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Lord Byron
Lord Byron
- Year after year they voted cent per cent
Blood, sweat, and tear-wrung millions—why? for rent!‘The Age of Bronze’ (1823) st. 14; see Churchill - Hereditary bondsmen! know ye not
Who would be free themselves must strike the blow?Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–18) canto 2, st. 76 - There was a sound of revelry by night.Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–18) canto 3, st. 21
- But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–18) canto 3, st. 22
- On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet.Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–18) canto 3, st. 22 - To fly from, need not be to hate, mankind.Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–18) canto 3, st. 69
- I stood
Among them, but not of them; in a shroud
Of thoughts which were not their thoughts.Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–18) canto 3, st. 113 - I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs:
A palace and a prison on each hand.Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–18) canto 4, st. 1 - Of its own beauty is the mind diseased.Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–18) canto 4, st. 122
- There were his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother— he, their sire,
Butchered to make a Roman holiday.Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–18) canto 4, st. 141 - While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand;
When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall;
And when Rome falls—the World.Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–18) canto 4, st. 145 - There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but nature more.Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–18) canto 4, st. 178 - Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean—roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin—his control
Stops with the shore.Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–18) canto 4, st. 179 - There was a laughing devil in his sneer.The Corsair (1814) canto 1, st. 9
- The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.‘The Destruction of Sennacherib’ (1815) st. 1 - For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed.‘The Destruction of Sennacherib’ (1815) st. 3 - And Coleridge, too, has lately taken wing,
But, like a hawk encumbered with his hood,
Explaining metaphysics to the nation—
I wish he would explain his explanation.Don Juan (1819–24) canto 1, dedication st. 2 - What men call gallantry, and gods adultery,
Is much more common where the climate's sultry.Don Juan (1819–24) canto 1, st. 63 - Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded
That all the Apostles would have done as they did.Don Juan (1819–24) canto 1, st. 83 - A little still she strove, and much repented,
And whispering ‘I will ne'er consent’—consented.Don Juan (1819–24) canto 1, st. 117 - Sweet is revenge—especially to women.Don Juan (1819–24) canto 1, st. 124
- Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure.Don Juan (1819–24) canto 1, st. 133
- Man's love is of man's life a thing apart,
'Tis woman's whole existence.Don Juan (1819–24) canto 1, st. 194 - There's nought, no doubt, so much the spirit calms
As rum and true religion.Don Juan (1819–24) canto 2, st. 34 - Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter,
Sermons and soda-water the day after.Don Juan (1819–24) canto 2, st. 178 - Man, being reasonable, must get drunk;
The best of life is but intoxication.Don Juan (1819–24) canto 2, st. 179 - In her first passion woman loves her lover,
In all the others all she loves is love.Don Juan (1819–24) canto 3, st. 3 - Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife,
He would have written sonnets all his life?Don Juan (1819–24) canto 3, st. 8 - All tragedies are finished by a death,
All comedies are ended by a marriage;
The future states of both are left to faith.Don Juan (1819–24) canto 3, st. 9 - Dreading that climax of all human ills,
The inflammation of his weekly bills.Don Juan (1819–24) canto 3, st. 35 - The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set!Don Juan (1819–24) canto 3, st. 86 (1) - The mountains look on Marathon—
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dreamed that Greece might still be free.Don Juan (1819–24) canto 3, st. 86 (3) - And if I laugh at any mortal thing,
'Tis that I may not weep.Don Juan (1819–24) canto 4, st. 4 - …That all-softening, overpowering knell,
The tocsin of the soul—the dinner bell.Don Juan (1819–24) canto 5, st. 49 - A lady of a ‘certain age’, which means
Certainly aged.Don Juan (1819–24) canto 6, st. 69 - And, after all, what is a lie? 'Tis but
The truth in masquerade.Don Juan (1819–24) canto 11, st. 37 - 'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle,
Should let itself be snuffed out by an article.on Keats ‘who was killed off by one critique’Don Juan (1819–24) canto 11, st. 60 - Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure;
Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.Don Juan (1819–24) canto 13, st. 4 - The English winter—ending in July,
To recommence in August.Don Juan (1819–24) canto 13, st. 42 - Society is now one polished horde,
Formed of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored.Don Juan (1819–24) canto 13, st. 95 - Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe,
Sadder than owl-songs or the midnight blast,
Is that portentous phrase, ‘I told you so.’Don Juan (1819–24) canto 14, st. 50 - 'Tis strange—but true; for truth is always strange;
Stranger than fiction.Don Juan (1819–24) canto 14, st. 101 - How little do we know that which we are!
How less what we may be!Don Juan (1819–24) canto 15, st. 99 - I'll publish, right or wrong:
Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809) l. 5 - Friendship is Love without his wings!‘L'Amitié est l'amour sans ailes’ (written 1806, published 1831)
- Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most
Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth,
The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life.Manfred (1817) act 1, sc. 1, l. 10 - My days are in the yellow leaf;
The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone!‘On This Day I Complete my Thirty-Sixth Year’ (1824); see Shakespeare - She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes.‘She Walks in Beauty’ (1815) st. 1 - A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!‘She Walks in Beauty’ (1815) - Eternal spirit of the chainless mind!
Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art.‘Sonnet on Chillon’ (1816) - So, we'll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.‘So we'll go no more a-roving’ (written 1817) - Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story;
The days of our youth are the days of our glory.‘Stanzas Written on the Road between Florence and Pisa, November 1821’ - Still I can't contradict, what so oft has been said,
‘Though women are angels, yet wedlock's the devil.’‘To Eliza’ (1806) - When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss.‘When we two parted’ (1816) - If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?—
With silence and tears.‘When we two parted’ (1816) - Near this spot are deposited the remains of one who possessed beauty without vanity, strength without insolence, courage without ferocity, and all the virtues of Man, without his vices.‘Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog’ (1808)
- My Princess of Parallelograms.of his future wife Annabella Milbanke, a keen amateur mathematicianletter to Lady Melbourne, 18 October 1812
- The place is very well and quiet and the children only scream in a low voice.letter to Lady Melbourne, 21 September 1813
- What is hope? nothing but the paint on the face of Existence; the least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of.letter to Thomas Moore, 28 October 1815, in L. A. Marchand (ed.) Byron's Letters and Journals vol. 4 (1975)
- Like other parties of the kind, it was first silent, then talky, then argumentative, then disputatious, then unintelligible, then altogethery, then inarticulate, and then drunk.letter to Thomas Moore, 31 October 1815
- I should, many a good day, have blown my brains out, but for the recollection that it would have given pleasure to my mother-in-law; and, even then, if I could have been certain to haunt her…letter, 28 January 1817
- There should always be some foundation of fact for the most airy fabric and pure invention is but the talent of a liar.letter to John Murray from Venice, 2 April 1817
- The poem will please if it is lively—if it is stupid it will fail—but I will have none of your damned cutting and slashing.letter to his publisher John Murray, 6 April 1819
- God will not always be a Tory.letter, 2 February 1821
- I awoke one morning and found myself famous.on the instantaneous success of Childe HaroldThomas Moore Letters and Journals of Lord Byron (1830) vol. 1
