Selections from the Writings of Lord Byron, by a Clergyman [W. Elwin]. (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1854 Excerpt: ...sky, and glowing clime, extends, He had the passion and the power to roam; The desert, forest, cavern, breaker's foam, Were unto him companionship; they spake A mutual language, clearer than the tome Of his land's tongue, which he would oft forsake For Nature's pages glass'd by sunbeams on the lake. Like the Chaldean, he could watch the stars, Till he had peopled them with beings bright As their own beams; and earth, and earth-born jars, And human frailties, were forgotten quite: Could he have kept his spirit to that flight He had been happy; but this clay will sink Its spark immortal, envying it the light To which it mounts, as if to break the link That keeps us from yon heaven which woos us to its brink. But in Man's dwellings he became a thing Restless and worn, and stern and wearisome, Droop'd as a wild-born falcon with dipt wing, To whom the boundless air alone were home: Then came his fit again, which to o'ercome, As eagerly the barr'd-up bird will beat His breast and beak against his wiry dome Till the blood tinge his plumage, so the heat Of his impeded soul would through his bosom eat. Childe Harold.--Canto III. WATERLOO. Stop --for thy tread 13 on an Empire's dust An Earthquake's spoil is sepulchred below Is the spot mark'd with no colossal bust 1 Nor column trophied for triumphal show? None; but the moral's truth tells simpler so, As the ground was before, thus let it be;--How that red rain hath made the harvest grow And is this all the world has gain'd by thee, Thou first and last of fields king-making Victory? And Harold stands upon this place of skulls, The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo How in an hour the power which gave annuls Its gifts, transferring fame as fleeting too In " pride of place " here last the eagle flew, T...