English Romantic poet (1788-1824)
Accursed be the city where the laws would stifle nature's!
LORD BYRON
The Two Foscari
But first, on earth as vampire sent,
Thy corpse shall from its tomb be rent,
Then ghastly haunt thy native place,
And suck the blood of all thy race;
There from thy daughter, sister, wife,
At midnight drain the stream of life;
Yet loathe the banquet which perforce
Must feed thy livid living corpse.
LORD BYRON
The Giaour
For talk six times with the same single lady,
And you may get the wedding dresses ready.
LORD BYRON
Don Juan
Ah, vice! how soft are they voluptuous ways,
While boyish blood is mantling, who can 'scape
The fascination of thy magic gaze?
A cherub-hydra round us dost thou gape,
And mould to every taste thy dear delusive shape.
LORD BYRON
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
Kill a man's family, and he may brook it,
But keep your hands out of his breeches' pocket.
LORD BYRON
Don Juan
Ah! happy years! once more who would not be a boy!
LORD BYRON
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
But yet she listen'd -- 'tis enough --
Who listens once will listen twice;
Her heart, be sure, is not of ice,
And one refusal no rebuff.
LORD BYRON
Mazeppa
I depart,
Whither I know not; but the hour's gone by
When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye.
LORD BYRON
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
Romances paint at full length people's wooings,
But only give a bust of marriages:
For no one cares for matrimonial cooings.
There's nothing wrong in a connubial kiss.
Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife,
He would have written sonnets all his life?
LORD BYRON
Don Juan
Whatsoe'er thy birth,
Thou wert a beautiful thought and softly bodied forth.
LORD BYRON
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
Foul Superstition! howsoe'er disguised,
Idol, saint, virgin, prophet, crescent, cross,
For whatsoever symbol thou art prized,
Thou sacerdotal gain, but general loss!
Who from true worship's gold can separate thy dross?
LORD BYRON
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
Suspicion is a heavy armor, and with its own weight impedes more than it protects.
LORD BYRON
Werner
I die--but first I have possess'd,
And come what may, I have been bless'd.
LORD BYRON
The Giaour
Think'st thou there is no tyranny but that
Of blood and chains? The despotism of vice--
The weakness and the wickedness of luxury--
The negligence--the apathy--the evils
Of sensual sloth--produce ten thousand tyrants,
Whose delegated cruelty surpasses
The worst acts of one energetic master,
However harsh and hard in his own bearing.
LORD BYRON
Sardanapalus
What exile from himself can flee?
To zones, though more and more remote,
Still, still pursues, where'er I be,
The blight of life--the demon Thought.
LORD BYRON
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
But owned that smile, if oft observed and near,
Waned in its mirth, and wither'd to a sneer.
LORD BYRON
Lara: A Tale
Smiles form the channels of a future tear.
LORD BYRON
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
Hide thy tears--I do not bid thee not to shed them--'twere easier to stop the Euphrates at its source than one tear of a true and tender heart.
LORD BYRON
Sardanapalus
Dead scandals form good subjects for dissection.
LORD BYRON
Don Juan
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;
And when Rome falls--the World.
LORD BYRON
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage