Classic and Contemporary Poetry
A FRAGMENT, by GEORGE GORDON BYRON Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Could I remount the river of my years Last Line: The essence of great bosoms now no more. Alternate Author Name(s): Byron, Lord; Byron, 6th Baron Subject(s): Past | ||||||||
COULD I remount the river of my years To the first fountain of our smiles and tears, I would not trace again the stream of hours Between their outworn banks of wither'd flowers, But bid it flow as now -- until it glides Into the number of the nameless tides. What is this Death? -- a quiet of the heart? The whole of that of which we are a part? For life is but a vision -- what I see Of all which lives, alone is life to me; And being so -- the absent are the dead, Who haunt us from tranquillity, and spread A dreary shroud around us, and invest With sad remembrancers our hours of rest. The absent are the dead -- for they are cold, And ne'er can be what once we did behold; And they are changed, and cheerless, -- or if yet The unforgotten do not all forget, Since thus divided -- equal must it be If the deep barrier be of earth or sea; It may be both -- but one day end it must In the dark union of insensate dust. The under-earth inhabitants -- are they But mingled millions decomposed to clay? The ashes of a thousand ages spread Wherever man has trodden or shall tread? Or do they in their silent cities dwell Each in his incommunicative cell? Or have they their own language? and a sense Of breathless being? -- darken'd and intense As midnight in her solitude? -- O Earth! Where are the past? -- and wherefore had they birth? The dead are thy inheritors -- and we But bubbles on thy surface; and the key Of thy profundity is in the grave, The ebon portal of thy peopled cave, Where I would walk in spirit, and behold Our elements resolved to things untold, And fathom hidden wonders, and explore The essence of great bosoms now no more. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FERGUS FALLING by GALWAY KINNELL A TIME PAST by DENISE LEVERTOV LAST THINGS by WILLIAM MEREDITH CHRISTMAS TREE by JOHN FREDERICK NIMS THIS MORNING, GOD by LAURE-ANNE BOSSELAAR ALL IS VANITY, SAITH THE PREACHER' by GEORGE GORDON BYRON A SPIRIT PASSED BEFORE ME by GEORGE GORDON BYRON AN ODE TO THE FRAMERS OF THE FRAME BILL by GEORGE GORDON BYRON |
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