Lord Byron

"a keen sense of what is noble and honourable,"
- Sir Walter Scott

I was reminded by Tim S. that today is the birthday of George Gordon, Lord Byron. He was born on this date in 1788. A representative sample of his verse from my handy Oxford collection of his poetry and prose follows:


Dear Nature is the kindest mother still,
Though always changing in her aspect mild;
From her bare bosom let me take my fill,
Her never-wean'd, though not her favour'd child.
Oh! she is fairest in her features wild,
Where nothing polish'd dares pollute her path:
To me by day or night she never smiled,
Though I have mark'd her when none other hath,
And sought her more and more, and loved her best in wrath.

Childe Harold, Canto II, 37-45

Byron Poetry & Prose. The Clarendon Press, Oxford. 1940.