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Lord Byron and his Times: http://lordbyron.org
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The Epistles, the Sonnets, and indeed the whole of the book, contain
strong evidences of warm and social feelings, but particularly the
The
The Epistle thus concludes:—
And we can only add, without any disrespect to the graver Picture of Companionship.
The following passage in one of the Sonnets passes, with great happiness, from
the mention of physical associations to mental; and concludes with a feeling which must have
struck many a contemplative mind, that has found the sea-shore like a border, as it were, of
existence. He is speaking of
We have read somewhere the remark of a traveller, who said that when he was walking alone
at night-time on the sea-shore, he felt conscious of the earth, not as the common every day
sphere it seems, but as one of the planets, rolling round him in the mightiness of space. The
same feeling is common to imaginations that are not in need of similar local excitements. The Ocean
The best poem is certainly the last and longest, entitled Sleep and Poetry“from earth to heaven.”
Nor do we like
it the less for an impatient, and as it may be thought by some, irreverend assault upon the
late French school of criticism and monotony, which has held poetry chained long enough to
render it somewhat indignant when it has got free.
The following ardent passage is highly imaginative:
An Aspiration after Poetry.O Poesy! for thee I grasp my pen That am not yet a glorious denizen Of thy wide heaven; yet, to my ardent prayer, Yield from thy sanctuary some clear air, Smoothed for intoxication by the breath Of flowering bays, that I may die a death Of luxury, and my young spirit follow The morning sun-beams to the great Apollo Like a fresh sacrifice; or, if I can bear The o’erwhelming sweets, ’twill bring to me the fair Visions of all places: a bowery nook Will be elysium—an eternal book Whence I may copy many a lovely saying About the leaves, and flowers—about the playing Of nymphs in woods, and fountains; and the shade Keeping a silence round a sleeping maid; And many a verse from so strange influence That we must ever wonder how, and whence It came. Also imaginings will hover Round my fire-side, and haply there discover Vistas of solemn beauty, where I’d wander In happy silence, like the clear meander Through its lone vales; and where I found a spot Of awfuller shade, or an enchanted grot, Or a green hill o’erspread with chequered dress Of flowers, and fearful from its loveliness, Write on my tablets all that was permitted, All that was for our human senses fitted. Then the events of this wide world I’d seize Like a strong giant, and my spirit teaze Till at its shoulders it should proudly see Wings to find out an immortality.
We conclude with the beginning of the paragraph which follows this passage, and which
contains an idea of as lovely and powerful a nature in embodying an abstraction, as we ever
remember to have seen put into words:— Happy Poetry Preferred.
and feeds
A silent space with ever sprouting green.
Upon the whole,