happiness. The Greeks were battling with Turkey for their independence, and in 1823 Byron went to Greece to aid them. He poured his whole energies into this struggle for freedom, and he displayed "a wonderful aptitude for managing the complicated intrigues and plans and selfish nesses which lay in the way." His efforts cost him his life. He contracted fever, and, after restlessly battling with the disease, he said quietly, one April morning in 1824: "Now I shall go to sleep." The proud, imperious spirit awoke no more to dash itself against the cage of life. He was buried in the family vault at Hucknall, Nottinghamshire, not far from Newstead Abbey. Early Works. The poems which Byron wrote during his brilliant sojourn in London, amid the whirl of social gayeties, are The Giaour, The Bride of Abydos, The Corsair, Parisina, Lara, and The Siege of Corinth. These narrative poems are romantic tales of oriental passion and. coloring which show the influence of Scott. They are told with a dash and a fine-sounding rhetoric well fitted to attract immediate attention; but they lack the qualities of sincere feeling, lofty thought, and subtle beauty, which give lasting fame. His next publication, The Prisoner of Chillon (1816), is a much worthier poem. The pathetic story is feelingly told in language which often displays remarkable energy and mastery of expression and versification. His picture of the oppressive vacancy which the Prisoner felt is a wellexecuted piece of very difficult word painting: Dramas. But silence, and a stirless breath Which neither was of life or death; A sea of stagnant idleness, Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless!" Byron wrote a number of dramas, the best of which are Manfred (1817) and Cain (1821). His spirit of defiance and his insatiable thirst for power are the subjects of these dramas. Manfred is a man of guilt who is at war with humanity, and who seeks refuge on the mountain tops and by the wild cataract. He is fearless and untamed in all his misery, and even in the hour of death does not quail before the spirits of darkness, but defies them with the cry: "Back to thy hell! Thou hast no power upon me, that I feel! Thou never shalt possess me, that I know: What I have done is done; I bear within A torture which could nothing gain from thine: Back, ye baffled fiends! The hand of death is on me but not yours!" Cain, while suffering remorse for the slaying of Abel, is borne by Lucifer through the boundless fields of the universe. Cain yet dares to question the wisdom of the Almighty in bringing evil, sin, and remorse into the world. A critic has remarked that "Milton wrote his great poem to justify the ways of God to man; Byron's object seems to be to justify the ways of man to God.” The very soul of stormy revolt breathes through both Manfred and Cain, but Cain has more interest as a pure drama. It contains some sweet passages and presents one lovely woman, Adah. But Byron could not interpret a character wholly at variance with his own. He possessed but little constructive skill, and he never overcame the difficulties of blank verse. A drama that does not show wide sympathy with varied types of humanity, and the constructive capacity to present the complexities of life, is lacking in essential elements of greatness. Childe Harold, The Vision of Judgment, and Don Juan. His best works are the later poems which require only a slight framework or plot, such as Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, The Vision of Judgment, and Don Juan. The third and fourth cantos of Childe Harold, published in 1816 and 1818, respectively, are far superior to the first two. These later cantos continue the travels of Harold, and contain some of Byron's most splendid descriptions of nature, cities, and works of art. Rome, Venice, the Rhine, the Alps, and the sea inspired the finest lines. He wrote of Venice as she 66 sate in state, throned on her hundred isles! She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, Rising with her tiara of proud towers 'He calls Rome "The Niobe of nations! there she stands, Whose holy dust was scattered long ago." The following description of a wild stormy night in the mountains is very characteristic of his nature poetry and of his own individuality : "And this is in the night: Most glorious night! Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be A sharer in thy fierce and far delight – A portion of the tempest and of thee! and now, the glee Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth." When George III. died, Southey wrote a poem filled with absurd flattery of that monarch. Byron had such intense hatred for the hypocrisy of society that he wrote his Vision of Judgment (1822), to parody Southey's poem and to make the author the object of satire. Pungent wit, vituperation, and irony were here handled by Byron in a brilliant manner, which had not been equaled since the days of Dryden and Pope. The parodies of most poems are quickly forgotten, but we have here the strange case of Byron's parody keeping alive Southey's original. Don Juan (1819-1824), a long poem in sixteen cantos, is Byron's greatest work. It is partly autobiographic. The sinister, gloomy Don Juan is an ideal picture of the author, who was sore and bitter over his thwarted hopes of liberty and happiness. Therefore, instead of strengthening humanity with hope for the future, this poem tears hope from the horizon, and suggests the possible anarchy and destruction toward which the world's hypocrisy, cant, tyranny, and universal stupidity are tending. The poem is unfinished. Byron followed Don Juan through all the phases of life known to himself. The hero has exciting adventures and passionate loves, he is favored at courts, he is driven to the lowest depths of society, he experiences a godlike happiness and demoniacal despair. Don Juan is a scathing satire upon society. All its fondest idols, love, faith, and hope, are dragged in the mire. There is something almost grand in the way that this titanic scoffer draws pictures of love only to mock at them, sings patriotic songs only to add : "Thus sung, or would, or could, or should have sung and mentions Homer, Milton, and Shakespeare only to show how accidental and worthless fame is. Amid the splendid confusion of pathos, irony, passion, mockery, keen wit, and brilliant epigram, which display Byron's versatile and spontaneous genius at its height, there are some beautiful and powerful passages. There is an ideal picture of the love of Don Juan and Haidee: “Each was the other's mirror, and but read Meant to grow old, but die in happy spring, |