A Pig's-Eye View Of Literature

The Lives and Times of John Keats,
Percy Bysshe Shelley, and
George Gordon Noel, Lord Byron

Byron and Shelley and Keats
Were a trio of Lyrical treats.
The forehead of Shelley was cluttered with curls,
And Keats never was a descendant of earls,
And Byron walked out with a number of girls,
But it didn't impair the poetical feats
Of Byron and Shelley,
Of Byron and Shelley,
Of Byron and Shelley and Keats.

poem by Dorothy Parker
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I didn't realize House would be the central character, more the bitter comic relief appearing occasionally. I relish his wounded nature - the lameness, the scarred Byronic hero.

quote by Hugh Laurie
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Sketch of Lord Byron's Life

"Lord Byron" was an Englishman
A poet I believe,
His first works in old England
Was poorly received.
Perhaps it was "Lord Byron's" fault
And perhaps it was not.
His life was full of misfortunes,
Ah, strange was his lot.

The character of "Lord Byron"
Was of a low degree,
Caused by his reckless conduct,
And bad company.
He sprung from an ancient house,
Noble, but poor, indeed.
His career on earth, was marred
By his own misdeeds.

Generous and tender hearted,
Affectionate by extreme,

[...] Read more

poem by Julia A Moore
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Feet of Clay.

Byronic sonnet.

Lord Byron loved the ladies well.
Too many and too frequently.
A somewhat chequered history.
According to the tales they tell.
Aristocratic ladies fell
so easily beneath his spell.
Surrendered their virginity.
Their curiosity to quell.
A serial philanderer.
He pursued many love affairs.
A faithless selfish wanderer.
It seems to day nobody cares.
Because the public much prefer
To ignore truths too hard to bear.

Sunday,26 August 2012

poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
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I've been making the best movies at Elegant Angel since Tom Byron left.

quote by Marc Wallice
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No, I'm not Byron; I am, yet

No, I'm not Byron; I am, yet,
Another choice for the sacred dole,
Like him - a persecuted soul,
But only of the Russian set.
I early start and end the whole,
And will not win the future days;
Like in an ocean, in my soul,
A cargo of lost hopes stays.
Who, oh, my ocean severe,
Could read all secrets in your scroll?
Who'll tell the people my idea?
I will or God or none at all!

Another translation by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi:

I AM NOT BYRON

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poem by Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov
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You speak of Lord Byron and me; there is this great difference between us. He describes what he sees I describe what I imagine. Mine is the hardest task.

quote by John Keats
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Transcending Platonic Platitudes

Coxcomb, charlatan and bore,
Plato paved immoral ways for Byron. He
transcended platitudes that bore,
transforming them with his immortal irony.

Inspired by Byron’s lines in Don Juan, CXVI, cited by Roger Scruton in Sexual Desire: A Phiosophic Investigation, p.237:

Oh, Plato! Plato! You have paved the way,
With your confounded fantasies, to more
Immoral conduct by the fancied way
Your system feigns o’er the controlless core
Of human hearts, than all the long array
Of poets and romancers: –– You’re a bore,
A charlatan, a coxcomb –– and have been,
At best, no better than a go-between.

8/29/09

poem by Gershon Hepner
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A Picture at Newstead

What made my heart, at Newstead, fullest swel? --
'Twas not the thought of Byron, of his cry
Stormily sweet, his Titan agony;
It was the sight of that Lord Arundelv
Who struck, in heat, the child he loved so well,
And the child's reason flickered, and did die.
Painted (he will'd it) in the gallery
They hang; the picture doth the story tell.
Behold the stern, mail'd father, staff in hand!
The little fair-hair'd son, with vacant gaze, 10
Where no more lights of sense or knowledge are!
Methinks the woe which made that father stand
Baring his dumb remorse to future days,
Was woe than Byron's woe more tragic far.

poem by Matthew Arnold from Sonnets (1867)
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Tom Byron is my friend. JJ Michaels is my friend. I haven't heard from him. I don't know what he believes. A couple of other have called but I haven't called them back.

quote by Marc Wallice
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I hate the whole race. There is no believing a word they say, your professional poets, I mean there never existed a more worthless set than Byron and his friends for example.

quote by Arthur Wellesley
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I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, but like child stringing beads in kindergarten--happy, absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another.

quote by Brenda Ueland
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I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, but like child stringing beads in kindergarten, - happy, absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another.

quote by Brenda Ueland
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I have to say that it was a very strange experience when, later in life, I represented Byron Scott and was negotiating with West - whose picture I used to have over my bed! That took some getting used to.

quote by Leigh Steinberg
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Paa Slottet Chillon

Vilde Fjelde, speilklar Søe,
Skumle Slot paa Klippe-Ø,
Jeg hos Eder troer paa Trende:
Frihed, Byron og paa hende!
Nu kun Aand til Adel hæver,
Blodet til slig Kraft ei veed;
Konger døe, men Frihed lever,
Frihed, Kunst og Kjærlighed!

poem by Hans Christian Andersen
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Very Like a Whale

One thing that literature would be greatly the better for
Would be a more restricted employment by the authors of simile and
metaphor.
Authors of all races, be they Greeks, Romans, Teutons or Celts,
Can't seem just to say that anything is the thing it is but have to
go out of their way to say that it is like something else.
What does it mean when we are told
That that Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold?
In the first place, George Gordon Byron had enough experience
To know that it probably wasn't just one Assyrian, it was a lot of
Assyrians.
However, as too many arguments are apt to induce apoplexy and
thus hinder longevity.
We'll let it pass as one Assyrian for the sake of brevity.
Now then, this particular Assyrian, the one whose cohorts were
gleaming in purple and gold,
Just what does the poet mean when he says he came down like a
wold on the fold?
In heaven and earth more than is dreamed of in our philosophy
there are great many things.

[...] Read more

poem by Ogden Nash
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Laughing and Sneering

WHAT tho' the world does me ill turns
And cares my life environ;
I’d sooner laugh with Bobbie Burns
Than sneer with titl'd Byron.

The smile has always been the best;
’Tis stronger than the frown, sirs:
And Venus smiled the waves to rest;
She didn’t sneer them down, sirs.

poem by Henry Lawson
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Byron Bay

I lay a-dream in Byron Bay
And felt a voice to sigh and say:
'Get up, get up,
There’s much to be done,
And more to be seen, to be worked at and won.'

Her eyes were sparkling pools of gold
Her hair a glittering tale, untold,
'Get up, get on, '
She seemed to say,
But whispered her wisdom and wishes away

'Don’t lie in an idle content, replete,
Be stirring your imagery, stirring your feet,
Get on, get out
And conjure the ebb
Of a moonbeam laced with a spider’s web.'

I smiled to notice the voice so fine
A bubbling nectar, a sparkling wine,

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Memorial Verses

Goethe in Weimar sleeps, and Greece,
Long since, saw Byron's struggle cease.
But one such death remain'd to come;
The last poetic voice is dumb--
We stand to-day by Wordsworth's tomb.

When Byron's eyes were shut in death,
We bow'd our head and held our breath.
He taught us little; but our soul
Had felt him like the thunder's roll.
With shivering heart the strife we saw
Of passion with eternal law;
And yet with reverential awe
We watch'd the fount of fiery life
Which served for that Titanic strife.

When Goethe's death was told, we said:
Sunk, then, is Europe's sagest head.
Physician of the iron age,
Goethe has done his pilgrimage.

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poem by Matthew Arnold
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The Leaning Tower

Having an aged hate of height
I forced myself to climb the Tower,
Yet paused at every second flight
Because my heart is scant of power;
Then when I gained the sloping summit
Earthward I stared, straight as a plummet.

When like a phantom by my side
I saw a man cadaverous;
At first I fancied him a guide,
For dimly he addressed me thus:
"Sir, where you stand, Oh long ago!
There also stood Galilleo.

"Proud Master of a mighty mind,
he worshipped truth and knew not fear;
Aye, though in age his eyes were blind,
Till death his brain was crystal clear;
And here he communed with the stars,
Where now you park your motor cars.

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poem by Robert William Service
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