The Poetical Works of Lord Byron: Complete in One Volume

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J. Murray, 1847 - 827 pages
 

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Page 60 - 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 ; upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy...
Page 77 - Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime ? Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle, Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime...
Page 60 - His steps are not upon thy paths— thy fields Are not a spoil for him— thou dost arise And shake him from thee ; the vile strength he wields For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to earth — there let him lay.
Page 60 - 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 61 - Thou glorious mirror, where the 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 30 - There was a sound of revelry by night, And Belgium's capital had gathered then Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men; A thousand hearts beat happily; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes look'd love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage-bell; But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!
Page 61 - 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 63 - The fixed yet tender traits that streak The languor of the placid cheek, And — but for that sad shrouded eye, That fires not, wins not, weeps not, now, And but for that chill changeless brow, Where cold obstruction's apathy...
Page 42 - In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, And silent rows the songless gondolier; Her palaces are crumbling to the shore, And music meets not always now the ear: Those days are gone — but Beauty still is here. States fall, arts fade — but Nature doth not die, Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear, The pleasant place of all festivity, The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy!
Page 61 - 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

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