Lord Byron

For freedom's battle, once begun, Bequeath'd by bleeding sire to son, Though baffled oft, is ever won.

Shrine of the mighty! can it be That this is all remains of thee?

Such is the aspect of this shore; 'T is Greece, but living Greece no more! So coldly sweet, so deadly fair, We start, for soul is wanting there.

He who hath bent him o'er the dead Ere the first day of death is fled,— The first dark day of nothingness, The last of danger and distress, Before decay's effacing fingers Have swept the lines where beauty lingers.

Hark! to the hurried question of despair: "Where is my child?"—an echo answers, "Where?"

Mark! where his carnage and his conquests cease! He makes a solitude, and calls it — peace!

Be thou the rainbow to the storms of life, The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray!

The blind old man of Scio's rocky isle.

Who hath not proved how feebly words essay To fix one spark of beauty's heavenly ray? Who doth not feel, until his failing sight Faints into dimness with its own delight, His changing cheek, his sinking heart, confess The might, the …

The light of love, the purity of grace, The mind, the music breathing from her face, 19 The heart whose softness harmonized the whole,— And oh, that eye was in itself a soul!

Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine, And all, save the spirit of man, is divine?

Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime? Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle, Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime!

Yet truth will sometimes lend her noblest fires, And decorate the verse herself inspires: This fact, in virtue's name, let Crabbe attest,— Though Nature's sternest painter, yet the best.

'Twas thine own genius gave the final blow, And help'd to plant the wound that laid thee low: So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain, No more through rolling clouds to soar again, View'd his own feather on the fatal dart, And wing'd …

Perverts the Prophets and purloins the Psalms.

Better to err with Pope, than shine with Pye.

As soon Seek roses in December, ice in June; Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff; Believe a woman or an epitaph, Or any other thing that's false, before You trust in critics, who themselves are sore.

With just enough of learning to misquote.

A man must serve his time to every trade Save censure — critics are ready-made.

'Tis pleasure, sure, to see one's name in print; A book's a book, although there's nothing in 't.

I'll publish right or wrong: Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.

What say you to such a supper with such a woman?

Friendship is Love without wings.

I loved my country, and I hated him.