{"product_id":"selected-poetry-of-lord-byron-isbn-9780375758140","title":"Selected Poetry of Lord Byron","description":"Poet, celebrity, and revolutionary, Lord (George Gordon) Byron was one of the most influential and controversial figures of the first half of the nineteenth century, his distinctive, deeply felt work comprising one of the enduring high points of Romantic literature. From “Manfred,” with its evocation of the figure that came to be called the “Byronic hero,” to the melancholy “Childe Harold,” to the satirical masterpiece “Don Juan” (presented here in judiciously selected form), this Modern Library Paperback Classic includes all of the essential Byron.Biographical Note\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction\u003cbr\u003eChilde Harold's Pilgrimage: Canto the First\u003cbr\u003eChilde Harold's Pilgrimage: Canto the Second\u003cbr\u003eChilde Harold's Pilgrimage: Canto the Third\u003cbr\u003eChilde Harold's Pilgrimage: Canto the Fourth\u003cbr\u003eOn Leaving Newstead Abbey\u003cbr\u003eThe First Kiss of Love\u003cbr\u003eTo Woman\u003cbr\u003eReply to Some Verses of J. M. B. Pigot, Esq., on the Cruelty of His Mistress\u003cbr\u003eTo the Sighing Strephon\u003cbr\u003eLachin Y Gair\u003cbr\u003eTo Romance\u003cbr\u003eTo a Lady\u003cbr\u003e\"I would I were a careless child\"\u003cbr\u003e\"When I rov'd a young Highlander\"\u003cbr\u003eFragment, Written Shortly after the Marriage of Miss Chaworth\u003cbr\u003eLines Inscribed upon a Cup Formed from a Skull\u003cbr\u003eInscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog\u003cbr\u003e\"Well! thou art happy\"\u003cbr\u003eTo a Lady, on Being Asked My Reason for Quitting England in the Spring\u003cbr\u003eStanzas Written in Passing the Ambracian Gulf\u003cbr\u003e\"The spell is broke, the charm is flown!\"\u003cbr\u003eThe Girl of Cadiz\u003cbr\u003eWritten after Swimming from Sestos to Abydos\u003cbr\u003e\"Maid of Athens, ere we part\"\u003cbr\u003eFarewell to Malta\u003cbr\u003eNewstead Abbey\u003cbr\u003eEpistle to a Friend\u003cbr\u003eTo Thyrza\u003cbr\u003e\"Away, away, ye notes of Woe!\"\u003cbr\u003e\"One struggle more, and I am free\"\u003cbr\u003eEuthanasia\u003cbr\u003e\"And thou art dead, as young and fair\"\u003cbr\u003eLines to a Lady Weeping\u003cbr\u003e\"Remember thee! remember thee!\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Thou art not false, but thou art fickle\"\u003cbr\u003eSonnet, To Genevra\u003cbr\u003eSonnet, To the Same\u003cbr\u003eOde to Napoleon Buonaparte\u003cbr\u003eStanzas for Music (\"I speak not,\" etc.)\u003cbr\u003eStanzas for Music (\"There's not a joy,\" etc.)\u003cbr\u003eStanzas for Music (\"There be none of Beauty's daughters\")\u003cbr\u003eDarkness\u003cbr\u003eChurchill's Grave\u003cbr\u003ePrometheus\u003cbr\u003eA Fragment (\"could I remount,\" etc.)\u003cbr\u003eSonnet to Lake Leman\u003cbr\u003eOn Sam Rogers\u003cbr\u003eStanzas to the Po\u003cbr\u003eStanzas (\"Could Love for ever\")\u003cbr\u003eStanzas Written on the Road Between Florence and Pisa\u003cbr\u003eAristomenes\u003cbr\u003eLast Words on Greece\u003cbr\u003eOn This Day I Complete My Thirty-sixth Year\u003cbr\u003e[Love and Death]\u003cbr\u003e\"She walks in Beauty\"\u003cbr\u003e\"The Harp the Monarch Minstrel swept\"\u003cbr\u003e\"If that high world\"\u003cbr\u003e\"The wild gazelle\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Oh! weep for those\"\u003cbr\u003e\"On Jordan's banks\"\u003cbr\u003eJephtha's Daughter\u003cbr\u003e\"Oh! snatched away in Beauty's bloom\"\u003cbr\u003e\"My soul is dark\"\u003cbr\u003e\"I saw the weep\"\u003cbr\u003e\"Thy days are done\"\u003cbr\u003eSong of Saul Before His Last Battle\u003cbr\u003eSaul\u003cbr\u003e\"All Is Vanity, Saith the Preacher\"\u003cbr\u003e\"When coldness wraps this suffering clay\"\u003cbr\u003eVision of Belshazzar\u003cbr\u003e\"Sun of the sleepless!\"253\u003cbr\u003e\"Were my bosom as false as thou deem'st it to be\"\u003cbr\u003eHerod's Lament for Mariamne\u003cbr\u003eOn the Day of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus\u003cbr\u003eBy the Rivers of Babylon We Sat Down and Wept\u003cbr\u003eThe Destruction of Sennacherib\u003cbr\u003e\"A Spirit passed before me\"\u003cbr\u003e\"By the Waters of Babylon\"\u003cbr\u003eFare Thee Well\u003cbr\u003eStanzas to Augusta (\"When all around grew drear and dark\")\u003cbr\u003eStanzas to Augusta (\"Though the day of my Destiny's over\")\u003cbr\u003eThe Dream\u003cbr\u003eLines to Mr. Hodgson\u003cbr\u003eTranslation of the Nurse's Dole in the Medea of Euripides\u003cbr\u003eWindsor Poetics\u003cbr\u003e\"So we'll go no more a-roving\"\u003cbr\u003eVersicles\u003cbr\u003eTo Mr. Murray (\"To book the reader, you, John Murray\")\u003cbr\u003eTo Thomas Moore\u003cbr\u003eEpistle from Mr. Murray to Dr. Polidori\u003cbr\u003eEpistle to Mr. Murray (\"My dear Mr. Murray\")\u003cbr\u003eTo Mr. Murray (\"Strahan, Tonson, Lintot of the times\")\u003cbr\u003eEpigram, from the French of Rulhieres\u003cbr\u003eEpilogue\u003cbr\u003eOn My Wedding-Day\u003cbr\u003eMy Boy Hobbie O\u003cbr\u003eLines, Addressed by Lord Byron to Mr. Hobbouse on His Election for Westminster\u003cbr\u003eEpigram (\"The world is a bundle of hay\")\u003cbr\u003eJohn Keats\u003cbr\u003eEnglish Bards, and Scotch Reviewers\u003cbr\u003eThe Vision of Judgment\u003cbr\u003eFrom Don Juan: Canto the First\u003cbr\u003eFrom Don Juan: Canto the Second\u003cbr\u003eFrom Don Juan: Canto the Third\u003cbr\u003eFrom Don Juan: Canto the Fourth\u003cbr\u003eFrom Don Juan: Canto the Seventh\u003cbr\u003eFrom Don Juan: Canto the Ninth\u003cbr\u003eFrom Don Juan: Canto the Eleventh\u003cbr\u003eFrom Don Juan: Canto the Twelfth\u003cbr\u003eFrom Don Juan: Canto the Thirteenth\u003cbr\u003eFrom Don Juan: Canto the Fourteenth\u003cbr\u003eFrom Don Juan: Canto the Fifteenth\u003cbr\u003eFrom Don Juan: Canto the Sixteenth\u003cbr\u003eFrom Don Juan: Canto the Seventeenth\u003cbr\u003eThe Giaour\u003cbr\u003eFrom The Bride of Abydos\u003cbr\u003eFrom The Corsair\u003cbr\u003eThe Prisoner of Chillon\u003cbr\u003eBeppo\u003cbr\u003eManfred\u003cbr\u003eNotes\u003cbr\u003eIndex of Titles“His capricious imagination rises . . . to heights that none can reach without wings.”—\u003cb\u003eVictor Hugo\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eLeslie A. Marchand\u003c\/b\u003e, one of the foremost Byron scholars of the twentieth century, was general editor of the authoritative twelve-volume edition of \u003ci\u003eByron’s Letters and Journals\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eThomas M. Disch\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of ten books of poetry and more than fifteen novels, including, most recently, \u003ci\u003eCamp Concentration\u003c\/i\u003e. He lives in upstate New York.It would have pleased Lord Byron to know that, having been the most renowned, imitated, and execrated of the major romantic poets, he is now, almost two centuries later, the least honored and the most ignored and deplored of that select few. For he thrived on giving of-fense. He was a sexy, swaggering contrarian whose wisecrack answer to the earnest inquiry of Concerned Virtue, “What are you rebelling \u003ci\u003eagains\u003c\/i\u003et?” would have been the same as Marlon Brando’s: “What have ya got?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs with Brando, behind the mask of the rebel shaking his fist at prim respectability was the furrowed brow of a sensitive guy not afraid to cry, a misunderstood teenage werewolf or, better yet, a vampire—a possibility he darkly hinted at in his letters.* Byron pictured himself (under the alias of Childe Harold) wandering about the Alps at mid-night alternately exulting in thunderstorms and crying tears of secret melancholy. Generations of readers have thrilled with a sympathetic vibration to that particular passage (“Child Harold, Canto 3, stanzas xcii–xcvii). But the storm passes and the poet moves to other scenes, other feelings, other roles. He roars at the ocean—a splendid roar\u003cbr\u003e(Canto 4, stanza clxxix); he luxuriates among the odalisques of his harem or runs off with someone else’s, then addresses songs to her— such songs! lyrics of irresistible seductiveness—following which he joins his gentlemen friends for brandy and cigars and brags to them of his exploits on the tilting grounds of love, a perfect cad. Those who prize sincerity in poets and would hold them to their word, as to a marriage vow, cannot but take exception to such will-o’-the- wisp fickleness of purpose. That was the Prosecution’s chief charge against Lord Byron back when; that is its charge now. And now it is a graver charge, for the one sin a poet cannot be forgiven in our age is lying in the confessional of his poetry. Read any of his poems titled “Stanzas for Music”; for instance, the one that begins:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI speak not, I trace not, I breathe not thy name,\u003cbr\u003eThere is grief in the sound, there is guilt in the fame:\u003cbr\u003eBut the tear which now burns on my cheek may impart\u003cbr\u003eThe deep thoughts that dwell in that silence of heart.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe sound is so smooth that the comma-spliced phrases glide by almost without making sense. Indeed, some of his best-loved lyrics don’t bear thinking about at all. “She walks in Beauty, like the night \/ Of cloudless climes and starry skies.” What or who is being likened to the night, she or beauty?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo ask such a question is to be deaf to the poem. As well ask the meaning of the viola’s recurring theme in Berlioz’s \u003ci\u003eHarold in Italy, \u003c\/i\u003eor of a kiss. Byron’s love lyrics are pure blarney, part of the apparatus of seduction of the nineteenth century’s most accomplished make-out artist. One doesn’t ask for good sense from such entertainers but rather intoxication, which together with love is one of the favorite themes of their songs. “Oh, Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms,” an internationally popular song of Byron’s time, was written by Thomas Moore, his best friend, professional rival, biographer, and literary executor, and it was the beau ideal and bull’s-eye of poetic aspiration: a “parlor song” of lilting melody, elegant diction, sweet sentimentality, and unexceptionable good taste. Moore, who was also an accomplished performer, was the most successful purveyor of such goods in the early Romantic era, but Byron wrote a couple of dozen almost as endearing and enduring, including one addressed to Moore himself, which he wrote, drunk, on a Carnival night in Venice:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo we’ll go no more a-roving\u003cbr\u003eSo late into the night,\u003cbr\u003eThough the heart be still as loving,\u003cbr\u003eAnd the moon be still as bright.\u003cbr\u003eFor the sword outwears its sheath,\u003cbr\u003eAnd the soul wears out the breast,\u003cbr\u003eAnd the heart must pause to breathe,\u003cbr\u003eAnd Love itself have rest.\u003cbr\u003eThough the night was made for loving,\u003cbr\u003eAnd the day returns too soon,\u003cbr\u003eYet we’ll go no more a-roving\u003cbr\u003eBy the light of the moon.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e* Recently that hint has been taken up by the novelist Tom Holland, who has portrayed\u003cbr\u003eByron as a vampire in his three horror novels, \u003ci\u003eLord of the Dead, Slave of My Thirst, \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eDeliver\u003cbr\u003eUs from Evil.\u003c\/i\u003e[quote] --Victor Hugo","brand":"Modern Library","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301178757349,"sku":"NP9780375758140","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780375758140.jpg?v=1767736321","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/selected-poetry-of-lord-byron-isbn-9780375758140","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}