No habitant of earth thou art— Reaping the whirlwind from the oft-sown winds; With brain-born dreams of evil all their own. CXXXIX And here the buzz of eager nations ran,In murmur'd pity, or loud-roar'd applause,As man was slaughter'd by his fellow man.And wherefore slaughter'd? Conclusion In summation Lord Byron’s Childe Harold Pilgrimage has reflected and challenged the many concerns of the Romantic period. The concluding lines end Childe Harold’s journey with the poet encouraging the reader to take the lessons they’ve learned and gone out into life changed. The sepulchres of cities, which excite Nor worth nor beauty dwells from out the mind's Seems ever near the prize,—wealthiest when most undone. Its chambers desolate, and portals foul: Come—but molest not yon defenceless urn: Where are thy men of might? For some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants. Admire, exult—despise—laugh, weep, —for here Spanning four cantos, the poem follows the travels of Childe Harold… The style of the poem is filled … And food for meditation, nor pass by But in his delicate form—a dream of Love, His hand, but broke his scythe, there is a power Is still impregnate with divinity, Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men, Look on its broken arch, its ruin'd wall, Oh thou that wert so happy, so adored! George Gordon Byron was one of the greatest English and British poets and one of the leading figure of the romanticism, a literary movement in 19th century. The fatal spell, and still it draws us on, Love was the very root of the fond rage Share with immortal transports? Or water but the desart; whence arise The gulf is thick with phantoms, but the chief To hear each voice we fear'd to hear no more! A ray of immortality—and stood, Look on this spot—a nation's sepulchre! approach you here! Which robed our idols, and we see too sure Necessity of loving, have removed They were in on the autobiographical secret, and Harold attained immediate notoriety as the "Byronic hero". With life, as our freed souls rejoin the universe. There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurk'd. Now, as he resists his drive to self-pity, he conjures a mysterious "dread power" that might perhaps relate to the "soul of my thought" liberated by a meditation on artistic creation in Canto III (stanza VI). If aught of young Remembrance then remain, But, if artistic immortality is on his mind, it is on an unnamed figure that his eye rests and lingers - the sculpture of the dying Gaul, previously known as "The Dying Gladiator". And living as if earth contain'd no tomb,— is the goal? Must yield its pomp, and wait till ages are its dower. Prisoned in marble, bubbling from the base But the Childe Harold "concept" is still to undergo important developments, when, around eight years after the first instalment, while living in Italy, Byron writes the two further Cantos that complete the project. From Clouds, but all the colours seems to be Of refuge; this, at least, shall still be mine; Where are the charms and virtues which we dare Flashing and cast around; of all the band, Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place, The dome of Thought, the palace of the Soul: The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes, The Childe Harolds Pilgrimage 1823 painting originally painted by Joseph Mallord William Turner can be yours today. Will rise with other years, till man shall learn The pyramid of empires pinnacled, Within the opposing scale, which crushes soon or late—. developed, opens the decay,When the colossal fabric's form is near'd:It will not bear the brightness of the day,Which streams too much on all years, man, have reft away. Heights, which appear as lovers who have parted However, Harold, a libertine and cynic, is no medieval knight. CXLI He heard it, but he heeded not -- his eyesWere with his heart, and that was far away:He reck'd not of the life he lost nor prize,But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,There were his young barbarians all at play,There was their Dacian mother -- he, their sire,Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday --All this rush'd with his blood -- Shall he expireAnd unavenged? What is my being? Hangs on the willow her unstrung guitar, Son of the morning, rise! And now again 'tis black,—and now, the glee To hover on the verge of darkness; rays Would they had never been, or were to come! From thy Sire's to his humblest subject's breast Is that a temple where a God may dwell? And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, Her many griefs for ONE; for she had pour'd And Passion's host, that never brook'd control: An unseen seraph, we believe in thee, Beheld her Iris.—Thou, too, lonely lord, There woos no home, nor hope, nor life, save what is here. Which only make more mourn'd and more endear'd Then there are meditations on Napoleon himself, on Rousseau and the French Revolution and the grandeur of the Alpine landscape. And their free thoughts be crimes, and earth have too much light. —All that we know is, nothing can be known.— 'twas his With those who made our mortal labours light! CXXXVIII The seal is set. Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light Have I not had to wrestle with my lot? Itself expired, but leaving them an age The Byronic Hero is usually a man who is smart and … That being, those wouldst be again, and go, Peace to Torquato's injured shade! And with a fresher growth replenishing the void. Thou know'st not, reck'st not to what region, so Where lies foundered that was ever dear: Each has his pang, but feeble sufferers groan could thine art Then loath'd he in his native land to dwell, Her orisons for thee, and o'er my head My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw With some deep and immedicable wound; Or wert,—a young Aurora of the air, As 'twere its natural torches, for divine Reverse of her decree, than in the abyss Where demi-gods appear'd, as records tell. Make them indeed immortal, and impart Remove yon skull from out the scatter'd heaps: Of an Italian night; where the deep skies assume. Though in their souls, which thus each other thwarted, All that ideal beauty ever bless'd All that I would have sought, and all I seek, When each conception was a heavenly guest— Roll on thou deep and dark blue ocean—roll! And this is in the night:—Most glorious night! Which o'er informs the pencil and the pen, But never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see That which is most within me,—could I wreak Although made famous by the autobiographical poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage … Oh night, Back to the joyous Alps who call to her aloud! Built me a little bark of hope, once more Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover, He registers horror where appropriate, as in that brilliantly curbed allegorical image, "Murder's bloody steam", and releases a few darts of stinging sarcasm about the mob and "the bloody Circus' genial laws", but he is also a modern-minded conservationist concerned about the effect of "the brightness of the day" on the excavated fabric. Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose breast SIMILE -line 16 'When, for a moment, like a drop of rain he sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan' PARADOX -line 5 'I love not man the less, but nature more,' PERSONIFICATION -line 40 'Thy shores … 5 Stops with the shore;—upon the watery plain Implore the pausing step, and with their dyes Sweet creation of some heart Of hollow counsel, the false oracle, The full potential of the writer, uniting all the disparate parts of his genius – his ruthlessly comical social insight as well as his romantic agonies – would perhaps only be fully consolidated in his great masterpiece Don Juan. Is this a genuine conversion to the philosophy of the Lake poet he so frequently mocked?