Poetry Catalog

O Love! O Glory! what are ye who flyAround us ever, rarely to alight?There's not a meteor in the polar skyOf such transcendent and more fleeting flight.Chill, and chained to cold earth, we lift on highOur eyes in search of either lovely light;A thousand and a thousand colours theyAssume, then leave us on our freezing way. And such as they are, such my present tale is,A … [Read more...] about Don Juan: Canto the Seventh, By: Lord Byron

"There is a tide in the affairs of men,Which,—taken at the flood,"—you know the rest,And most of us have found it now and then:At least we think so, though but few have guessedThe moment, till too late to come again.But no doubt everything is for the best—Of which the surest sign is in the end:When things are at the worst they sometimes mend. There is a tide in the affairs … [Read more...] about Don Juan: Canto the Sixth, By: Lord Byron

When amatory poets sing their lovesIn liquid lines mellifluously bland,And pair their rhymes as Venus yokes her doves,They little think what mischief is in hand;The greater their success the worse it proves,As Ovid's verse may give to understand;Even Petrarch's self, if judged with due severity,Is the Platonic pimp of all posterity. I therefore do denounce all amorous … [Read more...] about Don Juan: Canto the Fifth, By: Lord Byron

Nothing so difficult as a beginningIn poesy, unless perhaps the end;For oftentimes when Pegasus seems winningThe race, he sprains a wing, and down we tend,Like Lucifer when hurled from Heaven for sinning;Our sin the same, and hard as his to mend,Being Pride, which leads the mind to soar too far,Till our own weakness shows us what we are. But Time, which brings all beings to … [Read more...] about Don Juan: Canto the Fourth, By: Lord Byron

Hail, Muse! et cetera.—We left Juan sleeping,Pillowed upon a fair and happy breast,And watched by eyes that never yet knew weeping,And loved by a young heart, too deeply blestTo feel the poison through her spirit creeping,Or know who rested there, a foe to rest,Had soiled the current of her sinless years,And turned her pure heart's purest blood to tears! Oh, Love! what is it … [Read more...] about Don Juan: Canto the Third, By: Lord Byron