Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ON THE DEATH OF LORD BYRON, COMPOSED AT WESTHILL, IN THE GREAT STORM, by HUMPHRY DAVY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ON THE DEATH OF LORD BYRON, COMPOSED AT WESTHILL, IN THE GREAT STORM, by                    
First Line: Gone is the bard, who, like a powerful spirit
Last Line: In the bright flame, o'er earthly ashes glowing.
Subject(s): Byron, George Gordon, Lord (1788-1824); Poetry & Poets; Byron, George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron


GONE is the bard, who, like a powerful spirit,
A beautiful and fallen child of light,
Of fiery seraph the aspiring peer,
Seem fitted by his nature to inherit
A wilder state than in the genial strife
Of mighty elements is given our sphere,
Fix'd in a stated round its course to run,
A chained slave, around the master sun!

Of some great comet he might well have been
The habitant, that through the mighty space
Of kindling ether rolls; now visiting
Our glorious sun, by wondering myriads seen
Of planetary beings; then in race
Vying with light in swiftness, like a king
Of void and chaos, rising up on high
Above the stars in awful majesty.

Now passing near those high and bless'd abodes,
Where beings of a nobler nature move
In fields of purest light, where brightest rays
Of glory shine -- in power allied to gods,
Whose minds in hope and in fruition prove
That unconsuming and ethereal blaze
Flowing from, returning to, eternal love.

And such may be his fate! And if to bring
His memory back, an earthly type were given,
And I possess'd the artist's powerful hand,
A genius with an eagle's powerful wing
Should press the earth recumbent, looking on heaven
With wistful eye; a broken lamp should stand
Beside him, on the ground its naphtha flowing
In the bright flame, o'er earthly ashes glowing.





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