Lord Byron’s Poem
“Darkness” 1788 -1824
The poet George Gordon, known as Lord
Byron (1788-1824), was one of the Romantic movement's most important and
versatile writers. Byron was born in London on January 22, 1788. His father
died three years later. His childhood was dominated by a sternly Calvinist
mother, a nurse who sexually abused and beat him, and painful medical treatment
for his club foot. He began his schooling in Aberdeen, Scotland. He succeeded
to the title and estates of his granduncle William, 5th Baron Byron, upon
William's death in 1798. Lord Byron adopted the name Noel as his third given
name in 1822, in order to receive an inheritance from his mother-in-law. In
compensation for his deformity he prided himself on his physical prowess,
particularly in swimming. While at Harrow School and Trinity College, Cambridge
he gained a reputation for atheism, radicalism and loose-living, keeping a bear
as a pet for a time. In 1809 Byron took his seat in the House of Lords. Also in
1809 he began two years of travel in Portugal, Spain, Malta, Albania, Greece,
and Turkey, involving himself in self-consciously romantic adventures. He swam
across the Hellespont like Leander in the Greek legend, and dressed in Albanian
costume. Lionized in society by his new found literary fame, and pursued by various
women (including Lady Caroline Lamb), in 1815 Byron decided to marry Anna
Isabella Milbanke, a naive and inexperienced young woman. After giving birth to
a daughter, Augusta Ada, Byron's only legitimate child, Lady Byron left her
husband, despairing of ever reforming him. In 1816, Byron agreed to legal
separation from his wife. Rumors about his incestuous relationship with his
half-sister Augusta Leigh, which produced a daughter, Medora, and doubts about
his sanity led to his being ostracized by society. Deeply embittered, Byron
left England in 1816 and never returned. Byron then met up with Percy Bysshe
Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (the future Mary Shelley) in
Switzerland. Along with Mary's half-sister Claire Clairmont, and Byron's
doctor, Polidori, they spent the summer together entertaining each other with
horrific stories from their imaginations. These stories were the seed of Mary
Shelley's Frankenstein. A child was produced from his relationship with Claire
Clairmont around this time, but Allegra, as she was named, died in infancy. He
next travelled to Italy where, after a period of sexual promiscuity with all
kinds of women, he eventually fell in love with Countess Teresa Guiccioli, the
19-year-old wife of an elderly Italian nobleman. After following her to Pisa in
1821, he finally became uncomfortable in the role of tolerated lover. When his
good friend Shelley died by drowning in 1822, he decided to throw himself into
the cause of Greek independence from the Turks. He not only recruited a
regiment for the cause of Greek independence but contributed large sums of
money to it. The Greeks made him commander in chief of their forces in January
1824. In Greece he also had a disappointed passion for a youth, Loukas, and
began to feel his age, expressed poignantly in the lyric "On this Day I
complete my Thirty-Sixth Year". He contracted malaria, was bled several
times by his doctors, and died at Missolonghi on April 19, 1824. 1
1. Taken from Victorian Poetry at Anglik.net at http://www.anglik.net/byron.htm
“I
had a dream, which was not all a dream.The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the
stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathless, and the
icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;Morn came and
went--and came, and brought no day, And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for
light: And they did live by watchfires--and the thrones,The palaces of crowned
kings--the huts,The habitations of all things which dwell, Were burnt for beacons;
cities were consumed, And men were gathered round their blazing homes To look
once more into each other's face; Happy were those who dwelt within the eye Of
the volcanos, and their mountain-torch: A fearful hope was all the world
contain'd; Forests were set on fire--but hour by hour They fell and faded--and
the crackling trunks Extinguish'd with a crash--and all was black.
The
brows of men by the despairing light Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits The
flashes fell upon them; some lay down And hid their eyes and wept; and some did
rest Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled; And others hurried to
and fro, and fed Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up With mad
disquietude on the dull sky, The pall of a past world; and then again With
curses cast them down upon the dust, And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the
wild birds shriek'd, And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, And flap their
useless wings; the wildest brutes Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd
And twined themselves among the multitude, Hissing, but stingless--they were
slain for food. And War, which for a moment was no more, Did glut himself
again;--a meal was bought With blood, and each sate sullenly apart Gorging
himself in gloom: no love was left; All earth was but one thought--and that was
death, Immediate and inglorious; and the pang Of famine fed upon all
entrails--men Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh; The meagre by
the meagre were devoured, Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one, And
he was faithful to a corse, and kept The birds and beasts and famish'd men at
bay, Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead Lured their lank jaws;
himself sought out no food, But with a piteous and perpetual moan, And a quick
desolate cry, licking the hand Which answered not with a caress--he died.
The
crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two Of an enormous city did survive, And
they were enemies: they met beside The dying embers of an altar-place Where had
been heap'd a mass of holy things For an unholy usage; they raked up, And
shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands The feeble ashes, and their
feeble breath Blew for a little life, and made a flame Which was a mockery;
then they lifted up Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld Each other's
aspects--saw, and shriek'd, and died-- Even of their mutual hideousness they
died, Unknowing who he was upon whose brow Famine had written Fiend.
The
world was void, The populous and the powerful--was a lump, Seasonless,
herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless-- A lump of death--a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still, And nothing stirred within their
silent depths; Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea, And their masts fell
down piecemeal: as they dropp'd They slept on the abyss without a surge-- The
waves were dead; the tides were in their grave, The moon their mistress had
expir'd before; The winds were withered in the stagnant air, And the clouds
perish'd; Darkness had no need Of aid from them--She was the Universe.” 2
2. Taken from Futureverse
website. No longer online. (hard copy available upon request)