GEORGE GORDON (LORD BYRON). Where'er we turn, thy glories shine, And all things fair and bright are thine. When day, with farewell beam, delays Among the opening clouds of even, And we can almost think we gaze Through golden vistas into heaven, Those hues that make the sun's decline So soft, so radiant, Lord! are thine. When night, with wings of starry gloom, O'ershadows all the earth and skies, Like some dark, beauteous bird, whose plume Is sparkling with unnumbered eyes, That sacred gloom, those fires divine, So grand, so countless, Lord! are thine. When youthful spring around us breathes, Thy spirit warms her fragrant sigh; And every flower the summer wreathes Is born beneath that kindling eye. Where'er we turn, thy glories shine, And all things fair and bright are Thine. LORD BYRON. [1788-1824] SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY. SHE walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies, And all that's best of dark and bright Meets in her aspect and her eyes, Thus mellowed to that tender light Which Heaven to gaudy day denies. One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress, Or softly lightens o'er her face, And on that cheek and o'er that brow, 125 On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds, Around his waist are forests braced, The glacier's cold and restless mass I am the spirit of the place, Could make the mountain bow And quiver to his caverned base, And what with me wouldst Thou? THE IMMORTAL MIND. WHEN coldness wraps this suffering clay, Ah, whither strays the immortal mind! It cannot die, it cannot stay, But leaves its darkened dust behind. Then, unembodied, doth it trace By steps each planet's heavenly way? Or fill at once the realms of space, A thing of eyes, that all survey? Eternal, boundless, undecayed, A thought unseen, but seeing all, All, all in earth or skies displayed, Shall it survey, shall it recall: Each fainter trace that memory holds So darkly of departed years, In one broad glance the soul beholds, And all that was at once appears. Before creation peopled earth, Its eyes shall roll through chaos back; And where the farthest heaven had birth, The spirit trace its rising track. And where the future mars or makes, Its glance dilate o'er all to be, While sun is quenched or system breaks, Fixed in its own eternity. Above or love, hope, hate, or fear, It lives all passionless and pure: An age shall fleet like earthly year; Its years as moments shall endure. Away, away, without a wing, O'er all, through all, its thoughts shall fly, A nameless and eternal thing. Forgetting what it was to die. |