The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4

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_September, 1816._

[First published, _New Monthly Magazine_, August, 1832, vol. xxxv. pp.
142, 143.]

FOOTNOTES:

[35] {33}[Compare--

"Come, blessed barrier between day and day."

[36] [Compare--

"...the night's dismay
Saddened and stunned the coming day."

_The Pains of Sleep_, lines 33, 34, by S. T. Coleridge,
_Poetical Works_, 1893, p. 170.]

[37] {34}[Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto III. stanza vi. lines 1-4,
note, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 219.]

[38] [Compare--

"With us acts are exempt from time, and we
Can crowd eternity into an hour."

_Cain_, act i. sc. 1]

[i] {35}

----_she was his sight,_
_For never did he turn his glance until_
_Her own had led by gazing on an object._--[MS.]

[39] {35}[Compare--

"Thou art my life, my love, my heart,
The very eyes of me."

_To Anthea, etc._, by Robert Herrick.]

[40] [Compare--

"...the river of your love,
Must in the ocean of your affection
To me, be swallowed up."

Massinger's _Unnatural Combat_, act iii. sc. 4.]

[41] [Compare--

"The hot blood ebbed and flowed again."

_Parisina_, line 226, _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 515.]

[42] ["Annesley Lordship is owned by Miss Chaworth, a minor heiress of
the Chaworth family."--Throsby's _Thoroton's History of
Nottinghamshire_, 1797, ii. 270.]

[43] ["Moore, commenting on this (_Life_, p. 28), tells us that the
image of the lover's steed was suggested by the Nottingham race-ground
... nine miles off, and ... lying in a hollow, and totally hidden from
view.... Mary Chaworth, in fact, was looking for her lover's steed along
the road as it winds up the common from Hucknall."-"A Byronian Ramble,"
_Athenaeum_, No. 357, August 30, 1834.]

[44] {36}[Moore (_Life_, p. 28) regards "the antique oratory," as a
poetical equivalent for Annesley Hall; but _vide ante_, the Introduction
to _The Dream_, p. 31.]

[45] [Compare--

"Love by the object loved is soon discerned."

_Story of Rimini_, by Leigh Hunt, Canto III. ed. 1844, p. 22.

The line does not occur in the first edition, published early in 1816,
or, presumably, in the MS. read by Byron in the preceding year. (See
Letter to Murray, November 4, 1815.)]

[46] {37}[Byron once again revisited Annesley Hall in the autumn of 1808
(see his lines, "Well, thou art happy," and "To a Lady," etc., _Poetical
Works_, 1898, i. 277, 282, note 1); but it is possible that he avoided
the "massy gate" ("arched over and surmounted by a clock and cupola") of
set purpose, and entered by another way. He would not lightly or gladly
have taken a liberty with the actual prosaic facts in a matter which so
nearly concerned his personal emotions (_vide ante_, the Introduction to
_The Dream_, p. 31).]

[47] ["This is true _keeping_--an Eastern picture perfect in its
foreground, and distance, and sky, and no part of which is so dwelt upon
or laboured as to obscure the principal figure."--Sir Walter Scott,
_Quarterly Review_, No. xxxi. "Byron's Dream" is the subject of a
well-known picture by Sir Charles Eastlake.]

[48] {38}[Compare--

"Then Cythna turned to me and from her eyes
Which swam with unshed tears," etc.

Shelly's _Revolt of Islam_ ("Laon and Cythna"),
Canto XII. stanza xxii. lines 2, 3, _Poetical Works_, 1829, p. 48.]

[49] [An old servant of the Chaworth family, Mary Marsden, told
Washington Irving (_Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey_, 1835, p. 204) that
Byron used to call Mary Chaworth "his bright morning star of Annesley."
Compare the well-known lines--

"She was a form of Life and Light,
That, seen, became a part of sight;
And rose, where'er I turned mine eye,
The Morning-star of Memory!"

_The Giaour_, lines 1127-1130, _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 136, 137.]

[50] ["This touching picture agrees closely, in many of its
circumstances, with Lord Byron's own prose account of the wedding in his
Memoranda; in which he describes himself as waking, on the morning of
his marriage, with the most melancholy reflections, on seeing his
wedding-suit spread out before him. In the same mood, he wandered about
the grounds alone, till he was summoned for the ceremony, and joined,
for the first time on that day, his bride and her family. He knelt
down--he repeated the words after the clergyman; but a mist was before
his eyes--his thoughts were elsewhere: and he was but awakened by the
congratulations of the bystanders to find that he
was--married."--_Life_, p. 272.

Medwin, too, makes Byron say (_Conversations, etc._, 1824, p. 46) that
he "trembled like a leaf, made the wrong responses, and after the
ceremony called her (the bride) Miss Milbanke." All that can be said of
Moore's recollection of the "memoranda," or Medwin's repetition of
so-called conversations (reprinted almost _verbatim_ in _Life, Writings,
Opinions, etc._, 1825, ii. 227, _seq._, as "Recollections of the Lately
Destroyed Manuscript," etc.), is that they tend to show that Byron meant
_The Dream_ to be taken literally as a record of actual events. He would
not have forgotten by July, 1816, circumstances of great import which
had taken place in December, 1815: and he's either lying of malice
prepense or telling "an ower true tale."]

[j] {40}

----_the glance_
_Of melancholy is a fearful gift;_
_For it becomes the telescope of truth,_
_And shows us all things naked as they are_.--[MS.]

[51] [Compare--

"Who loves, raves--'tis youth's frenzy--but the cure
Is bitterer still, as charm by charm unwinds
Which robed our idols, and we see too sure
Nor Worth nor Beauty dwells from out the mind's
Ideal shape of such."

_Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza cxxiii. lines 1-5,
_Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 420.]

[52] Mithridates of Pontus. [Mithridates, King of Pontus (B.C. 120-63),
surnamed Eupator, succeeded to the throne when he was only eleven years
of age. He is said to have safeguarded himself against the designs of
his enemies by drugging himself with antidotes against poison, and so
effectively that, when he was an old man, he could not poison himself,
even when he was minded to do so--"ut ne volens quidem senex veneno mori
potuerit."--Justinus, _Hist._, lib. xxxvii. cap. ii.

According to Medwin (_Conversations_, p. 148), Byron made use of the
same illustration in speaking of Polidori's death (April, 1821), which
was probably occasioned by "poison administered to himself" (see
_Letters_, 1899, iii. 285).]

[53] {41}[Compare--

"Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends."

_Childe Harold_, Canto III. stanza xiii. line 1.

"...and to me
High mountains are a feeling."

_Ibid._, stanza lxxii. lines 2,3, _Poetical Works_, 1899,
ii. 223, 261.]

[54] [Compare--

"Ye Spirits of the unbounded Universe!"

_Manfred_, act i. sc. 1, line 29, _vide post_, p. 86.]

[55] [Compare _Manfred_, act ii. sc. 2, lines 79-91; and _ibid._, act
iii. sc. 1, lines 34-39; and sc. 4, lines 112-117, _vide post_, pp. 105,
121, 135.]

[k] {42}In the original MS. _A Dream_.

[56] [Sir Walter Scott (_Quarterly Review_, October, 1816, vol. xvi. p.
204) did not take kindly to _Darkness_. He regarded the "framing of such
phantasms" as "a dangerous employment for the exalted and teeming
imagination of such a poet as Lord Byron. The waste of boundless space
into which they lead the poet, the neglect of precision which such
themes may render habitual, make them in respect to poetry what
mysticism is to religion." Poetry of this kind, which recalled "the
wild, unbridled, and fiery imagination of Coleridge," was a novel and
untoward experiment on the part of an author whose "peculiar art" it was
"to show the reader where his purpose tends." The resemblance to
Coleridge is general rather than particular. It is improbable that Scott
had ever read _Limbo_ (first published in _Sibylline Leaves_, 1817), an
attempt to depict the "mere horror of blank nought-at-all;" but it is
possible that he had in his mind the following lines (384-390) from
_Religious Musings_, in which "the final destruction is impersonated"
(see Coleridge's note) in the "red-eyed Fiend:"--

"For who of woman born may paint the hour,
When seized in his mid course, the Sun shall wane,
Making the noon ghastly! Who of woman born
May image in the workings of his thought,
How the black-visaged, red-eyed Fiend outstretched
Beneath the unsteady feet of Nature groans
In feverous slumbers?"

_Poetical Works_, 1893, p. 60.

Another and a less easily detected source of inspiration has been traced
(see an article on Campbell's _Last Man_, in the _London Magazine and
Review_, 1825, New Series, i. 588, seq.) to a forgotten but once popular
novel entitled _The Last Man, or Omegarus and Syderia, a Romance in
Futurity_ (two vols. 1806). Koelbing (_Prisoner of Chillon_, etc., pp.
136-140) adduces numerous quotations in support of this contention. The
following may serve as samples: "As soon as the earth had lost with the
moon her guardian star, her decay became more rapid.... Some, in their
madness, destroyed the instruments of husbandry, others in deep despair
summoned death to their relief. Men began to look on each other with
eyes of enmity" (i. 105). "The sun exhibited signs of decay, its surface
turned pale, and its beams were frigid. The northern nations dreaded
perishing by intense cold ... and fled to the torrid zone to court the
sun's beneficial rays" (i. 120). "The reign of Time was over, ages of
Eternity were going to begin; but at the same moment Hell shrieked with
rage, and the sun and stars were extinguished. The gloomy night of chaos
enveloped the world, plaintive sounds issued from mountains, rocks, and
caverns,--Nature wept, and a doleful voice was heard exclaiming in the
air, 'The human race is no more!'"(ii. 197).

It is difficult to believe that Byron had not read, and more or less
consciously turned to account, the imagery of this novel; but it is
needless to add that any charge of plagiarism falls to the ground.
Thanks to a sensitive and appreciative ear and a retentive memory,
Byron's verse is interfused with manifold strains, but, so far as
_Darkness_ is concerned, his debt to Coleridge or the author of
_Omegarus and Syderia_ is neither more nor less legitimate than the debt
to Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Joel, which a writer in the _Imperial
Magazine_ (1828, x. 699), with solemn upbraidings, lays to his charge.

The duty of acknowledging such debts is, indeed, "a duty of imperfect
obligation." The well-known lines in Tennyson's _Locksley Hall_--

"Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue!"

is surely an echo of an earlier prophecy from the pen of the author of
_Omegarus and Syderia_: "In the center the heavens were seen darkened by
legions of armed vessels, making war on each other!... The soldiers fell
in frightful numbers.... Their blood stained the soft verdure of the
trees, and their scattered bleeding limbs covered the fields and the
roofs of the labourers' cottages" (i. 68). But such "conveyings" are
honourable to the purloiner. See, too, the story of the battle between
the Vulture-cavalry and the Sky-gnats, in Lucian's _Verae Historiae_, i.
16.]

[57] {44}

["If thou speak'st false,
Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,
Till famine cling thee."

_Macbeth_, act V. sc. 5, lines 38-40.

Fruit is said to be "clung" when the skin shrivels, and a corpse when
the face becomes wasted and gaunt.]

[58] {45}[So, too, Vathek and Nouronihar, in the Hall of Eblis, waited
"in direful suspense the moment which should render them to each other
... objects of terror."--_Vathek_, by W. Beckford, 1887, p. 185.]

[59] [Charles Churchill was born in February, 1731, and died at
Boulogne, November 4, 1764. The body was brought to Dover and buried in
the churchyard attached to the demolished church of St. Martin-le-Grand
("a small deserted cemetery in an obscure lane behind [i.e. above] the
market"). See note by Charles De la Pryme, _Notes and Queries_, 1854,
Series I. vol. x. p. 378. There is a tablet to his memory on the south
wall of St. Mary's Church, and the present headstone in the graveyard
(it was a "plain headstone" in 1816) bears the following inscription:--

"1764.
Here lie the remains of the celebrated
C. Churchill.
'Life to the last enjoy'd, here Churchill lies.'"

Churchill had been one of Byron's earlier models, and the following
lines from _The Candidate_, which suggested the epitaph (lines 145-154),
were, doubtless, familiar to him:--

"Let one poor sprig of Bay around my head
Bloom whilst I live, and point me out when dead;
Let it (may Heav'n indulgent grant that prayer)
Be planted on my grave, nor wither there;
And when, on travel bound, some rhyming guest
Roams through the churchyard, whilst his dinner's drest,
Let it hold up this comment to his eyes;
Life to the last enjoy'd, _here_ Churchill lies;
Whilst (O, what joy that pleasing flatt'ry gives)
Reading my Works he cries--_here_ Churchill lives."

Byron spent Sunday, April 25, 1816, at Dover. He was to sail that night
for Ostend, and, to while away the time, "turned to Pilgrim" and thought
out, perhaps began to write, the lines which were finished three months
later at the Campagne Diodati.

"The Grave of Churchill," writes Scott (_Quarterly Review_, October,
1816), "might have called from Lord Byron a deeper commemoration; for,
though they generally differed in character and genius, there was a
resemblance between their history and character.... both these poets
held themselves above the opinion of the world, and both were followed
by the fame and popularity which they seemed to despise. The writings of
both exhibit an inborn, though sometimes ill-regulated, generosity of
mind, and a spirit of proud independence, frequently pushed to extremes.
Both carried their hatred of hypocrisy beyond the verge of prudence, and
indulged their vein of satire to the borders of licentiousness."

Save for the affectation of a style which did not belong to him, and
which in his heart he despised, Byron's commemoration of Churchill does
not lack depth or seriousness. It was the parallel between their lives
and temperaments which awoke reflection and sympathy, and prompted this
"natural homily." Perhaps, too, the shadow of impending exile had
suggested to his imagination that further parallel which Scott
deprecated, and deprecated in vain, "death in the flower of his age, and
in a foreign land."]

[60] {46}[On the sheet containing the original draft of these lines Lord
Byron has written, "The following poem (as most that I have endeavoured
to write) is founded on a fact; and this detail is an attempt at a
serious imitation of the style of a great poet--its beauties and its
defects: I say the _style_; for the thoughts I claim as my own. In this,
if there be anything ridiculous, let it be attributed to me, at least as
much as to Mr. Wordsworth: of whom there can exist few greater admirers
than myself. I have blended what I would deem to be the beauties as well
as defects of his style; and it ought to be remembered, that, in such
things, whether there be praise or dispraise, there is always what is
called a compliment, however unintentional." There is, as Scott points
out, a much closer resemblance to Southey's "_English Eclogues,_ in
which moral truths are expressed, to use the poet's own language, 'in an
almost colloquial plainness of language,' and an air of quaint and
original expression assumed, to render the sentiment at once impressive
and _piquant_."]

[61] {47}[Compare--

"The under-earth inhabitants--are they
But mingled millions decomposed to clay?"

_A Fragment_, lines 23, 24, _vide post_, p. 52.

It is difficult to "extricate" the meaning of lines 19-25, but, perhaps,
they are intended to convey a hope of immortality. "As I was speaking,
the sexton (the architect) tried to answer my question by taxing his
memory with regard to the occupants of the several tombs. He might well
be puzzled, for 'Earth is but a tombstone,' covering an amalgam of dead
bodies, and, unless in another life soul were separated from soul, as on
earth body is distinct from body, Newton himself, who disclosed 'the
turnpike-road through the unpaved stars' (_Don Juan_, Canto X. stanza
ii. line 4), would fail to assign its proper personality to any given
lump of clay."]

[62] {48}[Compare--

"But here [i.e. in 'the realm of death'] all is
So shadowy and so full of twilight, that
It speaks of a day past."

_Cain_, act ii. sc. 2.

[63] ["Selected," that is, by "frequent travellers" (_vide supra_, line
12).]

[l]

----_then most pleased, I shook_
_My inmost pocket's most retired nook,_
_And out fell five and sixpence_.--[MS.]

[64] [Byron was a lover and worshipper of Prometheus as a boy. His first
English exercise at Harrow was a paraphrase of a chorus of the
_Prometheus Vinctus_ of AEschylus, line 528, _sq._ (see _Poetical Works_,
1898, i. 14). Referring to a criticism on _Manfred_ (_Edinburgh Review_,
vol xxviii. p. 431) he writes (October 12, 1817, _Letters_, 1900, iv.
174): "The _Prometheus_, if not exactly in my plan, has always been so
much in my head, that I can easily conceive its influence over all or
any thing that I have written." The conception of an immortal sufferer
at once beneficent and defiant, appealed alike to his passions and his
convictions, and awoke a peculiar enthusiasm. His poems abound with
allusions to the hero and the legend. Compare the first draft of stanza
xvi. of the _Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte_ (_Poetical Works_, 1900, iii.
312, var. ii.); _The Prophecy of Dante_, iv. 10, seq.; the _Irish
Avatar_, stanza xii. line 2, etc.]

[65] {49}[Compare--

[Greek: Toiau~t' e)pey/rou tou~ philanthro/pou tro/pou]

_P. V._, line 28.

Compare, too--

[Greek: Thneto\us d' e)n oi)/.kto| prothe/menos, tou/tou tychei~n]
[Greek: Ou)k e)xio/then au)to\]

Ibid., lines 241, 242.]

[66] [Compare--

[Greek: Dio\s ga\r dysparai/tetoi phre/nes.]

Ibid., line 34.

Compare, too--

[Greek: ...gigno/skonth' o(/ti]
[Greek: To\ te~s a)na/nkes e)st' a)de/riton sthe/nos]

Ibid., line 105.]

[67] {50}[Compare--

"The maker--call him
Which name thou wilt; he makes but to destroy."

_Cain_, act i. sc. 1.

Compare, too--

"And the Omnipotent, who makes and crushes."

_Heaven and Earth_, Part I. sc. 3.]

[68] [Compare--

[Greek: O)/to| thanei~n me/n e)stin ou) peprome/non]

_P. V._, line 754.]

[69][Compare--

[Greek: ...pa/nta prou)xepi/stamai]
[Greek: Skethro~s ta/ me/llonta]

Ibid., lines 101, 102.]

[70] [Compare--

[Greek: Thnetoi~s d' a)e/gon au)to\s eu(ro/men po/nous.]

Ibid., line 269.]

[71] {51}[Compare--

"But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we,
Half dust, half deity."

_Manfred_, act i. sc. 2, lines 39, 40, _vide post_, p. 95.]

[m]----_and equal to all woes_.--[Editions 1832, etc.]

[72] [The edition of 1832 and subsequent issues read "and equal." It is
clear that the earlier reading, "an equal," is correct. The spirit
opposed by the spirit is an equal, etc. The spirit can also oppose to
"its own funereal destiny" a firm will, etc.]

[73] [_A Fragment_, which remained unpublished till 1830, was written at
the same time as _Churchill's Grave_ (July, 1816), and is closely allied
to it in purport and in sentiment. It is a questioning of Death! O
Death, _what_ is thy sting? There is an analogy between exile end death.
As Churchill lay in his forgotten grave at Dover, one of "many millions
decomposed to clay," so he the absent is dead to the absent, and the
absent are dead to him. And what are the dead? the aggregate of
nothingness? or are they a multitude of atoms having neither part nor
lot one with the other? There is no solution but in the grave. Death
alone can unriddle death. The poet's questioning spirit would plunge
into the abyss to bring back the answer.]

[74] {52}[Compare--

"'Tis said thou holdest converse with the things
Which are forbidden to the search of man;
That with the dwellers of the dark abodes,
The many evil and unheavenly spirits
Which walk the valley of the Shade of Death,
Thou communest."

_Manfred_, act iii. sc. 1, lines 34, seq., _vide post_, p. 121.]

[75] {53}Geneva, Ferney, Copet, Lausanne. [For Rousseau, see _Poetical
Works_, 1899, ii. 277, note 1, 300, 301, note 18; for Voltaire and
Gibbon, _vide ibid._, pp. 306, 307, note 22; and for De Stael, see
_Letters_, 1898, ii. 223, note 1. Byron, writing to Moore, January 2,
1821, declares, on the authority of Monk Lewis, "who was too great a
bore ever to lie," that Madame de Stael alleged this sonnet, "in which
she was named with Voltaire, Rousseau, etc.," as a reason for changing
her opinion about him--"she could not help it through decency"
(_Letters_, 1901, v. 213). It is difficult to believe that Madame de
Stael was ashamed of her companions, or was sincere in disclaiming the
compliment, though, as might have been expected, the sonnet excited some
disapprobation in England. A writer in the _Gentleman's Magazine_
(February, 1818, vol. 88, p. 122) relieved his feelings by a "Retort
Addressed to the Thames"--

"Restor'd to my dear native Thames' bank,
My soul disgusted spurns a Byron's lay,--
* * * * *
Leman may idly boast her Stael, Rousseau,
Gibbon, Voltaire, whom Truth and Justice shun--
* * * * *
Whilst meekly shines midst Fulham's bowers the sun
O'er Sherlock's and o'er Porteus' honour'd graves,
Where Thames Britannia's choicest meads exulting laves."]

[76] [Compare--

"Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face."

_Childe Harold_, Canto III. stanza lxviii. line 1,
_Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 257.]

[n] {54}_Stanzas To_----.--[Editions 1816-1830.]

"Though the Day."--[MS. in Mrs. Leigh's handwriting.]

[77] [The "Stanzas to Augusta" were written in July, at the Campagne
Diodati, near Geneva. "Be careful," he says, "in printing the stanzas
beginning, 'Though the day of my Destiny's,' etc., which I think well of
as a composition."--Letter to Murray, October 5, 1816, _Letters_, 1899,
iii. 371.]

[o]

_Though the days of my Glory are over,_
_And the Sun of my fame has declined._--[Dillon MS.]

[p] ----_had painted._--[MS.]

[78] [Compare--

"Dear Nature is the kindest mother still!...
To me by day or night she ever smiled."

_Childe Harold_, Canto II. stanza xxxvii. lines 1, 7,
_Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 122.]

[q] _I will not_----.--[MS. erased.]

[r] {55}_As the breasts I reposed in with me._--[MS.]

[s]

_Though the rock of my young hope is shivered,_
_And its fragments lie sunk in the wave._--[MS. erased.]

[t]

_There is many a pang to pursue me,_
_And many a peril to stem;_
_They may torture, but shall not subdue me;_
_They may crush, but they shall not contemn._--[MS. erased.]
_And I think not of thee but of them._--[MS. erased.]

[u] _Though tempted_----.--[MS.]

[79] [Compare _Childe Harold,_ Canto III. stanzas liii., lv., _Poetical
Works,_ 1899, ii. 247, 248, note 1.]

[v]

_Though watchful, 'twas but to reclaim me,_
_Nor, silent, to sanction a lie._--[MS.]

[80] {56}[Compare--

"Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun,
I had been better than I now can be."

_Epistle to Augusta_, stanza xii. lines 5, 6, _vide post_, p. 61.

Compare, too--

"But soon he knew himself the most unfit
Of men to herd with Man."