George Gordon Byron Poems

Time was, ere yet in these degenerate days
Ignoble themes obtain'd mistaken praise,
When sense and wit with poesy allied,
No fabl'd graces, flourish'd side by side;
...

Could Love for ever
Run like a river,
And Time's endeavour
Be tried in vain ­
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Thou whose spell can raise the dead,
Bid the prophet's form appear.
'Samuel, raise thy buried head!
King, behold the phantom seer!'
...

I.
Oh! Weep for those that wept by Babel's stream,
Whose shrines are desolate, whose land a dream,
Weep for the harp of Judah's broken shell--
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No breath of air to break the wave
That rolls below the Athenian's grave,
That tomb which, gleaming o'er the cliff
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Youth, Nature, and relenting Jove,
To keep my Lamp in strongly strove;
But Romanelli was so stout,
He beat all three, and blew it out.
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I.
We do not curse thee, Waterloo!
Though Freedom's blood thy plain bedew;
There 'twas shed, but is not sunk­
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There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
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'Twas after dread Pultowa's day,
When fortune left the royal Swede--
Around a slaughtered army lay,
No more to combat and to bleed.
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Since our Country, our God -- Oh, my Sire!
Demand that thy Daughter expire;
Since thy triumph was brought by thy vow--
Strike the bosom that's bared for thee now!
...