It seems appropriate to briefly meditate upon the poetry of Lord Byron on this, his birth date. In particular I turn to his poem 'On this Day I complete my Thirty-Sixth Year'. This poem appeals to me neither for the greatness of its lines nor the acuity of its poetic strains, but for the beauty and sadness of its meditative thought. The opening stanza, for example:
'Tis time this heart should be unmoved,
Since others it hath ceased to move:
Yet, though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love!
Byron's passion for his young Greek page, however unrequited, reminds me of similar feelings shared by so many of us in the ensuing years. He goes on to recount the fear of aging and the pain of his longing among other feelings. I wonder if he would have traded a few more years of such feelings for the few months that remained in his brief life?
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