The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2

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Page 225 - Clear, placid Leman ! thy contrasted lake, With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring. This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing To waft me from distraction : once I loved Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring Sounds sweet as if a sister's voice reproved, That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved.
Page 368 - Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thou; Unchangeable save to thy wild waves
Page 369 - Almighty's form Glasses itself in tempests; in all time, Calm or convulsed, — in breeze, or gale, or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark-heaving; boundless, endless, and sublime, The image of Eternity, — the throne Of the Invisible! even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.
Page 193 - And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves, Dewy with nature's tear-drops as they pass, Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves, Over the unreturning brave, — alas! Ere evening to be trodden like the grass Which now beneath them, but above shall grow In its next verdure, when this fiery mass Of living valour, rolling on the foe And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low.
Page 343 - He recked not of the life he lost nor prize, But where his rude hut by the Danube lay, There were his young barbarians all at play, There was their Daci.an mother, — he, their sire, Butchered to make a Roman holiday! — All this rushed with his blood. — Shall he expire And unavenged? — Arise, ye Goths, and glut your ire!
Page 227 - Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt In solitude, where we are least alone ; A truth, which through our being then doth melt And purifies from self: it is a tone, The soul and source of music, which makes known Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm Like to the fabled Cytherea's zone, Binding all things with beauty ; — 'twould disarm The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm.
Page 369 - And I have loved thee, Ocean ! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward : from a boy I wantoned with thy breakers — they to me Were a delight : and if the freshening sea Made them a terror — 'twas a pleasing fear, For I was as it were a child of thee, And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane — as I do here.
Page 367 - The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake And monarchs tremble in their capitals, The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Their clay creator the vain title take Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war: These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.
Page 192 - And there was mounting in hot haste : the steed, The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, Went pouring forward with impetuous speed. And swiftly forming in the ranks of war; And the deep thunder peal on peal afar; And near, the beat of the alarming drum Roused up the soldier ere the morning star; While thronged the citizens with terror dumb, Or whispering with white lips — "The foe! They come! they come ! " And wild and high the "Cameron's gathering
Page 315 - The ocean hath his chart, the stars their map, And Knowledge spreads them on her ample lap: But Rome is as the desert, where we steer Stumbling o'er recollections: now we clap Our hands, and cry, " Eureka ! it is clear — " When but some false mirage of ruin rises near.

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