1821. Marino Faliero and The Prophecy of Dante.

The first is a tragedy drawn from the history of Venice, and dealing with the conspiracy of the Doge Marino Faliero in the year 1355. The second is an imaginary prophecy of the poet Dante in which he foresees the freedom of Italy. 1821. Sardana palus, a Tragedy; The Two Foscari, a Tragedy; Cain, a Mystery.

The first two, like Marino Faliero, show Byron's impulse "to dramatize, like the Greeks, . striking passages from history." Cain, dedicated to Sir Walter Scott, is a drama of Titanism; it tells the story of Cain and Abel from the standpoint of sympathy for Cain and rebellion against the deity. Cain was regarded as blasphemous by most of the English of the age, and brought a storm of censure upon its author.

1821. Heaven and Earth; a Mystery.

A drama in the same spirit as Cain dealing with antediluvian demi-gods and mortals.

1822. Werner; or the Inheritance.

A romantic tragedy based upon The German's Tale, Kruitzer in Harriet Lee's Canterbury Tales.

1823. The Deformed Transformed.

A tragedy based upon the idea of the humiliating effects of deformity, thought to be strongly personal to its author in its significance. 1823. The Age of Bronze.

This is a political satire dealing with the Napoleonic period. 1823. The Island.

The last of Byron's romances, based in some measure on the famous story of the Mutineers of the Bounty.

1824. On this Day I Complete my Thirty-sixth Year.

Written at Missolonghi, Jan. 22, 1824; published in The Morning Chronicle, Oct. 24, 1824. It is Byron's last poem and one of his sincerest utterances about himself.

CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE

CANTO THE THIRD

I

Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child!
Ada! sole daughter of my house and heart?

When last I saw thy young blue eyes, they smiled,

And then we parted,

But with a hope.

not as now we part,

Awaking with a start,

The waters heave around me; and on high

The winds lift up their voices: I depart,

Whither I know not; but the hour's gone by,

When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye.

II

Once more upon the waters! yet once more!
And the waves bound beneath me as a steed
That knows his rider. Welcome to their roar!

Swift be their guidance wheresoe'er it lead!

Though the strain'd mast should quiver as a reed,
And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale,

Still must I on; for I am as a weed,

Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam, to sail

Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail.

III

In my youth's summer I did sing of One,

The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind;
Again I seize the theme, then but begun,
And bear it with me, as the rushing wind
Bears the cloud onwards: in that Tale I find
The furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears,
Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track behind,

I

O'er which all heavily the journeying years

Plod the last sands of life-where not a flower appears.

IV

Since my young days of passion--joy, or pain,
Perchance my heart and harp have lost a string,
And both may jar: it may be, that in vain
I would essay as I have sung to sing.
Yet, though a dreary strain, to this I cling,
So that it wean me from the weary dream
Of selfish grief or gladness — so it fling
Forgetfulness around me it shall seem
To me, though to none else, a not ungrateful theme.

V

He, who grown aged in this world of woe,

In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life,
So that no wonder waits him; nor below
Can love or sorrow, fame, ambition, strife,
Cut to his heart again with the keen knife
Of silent, sharp endurance: he can tell

Why thought seeks refuge in lone caves, yet rife
With airy images, and shapes which dwell

Still unimpair'd, though old, in the soul's haunted cell.

VI

'Tis to create, and in creating live

A being more intense, that we endow

With form our fancy, gaining as we give

The life we image, even as I do now.

What am I? Nothing: but not so art thou,

Soul of my thought: with whom I traverse earth,

Invisible, but gazing, as I glow

Mix'd with thy spirit, blended with thy birth,

And feeling still with thee in my crush'd feelings' dearth.

VII

Yet must I think less wildly: I have thought
Too long and darkly, till my brain became,
In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought,
A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame:

And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame,
My springs of life were poison'd. 'Tis too late!
Yet am I changed: though still enough the same
In strength to bear what time cannot abate,
And feed on bitter fruits without accusing Fate.

VIII

Something too much of this: - but now 'tis past,
And the spell closes with its silent seal.

Long-absent Harold reappears at last;

He of the breast which fain no more would feel,
Wrung with the wounds which kill not, but ne'er heal;
Yet Time, who changes all, had alter'd him
In soul and aspect as in age: years steal

Fire from the mind as vigor from the limb;

And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.

IX

His had been quaff'd too quickly, and he found The dregs were wormwood; but he fill'd again, And from a purer fount, on holier ground, And deemed its spring perpetual; but in vain! Still round him clung invisibly a chain Which gall'd for ever, fettering though unseen, And heavy though it clank'd not; worn with pain, Which pined although it spoke not, and grew keen, Entering with every step he took through many a scene.