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I Was Accused Of Every Monstrous Vice By Public Rumour And Private Rancour; My Name, Which Had Been A Knightly Or Noble One, Was Tainted. I Felt That, If What Was Whispered, And Muttered, And Murmured, Was True, I Was Unfit For England; If False, England Was Unfit For Me.

-Lord Byron

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I Was Accused Of

Lord Byron

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I Was Accused Of Every Monstrous Vice By Public Rumour And Private Rancour; My Name, Which Had Been A Knightly Or Noble One, Was Tainted. I Felt That, If What Was Whispered, And Muttered, And Murmured, Was True, I Was Unfit For England; If False, England Was Unfit For Me.

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It Is Odd But Agitation Or Contest Of Any Kind Gives A Rebound To My Spirits And Sets Me Up For A Time.

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Out Of Chaos God Made A World, And Out Of High Passions Comes A People.

And Wrinkles, The Damned Democrats, Won't Flatter.

Fair Greece! Sad Relic Of Departed Worth! Immortal, Though No More! Though Fallen, Great!

He Makes A Solitude, And Calls It - Peace!

Men Love In Haste, But They Detest At Leisure.

When Newton Saw An Apple Fall, He Found In That Slight Startle From His Contemplation- 'tis Said (for I'll Not Answer Above Ground For Any Sage's Creed Or Calculation)- A Mode Of Proving That The Earth Turn'd Round In A Most Natural Whirl, Called 'gravitation'; And This Is The Sole Mortal Who Could Grapple, Since Adam, With A Fall, Or With An Apple.

Jealousy Dislikes The World To Know It.

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I Have A Great Mind To Believe In Christianity For The Mere Pleasure Of Fancying I May Be Damned.

'tis Very Certain The Desire Of Life Prolongs It.

Let Us Have Wine And Woman, Mirth And Laughter, Sermons And Soda Water The Day After. Man, Being Reasonable, Must Get Drunk; The Best Of Life Is But Intoxication: Glory, The Grape, Love, Gold, In These Are Sunk The Hopes Of All Men, And Of Every Nation; Without Their Sap, How Branchless Were The Trunk Of Life's Strange Tree, So Fruitful On Occasion: But To Return--get Very Drunk; And When You Wake With Head-ache, You Shall See What Then.

Above Or Love, Hope, Hate Or Fear, It Lives All Passionless And Pure: An Age Shall Fleet Like Earthly Year; Its Years In Moments Shall Endure. Away, Away, Without A Wing, O'er All, Through All, Its Thought Shall Fly; A Nameless And Eternal Thing, Forgetting What It Was To Die.

The Truly Brave Are Soft Of Heart And Eyes, And Feel For What Their Duty Bids Them Do.

A Thousand Years May Scare Form A State. An Hour May Lay It In Ruins.

The Christian Has Greatly The Advantage Of The Unbeliever, Having Everything To Gain And Nothing To Lose.

Nothing To Lose

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A Man Must Serve His Time To Every Trade, Save Censure-critics All Are Ready Made. Take Hackney'd Jokes From Miller, Got By Rote With Just Enough Learning To Misquote.

Better To Sink Beneath The Shock Than Moulder Piecemeal On The Rock!

Where Are The Forms The Sculptor's Soul Hath Seized? In Him Alone, Can Nature Show As Fair?

I Am Not Now That Which I Have Been.

They Truly Mourn, That Mourn Without A Witness.

I Am Surrounded Here By Parsons And Methodists, But As You Will See, Not Infested With The Mania.

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And Gentle Winds And Waters Near, Make Music To The Lonely Ear.

Keep Thy Smooth Words And Juggling Homilies For Those Who Know Thee Not.

Mark! Where His Carnage And His Conquests Cease, He Makes A Solitude And Calls It-peace!

If Ancient Tales Say True, Nor Wrong These Holy Men.

The Image Of Eternity--the Throne Of The Invisible; Even From Out Thy Slime The Monsters Of The Deep Are Made; Each Zone Obeys Thee; Thou Goest Forth, Dread, Fathomless, Alone.

Society Is Now One Polished Horde, Formed Of Two Mighty Tries, The Bores And Bored.

Though I Love My Country, I Do Not Love My Countrymen.

I Only Know We Loved In Vain; I Only Feel-farewell! Farewell!

Romances I Ne'er Read Like Those I Have Seen.

'tis Sweet To Know There Is An Eye Will Mark Our Coming, And Look Brighter When We Come.

Christians Have Burnt Each Other, Quite Persuaded. That All The Apostles Would Have Done As They Did.

Perhaps The Early Grave Which Men Weep Over May Be Meant To Save.

Sorrow Is Knowledge, Those That Know The Most Must Mourn The Deepest, The Tree Of Knowledge Is Not The Tree Of Life.

If We Must Have A Tyrant, Let Him At Least Be A Gentleman Who Has Been Bred To The Business, And Let Us Fall By The Axe And Not By The Butcher's Cleaver.

I Cannot Help Thinking That The Menace Of Hell Makes As Many Devils As The Severe Penal Codes Of Inhuman Humanity Make Villains.

Fools Are My Theme, Let Satire Be My Song.

Send Me No More Reviews Of Any Kind. I Will Read No More Of Evil Or Good In That Line. Walter Scott Has Not Read A Review Of Himself For Thirteen Years .

And Dreams In Their Development Have Breath, And Tears, And Tortures, And The Touch Of Joy; They Have A Weight Upon Our Waking Thoughts, They Take A Weight From Off Our Waking Toils, They Do Divide Our Being.

And Life 's Enchanted Cup But Sparkles Near The Brim.

What Is The End Of Fame? 'tis But To Fill A Certain Portion Of Uncertain Paper: Some Liken It To Climbing Up A Hill, Whose Summit, Like All Hills, Is Lost In Vapour: For This Men Write, Speak, Preach, And Heroes Kill, And Bards Burn What They Call Their "midnight Taper," To Have, When The Original Is Dust, A Name, A Wretched Picture, And Worse Bust.

Man Marks The Earth With Ruin - His Control Stops With The Shore.

Her Great Merit Is Finding Out Mine; There Is Nothing So Amiable As Discernment.

We Of The Craft Are All Crazy.

For The Angel Of Death Spread His Wings On The Blast, And Breathed In The Face Of The Foe As He Passed; And The Eyes Of The Sleepers Waxed Deadly And Chill, And Their Hearts But Once Heaved, And For Ever Grew Still!

I Am Ashes Where Once I Was Fire.

Sweet Is Old Wine In Bottles, Ale In Barrels.

If I Don't Write To Empty My Mind, I Go Mad.

How Sweet And Soothing Is This Hour Of Calm! I Thank Thee, Night! For Thou Has Chased Away These Horrid Bodements Which, Amidst The Throng, I Could Not Dissipate; And With The Blessing Of Thy Benign And Quiet Influence Now Will I To My Couch, Although To Rest Is Almost Wronging Such A Night As This.

Think You, If Laura Had Been Petrarch's Wife, He Would Have Written Sonnets All His Life?.

Every Day Confirms My Opinion On The Superiority Of A Vicious Life, And If Virtue Is Not Its Own Reward, I Don't Know Any Other Stipend Annexed To It.

But As To Women, Who Can Penetrate The Real Sufferings Of Their She Condition? Man's Very Sympathy With Their Estate Has Much Of Selfishness And More Suspicion. Their Love, Their Virtue, Beauty, Education, But Form Good Housekeepers, To Breed A Nation.

A Quiet Conscience Makes One So Serene.

Self Praise Is No Praise At All.

The Reason That Adulation Is Not Displeasing Is That, Though Untrue, It Shows One To Be Of Consequence Enough, In One Way Or Other, To Induce People To Lie.

That Music In Itself, Whose Sounds Are Song, The Poetry Of Speech.

It Is True From Early Habit, One Must Make Love Mechanically As One Swims; I Was Once Very Fond Of Both, But Now As I Never Swim Unless I Tumble Into The Water, I Don't Make Love Till Almost Obliged.

Your Thief Looks Exactly Like The Rest, Or Rather Better; 'tis Only At The Bar, And In The Dungeon, That Wise Men Know Your Felon By His Features.

To Have Joy, One Must Share It.

Who Tracks The Steps Of Glory To The Grave?

Think Not I Am What I Appear.

But What Is Hope? Nothing But The Paint On The Face Of Existence; The Least Touch Of Truth Rubs It Off, And Then We See What A Hollow-cheeked Harlot We Have Got Hold Of.

I Feel My Immortality Over Sweep All Pains, All Tears, All Time, All Fears, - And Peal, Like The Eternal Thunders Of The Deep, Into My Ears, This Truth, - Thou Livest Forever!

If A Man Proves Too Clearly And Convincingly To Himself...that A Tiger Is An Optical Illusion--well, He Will Find Out He Is Wrong. The Tiger Will Himself Intervene In The Discussion, In A Manner Which Will Be In Every Sense Conclusive.

Optical Illusions

Time Strips Our Illusions Of Their Hue, And One By One In Turn, Some Grand Mistake Casts Off Its Bright Skin Yearly Like The Snake.

To Chase The Glowing Hours With Flying Feet.

So For A Good Old-gentlemanly Vice, I Think I Must Take Up With Avarice.

A Legal Broom's A Moral Chimney-sweeper, And That's The Reason He Himself's So Dirty

Ecclesiastes Said That "all Is Vanity," Most Modern Preachers Say The Same, Or Show It By Their Examples Of True Christianity: In Short, All Know, Or Very Short May Know It.

The Heart Ran O'er With Silent Worship Of The Great Of Old!-- The Dead, But Sceptred Sovereigns, Who Still Rule Our Spirits From Their Urns.

A Small Drop Of Ink Makes Thousands, Perhaps Millions... Think.

Had Sigh'd To Many, Though He Loved But One.

Man Is Born Passionate Of Body, But With An Innate Though Secret Tendency To The Love Of Good In His Main-spring Of Mind. But God Help Us All! It Is At Present A Sad Jar Of Atoms.

What Deep Wounds Ever Closed Without A Scar? The Hearts Bleed Longest, And Heals But To Wear That Which Disfigures It.

Wounds And Scars

There's Music In The Sighing Of A Reed; There's Music In The Gushing Of A Rill; There's Music In All Things, If Men Had Ears; The Earth Is But The Music Of The Spheres.

Bologna Is Celebrated For Producing Popes, Painters, And Sausage.

Are Not The Mountains, Waves, And Skies As Much A Part Of Me, As I Of Them?

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 The Shaft That Quiver'd In His Heart.

There Are Some Feelings Time Cannot Benumb, Nor Torture Shake.

Still From The Fount Of Joy's Delicious Springs Some Bitter O'er The Flowers Its Bubbling Venom Flings.

A Man Of Eighty Has Outlived Probably Three New Schools Of Painting, Two Of Architecture And Poetry And A Hundred In Dress.

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