The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 3 — Text and Context

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Authors: Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, 1788-1824, Coleridge, Ernest Hartley, 1846-1920 [Editor] Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2007 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: English poetry Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 135,360

Reading time 589 min

Text sections 32

For The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 3 — Text and Context, the stored edition analysis reports 135,360 words, 9 hr 49 min estimated reading time, and 32 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 20.5 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “English poetry,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #21811

This volume collects six metrical tales (1812–1815), Hebrew Melodies, and minor poems from 1809–1816, edited by Ernest Hartley Coleridge. The opening excerpt from The Corsair reveals Byron's characteristic shift between panoramic description and intense psychological drama, as Medora's vigil ends with devastating news.

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40 With lively air, and open heart, And fashion's ease, without its art; Her hours can gaily glide along. Nor ask the aid of idle song.

And now, O Malta! since thou'st got us, Thou little military hot-house! I'll not offend with words uncivil, And wish thee rudely at the Devil, But only stare from out my casement, And ask, "for what is such a place meant?" 50 Then, in my solitary nook, Return to scribbling, or a book, Or take my physic while I'm able (Two spoonfuls hourly, by this label), Prefer my nightcap to my beaver, And bless my stars I've got a fever.

_May_ 26, 1811.[26] [First published, 1816.]

In the dome of my Sires as the clear moonbeam falls Through Silence and Shade o'er its desolate walls, It shines from afar like the glories of old; It gilds, but it warms not--'tis dazzling, but cold.

Let the Sunbeam be bright for the younger of days: 'Tis the light that should shine on a race that decays, When the Stars are on high and the dews on the ground, And the long shadow lingers the ruin around.

And the step that o'erechoes the gray floor of stone Falls sullenly now, for 'tis only my own; And sunk are the voices that sounded in mirth, And empty the goblet, and dreary the hearth.

And vain was each effort to raise and recall The brightness of old to illumine our Hall; And vain was the hope to avert our decline, And the fate of my fathers had faded to mine.

And theirs was the wealth and the fulness of Fame, And mine to inherit too haughty a name;[r] And theirs were the times and the triumphs of yore, And mine to regret, but renew them no more.

And Ruin is fixed on my tower and my wall, Too hoary to fade, and too massy to fall; It tells not of Time's or the tempest's decay,[s] But the wreck of the line that have held it in sway.

_August_ 26, 1811. [First published in _Memoir_ of Rev. F. Hodgson, 1878, i. 187.]

EPISTLE TO A FRIEND,[27]

IN ANSWER TO SOME LINES EXHORTING THE AUTHOR TO BE CHEERFUL, AND TO "BANISH CARE."

"Oh! banish care"--such ever be The motto of _thy_ revelry! Perchance of _mine,_ when wassail nights Renew those riotous delights, Wherewith the children of Despair Lull the lone heart, and "banish care." But not in Morn's reflecting hour, When present, past, and future lower, When all I loved is changed or gone, Mock with such taunts the woes of one, Whose every thought--but let them pass-- Thou know'st I am not what I was. But, above all, if thou wouldst hold Place in a heart that ne'er was cold, By all the powers that men revere, By all unto thy bosom dear, Thy joys below, thy hopes above, Speak--speak of anything but Love.

'Twere long to tell, and vain to hear, The tale of one who scorns a tear; And there is little in that tale Which better bosoms would bewail. But mine has suffered more than well 'Twould suit philosophy to tell. I've seen my bride another's bride,-- Have seen her seated by his side,-- Have seen the infant, which she bore, Wear the sweet smile the mother wore, When she and I in youth have smiled, As fond and faultless as her child;-- Have seen her eyes, in cold disdain, Ask if I felt no secret pain; And _I_ have acted well my part, And made my cheek belie my heart, Returned the freezing glance she gave, Yet felt the while that _woman's_ slave;-- Have kissed, as if without design, The babe which ought to have been mine, And showed, alas! in each caress Time had not made me love the less.

But let this pass--I'll whine no more, Nor seek again an eastern shore; The world befits a busy brain,-- I'll hie me to its haunts again. But if, in some succeeding year,[28] When Britain's "May is in the sere," Thou hear'st of one, whose deepening crimes Suit with the sablest of the times, Of one, whom love nor pity sways, Nor hope of fame, nor good men's praise; One, who in stern Ambition's pride, Perchance not blood shall turn aside; One ranked in some recording page With the worst anarchs of the age, Him wilt thou _know_--and _knowing_ pause, Nor with the _effect_ forget the cause.

Newstead Abbey, Oct. 11, 1811. [First published, _Life_, 1830.]

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The volume opens with The Giaour, a poem that, as the editor notes, followed Childe Harold and shared its triumph. The excerpt from The Corsair (Canto II) illustrates Byron's method of juxtaposing sweeping landscape—'the groves of olive scattered dark and wide'—with a tightly focused emotional crisis. Medora's vigil on the shore, 'heedless of the spray,' builds through incremental detail: the third day passed, Anselmo's bark returned without Conrad, and finally 'a sad and shattered boat' arrives. Byron delays the revelation of Conrad's fate through the crew's hesitant silence, then releases it in a single line that collapses Medora's composure.

From Panorama to Interior

The opening of The Corsair excerpt moves from a wide view of Athens—'the gleaming turret of the gay Kiosk,' 'the cypress saddening by the sacred Mosque'—to a sudden apostrophe: 'Not now my theme—why turn my thoughts to thee?' This self-interruption signals Byron's habit of breaking narrative distance. The shift from external description to direct address ('Fair Athens! could thine evening face forget?') prepares the reader for the inward turn that follows: Medora's heart, 'darker than the night,' becomes the poem's true landscape. Byron uses the sunset not as mere backdrop but as a correlative for her fading hope.

The Weight of Silence

When the survivors arrive, their reluctance to speak is rendered through gesture and pause: 'In silence, darkling, each appeared to wait / His fellow's mournful guess at Conrad's fate.' Byron builds tension by withholding direct statement—'Something they would have said; but seemed to fear / To trust their accents to Medora's ear.' The dialogue that follows is clipped and almost brutal: 'tell me where he lies.' The crew's answer—'He saw him bound; and bleeding—but alive'—is delivered without elaboration, and Medora's collapse is immediate. The narrator notes that her 'softness died not—but it slept,' a phrase that suggests a psychological reserve that will later reawaken.

Editorial Apparatus and Textual Variants

Ernest Hartley Coleridge's edition provides extensive footnotes, distinguished by type: arabic numerals for informational notes, letters for variant readings from manuscripts and other sources. The excerpt includes a note keyed to line 1269, marked [hw], which likely documents a textual variant. Readers should be aware that the footnotes are collected at the end of each section, with original page numbers preserved in braces. The editor's square-bracketed comments are clearly separated from Byron's own notes. This apparatus allows comparison of different versions of the text, though the excerpts here do not reveal the full extent of the variants.

Rhyme and the Heroic Couplet

Byron employs the heroic couplet throughout The Corsair, but varies its closure. Some couplets are end-stopped and epigrammatic: 'With nothing left to love, there's nought to dread.' Others enjamb across the line break, as in 'Till grew such certainty from that suspense— / His very Sight had shocked from life or sense!' The dash becomes a rhythmic device, creating a pause that mimics hesitation or shock. Byron also uses the couplet to shift tone abruptly—from the ornate description of Athens to the stark 'The Sun hath sunk—and, darker than the night, / Sinks with its beam upon the beacon height / Medora's heart.' The reader should attend to how these metrical choices reinforce the emotional arc.

This volume presents Byron's work in a scholarly edition that rewards attention to both the poetry and its textual history. The excerpts from The Corsair demonstrate how Byron builds narrative momentum through contrast—between expansive description and intimate crisis, between the crew's silence and Medora's sudden collapse. Readers approaching the full text may find it useful to track how Byron handles point of view, shifting from omniscient overview to limited perspective within a single stanza. The footnotes, though dense, offer insight into the poet's revisions.

The Corsair’s Medora kept me company through a grey drizzle, her vigil so vivid the rain seemed to fall into her lantern-light. When I finally set Byron down, something in me craved that same intimate ache, but lighter—and my hand drifted to Lyra Frivola — A Reader’s Guide. Its quiet wit felt like a window turned open after hours of storm.