is handled with an ease and a variety of effect unsurpassed in literature. Whatever the subjectmatter, the style of Don Juan never falls below a high level of excellence, although the poet's moods change with startling rapidity from grave to gay, often leaving the reader in doubt as to what effect was intended. But such anticlimaxes form an essential part of the poem. Through the perfection of its art, its scathing satire, true pathos, and brilliant wit, Don Juan must forever take its place among the great sustained poems of the world. At midnight on the blue and moonlit deep By distance mellowed, o'er the waters sweep; 'Tis sweet to listen as the night-winds creep From leaf to leaf; 't is sweet to view on high The rainbow, based on ocean, span the sky. 1 Adria: the Adriatic Sea. In this instance Byron perhaps refers to Venice, the "bride of the Adriatic." CXXIII 'Tis sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home; 'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark Our coming, and look brighter when we come; Or lulled by falling waters; sweet the hum CXXIV Sweet is the vintage, when the showering grapes From civic revelry to rural mirth; Sweet to the miser are his glittering heaps; THE SHIPWRECK (From Canto II) This marvelous piece of description, probably the most famous of its kind, is a mosaic from various sources, one of which is the account, given by the poet's grandfather, John Byron, of the loss of 66 The Wager," in 1741, in the Straits of Magellan. No mere selection can do justice to Byron's descriptive and comic art. The story of Juan's shipwreck, followed by famine, despair, the death of his companions, and his own final rescue, should be read as a whole. XXIV HE ship, called the most holy "Trinidada,” Was steering duly for the port Leghorn; For there the Spanish family Moncada Were settled long ere Juan's sire was born: |